usually annexed all the Christian World over as a deadly Seal unto all Religious Donations The black forms whereof you have yet extant in your own (a) See above pag. 23. See the form of those Imprecations set down in a Manuscript compiled by the command of the great King Edgar apud Joh. Selden in Not. ad Eadmerum p. 155 156. Where they are doom'd to the same damned end with the lapsed Angels or Devils with Cain with Judas c. I once saw in the hands of a most Reverend Prelate an old Manuscript of Alcuinus Tutor to Charles the Great containing an Extract of all the most rigorous Curses scattered all over the Imprecatory Psalms such as the 69. 83. 139. c. and other direful Passages in holy Scripture as Levit. 26. Deuteron 28 c. and all as I may say compounded into one terrible Clap of Thunder darted out against this very sin of Sacriledge the Report whereof would make the hardest Ear to Tingle Read but seriously so much as we have quoted of it The Summe of them all was A sad Denunâ—iation of an Uâ—ter Total Final Eternal Separation from God and his Blessing Body Soul and Estate Posterity and all Saxon Records of your old Kings Ina and Edgar c 2. These Curses though uttered by particular men who yet if Parents or Superiors have a power from and under God to ( ) See a learned Tract of this in Ludovici Cappelli Spicilegio Diatrib de voto Jepthae Curse as well as to Bless yet were they ratified by the whole Church as well as by this whole Nation and therefore every way lawful as well as powerful 3. For although it might be once in the power of the King and Parliament or Nation by the Law of the Land to disallow of those Curses or of the Donations themselves before they were uttered and confirmed as by the Law of God it was in the power of the Superiour Father or Husband to disallow the Vow of the Daughter or Wife Numb 30. antecedenter before his Assent yet consequenter as anon more at large yet after they have once given way to them or allowed of them * See in the Book of Statutes the Sentence of Curse An. 51. Hen. tertii then de Jure and that by the express Law of God too as well as by their own Act 't is past their Power or the Power of their Successors after them to reverse or to repeal either the Curses or the Donations because God himself is then become a Party in the case and his holy Name ingaged and interessed in both which Specialty gives the Clergie's spiritual Estates one ground of Priviledge in Law beyond and above all other Lay-fees and affords the Reason why Church-Lands may not be equally disposeable or alienable as by the Law of the Land other temporal Estates may be 4. This is a Ruled Case in God's Court of Justice One memorable Instance for all you have Recorded in the Ninth Chapter of the Book of Joshuah and this it was The * Deuter. 7.1 Joshua 9.3 Gibeonites a part of the seven Devoted Pagan Nations by fraud obtain the Priviledge of Exemption confirmed by a rash Oath of the Princes of the Congregation About four hundred years after King (c) 1 Sam. 21. Saul in his zeal too saith the Text to please the humour of the People sought to slay the Gibeonites Hereupon God Almighty sends three whole years Famine and God expresly renders the cause to be a breach of the Promise made unto the Gibeonites so many years before and no way of Expiation but by hanging up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul seven of Saul's Sons to satisfie for their Fathers violation In this History besides the remarkable Circumstanstances of the Divine Talio both in the Place and Persons and the hereditariness of the Curse 'T is worth the observing the several differences betwixt that Case and ours as so many degrees of advantage in our behalf As that 1. Before the Oath and but for the Oath God's express (d) Deut. 7.1.2 Ob spreta septem Praecepta Noachi Petr. Cunaeus de Repub. Hebr. lib. 2. c. 19. Command was to destroy these Gibeonites as being within the compass of God's Interdictum 2ly The Oath was rash for v. 14. the Princes would not so much as stay to ask counsel of the Lord. 3ly It was extorted by fraud and that upon a false ground too that they came from a very far Country whereas they dwelt hard by 4ly There seemed a kind of publick necessity to repeal such a rash Oath for v. 19. because of it all the Congregation murmured against the Princes yet for all that the Princes dare not to please or appease the People venture to displease God But v. 19. All the Princes said unto all the Congregation we have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel now therefore we may not touch them Sure they will not say that this example also is but Levitical or Oaths but Ceremonial unless they will shake hands with the Anabaptists and other Fanaticks 5. It needs no further Application for if in the case of a Promise made to meer Heathen to cursed Heathen God was so strict a Revenger of the Violation then à majori betwixt Christian and Christian yea between God and Man venture who dare Eurip. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though man cannot God can (e) Lev. 25.21 Command as the Blessing so the Curse to take effect for it will appear soon or late that it was God's own Curse and therefore impossible it should be either causeless or powerless 6. Causeless it is not but most just in the Nature in the Motives in the end thereof First in the Nature of it for what can be more just then to separate those Persons from God the nature of the Curse who made no Conscience of separating those holy things from God which belong unto God by the Donor's godly will Secondly in the Ends and Motives the Curses were just also for why might not those good men have in them an Eye to the glory of (f) Sanctus i. e. honoratus sit Deus eo ipso quod punit Sacrilegos scilicet de divino honore tantúm sacrilegi de trahunt ut necesse sit per eorum punitionem resarciri honorem pristinum Caiet in Levit 10.3 God their Protestations are so and Charity bids believe the best and to the good of his Church namely that God's Justice might appear in the punishment of Sacrilegious Usurpers or Violators and so the Church might be edified and all men warned by their Exemplary punishment 7. And as those Curses were not causeless so neither were they powerless how ever the Irreligious Scoffers of these latter days may blaspheme God and slight them and all God's ways of Justice or Mercy either Yet by the general woful experience of so many Men Families yea Nations as have ventured upon them it will
grant preserve and defend the Rights of the Church 1. FOR first If you consider the King but as a Man in his meer Moral Capacity were it not an unnatural act to betray his best Friends those that to phrase it in e 1 Kings ii 26. King Solomons words have really been afflicted in all wherein the King hath been afflicted And yet this Salomon spake of such a Priest Abiathar who though Loyal in Absalom's Rebellion 2 Sam. xv 24. yet as here too many of our Tribe proved an errand Traitor in Adonijah's second Rebellion 1 Kings i. 7. But our constancy God be thanked makes our case the better For should the King deal worse with his Innocent with his Loyal Priests Nay could the King save the whole Kingdome from ruine by giving but his Consent to take away the Life or but Livelihood of but one Innocent man that we say not a Bishop or a Priest we may safely say by the rules of bare Moral Honesty the King might not do it in Point of Honour as the King is a man 2. But secondly consider the King in his Political Capacity as a Magistrate and of all other Estates or Corporations whatsoever by your own rules the King is bound in Conscience and Law both to defend and provide for the Church as his perpetual Ward in Law since as you say your selves and your own f Sir Edward Coke upon Magna Charta page 3. See the several Records to this purpose quoted by him there Records say no less Ecclesia semper est infrà aetatem in Custodia Domini Regis qui tenetur Jura haereditates suas manu tenere defendere in point of Justice as he is a Magistrate that we say nothing of the INTEREST OF STATE for no State in the whole Realm is more beneficial unto the Princes Exchequer then the Clergy if it be kept flourishing not only because they are deepest in Subsidies but because from the Clergy and so from no other Estate in the Land the King hath a considerable continual standing Revenue of Tenths besides First-fruits c. so that the King will be a loser by the bargain when all is done and * Ezra vi 22. Why should damage grow to the hurt of the King and we hold our Peace 3. But to wave that Temporal respect Thirdly and lastly how much more is the King ingag'd to the Defence of the Church besides his Royal Title of DEFENDER OF THE FAITH which is preserved in and by the Church in point of Conscience or Spiritual Interest if you consider the King in his Spiritual Capacity as a Christian man for that relation trebbles the Kings Obligation to all the premised Acts of Justice and Honesty 4. Especially if in the fourth place you adde to all these Bonds the Solemn Supervention of his Royal Oath Personally taken by the King at his Coronation and to declare his Majesties sincere and plain dealing and his Real Intention to keep his said Oath His Majesty hath therefore graciously been pleased himself thus to publish it 5. In that Oath the King Swears in a manner thrice for the Clergy particularly and so for no other Estate of the Realm besides to intimate that as your Law †8 Esiz c. 1. In the Preamble styles The Clergy a High State and one of the greatest States of this Realm so it deserves a special care and high regard proportionable Therefore as in the first Paragraph g At the Kings Coronation the Sermon being done the Arch-Bishop administreth these Questions to the King and the King Answers them severally §. 1. Episcopus Sir will you grant and keep and by Your Oath confirm to the People of England the Laws and Customs to them granted by the Kings of England Your Lawful and Religious Predecessors and namely THE LAWS CUSTOMS AND FRANCHISES GRANTED TO THE CLERGY by the glorious King Saint Edward Your Predecessor according to the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospel established in this Kingdom and agreeable to the Prerogative of the Kings thereof and the ancient Customs of this Realm Rex I grant and promise to keep them §. 