it in others What if the Supream Powers should have ventured too far out upon the Confidence of that Doctrine about Subjection which perhaps was scru'd up by some till it left Christianity to become a Complement What if too many Subjects have so pared and minced their Subjection as hardly to have retain'd the very Name of it And even set up Religion itself as the great Warrant to baffle the Speculation of it and the no less ground of Quarrel to do so with the Practice of it too Must true and undefiled Christianity be accountable for all this Or shall Men be so disingenuous as to cropt the ears of some of their own kind because an Ape has done some trick or other shall they be-spatter Christianity because the Mis-representations of it have occasioned such wrong Steps But that Objection will best be unravelled by what I am further to say And therefore I proceed to the third Particular of my Design We have seen how peremptorily our Christian Religion obliges us to be Subject to the Higher Powers and also how very much the Obligation from it is necessary to any solid being and subsistance of Government It cannot then but nearly concern us rightly to know what the Nature of this Subjection is and how it is justly to be limited for answering the end for which it was appointed But before I can enter upon this I must first tell you That our Blessed Lord foreseeing what vast Confusions any Alterations in any of the Governments in the World would produce did attemperate his Religion so to all of them that none could have but reason to thank him for that Great Accession to all their former Constitutions which the Obligation from Conscience added and as few could have pretence to blame him for any innovation he had introduc'd upon the Ancient Terms of Subjection whereby each individual Form subsisted before We all know that the matter of the Angelical Hymn at his Nativity was Peace on earth and good will toward man. And this was so true even in that sense which most obviously suites the present purpose that as I told you in this beginning of the Discourse there never was any Institution so throughly accommodated to the Peace of the World as that Religion which he imparted to Mankind But if he had taken upon him to change the External Forms and Polities of civil Governments he had done a thing so far from establishing Peace on the Earth that he had intentionally done what was to be but an accidental event of his coming he had sent fire on the earth had not given peace on earth but rather division had not sent peace but a sword For if the Christian Religion had invaded the Rights of the Supreme Powers had curtail'd any of those Royalties that were inherent in their Crowns by the Laws of Nature as they were Soveraigns or by Those of the Nations over which they ruled Then it could not but have given such Scandal and Offence to all the Princes of the World as had no less inevitably than Literally made them upon that very sence accomplish that of the second Psalm The Kings of the earth set themselves and the Rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed saying let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us Because as all men are wont to the utmost of their Power to be tenacious of their Rights so none have more reason to be so than those who have them in the Title of Soveraignity On the other hand if Christianity had entrenched upon the Rights and Priviledges of the Subject or had impos'd Slavery where there was no more but Subjection Then had it given so much prejudice to and rais'd such an excusable aversion in all those whose Lot had been so good as not to be sunk into the lowest condition Mankind can be depress'd into and yet so moderat as to be inviolably bound to aninferior Station that Chains and It had been equally inviting to them Since there are such Charmes and Allurements in the very remissest degree of Liberty and Property that no consideration can be able to dull or blunt them but of that Necessity which is only tollerable because it cannot be resisted Our Saviour therefore as the excellent Doctor Sherlock sayes in his Case of Resistance Pag. 46. Left the Government of the World as he found it he has indeed given such admirable Laws as will teach Princes to govern and Subjects to obey better which is the most effectual way to secure the Publick Peace and Happiness to prevent the Oppression of Subjects and Rebellion against Princes but he has not interposed in new Modelling the Governments of the World. And so he did no more but enforce that obedience to Princes which was antecedently due by the Law of Nature or the Civil Constitution of the Common-wealth by the prevalency of Conscience without laying any further tye upon Subjects as to the Matter of their Duty the Motive to it being the only thing he was concerned in as not sustaining the Person of a Temporal but only of a Spiritual Prince Neither is there any thing to the contrary in all the New Testament either from any Sentence our Saviour is recorded to have spoke or any Action he did that is transmitted unto us or yet from any Doctrine his Apostles ever Taught or Practised as will appear to every one who shall most narrowly go over that Book And if a Negative Argument can have any force at all it must undoubtedly be allow'd to have it here when it can never be supposed that an Affair so very important to the World as would have been the setting a new Pattern for Government upon the Obligation from Conscience would have been past over in silence by those inspired Writers who were only so to leave sufficient