the Levites were appointed in the times before to bear about the Tabernacle as occasion was the Tabernacle now being fixed and setled in Hierusalem there was no further use of the Levites service in that kind 1 Chron. 23.4 5. Therefore King David thought it good to set them to some new employments and so he hid some of them to assist the Priests in the publick Ministery some to be Overseers and Judges of the people some to be Porters also in the house of God and finally some others to be Singers to praise the Lord with instruments that he had made with Harps with Viols and with Cymbals Of these the most considerable were the first and last The first appointed to assist at the daily Sacrifices Verse 31. as also at the Offering of all Burnt-offerings unto the Lord in the Sabbaths in the months and at the appointed times according to the number and according to their custom continually before the Lord. Those were instructed in the songs of the Lord. Cpap. 25.7 The other were chiefly which were made for the Sabbath days and the other Festivals and one he made himself of his own enditing entituled a Song or Psalm for the Sabbath day Psalm 92. Calvin upon the 92 Psalm is of opinion that he made many for that purpose as no doubt he did and so he did for the Feasts also Josephus tells us Antiq. Jud. l. 7. c. 10. that he composed Odes and Hymns to the praise of God as also that he made divers kinds of instruments and that he taught the Levites to praise Gods Name upon the Sabbath days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the other Festivals as well upon the Annual as the weekly Sabbath Where note that in the distribution of the Levites into several Offices there was then no such Office thought of as to be Readers of the Law which proves sufficiently that the Law was not yet read publickly unto the people on the Sabbath day Nor did he only appoint them their Songs and Instruments but so exact and punctual was he that he prescribed what Habit they should wear in the discharging of their Ministery in singing praises to the Lord which was a white linnen Rayment such as the Surplice now in use in the Church of England 2 Chron. 5.12 13. Also the Levites saith the Text which were the singers being arrayed in white linnen having Cymbals and Psalteries and Harps stood at the East end of the Altar c. praising and thanking God for his Grace and wercies And this he did not by commandment from above or any warrant but his own as we find and that he thought it fit and decent David the Prophet of the Lord knew well what did belong to David the King of Israel in ordering matters of the Church and setling things about the Sabbath Nor can it be but worth the notice that the first King whom God raised up to be a nursing Father unto his Church should exercise his regal power in dictating what he would have done on the Sabbath day in reference to Gods publick Worship As if in him the Lord did mean to teach all others of the same condition as no doubt he did that it pertains to them to vindicate the day of his publick service as well from superstitious fancies as prophane contempts and to take special order that his name be glorified as well in the performances of the Priests as the devotions of the people This special care we shall find verified in Constantine the first Christian Emperour of whom more hereaster in the next Book and third Chapter Now what was there ordained by David was afterwards confirmed by Solomon whereof see 2 Chron. 8.14 who as he built a Temple for Gods publick Worship for the New-moons and weekly Sabbaths and the solemn Feasts as the Scripture tells us so he or some of his Sucessours built a fair feat within the Porch thereof wherein the Kings did use to sit both on the Sabbath and the annual Festivals The Scripture calls it tegmen sabbati the covert for the Sabbath that is saith Rabbi Solomon 2 Kings 16. locus quidam in porticu templi gratiose coopertus in quo Rex sedebat die sabbati in magnis festivitatibus as before was said So that in this too both were equal From David pass we to Elijah from one great Prophet to anotyher both persecuted and both fain to flie and both to flie upon the Sabbath Elijah had made havock of the Priests of Baal and Jezebel sent a message to him that he should arm himself to expect the like The Prophet warned hereof arose and being encouraged by an Angel 2 Kings 19.8 he did eat and drink and walked in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights until he came to Horeb the Mount of God What walked he forty days and as many nights without rest or ceasing So it is resolved on Elijah as we read in Damascen De fide Orthod l. 4. c. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disqueting himself non only by continual fasting but by his traveling on the Sabbath even for the space of forty days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did without question break the Sabbath yet God who made that Law was not at all offended with him but rather to reward his vertue Andae qu. 122.8.15.4 appeared to him in Mount Horeb. So Thomas Aquinas speaking of some men in the old Testament qui transgredientes observantiam subbati non peccabant who did transgress against the Sabbath and yet did not sin makes instance of Elijah and of his Journey Wherein saith he it must needs be granted that be did travel on the Sabbath And where a question might be made how possibly Elijab could spend forty days and forty nights in so small a Journey Tostatus makes reply that he went not directly forwards but wandred up and down and from place to place ex timore inquiectudine mentis In locum partly for fear of being sound and partly out of a disquieted and afflicted mind Now whiles Elijab was in exile Benbadad King of Syria invaded Israel and incamped near Aphek where Ahab also followed him and sat down by him with his Army And saith the Text they pitched one over against the other seven days 1 Kings 20.29 and so it was that in the seventh day the Battel was joyned and the children of Israel slew of the Syrians an bundred thousand footmen in one day Ask Zanchius what this seventh day was and he will tell you plainly that it was the Sabbath 14 4 Mandat For shewing us that any servile works may be done lawfully on the Sabbath if either Charity or unavoidable necessity do so require he brings this History in for the proof thereof And then he adds Illi die ipso sabbati quia necessitas postulabat pugnam cum hostibus commiserunt c. The Israelites saith he fighting against their Enemies
Hereticks before remembred had been hardly heard of it was plainly otherwise that day not only not being honoured with their publick meetings but destinate to a setled or a constant fast Some which have looked more nearly into the reasons of this difference conceive that they appointed this day for fasting in memory of Saint Peters conflict with Simon Magus which being to be done on a Sunday following the Church of Rome ordained a solemn fast on the day before the better to obtain Gods blessing in so great a business which falling out as they desired they kept it for a fasting day for ever after Saint Austin so relates it as a general and received opinion but then he adds Quod eam esse falsam perhibeant plerique Romani That very many of the Romans did take it only for a fable As for St. Austin he conceives the reason of it to be the several uses which men made of our Saviours resting in the grave the whole Sabbath day For thence it came to pass saith he that some especially the Eastern people Ad requiem significandam mallent relaxare jejunium to signifie and denote that rest did not use to fast where on the other side those of the Church of Rome and some Western Churches kept it always fasting Propter humilitatem mortis Domini by reason that our Lord that day lay buried in the sleep of Death But as the Father comes not home unto the reason of this usage in the Eastern Countreys so in my mind Pope Innocent gives a likelier reason for the contrary custom in the Western Concil Tom. 1. For in a Decretal by him made touching the keeping of this Fast he gives this reason of it unto Decentius Eugubinus who desired it of him because that day and the day before were spent by the Apostles in grief and heaviness Nam constat Apostolos biduo isto in moerore fuisse propter metum Judaeorum se occuluisse as his words there are The like saith Platina that Innocentius did ordain the Saturday or Sabbath to be always fasted Quod tali die Christus in sepulchro jacuisset quod discipuli ejus jejunassent In Innocent Because our Saviour lay in the grave that day and it was fasted by his Disciples Not that it was not fasted before Innocents time as some vainly think but that being formerly an arbitrary practice only it was by him intended for a binding Law Now as the African and the Western Churches were severally devoted either to the Church of Rome or other Churches in the East so did they follow in this matter of the Sabbaths fast the practice of those parts to which they did most adhere Millain though near to Rome followed the practice of the East which shews how little power the Popes then had even within Italy it self Paulinus tells us also of St. Ambrose that he did never use to dine nisi die sabbati Dominico c. but on the Sabbath the Lords day In vita Ambros and on the Anniversaries of the Saints and Martyrs Yet so that when he was at Rome he used to do as they there did submitting to the Orders of the Church in the which he was Whence that so celebrated speeeh of his Cum hic sum non jejuno sabbato cum Romae sum jejuno sabbato at Rome he did at Millain he did not fast the Sabbath Nay which is more Epist â—6 Saint Augustine tells us that many times in Africa one and the self-same Church at least the several Churches in the self-same Province had some that dined upon the Sabbath and some that fasted And in this difference it stood a long time together till in the end the Roman Church obtained the cause and Saturday became a Fast almost through all the parts of the Western World I say the Western World and of that alone The Eastern Churches being so far from altering their ancient custom that in the sixth Council of Constantinople Anno 692 they did admonish those of Rome to forbear fasting on that day upon pain of Censures Which I have noted here in its proper place that we might know the better how the matter stood between the Lords day and the Sabbath how hard a thing it was for one to get the mastery of the other both days being in themselves indifferent for sacred uses and holding by no other Tenure than by the courtesie of the Church Much of this kind was that great conflict between the East and Western Churches about keeping Easter and much like conduced as it was maintained unto the honour of the Lords Day or neglect thereof The Passeover of the Jews was changed in the Apostles times to the Feast of Easter the anniversary memorial of our Saviours Resurrection and not changed only in their times but by their Authority Certain it is that they observed it for Polycarpus kept it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both with Saint John and with the rest of the Apostles as Irenaeus tells us in Eusebius's History Lib. 5. c. 26. The like Polycarpus affirms of Saint Philip also whereof see Euseb l. 5. c. 14. Nor was the difference which arose in the times succeeding about the Festival it self but for the time wherein it was to be observed The Eastern Churches following the custom of Hierusalem kept it directly at the same time the Jews did their Passeover and at Hierusalem they so kept it the Bishops there for fifteen several successions being of the Circumcision the better to content the Jews their Brethren and to win upon them But in the Churches of the West they did not celebrate this Feast decima quarta lunae upon what day soever it was as the others did but on some Sunday following after partly in honour of the day and partly to express some difference between Jews and Christians A thing of great importance in the present case For the Christians of the East reflected not upon the Sunday in the Annual return of so great a Feast but kept it on the fourteenth day of the month be it what it will it may be very strongly gathered that they regarded not the Lords Day so highly which was the weekly memory of the Resurrection as to prefer that day before any other in their publick meetings And thereupon Baronius pleads it very well that certainly Saint John was not the Author of the contrary practice Annal. An. 15 9. as some gave it out Nam quaenam potuit esse ratio c. For what saith he might be the reason why in the Revelation he should make mention of the Lords Day as a day of note and of good credit in the Church had it not got that name in reference to the Resurrection And if it were thought fit by the Apostles to celebrate the weekly memory thereof upon the Sunday then to what purpose should they keep the Anniversary on another day And so far questionless we may joyn issue with
Musick used in the Congregation it grew more exquisite in these times than it had been formerly that which before was only a melodious kind of pronunciation being now ordered into a more exact and artificial Harmony This change was principally occasioned by a Canon of the Council of Laodicea in the first entrance of this Age. For where before it was permitted unto all promiscuously to sing in the Church it was observed that in such dissonancy of Voices and most of them unskilful in the notes of Musick there was no small jarring and unpleasant sounds This Council thereupon ordained Conc. Laodic Can. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that none should sing hereafter in the Congregation but such as were Canonically appointed to it and skilful in it By means whereof before the shutting up of this fourth Century the Musick of the Church became very perfect and harmonious suavi artificiosa voce cantata Confess l. 10. cap. 33. as St. Austin tells us So perfect and harmonious that it did work exceedingly on the affections of the Hearers and did movere animos ardentius in flammam pietatis inflame their minds with a more lively flame of Piety taking them Prisoners by the ears and so conducting them unto the glories of Gods Kingdom Ibid. Saint Austin attributes a great cause of Conversion to the power thereof calling to mind those frequent tears quas fudi ad cantus Ecclesiae tuae which had been drawn from him by this sacred Musick by which his soul was humbled and his affections raised to an height of godliness The like he also tells us in his ninth Book of Confessions and sixth Chapter Nor doubt we but it did produce the same effect on divers others who coming to the Churches as he then did to be partakers of the Musick return'd prepared in mind and well disposed in their intentions to be converted unto God Now that the Church might be frequented at the times appointed and so all secret Conventicles stopped in these divided times wherein so many Heresies did domineer and that the itching ears of men might not persuade them to such Churches where God had not placed them so to discourage their own proper Minister it pleased the Fathers in the Council of Saragossa Anno 368. â—an 2. or thereabouts to decree it thus First Ne latibulis cubiculorum montium habitent qui in suspicionibus perseverent that none who were suspected of Priscillianism which was the humour that then reigned should lurk in secret corners either in Houses or in Hills but follow the example and direction of the Priests of God And secondly ad alienas villas agendorum conventuum causa non conveniant that none should go to other places under pretence of joyning there to the Assembly but keep themselves unto their own Which prudent Constitutions upon the self-same pious grounds are still preserved amongst us in the Church of England Thus do we see upon what grounds the Lords day stands on custom first and voluntary consecration of it to religious Meetings that custom countenanced by the Authority of the Church of God which tacitely approved the same and finally confirmed and ratified by Christian Princes throughout their Empires And as the day so rest from Labours and restraint from Business upon that day received its greatest strength from the supream Magistrate as long as he reteined that Power which to him belonged as after from the Canons and decrees of Councils the Decretals of Popes and Orders of particular Prelates when the sole managing of Ecclesiastical affairs was committed to them I hope it was not so with the former Sabbath which neither took original from custom that people being not so forward to give God a day nor required any countenance or authority from the Kings of Israel to confirm and ratifie it The Lord had spoken the word that he would have one day in seven precisely the seventh day from the Worlds Creation to be a day of rest unto all his people which said there was no more to do but gladly to submit and obey his pleasure nec quicquam reliquum erat praeter obsequii gloriam in the greatest Prince And this done all at once not by degrees by little and little as he could see the people affected to it or as he found it fittest for them like a probation Law made to continue till the next Session and then on further liking to hold good for ever but by a plain and peremptory Order that it should be so without further trial But thus it was not done in our present Business The Lords day had no such command that it should be sanctified but was left plainly to Gods people to pitch on this or any other for the publick use And being taken up amongst them and made a day of meeting in the Congregation for religious Exercises yet for 300 years there was neither Law to bind them to it nor any rest from labour or from worldly businesses required upon it And when it seemed good unto Christian Princes the nursing Fathers of Gods Church to lay restraints upon their people yet at the first they were not general but only thus that certain men in cetrain places should lay aside their ordinary and daily works to attend Gods service in the Church those whose employments were most toilsome and most repugnant to the true nature of a Sabbath being allowed to follow and pursue their labours because most necessary to the Common-wealth And in following times when as the Prince and Prelate in their several places indeavoured to restrain them from that also which formerly they had permitted and interdicted almost all kind of bodily labour upon that day it was not brought about without much strugling and on opposition of the People more than a thousand years being past after Christs Ascension before the Lords day had attained that state in which now it standeth as will appear at full in the following story And being brought unto that state wherein now it stands it doth not stand so firmly and on such sure grounds but that those powers which raised it up may take it lower if they please yea take it quite away as unto the time and settle it on any other day as to them seems best which is the doctrine of some School-men and divers Protestant Writers of great name and credit in the world A power which no man will presume to say was ever challenged by the Jews over the Sabbath Besides all things are plainly contrary in these two days as to the purpose and intent of the Institution For in the Sabbath that which was principally aimed at was rest from labour that neither they nor any that belonged unto them should do any manner of work upon that day but sit still and rest themselves Their meditating on Gods Word or on his goodness manifested in the worlds Creation was to that an accessory and as for reading of
spent or wholly taken up in pleasures or otherwise prophaned with vexatious suits Particularly for the Lords day that it be exempt from Executions Citations entring into Bonds Apparances Pleadings and such like that Cryers be not heard upon it and such as go to Law lay aside their Actions taking truce a while to see if they can otherwise compose their differences For so it passeth in the Edict Dominicum itaque ita semper honorabilem decernimus venerandum ut à cunctis executionibus excusetur Nulla quenquam urgeat admonitio nulla fidei-jussionis flagitetur exactio taceat apparitio advocatio delitescat sit idem dies à cognitionibus alienus praeconis horrida vox sileat respirent à controversiis litigantis habeant foederis intervallum c. I have the rather here laid down the Law it self that we may see how punctual the good Emperour was in silencing those troublesome suits and all preparatives or appurtenances thereunto that so men might with quieter minds repair unto the place of Gods publick service yet was not the Edict so strict that neither any kind of Pleasures were allowed upon that day as may be thought by the beginning of the Law nor any kind of secular and civil business to be done upon it The Emperour Constantine allowed of manumission and so did Theodosius too Cod. l. 2. de fer lex 2. Die dominico emancipare manumittere licet reliquae causae vel lites quiescant so the latter Emperour Nor do we find but that this Emperour Leo well allowed thereof sure we are that he well allowed of other civil businesses when he appointed in this very Edict that such as went to Law might meet together on this day to compose their differences to shew their evidences and compare their writings And sure I am that he prohibited not all kind of pleasures but only such as were of an obscene and unworthy nature For so it followeth in the Law First in relation unto businesses ad sese simul veniant adversarij non timentes pacta conserant transactiones loquantur Next in relation unto pleasures Nec tameÌ„n hujus religiosae dâ—ei â—cia relaxantes obscenis quemquam patimur voluptatibus detineri where note not simply voluptates but obseenae voluptates not pleasures but obscene and filthy pleasures are by him prohibited such as the Scena theatralis therein after mentioned not civil business of all sorts but brangling and litigious businesses are by him forbidden as the Law makes evident Collectar And thus must Theodorus Lector be interpreted who tells us of this Emperour Leo how he ordained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Lords day should be kept holy by all sorts of People that it should be a non-lee day a day of rest and ease unto them which is no otherwise to be understood than as the Law it self intended however the words of Theodorus seem to be more general Nor was it long before this Edict or the matter of it had found good entertainment in the Christian world the rather since those Churches which lay further off and were not under the command of the Roman Emperour taking perhaps their hint from hence had made a Canon to that purpose For in a Council held in Aragon Anno 516. being some 47 years after Leos Edict it was decreed that neither Bishop Priest or any other of the Clergy the Clergy at that time were possessed of some seats of judicature should pronounce sentence in any cause which should that day be brought before them Nullus Episcoporum aut presbyterorum vel Clericorum Can. 4. propositum cujuscunque causae negotium die dominico audeat judicare This was in Anno 516. as before I said the second year of Amalaricus King of the Gothes in Spain Nor stayed they here The People of this sixth Age wherein now we are began to Judaize a little in the imposing of so strict a rest upon this day especially in the Western Churches which naturally are more inclined to Superstition than the Eastern Nations Wherein they had so far proceeded that it was held at last unlawful to travel on the Lords day with Wains or Horses to dress Meat or make clean the House or meddle with any manner of Domestick businesses The third Council held at Orleans Anno 540. doth inform us so and plainly thereupon determined Can. 27. that since these prohibitions abovesaid Ad Judaicam magis quam ad Christianam observantiam pertinere probantur did savour far more of the Jew than of the Christian Die dominico quod ante licuit licere that therefore whatsoever had formerly been lawful on that day should be lawful still Yet so that it was thought convenient that men should rest that day from Husbandry and the Vintage from Sowing Reaping Hedging and such servile works quo facilius ad ecclesiam venientes orationis gratia vacent that so they might have better leisure to go unto the Church and there say their Prayers This was the first restraint which hitherto we have observed whereby the Husband-man was restrained from the Plough and Vintage or any work that did concern him And this was yielded as it seems to give them some content at least which aimed at greater and more slavish prohibitions than those here allowed of and would not otherwise be satisfied than by grant of this Nay so far had this superstition or superstitious conceit about this day prevailed amongst the Gothes in Spain a sad and melancholick People mingled and married with the Jews who then therein dwelt that in their dotage on this day they went before the Jews their Neighbours the Sabbath not so rigorously observed by one as was the Lords day by the other The Romans in this Age had utterly defeated the Vandals and their power in Africk becoming so bad Neighbours to the Gothes themselves To stop them in those prosperous courses Theude the Gothish King Anno 543. makes over into Africk with a compleat Army The Armies near together and occasion fair the Romans on a Sunday set upon them and put them all unto the sword the Gothes as formerly the Jews never so much as laying hand upon their Weapons or doing any thing at all in their own defence only in reverence to the day The general History of Spain so relates the story although more at large A superstition of so sudden and so quick a growth that whereas till this present Age we cannot find that any manner of Husbandry or Country labours were forbidden as upon this day it was now thought unlawful on the same to take a sword in hand for ones own defence Better such Doctrines had been crushed and such Teachers silenced in the first beginnings than that their Jewish speculations should in fine produce such sad and miserable effects Nor was Spain only thus infected where the Jews now lived the French we see began to be so inclined Not only in prohibiting things lawful which before we
times were certainly devout and therefore the less question to be made but that the Holy-days were employed as they ought to be in hearing of the Word of God receiving of the Sacraments and pouring forth their prayers unto him The sixth general Council holden at Constantinople appointed that those to whom the care of the Church was trusted should on all days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 especially on the Lords day instruct the Clergy and the People out of the holy Scripture in the ways of Godliness I say the Clergy and the People for in these times the Revenue of the Church being great and the offerings liberal there were besides the Parish-Priest who had Cure of souls many assisting Ministers of inferiour Orders which lived upon Gods holy Altar Somewhat to this purpose of Preaching every Sunday yea and Saints days too in the Congregation we have seen before established in the Council at Mentz Anno 813. So for receiving of the Sacrament whereas some would that it should be administred every day singulis in anno diebus as Bertram hath it lib de corp sangu Christi Rabanus Maurus who lived 824. leaves it as a thing indifferent advising all men notwithstanding in case there be no lawful let to communicate every Lords day De Sermon prâ—priâ—tat 〈◊〉 4.10 Quotidie Eucharistiae communionem percipere nec vitupero nec laudo omnibus tamen dominicis diebus communicandum hortor si tamen mens in affectu peccandi non sit as his words there are And whereas this good custom had been long neglected Can. 21. it was appointed that the Sacrament should be administred every Lords day by the Council at Aken Anno 836. Ne forte qui longe est à sacramentis quibus est redemptus c. lest saith the Council they which keep so much distance from the Sacraments of their redemption be kept as much at distance from the fruition of their Salvation As for the Holy-days or Saints days there needed no such Canon to enjoyn on them the celebration of the Sacrament which was annexed to them of course So likewise for the publick prayers besides what scatteringly hath been said in former places Câ—â—â— Friburienâ— Can. 26. the Council held at Friburg Anno 895. hath determined thus Diebus dominicis sanctorum festis vigiliis orationibus insistendum est ad missas cuilibet Christiano cum oblationibus currendum That on the Lords day and the Festivals of the Saints every Christian was to be intent upon his devotions to watch and pray and go to Mass and there make his offering It 's true the Service of the Church being in the Latine and in these times that Language being in some Provinces quite worn out and in some others grown into a different dialect from what it was that part of Gods worship which was publick prayer served not so much to comfort and to edification as it should have done As for the outward adjuncts of Gods publick service on the Churches part the principalwas that of Musick which in these Ages grew to a perfect height We shewed before that vocal Musick in the Church is no less ancient than the Liturgy of the Church it self which as it was begun in Ignatius time after the manner of plain-song or a melodious kind of pronunciation as before was said so in S. Austins time it became so excellent that it drew many to the Church and consequently many to the saith Now to that vocal Musick which was then in use and of which formerly we spake it pleased the Church in the beginning of these Ages to add Instrumental the Organ being added to the Voice by Pope Vitalian Anno 653. above 1000 years ago and long before the aberration of the Church from its pristine piety And certainly it was not done without good advice there being nothing of that kind more powerful than melody both Vocaland Instrumental for raising of mens hearts and sweetning their affections towards God Not any thing wherein the Militant Church here on Earth hath more resemblance to the Church in Heaven triumphant than in that sacred and harmonious way of singing praise and Allelujahs to the Lord our God which is and hath of long been used in the Church of Christ To bring this Chapter to an end in all that hath been said touching the keeping of the Lords day we find not any thing like a Sabbath either in the practice of the Church or writings of particular men however these last Ages grew to such an height in restraint of labours on this day that they might seem to have a mind to revive that part of the fourth Commandment Thou shalt do no manner of work upon it For where they tell us of this day as before was said that it was taken up by custom on the Authority of the Church as most on Apostolical tradition this makes it plain that they intended no such matter as a Sabbath day though that the Congregation might assemble in the greater numbers and men might joyn together in all Christian duties with the greater force it pleased the Church and principal powers thereof to restrain men from cororal labours and bind them to repair to the House of God Or if they did intend the Lords day for a Sabbath day it 's plain they must have made more Sabbaths than one day in seven those Holy-days which universally were observed in the Christian Church being no othersise to be kept than the Lords day was and those increasing in these Ages to so great a number that they became a burden to the common people Nor is it likely that being once free from the bondage of the Jewish Sabbath they would submit themselves unto another of their own devising and do therewith as the Idolaters of old with their woodden Gods first make them and then presently fall down and worship them Rather they took a course to restrain the Jews from sanctifhing their Sabbah and other legal Festivals as before they used Can. 10. Statutum est de Judaeis in the 12. Council of Tolledo Anno 681 Ne Sabbata caeterasque festivitates ritus sui celebrare praesumant and not so only Sed ut diebus dominicis ab opere cessent but that they should refrain from labour on the Lords day also of any Sabbath to be kept in the Christian Church some few might dream perhaps such filthy dreamers as Saint Jude speaks of but they did only dream thereof they few no such matter They which had better Visions could perceive no Subbath but in this life a Sabbath or a rest from sin and in the life to come a Sabbath or a rest from misery Plainly Rupertus so conceived it as great a Clerk as any in the times wherein he lived which was in the beginning of the twelfth Century Nam sicut signum circumcisionis incarnationem c. For as saith he the sign of Circumcisian foreshewed the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour
and approbation published the Exposition or Analysis of our Articles in which he gives the Calvinist as fair quarter as can be wished But first beginning with the last so much of the Objection as concerns Bishop Bancrost is extreamly false not agreeing to the Lambeth Articles not being Bishop of London when those Articles were agreed unto as is mistakingly affirmed and that Analysis of Explication of our English Articles related to in the Objection being published in the year 1585. which was ten years before the making of the Lambeth articles and eighteen years before Bancroft had been made Archbishop And secondly It is not very true that King James liked that is to say was well pleased with the putting of those Articles into the confession of the Church of Ireland though the said Confession was subscribed in his name by the Lord Deputy Chichester is plainly enough not without his consent for many other things were in the Confession to which the Lord Deputy subscribed and the King consented as affairs then stood which afterwards he declared no great liking to either of the Tenor or effect thereof For the truth is that the drawing up of that Confession being committed principally to the care of Dr. Vsher and afterwards Lord Primate of Ireland a professed Calvinian he did not only thrust into it all the Lambeth Articles but also many others of his own Opinions as namely That the Pope was Antichrist or that man of sin that the power of sacerdotal Absolution is no more than declaratory as also touching the morality of the Lords day Sabbath and the total spending of it in religious Exercises Which last how contrary it is to King Jame's Judgment how little cause he had to like it or rather how much reason he had to dislike it his declaration about lawful Sports which he published within three years after doth express sufficiently so that the King might give confent to the confirming of these Articles amongst the rest though he liked as little of the one as he did of the other And he might do it on these Reasons For first The Irish Nation at that time were most tenaciously addicted to Errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome and therefore must be bended to the other extream before they could be sireight and Orthodox in these points of doctrine Secondly It was an usual practice with the King in the whole course of his Government to ballance one extream by the other countenancing the Papist against the Puritan and the Puritan sometimes against the Papist that betwixt both the true Religion and Professors of it might be kept in safety With greater Artifice but less Authority have some of our Calvinians framed unto themselves another Argument derived from certain Questions and answers printed at the end of the Bible published by Rob. Barker his Majesties own Printer in the year 1607. from whence it is inferred by the Author of the Anti-Arminianism Anti-Armin p. 54. and from him by others that the said Questions and Answers do contain a punctual Declaration of the received doctrine of this Church in the points disputed But the worst is they signifie nothing to the purpose for which they were produced For I would fain know by what Authority those Questions and Answers were added to the end of the Bible If by Authority and that such Authority can be produced the Argument will be of force which it takes from them and then no question but the same Authority by which they were placed there at first would have preserved them in that place for a longer time than during the sale of that Edition The not retaining them in such Editions as have followed since the sale of that shews plainly that they were of no anthority in themselves nor intended by the Church for a rule to others and being of no older standing than the year 1607. for ought appears by Mr. Prin who first made the Objection they must needs seem as destitute of antiquity as they are of authority so that upon the whole matter the Author of the Book hath furnished those of different Judgment with a very strong argument that they wrre foisted in by the fraud and practice of some of the Emissaries of the Puritan Faction who hoped in time to have them pass as currant amongst the people as any part of Canonical Scripture Such Piae fraudes as these are we should have too many were they once allowed of Some prayers were also added to the end of the Bible in some Editions and others at the end of the publick Liturgy Which being neglected at the first and afterwards beheld as the authorized prayers of the Church were by command left out of those Books and Bibles as being the compositions of private men not the publick acts of the Church and never since added as before But to return unto King James we find not so much countenance given to the Calvinians by the fraud of his Printer as their opposites received by his grace and favour by which they were invested in the chief preferments of the Church of England conferred as openly and freely upon the Anti-Calvinians as those who had been bread up in the other persuasions Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine habentur as we know who said For presently upon the end of the Conference he prefers Bishop Bancroft to the Chair of Canterbury and not long after Dr. Barlow to the See of Rochester On whose translation unto Lincoln Dr. Richard Neil then Dean of westminster succeeds at Rochester and leaves Dr. Buckridge there for his successour at his removal unto Lichfield in the year 1609. Dr. Samuel Harsnet is advanced to the See of Chichester and about ten years after unto that of Norwich In the beginning of the year 1614. Dr. Overald succeeds Neil then translated to Lincoln in the See of Coventry and Lichfield Dr. George Mountein succeeded the said Neil then translated to Durham in the Church of Lincoln In the year 1619. Dr. John Houson one of the Canons of Christs Church a professed Anti-Calvinist is made Bishop of Oxon. And in the year 1621. Dr. Valentine Cary Successor unto Overald in the Deanry of St. Paul is made Bishop of Exon and on the same day Dr. William Laud who had been Pupil unto Buckridge as before said is consecrated Bishop of St. Davids By which encouragements the Anti-Calvinians or old English Protestants took heart again and more openly declared themselves than they had done formerly the several Bishops above-named finding so gracious a Patron of the learned King are as being themselves as bountiful Patrons respect being had to the performants in their nomination to their Friends and followers By means whereof though they found many a Rub in the way and were sometimes brought under censure by the adverse party yet in the end they surmounted all difficulties and came at last to be altogether as considerable both for power and number as the Calvinists were Towards which
out the mysteries of this number the better to advance as they conceive the reputation of the Sabbath Aug. Steuchius hath affirmed in general In Gen. 2. that this day and number is most natural and most agreeable to divine employments and therefore in omni aetate inter omnes gentes habitus venerabilis sacer accounted in all times and Nations as most venerable and so have many others said since him But he that led the way unto him and to all the rest is Philo the Jew who being a great follower of Platos took up his way of trading in the mysteries of several numbers wherein he was so intricate and perplexed that numero Platonis obscurius did grow at last into a Proverb This Philo therefore Platonizing Tall. ad Attie l. 7 â—pl 13. 〈◊〉 opisiâ—â—o first tells us of this number of seven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he persuâ—â—les himself there is not any man able sufficiently to extol it as being far above all thâ— powers of Rhetorick and that the Pythagoreans from them first Plato learnt those trifles did usually resemble it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even to Jove himself Then that Hippocrates doth divide the life of man into seven Ages â—aâ—â— age câ—nteining seven full years to which the changes of mans constitution are all framed and fitted as also that the Bear or Arcturus as they use to call it and the constellation called the Pleiades consist of seven Stars severally neither more nor less He shews us also how much Nature is delighted in this number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De legis Alleg. l. 1. as viz. that there are seven Planets and that the Moon quartereth every se venth day that Infants born in the seventh month are usually like enough to live that they are seven several motions of the body seven intrails so many outward members seven holes or out-lets in the same seven sorts of excrements as also that the seventh is the Critical day in most kinds of maladies And to what purpose this and much more of the same condition every where scattered in his Writings but to devise some natural reason for the Sabbath For so he manifests himself in another place Ap. Euâ—â—b Praepar l. 8. c. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Now why God chose the seventh day and established it by Law for the day of rest you need not ask at all of me since both Physicians and Philosophers have so oft declared of what great power and vertue that number is as in all other things so specially on the nature and state of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus saith he you have the reason of the seventh-seventh-day Sabbath Indeed Philosophers and Physicians and other learned men of great name and credit have spoken much in honour of the number of seven and severally impute great power unto it in the works of Nature and several changes of mans Body Whereof see Censorinus de die natali cap. 12. Varro in Gellium lib. 3. c. 10. Hippocrates Solon Hermippus Beritus in the sixth Book of Clemens of Alexandria besides divers others Nay it grew up so high in the opinion of some men that they derived it at the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. ab insita majestate So Philo tells us Macrobius also saith the same Apud veteres 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocitatur De legis Allegor quod graeco nomine testabatur venerationem debitam numero Thus he in somnio Scipionis But other men as good as they find no such mystery in this number but that the rest may keep pace with it if not go before it and some of those which so much magnifie the seventh have found as weighty mysteries in many of the others also In which I shall the rather enlarge my self that seeing the exceeding great both contradiction and contention that is between them in these needless curiosities we may the better find the slightness of those Arguments which seem to place a great morality in this number of seven as if it were by Nature the most proper number for the service of God And first whereas the learned men before mentioned affix a special power unto it in the works of Nature Respons ad qu. 69. Justin the Martyr plainly tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that the accomplishment of the works of Nature is to be ascribed to Nature only not unto any period of time accounted by the number of seven and that they oft-times come to their perfection sooner or later than the said periods which could not be in case that Nature were observant of this number as they say she is and not this number tied to the course of Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Therefore saith he this number hath no influence on the works of Nature Then whereas others attribute I know not what perfection to this number above all the rest Cicero affirming that it is plenus numerus Macrobius that it is numerus solidus perfectus De Republ. l. 4. Bodinus doth affirm expresly neutrum de septenario dici potest that neither of those Attributes is to be ascribed unto this number that the eighth number is a solid number although not a perfect one the sixth a perfect number also Now as Bodinus makes the eighth more solid and the sixth more perfect So Servius on these words of Virgil In Georgic 1. Septima post decimam foelix prefers the tenth number a far deal before it Vt primum locum decimae ferat quae sit valde foelix secundum septimae ut quae post decimae foelicitatem secunda sit Nay which may seem more strange than this Oratio secunda the Arithmeticians generally as we read in Nyssen make this seventh number to be utterly barren and unfruitful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to go forwards in this matter Macrobius who before had said of this number of seven that it is plenus venerabilis hath in the same Book said of this number of one that it is principium finis omnium and that it hath a special reference or resemblance unto God on high which is by far the greater commendation of the two And Hierom In Amos 5. that however there be many mysteries in the number of seven prima tamen beatitudo est esse in primo numero yet the prime happiness or beatitude is to be sought for in the first So for the third Origen generally affirms that it is aptus sacramentis even made for Mysteries In Gen. hom 8. and some particulars he nameth Macrobius findeth in it all the natural faculties of the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rational 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or irascible Ad Antioch qu. 51. and last of all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or concupiscible Saint Athanasius makes it equal altogether with the seventh the one being no less memorable for the holy Trinity than the other for
maximi eorum fanis jus Asyli manere c. neque cogi ad praestanda vadimonia sabbatis aut pridie sabbatorum post horam nonam in Parasceve Quod si quis contra decretum ausus fuerit gravi poena mulctabitur This Edict was set forth Anno 4045. and after many of that kind were published in several Provinces by Mar. Agrippa Provost General under Caesar Phil. legat ad Caium as also by Norbanus Flaceus and Julius Antonius Proconsuls at that time whereof see Josephus Nay when the Jews were grown so strict that it was thought unlawful either to give or take an Alms on the Sabbath day Augustus for his part was willing not to break them of it yet so to order and dispose his Bounties that they might be no losers by so fond a strictness For whereas he did use to distribute monthly a certain Donative either in Mony or in Corn this distribution sometimes happened on the Sabbath days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo hath it whereon the Jews might neither give nor take neither indeed do any thing that did tend to sustenance Therefore saith he it was provided that their proportion should be given them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the next day after that so they might be made partakers of the publick benefit Not give nor take an Alms on the Sabbath day Their superstition sure was now very vehement seeing it would not suffer men to do the works of mercy on the day of mercy And therefore it was more than time they should be sent to School again to learn this Lesson I will have mercy and not sacrifice And so indeed they were sent unto School to him who in himself was both the Teacher and the Truth For at this time our Saviour came into the World And had there been no other business for him to do this only might have seemed to require his presence viz. to rectifie those dangerous Errours which had been spread abroad in these latter times about the Sabbath The service of the Sabbath in the Congregation he found full enough The custom was to read a Section of the Law out of the Pentateuch or five Books of Moses and after to illustrate or confirm the same out of some parallel place amongst the Prophets That ended if occasion were and that the Rulers of the Synagogue did consent unto it there was a word of Exhortation made unto the people Chap. 13.15 conducing to obedience and the works of Piety So far it is apparent by that passage in the Acts of the Apostles touching Paul and Barnabas that being at Antioch in Pisidia on the Sabbath day after the reading of the Law and Prophets the Rulers of the Synagogue sent unto them saying Ye men and brethren if ye have any word of exhortation to speak unto the people dicite say on As for the Law I note this only by the way they had divided it into 54 Sections which they read over in the two and fifty sabbaths joyning two of the shortest twice together that so it might be all read over within the year beginning on the Sabbath which next followed the Feast of Tabernacles ending on that which came before it So far our Saviour found no fault but rather countenanced and confirmed the custom by his gracious presence and example But in these rigid Vanities and absurd Traditions by which the Scribes and Pharisees had abused the Sabbath and made it of an ease to become a drudgery in those he thought it requisite to detect their follies and ease the people of that bondage which they in their proud humours had imposed upon them The Pharisees had taught that it was unlawful on the sabbath day either to heal the impotent or relieve the sick or feed the hungry but he confutes them in them all both by his Acts and by his Disputations Whatever he maintain'd by Argument he made good by Practice Did they accuse his followers of gathering Corn upon the Sabbath being then an hungred he le ts them know what David did in the same extremity Their eating or their gathering on the Sabbath day take you which you will was not more blameable nay not so blameable by the Law as David's eating of the Shew-bread which plainly was not to be eaten by any but the Priest alone The Cures he did upon the Sabbath what were they more than which themselves did daily do in laying salves unto those Infants whom on the Sabbath day they had Circumcised His bidding of the impotent man to take up his Bed and get him gone which seemed so odious in their eyes was it so great a toyl as to walk round the walls of Hiericho and bear the Ark upon their shoulders or any greater burden to their idle backs than to lift up the Ox and set him free out of that dangerous Ditch into the which the hasty Beast might fall as well upon the Sabbath as the other days Should men take care of Oxen and not God of Man Not so The Sabbath was not made for a lazy Idol which all the Nations of the World should fall down and worship but for the ease and comfort of the labouring man that he might have some time to refresh his spirits Sabbatum propter hominem factum est The Sabbath saith our Saviour was made for man man was not made to serve the Sabbath Nor had God so irrevocably spoke the word touching the sanctifying of the Sabbath that he had left himself no power to repeal that Law in case he saw the purpose of the Law perverted the Son of man even he that was the Son both of God and Man being Lord also of the Sabbath Nay it is rightly marked by some that Christ our Saviour did more works of Charity on the Sabbath day than on all days else Zanchius observes it out of Irenaeus In Mandat 4. Saepius multo Christum in die Sabbati praestitisse opera charitatis quam in aliis diebus and his note is good Not that there was some urgent and extream necessity either the Cures to be performed that day or the man to perish For if we look into the story of our Saviours actions we find no such matter It 's true that the Centurions son and Peters mother-in-law were even sick to death and there might be some reason in it why he should haste unto their Cures on the Sabbath day But on the other side the man that had the withered Hand Matth. 13. and the Woman with her flux of Blood eighteen years together Luke 13. he that was troubled with the Dropsie Luke 14. and the poor wretch which was afflicted with the Palsie John 5. in none of these was found any such necessity but that the Cure might have been respited to another day What then Shall it be thought our Saviour came to destroy the Law No. God forbid Himself hath told us that he came to fulfil it rather He came to let them understand
the Scriptures only were in those times read publickly in the Congregation but the Epistles and discourses of such Learned men as had been eminent for place and piety as in the after-times on defect of Sermons it was the custom of the Church to read the Homilies of the Fathers for their edification Conciliorum Tom. 2. Concerning which it was ordained in a Council at Vaux Anno 444. that if the Priest were sick or otherwise infirm so that he could not preach himself the Deacons should rehearse some Homily of the holy Fathers Si presbyter aliqua infirmitate prohibente per seipsum non potuerit praedicare sanctorum Patrum homiliae à Diaconibus recitentur so the Council ordered it The third and last Writer of this Century which gives us any thing of the Lords day Strom. l. 7. is Clemens Alexandrinus he flourished in the year 190. who though he fetch the pedegree of the Lords day even as far as Plato which before we noted yet he seems well enough contented that the Lords day should not be observed at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We ought saith he to honour and to reverence him whom we are verily persuaded to be the Word our Saviour and our Captain and in him the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in selected times as some do amongst us but always during our whole lives and on all occasions The Royal Prophet tells us that he preaised God seven times a day Whence he that understands himself stands not upon determinate places or appointed Temples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much less on any Festivals or days assigned but in all places honours God though he be alone And a little after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. making our whole lives a continual Festival and knowing God to be every where we praise him sometimes in the fields and sometimes sailing on the Seas and finally in all the times of our life whatever So in another place of the self-same Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He that doth lead his life according to the Ordinances of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then keeps the Lords day when he casts away every evil thought and doing things with knowledge and understanding doth glorifie the Lord in his Resurrection By which it seems that whatsoever estimation the Lords day had attained unto at Rome and Corinth yet either it was not so much esteemed at Alexandria or else this Clemens did not think so rightly of it as he should have done Now in the place of Justin Martyr before remembred there is one special circumstance to be considered in reference to our present search for I say nothing here of mingling water with the Wine in the holy Sacrament as not conducing to the business which we have in hand This is that in their Sundays service they did use to stand during the time they made their Prayers unto the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his words there are Such was the custom of this time and a long time after that though they kneeled on other days yet on the Lords day they prayed always standing Yet not upon the Lords day only but every day from Easter unto Pentecost The reason is thus given by him who made the Responsions ascribed to Justin That so saith he we might take notice as of our fall by sin so of our restitution by the grace of Christ Resp ad qu. 105. Six days we pray upon our knees and that 's in token of our fall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But on the Lords day we bow not the knee in token of the Resurrection by which according to the Grace of Christ we are set free from sin and the powers of death The like saith he is to be said of the days of Pentecost which custom as he tells us and cites Irenaeus for his Author did take beginning even in the times of the Apostles Rather we may conceive that they used this Ceremony to testifie their faith in the Refurrection of our Lord and Saviour which many Hereticks of those times did publickly gain-say as before we noted and shall speak more thereof hereafter But whatsoever was the reason it continued long and was confirm'd particularly by the great Synod of Nice what time some People had begun to neglect this custom The Synod therefore thus determined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that forasmuch as some did use to kneel on the Lords day Can. 20. and the time of Pentecost that all things in all places might be done with an uniformity it pleased the holy Synod to decree it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that men should stand at those times when they made their prayers For Fathers which avow this custom consult Tertullian lib. de corona mil. S. Basil l. de Sp. S. c. 27. S. Hierom. adv Luciferian S. Austin Epist 118. S. Hilaries Praefat. in Psalm Ambros Serm. 62. and divers others What time this custom was laid by I can hardly say but sure I am it was not laid aside in a long time after not till the time of Pope Alexander the third who lived about the year 1160. Decret l. 2. tit 9. c. 2. For in a Decretal of his confirmatory of the former custom it was prohibited to kneel on the times remembred Nisi aliquis ex devotioned id velit facere in secreto unless some out of pure devotion did it secretly Which dispensation probably occasioned the neglect thereof in the times succeeding the rather since those Hereticks who formerly had denied the resurrection were now quite exterminated This circumstance we have considered the more at large as being the most especial difference whereby the Sundays service was distinguished from the week-days worship in these present times whereof we write And yet the difference was not such that it was proper to the Lords day only but if it were a badge of honour communicated unto more than forty other days Of which more anon But being it was an Ecclesiastical and occasional custom the Church which first ordained it let it fall again by the same Authority In the third Century the first we meet with is Tertullian who flourished in the very first beginnings of it by whom this day is called by three several names For first he calls it Dies solis Sunday as commonly we now call it and saith that they did dedicate the same unto mirth and gladness not to devotion altogether Diem solis laetitiae indulgemus Cap. 16. in his Apologetick The same name is used by Justin Martyr in the passages before remembred partly because being to write to an Heathen Magistrate it had not been so proper to call it by the name of the Lords day which name they knew not and partly that delivering the form and substance of their service done upon that day they might the better quit themselves from being worshippers of the Sun as the Gentiles thought For by their meetings on this
