Year 1484. the King of Spain admitted it into his Dominions yet so cautionate and jealous was he as he reserved himself to be Lord paramount thereof of choosing the Inquisitor General whom the Pope confirms And for the rest the Court of Rome was not admitted to intermeddle any farther so that though the King seemed willing to gratifie the See Apostolick yet did he reserve his Supremacy of Power over all Causes and Persons Ecclesiastical to himself and so doth the State of Venice by their Coadjutors and Inspectors of the Tribunals Inquisitory In which Republick the Inquisition doth not depend on the Court of Rome but properly belongs to the Republick Independent set up and constituted by the same and established by contract and agreement with Pope Nicholas the fourth prout in his Bull of 28. Aug. 1289. wherein is inserted the very determination of the greater Council made the fourth of the same Month. And therefore as they ought are to be governed by their own Customs and Ordinances without being obliged to receive Orders from the Pope And indeed before the admittance of the Inquisition there was in effect the same Office though meerly Secular to which Noble-men were raised to enquire after Hereticks and this the Republick made good afterwards against the See-Apostolick in the Years 1289. 1301. 1605. 1606. and 1607. upon Disputes maintaining their Civil Authority in Ecclesiasticis to be their undoubted Right and cannot be taken away by any Bull or Decree made in any manner by any Pope to whom soever Hist. Inquisit § By all which it appears that neither Monarchs nor Free States would be juggled out of their just Right of Commanding over Persons and Causes Ecclesiastical and that those Condescentions of the Civil Magistrates were only to gratifie some Popes out of special favour to them and not for any just Right the Popes had unto them For let Pope or Presbyter pretend what they please to the contrary they do as much as in them lies endeavour to erect Regnum in Regno by giving Temporal Monarchy only an imperfect broken Right in some things but controlable and defeasible by the Spiritual Monarchy in other things And the World hath had a long and sad experience of this whilst Kings had the Popes and Presbiters their Superiors in any thing they remained Supream in nothing whilst their Rule in Popish Countries was by Division diminished in some things they found it insufficient in all things so that they did command joyntly with the Pope but were commanded wholly unless by force they extricated themselves out of their snares So Calvin and his Followers complain and grumble much at the Power that the Civil Magistrate assumes in England France and Germany over Causes and Persons Ecclesiastical holding Princes incompetent for Spiritual Regency accounting the intermedling of Princes therein as an Abolition or Prophanation of the same § But let us not doubt to submit all things under one Supream on Earth submitting and recommending him by our Prayers unto his Supream in Heaven for it is no small thing in such a Case to be left to the searching Judgment of God nor need we doubt or hold our selves utterly remediless whilst we can truly say Omne sub Regno graviore Regnum est And let us not mistake our Supream on Earth for if God had intended to have left us a Spiritual Sword or miraculous Judicatory never before known or useful to the World and that to be of perpetual necessity sans doubt he would have left us some clear command in Scripture and not have involved and mantled his meaning in Metaphors so intricate and ambiguous But to let pass this Theam of Excommunication so unpleasant to Popish and Presbyterian Ears let us examine the Magistrates Power as it relates to Religion in commanding Liturgies and concerning Toleration Compulsion and Government c. § All just Dominion and Empire is founded on true Religion and Piety i. e all Governours and Governments were ordained for the good of the Governed and they are obliged by the Law of God to govern according to Rules of Religion and Piety no Nation under Heaven having Statutes and Judgments so just and righteous as are prescribed by God himself and who act not according to them an Iliad of Curses will attend them and their Plagues shall be wonderful Deut. 28.58 It is Righteousness and Judgment that is the Establishment of Thrones A Kingdom is translated from one People to another for unrighteousness Eccles 10.8 And The King that faithfully judgeth the Poor his Throne shall be established for ever Prov. 29.14 If I am not much mistaken the necessity of a Liturgy and the warrantableness of establishing the use thereof is easily deducible nay doth naturally flow from the Charge and Right of Government which Kings have in the Government of the Church and granted unto them by their great Charter from Heaven their Command from God For Kings and all other just Governments being granted to be Custodes utriusque Tabulae it must necessarily follow that the Government of the Church is their Duty and consequently ought to be their chief Care And that they be so what need we other Proof or Argument than that through the whole Scripture Kings have been charged therewith and according to their countenancing or discountenancing Idolatry and other sins or abetting and supporting Gods true Religion or establishing or but conniving at Idolatry or other Impieties so they received from God by his Messengers the Prophets praise or dispraise reward or punishment accordingly and those of no less concern than the establishment or deprivations of their Kingdoms And it will as naturally follow that if the care of the Church be the Duty of Kings that then they both may and ought to set up and establish a publick Standard and Test within their Dominions to measure and try all Mens Religion by as to the outward profession thereof and outward conformity thereunto and to appoint and allow publick consecrated or to speak more inoffensively to all Parties seperated Places or Churches for publick Divine Worship and Service and administration of Gods Holy Sacraments and Ordinances to the frequenting of which they may make strict Laws or else how is it possible for the Magistrate to have cognisance of them and of their Religions and why else should the Magistrate be blamed for the Idolatry or other sins of his Subjects if he have no power to inspect take cognisance and to restrain from sinful practises nor yet to force unto the reading of the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel nor to the frequenting of Gods Holy Ordinances Now this Standard or Test I call a Liturgy without which or something equivalent how is it possible for Kings to give a good account to God of their Care and well-governing of the Church within their respective Dominions which Liturgy in general ought to contain so many Fundamentals of Christian Religion to the Belief of which if Christians joyn
