spiritualiter nati sint Saith St. Augustine He may upon just Cause depose discharge and put to silence any Minister whatsoever within his Dominions as to the Execution of his Ministerial function either in publick or private Ministers as well as others are under civil jurisdiction for Every Soul is bound to be subject to the higher powers And St omnis anima cur non est vestra Quis vos excepit ex universalitate If every soul then the Souls of Ministers as well as others For who excepted them from the universality Qui dicit omnem excludit nullam He that saith every Soul excludeth no Soul It was impiously said of That the Clergy ought not for any cause to be cited before the civil Magistrate or to be judged by him it being absurd that the sheep should judge the shepherd Christ himself taking upon him man's nature was subject to humance Authority submitting himself to Caiaphas and Pilate so far as to be apprehended arraigned condemned and executed True saith Bellarmine de facto Christ was subject to Pilate but de jure he ought not to have been so And that power over him which he did acknowledge was given to Pilate from above Iohn 19. 11. was onely a bare permission To which we answer if we simply respect the Dignity of Christ's person being the Son of God then we acknowledge that he neither was nor could be subject to any man But if we consider the dispensation of his incarnation and that form of a Servant which he took on himself whereby he became Man and under the Law then de jure as he was a Jew he was a Subject to that power which at that time had the rule And what Pilate unjustly did against Christ that we grant God did onely permit But he had a lawfull Jurisdiction over his person not by God's permission onely but by his effectual will But suppose it were true which Bellarmine saith yet the Example of Christ maketh never the less for the Confirmation of the truth for which I allege it For if he submitted himself to a power over him that was usurped onely and not approved of by God but barely permitted then certainly they are very far from the Humility that was in Christ Jesus that refuse to be obedient and subject to just and lawfull powers which are ordained of God and set over them And therefore when Christ said date quae sunt Caesaris Caesari give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's he spake as well to the high Priests Scribes and Pharisees as to the People St. Paul whose apostolical authority and spiritual Weapons were able to bring down every opposition yet acknowledged that he must be judged by Caesar as his lawfull Superiour Bellarmine's distinction of de facto and de jure will stand him in no more stead here than it did before for to say the Roman Emperour was St. Paul's Judge de facto but not de jure is to doe St. Paul a manifest injury For if the emperour had no right to judge him why would he then make use of the benefit of an appeal to Caesar when no body compelled him so to doe and why did he at another time shelter himself under the Privilege of a Citizen of Rome By his very professing himself to be a Roman he doth acknowledge himself to be subject to the same Laws and to the same Lord that other Romans were and that he had no more exemption or immunity from subjection and obedience to the Roman Laws than that Tribune who said with a great sam have I obtained this freedom The Scriptures do give us an instance of King Solomon's deposing Abiathar from the Priesthood The text saith that King Solomon did thrust out Abiathar from being Priest before the Lord. Neither doth the Holy Ghost mention this historically onely as thing done but by way of approbation as a thing well and rightly done This the Iesuites themselves who are the onely men I know who question the Sovereign power in this Case confess Remarkable to this purpose are the words of one of them Alii non dubitant dicere Solomonem in eo facto injuste egisse usurpando potestatem quam non habebat ego vero id affirmare non audeo propter verba Scripturae quae ex Cap. 3. allegavi Et quia apud antiquos patres expositores non invenio factum illud inter peccata Solomonis numeratum sive in culpam tributum Some saith he doubt not to say that Solomon in that Act did unjustly in usurping more power than did belong to him But I dare not say so both for the words of the Scripture which I have before alleged out of the third Chapter and also because among the ancient Fathers and Expositours I find not this Act of his reckoned for any of Solomon's sins or him blamed for it The words which he saith he alleged out of the third Chapter are these And Solomon loved the Lord his God walking in the ways of David his Father onely he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places Which exception saith he shews that Kings Solomon untill that time had kept the Commandments of God and consequently sinned not in that fact in deposing Abiathar And if the Kings of Israel might execute such power why not the Kings of England also Who will say that the Power of Christian Kings and Princes is shorter now than that of the Kings of Iudah and the religious Princes of the Primitive Christian Church was That the nursing Fathers under the Gospel are abridged in Authority of what they were under the Law And the reason and wisedom of this Nation in Parliament hath adjudged this to be a just Cause of such deposition and silencing of any when he shall refuse to submit and be obedient and conformable to such Laws