specified and to the course whereof the Council held at Orleans gave so wise a check but by imputing such Calamities as had fallen amongst them to the neglect or ill observance of this day A flash of Lightning or some other fire from Heaven as it was conceived had on the Lords day made great spoil of men and houses in the City of Limoges This Gregory of Tours who lived about the end of this sixth Century pronounceth to have fallen upon them ob diei dominici injuriam because some of them used to work upon the Sunday But how could he tell that or who made him acquainted with Gods secret counsels Had Gregory been Bishop of Limoges as he was of Tours it may be Limoges might have scaped so fierce a censure and only Tours have suffered in it For presently he adds in Turonico vero nonnulli ab hoc igne sed non die dominico adusti sunt that even in Tours it self many had perished by the self same fire but being it fell not on the Sunday as it did at Limoges therefore that misery fell on them for some other reason Indeed he tells us of this day that being it was the day whereon God made the light and after was the witness of our Saviours resurrection Ideo omni fide à Christianis observari debet ne fiat in eo omne opus publicum therefore it was to be observed of every Christian no manner of publick business to be done upon it A piece of new Divinity and never heard of till this Age nor in any afterwards Not heard of till this Age but in this it was For in the 24th year of Gunthram King of the Burgundians Conc. Matisonens 11. Can. 1. Anno 588. there was a Council called at Mascon a Town situate in the Duchy of Burgundy as we now distinguish it wherein were present Priscus Evantius Praetextatus and many other reverend and learned Prelates They taking into consideration how much the Lords day was of late neglected for remedy thereof ordained that it should be observed more carefully for the times to come Which Canon I shall therefore set down at large because it hath been often produced as a principal ground of those precise observances which some amongst us have endeavoured to force upon the consciences of weak and ignorant men It is as followeth Videmus populum Christianum temerario more diem dominicum contemptui tradere c. It is observed that Christian people do very rashly slight and neglect the Lords day giving themselves thereon as on other days to continual labours c. Therefore let every Christian in case be carry not that name in vain give ear to our instruction knowing that we have care that you should do well as well as power to bridle you that you do not ill It followeth Custodite diem dominicum qui nos denuo peperit c. Keep the Lords day the day of our new birth whereon we were delivered from the snares of sin Let no man meddle in litigious Controversies or deal in Actions or Law-suits or put himself at all upon such an exigent that needs he must prepare his Oxen for their daily work but exercise your selves in Hymns and singing Praises unto God being intent thereon both in mind and body If any have a Church at hand let him to unto it and there pour forth his soul in tears and prayers his eyes and hands being all that day lifted up to God It is the everlasting day of rest insinuated to us under the shadow of the seventh day or Sabbath in the Law and the Prophets and therefore it is very meet that we should celebrate this day with one accord whereon we have been made what at first we were not Let us then offer unto God our free and voluntary service by those great goodness we are freed from the Goal of errour not that the Lord exacts it of us that we should celebrate this day in a corporal abstinence or rest from labour who only looks that we do yield obedience to his holy will by which contemning earthly things he may conduct us to the heavens of his infinite mercy However if any man shall set at nought this our exhortation be he assured that God shall punish him as he hath deserved and that he shall be also subject unto the censures of the Church In case he be a Lawyer he shall lose his cause if that he be an Husbandman or Servant he shall be corporally punished for it but if a Clergy-man or Monk he shall be six months separated from the Congregation Add here that two years after this being the second year of the second Clotaire King of France there was a Synod holden at Auxerre a Town of Champagne concilium Antisiodorense in the Latin Writers wherein in it was decreed as in this of Mascon Non licet die dominico boves jungere vel alia opera exercere no man should be suffered to yoak his Oxen or do any manner of work upon the Sunday This is the Canon so much urged I mean that of Mascon to prove that we must spend the Lords day wholly in religious exercises and that there is no part thereof which is to be imployed unto other uses But there are many things to be considered before we yield unto this Canon or the authority thereof some of them being of that nature that those who most insist upon it must be fain to traverse For first it was contrived of purpose with so great a strictness to meet the better with those men which so extreamly had neglected that sacred day A stick that bends too much one way cannot be brought to any straightness till it be bent as much the other This Synod secondly was Provincial only and therefore can oblige none other but those for whom it was intended or such who after did submit unto it by taking it into their Canon Nor will some part thereof be approved by them who most stand upon it none being bound hereby to repair to Church to magnifie the name of God in the Congregation but such as have some Church at hand and what will then become of those that have a mile two three or more to their Parish Churches and no Chappel neither they are permitted by the Canon to abide at home As for Religious duties here are none expressed as proper for the Congregation but Psalms and Hymns and singing Praise unto the Lord and pouring forth our souls unto him in tears and prayers and then what shall we do for Preaching for Preaching of the Word which we so much call for Besides King Gunthram on whose Authority this Council met in his Confirmatory Letters doth extend this Canon as well unto the other Holy-days as unto the Sunday commanding all his Subjects Vigore hujus decreti definitionis generalis by vertue of his present mandate that on the Lords day vel in quibuscunque alijs solennitatibus and all solemn
as Sundays whereby we see the Church had no less care of one than of the other And so indeed it had not in this alone but in all things else the Holy days as we now distinguish them being in most points equal to the Sunday and in some superiour Leo the Emperiour by his Edict shut up the Theater and the Cirque or shew-place on the Lords day The like is willed expresly in the sixth general Council holden at Constantinople Can. 66. Anno 692. for the whole Easter week Nequaquam ergo his diebus equorum cursus vel aliquod publicum fiat spectacum so the Canon hath it The Emperour Charles restrained the Husbandman and the Tradesman from following their usual work on the Lords day The Council of Melun doth the same for the said Easter week and in more particulars it being ordered by that Synod that men forbear Can. 77. during the time above remembred ab omni opere rurali fabrili carpentario gynaecaeo caementario pictorio venatorio forensi mercatorio audientiali ac sacramentis exigendis from Husbandry the craft of Smiths and Carpenters from Needle-work Cementing Painting Hunting Pleadings Merchandize casting of Accounts and from taking Oaths That Benedictines had but three mess of Pottage upon other days die vero dominico in praecipuis festivitatibus but on the Lords day and the principal Festivals a fourth was added as saith Theodomare the Abbot in an Epistle to Charles the Great Law-suits and Courts of Judgment were to be laid aside and quite shut up on the Lords day as many Emperours and Councils had determined severally The Council held at Friburg Anno 895. did resolve the samne of Holy days or Saints days and the time of Lent Nullusomnino secularis diebus dominicis vel Sanctorum in Festis Conc. Fribâ—riens Can. 26. seu Quadragesimae aut jejuniorum placitum habere sed nec populum illo praesumat coercere as the Canon goeth The very same with that of the Council of Erford Anno 932. cap. 2. But what need private and particular Synods be produced as witnesses herein when we have Emperours Popes and Patriarchs that affirm the same Ap. Balsam tit 7. cap. 1. To take them in the order in which they lived Photius the Patriarch of Constantinople Anno 858. thus reckoneth up the Festivals of especial note viz. Seven days before Easter and seven days after Christmas Epiphanie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Feasts of the Apostles and the Lords day And then he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that on those days they neither suffer publick shews nor Courts of Justice Emanuel Comnenus next Ap. Balsam Emperour of Constantinople Anno 1174. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We do ordain saith he that these days following be exempt from labour viz. the Nativity of the Virgin Mary Holy-rood day and so he reckoneth all the rest in those parts observed together with all the Sundays in the year and that in them there be not any access to the seats of judgment Lib. 2 tit 〈◊〉 feriis cap. 5. The like Pope Gregory the ninth Anno 1228. determineth in the Decretal where numbring up the Holy-days he concludes at last that neither any process hold nor sentence be in force pronounced on any of those days though both parts mutually should consent upon it Consentientibus etiam partibus nec processus habitus teneat nec sententia quam contingit diebus hujusmodi promulgari So the Law resolves it Now lest the feast of Whitsontide might not have some respect as well as Easter it was determined in the Council held at Engelheim Anno 948. that Munday Tuesday Wednesday in the Whitsun-week Cap. 6. non minus quam dies dominicus solenniter honorentur should no less solemnly be observed than the Lords day was So when that Otho Bishop of Bamberg had planted the faith of Christ in Pomerania and was to give account thereof to the Pope then being Urspergens Chronic. he certifieth him by his Letters Anno 1124. that having Christned them and built them Churches he left them three injunctions for their Christian carriage First that they eat no flesh on Fridays Secondly that they rest the Lords day ab omni opere malo from every evil work repairing to the Church for religious duties And thirdly Sanctorum solennitates cum vigiliis omni diligentia observent that they keep carefully the Saints days with the Eves attendant So that in all these outward matters we find fair equality save that in one respect the principal Festivals had preheminence above the Sunday For whereas Fishermen were permitted by the Decretal of Pope Alexander the third as before was said diebus dominicis aliis festis on the Lords day and other Holy-days to fish for Herring in some cases there was a special exception of the greater Festivals praeterquam in majoribus anni solennitatibus as the other was But not to deal in generals only Isidore Arch-bishop of Sevil in the beginning of the seventh Century making a Catalogue of the principal Festivals begins his list with Easter and ends it with the Lords day as before we noted in the fifth Section of this Chapter Now lest it should be thought that in sacred matters and points of substance the other Holy-days wee not as much regarded as the Lords day was The Council held at Mentz Anno 813. did appoint it thus that it the Bishop were infirm or not at home Non desit tamen diebus dominicis festivitatibus qui verbum Dei praedicet juxta quod populus intelligat yet there should still be some to preach Gods Word unto the People according unto their capacities both on the Lords day and the other Festivals Indeed why should not both be observed alike the Saints days being dedicated unto God as the Lords day is and standing both of them on the same authority on the authority of the Church for the particular Institution on the authority of Gods Law for the general Warrant It was commanded by the Lord and written in the heart of man by the pen of nature that certain times should be appointed for Gods publick worship the choicing of the times was left to the Churches power and she designed the Saints days as she did the Lords both his and both allotted to his service only This made Saint Bernard ground them all the Lords day and the other Holy-days on the fourth Commandment the third in the Account of the Church of Rome Serm. 3. Super Salve reg Spirituale obsequium Deo praebetur in observantia sanctarum solennitatum unde tertium praeceptum contexitur Observa diem Sabbati i. e. in sacris feriis te exerce So S. Bernard in his third Sermon Super salve Regina The Lords days and the Holy-days or Saints days being of so near a kin we must next see what care was taken by the Church in these present ages for hallowing them unto the Lord. The
the offering of the Paschal Lamb his Death and Passion Sic Sabbatismus ille requiem annunciabat quae post hanc vitam posita â—â—t fanctis â—lectis so did the Sabbath signifie that eternal rest which after this life is provided for the Saints and elect of God And more than this Spiritualis homo non uno die hebdomadis sed omni tempore Sabbatizare satagit the true spiritual man keeps not his Subbath once a week but at all times whatever every hour and minute What then would he have no day set apart for Gods publick service no but not the Sabbath Because saith he we are not to rejoyce in this world that perisheth but in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection therefore we ought not rest the seventh day in sloth and idleness But we dispose our selves to prayers and hearing of the Word of God upon the first day of the week on the which Christ rose cum summa cura providentes ut tam illo quam caeteris diebus feriati semper simus à servili opere peccati Provided always that upon that and all days else we keep our selves free from the servile Acts of sin This was the Sabbath which they principally looked for in this present life never applying of that name to the Lords day in any of those monuments of Learning they have left behind them The first who ever used it to denote the Lords day the first that I have met with in all this search is one Petrus Alfonsus he lived about the times that Rupertus did who calls the Lords day by the name of the Christian Sabbath Dies domnica dies viz. resurrectionis quae suae salvationis causa extitit Christianorum sabbatum est But this no otherwise to be construed than by Analogy and resemblance no otherwise than the Feast of Easter is called the Christian Passeover As for the Saturday the old Sabbath day though it continued not a Sabbath yet it was still held in an high esteem in the Eastern Churches counted a festival day or at least no fast and honoured with the meetings of the Congregation In reference to the first we find how it was charged on the Church of Rome by the sixth Council in Constantinople Anno 692. that in the holy time of Lent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they used to fast the Saturday which was directly contrary to the Canons of the Apostles as they there alledge This also was objected by Photius Patriarch of Constantinople against Pope Nicolas of Rome Anno 867. and after that by Michael of Constantinople against Leo the ninth Anno 1053. which plainly shews that in the Eastern Churches they observed it otherwise And in relation to the other Curopalat we find that whereas in the principal Church of Constantinople the holy Sacrament was celebrated only on the greater feasts as also on the Saturdays and the Sundays Sabbatis dominicis and not on other days as at Rome it was Constantine surnamed Mononiachus Anno 1054 enriched it with revenue and bestowed much fair plate upon it that so they might be able every day to perform that office Which proves sufficiently that Saturday was always one in all publick duties and that it kept even pace with Sunday But it was otherwise of old in the Church of Rome where they did laborare jejunare as Humbertus saith in his defence of Leo the ninth against Nicetas And this with little opposition or interruption save that which had been made in the City of Rome in the beginning of the seventh Century and was soon crushed by Gregory then Bishop there as before we noted And howsoever Vrban of that name the second Hect. Boet. hist l. 22. did consecrate it to the weekly service of the blessEd Virgin and instituted in the Council held at Clermont Anno 1095. that our Ladies office Officium B. Mariae should be said upon it Eandemque Sabbato quoque die praecipua devotione populum Christianum colere debere and that upon that day all Christian folk should worship her with their best devotions yet it continued still as before it was a day of fasting and of working So that in all this time in 1200 years we have found no Sabbath nor do we think to meet with any in the times that follow either amongst the Schoolmen or amongst the Protestants which next shall come upon the Stage CHAP. VI. What is the judgment of the Schoolmen and of the Protestants and what the practice of those Churches in this Lords day business 1. That in the judgment of the Schoolmen the keeping of one day in seven is not the moral part of the fourth Commandment 2. As also that the Lords day is not founded on Divine Authority but the Authority of the Church 3. A Catalogue of the Holy-days drawn up in the Council of Lyons and the new Doctrine of the Schools touching the native sanctity of the Holy-days 4. In what estate the Lords day stood in matter of restraint from labour at the reformation 5. The Reformators find great fault both with the said new doctrine and restraints from labour 6. That in the judgment of the Protestant Divines the keeping of one day in seven is not the moral part of the fourth Commandment 7. As that the Lords day hath no other ground on which to stand than the Authority of the Church 8. And that the Church hath power to change the day and to transfer it to some other 9. What is the practice of all Churches the Roman Lutheran and Calvinian chiefly in matter of Devotion rest from labour and sufferance of lawful pleasures 10. Dancing cried down by Calvin and the French Churches not in relation to the Lords day but the sport it self 11. In what estate the Lords day stands in the Eastern Churches and that the Saturday is no less esteemed of by the Ethiopians than the said Lords day WE are now come unto an Age wherein the Learning of the world began to make a different shew from what it did to such a period of time in which was made the greatest alteration in the whole fabrick of the Church that ever any time could speak of The Schoolmen who sprung up in the beginning of the thirteenth Age contracted Learning which before was diffused and scattered into fine subtilties and distinctions the Protestants in the beginning of the sixteenth endeavouring to destroy those buildings which with such diligence and curiosity had been erected by the Schoolmen though they consented well enough in the present business so far as it concern'd the Institution either of the Lords day or the Sabbath Of these and what they taught and did in reference to the point in hand we are now to speak taking along with us such passages of especial note as hapned in the Christian world by which we may learn any thing that concerns our business And first beginning with the Schoolmen they tell us generally of the Sabbath that
it was a Ceremony and that the fourth Commandment is of a different nature from the other nine That whereas all the other precepts of the Decalogue are simply moral the fourth which is the third in their account 22. qu. 122. art 4. ad 1. is partly moral partly ceremonial Morale quidem quantum ad hoc quod homo deputet aliquod tempus vitae suae ad vacandum divinis c. Moral it is in this regard that men must set apart some particular time for Gods publick service it being natural to man to destinate particular times to particular actions as for his dinner for his sleep and such other actions Sed in quantum in hoc praecepto determinatur speciale tempus in s gnum creationis mundi sic est praeceptum ceremoniale But inasmuch as that there is a day appointed in the Law it self in token of Gods rest and the worlds creation in that respect the Law is ceremonial and ceremonial too they make it in reference to the Allegory our Saviours resting in the grave that day and in relation to the Analogical meaning of it as it prefigureth our eternal rest in the Heaven of glories Finally they conclude of the fourth Commandment that it is placed in the Decalogue in quantum est praeceptum morale non in quantum est ceremoniale only so far forth as it is moral and not as ceremonial that is that we are bound by the fourth Commandment to destinate some time to Gods publick service which is simply moral but not the Seventh day which is plainly ceremonial Aquinas so resolves it for all the rest In Gr at de Sabbato his judgment in this point if Doctor Prideaux note be true as I have no reason but to think so being universally embraced and followed by all the Schoolmen of what sect soever So that in him we have them all all of them consonant in this point to make up the Harmony however dissonant enough in many others But that this consent may appear the more full and perfect we will take notice of two others men famous in the Schools and eminent for the times in which they lived First Bonaventure who lived in the same time with Aquinas and died the same year with him which was 1274. hath determined thus Serm. de decem praecept Imelligendum est quod praeceptum illud habet aliquid quod est mere morale c. It is to be conceived saith he that in the fourth Commandment there is something which is simply moral something again that is plainly ceremonial and something mixt The sanctifying of a day is Moral the sanctifying of a Seventh day Ceremonial rest from the works of labour being mixt of both Quod praecipit Deus sanctificationem est Praeceptum morale Est in hoc praecepto aliquid ceremoniale ut figuratio dici septimae Item continetur aliquid quod est partim morale partim ceremoniale ut cessatio ab operibus Lastly In Exod. 20. qu. 11. Tostatus Bishop of Avila in Spain hath resolved the same aliquid est in eo juris naturalis aliquid legalis that in the fourth Commandment there is something Natural and something Legal that it is partly Moral and partly Ceremonial Naturale est quod dum Deum colimus ab aliis abstineamus c. Moral and Natural it is that for the time we worship God we do abstain from every thing of what kind soever which may divert our thoughts from that holy action But that we should design in every week one day unto that employment and that the whole day be thereto appointed and that in all that day a man shall do no manner of work those things he reckoneth there to be Ceremonial So for the Lords day it is thus determined by Aquinas that it depends on the authority of the Church the custom and consent of Gods faithful servants 2.20 qu. 122. art 4. ad 4. and not on any obligation laid upon us by the fourth Commandment Diei dominicae observantia in nova lege succedit observantiae sabbati non ex vi praecepti legis sed ex constitutione Ecclesiae consuetudine populi Christiani What followeth thereupon Et ideo non est ita arcta prohibitio operandi in die dominica sicut in die Sabbati Therefore saith he the prohibition of doing no work on the Lords day is not so rigorous and severe as upon the Sabbath many things being licensed on the one which were forbidden on the other as dressing meat and others of that kind and nature And not so only but he gives us a dispensatur facilius in nova lege an easier hope of dispensation under the Gospel in case upon necessity we meddle with prohibited labours than possibly could have been gotten under the Law The like Tostatus tells us though in different words save that he doth extend the prohibiton as well to all the Feasts of the Old Testament as all the Holy days of the New and neither to the Sabbath nor the Lords day only In veteri lege major fuit strictio in observatione festorum In Exod 20. qu. 13. quam in nova lege How so In omnibus enim festivitatibus nostris quantaecunque sint c. Because saith he in all our Festivals how great soever whether they be the Lords days or the feasts of Easter or any of the higher rank it is permitted to dress meat and to kindle fire c. As for the grounds whereon they stood he makes this difference between them that the Jews Sabbath had its warrant from Divine commandment but that the Lords day though it came in the place thereof is founded only on Ecclesiastical constitution Colebatur Sabbatum ex mandato Dei cujus loco successit dies dominica In Matth 23. qu. 148. tamen manifestum est quod observatio diei dominicae non est de jure divino sed de jure humano Canonico This is plain enough and this he proves because the Church hath still a power mutare illum diem vel totaliter tollere either to change the day or take it utterly away and to dispense touching the keeping of the same which possibly it neither could nor ought to do were the Lords day of any other institution than the Churches only They only have the power to repeal a Law which had power to make it Qui habet institutionem habet destitutionem as is the Bishops plea in a Quare Impedit As for the first of these two powers that by the Church the day may be transferred and abrogated Suarez hath thus distinguished in it verum id esse absolute non practice that is as I conceive his meaning that such a power is absolutely in the Church though not convenient now to be put in practice According unto that of St. Paul which probably was the ground of the distinction All things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient This is
the general tendry of the Roman Schools that which is publickly avowed and made good amongst them And howsoever Petrus de Anchorana and Nicholas Abbat of Patermo two learned Canonists as also Angelus de Clavasio and Silvester de Prierats two as learned Casuists seem to defend the institution of the Lords day to have its ground and warrant on divine Authority yet did the general current of the Schools and of the Canonists also run the other way And in that current still it holds the Jesuits and most learned men in the Church of Rome following the general and received opinion of the Schoolmen whereof see Bellarm. de cultu Sanct. l. 3. c. 11. Estius in 3. Sent. dist 37. Sect. 13. but especially Agsorius in his Institut Moral part second cap. 2. who gives us an whole Catalogue or them which hold the Lords day to be founded only on the authority of the Church Touching the other power the power of Dispensation there is not any thing more certain than that the Church both may and doth dispense with such as have therein offended against her Canons The Canons in themselves do profess as much there being many casus reservati as before we said expressed particularly in those Laws and constitutions which have been made about the keeping of this day and the other Festivals wherein a dispensation lieth if we disobey them Many of these were specified in the former Ages and some occur in these whereof now we write It pleased Pope Gregory the ninth Decretal l. 2. tit de feriis cap. 5. Anno 1228. to inhibit all contentious Suits on the Lords day and the other Festivals and to inhibit them so far that judgment given on any of them should be counted void Etiam consentientibus partibus although both parties were consenting Yet was it with this clause or reservation nisi vel necessitas urgeat vel pietas suadeat unless necessity inforced or piety persuaded that it should be done So in a Synod holden in Valladolit apud vallem Oleti in the parts of Spain Concil Sabiness deâ—feriis Anno 1322. a general restraint was ratified that had been formerly in force quod nullus in diebus dominicis festivis agros colere audeat aut manualia artificia exercere praesitmat that none should henceforth follow Husbandry or exercise himself in mechanick Trades upon the Lords day or the other Holy days Yet was it with the same Proviso nisi urgente necessitate vel evidentis pietatis causa unless upon necessity or apparent piety or charity in each of which he might have licence from the Priest his own Parish-Priest to attend his business Where still observe that the restraint was no less peremptory on the other Holy days than on the Lords day These Holy days as they were named particularly in Pope Gregories Decretal so was a perfect list made of them in the Synod of Lyons â—e consecrat distinct 3. c. 1. Anno 1244. which being celebrated with a great concourse of people from all parts of Christendom the Canons and decrees thereof began forthwith to find a general admittance The Holy days allowed of there were these that follow viz. the feast of Christs nativity St. Stephen St John the Evangelist the Innocents St. Silvâ—ster the Circumcision of our Lord the Epiphany Easter together with the week precedent and the week succeeding the three days in Rogation week the day of Christs Ascension Whitsunday with the two days after St. John the Baptist the feasts of all the twelve Apostles all the festivities of our Lady St. Lawrence all the Lords days in the year St. Michael the Archangel All Saints St. Martins the Wakes or dedication of particular Churches together with the Feasts of such topical or local Saints which some particular people had been pleased to honour with a day particular amongst themselves On these and every one of them the people were restrained as before was said from many several kinds of work on pain of Ecclesiastical censures to be laid on them which did offend unless on some emergent causes either of charity or necessity they were dispensed with for so doing In other of the Festivals which had not yet attained to so great an height the Council thought not fit perhaps by reason of their numbers that men should be restrained from labour as neither that they should be incouraged to it but left them to themselves to bestow those times as might stand best with their affairs and the Common wealth For so the Synod did determine Reliquis festivitatibus quae per annum sunt non esse plebem cogendam ad feriandum sed nec probibendam And in this state things stood a long time together there being none that proferd opposition in reference to these restraints from labour on the greater Festivals though some there were that thought the Festivals too many on which those burden of restraints had unadvisedly been imposed on the common people Nicholas de Clemangis complained much as of some other abuses in the Church so of the multitude of Holy days Ap. Hospin cap. â— de fest 〈◊〉 which had of late times been brought into it And Pet. de Aliaco Cardinal of Cambray in a Discourse by him exhibited to the Council of Constance made publick suit unto the Fathers there assembled that there might a stop be put in that kind hereafter as also that excepting Sundays and the greater Festivals liceret operari post auditum officium it might be lawful for the people after the end of Divine Service to attend their businesses the poor especially having little time enough on the working days ad vitae necessaria procuranda to get their livings But these were only the expressions of well wishing men The Popes were otherwise resolved and did not only keep the Holy days which they found established in the same state in which they found them but added others daily as they saw occasion At last it came unto that pass by reason of that rigorous and exact kind of rest which by the Canon Law had been fastned on them that both the Lords day and the other Festivals were accounted Holy not in relation to the use made of them or to the holy actions done on them in the honour of God but in and of themselves considered they were avowed to be vere aliis sanctiores Bell arm de cultu S. l. 3. c. 10. truly and properly invested with a greater sanctity than the other days Yea so far did they go at last that it is publickly maintained in the Schools of Rome non sublatam esse sed mutatam tantum in novo Testamento significationem discretionem dierum that the difference of days and times and the mysterious significations of the same which had before been used in the Jewish Church was not abolished but only changed in the Church of Christ Aquinas did first lead this Dance in fitting every legal Festival with some that were observed
