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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30650	A vindicaton of churches, commonly called Independent, or, A briefe answer to two books the one, intituled, Twelve considerable serious questions, touching church-government, the other, Independency examined, unmasked, refuted, &c. : both lately published by William Prinne ... / Henry Burton ...	Burton, Henry, 1578-1648.	1644 (1644)	Wing B6176; ESTC R20892	61,118	78

serve for Christ will not have his people to be wandring sheep when they may have a fold nor to be individua vaga when they may be reduced to order The ninth Interrogatory This Interrogatory lays a charge upon Independents for refusing to admit to the Lords Supper such as are not notoriously scandalous nor grossely ignorant but professe repentance c. which you say is a very uncharitable arrogant yea unchristian practise contrary to Christs own example in admitting Iudas to the Lords Supper Also to that of Paul 1 Cor. 11. you calling it also a transcendent straine of tyrannicall usurpation over soules and consciences and Gods Ordinances worse then our most domineering Lordly Prelates c. yea Lording over Christ himselfe and more then ever the Apostles did but onely by their extraordinary calling c. I answer in one word omitting your copious aggravations and sharp censures that we look further then to a generall profession and conversation namely to their faith in Christ that it be sound intire and whole and namely whether they hold him to be as the onely Prophet and High Priest so the onely Prince of his People the onely Lord and Lawgiver to every mans conscience and over every Congregation or Church of his Saints If they thus acknowledge not Christs kingly office as well as his other offices we doe not we dare not receive them And what have they to do with the seales that refuse by covenant to own Christ for their King As for Judas he received the sop not the supper for after the sop he went out * immediately saith John So as it appeares the other Evangelists relate some other passages by a hysteron proteron as is not unusuall in Scripture story And none of them saith that he received the Supper And suppose ●e did the Churches Censure had not yet past upon him onely John by a secret signe knew he was to be the traytor For that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 11. 28. that was a true Church though now disordered and the Apostle refers the redressing of their abuses to themselves The case is otherwise here so as all your accumulated calumniations fall to ground And concerning the Apostles extraordinary calling if we must expect the like calling we must not in the meane time admit of any either to Baptisme or to the Lords Supper neither should there be any gathering of Churches at all as some from hence doe gather Besides what shall the authority be that Luther gathered the Churches by and those that followed him and what lawfull gathering then have the Reformed Churches For your marginall note of Moses David Solomon about setling Religion by Gods own direction herein you come home to that I said before alledged against your unlimited law But in that you now restraine by their example all Church-government to the Civil Magistrates you must make it out by holding close to the rule that is To settle Religion by Gods own direction as you here confesse and not to elect erect a forme of Religion and Church-government such as they shall conceive sutable c. as before you told us And Moses David Solomon were all types of Christ who put an end to all such And while you there exclude the Priests from having any thing to doe in Reforming or advising What will the Assembly say to you But they may advise you will say But the Priests might do nothing but according to Gods prescript law no more then Moses David Solomon And if the Priests as you say had no ruling votes then by this reckoning what votes do you allow the Assembly-men in their mixt Committees with the members of Parliament or in the Assembly it selfe Reconcile these I pray you The tenth Interrogatory This Interrogatory questions or rather as all the rest concludes that that Text Mat. 18. 15 16 17. is not meant of any Ecclesiasticall censure as of Excommunication but onely of the civill Court of Justice Brother if you did speake hereas a Divine and not meerly as a lawyer you would not have against the judgment of most learned Divines ancient and modern and not Papists c. so interpreted this place And what speak I of Divines The Text it selfe is its own clearest Interpreter For it is immediatly added v. 18. Verily I say unto you whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall bee loosed in heaven Which is without controversie spoken of Church-censure or of the power of the Keyes in exercising Church-discipline as that Matth. 16. 