and Constitutions as they have declared to be Very comfortable to all good People desirous to live in Christian Conversation most profitable to the State of the Realm upon which the Mercy Favour and Blessing of Almighty God is in no-wise so readily and plentifully powered as by Common-Prayer due using of the Sacraments and often preaching of the Gospel with devotion of the hearers And that nothing conduceth more to the setling the peace of this Nation which is desired of all good men nor the honour of our Religion and the Propagation thereof than an universal Agreement in the publick Worship of Almighty God Which is a thing so amiable and excellent in it self that it hath extracted an acknowledgment and commendation of it from the Mouths of the Divines of the Presbyterian persuasion themselves For in a Book of theirs entitled A Vindication of the Presbyterial Government published by the Ministers and Elders met together in a provincial Assembly November 2 d. 1649. They have these words It is the Duty of all Christians to study to enjoy the
private Mass and Idols had celebrated the Lord's Supper under both kinds had taken away auricular Confession superstitious differences of meats invocation of Saints and many other Popish fopperies and intolerable abuses in the Church non quod impie fecissent sed quod non ordine Not but that the work was good in it self but it was ill done because not done in a right order and therefore it was justly culpable and blameable in them Circumstances of actions often marr the substance In divine Worship our care must not onely be to the matter of the service that it be good but to the circumstances also wherewith it is attended that they be warrantable by God's word or at least not contrary thereunto God requires that even the wood and every part of the sacriâ—ce offered to him be in order And doth God look for order among sticks And doth he not much more require order to be kept in the use of those means by which he hath appointed to bring Souls to Heaven What gross absurdities would unavoidably follow from such a manifest breach of order in the Church If one Minister may intrude into another's Parish and Congregation and there set up a course of private house-preaching and other ministerial Acts why then may not the Bishop of one Diocess thrust himself into the Diocess of another and there take upon him to ordain Presbyters and exercise Episcopal jurisdiction whether the Diocesan will or no Which as it is contrary to all good Laws and Order so hath been always forbidden and condemned by the Judgment of the Fathers of the Church assembled in Council Not onely in that of Carthage before mentioned but also in a Council at Antioch it was decreed non licere uni Episcopo in Dioecesi alterius Episcopale officium exercere And in the 36 th Canon of those which goe under the Name of the Apostles it was ordained Episcopum non audere extra terminos proprios ordinationes facere in civitatibus villis quae illi nullo jure subjectae sunt Si vero convictus fuerit c. That no Bishop shall dare to confer orders out of his own Diocess in any City or Village which by no Law or Right is in subjection to him and if he shall be convicted so to doe without the consent or leave of those to whom those Cities or Towns do belong he shall be deposed and those that are ordained by him So likewise in Civil affairs why then may not a Judge who is Commissionated for the Northern Circuit thrust himself into the place and office of him that is appointed for the Western sit on the bench judge causes and condemn Malefactours in alieno foro Which were the way to overthrow all Justice according to that known Axiome in the Law Sententia a Iudice non SVO lata nulla est ipso jure And in Military matters why then may not the Colonel of one Regiment or a Reformado Officer that hath lost his Company and hath none left to command intrude himself into another Regiment and there take upon him to muster the Souldiers and lead a party Which is the onely way to open a Flood-gate to all Confusion and disorder that is imaginable to the Destruction of Magistracy Ministry Judges Armies and all things Now order being a great part of God's Law he that wilfully breaks good order makes himself guilty of the breach of the whole Law and so makes void his Plea for an ordinance of God which may be instrumental to beget faith or grace in the Souls of those that attend unto it The Queen of Sheba when she had seen the good order of the Servants that ministred to King Solomon was so astonished with admiration that there was no spirit left in her If order in a Family doth so draw the Eyes and Minds of the Beholders to it how much more amiable is order in the Church which is the house of the Living God where a greater than Solomon is always present and where the Glory of the Lord appears in the way and means of the Salvation of Souls ARGUMENT III. THAT cannot be the ordinance of God as a means of grace that hath no promise of God's blessing made or annexed to it For though it be a Paul that plants and an Apollo that waters yet it must be God that gives the blessing or else all their labour will be to no purpose I deny not but that there may be a very good use made of the meetings of Christians together otherwise than in the publick Congregation when they are Lawfully and orderly regulated without manifest breach of any Divine or humane precept without intrenchment upon or infringment of any Gospel-order or