Rules for every thing that concerned the substance of our Religion Nay there are great hints toward the Positive as is manifest by that fore-cited Passage touching our Saviours answer to the Herodians And I shall not need to say more to it upon the present occasion than what Doctor Sherlock inferrs in his lately cited Book Pag. 55 56. First sayes he That our Saviour did not intend to make any alteration in the Rights of Soveraignty but what Rights he found Soveraign Princes possest of he leaves them in the quiet possession of for had he intended to make any change in this matter he would not have given such a general Rule To render to Cesar the things which are Cesar's without specifying what these things are Secondly And therefore he leaves them to the known Laws of the Empire to determine what is Cesars Right Whatever is essential to the notion of Soveraign Power whatever the Laws and Customs of Nations determine to be Cesars Right that they must render to him for he would make no alteration in this matter And Thirdly That when our Saviour joyns our duty to
notion of a King does especially imply such an Absolute Power as is quite irreconciliable with any other Obedience in the Subjects than what is such that the greatest wrongs they can suffer can never justifie their not behaving Passively at least And that therefore Our Saviour and his Apostles could not but mean such a Subjection when they recommended any at all To this I answer That it is plainly false that the Notion of a King involves any such thing as the Word King is generally taken unless it shall be granted that there is no possible distinction upon the Matter betwixt a subject and a Slave And it is an infinite Error for one to let his thoughts pore constantly upon the Notion of a King without allowing some cool ones to reflect what kind of Creatures a King is to Rule over If therefore it shall not be denyed that Subjects have a true and real and practical Right in the Laws and not only such an Imaginary and Speculative and Ineffectual one as some please themselves with Then either a King may have a limited Power or if it must be so none is a King but who is it at the rate the Grand Signor is so And yet if that be only to be a King those who are mostly Kings because over Subjects need not grudge Him the Monopoly of the Title and whatever other they shall assume as their peculiar will sound as much more big as its being Special to them will render it more deserving that it should Wherefore there was no necessity upon Our Saviour to calculate the Measures of Subjection unto this Notion of a King. In the next Place it is Alledged That without an absolutely irresistible Power in the Soveraign the peace of no Nation can be preserved Because no Government can be so very exactly well ballanced but that there will always be many discontented Persons under it either because things do not answer their own expectations or because of those other Passions which are wont not more to ferment Mens Minds than to raise Commotions in the Common-wealth And therefore if Subjects had the Liberty to start a Quarrel with their Soveraign and then to Judge of the sufficiency of that themselves and after all to frame a new Model after their own Humor there could be no settled quiet in any State at all but one Confusion would still succeed upon the neck of another and nothing could put an end to them but that which would do so to this World. Now Our Saviour must needs have either done very little or no good to Mankind by all that he taught concerning Subjection or else laid bonds upon all Subjects to carry patiently under all the injuries they could suffer from their Princes this being the only way possible to prevent such disorders and perpetual Insurrections But still I answer That this either proves that a Subject and a Slave is the very same thing or else it proves nothing at all as is manifest by what was said in these Inferences by which I deduc'd that against which this Objection is Levelled upon the meer supposition of a certain Right and Property lodged in the Subject Therefore I doubt not but all will acknowledge that if it proves a Subject to be the same with a Slave it proves too much and this ends in a short way of Arguing But not barely to cut the knot It is not every Picque or Grievance that will infer such a wrong from the Soveraign as can justifie so high a Redress And I told you before that the Subjects are obliged by Conscience not to bestir themselves till a most important and impendent Danger should threaten the Subversion of the Government it self And since the Laws of a Nation and the Essentials of its Constitution are patent to every body It is not morally presumeable that the most considerable Part of the Subjects will in spight not of their Honour but their very Consciences concur in an attempt where the mistake cannot but be as evident as they must know it will be fatal tho none but God should punish it Where ever then Conscience gets freedom to work it will undoubtedly secure the peace of any People whose Soveraign has not been so excessively unjust unto them that if a storm falls upon him he has only himself to blame for it And that Our Saviour should have rais'd such a Fence about those who could so little merit it at his hands when they must first violate their Consciences before they can give any provocation of that nature to their Subjects by endeavouring to tyrannize it over them were too odd to imagine of him who was the Preacher of Righteousness Besides if Conscience cannot keep the Peace of a Nation when there can