2. Episcopus Sir will You keep Peace and Godly agreement entirely according to Your Power both to God the Holy Church the Clergy and the People Rex I will keep it §. 3. Episcopus Sir will You to your Power cause Law Justice and Discretion in Mercy and Truth to be executed in all Your Judgments Rex I will §. 4. Episcopus Sir will you grant to hold and keep the Laws and rightful Customs which the Commonalty of this Your Kingdom have and will You defend and uphold them to the Honour of God so much as in you lieth Rex I grant and promise so to do Then one of the Bishops reads this Admonition to the King before the people with a loud voice §. 5. Our Lord the King we beseech You to pardon and to grant and to preserve unto us and to the Churches committed to our charge ALL CANONICAL PRIVILEDGES and due Law and Justice and that you will protect and defend us as every good King ought TO BE PROTECTOR AND DEFENDER OF THE BISHOPS and the Churches under their Government The King Answereth With a willing and devout heart I promise and grant my Pardon and that I will preserve and maintain to you and the Churches committed to your Charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Justice and that I will be your Protector and Defender to my Power by the assistance of God as every good King in his Kingdom in right ought to Protect and defend the Bishops and the Churches under their Government Then the King ariseth and it led to the Communion Table where he makes a Solemn Oath in sight of all the people to observe the Premisses and laying his hand upon the Book saith The Oath The things that I have here Promised I shall perform and keep so help me God and the Contents of this Book This Oath is to be found in the Records of the Exchequer and is published in his Majesties Answer to a Remonstrance c. of the 26. of May 1642. The same Oath for matter you may read in an old Manuscript Book containing the Form of Coronation c. in the Publick Library at Oxon. of that Oath the King Swears in general to do Justice and Right with Mercy and Truth unto all the whole body of the People and the Clergy joyntly so afterwards more particularly in the second and fifth Paragraphs the King Swears in special for the Clergy and that He will be the Protector and Defender of the Bishops in their Priviledges that is not only or their Persons but of their Possessions also that is of their Persons in such a Condition so qualified in sensu composito with such Rights and Liberties and those Rights must needs pre-suppose their Essence and Office too and that as it was then in being according to
the Law when the King took that Oath This may be one Golden Nail more to fasten the Clergies Title and to Rivet it more and more into your own Law 6. For by this Juratory Obligation of the Kings special Promissory Oath unto God for the Clergy in particular some of your own good Lawyers teach us to say That the Clergies supposed tacite Consent in a general Act is not remissory at all of the Kings Conscience from this particular Clause of his Oath without the Clergies particular Consent first obtained and clearly expressed by a particular Body Representative of their own of the Clergy quatenus Clergy and not involved with the general Body of the People Their Act to free the Kings Conscience must in Reason and Equity be proportionable and adaequate to the Kings Act or Bond that is full out as particular 7. For else this bundle of Absurdities would follow that the Clergy obtains no more by the Kings Special Oath in their particular behalf then if the King had Sworn only in general which is as much to say that in this little short draught Oaths that should be spared are multiplied without Necessity or so much as Signification or that they must pass for meer Tautologies 8. If therefore the case be so that the King after such a solemn particular Oath may not consent to the Bishop's Deprivation c. without Injustice nay Impiety then sure I am that no man ought to counsel the King so to do for that Subject whoever he be that will go about to perswade the King to so impious an Act perswades the King to do that which were most palpable Injury to his fellow Subjects and most damnable wickedness against the Soul of the King himself for whom contrariwise every Loyal Subject is bound in Conscience to pray that rather then His Royal Soul should be so loose it may for ever be h 1 Sam. xxv 29. bound in the bundle of Life with the Lord his God but that the souls of His and the Churches Enemies may for ever and ever be slung out as out of the middle of a sling This must be their Destiny at last for Malum consilium consultori pessimum you never knew it prove otherwise in the end We say no more but conceive this enough to confute one necessity with a greater the pretended Necessity of State with the real Necessity of Conscience so many wayes ingaged in this publick Cause of God and the Church which Church as it rationally and clearly appears from the premises the King is obliged to defend in point of Conscience as the King is a Christian CHAP. X. The Confutation of the fourth Politick Pretence of a Legislative Power FOllows now the Fourth and last Politick Pretence of a Legislative Power to dispose of the Clergies Revenues and consequently of all mens Estates as they see Cause 1. This pretended Plea of a Legislative Power is mainly pressed by the chief Advocates both for Sacriledge and Rebellion for those Diabolical twins are still bred and born and grow up together and the same is also made the very Basis and Foundation of all the late Sacrilegious Vsurpations by that notorious i No Sacriledge nor Sin to alien or purchase the Lands of Bishops c. by Cornelius Burges D. D. This Sacrilegious Book in those Rebellious times had the licentiousness of a second Edition Anno 1659. Doctor of Sacriledge CORNELIVS BURGES who not content to * Matth. v. 19. break one of the greatest Commandements of God by practising Sacriledge in his own person Usurping for many years both the Mannor and Demesnes of the Bishoprick of Wells from the just owner that Learned and Venerable and most ancient Bishop Dr. William Pierce but had also the impudence to teach men so by Preaching and Printing the lawfulness of Sacriledge which at first was but only intended or pretended by his Rebellious Complices but as it was ex signis causis in a manner foretold by us three years before the event in the first Edition of this very Book it was afterwards acted in earnest k This Torrent brake out first against the Prelates the Lords Spiritual whom having once burried out of the way it soon overtook also the Lords Temporal and never stopt till at last it swallowed up the King himself Therefore principiis obsta is good counsel and very seasonable and also legitimated by that Sacrilegious Act of their pretended Parliament and which is worst of all aggravated by immediate Sacriledge against God himself blasphemously making God the principal Author of their Sin and with a complication of Blasphemies making the late Gracious King now a Glorious Martyr the Instrumental Cause of it for he worse than cursed Cham having begun his Libel with down-right railing at the Bishops and Pastors of Gods Flock to whom this ungrateful wight owed his Ordination over whose unjust persecution and illegal Abolition drawing out his arrow from the Popish or Mahometan Bow that is arguing from their Cross against their Cause he there doth most barbarously insult telling the world of the sad Providence on the Cathedral Prelacy of England * C. B. ch 1. though since another happy providence hath most visibly confuted him by a gracious and almost miraculous Restauration both of King and Bishop then he dares affirm expresly that it was God who did put it into the hearts of the late Long Parliament by an Ordinance of both Houses dated Octob. 9. 1646. after the King saith that Shimei had deserted his Parliament Corn. Burges chap. 1. raised his Standard against them whereby he put both them and the whole Kingdom out of his Protection and none but those two Houses of Parliament remained to take care of the Publick Interest in a Legal Way wholly to abolish the Name Title Style Dignity and Offices of all Arch-Bishops and Bishops within the Kingdom of England Dominion of Wales and to vest and settle their Lands and Possessions in Trustees to the use of the Commonwealth c. and soon after he proceeds farther avowing that on the 13. of April 1649. the Commons of England being then the only persons remaining having then after the Bishops thrusted also the Temporal Lords out of doors in Parliament Assembled were necessitated forsooth to sell the Lands of Deans and Chapters whom he rails at with a full mouth as at the former and so to enact an utter abolition of these also reserved for the last to satisfie the Bulimia of those cruel and unsatiable Polyplemus's and so to make good their so long designed extirpation of both Root and Branch It were a Crime of Participation to be patient or silent in this cause which is Causa Dei Religionis Ecclesiae Regis all these at once and Sacriledge in special being expresly excepted in the Act of Oblivion We must therefore be mindeful to proceed against it This pretended Legislative Power of that illegal Assembly and their Sacrilegious Act