ordinance and that they may so expect God's blessing on them Yet because Satan hath stretched his hellish Subtilty to the highest in these last times with too unhappy Success to put easie and well-meaning people out of the sure and ordinary way of God's blessing by disparaging the publick Church Assemblies and advancing private irregular and disorderly meeting where there is not that ground of expectation of Divine concurrence into competition with yea prelation above them therefore makeing a little more than ordinary stay here I shall endeavour to let the Reader fee how the Spirit of God in Scripture hath commended the publick Assemblies to us by affixing more special promises of his presence with and benediction of them than on any other though ordered in all things never so rightly and how it hath recorded the faith of good men in their belief of these promises testified in their esteeming useing and frequenting the publick ordinances of God accordingly Glorious things are spoken of thee oh thou city of God To the ancient people of God the Iews the special promises of Divine presence were made in their Church Assemblies In the places where I record my name I will come unto thee and will bless thee In the Tabernacle saith God I will meet thee and Commune with thee of all things Which promises were always performed accordingly as may be seen in Lev. 9. 23. 24. Nâ—mb 1. 1. Numb 7. 89. Thence it was that the Tabernacle of the Jewish Church had the name of the Tabernacle of meeting or the Tabernacle of the Congregation To those that attended God there his blessing was assured Blessed is the man whom thou chusest and causest to approach unto thee that he may dwell in thy Court he shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house even of thy Holy Temple Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they shall ever be praising thee He blesseth thy Children within thee O Sion Blessed is the man that heareth me watching dayly at my Gates waiting at the posts of my doors saith Christ the Wisedom of the Father And that was the reason of David 's so great love to the Church Lord I have loved
therefore though there is not that holiness affixed to places now since our Saviour's coming into the World as there was before yet our assembling together in the Church is as holy now as then and better than elsewhere And wheresoever the Scripture seems to take away all religious differences of places as if no place were holier than another as in Mal. 1. 11. Ioh. 4. 21. 1 Tim. 2. 8. It is true of inherent holiness but not of relative And this must be always remembred to prevent mistake that the Holy Ghost doth no where compare private and profane places with publick and consecrated as if the worship we doe to him were as much to his Glory or as good and profitable to our selves and others which we doe in those places as that which we doe in the Church But he compares publick places then with publick now and private with private and his meaning is that not onely at Ierusalem and among the Jews God shall have an house for his publick worship but in all Nations where he shall be pleased to bestow his Gospel God will not be worshipped in the Temple at Ierusalem onely nor shall his presence be tyed to that place more than to other such like houses of God elsewhere but he will have houses which shall be properly his own and set apart for his publick worship and service amongst all Nations It was a part of that heavy Yoke that was intolerable on the Necks of our Fathers that they must take long and tedious journeys to come from all Quarters of their Country to one place to worship and that they did not dare no not in case of absolute nenessity to perform publick service in any other place yea that their very private Devotions were to be performed either in or toward that place But now besides our Closets for our private Devotions we have Churches in our several Towns Parishes and Villages where we may be sure to have God present to hear accept and bless us if we can find honest and good hearts to resort to them Every place hath God's presence and therefore is in it self alike sanctified for his service but every place is not alike separated from common and profane use and dedicated and consecrated to God nor owned and accepted by him and therefore we have no reason to expect God's presence or to meet with the like blessing in one place as in another And therefore saith that holy and ancient Synod at Gangra in Paphlagonia under Constantine the Emperour Omnem locum aedificatum in nomine Dei honor amus Congregationem in Ecclesia factam ob utilitatem communem recipimus We do honour every place built in the Name of God and do reverence and receive the Congregation met in the Church for the Common advantage Churches then are holy and to be respected and frequented rather than other places because of their holy Use and for the holy Assemblies there made And therefore that same Council decreed Si quis docet domum Dei contemptibilem esse Conventus qui in ea celebantur anathema sit Cursed be he that shall teach that the House of God may be slighted or the Congregations that assemble therein And in the next Canon they think fit to ordain Si quis extra Ecclesiam seorsum Conventus celebrrat c. Cursed be he that shall keep any Convention out of the Church And the same Synod as History tells us condemned and deposed Eustathius Bishop of Sebastia in Armenia for perswading such as refrained the