19 is spoken of doctrine as the learned Calvin well observeth So as this very context cleareth the former to bee meant of Church-censure as it was among the Jewes You alledge on the contrary that learned Lawyer whom wee all honour for his learning Good brother I could wish that all this zeale of yours against Independents might not arise from any jealousie as if Church-censures should prejudicate or trench upon your pleadings at the Barre of civill justice Farre be it that we should have our motion beyond our own Spheare Content your self with your own Orb and we shall confine our selves to ours I dare warrant you Again to what purpose do you urge this interpretation of this Text against us Do not all the Presbyterians expound it so And if this Text which is made the great pillar of Presbyterian excommunication be taken off you leave no more to a Classis then we scil. to consult and advise And with this foot you have dashed all the milk you gave them The eleventh Interrogatory This Interrogatory is to perswadeus that in that Assembly or Evangelicall Synod as you call it Acts 15. the Apostles voted not as they were Apostles infallibly guided by the holy Ghost but rather as they were in their ordinary capacitie as Elders and chiefe members of it Whereupon producing your six reasons for it you peremptorily conclude that this is an undeniable Scripture-authority for the lawfulnesse use of Parliaments Councels Synods under the Gospel upon all like necessary occasions and for their power to determine controversies of Religion to make Canons in things necessary for the Churches peace and concernment maugre all evasions exceptions of Independents to elude it But let us examine your six reasons why the Apostles sate not as Apostles but as ordinary Elders c. Where first we lay this ground for the contrary scil. that they sate as Apostles because not ordinary Elders as Elders can say It seemed good to the holy Ghost and to us But the Apostles as Apostles might say so because in any doctrinall point they had the promise of the Spirit to bee led into all truth as upon whom the Church was to bee built Eph. 2. 20. Secondly if they sate as ordinary Elders then their decrees did no further bind then as they might appeare to agree with Scripture otherwise Elders as Elders may bind the conscience let the decree bee

in all Christian Realmes States from their first reception of the Gospell till this present compared with twelve places of Scripture at the least c. Therefore there must be of necessity a common Presbyterian Classicall government to which particular Congregations persons ought to be subordinate to the apparent subversion of the Novell Independent Inventions Now for answer to this large Argument brieflly And first to the Proposition I deny that you can bring any infallible proofes or one proof that there either are or ever have been any Nationall Churches by any other institution but meerly humane nor any one of divine institution but onely that of the Jewes in the old Testament and now wholly dissolved of which we have spoken sufficiently before And which also was not onely Nationall but in a manner Oecumenick and universall as appeares Acts 2. and such therefore as I hope you contend not for now for then there would be a Pope as there was an high Priest then c. And brother you must give us leave to stand upon this as for our lives that we dare not admit of any Churches as the true and genuine Churches of Christ which are not of his owne institution that is such as are not called and gathered by the voyce of Christ in his word and by that Scepter of his swayed and by that alone Law of his governed And therefore be intreated good brother not to presse upon us such your Churches whose not onely institution in their severall divisions but government also in their combinations is meerly humane and therefore as a house founded on a sand which against a storme cannot stand You must first be able to found your Nationall Church in the Scripture or assure yourselfe if a man will build upon it a common Presbyteriall Classicall government and dwell there he will bring an old house upon his head when God shall begin to storm it But to come to your perticular instances in the Assumption for the proofe of your Nationall Church The first is the Catholicke Church throughout the world What is this to a Nationall Church Though the Catholick include all the true Churches throughout the world yet doth it not therefore conclude any Church to be Nationall The second instance is the Nationall Church of the Jewes and from hence you can conclude as little for your Nationall Churches as before we have shewed For bring us any one Nationall that is one intire Church or congregation as that of the Jewes was or that is of one family as that was or that is a type of Christs spirituall Kingdome as that was or that is the universall Church of God visible on earth as that was or that is governed by the like lawes that that was when your selfe doe confesse that the government of your Nationall Churches is to be regulated by humane Lawes Customes Manners and not by Gods word alone whereas that of the Jewes was wholly governed by Gods own Law and not at all by the Lawes of men untill it came to be corrupted contrary to the expresse Law of God And you confesse also that the government of your Nationall Churches is alterable according to the Lawes Customes Manners of severall Nations whereas the government of the Church of the Iewes was unalterable till Christ himselfe did put a period to that Oeconomy In a word your Nationall Churches are a mixed multitude consisting for the greatest part of prophane persons being as a confused lu●p whereof there are nine parts of leaven to one of pure flowre so as the whole is miserably soured and the flowre made altogether unsavoury But that of the Iewes in its naturall and externall constitution was all holy an holy Nation a Royall Priesthood a peculiar People all the congregation holy every one of them So as in no one particular doe your Nationall Churches hold parallell with that