Siege page 164 Gods Judgments parallel to mens sins page â—â—6 K. Kings Persons are saâ—â—ed page â—â— 31 The Kings manifold Obligations to preserve and protect the Clergy 1. As the King is a moral Man page 1â—8 2. As he is the Supreâ—m Magistrate page â—69 3. As he is a Christian page 169 4. By his particular Oath thrice for the Clergy page 170 Knox against Sacriledg page â—10 L. Church-Lands belong to the Clergy by as good right as any page 46 107 Lands have been both lawfully purchased and piously given by Church-men for perpetuity to the Church page 107 109 Right Reason is the soul of the Law page 182 Penance in Leut. page 1 The analogy of the Levitical Priesthood with the Evangelical Ministry for the Substance in respect of the sacred Offices page 52 64 Luthers full Testimony against Sacriledge page 202 Legislative power discussed and determined page 177 c. M. Magna Charta a fundamental Law for the Rights of the Church page 46 The sacrilegious Malefactor page 6 Malignancy a new found Crime page 135 Manus Mortua why so called page 114 b Israels ten Mutinies page 75 Ministers of God not the Peoples Servants page 190 N. Necessity of State no plea at all for Sacriledge page 160 The Determination of K Charles the First upon the Case page 161 Gods Nethinims inviolable page 133 O. Unlawful Oaths ill taken worse kept 227 Obduration in Rebellion a shrewd omen of fatal destruction page 157 Offerings asserted by the law of Nature page 63 King Davids offerings voluntary yet no will-worship page 61 Voluntary oblations accepted under the Gospel page 91 P. The Parliament 25. Edw. 1. disclaims the Power of disposing the Estates of the Clergy page 185 The Long Parliament of 1640. annulled by the Loâ—al Parliament of page 166â— â—77 Plato's Testimony against Sacriledge page 128 Popery what properly page 26 Prescription no plea against God or the Church page 80 81 Two Religious pretences for Sacriledge namely Zeal 1. Against Idolatry page 116 2. Against an idle Ministry page 123 For a powerful Ministry page 129 Four politick Pretences page 1â—0 1. Of Justice upon Delinquents page 131 135 2. Of publick peace page 148 Eight wayes besides opened to an honest Peace without Sacriledge page 155 3. A third pretence of a State-Necessity to rob the Church page 158 The determination of King Charles the I. upon this Case 161 4. The fourth pretence of a Legislative Power page 177 to 187 Poor true and poor false page 35 Prelates vindicated from Sacriledge page 35 The Priests person is sacred page 32 The dissolution of Priors aliens page 119 b Publick daily Prayers now the Christians Juge Sacrificium or continual Sacrifice page 218 Preaching what ibid. R. Reason of State no Rule of Faith or Life page 131 224 Rebellion of all sins guilty of self-damnation page 31 Rebellion and Sacriledge inseparable twins page 22 25 26 174 The Rebels penal prosperity 229 The Recapitulation of the whole Book page 112 Religion what page 217 National Restitution the only National Remedy page 83 The Nations obligation to it page 84 Gods Benediction upon Restitution page 85 Gods malediction for want of Restitution page 86 Memorable examples of Restitution to the Church page 209 Sacriledge about the Revenues of the Church what and what not page 35 Outward Reverence no superstition page 34 67 The ground of it excellent ibid. The Right of the Church is the Right of God page 137 S. Sacriledge is a sin under the Gospel as much nay more then under the Law page 213 Proved so by way of Syllogisme page 212 The description of it page 12 131 A complication of sins page 21 85 Condemned by all Laws page 195 The Etymology of Sacriledge page 13 The hainous Nature thereof page 18 19 The kindes of it page 27 111 The plague of Nations page 3 4 Three roots of it page 11 Sacriledge excepted out of the Act of Indemnity page 176 Sacriledge is a great Snare and how page 188 Jacobs multiplied Snares till he performed his Vow page 193 Plagued with sudden Death page 99 Scripture-Sacriledge what page 40 41 3. Wayes thereof and 3. Antidotes against it page 42 Sin when National page 82 Stipendiaries usually popular page 56 T. Dissolution of the Templars and the excellent Statute about it page 118 119 Temporalties of Prelates asserted and vindicated page 13â— Wickliffe's positions about the same examined and answered page 144 Hereticks Recusers of the Old Testament page 87 Testaments not to be disanulled page 66 Testimonies against Sacriledge page 198 Theft may be of things unmoveable page 111 112 Tithes a moral Debt page 62 Turk's Respect to Christian Priests page 49 V. Who are now under the Gospel Gods Vice-gerents to accept our Offerings page 97 103 The nature and lawfulness of Vows under the Gospel page 63 94 Vows of two sorts page 114 All to be paid page 192 Uniformity of Divine Servicâ— most necessary page 126 The Universities in danger by Sacriledge page 222 Usufructuary what page 44 W. Wickliffe's Articles wrested against our Prelates examined and answered page 137 His History page 143 The will of the Dead inviolable page 66 134 FINIS
Imprimatur Tho. Tomkyns Reverendissimo in Christo Patri ac Domino Domino Gilberto Divinâ Providentiâ Archi-Episcopo Cantuariensi à Sacris domesticis Deo Ecclesiae Sacrum SACRILEDGE Arraigned and Condemned BY SAINT PAVL ROM II. 22. PROSECUTED By ISAAC BASIRE D.D. and Arch-Deacon of Northumberland Chaplain in Ordinary to HIS MAJESTY Published first in the Year 1646. by Special Command of His late Majesty of Glorious Memory The Second Edition Corrected and Enlarged I COR. IX 13 14. Do ye not know that they which Minister about Holy things Live of the things of the Temple and they which wait at the Altar are Partakers with the Altar EVEN SO HATH THE LORD ORDAINED that they which Preach the Gospel should Live of the Gospel Plato Lib. 10. de Legib. in principio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lucan L. 3. Quis enim Laesos impunè putaret esse Deos LONDON Printed by W. G. for W. Wells and R. Scot at the Signe of the Prince's-Arms in Little-Britain 1668. TO HIS Most Excellent Majesty King CHARLES II. Most Gracious SOVERAIGNE IT is now Two and twenty Years since first this PIECE was Rough-cast Inter Tubam Tympanum during the SIEGE at Oxford being then Commanded upon that Service by that late Incomparable Prince Your Royal Father and my Most Gracious Master KING CHARLES the I. of Glorious Memory a most zealous Enemy to all kind of Sacriledge Since that time whilest I lived abroad Fifteen Years a full Fourth Part of my whole Life in a voluntary Exile only for my Constancy in the True Religion and for my faithful Allegiance to Your Crown This young Benoni was soon Over-laid and so did in a manner lie long Buried in the Graves of Schisme and Rebellion Till now being called upon I have stretched my selfe over it Endeavouring through God's Blessing to Resuscitate it Assoon as the Child begins now to Breath again it softly Creeps towards Your MAJESTY and humbly Craves to be called Yours by Right of Inheritance In this Necessary Work as I do most justly Condemn Sacriledge that fatal Blazing Star to whole Nations so if I did not in all Humility lay down the WORK such as it is with the Author at Your Sacred Feet I should then Commit Sacriledge indeed and so both contradict the Work condemn my self The whole Designe of this Plea is nothing else but a Just Defence of some old honest Truths which are never the worse for being now a-days so much spoken against by the Many Though the IX Chapter of this Book doth chiefly Concern Your Majesty in Point of Conscience yet all being well Considered the whole Cause may Concern You no less in Point of Justice as well as in Point of Honour And so this WORK becomes Yours again by another Title by Right of Purchase since as by Your late Gracious Restoring both of the Church and Church-Lands Dedicated to the Service of God in thankfulness to that Great God for Your own marvellous Royal Restauration You have strongly Confuted the late Sacrilegious Vsurpations so by Your Constant Care to Preserve the Church Committed to Your Charge in the Laws Customs Franchises Canonical Priviledges and Episcopal Government according to the Tenour of Your Royal Oath You will not only Invincibly secure all these from future Sacriledge but also put Your own Great Seal to Your Father's Royal Deed * I pray God neither I nor mine may be Accessary to the Ruines of the Church c. The King's Portraicture Sect. 19. upon the Covenant and turn that King's Prayer into a Prophecy who to speak out this His Prerogative-Paramount in His own Heroical words Esteemed it His Greatest Title to be called and His Chiefest Glory to be the Defender of the Church both in its true Faith and its just Fruitions equally abhorring Sacriledge and Apostacy Thus the KING being dead yet speaketh of whom it may be almost said Never King spake like this King except the King of Kings The Church of God is by another King Solomon described Terrible as an Army with Banners Acies Ordinata Cantic vi 10. for Power Authority and Order in Allusion to the Camp of Israel in whose Tacticks the Martial Style we may to our Admiration if not Imitation Observe the Mysterious Manner how they Pitch'd about the Tabernacle that Curious Emblem of the Church First then they Pitched with their Faces towards the Tabernacle to intimate the singular Regard all the Tribes had to the Tribe of Levi because that Tribe had the Charge of God's Tabernacle therefore the other Tribes did not turn their Backs upon it much less stretch forth their Hands or lift up their Heels against Levi. Num ii 2. Secondly they pitched round about the Tabernacle three Tribes on each side of the four quarters of it as a Guard to defend it as a Magazine to Maintain it To which goodly Order of the Camp of Israel King David seems to allude in his Royal Religious Proclamation Psal lxxvi 11. All ye that are round about him bring Presents unto him that ought to be feared that is unto God because always Resident and President in the Church and thus Israel pitch'd their Camp But when they marched Juda Num. x. 17. Issachar and Zabulon led the Van on the East and then the Gersonites and Merarites Levites went next bearing the Tabernacle whereby the Priests were not like so many Enfants perdus put upon the Forelorn hope but Juda the Royal Tribe always stood betwixt Levi and the Enemy and they prospered accordingly as very well knowing that the Ark of God was indeed the Glory of Israel which 1 Sam. iv 21. Nunquam prosperè cedunt Res humanae ubi negliguntur Divinae when once departed the Crown would not stay long after it Lastly The LORD as their General dwelt in the midst of their Camp to go in and out before them who as some have Observed it is therefore in holy Scripture styled The Lord of Hosts above 200 times Thus Israel having God for their Invincible General having the Ark of God for their Sacred Arsenal no wonder if as the Author to the Hebrews Blazons their Martial Atchievements They through faith subdued Kingdoms Heb. xi 3◠34. waxed valiant in fight turned to flight the Armies of the Aliens Nothing but Trophies nothing but Triumphs so long as God's People keeps God's Order SIR You are as well by Theory as by Practice both ways so eminently Experienced in Martial Discipline that to make Application of this Plat-form were a Presumption much more impertinent than that of Phormio before Hannibal I know to whom I speak to a Prince as great in Vnderstanding as in Power Indeed Your Times in so short a Period have been as full of strange Revolutions of rare Accidents as any Prince which wonderful Passages of the Divine Providence over You may appear so many strong Arguments that hitherto the King of Heaven hath had a special Regard to