Church and publick Assemblies to raise Conventicles and Brotherhood in their private Houses And in the Civil Law it is decreed That the sacred Mystery or Mysteries be not done in private Houses but be celebrated in publick places lest thereby things be done contrary to the Catholick and Apostolick Faith unless they call to the celebrating of the same such Clerks of whose Faith and Conformity there is no doubt made or else that are deputed thereunto by the good will of the Bishop If any thing be done to the contrary the House wherein these things are done shall be confiscated and themselves shall be punished at the discretion of the Prince 'T is true St. Paul commands us Every where to lift up holy hands without wrath But those hands cannot be pure that are profane and they cannot have other than such who contemn the Church As therefore we exhort all men every where to worship God even so for the performance of this service by the People of God assembled we think not any place so good as the Church nor any Exhortation so fit as that of David O worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness But now alas we live to see those prophetique words uttered by a Learned and judicious Gentleman above 60 years agoe to be verified and fulfilled to the utmost He discerning then the great increase and growth of Sectaries in this Realm said That time would soon bring it to pass if it were not resisted that God would be turned out of Churches into Barns and from thence again into Fields and Mountains and under Hedges and the Office of the Ministry robbed of all dignity and respect be as contemptible as those places all Order Discipline and Church-government left to the newness of Opinion and Mens fancies yea and soon after as many kinds of Religions spring up as there are Parish Churches within England every contentious and ignorant Person cloathing his Fancy with the Spirit of God and his Imagination with the Gift of Revelation By all which hath been said wherein I hope the candid Reader will pardon my Prolixity in this plain Vindication of the languâ—shing Reputation of Church-assemblies it appears that the speciality of Divine promises are made to the publick Dispensation of God's ordinances and that we may expect a greater Blessing upon them in our Church-assemblies than elsewhere But I know no promise of God at all made to such Preaching and Meetings as are in question God hath not engaged himself for a Blessing to any People waiting on him as they count it in a way out of his appointment yea contrary to it But as he hath forbidden to hear Intruders Ier. 27. 14 15. So he hath expresly said there shall no Blessing at all accompany such a Ministry and such attendance on it Let that place in Ieremiah be noted I sent them not nor commanded them therefore they shall not profit this People at all saith the Lord. Sive vera praedicent sive falsa Saith a Presbyterian Divine Whether they preach that which is true or that which is false The question is not de facto but de jure not what they teach but by what warrant Thence it was as Tarnovius thinks that our Saviour Christ rebuked the Devil and commanded him silence not suffering him to speak when he confessed and declared the most necessary and Soul-saving
it ought to be nothing else as if the whole day were to be spent at Church and in keeping publick Assemblies so far as conveniency and edification of the people will permit Why else did Holy David desire to dwell in the house of the Lord for ever Why prayed he that he might be so happy One thing have I desired of the Lord that I will seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life Therefore if Conscience to obey God or desire to doe him service did draw them to his house at any time or to any part of his Worship the same would induce them at all times and to all parts of it The liberty then that such persons take in God's service as if all were Arbitrary argues much of hypocritical wantonness nothing of sound or sincere godliness They who are fed with Corn from Heaven meat to the full are thus faln to loath the Mannah that Rained down upon them twice every Sabbath-day Of a third sort I could inform the Reader who being weak yet I hope well-meaning Christians not knowing the depths of Satan under a specious pretence of Piety are not content with what they hear at Church but must afterwards fill their heads with notions which they hear at Conventicles wherewith they feast themselves without fear after they have been fed to the full in God's house with Angels food Without fear I say of offending God by breaking the order he hath set in his Church by countenancing abetting or joining themselves with such unlawfull and ungospel-like Assemblies without fear of offending or provoking the Rules of the Church which they are bound to obey by seeing their Laws despised and affronted without fear of exposing themselves to the temptation and hazard of falling so fearfully as they cannot but see that some of their Brethren and Neighbours have done And without fear of losing what they have heard in publick by departing immediately from the Church to a Conventicle as if all Religion did consist in nothing but hearing and all the Service of God were but according to the French scoff a mere Preach If this be the way of keeping the Sabbath where is room then for Meditation which the Scripture as much enjoins as hearing Thou shalt meditate on the Law that thou mayst observe to doe