the whole body politick whereof if the Presbyter or Independent judge themselves to be any part then is the Law even their own deed also as being made by the representatives of the whole wherein they are included as having their most proper representatives in our Parliaments and Convocations the undoubted Legislative Power of this Kingdom And is it reasonable in things of this nature and consequence to give men audience pleading for the overthrow of that which as it were their own very deed hath ratified Laws that have been approved both in Church and State may be no man doubteth again repealed and to that end also disputed against by the same Authority But this most properly is when the whole doth deliberate what Laws each part shall observe and not when a few run counter the Laws which the whole hath made in a full and free Parliament and lawfull Convocation Be it that some reasons induce some persons to be otherwise minded if those reasons be demonstrative and absolutely necessary such I confess discharge consciences and setteth them at full liberty but if probable only what thing was there ever set down so agreeable to sound reason but some probable shew against it may be made Is it meet that when Acts of Parliaments and Canons have been publickly received and long practised that general obedience thereunto should cease to be exacted in case some few led by some probable conceits should make open protestation of their dissatisfaction Certainly in such cases they are obliged to suspend their judgments for that in otherwise doing they offend against God by troubling his Church without any just or necessary cause For until the Civil Christian Magistrate whose power it is that I contend for doth otherwise order and determine obedience is to be given to the Laws Ecclesiastical and Civil if not contrary to the word of God Turpis est pars quae universo non congruit suo Out of which premises and of what will follow more particularly I shall take the liberty to assert and conclude that the Church of England in general is undeniably Independent and hath intrinsick power within it self without any forraign aid or dependency or any subordination to any other Person Church or Council to govern it self and that every Parish or Congregation thereof is not so Independent but rather that every particular doth depend upon the whole for that all ought to govern the whole and every particular thereof and every one ought to imploy himself most in that which is most particularly recommended to him and that the true Representatives of this Church of England and of all other National Churches is the Legislative Power thereof and that the King is the chief Governor thereof according to the constituted Laws and Canons thereof § And this Legislative Power hath lawful Authority to constitute all Qualifications unto all publick Ecclesiastical preferments so that they which will not submit to such qualifications shall be uncapable of such publick Benefices and Preferments But neither this nor any other Power throughout the whole Vniverse hath any lawful Authority to forbid the gathering of Churches or stop the mouths of any Bishop or Presbyter to preach the Gospel nor to forbid the solemn assembling together of the Saints or of the Brethren according to their several Commissions viz. go teach all Nations c. 28. Matth. 19.20 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works not forsaking the Assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is but exhort one another 10. Hebr. 24.25 if this had not been good Doctrine and practised even by Christ himself his Apostles and their followers maugre all the Interdicts of Jewish and Gentile States and Princes cursed Tyrants the Gospel had never been spread In such Cases where commands of Governments are contrary to commands of God it is undoubtedly better to obey God than Man I have dwelt the longer on this subject of Indepency for that though in truth it the be elder Brother unto Presbyterian Government by 1600 years yet it seems unto most to be but my Lord Musshrome and of yesterdays extract and very little understood by Vulgar Capacities In the Treaty whereof I have taken occasion in some measure to trace both the wayes of the Church and the wiles of the Church-Men from its very Infancy and shall pursue it farther when I come to shew what and who are meant by the term Church so that if possible the Government of the Church may be made easie and intelligible to every understanding Plain dealing is best and truth like beauty is most beautiful when stark naked stript of all paints and School-tricks and Glosses by which truth is more often confounded and defaced than brought unto light in its pure and natural colours § I shall now proceed and say something of the Presbyterian way but shall not meddle with their Model at all it being done and done to my hand it hangs on every Hedg and is decyphered and refelled in an Iliad of Pamphlets and is as perfectly disliked and disgusted as known and therefore I think we may bid them defiance set it up and establish it if they can especially if excommunication the main prop and pillar thereof were taken away without which it must necessarily fall to the ground and which is of no use in any Christian State and which in truth is a nemo scit utterly unknown to Scripture it self as now used especially And yet so fond are they of it and so wedded unto it and such is the selfishness of the Clergy of all perswasions and so great a Biass is their interest and love of domination that the very thought of parting with it doth cut them to the heart and it cannot be got from them without rending and tearing as if it were as perverse as an unclean spirit and though in truth it makes no return considerable unto any of them but what redounds unto their dishonour and reproach I shall only shew some of their tenets and practises by which you may the better judge of them and I shall not go far to fetch them and declare that now to erect and establish that Government here or in any other Christian Common-wealth were to erect Regnum in Regno and then in short process of time upon every difference and dispute as it happened in the State of Venice 1610. where Father Avaraldo a Capuchin being demanded by the Inquisitors at Rome for a certain opinion concerning Anti-Christ and from that Inquisition the process being sent to Bressia where the Father was the Inquisition at Bressia proceeded in the Cause without the Civil Assistants and answered them not without a design to cajole the Civil Magistrate out of his just right by a nice distinction viz. that they ought not to assist but only in causes which were begun at the proper Tribunal but not when the Denuntiation was given at Rome so in a very short time as