Hom. 131. Gualter more generally that the Christians first assembled on the Sabbath day as being then most famous and so most in use but when the Churches were augmented preximus à sabbato dies rebus sacris destinatus the next day after the Sabbath was designed to those holy uses If not before then certainly not so commanded by our Saviour Christ and if designed only then not enjoyned by the Apostles Apoc. 1.10 Yea Beza though herein he differ from his Master Calvin and makes the Lords day meetings to be Apostolicae verae divinae traditionis to be indeed of Apostolical and divine Tradition yet being a Tradition only although Apostolical it is no Commandment And more than that he tells us in another place that from St. Pauls preaching at Troas and from the Text. In Act. 20. 1 Corinth 16.2 non inepte colligi it may be gathered not unfitly that then the Christians were accustomed to meet that day the ceremony of the Jewish Sabbath beginning by degrees to vanish But sure the custom of the people makes no divine Traditions and such conclusions as not unfitly may be gathered from the Text are not Text it self Others there be who attribute the changing of the day to the Apostles not to their precept but their practice So Mercer Apostoli in Dominicum converterunt In Gen. the Apostles changed the Sabbath to the Lords day in Gen. 2. Paraeus attributes the same Apostolicae Ecclesiae unto the Apostolical Church or Church in the Apostles time quomodo autem facta sit haec mutatio in sacris liberis expressum non habemus but how by what authority such a change was made is not delivered in the Scripture In Thesib p. 733. And John Cuchlinus though he call it consuetudinem Apostolicam an Apostolical custom yet he is peremptory that the Apostles gave no such Commandment Apostolos praeceptum reliquisse constanter negamus So Simler calls it only consuetudinem tempore Apostolorum receptam a custom taken up in the Apostles time And so Hospinian De sestis Chr. p. 24. although saith he it be apparent that the Lords day was celebrated in the place of the Jewish Sabbath even in the times of the Apostles non invenitur tamen vel Apostolos vel alios lege aliqua praecepto observationem ejus instituisse yet find we not that either they or any other did institute the keeping of the same by any law or precept but left it free In 4. praecept Thus Zanchius nullibi legimus Apostolos c. We do not read saith he that the Apostles commanded any to observe this day We only read what they and others did upon it liberum ergo reliquerunt which is an argument that they left it to the Churches power To those add Vrsin in his Exposition of the fourth Commandment liberum Ecclesiae reliquit alios dies eligere In Catech. Palat. and that the Church made choice of this in honour of our Saviours Resurrection Aretius in his Common-places Christiani in Dominicum transtulerunt Gomarus and Ryvet in the Tracts before remembred Both which have also there determined that in the chusing of this day the Church did exercise as well her Wisdom as her Freedom her freedom being not obliged unto any day by the Law of God her wisdom ne majori mutatione Judaeos offenderet that by so small an alteration she might the less offend the Jews who were then considerable As for the Lutheran Divines it is affirmed by Doctor bound that for the most part they ascribe too much unto the liberty of the Church in appointing days for the assembly of the people which is plain confession But for particulars Brentius as Doctor Prideaux tells us calls it civilem institutionem a civil institution and no commandment of the Gospel which is no more indeed than what is elsewhere said by Calvin when he accounts no otherwise thereof than ut remedium retinendo ordini necessarium as a fit way to retain order in the Church And sure I am Chemnitius tells us that the Apostles did not impose the keeping of this day as necessary upon the consciences of Gods people by any Law or Precept whatsoever sed libera fuit observatio ordinis gratia but that for orders sake it had been voluntarily used amongst them of their own accord Thus have we proved that by the Doctrine of the Protestants of what side soever and those of greatest credit in the several Churches eighteen by name and all the Lutherans in general of the same opinion that the Lords day is of no other institution than the authority of the Church Which proved the last of the three Theses that still the Church hath power to change the day and to transfer it to some other will follow of it self on the former grounds the Protestant Doctors before remembred in saying that the Church did institute the Lords day as we see they do confessing tacitely that still the Church hath power to change it Nor do they tacitely confess it as if they were affraid to speak it out but some of them in plain terms affirm it as a certain Truth Zuinglius the first Reformer of the Switzers hath resolved it so in his Discourse against one Valentine Gentilis a new Arian Heretick Audi mi Valentine quibus modis rationibus sabbatum ceremoniale reddatur Tom. 1. p. 254. ◠Harken now Valentine by what ways and means the Sabbath may be made a ceremony if either we observe that day which the Jews once did or think the Lords day so affixed unto any time ut nefas sit illum in aliud tempus transferre that we conceive it an impiety it should be changed unto another on which as well as upon that we may not rest from labour and harken to the Word of God if perhaps such necessity should be this would indeed make it become a ceremony Nothing can be more plain than this Yet Calvin is as plain when he professeth that he regardeth not so much the Number of seven ut ejus servituti Ecclesias astringeret as to enthral the Church unto it Sure I am Doctor Prideaux reckoneth him as one of them who teach us that the Church hath power to change the day and to transfer it to some other and that John Barclaie makes report In orat de Sab. how once he had a Consultation de transferenda Dominica in feriam quintam of altering the Lords day unto the Thursday Bucer affirms as much as touching the Authority and so doth Bullinger and Brentius Vrsine and Chemnitius as Doctor Prideaux hath observed Of Bullinger Bucer Brentius I have nought to say because the places are not cited but take it as I think I may upon his credit But for Chemnitius he saith often that it is libera observatio a voluntary observation that it is an especial part of our Christian liberty not to be tied to Days and Times in matters which
themselves to prayer and Gods publick service Particularly Fitz-Herbert tells us that no plea shall be holden Quindena Paschae Nat. Brevium fol. 17. 1 Eli◠p. 168. because it is always on the sunday but it shall be holden crastino quindenae paschae on the morrow after So Justice Dyer hath resolved that if a Writ of scire facias out of the Common-pleas bear Test on a Sunday it is an errour because that day is not dies juridicus in Banco And so it is agreed amongst them that on a Fine levied with Proclamations according to the Statute of King Henry VII if any of the Proclamations be made on the Lords day all of them are to be accounted erroneous Acts. But to return unto the Canon where before we left however that Archbishop Langton formerly and Islip at the present time had made these several restraints from all servile labours yet they were far enough from entertaining any Jewish fancy The Canon last remembred that of Simon Islip doth express as much But more particularly and punctually we may find what was the judgment of these times in a full declaration of the same in a Synod at Lambeth what time John Peckham was Archbishop which was in Anno 1280. Lindw l. 1. tit de offic Archipresb It was thus determined Sciendum est quod obligatio ad feriandum in Sabbato legali expiravit omnino c. It is to be understood that all manner of obligation of resting on the legal Sabbath as was required in the Old Testament is utterly expired with the other ceremonies And it is now sufficient in the New Testament to attend Gods service upon the Lords days and the other Holy days ad hoc Ecclesiastica authoritate deputatis appointed by the Church to that end and purpose The manner of sanctifying all which days non est sumendus à superstitione Judaica sed à Canonicis institutis is not to be derived from any Jewish superstition but from the Canons of the Church This was exact and plain enough and this was constantly the doctrine of the Church of England Joannes de Burgo who lived about the end of K. Henry VI. doth almost word for word resolve it so in his Pupilla oculi part 10. c. 11. D. Yet find we not in these restraints that Marketting had been forbidden either on the Lords day or the other Holy days and indeed it was not that came in afterwards by degrees partly by Statutes of the Realm partly by Canons of the Church not till all Nations else had long laid them down For in the 28 of King Edward III. cap 14. it was accorded and established that shewing of Wools shall be made at the Stapie every day of the week except the Sunday and the solemn Feasts in the year This was the first restraint in this kind with us here in England and this gives no more priviledge to the Lords day than the solemn Festivals Antiq. Brit. in Stafford Nor was there more done in it for almost an hundred years not till the time of Henry VI. Anno 1444. what time Archbishop Stafford decreed throughout his Province ut nundina emporia in Ecclesiis aut Coemiteriis diebusque Dominicis atque Festis praeterquam tempore messis non teneantur that Fairs and Markets should no more be kept in Churches and Church-yards or on the Lords days or the other Holy-days except in time of Harvest only If in that time they might be suffered then certainly in themselves they were not unlawful on any other further than as prohibited by the higher powers Now that which the Archbishop had decreed throughout his Province Tabians Chronicle Catworth Lord Mayor of London attempted to exceed within that City For in this year saith Fabian Anno 1444. an Act was made by Authority of the Common Council of London that upon the Sunday should no manner of thing within the franchise of the City be bought or sold neither Victual nor other thing nor no Artificer should bring his Ware unto any man to be worn or occupied that day as Taylers Garments and Cordwayners Shooes and so likewise all other occupations But then it followeth in the story the which Ordinance held but a while enough to shew by the success how ill it doth agree with a Lord Mayor to deal in things about the Sabbath Afterwards in the year 1451. which was the 28 of this Henries Reign it pleased the King in Parliament to ratifie what before was ordered by that Archbishop in this form that followeth 28. H. 6. c. 16. Considering the abominable injuries and effences done to Almigvty God and to his Saints always ayders and finguler affistants in our necessities by the necasion of Fairs and Marhets upon their high and principal Feasts as in the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord. in the day of Corpus Christi in the day of Whitsunday Trinity Sunday and other Sundays as also in the high Feast of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady the day of all Saints and on Good Friday accustomably and miserably holden and used in the Keaim of England c. our Soveraign Lord the King c. hath ordained that all manner of Fairs and Markets on the said principal Feasts and Sundays and Good Friday shall clearly cease from all shewing of any Goods and Merchandises necessary Victual only ercept which yet was more than was allowed in the City-Act upon pain of forfeiture of all the goods aforesaid to the Lord of the franchise or liverty where such goods be or shall be she wed contrary to this Ordinance the four Sundays in Harvest except Which clause or reservation sheweth plainly that the things before prohibited were not esteemed unlawful in themselves as also that this Law was made in confirmation of the former order of the Archbishop as before was said Now on this Law I find two resolutions made by my Lords the Judges First Justice Brian in the 12th of King Edward the fourth declared that no sale made upon a Sunday though in a Fair or Market-overt for Markets as it seemeth were not then quite laid down though by Law prohibited shall be a good sale to alter the property of the goods And Ploydon in the time of Queen Elizabeth was of opinion Daltons Justice cap. 27. that the Lord of any Fair or Market kept upon the Sunday contrary to the Statute may therefore be indicted for the King or Queen either at the Assizes or general Goal delivery or Quarter Sessions within that County If so in case such Lord may be Endicted for any Fair or Market kept upon the sunday as being contrary to the Statute then by the same reason may he be Endicted for any Fair or Market kept on any of the other Holy-days in that Statute mentioned Nor staid it here For in the 1465. which was the fourth year of King Edward IV. it pleased the King in Parliament to Enact as followeth Our Soveraign Lord the
to the judgment of the Protestants before remembred 2. The Lords day and the other Holy days confessed by all this Kingdom in the Court of Parliament to have no other ground than the authority of the Church 3. The meaning and occasion of that clause in the Common-Prayer book Lord have mercy upon us c. repeated at the end of the fourth Commandment 4. That by the Queens Injunctions and the first Parliament of her Keign the Lords day was not meant for a Sabbath day 5. The doctrine in the Homilies delivered about the Lords day and the Sabbath 6. The sum and substance of that Homily and that it makes not any thing for a Lords day Sabbath 7. The first original of the New Sabbath Speculations in this Church of England by whom and for what cause invented 8. Strange and most monstrous Paradoxes preached on occasion of the former doctrines and of the other effects thereof 9. What care was taken of the Lords day in King James his Reign the spreading of the doctrines and of the Articles of Ireland 10. The Jewish Sabbath set on foot and of King James his declaration about lawful sports on the Lords day 11. What Tracts were writ and published in that Princes time in opposition to the doctrines before remembred 12. In what estate the Lords day and the other Holy days have stood in Scotland since the reformation of Religion in that Kingdom 13. Statutes about the Lords day made by our present Sovereign and the misconstruing of the same His Majesty reviveth and enlargeth the Declaration of King James 14. An exhortation to obedience unto his Majesties most Christian purpose concludes this History THUS are we safely come to these present times the times of Reformation wherein whatever had been taught or done in the former days was publickly brought unto the test and if not well approved of layed aside either as unprofitable or plainly hurtful So dealt the Reformators of the church of England as with other things with that which we have now in hand the Lords day and the other Holy days keeping the days as many of them as were thought convenient for the advancement of true godliness and increase of piety but paring off those superstitious conceits and matters of opinion which had been entertained about them But first before we come to this we will by way of preparation lay down the judgments of some men in the present point men of good quality in their times and such as were content to be made a sacrifice in the common Cause Of these I shall take notice of three particularly according to the several times in the which they lived And first we will begin with Master Frith who suffered in the year 1533. who in his declaration of Baptism thus declares himself Our forefathers saith he Page 96. which were in the beginning of the Church did abrogate the Sabbath to the intent that men might have an ensample of Christian liberty c. Howbeith because it was necessary that a day should be reserved in which the people should come together to hear the Word of God they ordained instead of the Sabbath which was Saturday the next day following which is Sunday And although they might have kept the Saturday with the Jew as a thing indifferent yet they did much better Some three years after him Anno 1536. being the 28. of Henry the eighth suffered Master Tyndall who in his answer to Sir Thomas More hath resolved it thus As for the Sabbath we be Lords over the Sabbath Page 287. and may yet change it into Monday or into any other day as we see need or may make every tenth day Holy day only if we see cause why Neither was there any cause to change it from the Saturday but to put a difference between us and the Jews neither reed we any Holy day at all if the people might be taught without it Last of all bishop Hooper sometimes Bishop of Gloucester who suffered in Queen Maries Reign doth in a Treatise by him written on the Ten Commandments and printed in the year 1550. go the self-same way age 103. We may not think saith he that God gave any more holiness to the Sabbath than to the other days For if ye consider Friday Pag. 103. Saturday or Sunday inasmuch as they be days and the work of God the one is no more holy than the other but that day is always most holy in the which we most apply and give our selves unto holy works To that end did he sanctifie the Sabbath day not that we should give our selves to illness or such Ethnical pastime as is now used amongst Ethnical people but being free that day from the travels of this World we might consider the works and benefits of God with thanksgiving hear the Word of God honour him and fear him then to learn who and where be the poor of Christ that want our help Thus they and they amongst them have resolved on these four conclusions First that one day is no more holy than another the Sunday than the Saturday or the Friday further than they are set apart for holy Uses Secondly that the Lords day hath no institution from divine authority but was ordained by our fore-fathers in the beginning of the Church that so the people might have a Day to come together and hear Gods Word Thirdly that still the Church hath power to change the day from Sunday unto Monday or what day she will And lastly that one day in seven is not the Moral part of the fourth Commandment for Mr. Tyndal saith expresly that by the Church of God each tenth day only may be kept holy if we see cause why So that the marvel is the greater that any man should now affirm as some men have done that they are willing to lay down both their Lives and Livings in maintenance of those contrary Opinions which in these latter days have been taken up Now that which was affirmed by them in their particulars was not long afterwards made good by the general Body of this Church and State the King the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and all the Commons met in Parliament Anno the fifth and sixth of King Edward the sixth 5 6 Edw. 6. cap. 3. where to the honour of Almighty God it was thus enacted For as much as men be not at all times so mindful to Iaud and praise God so ready to resort to hear Gods holy Word and to come to the holy Communion c. as their bounden duty doth require therefore to call men to remembrance of their duty and to help their infirmity it hath been wholsomly provided that there should be some certain times and days appointed wherein the Christians should cease from all kind of labour and apply themselves only and wholly unto the aforesaid holy works properly pertaining to true Keligion c. Which works as they may well be called Gods Service so the time
name of Sunday often used for the Lords day by the primitive Christians but the Sabbath never Page 422 CHAP. III. That in the fourth Age from the time of Constantine to Saint Austine the Lords day was not taken for a Sabbath day 1. The Lords day first established by the Emperour Constantine Page 423 2. What labours were permitted and what restrained on the Lords day by this Emperours Edict Page 424 3. Of other Holy days and Saints days instituted in the time of Constantine Page 425 4. That weekly other days particularly the Wednesday and the Friday were in this Age and those before appointed for the meetings of the Congregation ibid. 5. The Saturday as highly honoured in the Eastern Churches as the Lords day was Page 426 6. The Fathers of the Eastern Churches cry down the Jewish Sabbath though they held the Saturday Page 427 7. The Lords day not spent wholly in Religious exercises and what was done with that part of it which was left at large Page 428 8. The Lords day in this Age a day of Feasting and that it hath been always deemed Heretical to hold Fasts thereon Page 429 9. Of Recreation on the Lords day and of what kind those Dancings were against the which the Fathers enveigh so sharply Page 430 10. Other Imperial Edicts about the keeping of the Lords day and the other Holy-days Page 432 11. The Orders at this time in use on the Lords day and other days of publick meeting in the Congregation Page 433 12. The infinite differences between the Lords day and the Sabbath Page 434 CHAP. IV. The great improvement of the Lords day in the fifth and sixth Ages make it not a Sabbath 1. In what estate the Lords day stood in S. Austins time Page 435 2. Stage plays and publick Shews prohibited on the Lords day and the other Holy days by Imperial Edicts Page 437 3. The base and beastly nature of the Stage-plays at those times in use Page 438 4. The barbarous bloody quality of the Spectacula or Shews at this time prohibited ibid. 5. Neither all civil business nor all kind of pleasure restrained on the Lords day by the Emperour Leo as some give it out The so much cited Canon of the Council of Mascon proves no Lords day Sabbath Page 440 6. The French and Spaniards in the sixth Age begin to Judaize about the Lords day and of restraint of Husbandry on that day in that Age first thought of Page 441 7. The so much cited Canon of the Council of Mascon proves no Lords day Sabbath Page 442 8. Of publick honours done in these Ages to the Lords day by Prince and Prelate Page 443 9. No Evening Service on the Lords day till these present Ages Page 444 10. Of publick Orders now Established for the better regulating of the Lords Day-meetings Page 445 11. All Business and Recreation not by Law prohibited are in themselves as lawful on the Lords day as on any other ibid. CHAP. V. That in the next six hundred years from Pope Gregory forwards the Lords day was not reckoned of as of a Sabbath 1. Pope Gregories care to set the Lords day free from some Jewish rigours at that time obtruded on the Church Page 447 2. Strange fancies taken up by some about the Lords day in these darker Ages ibid. 3. Scriptures and Miracles in these times found out to justifie the keeping of the Lords day Holy Page 448 4. That in the judgment of the most Learned in these six Ages the Lords day hath no other ground than the Authority of the Church Page 449 5. With how much difficulty the People of these times were barred from following their Husbandry and Law-days on the Lords day Page 450 6. Hüsbandry not restrained on the Lords day in the Eastern Parts until the time of Leo Philosophus Page 451 7. Markets and Handicrasts restrained with no less opposition than the Plough and Pleading Page 452 8. Several casus reservati in the Laws themselves wherein men were permitted to attend those businesses on the Lords day which the Laws restrained Page 453 9. Of divers great and publick actions done in these Ages on the Lords day Page 454 10. Dancing and other sports no otherwise prohibited on the Lords day than as they were an hinderance to Gods publick Service Page 455 11. The other Holy-days as much esteemed of and observed as the Lords day was Page 456 12. The publick hallowing of the Lords day and the other Holy-days in these present Ages Page 457 13. No Sabbath all these Ages heard of either on Saturday or Sunday and how it stood with Saturday in the Eastern Churches Page 458 CHAP. VI. What is the judgment of the School-men and of the Protestants and what the practice of those Churches in this Lords day business 1. That in the judgment of the School-men the keeping of one day in seven is not the moral part of the fourth Commandment Page 640 2. As also that the Lords day is not founded on Divine Authority but the Authority of the Church Page 461 3. A Catalogue of the Holy-days drawn up in the Council of Lyons and the new Doctrine of the Schools touching the native sanctity of the Holy-days Page 462 4. In what estate the Lords day stood in matter of restraint from labour at the Reformation Page 463 5. The Reformators find great fault both with the said new doctrine and restraints from labour Page 464 6. That in the judgment of the Protestant Divines the keeping of one day in seven is not the moral part of the fourth Commandment Page 465 7. As that the Lords day hath no other ground on which to stand than the Authority of the Church Page 466 8. And that the Church hath power to change the day and to transfer it to some other Page 467 9. What is the practice of all Churches the Roman Lutheran and Calvinian chiefly in matter of Devotion rest from labour and sufferance of lawful pleasures Page 468 10. Dancing cryed down by Calvin and the French Churches not in relation to the Lords day but the sport it self Page 470 11. In what estate the Lords day stands in the Eastern Churches and that the Saturday is no less esteemed of by the Ethiopians than the said Lords day Page 471 CHAP. VII In what estate the Lords day stood in this Isle of Britain from the first planting of Religion to the Reformation 1. What doth occur about the Lords day and the other Festivals amongst the Churches of the Brittans Page 472 2. Of the estate of the Lords day and the other Holy days in the Saxon Heptarchie Page 473 3. The honours done unto the Sunday and the other Holy-days by the Saxon Monarchs Page 474 4. Of the publick actions Civil Ecclesiastical mixt and Military done on the Lords day under the first six Norman Kings Page 476 5. New Sabbath doctrines broached in England in King Johns Reign and the miraculous original of the same