of the Iewes no not in the least resemblance Your third instance is the Synodall Assembly of the Apostles Elders and Brethren at Ierusalem Acts 15. who made and sent Binding Decrees to the Churches And what of this brother Therefore Nationall Churches or generall Councels or Provinciall have the like power to make and impose binding Decrees and send them to the Churches Why first of all that Assembly was not any Nationall Church representative Secondly neither was it a Generall or Provinciall Councell Thirdly being an Assembly of the Apostles with the Elders and Brethren it could not erre for the Apostles had infallibility of judgement being guided by the holy Ghost infallibly and the Elders and Brethren did assent to their determinations And was there ever such a Synodicall Assembly since that Had euer any Councell besides that infallibility of judgement Shew it brother and then wee will beleeve they may make Binding Decrees and wee will submit unto them Nay dare any Assembly of men on earth say It seemed good to the holy Ghost and Us That 's enough for the black mouth of blasphemy the Roman lying Oracle But in your second thoughts you traverse this * place more largely which wee shall consider when we come to it In the mean time what I have here and before said may suffice to stay the Readers stomace But you adde All this is seconded with all Occumenicall Nationall Provinciall Councels Synods and the Church-government throughout the world in all Christian Realmes States c. Alas brother all these put together are in no sort sutable to make a second to that Apostolicall Assembly they cannot hold the least proportion with it to make a second to that unsampled sample though they make never so great a summe And whereas you make the up-shot of this your question to the apparent sub version of Novell Independent Invention these be your words we have proved it to be neither mans Invention but Gods own institution nor Novell as having its foundation in the New Testament nor yet Independent otherwise then that it depends not upon any humane authority or jurisdiction out of it self not upon any such conformity to humane lawes or customes or manners of every Nation or people as you speake of Neither doe you take away our Argument from the most usuall phrase of the Apostles calling the Churches in the plurall by saying Historians often speake of the Churches in England for they doe not so speak when they mean the congregations but the material Temples but speake of England as one Church when they understand the people and there hath not been shewen any dependence of those Churches as the dependency of the English Churches is knowne The ninth Question Thus reduced in summe That liberty which the Apostles had and used in ordaining supplying instituting new Rites Orders Canons c. for the Churches peace and welfare they transmitted to posteritie But the Apostles had and used such liberty c. Therefore the same liberty have all Churches in the world in all ages succeeding the Apostles in

without opposition and why not you and al● others So you O Brother I stand amazed But I go on Then againe the Scripture as it sets downe the qualifications of the members of this body so the forming of them in the body in the parts thereof more principall and lesse superiour and inferiour for order and well-being As Pastors and Teachers Teaching and Ruling Elders Helpes Governments Bishops and Deacons or by what other means soever they are diversified in Scripture And this is one uniforme forme of Government which Christ hath fixed in his Churches without any difference at all but secundum●magis minus as before as lesser Churches have fewer Officers greater moe So as brother if the old Wine be better old Presby●erie old unlordly Episc●p●cy surel the Independents do justly challenge it Which had you once truly tasted of you would never have desired to drink other The Lord remove that aguish humor * Vexatus f●bre recus●t ●ptima Your second Interrogatory is about the lawfull powe● of Civill Magistrates in all matters of Church-government wherein you tax some Independents for extraordinary eclipsing the same Some what some may say is one thing must therfore the Independent Church-government say it too You alledge for this a passage in the Answer of two of the brethren to A. S. for wch one of them is lately questioned but I hope he wil clear himself But the weight of this whole Interrogatory lies in your Marginall note where you peremptorily conclude That the chief Government and ordering of the Church and power of making Ecclesiasticall Lawes or Canons to bind it before the Law belonged to the Patriarks and others was not as they were Priests but Rulers and Fathers of their Families under the Law say you it belonged to Moses to the Kings of Iudah Israel and the morall Assemblies or Congregations of the Princes Nobles chiefe Captains Heads and Elders of the people Therefore under the Gospel by like reason and equity and because it is a part of Christs kingly not Priestly or Propheticall Office it must needs belong to Christian Princes Magistrates Parliaments to whom Christ hath delegated his kingly Office not to Ministers to whom he hath given onely his Propheticall or Priestly Authoritie not the Royall as the Scriptures at large relate nor yet to particular Congregations who are not Magistrates nor higher Powers invested with Christs royall Authoritie So you where you tell us many strange things but prove nothing