The Prince on the other side though he pretend not to Preach Baptise impose hands administer Sacraments use the Keys or the like yet deems it more particularly and more especially within his Province to take care of these Priests and Priestly things to see that the Persons be able and well quallified and that they execute the Mandat according to the Doctrine of Faith and of the Gospel of Jesus Christ And as to countenance and maintain these that do perform their Function accordingly so to silence and punish those that do not else why should he be blamed for giving liberty to a Popish Priest or Phanatick Quaker more than unto an Independant or Presbyterian § A King is he that Ruleth others and the relation of the Word doth teach us that there can be no King but in respect of his Subjects and his duty towards them is to direct to command and punish in all things needful Where God chargeth the King to keep and observe all the words of the Law keeping and observing are not there referred to his private Actions as a Man but to his publick Functions as a King and therefore the Kings in these words received the charg and oversight of the whole Law that is an express command from God to see the Law kept and every part thereof observed of all men within his Dominions and the breakers of it Prophets Priests and People to be punished Now the Law contained all things that any way touched the true Service and Worship of God and therefore the Kings had one and the self same power to command and punish as well in the Precepts of Piâ—ty as other points of Policy neither did God favour or prosper any of the Kings of Israel or Judah but such as chiefly respected and carefully maintained the Ordinances of Religion prescribed unto them in Moses Law This Power is granted to belong to Princes even by some Papists themselves witness that moderate and learned Servite Padre Paolo throughout his History of the Inquisition where he complains and avers that amongst the perverse opinions of which this our unhappy Age is full this also is preached that the care of Religion doth not belong to the Prince that in other times Holy Bishops did not preach nor recommend any thing more to Princes than the care of Religion they warned them of nothing nor modestly rebuked them for any thing more than for their carelesness in it And now nothing is more preached than that to the Prince belongeth not the charge of Divine things though contrariwise the Holy Scripture be full of places wherein Religion is commended to the protection of Princes by the Divine Majesty which also promiseth Peace and Prosperity to those States where Piety is savoured and Desolation and Destruction threatned to those States wherein Divine things are held as Alien David though being entred into a Kingdom out of Order both internally and externally and being very busie both in Wars and framing a politick Government yet did set his chief care on matters of Religion Solomon entring into a quiet and exceeding well ordered Kingdom regarded also Religion more than any other part of the Government The Princes most applauded in former Ages as Constantine Theodosius Charlemain St. Lewis and others made it their chief care and travail to protect and rule the Affairs of the Church It is a great deceit to set forth this part as a thing of less moment since the neglect of this doth provoke the divine wrath experience tells that a State cannot stand untroubled where change of Religion cometh for that true Religion is the foundation of States He that ruleth over Men must be just ruling in the fear of God 2 Sam. 23.3 It is an abomination to Kings to commit wickedness for the Throne is established by righteousness 16. Prov. 12.14 It were a great absurdity to leave the total care of it to others under pretence that they are spiritual where temporal Authority will not reach or that a Prince hath any greater charge or imployment than this § As it is manifest that the Prince is not Pretor nor Prefect nor Proveditore no nor Priest nor Bishop So it is as true that he is to oversee and cause them to do their duties both the one and the other And here lieth the deceit that the particular care of Religion is proper to the Officers of the Church as the Civil Government is to the Prince who ought to do neither the one nor the other but is to direct all and to take heed that none do fail in his Office This being the Princes charge as well in matters of Religion as in any other part of the Government And as in other matters the Prince is to be informed of all occurrences so ought he to be particularly advertised of all that happeneth in matters of Religion And I conceive that therefore a Prince is more bound than a private Subject to fear and to serve God to be both zealous and jealous of his holy Faith to honour cherish and defend Gods true Church that he as Pope Eleutherius writ to King Lucius being Christs Vicar in his own Dominions should discharge Christs Place and Commands and also more bound to avoid Hypocrisie Superstition and all open and scandalous sins to preserve his Dignity and maintain his State and Royalty in the exercise of Religion Because Regis exemplum in numerabiles populos catervatim secum ducit and least that happen to his People which sometime fell out to the Jews through Moses long absence who thinking that in him they were deprived of the true God made themselves one of Gold § It is agreed by all That God hath not left humane Nature destitute of such remedies as are necessary to its conservation and that Rule and Dominion being necessary to the conservation where that Rule and Dominion is granted there all things necessary for the support of that Rule and Dominion are granted also It is farther granted also that supreme power ought to be entire and undivided and cannot else be sufficient for the protection of all if it do not extend over all without any other equal power to controul or diminish it and that therefore the supreme Temporal Magistrate ought to command Ecclesiastical persons as well as Civil Look back a little into the old Testament and consider the Jewish Church and Republick of which the Lord himself doth testify 4. Deut. 7.8 That his people hath Statutes and Laws so just and wise that the Institutes of no people that the Sanctions of no Republick that no Ordinances howsoever wisely constitute were able to compare with them therefore methinks that the Church and State should be most divinely and wisely ordered that cometh as near as the circumstances of the present matter will permit to the Constitution of the Jewish Church and State in which matters were so ordered by God that we find not any where two diverse Judicatories concerning manners the one