one Being recalled thence by a gracious Letter from his Majesty to that Prince then living I did Anno 1661. in due Obedience return safe though Per varios casus per tot discrimina rerum In all which Acts xxvi 22. having obtained help of God I continue unto this day 11. Ever since my Return into England to this very year I have had my hands full as of my many publick Functions in my scattered Stations so of sundry very tedious and most expensive Suits at Law being engaged to fight as well as to write against Sacriledge in the practical Defence of the Church from sacrilegious Invasion and Vsurpations to vindicate and establish though with my own personal loss the Rights of Succession In none of all which that I never yet did miscarry as I humbly bless that God who helpeth them to Right that suffer wrong so under God Psal cxlvi 7. I must thankfully acknowledge the Impartial Justice of the Reverend Judges O that I might now but close up in Peace this last Period of my troublesome Life 12. And I would to God that this Work now come out at last were utterly unnecessary or unseasonable even at this time I wish from my heart that we of this Nation were so free from the old and so secured from new Sacriledge that there should be no need at all of this Plea against Sacriledge 1 Sam. xv 14. But what meaneth then the bleating of the Sheep the People and the lowing of the Oxen the Partisans in our Ears which even tingle with not flying Reports but loud and lewd Out-cries and Attempts of the havock intended again against this one poor Church and that also by such unworthy Instruments to describe them in the late King 's own words Whose fortunes can hardly be worse but who would therefore make them better by Sacriledge were it not for a just King and for an honest Parliament that do still ponere obicem whom God bless with Constancy and with Success accordingly to whom in this great Crisis of Affairs to be humbly subservient only in our own way I have thought my self obliged many ways 1. As a dutiful Son of this Church 2ly As a faithful Priest of the same And 3ly I might further add modestly ex officio also by vertue of that Dignity which by our Law (f) Provideant Archidiaconi de Possessionibus ut ita singulis annis proficiant ne Ecclesia suo Jure defraudetur Lindw l. 1. Tet. 9. de Offic. Archidiac pag. 42. Edit 1664. gloss ibid. Roberti Sharrock LL. D. Vide insuper ad idem Constit Othonis Tit. 19. De Archidiaconis in special binds every Arch-Deacon expresly To defend the Possessions of the Church that the Church be not defrauded of its Right a threefold Cord one would think should not easily be broken Eccles iv 12. This we mention that none may trouble us with an impertinent Quis requisivit or give it out that we take up Arms without Commission in this Publick Service for God whom we chiefly eye in this Cause for the Church of God in the Defence of the Just Power Primitive Prelacy and due Patrimony thereof Though this Work is not intended nor prosecuted neither for the Church onely For who ever shall take the pains to read all shall find that according to our Oath 1. The Sacred State and inviolable MAJESTY of the King's Person The King's Preeminence and his just Prerogative His Supream Negative Voice in the Legislative Power a chief Jewel of his Crown 2ly The Parliament's Legal Authority Prudence and Piety 3ly The Vniversitie's Colledges and Revenues the Pillars of Church and State as that great King James that Miracle of Learning wisely (g) Studia bonarum Artium Ornamenta Regnorum ducimus Firmamenta Rectissimè Seneca ad nos Etsi nostra magis refert fortiores fieri quà m doctiores tamen alterum sine altero non fit non enim aliundo venit animo rohur quà m à bonis artibus à Contemplatione Naturae Ignoscimus Philosopho quod non adjecerit Studia Pietatis quae nos tamen ante omnia semper poscinus meritissimè Regum doctissimus Jacobus Epist ad Isaacum Casaubonum determines it like himself 4ly The true Liberties and Property of the Subject all these and much more as occasion is given are both inserted and also asserted in this Book All these being as in a political Concameration mutually though not equally supporting and supported one by another and so linked together in the Golden Chain of a mutual Interest that they consequently and that also commonly stand or fall together 13. As for us * Quamvis nesciamus an in Extremis aliquid tentare Medicina sit certè nihil tentare Flagitium Salvian we must do our part what ever becomes of this Work for we may not divine we have learned from the wise Arabes among whom I do not repent that I did live some time to trust in the truth of that Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is Vnicuique operae praemium There is a Reward belongs to every work Nay every good Work will be a kind of Reward to it self And if that fail us yet still we will fix our trust upon a far surer Oracle Isa xlix 4 5. that Though Israel be not gathered yet our Judgment is with the Lord and our Works with our God 14. But indeed we should think it a sufficient Reward if this poor Work might prove but a Warning-piece to all whom it may concern to Perswade them that they may not wilfully venture still upon the Plague of Sacriledge O trust not in Wrong and Robbery Psal lxii 10. which usually ends in fatal Beggary For even in this World God visits it in fury that we say nothing of the World to come where all Church-Robbers may be sure God will meet with them and there they shall not escape Mean-while God alto Judicio either takes away Posterity from their Estates or withdraws Prosperity from their Posterity 'T is very usual As St. Luke in another sense Luke xvii 32. Remember Lot's wife so may one say Remember Cornelius Burges (h) This terrible Example of the Judgment of God for Sacriledge upon the Person of Cornelius Burges such a notorious Doctor and also Practitioner of Sacriledge we may observe without Temerity It is the more memorable because so domestical so visible and yet so fresh in our Memories therefore we could not well omit it without some kind of Sacriledge both against God's Justice and Man's Posterity Take it thus as upon my inquiry it hath been attested both by that true Convert the valiant and zealous Sir Richard Brown himself Alderman and Major General of the City of London I had it from his own mouth the Letter it self having been consumed in that fatal Deluge of Fire as also from his faithful Referendary the Reverend Mr. John Durel that judicious and laborious
Advocate for the Church of England both in word and deed by his learned Books and by his labour of love to this Church under the King being the Founder and by procured Benevolences the Maintainer of the French Church at the Savoy a goodly Pattern and Precedent for Imitation of the best Reformation Secundùm Usum Ecclesiae Anglicanae we cannot deliver it in better terms then it is expressed in his Letter to me bearing date the 7th of January 1662. Give me leave saith this worthy Author to furnish you with such an Argumentum ad Hominem as will not only confute that Party but is able to make all who have any fear of God to keep their hands from meddling with any of those Lands which the Piety of Christians hath Consecrated for the Maintenance of Christ's Ministers About four years since being with the worthy Major General of the City of London Sir Richard Brown and remembring that Doctor Brittain of Detford had told me he had seen in the hands of the said Major General a Letter of D. Cornelius Burges wherein he acquainted him that he was brought to great want and poverty and that he was eaten up with a Cancer in his Neck and Cheek I desired Sir Richard to do me the Favour to shew me D. Burges his Letter which was presently granted me And there I read these very words to the best of my remembrance I am reduced to want a piece of bread and am eaten up with a Cancer in my Neck and Cheek as this Bearer my Son may better Inform you Yet the man was not so humbled by that heavy and exemplary Judgment of God but that he added Sir mistake me not I do not beg I only acquaint you with my condition and do you what is fit 'T is known this man had a great yearly Income He was besides a Purchaser of a considerable Estate of the I. Bishop of Bath and Wells's Lands which he enjoyed long enough to reimburse himself and much more then so and how he could be reduced to that extream poverty is not easily to be guessed at unless his Sacrilegious Purchase proved as a Cancer to his other Estate to devour it up And who knows but God in his Mercy to make him sensible of his sin sent that other Cancer on his body and set him up for an Example to this Impious Age as it were with this Inscription Discite Justitiam Moniti non temnere Divos I must not omit that I am told Dr. Burges died a very penitent man frequenting with great Zeal and Devotion the Divine Service of the Church of England till his death which happened about two years ago Thus far Mr. Durel's words I must add my hearty wish that D. Burges had himself before his death by some authentick Instrument as publick as his Book for Sacriledge Retracted since he could not Restore and declared to the World this his Repentance to put all good men's Charity out of doubt Meanwhile let all that hear or read this Singular Example give God his Due as did the Emperour Mauritius Justus es Domine Rectum