the Doctor like the Palm-Tree Crescit sub pondere virtus the more he was press'd with those heavy loads did flourish and grow up in his Estate that through the blessing of God being neither the subject of any mans envy nor the object of their pitty he lived in good Credit and kept a noble House for I my self being often there can say I have seldom seen him sit down at his Table without Company for being nigh the University some out of a desire to be acquainted with him and others to visit their old Friend whom they knew rarely could be seen but at Meals made choice of that time to converse with him And likewise his good Neighbours at Abingdon whom he always made welcome and was ready to assist them in their Parish-business or upon any other occasion particularly in upholding upholding the Church of S. Nicholas which otherwise would have been pulled down on pretence of uniting it to S. Ellens but in truth to disable the sober Party of the Town who were Loyal People from enjoying their wonted Service and Worship of God in their own Parish Church of which they had a Reverend and Orthodox Man one Mr. Huish their Minister and in his absence the Doctor took care to get them supplied with able men from Oxford Great endeavors were on both sides the one Party to preserve the Church and the other to pull it down because it was thronged with Malignants who seduced others from their godly way as Religion always hath been the pretence of factious minds to draw on others to their Party Ubbr Emm. Hist Fris as one saith well Sua quisque arma sancta praedicat suam causam religiosam Deus pietas cultus divinus praetexuntur Every one proclaimeth their own quarrels to be be a Holy War the Cause Religion God Godliness and Divine worship must be pretended Several Journeys the Doctor took to London sparing neither his pains nor purse in so pious a Cause for the managing of which he employed divers Solicitors somtimes before Committees at other times before Olivers Council where it was carried dubiously and rather inclining to the other side at which the Presbyterian-Party made the Bells to be rung and Bonfires in the Town to express their joy triumphing in the ruin of a poor Church but the day was not so clearly their own as they imagined for the Church yet stood against all its Enemies God protecting his own House and his Servants that were zealous for it in a time when they could look for little favor from the Powers that then ruled who had not so much respect for Gods House as the Heathens had for their Idol Temples and for those that Vindicated them Justin lib. 8. as Justin saith on this occasion Diis proximus habetur per quem deorum majestas vindicata sit for which he praiseth Philip of Macedon calling him Vindicem Sacrilegii ultorem religionum c. During those troubles Mr. Huish Minister of the Church durst not go on in his Ministerial duties which the Doctor no sooner heard of but to animate and encourage him he writ a pious Letter a Copy of which I then transcribed which is as followeth and worth the inserting here SIR WE are much beholden to you for your chearful condescending unto our desires so far as to the Lords-days Service which though it be opus diei in die suo yet we cannot think our selves to be fully Masters of our Requests till you have yielded to bestow your pains on the other days also We hope in reasonable time to alter the condition of Mr. Blackwels pious gift that without hazarding the loss of his Donation which would be an irrecoverable blow to this poor Parish you may sue out your quietus est from that daily attendance unless you find some further motives and inducements to persuade you to it yet so to alter it that there shall be no greater wrong done to his intentions than to most part of the Founders in each Vniversity by changing Prayers for the souls first by them intended into a Commemoration of their bounties as was practised All dispositions of this kind must vary with those changes which befal the Church or else be alienated and estranged to other purposes I know it must needs be some discouagement to you to read to Walls or to pray in publick with so thin a Company as hardly will amount to a Congregation But withal I desire you to consider that magis minus all Logicians say do not change the species of things that quantities of themselves are of little efficacy if at all of any and that he who promised to be in the midst of two or three when they meet together in his Name hath clearly shewed that even the smallest Congregations shall not want his presence and why then should we think much to bestow our pains where he vouchsafeth his presence or think our labour ill bestowed if some few only do partake of the present benefit And yet no doubt the benefit extends to more than the parties present for you know well that the Priest or Minister is not only to pray with but for the people that he is not only to offer up the peoples Prayers to Almighty God but to offer up his own Prayers for them the benefit whereof may charitably be presumed to extend to as well as it was intended for the absent also And if a whole Nation may be represented in a Parliament of four hundred persons and they derive the blessings of Peace and Comfort upon all the Land why may we not conceive that God will look on three or four of this little Parish as the Representative of the whole and for their sakes extend his Grace and Blessings unto all the rest that he who would have saved that sinful City of Sodom had he found but ten righteous persons in it may not vouchsafe to bless a less sinful people upon the prayers of a like or less number of pious and religious persons When the High-Priest went into the Sanctum Sanctorum to make atonement for the sins of the people went he not thither by himself none of the people being suffered to enter into that place Do not we read that when Zacharias offered up Incense which figured the Prayers of the Saints within the Temple the people waited all that while in the outward Courts or find we any where that the Priest who offered up the daily sacrifice and this comes nearest to our case did ever intermit that Office by reason of the slackness and indevotion of the people in repairing to it But you will say there is a Lion in the way there is danger in it Assuredly I hope none at all or if any none that you would care for The Sword of the Committee had as sharp an edge and was managed with as strong a malice as any ordinance of later Date can empower men with Having so fortunately escaped the danger of
credit and yet so many Ordinances for setling the Presbyterian Government in order whereunto the Hierarchy of Bishops was to be abolished should be as short lived as Jonas's Goard Plautus in Pseudolo or the solstitial Herb in Plautus Quae repentino orta est repentino occidit blasted as soon as sprung up without acting any thing and finally why so many of the Clergy should still stand sequestred by Order from the Committees of both Houses of Parliament and yet the Orders of those Houses as to the recovering of their fifths should be void and null So that thy Judgment and Affection being so well bottomed thy Conscience cannot but bear thee witness that thou hast not suffered as a Malefactor a Violator of the Laws a contemner of Order or a Despiser of Dominion which will be a contentment to thee in thy greatest sorrows Lactant. lib. 1. cap. 1. above all expression Delectabit tamen se Conscientia quod est Animae pabulum incredibile jucunditate perfusum as Lactantius hath it If thou art otherwise persuaded and of a different judgment from me in the main Disputes yet I desire thee notwithstanding to peruse these papers and to peruse them with that Candor and Christian Charity which we ought to have about us in the agitation of all weighty Controversies I despair not but that thou maist here meet with something which may inform thy Understanding and rectifie the obliquity of those misconceptions which thou hast harboured heretofore against this Church the way and manner of proceeding in her Reformation her Government and Establish'd Orders in Gods publick service her Right and Title to that setled Maintenance which is reserved to those who officiate in her Te quoque in his Aliquid quod juvet esse potest in the Poets Language Ovid in Phaedra ad Hippolyt Howsoever I hope thou art not of those men who hate to be reformed or stop their ears like the deaf Adder in the Psalms that so they may not hear the voice of the Charmer but hast a malleable soul and capable of all impressions tending unto peace and truth And then I shall be confident of this favour from thee that if thou canst not find good reason to change thy judgment and alter thy opinion in the points disputed yet thou wilt hereafter think more charitably of those poor Men who cannot sail with every wind of new Opinion nor easily wean themselves from those persuasions which they have suckt in as it were with their Mothers milk If thou art strong and canst digest all meats which are set before thee condemn not those of weaker stomachs who have been used unto a Regular and strict kind of Diet. But if thou art not only of a different Opinion from me but differing in Condition also advanced perhaps unto some eminent degree of Trust and Power in the present Government I must address my self unto thee in another way I must then say to thee as did Tertullian once to the Roman Senators that since there is no means in the way of a personal Defence to vindicate the Church and clear her Children from all those Calumnies and imputations which are charged upon them Liceat veritati vel occulta via tacitarum literarum ad aures vestras pervenire Tertul. in Apologet cap. 2. I hope it may be lawful for the Truth to appear before you by the humble and modest way of a Declaration For what hath been the cause of our great Disturbances but the want of a right Understanding of those Grounds and Principles upon which the Church of England was first reformed or of those greater Animosities those Odia plus quam Vatiniana exprest towards such as are most cordially affected to her Rules and Tendries The Men themselves known generally to be both of Parts and Piety many of them possest of liberal Fortunes and all responsal to the Publick in all those capacities in which they may do service to it And can it rationally be conceived that either wilfulness or perversness or a vainglorious affectation of adhering to their old Mumpsimus as King Harry used to say in another case could make them run the hazzard of all which is dear unto them were there not some inward principle of Conscience and light of Understanding to incline them to it Or that they can suppose themselves to equally dealt with in being debard from serving God in that way of Worship and under those Forms of Administration which they find countenanced and commended to them by as good Authority as the Established Laws of the Land could give them and in the mean time that all sorts of Sects and Heresies destructive of all civil Magistracy and Humane Society should find not only a Connivence but Support and Countenance And if this cannot be conceived how canst thou answer it to thy self or to God and Man that they who live so peaceably and inoffensively in their several stations as not to be reproach'd with any disaffection to the present Government in word or deed should notwithstanding be mark'd out to continual Ruin because supposed to be of different Principles and Persuasions from some of those who have such powerful influences on the publick Counsels For thy sake therefore not for theirs only have I took this pains and drawn these several Tracts together that being perfectly instructed in the grounds of their affections and the right constitution of the Church their common Mother thou maist not only carry a more gentle hand towards those who have adher'd unto it but be more tenderly affected to the Church it self which hitherto hath met with so much contradiction from unquiet men And to say truth were there no other Arguments to prove the Church of England to be a true Catholick and Apostolick Church this were sufficient to evince it that it hath been always under persecution which the whole tenor of the Scriptures and the ancient Monuments of Christianity have given us as a mark or character of the Church of God No sooner had the Israelites freed themselves from the bondage of Egypt but they were presently pursued and forced through the Red Sea by the Host of Pharaoh nor had they sooner escaped that danger by Gods Almighty power but the Amalekites set upon them the Moabites set themselves against them and Balaam the son of Beor is hired to curse them hated by all the Nations amongst whom they lived derided for their Sabbath and Circumcision Recutitaque Sabbata palles as the Satyrist hath it and for their other Rites and Ceremonies in which they differed from the rest of their neighbouring Nations Their Laws are diverse from all people Hest 3.8 Tacit Hist lib. 5. saith Haman in the Book of Hester Novi illis Ritus coeterisque mortalibus contrarii as it is in Tacitus therefore to be exterminated as Enemies unto Civil Government and to all mankind Thus did it also fare with the Primitive Christians as soon as they had separated
Num. 2 3 4 5 6 Part 2. Cap. 1. Num. 10 c. Cap. 4 Numb 7. Cap. 5. Num. 5 6. Cap. 6. Num. 5 7. besides many other passages here and there interserted to the same effect that I shall save my self the trouble of adding any thing further to those Observations And to them therefore I refer the Reader for his satisfaction At this time I shall say no more but that the Church had never stood so constantly to Episcopal Government were it not for the great and signal benefits which redound unto it by the same Of which there is none greater or of more necessary use to Christianity than the preserving of a perpetual succession of Preists and Deacons ordained in a Canonical way to be Ministers of holy things to the rest of the people that is to say to Preach the Word Administer the Sacraments and finally to perform all other Divine and Religious Offices which are required of them by the Church in their several places Thus have I laid before thee good Christian Reader the Method and Design of this following Work together with the Argument and Occasion of each several Piece contained in it Which as I have done with all Faith and Candor in the sincerity of my Heart and for the Testimony of a good Conscience laying it with all humble reverence at the feet of those who are in Authority so with respective duty and affection I submit the same unto the judgment of which Persuation or Condition soever thou art for whose instruction in the several Points herein declared it was chiesly studied And I shall heartily beseech all those who shall please to read it that if they meet with any thing therein which either is less fitly spoken or not clearly evidenced they would give me notice of it in such a charitable and Christian way as I may be the better for it and they not the worse Which favour if they please to do me they shall be welcome to me as an Angel of God sent to conduct me from the Lands of error into the open ways of truth And doing these Christian Offices unto one another we shall by Gods good leave and blessing not only hold the bond of external peace but also in due time be made partakers of the spirit of Vnity Which Blessing that the Lord would graciously bestow on his afflicted and distracted Church is no small part of our Devotions in the publick Liturgy where we are taught to pray unto Almighty God that he would please continually to inspire his universal Church with the spirit of Truth Vnity and Concord and grant that all they which do confess his holy Name may agree also in the truth of his holy Word and live in Vnity and godly Love Unto which Prayer he hath but little of a Christian which doth not heartily say Amen Lacies Court in Abingdon April 23. 1657. The Way of the REFORMATION OF THE Church of England DECLARED and JUSTIFIED c. THE INTRODUCTION Shewing the Occasion Method and Design of the whole discourse My dear Hierophilus YOUR company is always very pleasing to me but you are never better welcome han when you bring your doubts and scruples along with you for by that means you put me to the studying of some point or other whereby I benefit my self if not profit you And I remember at the time of your last being with me you seemed much scandalized for the Church of England telling me you were well assured that her Doctrine was most true and orthodox her Government conform to the Word of God and the best ages of the Church and that her publick Liturgie was an Extract of the Primitive Forms nothing in all the whole composure but what did tend to edification and Increase of piety But for all this you were unsatisfied as you said in the ways and means by which this Church proceeded in her Reformation alleding that you had heard it many times objected by some Partisans of the Church of Rome that our Religion was meer Parliamentarian not regulated by Synodical Meetings or the Authority of Councels as in elder times or as D. Harding said long since in his Answer unto B. Jewel That we had a Parliament Religion a Parliament Faith and a Parliament Gospel To which Scultinguis and some others after added that we had none but Parliament Bishops and a Parliament Clergy that you were apt enough to think that the Papists made not all this noise without some ground for it in regard you have observed some Parliaments in these latter days so mainly bent to catch at all occasions whereby no manifest their powers in Ecclesiastical matters especially in constituting the new Assembly of Divines and others And finally that you were heartily ashamed that being so often choaked with these Objections you neither knew how to traverse the â—ndictment nor plead Not guilty to the Bill Some other doubts you said you had relating to the King the Pope and the Protestant Churches either too little or too much look'd after in our Reformation but you were loth to trouble me with too much at once And thereupon you did intreat me to bethink my self of some fit Plaister for the sore which did oft afflict you religiously affirming that your desires proceeded not from curiosity or an itch of knowledge or out of any disaffection to the Power of Parliaments but meerly from an honest zeal to the Church of England whose credit and prosperity you did far prefer before your life or whatsoever in this world could be dear unto you Adding withal that if I would take this pains for your satisfaction and help you out of these perplexities which you were involved in I should not only do good service to the Church it self but to many a wavering member of it whom these objections had much staggered in their Resolutions In fine that you desired also to be informed how far the Parliaments had been interessed in these alterations of Religion which hapned in the Reigns of K. Hen. VIII K. Edw. VI. and Q. Elizabeth What ground there was for all this clamour of the Papists And whether the Houses or either of them have exercised of old any such Authority in matters of Ecclesiastical or Spiritual nature as some of late have ascribed unto them Which though it be a dangerous and invidious Subject as the times now are yet for your sake and for the truth's and for the honour of Parliaments which seem to suffer much in the Popish calumny I shall undertake it premising first that I intend not to say any thing to the point of Right whether or not the Parliament may lawfully meddle in such matters as concern Religion but shall apply my self wholly unto matters of Fact as they relate unto the Reformation here by law established And for my method in this business I shall first lay down by way of preamble the form of calling of the Convocation of the Clergy here in England that
concorditer ordinari but also to consent both in their own names and in the names of those who sent them unto all such things as by mature deliberation and consent should be there ordained Which Mandate being received by the B. of London the several Bishops cited accordingly and intimation given by those Bishops unto their Arch Deacons for summoning the Clergy to make choice of their Procurators as also the Chapters or capitular Bodies to do the like The next work is to proceed to the choice of those Procurators Which choice being made the said Chapters under their common seals and the said Clergy in a publick Writing subscribed by them do bind themselves sub Hypotheca omnium bonorum suorum under the pawn and forfeiture of al their goods moveable and immoveable I speak the very words of these publick Instruments se ratum gratum acceptum habere quicquid dicti Procuratores sui nomine vice suis fecerint c. To stand to and perform whatsoever their said Procurators in their name and stead shall do determine and consent to The like is also done in the Province of York but that the Arch-bishop thereof sends out the Summons in his own name to the Suffragan Bishops the Province being small and the Suffragans not above three in number Finally as the Convocations of the Clergy in their several Provinces were called by the Arch-bishops only the Kings Writ thereunto requiring and authorizing so by the same powers were they also dissolved again when they had done the business they were called about or did desire to be dismissed to their own affairs At which time by special Writ or Mandates to the said Arch-bishops expressing the calling and assembling of the Convocation by vertue of the former Precept it is declared That on certain urgent causes and considerations moving his Majesty thereunto he thought fit with the advice of his Privy Councel that the same should be again dissolved Et ideo vobis mandamus quod eandem praesentem Convocationem hac instanti die debito modo sine ulla dilatione dissolvatis sive dissolvi faciatis prout convenit and therefore did command them to dissolve it or cause the same to be dissolved in the accustomed manner without delay Which Writ received and not before the Convocation was dissolved accordingly and so it holds in Law and practcie to this very day I have the longer staid on these publick Forms partly because not obvious unto every eye but especially to let you see by what Authority the Clergy are to be assembled in their Convocations and what it is which makes their Canons and Conclusions binding unto all those which send them thither or intrust them there Their calling by the Kings Authority makes their meeting lawful which else were liable to exceptions and disputes in Law and possibly might render them obnoxious to some grievous penalties and so would their continuance too after the Writ was issed for their Dissolution As on the contrary their breaking or dissolving of their own accord would make them guilty of contempt and consequently subject to the Kings displeasure for being called by the Kings Writ they are to continue till dissolved by the Kings Writ also notwithstanding the dissolving of the Parliament with which sometimes it might be summoned And so it was resolved in terminis by the chief Judges of the Realm and others of his Majesties Counsel Learned May 10. anno 1640. at such time as the Convocations did continue sitting the Parliament being most unhappily dissolved on the Tuesday before subscribed by Finch Lord Keeper of the Great Seal Manchester then Lord Privy Seal Littleton chief Justice of the Common Pleas Banks Atturney General Whitfield and Heath his Majesties Sergeants Authority enough for the poor Clergy to proceed on though much condemned and maligned for obedience to it Now as they have the Kings Authority not only for their Meeting but continuance also so also have they all the power of the whole National Clergy of England to make good whatsoever they conclude upon The Arch-Bishops Deans Arch-Deacons acting in their own capacities the Procurators in the name and by the power committed to them both by he Chapters or capitular Bodies and the Diocesan Clergy of both Provinces And this they did by virtue of that power and trust alone without any ratification or confirmation from King or Parliament until the 25th year of King Henry the VIII At which time they bound themselves by a Synodical Act whereof more hereafter not to enact promulge or execute any Canons Constitutions or Ordinances Provincial in their Convocations for time coming unless the Kings Highness by his Royal Assent command them to make promulge and execute the same accordingly Before this time they acted absolutely in their Convocations of their own Authority the Kings Assent neither concurring nor required and by this sole Authority which they had in themselves they did not only make Canons declare Heresie convict and censure persons suspected of Heresie in which the subjects of all sorts whose Votes were tacitely included in the suffrages of their Pastors and spiritual Fathers were concerned alike But also to conclude the Clergy whom they represented in the point of Property imposing on them what they pleased and levying it by Canons of their own enacting And they enjoyed this power to the very day in which they tendred the submission which before we spake of For by this self-authority if I may so call it they imposed and levied that great Subsidy of 120000 l. an infinite sum as the Standard of the times then was granted unto K. Henry VIII anno 1530. to free them from the fear and danger of the Praemuniri By this the Benefit of the Chapter called Similiter in the old Provincial extended formerly to the University of Oxon only was made communicable the same year unto Cambridge also By this Crome Latimer Bilney and divers others were in the year next following impeached of Heresie By this the Will and Testament of William Tracie of Toddington was condemned as scandalous and heretical and his body taken up and burnt not many days before the passing of the Act of Submission anno 1532. But this power being thought too great or inconsistent at least with the Kings Design touching his divorce the Clergy were reduced unto such a straight by the degrees and steps which you find in the following Section as to submit their power unto that of the King and to promise in verbo sacerdotii that they would do and Enact nothig in their Convocations without his consent And to the gaining of this point he was pressed the rather in regard of a Remonstraence then presented to Him by the House of Commons in which they shewed themselves aggrieved that the Clergy of this Realm should act Authoritatively and supremely in the Convocations and they in Parliament do nothing but as it was confirmed and ratified by the Royal Assent Which notwithstanding though this
the curiosity of the Ministers and mistakes of the people rather than for any other weighty cause As the Statutes 5 and 6 Ed. 6. cap. 1. it was thought expedient by the King with the assent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament Assembled that the said Order of Common Service should be faithfully and godly perused explained and made fully perfect Perused and explained by whom Why questionless by those who made it or else by those if they were not the same men who were appointed by the King to draw up and compose a Form of Ordination for the Use of the Church And this Assent of theirs for it was no more was the only part that was ever acted by the Parliament in matter of this present nature save that a Statute passed in the former Parliament 3 and 4 Ed. 6. c. 12. unto this effect that such form and manner of making and consecrating Arch-Bishops Bishops Priests Deacons and other Ministers of the Church which before I spake of as by six Prelates and six other men of this Realm learned in Gods Laws by the King to be appointed and assigned shall be devised to that purpose and set forth under the great Seal shall be lawfully used and exercised and none other Where note that the King only was to nominate and appoint the men the Bishops and other learned men were to make the Book and that the Parliament in a blind obedience or at the least upon a charitable confidence in the integrity of the men so nominated did confirm that Book before any of their Members had ever seen it though afterwards indeed in the following Parliament this Book together with the Book of Common-prayer so Printed and explained obtained a more formal confirmation as to the use thereof throughout the Kingdom but in no other respect for which see the Statute 5 and 6 Ed. 6. c. 1. As for the time of Q. Elizabeth when the Common-prayer book now in use being the same almost with the last of King Edward was to be brought again into the Church from whence it was cast out in Queen Maries Reign it was committed to the care of some learned men that is to say to M. Whitehead once Chaplain to Q. Anne Bullen Dr. Parker after Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Dr. Grindal after Bishop of London Dr. Cox after Bishop of Ely Dr. Pilkington after Bishop of Durham Dr. May Dean of Saint Pauls Dr. Bill Provost of Eaton after Dean of Westminster and Sir Tho. Smith By whom being altered in some few passages which the Statute points to 1 Eliz. c. 21. it was presented to the Parliament and by the Parliament received and established without more ado or troubling any Committee of both or either Houses to consider of it for ought appears in their Records All that the Parliament did in it being to put it into the condition in which it stood before in Kings Edwards Reign partly by repealing the Repeal of King Edw. Statutes made in the first of Q. Mary c. 2. and partly by the adding of some farther penalties on such as did deprave the Book or neglect to use it or wilfully did absent themselves from their Parish-Churches And for the Alterations made in King James his time being small in the Rubrick only and for the additions of the Thanksgivings at the end of the Letany the Prayer for the Queen and the Royal Issue and the Doctrine of the Sacraments at the end of the Catechisme which were not in the Book before they were never referred unto the Parliament but were done only by Authority of the Kings Commission and stand in force by virtue only of His Proclamation which you may find before the Book the charge of buying the said Book so explained and altered being laid upon the several and respective Parishes by no other Authority than that of the eightieth Canon made in Convocation Anno 1603. The like may also be affirmed of the Forms of Prayer for the Inauguration-day of our Kings and Queens the Prayer-books for the fifth of November and the fifth of August and those which have been used in all publick Fasts All which without the help of Parliaments have been composed by the Bishops and imposed by the King Now unto this discourse of the Forms of Worship I shall subjoyn a word or two of the times of Worship that is to say the Holy-days observed in the Church of England and so observed that they do owe that observation chiefly to the Churches power For whereas it was found in the former times that the number of the Holy-days was grown so great that they became a burthen to the common people and a great hinderance to the thrift and manufactures of the Kingdom there was a Canon made in the Convocation An. 1536. For cutting off of many superstitious and superfluous Holy-days and the reducing them into the number in which they now stand save that St. George's day and Mary Magdalens day and all the Festivals of the blessed Virgin had their place amongst them according to which Canon there went out a Monitory from the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to all the Suffragans of his Province respectively to see the same observed in their several Diocesses which is still extant on Record But being the Authority of the Church was then in the wane it was thought necessary to confirm their Acts and see execution done upon it by the Kings Injunction which did accordingly come forth with this Form or preamble That the abolishing of the said Holy-days was decreed ordained and established by the Kings Highness Authority as Supream Head in Earth of the Church of England with the common consent and assent of the Prelates and Clergy of this his Realm in Convocation lawfully Assembled and Congregate Of which see Fox his Acts and Monuments fol. 1246 1247. Afterwards in the year 1541. the King perceiving with what difficulty the people were induced to leave off those Holy-days to which they had been so long accustomed published his Proclamation of the twenty-third of July for the abolishing of such Holy-days amongst other things as were prohibited before by his Injunctions both built upon the same foundation namely the resolution of the Clergy in their Convocation And so it stood until the Reign of King E. 6. at which time the Reformation of the publick Liturgie drew after it by consequence an alteration in the present business no days being to be kept or accounted Holy but those for which the Church had set apart a peculiar office and not all those neither For whereas there are several and peculiar offices for the day of the Conversion of St. Paul and the day of St. Barnabas the Apostles neither of these are kept as Holy-days nor reckoned or esteemed as such in the Act of Parliament wherein the names and number of the Holy-days is precisely specified which makes some think the Act of Parliament to have had an over-ruling power on the Common-prayer-Book but it is not so