according as is written Mary therefore kept Christ's sayings because she pondered them in her heart David therefore grew to be wiser than his teachers because God's Law was his meditation Conference with Neighbours and Family-instructions will by this means also be issued out Thus shall you say every one to his neighbour and every one to his brother what hath the Lord answered and what hath he spoken The best of Hearers even Christ's own Disciples took another course than these now doe When they had heard their Master Preach they spent their time after Sermon in conferring among themselves about what they had heard and went to their Teacher to be better informed and to have all doubts resolved For want of so doing it comes to pass with too many as sometimes it did with some of them that though they had seen their Lord's mighty power in feeding five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes yet their Faith was never the stronger And this was the reason They considered not the miracle of the Loaves for their heart was hardned They had seen the miracle but they had not considered it nor meditated on it and therefore it did them no good at all In the judgment of the Presbyterian Divines themselves the way these people take is not the right For the Assembly of Divines in their Directory for Worship give this rule for the Sanctification of the Lord's day that what time is vacant between or after the Solemn meetings of the Congregation in publick be spent in Reading Meditation Repetition of Sermons especially by calling their Families to an account of what they have heard and Catechising of them holy conferences prayer for a blessing upon the publick Ordinances singing of Psalms visiting the Sick relieving the Poor and such like duties of piety charity and mercy accounting the Sabbath a delight In a word I could inform the Reader what impious devices have been used not onely to make a rent in the Church but also to keep it open that it should never close again by endeavouring that an irreconcileable prejudice might be perpetuated in the minds of people against the publick Ministry and Ministers of the Church And to the end that those poor deluded Souls which have been drawn off from their due attendance to God's publick Ordinances to wait on these men in their clanculary and irregular conventions might never return to the Church any more I have observed that the absence of one of these Masters of Conventicles in the places where they are held have ever been carefully supplied by the presence of some other Domestick Chaplain to keep up their House-meetings As if Ieroboam's impious policy should never be forgotten who not daring to trust his new divided Tribes in a joint resort to the Temple at Ierusalem set up his Calves to be Worshipped by them nearer home But I will not rake any longer in this puddle lest it stink in the nostrils of pious and sober Christians as it cannot but doe in God's already Now I appeal to all my judicious and learned Brethren of the Clergy and to all persons else of stayed principles and piety whether for a stranger thus to pluck the work of a Pastour of a Congregation out of his hands be tollerable in the Church of Christ or no Whether this practice that tends thus to divide betwixt Minister and People breaking the near bond of relation that is and ought to continue between them robbing him of his flock and taking them off from dependance on him for the enjoyment of the work of his ministry be of God or no And whether he hath ordained any such course as the means of Grace in his Church or whether this be not rather a strategem of Satan to introduce all manner of impiety and ungodliness The Presbyterian Divines themselves have given their judgment on my side already in this case In these words To make a Rupture in the body of Christ and to divide Church from Church and to set up Church against Church and to gather Churches out of true Churches And because we differ in something therefore to hold Communion in nothing this we think hath no warrant out of the word of God and will introduce all manner of confusion in Churches and Families and not onely disturb but in a little time destroy the power of Godliness purity of Religion peace of Christians and set open a wide gap to bring in Atheism Popery Heresie and all manner of wickedness So also in their Preface to the Ius divinum of Church-government
Some of the brethren of the Nonconformists have been of the same Judgment whatever this or their practice now is Memorable to this purpose is that saying of Mr. Baxter to his People of Kiderminster I ever loved saith he a Godly peaceable Conformist better than a turbulent Nonconformist and should I make a party or disturb the peace of the Church I should fear lest I should prove a Firebrand in Hell for being a Firebrand in the Church And by all the interest I have in your judgments and affections I here charge you that if God should give me up to any factious Church-renting course against which I daily pray that you forsake me and follow me not a step It is an unhappy degree of wickedness to be a ring-leader in any schism Every accessory is faulty enough but the first Authour abominable Those who either by his example suggestion advice connivence or otherwise are taught to doe ill increase his sin as fast as they do their own Whosoever shall break one of the least Commandments and shall teach men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven An unruly beast breaks the hedge and feeds in forbidden Pasture the whole herd follows but the owner must answer for all the trespass that is committed Therefore is Ieroboam so often branded in holy Writ with this note of infamy Ieroboam the Son of Nebat that made Israel to sin His fault lived when he himself was dead and 't is often said by Divines that his torment increased in Hell according as his sin increased upon earth and that the wickedness of Israel will not be taken off from his Soul for ever It was shame enough to Israel that they were made to sin by Ieroboam but O the miserable Estate of Ieroboam that made Israel to sin his pretence was fair enough but that was no excuse to the foulness of his crime nor is it any mitigation to his present torment Let the Authours of schism in the Church pretend what they please to Religion and Truth yet how they can have the true love or power of either in thier hearts or lives that seek not the Church's Peace and Unity withall I cannot understand The Holy Ghost in Scripture joins both together Love truth and peace And speak the truth in love He follows neither that persues them not both It was an unquestionable Maxime amongst Christians in the ancient Church which is no less a truth now than ever non habet Dei charitatem qui Ecclesiae non diligit unitatem The Love of God abides not in them who do not love and keep the Unity of the Church Nay the practice in question tends not onely to the dividing and distracting the Church but even to the dissolving and destroying her being It puts the members of the body of Christ out of joint and causeth a Luxation of the parts and so hinders that spiritual Nutrition thriving and growth in grace that ought to be in the body of Christ. For as in the natural body of man if a member be separated from it it can receive no nourishment or growth nay if there be but a dislocation of a part so that it be onely out of joint it will not thrive or prosper but wither and consume till it be set right again so the mystical body of Christ can never increase with the increase of God if either there be not a right Union of the joints to the head or if that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ligament and bond that knits and fastens one member to another be broken Now this Union of the members the Apostle saith is made by the Ligament of Love which he therefore calls the bond of perfection because as it unites Church-members among themselves so it is the cause that they communicate mutual help to the profit and preservation of the whole The members of the Church then being made so loose and set at such distance so divided and distracted one from another some hurried this way and some that it must needs argue that this bond is either quite broken or much loosned And if it be a truth which Philosophers affirm that every natural body desires no less its unity than its entity I fee no reason why the spiritual and mystical body of Christ the Church should not in like manner desire its unity since if it be and continue thus unhappily divided it cannot long subsist in its entity As a tottering wall of stones heaped up together without mortar or binding is easily shaken and thrown down so must the Church be soon brought to ruine if this distracting and dividing course be suffered and practised By concord and good agreement among Christians the Church grows and is enlarged So by their discords and divisions it will in short time perish and come to nothing Say I this onely Or say not the brethren of the Nonconformists the same He that is not the Son of peace is not the Son of God saith Mr. Baxter all other sins destroy the Church consequentially but division and separation demolish it directly Building the Church is but an orderly joining the materials and what then is disjoyning but pulling down Believe not those to be the Church's friends that would cure and reform her by cutting her throat Pro Ecclesia clamitant saith St. Cyprian of such they cry out for the Church but contra Ecclesiam dimicant their practice is a fighting against the Church And that not by open and professed hostility but by secret and unseen Policy Their pretences are friendly but their actions mischievous their voice like Iacob's but their hands like Esau's Thirdly it hinders the Communion of Saints that holy and sweet fellowship which all the Members of Christ's Church ought to have both with Christ their head and each with other When in the natural body of man the members are joined to the head and one with another they have by virtue of that Union Communion also and do impart bloud spirits and life from one to the other So in the mystical Body of Christ the members being joined to the Lord and one to another there will be a sweet Communion among themselves in heart and affections joy with them that rejoice and forrow with them that weep prayer each for and each with other the multitude of them that believe will be of one heart and one soul. Now one of the closest bonds of Union amongst Christians is in their communicating together in holy duties We are then most one when with one mind and with one mouth we glorifie God together When holy David would set forth the greatest intireness of facred friendship he described it by walking to the house of God in company together The end and effect of our joint partaking in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is to seal up this Unity As by one of the Sacraments we