be no just temptation to break it certainly it would far less do so when the instigations that flow from Self-preservation would drive on our deprav'd Natures to gagg it for a while till we should put our selves in the condition of being more at Gods mercy than at Mans. For the greater the Temptations be the less proportionably of vigour force has Conscience in the most part of men And when there would be so great a struggle to be made by Flesh and Blood against Violence and Oppression Conscience would much sooner succumb and quite the Field Than when we were only to deal with those impatiencies and frettings with this ambitious temper or that soure thought which we could not but be ashamed of when ever we returned again to our selves And upon this account Our Saviour has better consulted the Security of Kings and the tranquillity of Subjects than if he had carried the Obligation of Conscience to such an unmeasurable length as some would be at thinking it should go to For if we were implicitly upon all emergencies to submit 't were many to one but that at long run we would come to be so despair'd of our estate as rather to choose once for all to give our Conscience a pull and to attempt a Freedom which needed not occasion its being so troublesome to us any more And we know already what a sandy Foundation the best formed Government would have if Conscience did not Support it It is true God in his Providence does sometimes permit a Nation to be its own Scourge by persecuting a Prince which is its Glory and Happiness and needlessly nay wantonly embroiling it self when it wallows in Plenty and Prosperity And this day furnishes us with as deplorable an Instance of that as ever any other day did any other Nation But as that is owing to a Peoples own Sins so as they would never repeat the Mischief let them beware not to reiterate the Causes of it And at least this advantage may be gathered from it that the most foreward and heated People have an example before their eyes how much Conscience can be trampled under and how much the most sober Principles can be misapplyed and abused But I shall
have occasion afterwards to speak some-what more to this But further it is Objected That a King may be any thing else if he be inferior to his People And if he be their Superior then it is manifest that he cannot be accountable to them it being repugnant to the very beeing of a Superior to be subject to those who are subject to him And therefore a King is loosed from all Laws neither can any bind him These being his Laws and appointed only for tying the Subjects And hence our Saviour must either have not understood the Power and Dignity of a King or else design'd to oblige all Subjects to what That imports But still the Subect and the Slave are confounded and mixt together However I ask those who depend upon this whether or not the Subject has such a Right in the Laws that the Prince cannot make or repeal any without him If he has as he must have if he be a Subject then the Laws are not so entirely the Kings but they are the Subjects too It is indeed the Kings Glory and Advantage to Rule his Subjects by Laws But it is also the Subjects Priviledge and Security to be ruled by them And if the eminency of Splendor which redounds from the Laws falls to the Kings share and if also That be sufficient to sound the common denomination of Property Then no Subject can reasonably envy his Soveraigns ascribing the Property of the Laws to himself Yet I doubt if there will many be found who shall willingly acknowledge that the Laws are so much the Kings that he may make and un-make them at his pleasure This then being without question it naturally follows according to the Consequences I drew before that the Subject may justly vindicat his Right in the Laws if it be attempted Tho then the King be Superiour to the whole Body of the Subjects when he Rules according to Law Since both he has a transcendent kind of Power in the making of the Laws and an intire one for putting them in Execution Yet when he deserts the Laws and takes up his own Arbitrary Will in lieu of them then the Subjects may look to themselves whatever be in the Character of his being King to state them as his Inferiours So that a Limited Monarch is but a Limited Superiour And they who drive any issue of the Matter upon a King 's being Superiour over his People seem only to be fondly possest with the abstract Notion of Superiority without considering that his Power whom they stile Superior is really confin'd within certain bounds It must nevertheless be confest that a King is so far above the Laws that his Person ought always to be Sacred to his Subjects The cutting off the very Skirt of a Kings Rob wrought a very sensible remorse upon the Man after Gods own heart for his heart smote him for it 1 Sam. 24. ver 4. 