and the proof are alike infirm For not to quarrel the Translation which is directly different from the Greek and Vulgar Latine and somewhat from the former English this Psalm if writ by David was not meant by him of any present misery which befel the Church There had been no such havock made thereof in all David's time as is there complained of And therefore Calvin rather thinks ad tempus Antiochi referri has querinonias that David as inspired with the spirit of Prophecy Calv. in Psal 74. reflected on those wretched and calamitous times wherein Antiochus made such havock of the Church of God Nor was there any Use of them in those former times because no reading of the Law of ordinary course in the Congregation as before was said But when the former course was changed and that the reading of the Law to the People of God was not licensed only but enjoyned then began the Jews to build them Synagogues which afterwards increased so strangely that there was no Town of any moment throughout all Judaea nor almost any City where they dwelt as Strangers in which they did not build some Synagogue God certainly had so disposed it in his holy Counsels that so his Word might be more generally known over all the world and a more easie way laid open for the receipt of the Messiah whom he meant to send that so Hierusalem and the Temple there might by degrees be lessened in their reputation and men might learn that neither of them was the only place where they ought to worship As for their Oratories which before I spake of although I find not their Original yet I can tell you of their Use For this saith Epiphanius of them Epiph. Haeres 80. n. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. There were saith he amongst the Jews without their Cities certain Oratories whither the people did sometimes resort to make their prayers unto the Lord. And this he proves out of the xvi of the Acts where it is said And on the Sabbath we went out of the City by a Rivers side where prayer was wont to be made vers 3. i.e. Vbi de more consuetudine haberi conventus consueverant as Beza notes upon the Text. The Latines called them from the Use they were put unto Proseuchas as in qua te quaero Proseucha in the Poet Juvenal Beza in Annot. in Act. 16.13 And although Beza take those Proseuchas to be the very same with the Jewish Synagogues Juvenal Sat. 5. Beza in Act. 16. yet sure there was a special difference between them For in those Proseuchas or Oratories they might only pray in the Synagogues they might not only make their prayers but also read the Law and Prophets and expound the same and in the Temple of the Lord besides those former duties they might offer Sacrifice which was not lawful to be done in other places And to these times when now the Jewish Church was settled and Synagogues erected in almost all places for reading and expounding the Law of God we must refer those passages from Philo and Josephus before remembred which cannot possibly be made good of the former times wherein this people wanted all conveniencies for those weekly meetings Thus have we seen what care the Rulers of that Church took for providing fit and convenient places for the performance of Gods publick worship and all the sacred Offices thereunto belonging Had they not think we equal power of adding days and times to the commemorating of Gods goodness and laying before him their afflictions s well as in appointing places Assuredly such power they had and made Use thereof according as they saw occasion Witness the feast of Purim ordained by Mordecai and Hester with the consent and approbation of the whole people of the Jews to be obsered on the 14 and 15 days of the moneth Adar yearly throughout their Generations for evermore Hest 9.17 c. that they should make them days of feasting and joy and of sending portions unto one another and gifts to the Poor Nor was this all to make them days of feasting and good fellowship and no more than so for this had been to make their belly their God and so by consequence their glory must have been their shame but in all probability there were ordained set forms of praise and prayer for so great a mercy and the continuance of the like Those who conceived themselves to have Authority of instituting a new Festival to the Lord their God could not but know they had Authority of instituting a new form of prayer and praise agreeable to the occasion And so much we may guess by that which remains thereof it being affirmed by one Antonius Margarita a converted Jew once one of the Professors for the tongue I take it in the University of Leipsich Fevardent in Hest cap. ult Hospinian de Origine Fest fol. 133. that to this day legunt diebus illis in Synagogis suis historiam istam they read upon the days of the said Feast of the book of Hester and anciently 't was not the custom of the Jewish Church to read the Scripture without set forms of Prayers and appointed Ceremonies The like may also be affirmed of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Feast of Dedication A Feast ordained by Judas Maccabeus and the Elders of the Jewish Nation who having cleansed the Temple and set up the Altar which had been impiously profaned by Antiochus did dedicate the same with Songs and Citternes 1 Maccab. 4.59 c. and with Harps and Cymbals and that being done ordained that the days of the Dedication should be kept in their season from year to year by the space of eight days c. with mirth and gladness Here we find mirth and gladness as before in the feast of Purim And doubt we not but there was in the Celebration of it as much spiritual mirth and gladness at least in the intention of the founders as there was of carnal although the forth and manner of it have not come unto us Our Saviour Christ had never honoured it with his blessed presence as we shall see he did hereafter if it had been otherwise Besides which annual Feasts recorded in the holy Scripture they had another which they called festivitatem legis or the feast of the Law ordained by the Rulers of the Church of Jewry for joy that they had finished the publick reading of the Law in their Congregations For as before I told you the Jews began the reading of the Law upon the Sabbath after the feast of Tabernacles and finished it at 5a readings against the feast of Tabernacles came about again Now 't is observed by Joseph Scaliger that the feast of Tabernacles beginning always on the 15th of the month Tisri and holding on until the 22d inclusively this Festival was always held on the morrow after being the three and twentieth of this month Which Feast
at the end of every Psalm they should add these words Glory be to the Father and to the Son c. Which being thus ordained in the Churches of the Roman Patriarchate became forthwith admitted also into other Churches of the West as appears plainly by that Canon of the Council of Vaisons which you had before which I choose rather to refer with the Collector of the Councils to the time of Theodosius the 2d who lived after Damasus than with Baronius to the year 337. when no such Form to which that Canon doth relate had gotten any footing in the Western Liturgies Now the said Canon taking notice of a former usage of some other Churches where this Doxologie was added at the end of the Psalms ordains the like to be observed in the Churches of France quod nos in universis Ecclesiis nostris dicendum esse decrevimus Concil Valens Can. 5. as their words there are And to this purpose besides that of Cassian which we shall presently produce for another point we may add these words of Pope Vigilius he began his Popedom An. 535. who in his Epistle unto Eleutherius gives us this short note In fine Psalmorum ab omnibus Catholicis ex more dici Gloria Patri filio c. That is to say Ep. Vigilii in Concil Tom. 2. that Gloria Patri was subjoyned at the end of the Psalms according to the antient custom by all Catholick persons As for the gesture which was used both by Priest and People at the repeating of this Doxologie it was the same with that which is still retained They said it standing on their feet And this appears expresly by the words of Cassian who telleth us that in the Province of Gaul Narbonnoyse where he then lived it was the custom of the Church Cassian lib. 2. cap. 8. in clausula psalmi omnes astantes concinere cum clamore Gloria Patri c. That at the close of every Psalm the whole Congregation standing up did sing together with a loud voice Glory be to the Father c. Contrary to the custom of the Eastern Churches In which it is to be observed that the singularity noted by that Author to have been used in those Countreys at the pronouncing of the Gloria Patri was not in that the Congregation stood upon their feet at the repeating of the same which was most like to be the custom of the East Churches also but that it was subjoyned in Gaul Narbonnoyse as in all Churches of the West at the end of the Psalms whereas it was used only in the East at the end of the Anthems as before was shewn you from this Author Now Cassian was S. Chrysostoms Scholar if not his Convert and lived about the year 430. before the Church was overgrown with needless Ceremonies or that the native piety of the true Religion was overshadowed by the superstitions of the Church of Rome 'T is true we find not any Canon which enjoyned this gesture but that it was first taken up by the voluntary usage and consent of Christian people who might conceive that gesture to be fittest for it in regard that it contained not only a bare Form of giving glory to the Lord but also a profession of the Christian Faith in the great mystery of the holy undivided Trinity and therefore fit to be pronounced in that very posture in which from all Antiquity they rehearsed their Creed And being so taken up as before was said it hath been still retained in the general practice of the Church to this very day not by any Canon of the Church or decree of Pope or other Ecclesiastical Constitution but ex vi Catholicae consuetudinis by force of a continual Catholick custom which in such points as these hath the power of Law For though in Articles of the Faith which are the credenda of the Church we may say with Hierom Hieron advers Jovinian Non credimus quia non legimus We are not bound to submit our belief unto them but as they are expressed in the Word of God or else deduced from the same by plain and evident illation yet in the outward Forms of Worship which are the Agenda of the Church we must say with the good Fathers of the Nicene Council 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concil Nicen. Can. Let antient customs be observed and prevail amongst us And this is that for which S. Basil pleadeth so heartily in the very case of this Doxologie Where first he lays it for a ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That if we take away all unwritten usages from the Church of God as being of no efficacy in his publick service we shall do great detriment to the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in conclusion make the preaching of the Word but a powerless name Basil de Sp. S. c. 27. Of which kind he accounts and nameth the signing of the true Believers with the sign of the Cross 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their turning towards the East when they said their prayers the Form of Consecrating the Bread and Wine in the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper the hallowing of the Water for the Sacrament of Baptism the trina immersio used of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the renouncing of the Devil and his Angels still in use amongst us And of this kind was that particular gesture which is now in question not recommended to our observation by any particular Law or Canon but only by successional tradition and the continual practice of the Christian Church which is Authority sufficient for a greater matter And in this track the Church of England went at her Reformation when she ordained according to the antient Canons that at the end of every Psalm throughout the year and likewise at the end of Benedictus Benedicite Magnificat and Nunc dimittis shall be repeated Rubrick before Te Deum Glory be to the Father c. As it was in the beginning c. But for the gesture to be used referred it to the antient practice of the Church of Christ as formerly the Church had done in the self same case Which practice hath been constantly preserved since the Reformation in all the Cathedrals of this Kingdom in the Chappels Royal and in some Parish Churches also to which and to the usage of the primitive times it is more just and reasonable that all particular persons should conform themselves than that the antient and unblamable usages of the Church of God should be changed and varied according to the wild affections of particular men The Church is now as much in danger to be infected and destroyed by the Socinian Blasphemies as ever heretofore by the Arian Heresies and therefore this Doxologie as necessary in these present times and to be said with as great reverence and solemnity by all good Christian people as in those before We cannot better make profession of our faith in the
their hands for none but they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the present business the whole election of these Presbyters must be given to them But indeed it was neither so nor so Neither the Apostle nor the People had any hand in the elections of those times but the Spirit of God which evidently did design and mark out those men whom God intended to imploy in his holy Ministery The words of Paul to Timothy make this clear enough where it is said Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by Prophesie 1 Tim. 4.14 1 Tim. 1.18 c. and that there went some Prophesies before concerning Timothy the same Saint Paul hath told us in the first Chapter of that first Epistle Hom. 5. in 1. ad Tim. c. 1. Chrysostom notes upon these words that in those times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Priests and Ministers of God were made by Prophesie that is saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Holy Ghost And this he proves by the selection of Paul and Barnabas to the work of God which was done by Prophesie and by the Spirit And finally glossing on those words Noli negligere gratiam c. he doth thus express it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God saith he did elect thee to this weighty charge he hath committed no small part of his Church unto thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no mortal man had any hand in that designation and therefore take thou beed that thou disgrace not nor dishonour so Divine a calling More might be said both from Theodoret and Oecumenius to confirm this Truth Theodor. Oecum in locum but that I think it is sufficiently confirmed already So then the Presbyters of these times being of Gods special choice his own designation and those upon the laying on of such holy hands furnished by the Spirit with such gifts and graces as might enable them sufficiently to discharge their calling The marvel is the less if in those early days at the first dawning as it were of Christianity we find so little speech of Bishops In the ordaining of these Presbyters as also of the like in other places the Apostles might and did no question communicate unto them such and so much Authority as might invest them with a power of government during the times of their own necessary absence from those several Churches So that however they were Presbyters in degree and order yet they both were and might be trusted with an Episcopal jurisdiction in their several Cities even as some Deans although but simply Presbyters are with us in England And of this rank I take it were the Presbyters in the Church of Ephesus Act. 20.28 whom the Apostle calleth by the name of Bishops that is to say Presbyters by their Order and Degree but Bishops in regard of their jurisdiction Such also those ordained by Saint Paul in the Church of Philippos Phil. 1.1 whom the Apostle mentioneth in the very entrance of his Epistle to that people Which as it may be some occasion why Bishops properly so called were not ordained by the Apostles in the first planting of some Churches so there are other reasons alledged for it and are briefly these For first although the Presbyters in those times were by the Holy Ghost endued with many excellent gifts and graces requisite to the Preaching of the Word yet the Apostles might not think fit to trust them with the chief government till they had fully seen and perfectly made tryal of their abilities and parts that way Epiphan adv haeres 75. n. 5. And this is that which Epiphanius meaneth in his dispute against Aerius saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that where there were no fit men to discharge that Office the place remained without a Bishop but where necessity required and that there wanted not fit men to supply the place there Bishops forthwith were appointed But that which I conceive to be the principal reason was this that the Apostle did reserve unto himself the chief Authority in all the Churches of his planting so long as he continued in or about those places And this he exercised either by personal Visitations mention whereof is made in the 14.21 and 15.36 of the Book of Acts or else by his rescripts and mandates as in his sentencing of the incestuous Corinthian although absent thence But when he was resolved to take a journey to Hierusalem Act. 19.21 and from thence to Rome not knowing when he should return to those Eastern parts and knowing well that multitude of governours do oft breed confusions and that equality of Ministers did oft end in factions he then resolved to give them Bishops to place a Chief in and above each several Presbytery over every City committing unto them that power aswell of Ordinations as inflicting censures which he had formerly reserved to himself alone This great Apostle as for some space of time he taught the Church without help of Presbyters so for another while he did rule the same without help of Bishops A time there was wherein there were no Bishops but the Apostles only to direct the Church and so there was a time wherein there were no Presbyters but they to instruct the same However it must be confessed that there was a time in which some Churches had no Bishops And this Hieron in Tit. c. 1. if any was the time that Saint Hierom speaks of Cum communi Presbyterorum consilio ecclesiae gubernabantur when as the Churches were governed by the common counsel of the Presbyters But sure it was so short a time that had not the good Father taken a distaste against Episcopacy by reason of some differences which he had with John the Bishop of Hierusalem he could not easily have observed it For whether Bishops were ordained Id. ad Evagrium In Schismatis remedium as he saith elsewhere for the preventing of those Schisms and factions which were then risen in the Church or that they were appointed by the Apostles to supply their absence when they withdrew themselves unto further Countreys This government of the Church in common by the Presbyters will prove of very short continuance For from the first planting of the Church in Corinth Baronius so computes it Annal. Hieron in Titâ—m c. 1. which was in Anno 53. unto the writing of his first Epistle to that Church and people in which he doth complain of the Schisms amongst them was but four whole years And yet it doth appear by that place in Hierom for ought can see that the divisions of the people in Religion some saying I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas every one cleaving unto him by whom he had received Baptism were the occasion that it was decreed throughout the world as that Father saith Vt unus de Presbyteris electus superponeretur caeteris that one of the Presbyters should be set over the rest to whom
of his time it is clear and evident that Bishops had been setled even in those early days in many Cities wherein we do not find that any had been formerly ordained by the Apostles But how they were so setled and by whose authority hath in these later days been made a question Our Masters in the Church of Rome appropriate the power of instituting and erecting new Episcopal Sees to their Bishop only as being the only universal and supream Pastor of the Church Bellarmine hath resolved it so in terms express Bellarm. de Rom. pont l. 2. c. 12. Apostolorum proprium erat It properly pertained saith he to the Apostles to constitute Churches and propagate the Gospel in those Churches wherein it never had been Preached So far unquestionably true but what followeth after Et hoc ad Romanum Pontificem pertinere ratio experientia ipsa nos docet And that this doth belong to the Popes of Rome both reason and experience teach us Belong it doth indeed to the Popes of Rome so far we dare joyn issue with him but that it doth belong to the Pope alone and not to any other Bishops but by his sufferance and authority which is the matter to be proved that there is neither reason nor example for No reason certainly for if this did belong to all the Apostles as Bellarmine affirms it did then other Bishops which derive their pedigree from Andrew James John Paul or any other of the Apostles have as much interest herein as the Popes of Rome who challenge their descent from Peter And for Examples if they go by that they have a very desperate cause to manage 'T is true indeed that Clemens one of the first Bishops of the Church of Rome Ino Carnotens in Chron. M.S. citat à Patr. Junio did ordain several Bishops in his time and placed them in the chief Cities of those parts of Gallia which lay near unto him as viz. Photinus at Lions Paul at Narbon Gratian at Tours others in other places also as Ino Carnotensis hath reported of him But then it is as true withal that other Bishops did the like in their times and places Christianity and Episcopacy had not else in so short a time been propagated over all the World if those which dwelt far off and remote from Rome could not have setled and ordained Bishops in convenient places without running thither or having a Commission thence And though we have no precedent hereof in the present age yet we may see by the continual practice in the ages following that Bishops were first propagated over all the Churches by the assistance of such neighbour Churches in whom there had been Bishops instituted either by the Apostles and Evangelists themselves or by their Successors Frumentius being in some hope of gaining the Indians beyond Ganges to the faith of Christ was made a Bishop for that purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socrat. Eccles hist lib. 1. c. 15. as the story hath it not by the Pope of Rome nor with his privity or consent that we can hear of but by Atbanasius the great and famous Patriarch of Alexandria Theodoret. hist Eccles l. 5. c. 4. And when Eusebius Samosatanus had a mind for the suppressing of the growth of Arianism to erect Dolicha 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as my Author calls it a small City but greatly pestred with that Heresie into an Episcopal See we find not that he sent to Rome for a Commission but actually ordained Maris Bishop of the place and went himself to see him inthronized in the same So in like manner Saint Basil ordained Gregory Nazianzen Bishop of Sasima making that Town a Bishops See which before was none Gregor Presb. in vita Nazian and thereupon Gregorius Presbyter writing the life of Nazianzen calls it very properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Bishoprick or Episcopal See of a new foundation And thus Saint Austin also in the age succeeding erected an Episcopal See in Fussata a City or walled Town in his own Diocess of Hippo making one Antonius the first Bishop there August Epist Bellarm. de Ecc. lib. 4. c. 8. the Primate of Numidia returning with him in the Ordination Nor did they this as fain the Cardinal would have it à sede Apostolica facultatem habentes by force of any faculty procured from Rome which is gratis dictum but by their own proper and innate authority as they were trusted with the Government of the Church of Christ So then the Bishops only of the Church of Rome had not the sole authority of instituting Bishops where none were before That 's a dream only of the Pontifician Authority they had to do it as had others also and hereof doth occur a notable and signal evidence in this present Age viz. the setling of the Church of Britain and planting Bishops in the same by Pope Eleutherius Damas in vita Eleuther apud Bin. in Concil Tom. 1. Of him it is affirmed in the Pontifical ascribed to Damasus who lived about the year 370. accepisse Epistolam à Lucio Britannico Rege ut Christianus efficeretur per ejus mandatum that he received an Epistle from Lucius a British King desiring that by his authority he might be made a Christian Our venerable Bede a right ancient Writer thus reports the story Anno ab incarnatione Domini 156 Beda hist Eccl. lib. 1. c. 4. c. In the 156 year after Christs Nativity Marcus Antonius Verus together with Aurelius Commodus his brother did in the fourteenth place from Augustus Caesar undertake the Government of the Empire In whose times when as Eleutherius a godly man was Bishop of the Church of Rome Lucius King of the Britains sent unto him obsecrans ut per ejus mandatum Christianus efficeretur intreating by his means to be made a Christian whose vertuous desire herein was granted and the faith of Christ being thus received by the Britains was by them kept inviolate and undefiled until the times of Dioclesian Wherein as I submit to Beda as to the substance of the story so I crave leave to differ from him as to the matter of Chronologie For by this reckoning Eleutherius must attain the Popedom Anno 167. as Beda elsewhere doth compute it Beda in histor Epitom which is ten years at least before the time assigned him by most other Writers And therefore I shall rather chuse to follow the commonly received account by which the said two Emperours are brought upon the Government of the Roman Empire Anno 161. and the attaining of the Popedom by this Eleutherius is placed in the 17th year of Mareus Anno 177. Lucius Aurelius Commodus being dead before But in this Controversie as it belongeth to Chronology I shall not meddle at the present It is enough that the planting of the Gospel amongst the Britains was as the greatest so the first action of this Pope done by him as we read in Platina