sent it by Stephanus and others signifying unto them that though he were absent in Body but present in Spirit had already judged as present him that had so done and therefore advised them in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ that being gathered together and his Spirit with the vertue of the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one unto Sathan Now it is observable that when St. Paul wrote this Epistle he was absent at Philippi a City of Macedonia and directed it not to any one single person Pope or other but unto the Church of God which was at Corinth and to them that were sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints with all that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours He did not according to Romish Custom write by his Breves I excommunicate such a one and in one Scrap of Paper send as much as in him lieth Kings and Queens and Emperors nay whole Kingdoms and States to the Devil but he wrote to the Church a Collective Body that being gathered together with his Spirit they should deliver that Incestuous person to Sathan And again when he wrote his Second Epistle he directed it also unto the Church of God which was at Corinth with all the Saints which are in all Achaia declaring it sufficient to such a Man is this Punishment which was inflicted of many admonishing them to forgive and comfort him lest perhaps he should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow whereby it is plain and not to be gainsaid that the Delivering of him unto Sathan be the Punishment be the Censure what it will it was inflicted by many 2 Cor. 2.6 Now if Paul an Apostle would not excommunicate or deliver unto Sathan at his own will and pleasure but would consult the Church that the Matter being transacted by common Authority and Approbation the Censure the Punishment might be performed by Common Consent It being most just and equal and of Moral Right that they who to morrow must deliver such a one to Sathan whom to day they account as a Brother dear in Christ should be fully satisfied why and wherefore Now how came Signore Papa alone to be entituled to exercise Powers greater than the Apostle Paul would use What hath he to do with it more than the rest of his Brethren If so interrogated I can make no other Answer but Ignoramus Moreover hath the practice of Christ's Vicars at Rome been correspondent to that of Paul the Apostle of such esteem and prevalency is publick consent with God himself even in the Affairs of the Church that though in his secret Decree Paul and Barnabas were to be set apart for the Work of the Ministry yet by God's own appointment were they separated after Fasting and Prayer to the same by the Church which was at Antioch Acts 13.2 Thereby teaching us not to despise the Office of the Church i.e. of the Multitude of Brethren where it may be had By these very small Hints it is easily discernable what a Nose of Wax the Papalins make both of Scripture and Tradition and Excommunication their great and terrible Thunderbolt even against Kings and Kingdoms not considering the little efficacy it hath What was the State of Venice and her Duke or Queen Elizabeth and her Dominions the worse for Romish Excommunications and Interdicts or what the worse the Kings of Spain for being excommunicated every Maunday Thursday And indeed what the worse his Holiness at Rome for being solemnly excommunicated every year by the Muscovite Fops § Some indeed of later days have intimated a great and just dislike of those who have hitherto endeavoured to hang Excommunication on some doubtful Places of Scripture but yet endeavour to settle it on another Basis viz. on the Nature and Constitution of the Church Christian as a Society Instituted by Jesus Christ whereby they say it is manifest that if Excommunication cannot be established upon some better and other Bottom than what hath hitherto been laid by their Predecessors on some doubtful places of Scripture it must necessarily decay and fall to the ground moreover they most ingenuously confess themselves unsatisfied as to any convincing Argument whereby it can be proved that any were denied Admission unto the Lords Supper who were admitted to all other parts of Church-Society and owned as Members in them § Though I have said enough already sparsim that if rightly applied doth demolish this Fabrick of Fundamental Right yet I will add a little and but a little more viz. that if by the Word Church in these Positions be meant only the Clergy met or not met in Councils Synods Consistories Convocations or Assemblies as the Representatives of the Church Assembled by their own power as by a Fundamental Right grounded on Christs Institution then to say no more is hereby justified Robert Bruce David Blake and those seventeen Scottish Ministers before-mentioned and their Tenets denying the King and his Council to have any Authority in Matters Ecclesiastical For certainly if God hath given them power of themselves to Assemble and Consult and make Laws and hath not withal given them Force and Power to put them in execution they have only a mock and ridiculous Authority which God never instituted nor ordained And if it be not so meant then they either say nothing to the purpose or equivocate But if herein by the Word * By the word Church may be meant either all Believers holding saving Truth in general of what condition or quality soever or else more striftly the collective Body of the Clergy for if we speak right of the Church Universal or this or that Particular Church as of Spain France England c. this Term may be taken in either of those two Sences Church be meant the Civil Power and Laity together with the Clergy then we are Friends and that Fundamental Right arising from the Constitution of the Church derived from Christ himself of Right belongs to the Commonwealth if Christian and to every congregated Number of Believers gathered in any Gentile State or People and united into one Society and not only to the Clergy thereof and the Laity are as capable and have as much Right to be of such Councils and Synods as the Ecclesiasticks Or that the Church be not semper and perpetuo a peculiar Society separate and distinct from the Commonwealth as certainly it is not or that the Officers thereof as limited by these Positions unto Teachers and Pastors injuriously enough if they pretend beyond Teachings Administrations of Sacraments Imposition of hands for Ordination and the publick use of the Keys are not only inflicters or executioners of Church-Censures as certainly they are not then the very Foundation of this Fabrick for the Support and Justification of Excommunication must necessarily fall to the ground It is true that every Church is a Society or Body Politick though every Society or Body Politick is not a Church every