5. And it is the duty of every Subject to say with him vers 6. The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master the Lords anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seing he is the annointed of the Lord. And there is still such a silial regard to be had to the Person of a King that nothing less than the Barbarity of which a Son that would cut his Fathers Throat could not but be horridly guilty could suffer any Subject to put hand in the Father of his Countrey however much he had forefeited that Title by the violent Invasions he had made upon his own Children And in this sense only can the Solutus Legibus that is so much talkt of be understood unless it shall only be appropriated to those Monarchs who have form'd their Copy after the Model of the East To all this it is added That if the whole Body of the Subjects can oppose themselves to their Prince can rise up against him and assert their Right in the Laws whether he would or not Then every single Subject is hereby allowed to resist his Soveraign when-ever he is unjustly attacked by him For all the Individuals of a Common-wealth have a-part as much Right in the Laws as the Whole has and on the other hand the whole Body can never combine together against the Soveraign unless the particular Members shall in their private capacity work the Design against him And of how pernicious consequence this were to any State is easie to be told Neither could any Subject be justly brought to Punishment for entering into Conspiracies against the Government if he could make it appear that he was only endeavouring to free the Subjects from Tyranny Oppression So that our Saviour must either have thought that every private Subject might thus preserve himself or else have intended that his Doctrine should Militate against such a method when used by the Whole But it is still forgot that therefore every Subject must reckon himself to be even naturally a Slave Nevertheless I answer directly That indeed no private Subject ought to resist the Government under which he lives even when he suffers the most injuriously by it provided there be no more but a meer transient and private Act of Injustice in it without tending to the common prejudice of the Government or to the Subversion of the Right of the whole Subjects in the Laws For tho he has Right in the Laws yet his whole Right in them is founded in his being a Member of the Common-wealth as I told you before And therefore he has no other Right to the Means whereby he ought to or can justly assert his Right in the Laws but only in so far as the whole Common-wealth is concerned Since in the first constitution and end of all Common-wealths the Publick Good is chiefly aimed and the Private comes in only by way of Result And therefore no Means can be Legittimate to any individual Person that can clash with the general interest of the whole Body And consequently the Means that any single Subject can pretend to for making his Right in the Laws to be effectual to him must have a special regard in the very nature of the thing to the publick advantage of the Common-wealth Now when as things stand in the World it is absolutely impossible for Subjects to Cope with their Soveraign without the greatest danger to the Common Good of the Common-wealth every single Subject that meets with an injury however atrocious is obliged by his being a Member of such a Body not to attempt any thing because of his own private concern that may set his whole Fellow-subjects and the Soveraign by the Ears together And the hazard of the Publick Damage does sufficiently preponderate all the wrong that he can actually suffer to wit as he is comprehended in the Original Design of the Society Indeed if he shall lay aside his Title to his own Preservation upon the Principles of being a Member of the Common wealth it is palpable that if any other
is obviously suggested by the common Dictates of our Natural Reason I have not presumed to condescend upon the particular Constitution of our own Nation that being none of my Province and not thinking it pertinent at this time to mingle the Minister and the Lawyer together Nevertheless it may be easie for every body concerned to compare what has been said with our special Form and so to satisfie their Consciences as to all the Rencounters they may meet with upon this head I shall now show First That this Doctrine is so far from being derogatory to any Prince that it serves mightily to Enhance and Aggrandize all and especially those who are so over Subjects and not Slaves Secondly That it is consonant to the design of my Text and those other Scriptures that I adduced for proving in the general that our Religion imposes upon us the duty of Subjection to the Higher Powers And then That those Exceptions that may be made to it are founded upon sad mistakes both as to the intention of our Saviour and his Apostles in commanding that Duty and as to the nature of the thing it self First then If any Prince be an illimited Soveraign what can redound more to his Glory than to have a whole Empire of Slaves cringing to his nod more because of the impulse of Conscience than of Fear and Awe But a King that rules over Subjects and Freemen cannot but gain proportionably more by their being oblig'd from Conscience to pay their Duty to him than can the Great Turk or Mogull by having such a tye upon their Slaves tho they have all to expect that perhaps their Caprice can demand For then an Emperor and his Slaves makes the nearest resemblance to a Shepherd and his Flock They look like two different kinds of Creatures and are driven assunder to the utmost Extreams So that the pleasure of the Government must be derived from some thing else than Reason it must be the necessary result of a blind Ambition of an extravagant Humour and Vanity Neither can there ever be those franker communications betwixt such a Prince and such a People which might treat him with the satisfaction of a Man and rationally sweeten all the Cares that attend a Scepter Besides there lies no fewer nor lighter burdens upon the Conscience of such Slaves to choak and stiffle it than there does upon themselves to bear down and suppress those Inclinations to Liberty which are inseparable from all men that had ever the least glimpse of what it was And therefore tho they are bound