But brother in such a weighty Argument as this your {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} will not serve the turne yea you here overthrow those Principles forementioned That Christ is the onely King so the onely Priest the onely Prophet of his Church which his three offices are incommunicable to any creature as they are proper and peculiar onely to him He is the onely King c. Now to be solus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The onely Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords this is Christs Regall prerogative which is in communicable to any or to all the powers on earth It is no lesse incommunicable then his omnipotencie his omniscience his omnipresence and the rest of his incommunicable Attributes no lesse then his Mediatorship Those Patriarchs and Princes of Israel before the Law and under the Law from Adam to Christ never had this power or prerogative to make Ecclesiasticall Lawes or binding Canons no nor yet Moses no● Kings of Iudah Israel and Generall Assemblies Princes Nobles chiefe Captaines and Elders of the people as you muster them up together in your marginall note A seeming goodly Army indeed but so many shadowes of men for any such power they had as you would with your penfull of ink paint cut unto us And first for those before the Law was given in Sinai had they this power you speak of Cain and Abel brought their Sacrifices What Was it a * will-worship of their own election If so God had regarded Abels sacrifice no more then Cains How then Their Sacrifice was of Gods own appointment Adam had it from God and his children from him For as God revealed to Adam Christ so those Sacrifices types of Christ Whence the learned Interpreter Calvin saith Tenendum est c. We are to hold that the manner of sacrificing was not unadvisedly devised by them but delivered to them from God For seeing the Apostle res●●res the dignity of Abels sacrifice as attributed to faith it followes he offered it not without Gods commandement So as it could not have pleased God had it not been according to his commandement So Calvin Nor is all here expressed no doubt they had an Altar also whereon to offer for the sanctifying and accepting the offering which Altar was a type of Christ the true * Altar to whom Abels faith had respect Though we read not of Altar before Gen. 8. 28. We read also of difference of beasts clean unclean Gen. 7. By all which it is evident that God gave a law to Adam and his off-spring sutable to that in Mount Sinai for a rule of divine worship so also for Church-government And this further appeareth by the Law in Sinai afterwards where Moses is expresly charged to do all things both for worship and Church-government according to the patern shewed him in the Mount as before we noted And when the Temple was to be built God gave to David an exact patern of all things yea of every particular both in writing and by his Spirit not onely for worship but for the whole ministration about the Temple a type of Christs Church under the Gospell so as neither Moses nor Kings of Iudah had the least power to devise any other forme then that prescribed of God The keeping of the Passover once in the second month by Ezechiah was extraordinary upon a case of necessity And for the Kings of Israel will you equall them with the Kings of Judah Had they lawfull power as Jerobam to set up his two golden ●●lvs and so to change the form of worship Church-government When that King A●as set up his Damascen Altar was it by a Regall power invested in him from God So of other Kings of Juda good or bad they had no lawfull power at all to alter the form prescribed of God one jor And therefore brother you are wondred at that being a man of much reading and mightie parts you should utter such strange things ne quid dicam durius as these are and that so confidently when you neither doe nor ever can bring the least proofe yea or colour of what you affirm And therefore your inference upon such empty premises that therefore under the Gospel by like reason and equity it must needs belong to Christian Princes Magistrates Parliaments to whom Christ hath delegated his Kingly office c. is no consequence Whence I note two things 1. Like reason and

in binding of the conscience which hath it selfe for witnesse and God for the onely Iudge therefore when it hath any thing commanded of God it must needs stand bound Where inter caetera is to be noted That God is the onely Iudge and binder of the Conscience The great question in controversie at this day Obj. But you will here object That although as before you say of Priests a Councel or Synod have not this authority to make and impose binding decrees yet a Parliament hath and you deduce it from this Synod Act. 15. Answ. Now truly brother by your favour this doth no way hold proportion that that which you call a Synod as a patterne for binding Decrees should not qualifie a Synod of Divines with the like power and yet transmit it over to a Parliament for binding authority over the consciences of a whole Nation surely that Apostolike Assembly or Church meeting was neither a Parliament nor Diet nor Senate nor any such thing that you should build any such power of Parliaments upon it for the making of binding Decrees over the consciences of men Therefore good brother be not so peremptory but take in your top-sail too high to bear up against so stiffe a gale both of Scripture and Reason But I come to your twelfth and last