abominable Irreverent practices are prevented and thereby care is taken according as the Council of Milevis Can. 12. decreed Ne forte aliquid contra sidem vel per ignorantiam vel per minus studium sit compositum Lest by chance either through ignorance or want of due Study and Consideration Heterodox or unsound Tenets be Broached or unreverend practises used Moreover Calvin himself adviseth it with his Valde Probo Ep. ad Protect I do exceedingly approve of it 1º ut consulatur quorundam simplicitati imperitiae As a means to help and supply the simplicity and unskilfulness of some 2º ut certus constet Ecclesiarum omnium inter se consensus that the consent and harmony of all Churches under one Government may the better be ascertained 3º ut obviam eatur desultoriae quorundam levitati qui Novationes quasdam affectant That the Capriccious giddiness and Levity of such who like nothing but Changes and Innovations may be obviated Nay the same Calvin inforceth it farther with an Oportet statam esse oportet Sacramentorum celebrationem Publicam item precum formulam Epist Protectori There is no other remedy an established set Form there must be for Celebration of the Sacraments and also for Common Prayer which Opinion of his I doubt the Discourser doth not favour § It 's a strange Phanatick Opinion that hath long possessed the minds of some that nothing may be Lawfully done or used in the Churches of Christ unless there be express Command or Example for it in Scripture which Tenet is unsound in it self and pernicious in its consequences upon which also the great Doctors and Patrons of Liberty do graft another viz. that without some express Command from God there is no Power under Heaven which may presume by any Law to restrain the Liberty which God hath given which Opinions shake nay overthrow the very Fabrick and Foundation of all Governments and tend only to Anarchy and Confusion and to dissoâ—â—e all Families Cities Corporations Kingdoms Churches leaving every Man to the freedom of his own mind to the Quakers Light within them in such things as are not either Commanded or Prohibited by the Law of God and because only in these things the positive Precepts of Men have place which Precepts cannot possibly be given without some abridgement of their Liberty to whom they are given whereas in truth the Diametrically opposite Opinion is only Infallibly true viz. those things which the Law of God leaveth Arbitrary and at Liberty and whereof the Scriptures are silent are all subject to the positive Laws of Men which Laws for the common benefit may abridge particular Mens Liberty in such things as far as the Rules of Equity and common good will suffer If this be not sound Doctrine adieu to all Societies and all Government the World must be turned topsi turvy Of this so Poysonous root and branch I shall say no more but shall leave our Anti-Liturgists our Non-Assenters to consider if these late dayes of Liberty have not in very great part brought their own Axiomes home to themselves for as in the dayes of Yore the Non-Conformist asked our Prelates and Conformists what Command or Example in Scripture have you for kneeling at the Communion for wearing a Cap Hood Surplice For Lord Bishops or for their wearing of Lawn sleeves or of Pleated Velvet or Taffaty Hats For a Liturgy or keeping Holy-dayes so now Phanaticks Quakers and others to them where are your Lay-Presbiters your Congregational Classical Provincial Synodical and National Assemblies your Parochial and Classical Elderships c. to be found in Scripture where your Steeple Houses your National Churches your Tyths and Mortuaries your Infant Sprinklings Nay where your meeter Psalms your two Sacrantents your weekly Sabbaths nay your Ministery your Church shew us say they Command or Example for them in Scripture now seeing the one have lent the other their Premisses I shall leave them to wrangle among themselves about the Conclusion which in Sum is no other but to exchange with each other a Rowland for an Oliver Whilst one throws Stones at the Innocent Ceremonies used in the Sacraments and Church Administrations another strikes at the very Sacraments themselves whilst one Disputes against the comely Habits and reverend Titles of the Clergy the other by the same Logick Questions the very Functions of Bishops and Priesthood the one seeks to abolish the Festivals of the Saints and the other even that of the Lords-day the one would have no Churches nor Priests the other no Scriptures all which with divers others of the same Leaven are but the Spawn and Fruits of Idol-liberty so that the Dernier result must end in a sad Catastrophe Confusion disorder and every evil work Before I conclude this passant observation I will make by the way of all viz. that they are not so peremptory in demanding and peevish in insifting upon Scripture Precepts and Examples for things they like not to yield obedience unto as they are negligent in the use of other things for which there are far more plain Precepts and Example even of Christ himself and that with his own debet stampt upon them witness the Administration of the Sacrament which Christ Administred in the Evening first rising from Supper laying aside his Garments girding himself with a Towel powring Water into a Bason Washing his Disciples Feet and wiping them with a Towel wherewith he was Girded then taking his Garments and sitting down again and saying ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well for 〈◊〉 I am if I then your Lord and Master have washt your Feet ye also ought to wash one anothers Feet for I have given you an example that ye would do as I have done unto you Verily I say unto you the Servant is not greater than his Lord neither he that is sent greater then he that sent him if ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them John 13.4.5.12.17 what more plain Precept greater Example or stronger inforcements for his Successors his Ministers to do the like can ye have and yet how little of this is performed by them is not unknown to any Greet one another with a Holy Kiss is a Precept likewise Apostolical 1 Pet. 5.14 and was in Customary use before their approaching the Lords Table until the dayes of Justine Martyr Apoll. 2 and Tertullian blames the Omission of that Right grown upon the Church in times of the Solemn Fastings and Prayers Then they withdrew that Osculum pacis when in his Judgment it was most convenient and necessary de Oratione When Widdows are to be chosen for the Service of the Church this Qualification is required She must be one that had Washed the Saints Feet 1 Tim. 5.10 and our Saviour by his Precept and Example Commends to his Disciples Washing each others Feet John 13.14 15. may not much of the like nature be said for the disuse of Anoynting Love Feasts c. but I forbear