Judicium tuum Psal cxix 137. And Observe God's wonderful wisdom that commonly Punishment is the Anagram of Sin wherein as in Capitals every one may read That Beggary in that man's Estate was the Reward of Robbery the Sore there answerable to the Sin of Sacriledge and also the Cancer in his Body answerable to the Cancer of his Schisme For their word doth eat as doth a Canker or Gangrene saith the Apostle 11 Tim. ii 17. As if God had written upon his Forehead Sennacherib's Epitaph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let every one that looks upon me learn to be godly and a thousand more that in the Ballance of their final account have found this sad propoposition too true a Prophecy That the Interest of Sacriledge hath devoured the Principal As if all their Gains that way had been put into the Prophet's Bag with holes Hagg. i. 6. yet for all this men will not become wise 14. But we are loath to let our Sun set in a Cloud rather therefore to end all in Prayer I beseech God that this honest Work may prove a Graft of that good Tree Psalm i. 3. which bringeth forth his fruit in due season That all from the King to the Subject may find Relish in it and reap Benefit by it That all the King 's true Servants and loyal Subjects may never fail to give him as they are most bounden honest and faithful Counsels hearty and ready Obedience constant and couragious Defence to the Glory of God and the Peace Power Plenty and Prosperity of this great Nation and in order to all these Blessings That God forgiving our Sins amending our Lives uniting all our hearts and Hands will yet in Mercy hear the daily Prayer of his Church Da pacem Domine in diebus nostris Amen ERRATA I. In the Text. PAge 19. Line 4. for closs read close p. 20. l. 16. for the r. their p. 27. l. 8. for remaing r. remaining p. 28. l. 14. for live r. have lived p. 31. l. 28. for observers r. observes p. 34. l. 18. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 55. l. 21. from the word Cathedraticum to seq p. 56. l. 5. all this should have been in the Margent which being put into the Text obscures the sense p. 57. l. 11. for Ministers r. Ministery p. 116. l. 14. b for ordes r. order p. 133. l. 20. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 135. l. 29. These words and really punished also are to be within a Parenthesis thus p. 155. l. 14. after all add is II. In the Margent PAge 49. Line 12. for Alepo read Alepo p. 132. after page add 120. 123. p. 133. after pige add 69. ibid. l. 12. r. wesembec p. 165. l. 1. add Genes xlvii 22.26 p. 171. l. 32. before Majestie 's add late p. 192. l. 4. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 199. l. ult after 1626. add above p. 209. l. 14. for Ecclica r. Ecclesiae ibid. l. 16. for Lundonicae r. Lundoniae ibid. l. 27. after example of add William the Conquerour p. 228. l. 32. add Ezek. 1.16 A Wheel in the middle of a wheel ¶ Note That through a mistake from Page 113 to 120. the Pages have the same Number twice which to distinguish we have added the letter a to the first Number and the letter b to the second A TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS The INTRODUCTION Page 1. CHAP. I. OF the Sacrilegious Malefactor Page 5 CHAP. II. The Description of Sacriledge Page 12 CHAP. III. The Distribution of Sacriledge Page 27 CHAP. IV. Of the Parties against whom the sin of Sacriledge is committed and here first of the Priest as God's Usufructuary onely Page 44 CHAP. V. That the Sin of Sacriledge is an offence against God himself who is the great Proprietary
Demonic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Xenoph. Paed. 1. Greek word bears it And if so then what strong obligation lies upon us Christians (o) 1 Thes 4.4 To possess our Vessels in holiness and honour that have the addition of such a solemn positive Dedication Doubtless to abuse a Nature so many ways sacred and so highly exalted as is our Humane Nature by its intimate conjunction with the Divine Nature of Christ our Head by its sacred unction with the Holy Ghost at our Baptisme must needs be fearful Apostasie and in a manner with Julian to wash off again our Christendom The onely consideration whereof how should it sublimate our minds our manners and raise up our Spirits to an holy Dedignation of all base Actions Should such a man as I flee said Noble (p) Neh. 6.11 Nehemiah So should every gallant Christian stand upon his spiritual Point of Honour and holily scorn to do acts undercoming so sacred a Person If not he shall one day finde it to amount to more than a Metaphorical Sacriledge This by the way may concern every Christian in general 4. But secondly in particular every King what ever he be is holy too by vertue of his Vnction yea though he were a meer Heathen yea though he want the Ceremony yet Cyrus mine Anointed (q) Isa 45.1 is God's own style Jus Regnandi that is God's Power from above is for the Reality Vnction sufficient to make the King's Person sacred and therefore the (r) Cod. de Crim. Sacril Civilians both Greek and Roman do extend the Attaindor of Sacriledge even to them also that do but violate the Imperial Constitutions of the Prince Ubi nunc lex Julia dormis Every Rebel then that dares lift up but a (s) Eccles 10.20 thought against God's Anointed violates a Person sacred and adds to his Rebellion Sacriledge when either of these sins by it self is enough to damn a Soul for when all Rebels and Traytors with all their specious pretences shall be dead and rotten still for all their Machavellian distinctions the Thirteenth of the (t) Verse 2. Romans will be Scripture Whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall RECEIVE TO THEMSELVES DAMNATION Acquirent sibi as the Vulgar reads it shall purchase to themselves That will prove the onely purchase in the upshot of all their Projects nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as (u) Bezae major Not. in loc renders it not sibi ipsis damnationem acquirent as are the ordinary versions but ipsi sibi damnationem acquirent Beza well observes it they shall not only be damned simply so in a passive sense but they shall damn themselves in the active signification become spiritual Felo's de se in a spiritual sense wilfully accessary to their own Damnation whether by their wilful perjury express or implicite in the breach of their Allegiance natural or positive the dismal Prologue of all Rebellions or whether by their wilful Impenitency the fatal Epilogue or Conclusion of all Rebels at their end Rebellion of all other sins being a sin of (x) 1 Sam. 15.23 This Text is absolutely the onely best reason of the usual Devillish obstinacy of Rebels who are in this also Machiavel's true Disciples who bids him that hath once presumed to draw out his Sword against his Superiour fling away the Scabberd and never think of putting up again Witchcraft either way will serve one day to convince Rebels that they of all others would needs damn themselves and therefore they of all others must needs be damned a sad Criticisme this the ground whereof in God's own heavy sentence I pray God the Rebels may yet have the grace to lay to their hearts that they may escape so great a Damnation the express Doom of this second kind of Sacriledge against the sacred Person of the Prince 5. Thirdly every Priest in his degree is by his Vocation a Person sacred too and therefore in some sense inviolable by the Law of Nations as well as by the Law of God or of Holy Church whose ancient Canons were therefore so strict to preserve the respect due to the Priest that if a man did but in disdain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the word in one of them look big or scornfully upon the Priest he was for the affront severely punishable as an Offender sacrilegious in this sense And for the same reason because the Priest is a Person sacred therefore on the other side as strict and as great was the Primitive severity of the known Ecclesiastical Canons to regulate and to (y) Quid prodest si Canonicè eligantur non Canonicè vivant Bern. confine the Priest in his manner of Life and Conversation as one that all over ought to carry and deport himself more holily than other ordinary Christians for that which in things sacred is their use in Persons sacred is their Conversation 'T was figurative that under the Law in the curious frame of God's Tabernacle The nearer things were unto God in relation of service the more precious they were to be both for * Exod. 26. and 28. stuff and workmanship Gold and imbroydered work so much more under the Gospel ought those Persons that belong to God be precious for holy life and sacred conversation Every Priest therefore that instead of teaching the People knowledge opens his lips wide to folly or vanity is linguâ Sacrilegus pollutes his Priesthood and if a Paire of holy (z) Nugae in ore Sacerdotis sunt Blasphemiae Hieron In aliis vitia in Sacerdotibus sunt Sacrilegia Chrysol de Ebrietate Consecrâsti os tuum Evangelio nugis igitur aperire illicitum assuescere sacrilegium Bern. Fathers may be his Judges is guilty both at once of Blasphemy and Sacriledge a fearful sin this more or less for you all know what became of the Sons of Eli for their personal Sacriledge in polluting their Priesthood since that Omne peccatum personae sacrae est Sacrilegium materialiter at least according to the Determination of the (a) Aquin. 22 ae q. 99. 3. 3 m. School because the Person is sacred 6. And as thus many ways Sacriledge may be committed against Persons sacred so against sacred Things or Actions too which are the Circumstances of God's service wherein to abuse or not devoutly to use (b) Psal 119.8 old Translation God's Ceremonies hath by the Ancients been tearmed Sacriledge whose full Definition (c) â—quin quo suprá Aquinas extends to any Irreverence in Sacris about which under the Law even those that did sin through Ignorance in the holy things of the Lord were yet to (d) Levit. 5.15 offer for their Trespass and under the Gospel the Christian Church was no less precise in all points of Reverence witness their frequent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so strictly injoyned and reiterated in their sacred (e) Chrysost Liturg.