by Conscience to obey yet considering that Oppression makes wise-men mad and that our frail Nature seldom bears much and long out against violent Temptations even when it is assisted by all the forces of Conscience considering this I say that Government must be but weakly supported which has but so little of Conscience in it to Cement its Foundations as will not be questioned by those who have given an impartial ear to what was said on the second Head of this Discourse or who shall peruse the History of the Turkish Empire But when we turn over the Medal then do we see the best Land-skip of Heaven that any thing on Earth can afford A King seated on a Throne among Subjects that want only Sin enough to be Kings themselves that at once Love and Adore Him whose Commands are their Glory that envy Him nothing but a share of his Troubles by the Crown and that have their Lives and Fortunes not only a readier but a surer Sacrifice to be offered up to His Service than are those of the profoundest Slaves whose eyes dare not look above the Foot-stool of their Soveraign It were easie for a florid and pathetick Eloquence to set forth this Subject with such lively but deserved Charms as might enamour the most obstinate hearts against Monarchy with it and ravish their Admiration and their Affection too in spight of all their Reluctancies and Prejudices But if the very nature of the thing be so enticeing What must it be when Conscience improves all When Inclination has it to second its influence And when it has no just provocation to graple with it Let the most Speculative Wits let the best contriv'd Romances now compear and in their highest Vies show us any thing that can make a King so truly Great and Splendid Wherefore it is a King of Men and not of Cattel a King that has free Subjects left to the swing of their Conscience and not Slaves in which hardly the Embers of Conscience can sparkle through those Ashes of Illimited Power by which it is smothered It is only such a King that has the justest claim to so proud so pompous a Title And hence it has frequently come to pass that those whose first Right to it was only that of Conquest have been so sensible of this that they have voluntarily granted to their People such Rights and Priviledges as might elevate them to the Degree of Subjects above that most contemptible Depression of Slaves And this they sound the properest method to promote their Glory and settle their Interest reckoning it below their Generous Minds to trample upon the Necks of those who could willingly crouch to the Foot that did so and too ticklish for their security to vapour it over those who could not For whatever they saw was to be reposed in Force and Conscience when abstractly viewed yet they concluded it was much more safe to take off all those weights from their power by which it was most grievously felt and not to load Conscience too heavily with Rigid and Arbitrary Impositions when these are so very irritating to flesh and blood as the practice of the World goes And we have an eminent instance of this in the Emperour Theodosius Cod. Lib. 1. Tit. 14. Leg. 4. Digna vox est Majestate regnanis legibus allegatum se principem profiteri Adeo de authoritate juris nostra pendet authoritas revera majus imperio est submitâ—ere legibus principatum Et oraculo praesentis edicti quod nobis licere non pâ—tiniur aliis indicamus As Leg. 8. Humanum esse probamus si quid de caetero in publica privatave causa emerserit necessarium quod formam generalem antiquis legibus non insertam exposcat id ab omnibus antea tam proceribus nostri palatii quam gloriosissimo â—aetu vestro Patres conscripti tractari si universis tam judicibus quam vobis placueriâ— tunc legata dictari sic ea denuo collectis omnibus recenseri cum omnes consenserint tunc demum in sacro nostri numinis consistorio recitari ut universorum consensus nostrae serenitatis auctoritate â—iâ—metur Sâ—itote igitur Patres conscripti non aliter in posterum legem à nostra clementia promulgandam nisi supradicta forma fuerit observata Bene enim cognoscimus quod cum vestro consilio â—uerit ordinatum id ad Beatitudinem nostri
and ye shall be hated of all men for my Names sake but he that endureth to the end shall be saved but when they persecute you in this city flee ye into another the disciple is not above his master nor the servant above his lord it is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his lord if they have called the master of the house Beelzebub how much more shall they call them of his houshold Fear them not therefore and fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell whosoever therefore shall confess me before men him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven but whosoever shall deny me before men him will I also deny before my father which is in heaven from vers 17. to 33. Whosoever will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me for whosoever will save his life shall lose it but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospels the same shall save it for what shall it profite a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul Mark 8. vers 34 35 36. If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be my disciple Luke 14. from vers 26. to 33. And in consequence of this Doctrine he severely rebuked the two Disciples James and John when they would have had him command fire to come down from heaven to consume the greatest Hereticks and Schismaticks that were then in the Jewish Church and who denyed him enterance in their Village and would not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem Luke 9. vers 51. to 54. Telling those Apostles vers 55. Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of for the son of man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them Therefore also did he use the gentlest method of enforcing his Religion upon his Followers If any man will be my disciple If any man will come after me And when the Jews did persecute him and sought to slay him John 5. vers 16. and forward He took no other course to oppose them but only to justifie himself by the most convincing Arguments and Demonstrations from the Power of working Miracles that was so visibly lodged in him from the excellency of his Doctrine and from his having accomplished the Prophesies that the Scriptures of the Old Testament contain'd of the Messias to come Thus the Apostle St. Paul recommendeth to the Galatians Chap. 6. vers 1. To restore those that have been overtaken in a fault in the spirit of meekness considering themselves lest they also be tempted But we shall hardly cast up any place of the New Testament even at random but we shall find something to this purpose there being nothing that goeth more universally through the whole Doctrine of Christianity as a Gold Vein doth through the Ore than that Christians should suffer any thing for their Religion before they should take up Arms in defence of it Yet lest Precept and Teaching had not been enough to have born in this Christian Duty upon us we have the most uncontrovertible Pattern set before our eyes that can possibly take with those who are not resolved in spight of all the methods of Conviction to stand out in behalf of their own Opinion and Humour And whatever has been said hitherto of our Saviours Example does in an eminent manner speak to the purpose in this place And here the only proper and true gloss can be given of those words which were before cited from St. Peter For even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously St. Peter 1 Epist Chap. 2. vers 21 22 23 Neither can any tollerable Sense be put upon that Rebuke this Apostle got for offering to defend his Master by the Sword nor upon that Answer our Lord gave Pilat My kingdom is not of this world Unless besides all the respective Circumstances our Saviour stood in it shall further be granted that he was bound up by the very tenor of his own Religion neither to call for Legions of Angels nor yet to command Troups of his Servants to fight in his defence For it is quite unaccountable how one that can rescue himself by a proportionable force can with any justice yield up himself to a cruel and barbarous Execution tho inflicted by the Magistrat if there were not some other more sacred tye upon him to do so than what can flow from the Civil Constitution of any Nation And there is as little ground to think that the Son of God would merely to undergo a Death for Mankind have choos'd to do it in a way that had made it look so much like a Self-Murder that the most ingenious Wit of this World could not have even plausibly excus'd it from being one without his Sufferings had at once been in conformity to his Religion and to set a Copy to his Followers too Wherefore as he submitted to an unjust Sentence because he would not step out of the Circle of his Private Condition and as at that time he did this to fulfil the Scriptures So that which then rendered this to be lawful in him was only the Doctrine which himself had taught the suffering for Righteousness sake And tho the great Errand for which he came into the World was to redeem the Inhabitants of it and so to die for them Yet all things relating to his Crucifixion were so brought about by the Providence of God that the King of Kings died as a single Subject and the Author of our Faith as a Christian And thus his not resisting the most violent Oppression and Tyranny that ever was acted upon the Earth when it was in his Power to have done it became to be lawful in him or rather to be agreeable to that Holiness which was essential to his Person tho otherwise we had been left either to search out an Apology for it but in vain or else profoundly to adore those hidden Counsels which Angels could never have pryed into And certainly either of these seems not well to quadrate with those Scriptures that have been Cited and many others also which are obvious to every Body that is but moderatly conversant in the Volumn of them Nothing then can be more contradictory to the true Spirit of our Christian Religion than is that fierce that virulent that
the infamy and other Punishments which the Church of Rome uses to pour out upon all those she calls Hereticks Hence the Popes Faith must either be the chief standard of the Faith of that whole Church or else contrary to what I have now so irrefragably proved one may be formally a Papist or in visible Communion with the Roman Church and yet not in visible Communion with the Pope Because if what the Pope has defin'd may be rejected and laught at without breaking visible Communion with that Church one may be out of visible Communion with her Head and notwithstanding in visible Communion with her self And that in plain terms is to be a Member of that Church and not a Member of her since according to the Power all Papists contend is in the Pope it is absolutely necessary for being a Member of her to be in visible Communion with him Or God would require a condition of being a true Member of that Church which that one might be so he were obliged not to perform to wit in case the Pope should define contrary to the true Faith which undoubtedly he can do if