displeasure when some of the Presbyters neither mindful of the Gospel or their own duty or the day of Judgment nor thinking that they have a Bishop set over them cum contemptu contumelia praepositi totum sibi vendicent with the contempt and reproach of him that is their Bishop shall arrogate all Power unto themselves Which their behaviour he calls also contumelias Episcopatus nostri the reproach and slander of his Government in having such affronts put on him as never had been offered to any of his Fredecessors The like complaint to which he doth also make but with more resolution and contempt of their wicked practices in an Epistle to Cornelius being the 55. in number according to the Edition of Pamelius I have the more at large laid down the storms and troubles raised against this godly Bishop at his first coming to the place because it gives greater light unto many passages which concern his time especially in that extraordinary Power which he ascribes sometimes both to the People and the Presbyters in the administration of the Church as if they had been Partners with him in the publick Government Which certainly he did not as his case then stood without special reason For being so vehemently opposed from his first Election to the Episcopal Office all opportunities espied to draw away the peoples hearts and alienate their affections from him every advantage taken against him during his absence from the City to vex and cross him in his doings what better way could he devise to secure himself in the affections of the people and the obedience of his Presbyters than to profess that in all his acts and enterprises whatsoever he did and would depend upon the counsel of the one and consent of the other And this is that which he professeth in a Letter to the Presbyters and Deacons of Carthage quod à primordio Episcopatus mei statuerim Idem Epist 6. nihil sine consilio vestro consensu plebis meae privatâ sententiâ gerere that he resolved from his first entrance on that Bishoprick to do nothing of his own head as we use to say without the Counsel of his Clergy and the consent of his People and that on his return for he was then in exile when he wrote this Letter he would communicate his affairs with them Et in commune tractabimus and manage them in common with their assistance And certainly this was a prudent resolution as the World went with him For by this means he stood assured that whatsoever Schism or Faction should be raised against him it would be never able to prevail or get ground upon him as long as he had both the People and the Presbyters so obliged unto him for the support of his authority But this being but a private case and grounded on particular reasons makes no general Rule no Bishop being bound unto the like by this Example but where all circumstances do concur which we meet with here and then not bound neither except he will himself but as it doth conduce to his own security So that it is to me a wonder why the example of St. Cyprian should be pressed so often and all those passages so hotly urged wherein the Presbyters or People seem to be concerned in matters of the Churches Government as if both he and all other Bishops had been bound by the Law of God not to do any thing at all in their holy function but what the Presbyters should direct and the people yield their suffrage and consent unto For being but a resolution taken up by him the better to support himself against his Adversaries it obligeth no man to the like as before I said And he himself did not conceive himself so obliged thereby but that he could and did dispense with that resolution as often as he thought it necessary or but expedient so to do performing many actions of importance in the whole course and Series of his Episcopal Government wherein he neither craved the advice of the one nor the good liking of the other and which is more doing some things not only without their knowledg but against their wills as we shall make appear in that which followeth Now whereas the points of most importance in the Government and Administration of the Church are the Election of Bishops the Ordination of Ministers the Excommunicating of the Sinner and the reconciling of the Penitent it will not be amiss to see what and how much in each of these St. Cyprian did permit as occasion was either unto the People or the Presbyters and what he did in all and every one of these as often as he saw occasion also without their knowledg and consent First for Election of their Bishops it is conceived and so delivered that all their Elections were ordered by the privity Semctymn pag. 33. Sect. 7. consent and approbation of the people where the Bishop was to serve and for the proof of this St. Cyprian is alledged as one sufficient in himself to make good the point The place most commonly alledged is in his 68. Epistle touching the Case of Basilides and Martialis two Spanish Bishops who had defiled themselves with Idols and many other grievous Crimes concerning whom the people of those parts repaired unto him for his resolution But he remitting the cause back to them tells them how much it did concern them A peccatore Praeposito se separare to separate themselves from such sinful Prelates and not to participate with them in the Sacrifice Cypr. Ep 68. giving this reason for the same quando ipsa maxime habeat potestatem vel eligendi dignos Sacerdotes vel indignos recusandi because the people specially have power either of chusing worthy Prelates or of rejecting the unworthy For that by Sacerdotes here the Father understandeth Bishops Smectymn p. 33. is confessed on all hands Nor doth the Father only say it but he goeth forward to make good the same by Divine Authority ut Sacerdos plebe praesente that the Bishop should be chosen in the presence of the People under all mens eyes that so he may be proved to be fit and worthy by their publick testimony And for the proof of this is urged a Text from Moses in the book of Numbers where God is said to speak thus to Moses Apprehende Aaron fratrem tuum Take Aaron thy brother and Eleazar his son and thou shalt bring them to the Mount before all the Assembly and put off Aarons garments and put them on Eleazar his son By which it is apparent that God willeth the Priest to be made before all the multitude shewing thereby that the Priest should not be ordained but in the presence of the People that so the People being present the offences of the evil may be detected and the merits of the good made known and consequently the Election or rather Ordination may be good and lawful being discussed by the opinion and voice of all
day that now they will not be persuaded that it is a Dream For the awakening of the which and their reduction to more sound and sensible Counsels next to my duty to Gods Church and your Sacred Majesty have I applied my self to compose this Story wherein I doubt not but to shew them how much they have deceived both themselves and others in making the old Jewish Sabbath of equal age and observation with the Law of Nature and preaching their new Sabbath-Doctrines in the Church of Christ with which the Church hath no acquaintance wherein I doubt not but to shew them that by their obstinate resolution not to make Publication of your Majesties pleasure they tacitely condemn not only all the Fathers of the Primitive times the Learned Writers of all Ages many most godly Kings and Princes of the former days and not few Councils of chief note and of faith unquestionable but even all states of Men Nations and Churches at this present whom they most esteem This makes your Majesties interest so particular in this present History that were I not obliged unto your Majesty in any nearer bond than that of every common Subject it could not be devoted unto any other with so just propriety But being it is the work of your Majesties Servant and in part fashioned at those times which by your Majesties leave were borrowed from Attendance on your Sacred Person your Majesty hath also all the rights unto it of a Lord and Master Institut l. 1. tit 8. §. 1. So that according to that Maxim of the Civil Laws Quodcunque per servum acquiritur id domino acquirit suo your Majesty hath as absolute power to dispose thereof as of the Author who is Dread Soveraign Your Majesties most Obedient Subject and most faithful Servant PET. HEYLYN A PREFACE To them who being themselves mistaken have misguided others in these new Doctrines of the Sabbath NOT out of any humour or desire of being in action or that I love to have my hands in any of those publick quarrels wherewith our peace hath been disturbed but that Posterity might not say we have been wanting for our parts to your information and the direction of Gods People in the ways of truth have I adventured on this Story A Story which shall represent unto you the constant practice of Gods Church in the present business from the Creation to these days that so you may the better see how you are gone astray from the paths of Truth and tendries of Antiquity and from the present judgment of all Men and Churches The Arguments whereto you trust and upon seeming strength whereof you have been emboldned to press these Sabbatarian Doctrins upon the Consciences of poor people I purpose not to meddle with in this Discourse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They have been elsewhere throughly canvassed and all those seeming strengths beat down by which you were your selves misguided and by the which you have since wrought on the affections of unlearned men or such at least that judged not of them by their weight but by their numbers But where you give it out as in matter of fact how that the Sabbath was ordained by God in Paradise and kept accordingly by all the Patriarchs before Moses time or otherwise ingraft by Nature in the soul of man and so in use also amongst the Gentiles In that I have adventured to let men see that you are very much mistaken and tell us things directly contrary unto truth of Story Next where it is the ground-work of all your building that the Commandment of the Sabbath is Moral Natural and Perpetual as punctually to be observed as any other of the first or second Table I doubt not but it will appear by this following History that it was never so esteemed of by the Jews themselves no not when as the observation of the same was most severely pressed upon them by the Law and Prophets nor when the day was made most burdensome unto them by the Scribes and Pharisees Lastly whereas you make the Lords day to be an institution of our Saviour Christ confirmed by the continual usage of the holy Apostles and both by him and them imposed as a perpetual Ordinance on the Christian Church making your selves believe that so it was observed in the times before as you have taught us to observe it in these latter days I have made manifest to the world that there is no such matter to be found at all either in any writings of the Apostles or monument of true Antiquity or in the practice of the middle or the present Churches What said I of the present Churches So I said indeed and doubt not but it will appear so in this following Story The present Churches all of them both Greek and Latin together with the Protestants of what name soever being far different both in their Doctrine and their practice from these new conceptions And here I cannot chuse but note that whereas those who first did set on foot these Doctrines in all their other practices to subvert this Church did bear themselves continually on the Authority of Calvin and the example of those Churches which came most near unto the Plat-form of Geneva In these their Sabbath-speculations they had not only none to follow but they found Calvin and Geneva and those other Churches directly contrary unto them However in all other matters they cryed up Calvin and his Writings Hooker in his Preface making his Books the very Canon to which both Discipline and Doctrine was to be confirmed yet hic magister non tenetur here by his leave they would forsake him and leave him fairly to himself that they themselves might have the glory of a new invention For you my Brethren and beloved in our Lord and Saviour as I do willingly believe that you have entertain'd these Tenets upon mis-persuasion not out of any ill intentions to the Church your Mother and that it is an errour in your judgments only not of your affections So upon that belief have I spared no pains as much as in me is to remove that errour and rectifie what is amiss in your opinion I hope you are not of those men Quos non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris who either hate to be reformed or have so far espoused a quarrel that neither truth nor reason can divorce them from it Nor would I gladly you should be of their resolutions Qui volunt id verum esse quod credunt nolunt id credere quod verum est who are more apt to think all true which themselves believe than be persuaded to believe such things as are true indeed In confidence whereof as I was first induced to compose this History so in continuance of those hopes I have presumed to address it to you to tender it to your perusal and to submit it to your censure That if you are not better furnished you may learn from hence that you have trusted
done afterwards in pursuit hereof consisted specially in beating down the opposition of the common people who were not easily induced to lay by their business next in a descant as it were on the former plain-song the adding of particular restrictions as occasion was which were before conteined though not plainly specified both in the Edicts of the former Emperours and Constitutions of the Churches before remembred Yet all this while we find not any one who did observe it as Sabbath or which taught others so to do not any who affirmed that any manner of work was unlawful on it further than as it was prohibited by the Prince or Prelate that so the people might assemble with their greater comfort not any one who preached or published that any pastime sport or recreation of an honest name such as were lawful on the other days were not fit for this And thereupon we may resolve as well of lawful business as of lawful pleasures that such as have not been forbidden by supream Authority whether in Proclamà tions of the Prince or Constitutions of the Church or Acts of Parliament or any such like Declaration of those higher Powers to which the Lord hath made us subject are to be counted lawful still It matters not in case we find it not recorded in particular terms that we may lawfully apply our selves to some kind of business or recreate our selves in every kind of honest pleasure at those particular hours and times which are left at large and have not been designed to Gods publick service All that we are to look for is to see how far we are restrained from labour or from recreations on the Holy days and what Authority it is that hath so restrained us that we may come to know our duty and conform unto it The Canons of particular Churches have no power to do it further than they have been admitted into the Church wherein we live for then being made a part of her Canon also they have power to bind us to observance As little power there is to be allowed unto the Declarations and Edicts of particular Princes but in their own dominions only Kings are Gods Deputies on the Earth but in those places only where the Lord hath set them their power no greater than their Empire and though they may command in their own Estates yet is it extra sphaeram activitatis to prescribe Laws to Nations not subject to them A King of France can make no Law to bind us in England Much less must we ascribe unto the dictates and directions of particular men which being themselves subject unto publick Order are to be hearkned to no further than by their life and doctrine they do preach obedience unto the publick Ordinances under which they live For were it otherwise every private man of name and credit would play the Tyrant with the liberty of his Christian Brethren and nothing should be lawful but what he allowed of especially if the pretence be fair and specious such as the keeping of a Sabbath to the Lord our God the holding of an holy convocation to the King of Heaven Example we had of it lately in the Gothes of Spain and that strange bondage into which some pragmatick and popular man had brought the French had not the Council held at Orleans gave a check unto it And with examples of this kind must we begin the story of the following Ages CHAP. V. That in the next six hundred years from Pope Gregory forwards the Lords day was not reckoned of as of a Sabbath 1. Pope Gregories care to set the Lords day free from Jewish rigours at that time obtruded on the Church 2. Strange fancies taken up by some about the Lords day in these darker Ages 3. Scriptures and Miracles in these times found out to justifie the keeping of the Lords day holy 4. That in the judgment of the most learned in these six Ages the Lords day hath no other ground than the Authority of the Church 5. With how much difficulty the people of these times were barred from following their Husbandry and Law-days on the Lords day 6. Husbandry not restrained on the Lords day in the Eastern parts until the time of Leo Philosophus 7. Markets and Handierafts restrained with no less opposition than the Plough and Pleading 8. Several casus reservati in the Laws themselves wherein men were permitted to attend those businesses on the Lords day which the laws restrained 9. Of divers great and publick actions done in these Ages on the Lords day 10. Dancing and other sports no otherwise prohibited on the Lords day than as they were an hindrance to Gods publick Service 11. The other Holy days as much esteemed of and observed as the Lords day was 12. The publick hallowing of the Lords day and the other Holy days in these present Ages 13. No Sabbath all these Ages heard of either on Saturday or Sunday and how it stood with Saturday in the Eastern Churches WE are now come to the declining Ages of the Church after the first 600 years were fully ended and in the entrance on the seventh some men had gone about to possess the people of Rome with two dangerous fancies one that it was not lawful to do any manner of work upon the Saturday or the old Sabbath ita ut die Sabbati aliquid operari prohiberent the other ut dominicorum die nullus debeat larari that no man ought to bathe himself on the Lords day or their new Sabbath With such a race of Christned Jews or Judaizing Christians was the Church then troubled Against these dangerous Doctrines did Pope Gregory write his Letter to the Roman Citizens stiling the first no other than the Preachers of Antichrist Epl. 3. l. 11. one of whose properties it shall be that he will have the Sabbath and the Lords day both so kept as that no manner of work shall be done on either qui veniens diem Sabbatum atque dominicum ab omni faciet opere custodire as the Father hath it Where note that to compell or teach the people that they must do no manner of work on the Lords day is a mark of Antichrist And why should Antichrist keep both days in so strict a manner Because saith he he will persuade the people that he shall die and rise again therefore he means to have the Lords day in especial honour and he will keep the Sabbath too that so he may the better allure the Jews to adhere unto him Against the other he thus reasoneth Et si quidem pro luxuria voluptate quis lavari appetit hoc fieri nec reliquo quolibet die concedimus c. If any man desires to bathe himself only out of a luxurious and voluptuous purpose observe this well this we conceive not to be lawful upon any day but if he do it only for the necessary refreshing of his body then neither is it fit it should be forbidden upon the
holy the Lords day and you have not kept it neither repented of your sins c. I caused Repentance to be preached unto you and you believed not Thent sent I Pagans amongst you c. and because you did not keep the Lords day holy I punished you a while with famine c. Therefore I charge you all that from the ninth hour on the Saturday until Sun rising on the Monday no man presume to do any work but what is good or if he do that he repent him of the same Verily I say and swear unto you by my Seat and Throne and by the Cherubins that keep my seat that if you do not harken to this my Mandat I will no more send to you any other Epistle but I will open the heavens and rain upon you stones and wood and scalding water c. This I avow that you shall die the death for the Lords day and other festivals of my Saints which you have not kept and I will send amongst you Beasts with the heads of Lyons and the hair of Women and the tailes of Camels and they shall eat you and devour you There is a great deal more of this wretched stuff but I am weary of abusing both my pains and patience Only I cannot choose but wish that those who have enlarged their Lords day Sabbath to the same extent would either shew us some such letter or bring us any of the miracles which hereafter follow or otherwise be pleased to lengthen out the Festivals of the Saints in the self same manner as by this goodly Script they are willed to do But to procced the said Eustathius thus furnished and having found but ill success the former year in the Southern parts where he did Angliae Praelatos praedicatione sua molestare disturb the Prelates by his preachings as my Author hath it he went up to York There did he preach his doctrins and absolve such as had offended conditioned that hereafter they did shew more reverence unto the Lords day and the other Holy days doing no servile works upon them nec in diebus Dominicis exercerent forum rerum venalium particularly that on the Lords day they should hold no Markets The people hereunto assented and promised they would neither buy nor sell on the Lords day nisi forte cibum potum praetereuntibus excepting meat and drink to passengers Whereby it seems that notwithstanding all this terrour men were permitted yet to travel on the Lords day as they had occasion This coming to the notice of the King and Council my men were all fetched up such specially qui in diebus Dominicis forum rerum venalium dejecerant which had disturbed the Markets and overthrown the Booths and Merchandize on the Lords day and made to fine unto the King for their misdemeanour Then were they fain to have recourse to pretended miracles A Carpenter making a wooden Pin and a Woman making up her Web both after three on Saturday in the afternoon are suddenly smitten with the Palsey A certain man of Nafferton baking a Cake on Saturday night and keeping part until the morrow no sooner brake it for his breakfast but it gushed out blood A Miller of Wakefield grinding Corn on Saturday after three of the clock instead of Meal found his Bin full of Blood his Mill-wheel standing still of its own accord One or two more there are of the same edition And so I think is that related in the Acts and Monuments out of an old Book entituled de Regibus Angliae which now I am fallen upon these fables shall be joyned with them King Henry the Second saith the story being at Cardiffe in Wales and being to take horse there stood a certain man by him having on him a white Coat and being barefoot who looked upon the King and spake in this wise Good old King John Baptist and Peter straightly charge you that on the Sundays throughout all your Dominions there be no buying or selling nor any other servile business those only except which appertain to the preparation of meat and drink which thing if thou shalt observe whatsoever thing thou takest in hand thou shalt happily finish Adding withal that unless he did these things and amend his life he should hear such news within the twelve-moneth as would make him mourn till his dying day But to conclude what was the issue of all this Hoveden this terrible letter and forged miracles That the Historian tells us with no small regret informing us that notwithstanding all these miracles whereby God did invite the people to observe this day Populus plus timens regiam potestatem quà m divinam the people fearing more the Kings power than Gods returned unto their Marketting as before they did I say that the Historian tells it with no small regret for in that passionate discontent he had said before that inimicus humani generis the Devil envying the proceedings of this holy man so far so possessed the King and the Princes of darkness so he calls the Council that they forthwith proceeded against them who had obeyed him Which makes me think that this Eustathius was a familiar of the Popes sent hither for the introducing of those restraints which had been formerly imposed on most parts of Christendom though here they found no entertainment the Popes had found full well how ill their justlings had succeeded hitherto with the Kings of England of the Norman race and therefore had recourse to their wonted arts by prodigies and miracles to insnare the people and bring them so unto their bent And this I do the rather think because that in the following year Anno 1203. there was a Legate sent from Rome to William King of Scots with several presents and many indulgences Quae quoniam grato accepit animo Hect. Boet. lib. 13. eodem concilio approbante decretum est c. Which he accepting very kindly it pleased him with the approbation of his Parliament at that time assembled to pass a Law that Saturday from twelve at noon should be counted holy and that no man should deal in such worldly businesses as on the Feast-days were forbidden As also that at the sounding of the Bell the People should be busied only about holy actions going to Sermons hearing the Vespers or the Evensong idque usque in diem Lunae facerent and that they should continue thus until Monday morning a penalty being laid on those who should do the contrary So passed it then and in the year 1214 some eleven years after it was enacted in a Parliament at Scone Lex aquarum cap. 16. §. 2. under Alexander the third King of the Scots that none should fish in any waters à die Sabbati post vesperas usque ad diem lunae post ortum solis from Saturday after Evening prayer until Sun-rising on the Munday This after was confirmed in the first Parliament of King James the first and is to this day called the
Thine always to be commanded in the Churches service P. H. Lacies Court in Abingdon Decemb. the 29th 1659. FINIS THE STUMBLING-BLOCK OF DISOBEDIENCE AND REBELLION Cunningly laid by Calvin in the Subjects way Discovered Censured and Removed By PETER HEYLYN D. D. ROM xiv 13. Offendiculum fratri tuo ne ponas Let no man put a Stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brothers way ISAM xxiv 6. And David said to his men The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my Master the Lords anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the anointed of the Lord. LONDON Printed by M. Clark for C. Harper 1681. THE PREFACE IT will appear to any who shall read this Treatise that it was written in the time of Monarchical Government but in the later and declining times thereof when the change of that Government was in agitation and in part effected In which respect I doubt not but the publishing of this Discourse at this present time may seem unseasonable unto some and yet it may be thought by others to come out seasonably enopugh for these following Reasons 1. To give warning to all those that are in Supreme Authority to have a care unto themselves and not to suffer any Popular and Tribunitian Spirits to grow amongst them who grounding upon Calvins Doctrine both may and will upon occasion create new disturbances 2. To preserve the Dignity of the Supreme Power in what Person soever it be placed and fix his Person in his own Proper Orb the Primum Mobile of Government brought down of late to be but one of the three Estates and move in the same Planetary Sphere with the other two 3. To keep on foot the claim and Title of the Clergy unto the Reputation Rights and Priviledges of the Third Estate which doth of right belong unto them and which the Clergy have antiently enjoyed in all and to this day in most Christian Kingdoms 4. To shew unto the World on whose authority the Presbyterians built their damnable Doctrine not only of curbing and restraining the power of Princes but also of deposing them from their Regal Dignity whensoever they shall please to pretend cause for it For when the Scotch Commissioners were commanded by Queen Elizabeth to give a reason of their proceedings against their Queen whom not long before they they had deposed from the Regal Throne they justified themselves by those words of Calvin which I have chosen for the Argument of this Discourse By the Authority of Calvin as my Author hath it they endeavoured to prove that the Popular Magistrates are appointed and made to moderate and keep in order the excess and unruliness of Kings and that it is lawful for them to put the Kings that be evil and wicked into prison and also to deprive them of their Kingdoms If these reasons shall not prove the seasonableness of this Adventure I am the more to be condemned for my indiscretion the shame whereof I must endure as well as I can This being said in order to my Justification I must add somewhat of the Book or Discourse it self in which the canvasing and confuting of Calvins Grounds about the Ephori of Sparta the Tribunes of Rome and the Demarchi of Athens hath forced me upon many Quotations both Greek and Latin which to the Learned Reader will appear neitehr strange nor difficult And for the sake of the Vnlearned which are not so well verst and studied in foregin Languages I have kept my self to the direction of St. Paul not speaking any where in a strange Tongue without an Interpreter the sense of every such Quotation being either declared before or delivered after it Lastly whereas the Name of Appius Claudius doth many times occur in the History of the Roman Tribunes it is not always to be understood of the same Man but of divers men of the same Name in their several Ages as the name of Caesar in the New Testament signifieth not one man but three that is to say the Emperour Tiberius in the Gospels Claudius in the Boo of the Acts and that most bloody Tyrant Nero in the Epistle to the Philippians Which being premised I shall no longer keep the Reader in Porch or Entrance but let him take a view of the House it self the several Rooms Materials and Furniture of it long Prefaces to no long Discourses being like the Gates of Mindum amongst the Antients which were too great and large for so small a City The Argument and occasion of this following Treatise Joh. Calvini Institution Lib. 4. cap. 20â— Sect. 31. NEQVE enim si ultio Domini est effrenatae dominationis correctio ideo protinus demandatam nobis arbitremur quibus nullum aliud quam parendi patiendi datum est Mandatum De privatis hominibus semper loquor Nam siqui nunc sint Populares Magistratus ad moderandum Regum libidinem constituti quales olim erant qui Lacedaemoniis Regibus oppositi erant Ephori aut Romanis Consulibus Tribuni Plebis aut Atheniensium Senatui Demarchi qua etiam forte potestate ut nunc res habent funguntur in singulis Regnis tres Ordines cum primarios Conventus peragunt adeo illos ferocienti Regum licentiiae pro officio intercedere non veto ut si Regibus impotenter grassantibus humili plebeculae insultantibus conniveant corum dissimulationem nefaria perfidia non carere affirmem qua populi liberiatem cujus se Dei ordinatione tuiores positos norunt fraudulenter produnt NOR may we think because the punishment of licentious Princes doth belong to God that presently this power is devolved on us to whom no other warrant hath been given by God but only to obey and suffer But still I must be understood of private persons For if there be now any popular Officers ordained to moderate the licentiousness of Kings such as were the Ephori set up of old against the Kings of Sparta the Tribunes of the people against the Roman Consuls and the Demarchi against the Athenian Senate and with which power perhaps as the World now goes the three Estates are seized in each several Kingdom when they are solemnly assembled so far am I from hindring them to put restraints upon the exhorbitant power of Kings as their Office binds them that I conceive them rather to be guilty of a perfidious dissimulation if they connive at Kings when they play the Tyrants or wantonly insult on the common people in that they treacherously betray the Subjects Liberties of which they knew they were made Guardians by Gods own Ordinance THE STUMBLING-BLOCK OF Disobedience and Rebellion c. CHAP. I. The Doctrine of Obedience laid down by CALVIN and of the Popular Officers supposed by him whereby he overthroweth that Doctrine 1. The purpose and design of the Work in hand 2. The Doctrine of Obedience unto Kings and Princes soundly and piously laid down by Calvin 3. And that not only to