them saith the great Shepheard and Bishop of our Souls and there he speaks directly of Teachers too and bids us judge of the Doctrine by the Fruits it brings forth be they good or bad and who sees not that since those powerful Preachers came up we speak of the generality of them we had more Christian Blood shed we had more Spirits of Error conjured up within the Circle of this one Island to the credit of the Cause be it spoken and within the compass of one Triennium the span of one three years of Schism and Rebellion than was raised in the whole Christian world besides all circumstances considered in thrice three hundred years And now having confuted their holy pretences drawn from colours of Religion we pass on to examine their State-Wisdom consisting of four points of Policy as it were the four Elements that make up the whole compound of their Plea for Sacriledge CHAP. VIII A full CONFUTATION of three Reasons of State or Pretences of Policy for the Practice of Sacriledge namely 1. Justice upon Delinquents 2. Publick Peace 3. State-Necessity 1. THe first is a pretence of Justice upon a Delinquent Party The second a pretence of Peace to the whole Kingdom The third a pretence of State-necessity The fourth a pretence of power Legislative to dispose of the Church Revenues as they see cause These be the Ragioni di stato of our English Machiavels To all which first in general Super totâ Materiâ we may well preface with the honest Observation you may call it an Oracle of that Noble Venetian Knight Paulo Paruta In questo corrotto seculo con certo vauo nome di RAGION DI STATO si vanno spesso perturbando e confondendo tutte le cose humane e divine That is In this Corrupt Age N. B. under pretence of a certain vain thing called REASON OF STATE men too too oft go on so far till have troubled yea confounded all humane and divine matters Thus he But e're we encounter them we had need to pray from such States-men and from such reasons of State as will make true Religion but a stalking Horse to false Policy Good Lord deliver us Once you may be sure of this that one day you shall not be Judged by your vain Reason of State but by your True Religion to God and Real Reverence to Holy Church under God 2. To the particulars One doth well define Sacriledge a coloured Theft under pretence of Law To begin therefore with the first Pretence 'T is the Pretence of Justice upon a Delinquent Party accused of two Crimes 1. Of old Collusion and fraud at the first original Purchase of those Church Revenues 2. Of another great new Crime since called Malignancy which is in plain English a compound of Religion to God Duty to the Church Loyalty to the King This is that terrible Chimaera Malignancy the fear whereof far more than the fear of God or of the King hath already Conquered and now possesseth the Hearts of the People the Heads of some Peers and the Tail of the Priests 3. To prove the first the Collusion they 'l tell you that of old the Priests took advantage of the simplicity of the times and of the men when both were at the worst and men â—awned upon or frighted upon their death-bed were fraudulently perswaded to do they knew not well what and clearly to prove all this they produce strong evidences such as for instance the merry Case of Naples c. and the like This is the Plea coloured with the odious imputation of Covin Covetousness and Ambition in the Priest Blindeness and Superstition in the People 4. I am confident men are too rational to expect we should confute this seriously But yet how do they evidence the Collusion for first a wise man would think it hard for a third Person to tell what passes betwixt a Penitent and his Confessor especially the Penitent dying upon it But 2. Admit there had been fraud indeed in some one odde case or other for to affirm this universally of all Church-Donations were both very untrue very Immodest that we say not impudent and very uncharitable although the particular intent might be bad in the deceiver yet at least for the general of it the Intent might be good and Religion in the party deceived viz. To further the Service of God and the salvation of his Soul as we have * See above page proved before 3. Why may not we in such a case for Gods Interest and the Right of the Church say as you say in your own Law for the Right of your Client or the Interest of the Common-wealth BETTER A MISCHIEF THEN AN INCONVENIENCE Better suffer some such one private injury than open a publick gap to Sacriledge as it was better for the Princes of b Joshua 9. See above page Israel though circumvented by fraud on the Gibeonites part yet to keep promise with the Deceiver than to open a gap unto Perjury and the penalty attending upon perjury But Ex abundanti in one respect more the ground of both those cases may be one and the same namely because * Semel Sacrata vero numini per veram Ecclesiam prophanari rursus aut in fiscum redigi non possunt Wesebec paratit c l. 1. T. xi § 4. Semel Deo dicatum what is once given to God must be Gods for ever For was not this the very case of the Gibeonites where besides the Interposition of an Oath à parte antè there was also the addition of a Dedication à parte post they were given to God and even therefore afterwards c Ezra 2.43 those Gibeonites were called Nethinims from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to give because they were given for the service of the Temple To be hewers of wood d Josh 9.27 and drawers of water for the Congregation and for the Altar of the Lord. 'T is true their Office was for the matter but vile and base as may appear by that proverbial speech among the Jews f Deut. 29.11 From the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water yet bebold so many hundred years after how severe an avenger God was of the injury done though by a King unto his Nethinims and if God be so tender over his water-bearers will he not much more avenge the blood of his High-Priests This by the way upon occasion of the parallel of the Gibeonites fraud with the supposed deceit of the old Priests in the obtention of those Testamentary Donations 5. But fifthly and lastly admit the charge of Collusion be false and the case not so indeed as for the general the contrary is most apparent then under pretence of Justice what an extream Injustice is this Invito donatore Who being dead yet liveth in his last Will and Testament for if an Apostle may be Judge upon the Case a Testament is of force after men are dead Heb. ix
soberly and ingenuously pondered doth quite alter the Case For 1. As for the Time it was when the Clergy so superabounded in their Revenues that a Law seemed necessary to interpose and restrain the Oblations by Mortmain p Stat. of Mortmain 7. of Edw. 1. When the people brought much more then enough as in Moses Case Exod. xxxvi 5. when the people were so liberal of their Oblations and Donations unto the Clergy That to phrase it with S. Luke chap. vi 38. in an higher sense they seemed as it were pressed down shaken together and running over into their bosoms But now the case is altered there is no great fear in this our Age that the people will over-do in this kinde The notable Subtractions from the Bishopricks and Deans and Chapters in the last Age the multiplied Prescriptions through Covin or Cowardise the Conversion of Lease-holds into Free-holds by incroachments the Decayes of Church-Rents the easie Pines of the Church-men in comparison of Lay-Land-lords the Aggravations by servile Taxes never heard of before now of late laid upon the Clergy such as Bridge-money Roague-money and the like These and much more could be said may sufficiently secure the State from the Clergies Exceedings therefore Distingue Tempora is a wise rule to silence the Objectors 2. As for the place John Huss Arg. 32. fixed his Assertions in the Kingdom of Bohemia whereof he affirms the Clergy had a fourth or third part from which proportion the Clergy of England though very thankful to God and the King for what they have are very far perhaps upon honest computation not the thirtieth part all Reprises duly deducted 3. The Parties against whom John Wickliffe and John Huss positions were directed were the Popish Prelates Abbots c. Shavelings as John Huss Arg. 42. out of Hildegardis Prophecy tearms them i. e. Monks The whole scope of both John Wickliffe and John Huss Positions is against such Clergy-men who did both usurp and also plead Exemption of the Clergy from the Kings Authority N. B. as over their Persons so over their Possessions Whereas the Clergy of England have better learned Christ since Rom. xiii 1. They know and acknowledge that Omnis Anima Every soul must be subject to the higher Powers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to St. Chrysostoms Loyal Gloss upon the place Though he were an Apostle though he be a Bishop yet must he be subject to the Higher Powers and therefore our Prelates and Church-men do not only profess but also swear due Subjection and Allegiance to the King as Supream in both Respects as over their Persons so in all Causes and therefore over their Possessions Bp. Andrews Tortura Torti Bp. Morton's Causa Regia c. Our Prelates do not only practice due subjection in both these but also to their Power Protect the Kings Supremacy with their Pens and Learned Writings against all Opposers on the right hand and on the left against all whether Anabaptists or Papists so that to confound our Prelates and Church-men with those Prelates and Church-men in John Wickliffe's and John Huss times is a malicious Plot. Certainly here if any where Comparisons are odious To argue thus from the left to the Right what is it but Crassa ignoratio Elenchi a fallacy exploded in the very Schools 4. The matter about which both John Wickliffe and John Huss frame their Arguments is the Clergy offending habitualiter that is as Wickliffe explains it which continue in the custom of sin and will not amend and John Huss Argument 2. instances in Rebellion against the King and Arg. 24. Treason as in the case of Bishop Judas Iscariot as he terms him Heresie as Pope Leo Rapos and other such grievous Crimes enumerated also by the Author in the title of his Appendix to John Wickliffe's Articles c. with which hainous Matters Impudence it self cannot charge our Prelates and other Canonical Church-men who when tried in the fiery furnace of the late Rebellious and Sacrilegious Persecution absit verbo invidia proved generally the most loyal and most constant Subjects of all so as neither Sequestration nor Deprivation nor Banishment nor Torment nor Death it self could prevail upon them to make them renounce their due Allegiance to the King Therefore to tell the King that to take away their Temporalties is neither Sacriledge nor Injustice is such a bad office such an high offence against the Kings Justice as would deserve some Exemplary Correction to