he be not infallible Since even then one were obliged to be a Member of the Catholick Church But he could not be that unless he were in visible Communion with the Pope But now he could not be in visible Communion with the Pope and a Member of the Catholick Church too because if he were in visible Communion with the Pope of necessity he must outwardly profess a Doctrine inconsistent with the true Faith and so with being a Member of the Catholick Church And consequently contradictory obligations were exacted of all Christians if the Pope could be fallible in his Definitions and if a necessity of conforming to them were requisit for being in visible Communion with him and visible Communion with him were essentially necessary for being a Member of the Catholick Church All Papists therefore must acknowledge that either the Popes Definitions are universally to be acquiesced in or that the being in visible Communion with him is no Essential Constituent of being a Member of their Church And if they cannot deny the latter as certainly they cannot then it evidently follows that his Authority is infallible in deciding any thing he shall take under his cognizance and that all his Thunders are the Thunders of Heaven indeed It is therefore undenyable that every Papist is bound by his Principles to be of the Popes Faith and to Pin his Salvation upon his Holinesses Sleeve Neither can any thing be objected to the least Sentence of all this unless it be That since private Bishops are not infallible tho they Excommunicate with an Anathema so the Pope may be both fallible and yet have Power to Excommunicate with such a heavy Curse too But there is a great disparity between the case of private Bishops and that of the Pope For however much they may be in the wrong there is always Redress and place for an Appeal And before one or his Doctrine be condemn'd by the Supreme Judge tho that private Communion were broke yet the Catholick would be entire And God has not absolutely requir'd the one as he has done the other So that the Argument I have here adduced depends upon no more from the case of private Bishops than this That as they can condemn Propositions and therefore all those in their Diocesses who do not embrace their Condemnation becomes formally thereby to be excluded visible Communion with them so it fares betwixt the Pope and the Roman Church in general And I did not infer that as therefore those Bishops ought to be infallible the Pope is so too For the consequence of that Antecedent from which this last Consequent is brought is altogether false But the Popes Infallibility is deduced as a Result from these three the first that as privat Bishops can exclude from Communion with them those of their Diocess who submit not to their Definitions so the Pope can do those of the whole Church the second that it is essentially requisite for being a Member of the Catholick Church to be in visible Communion with the Pope and the third that it is absolutely necessary to the having of the true Faith to be a Member of the Catholick Church Now it not being so requisite for being a Member of the Catholick Church and so for having the true Faith to be in visible Communion with any privat Bishop the Popes Infallibility can never be denyed because no privat Bishop pretends to it whatever Power of making Definitions he is invested with since thus one part of my Argument is only considered without reflecting upon the rest And here I defie the whole Papists in World to give me any solid Answer to it What else then remains for demonstrating that all Papists either are or ought to be of that Opinion whereby it is held lawful for the Pope to Excommunicate all those Princes he shall reckon for Hereticks and to loose their Subjects Oaths of Allegiance to them But only to make it manifest that the Pope and the Court of Rome has declar'd that the contrary Tenet is Erroneous and Heretical and robs him of that Power he as Christs Vicar has bestowed upon him Now what Popes have done and what Stile they have used in their Bulls toward Princes since Pope Hildebrands time all the World knows As also how Cardinal Bellarmine treated our Country-man John Barclay as a Heretick for maintaining the Interest of Princes against the Usurpations of the See of Rome and how this poor mans Circumstances obliged him to Retract at Rome what he had Printed at London and that in as publick a manner if a Preface to his Paroencsis can be accounted to be such But I shall only Appeal to all those Witnesses by which the Matter of Fact of this can be Attested I my self indeed have been call'd a Liar to my Face for having said last when I preached in this place That the Pope is as tenacious of this Doctrine as ever he was I shall say no more but that I might have been allowed as much common Honesty at least as not to be thought impudently to Averr those things in a Pulpit which all that have ever been at Rome cannot but understand if they can understand any thing there at all And truly the very nature of the Tenet renders it a matter of such Vulgar knowledge that it cannot be less notour at Rome than the great Points of Treason are here it being as hazardous there to question the Popes Power over Kings as it is here to question the Kings just Power over his People One therefore might with equal Confidence Averr at Rome that Scotland has no other Government than what is Democratical as he might pretend here that the Sentiments of the Court of Rome are that St. Pauls Sword as well as St. Peters Keys was delivered over into the Popes hand if they were not truly