I abhor the thoughts of it as will appear hereafter there being a Vast difference between such a Tolleration of Idolatry Superstition crying sins and therefore absolutely unlawful and a Remission only of some few severities in some Acts Canons and Injunctions which relate only to Formalities that tho in construction of Law may be exacted yet may be dispensed withal without prejudice to sound Doctrine or good Conversation and without which the Worship of God would be as pure and sincere Indeed all Acts Canons and Injunctions whether they relate unto Uniformity or not ought according to their own Nature to be sincere and free from all Traps and Covert designs to exclude any that Profess the same Faith and Worship tho many cannot perhaps thro meer tenderness of Conscience submit to every thing therein enjoyned In Concerns of this Nature Scripture in a more especial manner ought to be the Rule of Resolutions and that abstractly and purely without mixing and bringing with them Interest Usurpation or Artifices of men else what were it but by Edicts to lay Snares in Mispah and spread Nets upon Tabor to use Laws Menaces and subtleties to keep Gods People from his Court and Sanctuary and Confine them to State-Religion and to Walk after the Mode of the Commands of men Those Non-conformists Non-assenters that have received Order which they could not have had but permissu superiorum by the Licence and under the Authority of the King in our Laws expressed For no Man hath Power to give himself either Orders to be a Priest or Institution to a Pastoral Charge but must depend upon another Power who by Acts Canons and Edicts long since published and extant hath directed the qualifications of the Persons to be Ordained the manner and Form how the Persons who ought to Ordain them c. and they could not be ignorant that the Liturgy and enjoyned Ceremonies were by the Imperative Constitutive Government of this Church and State to be Countenanced and used in publick Churches by the Bishops Presbyters and Pastors either they consulted their Consciences when they entered on the Ministery by taking Holy Orders whether they could Comply and Submit unto the whole Frame of Government and Polity of this Church Constituted by Act of Parliament from whom they were to receive Authority and Licence to Exercise their Function Gifts and Talents or they did not If they did not they are inexcusable for entring on so Sacred a Calling Stamped with an Indelible Character so rashly so unadvisedly without perspect or foresight of Consequences and yet if they were so pur-blind as not to see one step before them yet their neglect herein cannot be Pleaded in their Excuse it being their own Fault in Common Justice no Court will permit any man to take Advantage of his own misdemeanors or failings Besides hath not every Minister that hath receiv'd Pastoral Charge twice or thrice if not oftner witnessed his allowance of all and singular the 39 Articles of our Church once at his Ordination before the Bishop then at his Institution into his Benefice before his Ordinary and both these by Subscription under his own hand and afterwards upon his Induction before his own Flock and that by verbal Approbation he hath not only acknowledged in the Church the Power of Ordaining Rites and Ceremonies 20 Articles But he hath after a sort bound himself openly to rebuke such as willingly and purposely break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church as Offenders of the Common Order of the Church and Wounders of the Consciences of the weak Brethren and hurters of the Authority of the Magistrate Artic. 34. and is it not enacted 1º Eliz. c. 2. that they shall be punished pro ut in the Act that shall Preach declare or speak any thing in derogation or depraving our Liturgy c. Are not then such Dissenters obliged both in Conscience and by virtue of their own Voluntary Acts and Subscriptions to be constant to their own Hands and Tongues if they would be accounted Faithful in Gods House as was Moses And is it reasonable then to hearken unto such Pleading against their own Voluntary Acts and Subscriptions their own Hands and Tongues Besides quo jure with what Face or Conscience can they expect Temples maintenance protection and all things requisite for their Ministery from that Law and Government that they will not Protect Countenance nor submit unto § Indeed it seems to me an old piece of Conscientiousness if not Impiety to enter the Holy Ministerial Function to day when they are sure without Conformity to be silenced to morrow Besides it is Nicety and Indiscretion to exact an express Rule of Scripture or Faith for the Cross in Baptism for standing at the Creed Kneeling at the Lords Beard for Habits in Divine Service the usual sear-Crows of scrupulous men In these cases consent of the Church or Tradition may suffice so there be no express Law of Command to the contrary He that exacts in these Points as express Rules of Faith or Warrant of Scripture for his Obedience to Ecclesiastical Government as he would or as every man ought to do for adventuring upon Worshipping of Images Invocation of Saints c. doth make his Brain or Fancy the chief Seat of his Religion which should be seated in the Heart and Intitles God to the Fancies and Chymaeraes of their own Brains Thus to disobey the Church in these Cases wherein it hath Authority to Command Obedience is to disobey those Mandates of God which give the Body of the Church Authority to make Laws to Govern it self by in things indifferent neither expresly Forbidden nor expresly Commanded by the Law of God I know the Apostles Rule is let every man be fully persâ—â—ded in his own mind 14 Rom. 5. And this full perswasion or assurance of Faith is in the Cases there mentioned necessary because whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin v. 23. This last Maxim is undoubtedly true and the former Precept most exactly to be observed in such Causes as the Apostle there speaks of that is where the positive Practise unless our Warrant be Authentick in it self and evident to us is very dangerous or deadly whereas on the contrary the forbearance of such Practise is either safe or not prejudicial to our Souls but to our Bodies only or State temporal such Ceremonies as be neither against Faith nor adverse to good manners in the Judgment of St. Austin ep 11.8 go for indifferent and may be Born in Christian Unity without Offence or Confusion If God hath left things indifferent what Authority can make them necessary Let them be so still and their nature not changed by any Injunction and Unity will necessarily ensue Quodam modo it may be true that in Ordination there is something which they receive thereby from God Independent of the King or any Civil Power viz. Authority to Tâ—â—ch Baptize and Administer Sacraments by Virtue of Ordination And â—â— is as true that