deter others from the like presumption against my Lord the King whose Royal Generosity so Hereditary to him from his unparallel'd Father q No Prince in the whole world did ever both in word and deed more abhor the Sin of Sacriledge than the late godly King Charles the First Witness those Divine Lines in his Portraicture especially Sect. 14. Vpon the Covenant No man saith that King can be more forward than my self to carry on all due Reformations with mature Judgment and a good Conscience in what things I shall after impartial advice be by Gods word and right Reason convinced to be amiss I have offered more than ever the fullest freest and wisest Parliaments did desire But the sequel of some mens actions makes it evident that the main Reformation intended is the abasing of Episcopacy into Presbytery and the Robbing the Church of its Lands and Revenues for no men have been more injuriously used as to their Loyal Rights than the Bishops and Church-men These as the fattest Deer must be destroyed the other Rascal-herd of Schisms Heresies c. being lean may enjoy the benefit of a Toleration Thus Naboth's Vineyard made him the only blasphemer of his City and fit to dye Still I see while the breath of Religion fills the Sails Profit is the Compass by which factious men steer their course in all seditious Commotions Whereupon the King protests his detestation of such sacrilegious Reformation in these words I have alwayes had such a perfect abhorrence of it in my soul that I never found the least Inclination to such sacrilegious Reformings yet no man hath a greater dâ—sire to have Bishops and all Church-men so reformed that they may best deserve and use not only what the pious munificence of my Predecessors hath given to God and the Church but all other additions of Christian Bounty Thus that incomparable Prince of Glorious Memory doth scorn such unworthy Counsel and Councellors as would perswade the King against his gracious Genius to do an Act whereby that Estate I mean the Clergy which suffered most for the King should now also suffer again by the King 5. As for the manner how far both John Wickliffe and John Huss extend or limit their Assertions 'T is to be observed first that as they both still pre-suppose as a ground of just deprivation 1. The notorious abuse of those Revenues or Temporalties of the Clergy 2. The Clergies Contumacy or continuance therein and all this not pretended but proved so secondly
as one of your great b LE LEY ADGRAND POLICIE EN CEO Car c. Sir Edw. Coke en L'evesque de Winchester Clerks well observes it of your own good old Law out of a wise Conjunction of the Temporal with the Spiritual Policy as to preserve Religion so by their good usage of their Clergy to procure their Prayers Gods own Ordinance to preserve both Princes and Provinces c That which the PRIESTS have need of let it be given them day by day without fail THAT THEY MAY OFFER SACRIFICES OF SWEET SAVOURS UNTO GOD AND PRAY FOR THE LIFE OF THE KING AND OF HIS SONS Ezra 6.9 10. and by them to derive the influence of the Divine Blessing upon all the other secular Estates 29. Nay in a case of such base Notorious partiality the Jews even in their worst Estate may rise up in judgment against this Generation For 't is recorded as highly commendable of the Jews in their greatest Hard-heartedness Madness and Sedition during that horrible siege straitness and famine of Jerusalem under Titus Vespasian That yet * Vsserii Annal Chronol as long as they had any Priests they were not awanting to furnish still the Temple The PRIESTS and the Altar of God with that Juge Sacrificium That daily Sacrifice of the Lamb morning and evening which God had once required Exod. xxx 38 39. till the great Sacrifice of the Messias had finished all by his own Oblation of himself once offered Heb. x. 11 12. which their blindness and unbelief would not understand But yet even in those times of utmost extremity very Jews durst not pretend necessity against duty Nay beyond all this yet Pagan Aegypt it self would out of the bottom of the Red Sea rise up in judgment against Baptized England if so Sacrilegious 'T is the Applicative note of David Pareus and of the late Assembly-men to boot upon d Rex demensum praebebat Sacerdotibus ne agros suos vendere Inopiâ â—digerentur Laudabilis Piétas Regis etsi enim isti erant falsorum Deorum Cultores ostendit tamen JUS NATURAE ET GENTIVM postulare haec duo 1. Ut publicis Dei Ministris ex publico salaria honesta tribuantur quod ex Jure Divino Veteri Novo c. 1 Cor. ix 13 14. 2. Ut iidem Immunitatibus ab oneribus gravaminibus Publicis beneficio piorum Regum donentur atque fruantur ut Officio vacent c. Sed proh dolor quantum hic peccatur pauci sunt bodie Regeâ— Josephi tam in Ecclesiam Benefici Sacerdotes ita LXX Onkeli Josephi Philonis omniumque Interpretum testatur consensus David Pareus in Genesis x. vii 22 26. This example condemnes the Irreligion of many Christians who shew little Reverence or respect if not much uncharitableness or contempt towards the Ministers of the Gospel against whom the men of Aegypt in the day of Judgment shall rise up and condemn them as Matth. xii 41 42. Annotations c. London 1645. in Genesis c. By these Notes of theirs you may see once for all that in these mens judgment those examples out of the Old Testament are in point of Equity pertinent enough to the Ministry under the New Testament the Place For in a time of as publick as general as tedious and as extream a necessity as ever did lie upon a Nation seven years unparalell'd Famine and that also from the immediate hand of God expresly so as to put bread in their Mouths all other men else were fain to sell their Cattel their Lands and all and themselves too in the end yet all this while saith the express Text and that twice for failing to inforce the Observation Only the Land of the Priests Joseph bought not for the Priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them therefore they sold not their Lands 30. In which Record you may first of all observe that the Aegyptian Priests had Lands for their standing maintenance and yet were these but Idolatrous Priests the Priests of a false God and can you be Christians and think the Priests of the true God worthy of less or of a worse kinde of Maintenance then were the Priests of Aegypt Secondly special care was taken for all the straits of publick and general necessity that whatever became of the Lay-mens Lands yet the Priests Lands should be preserved from Sale or Alienation belike because the Priests standing maintenance once gone the Priests themselves could not subsist long after it and then the God of both Priest and People would be unserved therefore as the Current of Interpreters notes upon the place N. B. there all the other Lands were morgaged only or chiefly the Priests Lands were free Thus amongst Aegyptians and must it go quite contrary amongst you Christians must all your Estates pass scot-free and only your Clergy become the sole Sacrifice 31. Must those men that for ought we know have by their Loyal constancy in well doing and suffering been the Instruments under God to preserve us a Remnant and unto this day to keep this handful of people in their Religion and Allegiance Must these men I say for this their good service unto God and the King become the whole Nations only Victime Would not such a National Injustice nay impiety provoke God Almighty the God of the Priests to burst open all the Sluces of Christendom and without Hyperbole to let in upon you all that whole Deluge of Turks or Scythians your other sins call for to revenge Gods quarrel upon the whole Land by overflowing such an unworthy Nation for ever rather than such a National Injustice should go away unpunished even in this world Ah remember the fate of the seven Famous Churches of Asia and fear and amend 32. Thirdly and lastly In that Aegyptian History 't is most observable that it was principally by Pharaoh's Royal Care that the Priests Lands were kept unsold for the Priests had a Portion assigned them of Pharaoh saith the Text and would they allow a Christian King less Power or Authority to provide for Christs Ministers than was allowed to the Egyptian King or would they make My Lord the King worse than the Egyptian Tyrant worse than t'other Pharaoh the worst Pharaoh to sell and betray his own Priests to whose special defence and protection the King in his Religious respect to the Laws of God and Man knows and in Royal Duty thinks himself bound by so many multiplied Tyes as it were so many Divine Chains in all his Capacities Moral Political and Spiritual as the King is a Man as the King is a Magistrate as the King is a Christian CHAP. IX Of the Kings Solemn Oath at his Coronation which obliges the King as well in Point of Honour as he is a man as in Point of Justice as he is a Magistrate and likewise in Point of Conscience as he is a Christian constantly to
Matth. vii 26. is the sandy Foundation upon which this foolish Builder like a down-right Sophister wilfully declining the Question of Right doth build his house of Sacriledge Subrue fulturam patitur structura Ruinam To batter which we could say more both ad Hominem and also ad Rem but that as for the Man we purposely blunt our Pen because we hear he is dead and gone and so past his Accounts here and for a terror to all surviving Usurpers except he did Repent and Restore also he hath already received his sentence according to his works God knows where he is now and there we leave him But as to the matter it self That pretended Legislative Power of his counterfeit Parliament is sufficiently abolished mark the Divine Talio of Abolition for Abolition by the Legal Power of that Loyal Parliament * 13 Car. 2. cap. 1. for Repeal of the Parliament begun 3. Nov. 1640. See Sir Robert Wiseman's notes touching the Long Parliament that had declared all such Orders and Ordinances made by that disloyal Parliament to be null and void and further determined That there is no Legislative Power in either or both Houses of Parliament without the King This being the main Fundamental Law of this Realm might suffice for a full Confutation of what ever hath been said in his whole Book by that infamous Patron of Sacriledge But admitting an impossibility that such an unlawful Assembly had been a lawful Parliament yet can that prove it therefore to be infallible but that it may do wrong may not one be Tyrannus Exercitio though not Titulo if his Decrees or Ordinances fall upon indebitam materiam what else can such a manner of proceeding be to enact a total deprivation of a whole community of men many of them innocent as hath been shewed above in the case of pretended Delinquency and afterwards to argue à facto ad jus †It is the complaint of a wise man of the Law that the meaning of that Axiome Ex facto jus oritur hath been extreamly rack'd Sir Robert