Interrogatory The twelfth Interrogatory This Interrogatory is concerning the lawfull coercive power of Civil Magistrates in suppressing Heresies c. Or setters up of new forms of Ecclesiasticall Government c. For answer hereunto Wee do acknowledge and submit unto the lawfull coercive power of civill Magistrates according to the Scripture Rom. 13. But brother however you must distinguish between mens consciences and their practices The conscience simply considered in it self is for God the Lord of the conscience alone to judge as before But for a mans practices of which alone man can take cognizance of if they be against any of Gods Commandments of the first or second Table that appertains to the civill Magistrate to punish who is for this cause called Custos utriusque Tabulae The keeper of both Tables and therefore the Apostle saith Rom. 13. 3 4. For Rulers are not a terror to good WORKS but to the evill Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power DO that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same for hee is the Minister of God to thee for good but if thou DO that which is evill be afraid for he beareth not the sword in vain for hee is the Minister of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that DOTH evill So as we see here what is the object of Civill power to wit actions good or bad Not bare opinions not thoughts not conscience but actions And your self exempts the preaching of the Gospel and truth of God from being restrained by the civill Magistrate But now brother the time hath been and somewhere is and will be that the * truth of God hath been with-holden in unrighteousnesse and by the civill Magistrate punished with death being condemned for heresie And you see in these dayes great diversities of mens opinions and judgements one judging thus another so you think my way erroneous and I may do as much for you But do you or I DO that which is evill in actually breaking of any of Gods commandments or any just lawes of the land then we lie open to course of civill justice but so long as wee differ only in opinion which of us shall be punished first or which of us is in the error you write books I write against them yet sub judice lis est who shall be Judge you or I surely neither Among other things you would have the civill Magistrate to suppresse restrain imprison confine banish the setters up of new forms of Ecclesiasticall government without lawfull authority It may be you will involve me in the number But what if I prove that which you call a new form to be the old form and the lawfull authority of setting it up to be of Christ Must I therefore undergo all these your terrible censures because you so judge What if your judgement herein be altogether erroneous What punishment then is due to him that condemnes the innocent you may be a civill Judge one day remember then brother that if I come before you you meddle not with my conscience nor with mee for it If I shall offend any of your just lawes punish mee and spare not But if you should make a law like to that of the Jewes that who so shall confesse Christ to be the Son of God and the only Law-giver Lord King Governour over Consciences Churches and not man not Assemblies not Councels or Senates though after much Fasting Prayers Disputes as you say I confesse I shall be apt to transgresse that law but yet take you heed how you punish me for that trangression with an Ense recidendum or I wot not what club-law So ends your Book and so my Answer Now brother you have since published a third Book partly in answer to your first Answerer and partly touching Mr Joh. Goodwin I leave the parties interessed to acquit themselves Only your stating the Question in the conclusion of the Book I could not omit You sta●● it thus Whether a whole representative Church and State hath not as great or greater Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction over the whole Realm Churches with all the members then any one Independent Minister or Congregation challenge over their members Brother I answer if you can prove your Jurisdiction good we will easily grant it to be greater But if the Jurisdiction of the Churches you call Independent be good as having Christ for the founder and owner of it as we have cleerly proved then certainly it will prove the greater For magna est veritas praevalet for Christs kingdome shall stand up when all opposite earthly kingdomes like earthen vessels shall with his iron rod be dashed in pieces This for the Clause Another passage in the same Book is touching my person where you say That none of us three-brethren-Sufferers suffered for opposing Bishops legall authority or any Ceremonies by act of Parliament established Here brother give me leave to answer for my self First for all manner of Ceremonies of humane ordinance imposed upon the conscience in the worship of God I openly for the space almost of a twelvemoneth immediately before my troubles preached against them every Lords day out of Col. 2. from the 8th verse to the end of the Chapter so as when I was summoned into the High Commission Court the Articles read against mee were not only for my two Sermons Nov. 5th but also for those other Sermons against the Ceremonies so as this might challeng to be one ingredient in my censure in Star-Chamber and no lesse then a pillory matter And concerning my opposing of Bishops themselves not only their extravagancies for which I also was censured and suffered you may remember