insolencies of the Ephori towards their Kings altered the State into a Tyranny 10. The Spartan Kings stomach the insolency of the Ephori and at last utterly destroy them 11. An application of the former passages to the point in hand I Know it is conceived by some that the Kings of Sparta were but titular that they were little more than Subjects at best of no more power and influence in the publick Government Unlawfulness of resistance p 90. than the Duke of Venice at this day in that Republick And to say truth they were but little better in the latter times though not altogether so restrained after Lycurgus first and the Ephori afterwards had by their power and practices intrenched upon them and pared away so many of the fairest Jewels in the Regal Diadem But ab initio non fuit sic it was not so from the beginning the Spartan Kings being at first as absolute Monarchs as any other of those times Tacit. Annal. ubi addictius regnabantur when men were most devoted to the will of Princes For if we look into the ancient stories of the States of Greece it will there be found that at the return of the Heraclidae into Peloponnesus under the conduct of Temenus Ctesiphon and Aristodemus the sons of Aristomachus of the race of Hercules Temenus possessed himself of Argos Ctesiphon of Messene and Aristodemus conquered the City and Dominion of Sparta which dying very shortly after he left unto his two sons Eurysthenes and Procles Pausanias in Lacon l. 3. with the authority and name of Kings So that acquiring the Estate by Conquest and claiming by no other Title than by that of Arms there is no question to be made but that they governed in the way of absolute Monarchs it being not the guise of such as come in by Conquest to covenant and capitulate with their Subjects but to impose their will for a Law upon them In the first times and in Dominion so acquired Justin hist l. 1. Arbitria Principum pro legibus erant as we read in Justin 'T is true the Royal Family was divided from the very first into two Regal Stems or Branches both honoured with the name of Kings both ruling the Estate in common by their mutual Councils of which the eldest House was that of Agidae so called from Agis son and Successor unto Eurysthenes the second that of the Eurypontidae denominated from Eurypon Pausanius l. 3. the third from Procles It was appointed so to be by Aristodemus confirmed by the Oracle of Apollo and so continued till the subjugating of all Greece to Macedon But this concludes no more against absolute Monarchie than if it should be said on the like occasion that the Roman Emperors were no Monarchs or that State to Monarchy because Carus and Numerianus Diocletian and Maximianus Constantius and Maximinus ruled the same together as after Valentinian and his Brother Valens and the two sons of Valentinian and Theodosius did by their Example And so it seems it was conceived by Cleomenes who having rooted out the Ephori and being grown almost as absolute in the State of Sparta as any of his Predecessors caused his Brother Euclidas upon the expiration of the Eurypontidae to be made King with him â—â—â—tarch in Agis Cleemeâ— which certainly he would not have done had he believed that the assuming of a partner would have made him less For that the Spartan Kings were as absolute Monarchs as any others of those times when there was almost no Form of Government in the World but that doth appear by Plutarch where speaking of the condition of that Government in the time of Eurypon whom he calls Eurytion he saith that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sufficiently Montarchical if it were not more Plutarch in Lycurgo And hereto Aristotle doth agree who stiles the Government of Sparta under Charilaus before whose times by reason of the negligence and connivence of some former Kings the People were become too head-strong to be kept in order Aristot Polit. lib. 5. cap. 12. by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tyranny or absolute command of Charilaus in the State of Sparta But whatsoever it was in the first foundation it held not very long in so good condition For Eurypon the Nephew of Procles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch in Lycurg affecting to be plausible and gracious with the common people improvidently let loose the reins of Government and was the first that laid aside that sole and absolute power of a King whereupon followed great disorder and distraction which continued long For the People finding themselves at liberty became very bold and disobedient some of the Kings which did succeed being hated to the very death because they did indeavour the recovery of their old authority others being forced to dissemble and wink at any thing either in hope thereby to gain the love of the People or because indeed they were not strong enough to rule them And this did so increase the stomach of the dissolute and rebellious multitude that Eunomus the Father of Lycurgus being the fifth King from Procles and the third from Eurypon was slain amongst them in a tumult As such a dear and costly rate did Eurypon procure the favour and good will of the rascal rabble by which he purchased nothing but the loss of Royalty besides the empty honour of having the second house of the Royal Family to be called by his name the Eurypontidae Things growing thus from bad to worse and both the Kings and People waxing weary of that disorder and confusion which did reign amongst them both parties cast their eyes upon Lycurgus of whose integrity and wisdom they had conceived a great opinion For the People finding that their Kings had nothing but the name and title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and nothing else whereby they differed from the rest sent many a several message to him to require his counsel And on the other side the Kings were as desirous that he should return being then gone abroad to travel in hope that the authority of his presence would bridle and restrain the People from their insolency and disobedience towards them But herein they were both deceived Id. ibid. For Lycurgus seeing how things stood resolved to apply himself to neither party but presently began to project and cast how he might change and alter the whole frame of Government which to effect he armed himself and his Associates and possessed the market-place and so proceeded to the alteration which he meant to make Id ibid. et in Agis Cleomen Charilaus who was then King being forced to flie for sanctuary to the Temple of Juno But Plato saith there was another motive which induced him to attempt this change which was the ill success the other Kings his kindred of the house of Hercules had found at Argos and Messene where by degrees degenerating from a
the matter so aimed at by his Predecessors The Tribunes had been insolent enough in the former times but the obtaining of these Laws made them more unsufferable Before they used to quarrel all the greatest Officers as if the State could not consist but by their contentions there being no Magistrate so great nor man so innocent whom they exposed not sometimes to contempt and scorn and made not subject to their Tyranny The renowned Scipio himself the very Atlas of the State when it was in danger a man in whom there was not any thing but brave and gallant could not scape so clear but that he was accused by these factious Tribunes and forced to live retired in his Countrey-house Livie hist lib. 28. far from the employments of that State which did not otherwise subsist but by his abilities Nor could they look on their Dictators but with eyes of malice although they had as much Authority as that State could give them or any of their Kings had enjoyed before whom they endeavour to make subject to their pride and Tyrenny by all means imaginable And to that end sometimes denied him the honour of a Triumph though he had deserved it in all mens judgments but their own and sometimes making their Magister Equitum Id. lib. 22. to be of equal power and authority with him and finally sometimes they declaim against him Id. ibid. to make him of no reputation with the common people And for their dealing with the Consuls in had been a complaint of old even if the dawning of the day of their new Authority Consulatum captum oppressum à Tribunitia postestate Id. lib. 2. that the Consulship was suppressed and captivated by the power of the Tribunes and we can no where find that they improved their modesty as they did their power Nor did they only quarrel with the Consuls and proceed no further though that had been an high affront to the Supream Magistrate but threatned to commit them to the Prison also and many times their threatnings were not made in vain Plutarch in Mario For thus we read that Caius Marius being Tribune threatned to send Cotta the Consul unto Prison but afterwards was taken off by fair persuasions and Sulpitius one as violent as he though not so valiant assaulted both the Consuls as they sat in the Senate-house Id. ibid. and killed one of their sons there who was not so quick of foot as to scape his hands Which though they were but bare attempts were yet lewd enough sufficiently to the dishonour of such eminent Magistrates and to the infamy and disgrace of the publick Government And therefore to make sure work of it and that the world might see they could more than threaten Quintius will tell you in the Dialogue with his Brother cicero Brutum P. Scipionem tales tantos viros hominum omnium infimum sordidissimum Trib. Pl. C. Curiatium in vincula conjecisse Cicero de Legibus lib. 3. that C. Curiatius a most base and unworthy person had caused such gallant men as Brutus and P. Scipio to be cast into Prison And if we make a further search we shall quickly find that M. Drusus being Tribune caused Philip the Consul to be cast headlong out of his Seat to the no small danger of his life only for interrupting him in the middle of a factious Speech which was an insolency beyond imprisonment To speak of their behaviour towards the other Magistrates were a thing impertinent For if the Consuls and Dictators could not scape their hands there is no question to be made b ut that the Praetors Censors Quaestors yea the Pontifices themselves were most abundantly debased and insulted on by these popular Tyrants Thus have we brought the Tribunes to as great an height both for power and insolency as were the Ephori before and thereby made them ready for the greater fall A sall which was not long acoming after they had made up the measure of their pride and Tyranny For Lucius Sylla having brought the Estate of Rome under his command and knowing full well how dangerous these men would be to him if they were suffered to continue in their former power set forth a Law by which they were reduced to their ancient bounds inabled only to relieve not to wrong the Subject Sylla Tribunis Plebis lege sua injuriae faciendae potestatem ademit auxilii ferendi reliquit as we read in Tully Id. ibid. A thing that much displeased the people and the Tribunes more But Sylla was no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no great applyer of himself to the peoples humers and therefore cared but little how they took the matter Pompey succeeding him in power and in purpose too took a course quite contrary and re-established them in that Authority whereof Sylla had of late deprived them For finding that the common people longed for nothing more than to see the Office of the Tribunes in the height again and being resolved to lay the foundation of his greatness on the affections and dependence of the common people Platarch in Pompeio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gratified them in that point and thought himself a happy man to find so fair an opportunity to oblige them to him On which deceitful grounds for they proved no other he set them in their power again as before was said for which he stands accused by Quintus Cicero de Legibus l. 3. and I think deservedly Certain I am that Pompey bought the short affection and applause of the common people at no less a price than his own destruction Plutarch in I. Caesare the Tribunes being the very men which pulled down his pride and set up Caesar to oppose him who going the same way to work that Sylla did and knowing that a Tribune and a Tribunitian spirit were no friends to Monarchy left them the name but nothing else The power and priviledg of the Office he kept unto himself for his own security as one that understood none better how many notable advantages he should gain thereby Dion histor Som. lib. 53. for the confirming of his Empire Which Course Augustus followed also taking the Tribunitian power into his own hands posito Triumviri nomine as soon as the Triumvirate was expired by the death of his Partners Tacitus Annal lib. 1. and from thence reckoned the years of his Government as Tribunitiae potestatis tertium quartum c. which his Successors did after his Example till the time of Constantine when the name of Tribune was laid by as a thing forgotten Rosin Antiq. Rom. The Empire was then cast into another kind of mould than it had been formerly new Offices ordained new Forms of Government introduced and a new Rome built and to what purpose should they keep the name when the thing was gone Let us look back on all that is said before and we shall find but little reason to
't is well known that the ensuing Parliaments which they instance in moved not of their own accord to the deposing of K Edw. the 2d or K. Richard the 2d but sailed as they were steered by those powerful Councils which Qu. Isabel in the one Walsingham in Hist Angl. Hypodig Neustriae and Henry Duke of Lancaster in the other did propose unto them It was no safe resisting those as their cold wisdoms and forgotten loyalties did suggest unto them qui tot legionibus imperarent who had so many thousand men in Arms to make good their project and they might think as the poor-spirited Citizens of Samaria did in another case but a case very like the present Behold two Kings stood not before him 2 Kings 10.4 how then can we stand For had it been an Argument of the power of Parliaments that they deposed one King to set up another dethroned King Richard to advance the Duke of Lancaster to the Regal Diadem they would have kept the House of Lancaster in possession of it for the full demonstration of a power indeed and not have cast them off at the first attempt of a new plausible pretender declared them to be kings in fact but not in right whose lawful right they had before preferred above all other Titles and set the Crown upon the heads of their deadly Enemies In the next place it is objected that Parliaments are a great restraint of the Sovereign power according to the Doctrine here laid down by Calvin in that the King can make no Laws nor levy any money upon the Subject but by the counsel and assent of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament But this Objection hurts as little as the former did For Kings to say the truth need no Laws at all In all such points wherein they have not bound themselves by some former Laws made for the common use and benefit of the Subject they are left at liberty and may proceed in governing the people given by God unto them according to their own discretion and the advice of their Council New Laws are chiefly made for the Subjects benefit at their desire on their importunate requests for their special profit not one in twenty nay I dare boldly say not one in an hundred made for the advantage of the King either in the improvement of his power or the encrease of his Revenue Look over all the Acts of Parliaments from the beginning of the reign of King Henry III. to the present time and tell me he that can if he finds it otherwise Kings would have little use of Parliaments and less mind to call them if nothing but the making of new Laws were the matter aimed at And as for raising Moneys and imposing Taxes it either must suppose the Kings to be always unthrifts that they be always indigent and necessitous and behind-hand with the World which are the ordinary effects of ill husbandry or else this Argument is lost and of little use For if our Kings should husband their Estates to the best advantage and make the best benefit of such Escheats and forfeitures and confiscations as day by day do fall unto them If they should follow the Example of K. Henry VII and execute the penal Laws according to the power which those Laws have given them and the trust reposed in them by their People if they should please to examine their Revenue and proportion their expence to their comings in there would be little need of Subsidies and supplies of money more than the ordinary aids and impositions upon Merchandize which the Law alloweth of and the known rights of Sovereignty backed by prescription and long custom have asserted to them So that it is by Accident not by and Nature that the Parliament hath any power or opportunity to restrain their King in this particular for where there is no need of asking there is no occasion of denying by consequence no restraint upon no baffle or affronting offered to the Regal power And yet the Sovereign need not fear if he be tolerably careful of his own Estate that any reasonable demand of his in these money-matters will meet with opposition or denial in his Houses of Parliament For whilest there are so many Acts of Grace and Favour to be done in Parliament as what almost in every Parliament but an enlargement of the Kings favours to his people and that none can be done in Parliament but with the Kings siat and consent there is no question to be made but that the two Houses of Parliament will far sooner chuse to supply the King as all wise Parliaments have done than rob the Subject of the benefit of his Grace and Favours which is the best fruit they reap from Parliaments Finally whereas it is Objected but I think it in sport that the old Lord Burleigh used to say that he knew not what a Parliament in England could not do and that K. James once said in a Parliament that then there were 500 Kings which words were taken for a Concession that all were Kings as well as he in a time of Parliament they who have given us these Objections do either misunderstand their Authors or abuse themselves For what the Lord Burleigh said of Parliaments though it be more than the wisest man alive can justifie he spake of Parliaments according as the word is used in its proper sense not for the two Houses or for either of them exclusive of the Kings presence and consent but for the supream Court for the highest Judicatory consisting of the Kings most excellent Majesty the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Representees of the Commons and then it will not serve for the turn intended And what King James said once in jest though I have often heard it used in earnest upon this occasion was spoken only in derision of some daring Spirits who laying by the modesty of their Predecessors would needs be looking into the Prerogative or finding Errors and mistakes in the present Government or medling with those Arcana imperii which former Parliaments beheld at distance with the eye of Reverence But certainly King James intended nothing less than to acknowledg a co-ordinative Sovereignty in the two Houses of Parliament or to make them his Co-partners in the Regal power His carriage and behaviour towards them in the whole course of his Government clearly shews the contrary there never being Prince more jealous in the points of Sovereignty nor more uncapable of a Rival in those points than he But yet the main Objection which we may call the Objection paramount doth remain unanswered For if the three Estates convened in Parliament or any other popular Magistrate whom Calvin dreams of be ordained by the Word of God as Guardians of the peoples Liberties and therefore authorized to moderate and restrain the power of Kings as often as they shall invade or infringe those liberties as Calvin plainly says they were or that they know
together Ex hisce simul sanè ex primo secundo libro hoc satis puto constabit per Annos amplius M. M. M. M. tam sacrorum regimen qua forense esset atque à functione facrâ ritè distinctum quam profanorum five res spectes five personas juxta jus etiam divinum ex Ecclesiae Judaicae populorumque Dei anteriorum disciplinâ perpetuâ ad eosdem attinuisse judices seu Magistratus ejusdem Religionis atque ad synedria eadem neutiquam omnino ex juris istius instituto aliquo sacrorum prosanorum instar Ecclesiarum seu Spiritualium laicorum seu teorporalium Nominibus nullatenus discriminata Seld. de syn praefat libr. secundi And so it did till Pope Nicolas made the one independent upon the other So that their disunion is a Popish Innovation for till his time the Judges of Church and State ever sate together affairs Sacred and Religious were scan'd and determined in the morning and those that were Secular and Civil in the afternoon There was not till that time any clashing between Moses and Aaron no prohibitions out of one Court to stop or evacuate the proceedings of another and then it was that Justice run down like a stream and Righteousness like a mighty River If it be said that there are many corruptions among Church-men and especially in Ecclesiastical Courts The answer is That Callings must be distinguish'd from persons or else those two noble professions of Law and Physick will fall under the same condemnation with Divinity No man of any sobriety will condemn either of those professions because there are some Empericks in the World who kill mens Bodies and some Petifoggers that intangle and ruine their Estates And I hope Divines may have some grains of allowance granted them as well as the Inns of Court and Chancery and the College of Physicians if they cannot let that Calling which is most innocent cast the first stone It cannot be hoped that there will in this Age be a Revival of the primitive usage of these two Jurisdictions But yet this ought to be seriously regarded by all who have any belief of a Deity and regard for their native Country I mean that either our English Monarchs might be totally excused from their Coronation-Oath or not be put upon a necessity of violating thereof Their Oath in favour of the Clergy is that they will grant and keep the Laws Customs and Franchises granted to the Clergy by the glorious King St. Edward their Predecessor according to the Laws of God Rushw Hist Collect. part 1◠pag. 204. the true profession of the Gospel established in this Kingdom agreeable to the Prerogative of the Kings thereof and the Ancient customs of the Realm But how this Oath is observed when the Bishops are infringed in their ancient and indisputable priviledges let it be considered by all persons of sober mind and principles And let it be declared what order of men in the whole Nation the King can rely upon with so much safety and confidence as upon the Bishops and that not only upon the account of their Learning Wisdom Sanctity and Integrity qualifications not every day to be met withal in State-Politicians but upon the score of Gratitude and Interest For 't is from their Prince that they derive their Honours Dignities Titles Revenues Priviledges Power Jurisdictions with all other secular advantages and upon this account there is greater probability that they will be faithful to his Concerns and Interests than those who receive nothing from him but the common advantages of Government But this argument is known too well by our Anti-Episcopal Democraticks And perhaps 't is the chief if not the only reason of their enmity against an Order of men of so sacred and venerable an Institution As for this little Treatise the Author of it is too well known unto this Nation to invite any Scholar to peruse it It was written when the Bishops were Voted by the House of Lords not to be of the Committee in the Examination of the Earl of Strafford For then it was that Dr. Heylyn considered the case and put these few Sheets as a MSS. into the hands of several of the Bishops that they might be the better enabled to assert and vindicate their own Rights It was only intended for private use and therefore the Reader is not to expect so punctual an accuracy as he may find in other Treatises of this Learned Author It has been perused by some persons of good Eminency for judgment and station in the Church of England and by them approved and commended All that is wished by the Publisher is that it may produce the effects which he proposes to himself in exposing it to publick view and that those Lords who are now Prisoners in the Tower and from whose tryal some have laboured to exclude the Bishops were able to give unto the World as convincing Evidence of their Innocency as that great and generous States man did who fell a Sacrifice to a prevailing Faction and whose Innocent Blood was so far from being a lustration to the Court as some thought it would have proved as it drew after it such a deluge of Gore as for many preceding years had never been spilt in this Kingdom But 't is not my design or desire to revive any of the Injustice or Inhumanities of the last Age. Suffice it to say that it was for this Apostolical Government of Bishops that King Charles the First lost his Kingdoms his Crown his Life And the exclusion of Bishops from Voting in causes of blood was the prologue to all those Tragical mischiefs that happened to that Religion and Renowned Prince And those who have the least veneration for his present Majesty cannot certainly conceive him a King of such slender and weak abilities as to permit Himself and Family to be ruined by those very methods with which his Father was before him De jure Paritatis Episcoporum OR The Right of Peerage vindicated to the BISHOPS OF ENGLAND SINCE the restoring of the Bishops to their place and Vote in the House of Peers I find a difference to be raised between a Peer of the Realm and a Lord of the Parliament and then this Inference or Insinuation to be built upon it that though the Bishops are admitted to be Lords of Parliament yet they are not to be reckoned amongst the Peers of the Realm the contrary whereof I shall endeavour to make good in this following Essay and that not only from the Testimony of approved Writers but from unquestioned Records Book-Cases Acts of Parliament and such further Arguments as may be able to evince the point which we have in hand But first perhaps it may be said that there is no such difference in truth and verity betwixt a Lord of Parliament and a Peer of the Realm but that we may conclude the the Bishops to be Peers of the Realm if they be once admitted to