Wiseman 's Note touching the alteration of some Laws our Sophisters chief Medium all over This way of arguing must needs prove of a monstrous of a dangerous consequence for say a man should thus Syllogize Whatsoever the two Houses or but one of the Houses of Parliament do enact or ordain is lawful that must be his Major But the two Houses or at least one of them hath abolished and also deprived all Bishops Deans and Chapters this Minor proved too true Ergo That Abolition and Deprivation was lawful and consequently No Sacriledge nor Sin the presumptuous Title of the Book of this Church-Pyrate Now should the sharp point of this two-edged Argument which we have felt sufficiently through and through be retorted and turned upon the breast of either of those two Estates of the Kingdom what would then become of the Lords Temporal or of the Commons themselves trow we for if they grant the Major they cannot avoid the Conclusion and so they may be turned out of all by the Votes of a Predominant Party and then farewel the Property of the Subject Beware of such Precedents you that are wise for 't is an old say Cras tibi hodie mihi Enough for the Demolition of such an absurd Power that is attended by such palpable injustice But yet ex abundanti upon this occasion of C. B.'s Book for a fuller Conviction and if possible Conversion of which though we have but small hope yet is it both our wish and our main design in this troublesome work it will be worth the pains soberly to examine the full extent of all humane Legislative Power granting the Hypothesis that the Power is lawful In prosecution whereof first of all let this our Protestation be entered That we intend not to question the Justice of the Law or to examine the Power or the Wisdom of the Law-makers or to meddle at all with the Constitution of the State or to discuss this point further then in a direct and necessary Reference to the Vniversal Law the Law of Nature the Law of Nations and the Law of God to which all particular Laws if they be Laws indeed and not Lawless Libertinism or barbarous Tyranny must needs vail and yield their due Subordination If not then by all mens leave the Divine may nay must without any busie-bodiness at all in States-matters taking the Law interminis according to the common sense it bears or should bear carry it l TO THE LAW AND TO THE TESTIMONY If they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Isa viii 20. Ad Legem ad Testimonium and there wisely warily and impartially weigh the matter of the Law in the Ballance of the Sanctuary or in the Scales of clear Scripture and sound Reason at whose Bar both all the Laws and all the Law-Makers too must one day be tryed at last in Ultimo districtu And if upon Aequilibration as we may say the Humane Law shall prove light then that men may not stumble at it and fall and perish by obeying any unjust Law of man contrary to the just Law of God 't is then the proper work and direct Profession of the Divine as he will answer Soul for Soul to take forth the m Jer. xv 19. Precious from the vile and as becomes him who is to the people as Gods mouth to n Ezek. iii. 17 18. warn other mens Consciences from it and so free his own For thus though the Law of the Land be matter of Policy yet the Peace of Conscience about the lawfulness or unlawfulness of that Law immediately belongs to Divinity the Senior-Law of all from which as we may say all mens Junior-Laws if just must be derived Divinity being indeed no other than the Original Law of God which may suffice once for all to pre-occupate an ignorant or malicious and yet a very ordinary Objection of some that whilst themselves take upon them at every turn to Confront Divinity with Colours of Law yet blame the Divine very much if se defendendo he dare offer to prefer Gods Law to mans Law in case those two Laws should justle as if the Divine in doing but his own proper duty were ipso facto a medlar in another mans Calling 2. Thus much premised the justness of such a pretended Legislative Power will be soon tryed if but compared 1. With some Undeniable Principles it destroyes 2. With some Right Conditions of a just power which it should have and doth want 3. With some gross Absurdities it involves 3. First then such a Legislative Power at pleasure as they call it to vote men Innocent men out of their whole Estates and Livelihoods their Lives may be next is too absolute to be communicable to any Creature and doth trench upon Gods own Prerogative whose will is therefore a Law and Idea Justitiae as they say in
the Schools so that whatever is just with God is just à priori because 't is Gods will but contrariwise with man this or that must be Mans will only à posteriori because it is just And the Reason of all this is founded upon a common Principle undeniable because God and God alone is Essentially Just so as Gods Justice is his very Essence 'T is not it cannot be so with any man or men single or collective whose justice at the most is but an Accident separable that may abesse as soon as adesse go and come as men may be well or ill affected so that 't is as vain a Point of Popery as any for meer Creatures to challenge an Absoluteness or Infallibility in the Distribution of Justice as to pretend it in the Determination of Truth This is a Divine Priviledge reserved to the Creator and beyond the Sphere of any Creature By these two plain Principles such a Legislative Power ad placitum is quite gone so far from being lawful that it is made the very o Prov. i. 11 Character of Sinners in grain to challenge a power to deprive the Innocent without cause and therefore an Act whose Authors are accursed upon Gods own Record and p Deut. xxvii 25. to which Curse all Gods people are commanded to say Amen 4. Secondly as such a Legislative Power is utterly incompatible with those prima Principia so with those other Right Conditions required to the good Constitution of a just Law whose very q Ratio est anima legis Soul is or should be Right Reason without which any humane Law is dead nay deadly as well to those that enact it as to those whose unhappiness it is to live or to suffer under such an Vnreasonable Law or Law-makers so Essential is Reason to Law that therefore the Law is generally defined by it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r Clem. Alex. Strom. l. 1. who there calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a good opinion c. Lex est recta Ratio But how point blank to all right Reason such an Act of Deprivation would be we have at large demonstrated before This for the Form of the Law as we may say 5. As for the Matter the Law should be an t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. ibid. Suarez de legib l. 1. c. 1. § 1. ex Aquin. 1. 2. q. 90. Art 1 Vnbended Rule equally fit and able to render to every one their Right and to redress their wrongs so that an Injurious Law though if not directly contrary to Gods Law de facto it must and doth binde the Inferiour unto Obedience quoad effectum civilem yet de Jure it is no Law at all because not just So that in such Cases it is no Presumption at all to say the Law cannot do this or the Law cannot do that If the thing be unlawful because as the Law is u DD. in L. Impossibilium 185. ff de R. J. Calv. Lexi c. Jurid impossibile Sâ—hneid in Instit lib. 3. de verbor obligat tit 17. Sect. sub câ—nd num 4. Impossibile est quod de Jure non licet as it is impossible by Nature for a man upon earth to touch the Skie with his Finger Thus the Doctors compare the two Impossibilities natural and moral so whatsoever is contrà bonos more 's is as impossible de Jure quia id demùm possumus quod honestè possumus x Lex est Honestum legitimae potestatis Decretum ad tuendam Reip. Pac. Wesemb paratit Digest l. 11. Tit. 3. de legibus Since therefore such a Law of Deprivation were unto so considerable a Party in the Commonwealth as the Clergy is in Law such an extream injury we may safely say and that without any just offence to God or Man that the Law cannot do such an act Nay so far is such a Restraint from being any real disparagement to Princes or Parliaments to the Law-makers themselves that if rightly apprehended it rather doth greatly redound to their Honour because it doth in a degree assimilate them unto God himself of whom the Apostle saith to his praise that * Tit. i. ult 2 Tim. ii 13. God cannot lye that God cannot deny himself and the like 6. But thirdly all this will be yet plainer and I hope past all just Exception yea or but Contradiction when we have impartially considered the poysoned Cluster of gross Absurdities growing upon it 7. As first The utter destruction of the property of the Subject the great Diana so much cried up at the beginning by those very men that did Vote it down in the end Sure one would think that the people if they were but once again in their right minde would not thank such Doctors nor such Doctrines neither as directly take away the property of the Subject for it will follow by the Rule à quatenus ad omne Yet some Servile Lay men stick not to acknowledge their own Lay-Estates as liable as ours to this vâ—st Law It may be they do it only out of an intent or colour to open a gap into Sacriledge and then out of a hope to make up that gap again if they can 8. But secondly as such an Act of absolute deprivation were the very Al renunciation of all manner of Justice Universal Commutative Distributive all at once So in the fatal consequences of it it would prove the Vtter subversion too of all the other known Laws and Fundamental Constitutions of this Kingdom yea of the very Law of Nations For what Nation once well settled did ever yet claim a power de Jure for in this case to quote Matters of Fact their usual I may yet say their chief argument were but Petitio Principii to deprive a man Innocent or Untried and Uncondemned Lay or Clergy of those Rights which by the standing y Magna Charta See above page 45. Laws of that Land he is at least as legally Vested in for matter of Title as any Baron or Knight or any other Subject whatsoever what were this but datâ portâ to introduce a meer Arbitrary Government and indeed by such a notorious Precedent if once past in rem Judicatam had you but eyes to see it to open a wide gap into your own Lay Estates till they had reduced you all also to a tame politick Parity So true you will then finde to your own woe that old Maxime of Reason Uno absurdo dato mille Sequuntur Beware of your Levellers 9. For deceive not your selves any longer John xv 20. the Servant is not greater then his Master if they dare fall upon God Almighty himself whom we have proved before to be the great Proprietary of those Church Revenues whom think you will these doughty men spare in the end Did ever or can ever we speak still de Jure any Earthly or Humane Power take away that from God and his Church which is theirs which God did