Members The fallacy or mistake lies in the misnomer or misapplication of terms The Congregations in such meetings termed Churches ought more properly to be called Assemblies than Churches for they have not all the powers belonging to a Church more properly so called they being only partes similares Homogeneal parts of some more entire or ample visible Church in this sense Families are sometimes stiled Churches § It follows That a Church so qualified and so gathered becomes a Body or spiritual Corporation which may be nay which is tru in a qualified sense so at the least the meanest or lowest Member of the Catholick Church or House of God is the Temple of God yea a King and a Priest Rev. 5.9 10. Is it reasonable therefore to argue from hence that therefore every tru lively Member of the holy Catholick Church hath the power of a Church because such titles are in some sense applicable unto them § It follows and being joyned thus by mutual assent of each person they have power over one another as in all Fraternites and liberty from Christ to choose their Officers censure Offenders make Canons and Orders in Circumstantials for the Regulating of their affairs Be it so yet even then all the power they can lawfully claim is to assemble to Pray Preach and Administer Sacraments which I shall not deny them but as for other powers except to put them out of that particular Congregation I know none they have right unto or that they can endow one another withal but what must necessarily in respect of good government be subordinate to the more supreme and greater power of the same kind which is the Christian Common-wealth which is the National Christian Church the publick power of all Societies being above every soul contained in the same Fraternities and the principal use of that power is to give Laws unto all that are under it which Laws in such case ought to be obeyed unless there be reason shewed which may necessarily enforce that the Law of Reason or of God doth enjoyn the contrary because except our private and but probable resolutions be by the Law of publick determinations over-ruled we take away all possibility of sociable life in the world If they will have powers over one another as in all Fraternities then they must be first made a Corporation by some more supreme Authority and endowed with powers as all other Fraternities are for no number of men in any entire rightful Government can give themselves orders or powers distinct and exempt from the superior Jurisdiction these must be had from the supreme established Power else if instead of censuring Fornicators or Adulterers to the White Sheer or Stool of Repentance they should censure or condemn them to the Gallies or as in the Old Law Levit. 20.10 to be stoned to death I doubt they would not do it impune and yet a Christian Common-wealth which is a Christian Church might lawfully enact such a Law Liberty from Christ alone for their demanded powers I know they claim but quo warranto non sum informatus especially free and exempt from all superior jurisdiction Texts they can name none that are applicable to such Congregations but will be much more properly applicable to National Churches to govern the whole As for the power of Censures so of the making of Canons and Orders in Circumstantials for regulating of their affairs the same reasons hold more strongly for the National Church who as well as the Independents profess their Independency upon Christ alone and to be their only Head and Lawgiver as best knowing how to govern his own house If Independency be sound doctrine then if the Independent the Roman Pontif the Prelate the Presbyter the Anabaptist the Socinian the Quaker and a thousand more Sects should set up each for themselves by the same doctrine in this or any other Christian Nation who shall reform they cannot all be in the right and to reform one another is against the very nature of Independency and yet reformation ought to be and power thereof must be seated somewhere either in the Civil Magistrate or in Synods Councils c. the chiefest reformations in the Jewish Church have been by the Kings and supreme Magistrates sometimes without the peoples consent and sometimes commanding and compelling them to consent So Asa commanding That whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death whether small or great Man or Woman So Hezekiah 2 Chron. 29.3 4.18 and so Josiah 2 Chron. 24.31.32 And so indeed all the good Kings of Israel and if they did not judgments were denounced against them by the Prophers from God and they were punished which power is not abrogated but confirmed by the Gospel They farther say As the Church Catholick in General so each parcel of it each particular Church hath Christ also for its head and in such a union with him and such existence in him even as a Church 1 Thes 1.1 Paul and Sylvanus and Timotheus unto the Church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ Grace c. we say so too but how this makes for Independency that is the great question the Emphasis and stress of which verse lies in these words viz. which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ which some think to be a description of the Church of God to put difference betwixt Christian Churches and the Assembly of Pagans and Jews which are not in God but in Idols not in Christ but in an absolute God whom they conceive and worship out of the blessed Trinity in the Father and the Son that is say some in the Faith and Worship of the Trinity say others in blessed and heavenly fellowship with the Father and the Son by bond of the Spirit others think that they do import a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and subsistence in the Deity by the means of the union mystical betwixt Christ and his Church The Father in us and we in him 1 Joh. 3.24 Partakers of the Divine nature 2 Pet. 3.4 Take the words in which sense you please I do not see how they are more applicable to Independent than unto other Christian Churches not esteemed Independent if they contain any other reasons more favouring Independent Churches than others I must confess that they are unto me incognito and I guess unto them also for that they have not specified any § I can say Amen also to what follows in the negative viz. As that if persons making up this Body be considered distinctly and as incorporated one with another only and not in their relation to Christ also as one with them and chief in the midst of them Matt. 18.20 they are not a compleat Body or spiritual Polity For though a million of Bishops Prelats or Clarks even the Popes and his Cardinals assisting not thus qualified should assemble for their own gain dignities or jurisdiction
it is possible so it is very probable that both the Independent and Presbyterian Government would incroach and intrench on the Civil Powers so natural is it for every power to incroach upon another and either jostle it quite out of doors or make the Civil subservient to the ecclesiastical Power the sad effects of which hath been manifested in Scotland already where the Presbytery when they will speak out plainly claim to be coordinate at least with the Civil Jurisdiction and if we consult their practises we shall find them Paramount § According to Sa. Rutherford there is a mutual and reciprocal subjection of Magistrate and Pastor Pastors as subject in a Civil Relation and Magistrates as they have Souls and stand in need to be led to Heaven are under Pastors and Elders For if they hear not the Church and commit incest they are to be cast out of the Church 18. Matth. 1. Cor. 5.16 Rom. 17.1 1. Thes 3.14.15 that God respecteth not the Persons of Kings and we find them not excepted If the Preachers of the Gospel be to all believers over them in the Lord 1. Thes 5.12 1. Tim. 5.17 they have some Authority over the Christian Magistrate Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication Presbytery displayed printed 1644. and reprinted 1663. together with the forms of Church Policy claimed and presented to the Convention at Edenburgh in January 1560 drawn up by Knox and to the Parliament of Scotland and sitting in Striveling 1578. by Mr. Andrew Melvil and together with their particular proceedings justifying their Arguments by their Facts truly related by King Charles the first in his large Declaration concerning the late tumults in Scotland printed 1639. do abundantly make it appear that their Maxims relating to Church and State Policy are the same with the Jesuits their Sermons delivered according to the Dialogue of Becanus Scippius and Eudaeman Johannes and their Arguments to be taken out of Bellarmine and Suarez as may also appear by King James his monitory Preface and his Apologia for the Oath of Allegiance and by the Books written in Defence of them both To this Assertion also give Testimony the Writings of Buchanan and Knox c. of old and Sa. Rutherford in his Lex Rex printed 1644. and his Plea for Presbytery printed 1642. and his Divine Right of Church Government and excommunication printed 1646. and a 100 more Pamphlets of later days § If we examine their practises in particulars most notoriously known we shall find them answerable to their Positions Upon the return of Angus Arrol and Huntley Popish Lords Fugitives for some Rebellious designs into Scotland Anno. 1596. K. I. and convention meeting in August at Falkland intended to shew some favour to them which being ratified at another convention of the States at Dunfermling in Septemb. the Church forsooth took pet at it and thereupon entred into a Combination to cross and prevent it K. J. for the better preservation of his Realm in peace and setled quietness consulted with much kindness Mr. Robert Bruce as one for whom the King had a particular kindness and the most leading man amongst them who was very willing that Angus and Arrol should return on the conditions proposed but by no means would admit that Huntley should return though he marryed the Kings Cousin whom he accounted as his own Daughter and offered to satisfie the Church and fulfil the conditions required and one who had the greatest power amongst them and therefore his Interest most likely to do the K. most service or most prejudice whereupon Bruce most insolently replyed I see Sir that your resolution is to take Huntly into favour which if you do I will oppose and you shall choose whether you will lose Huntley or me for us both you cannot keep There 's your Presbiter in his right Colours This done the Commissioners of the Church which Stile they most wrongfully assume and monopolize to themselves only as if the King his Council and Parliament I might say the meanest of their Congregations were not as much of the Church as themselves assembled at Edenburgh where they ordained to acquaint all the Presbiteries with what had been done and passed finding great fault with the Conditions granted to Huntly and the rest by the King and the Conventions as bringing a manifest hazard both to Church and State and therefore was desired to inform their flocks and both by publick Doctrine and private Conference to stir up the Country people to apprehend the danger to be in readiness to resist the same Oh brave Sheba's Trumpeters of Sedition and Commotion a speedy way to set a whole Kingdom against the King in a trice they proceeded yet farther by proclaiming a day of Humiliation through the whole Country to be on the first Sunday mark that in December that in Nomine Domini they might with the better grace fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of Wickedness and the cause assigned was the return of the excommunicated Lords whereby danger was threatned to Religion mostly made a Dequoy to intice heady and highminded men and despisers of Government not modeled by themselves to Rebellion and therefore the Presbyteries should call before them their Entertainers Resetters and such as keep company with them and proceed summarily with the censures of the Church una citatione quia periclitatur salus ecclesiae Reipublicae I wonder where this Jure Divino Power is to be found that they assumed this Prerogative to Cite Summon c. any for causes of Rebellion or censure by excommunication A meer device of their own which they can never make clearly out either what it is or of what extent or if there be any such thing that they only have power to execute it or that they can delegate it Nor rested they here but ordained that a number of Commissioners selected out of all the quarters of the Country should reside at Edenburgh to receive advertisements as should be sent from other places and take advice upon the most expedient in every case and in every business that occurred by direction of this Council which by a new name was now forsooth called the Council of the Church And was not this to erect Regnum in Regno If the punishment and pardon of Rebels be not a civil affair I do not see what is But rather than they will have their power docked they will by their Inordine ad Spiritualia their Pastoral Sheep-hook hook even Crowns and Diadems within the verge of their mitered Caps and Powers Whilst these things were agitated divers conferences passed between the King and them wherein the King and his Council made many prudent and gracious Offers and condescentions with great respect to the priviledges of the Church but no reasonings prevailing with them the King was forced to express and said that there could be no agreement so long as the marches of the two Jurisdictions were not distinguished that in their
would continue together so long as conveniently they might They sent also some of their Number to the Octavians or Councellors that were trusted with the management of all affairs of the Kingdom for their assistance but the President with some Choller answered that as these Controversies were begun so they should end without their advice Having failed herein they sent to the King humbly entreating a surcease of the Process against Mr. Blake c. to which the King returned this gracious Answer that if yet they would pass by the Declinator or declare at least that it was not a general but particular Declinator used in the case of Mr. David Blake as being a cause of flander and pertaining to the judgment of the Church he should also pass from the Summons and surcease the Suit This not pleasing they resolve to stand to the Declinator unless the King would pass by the Summons and remitting the Suit to the Ecclesiastical Judge make an act of Council that no Minister should be charged for his Preaching at least before the meeting of the general Assembly Whereupon the Proclamation was published the Commissioners charged to depart out of the Town and Mr. Blake by a new Summons cited to the last of November The Commissioners being advertised thereof they advised a Petition to the King and Noblemen praying the King that he would remit the determination of the differences to a lawful Assembly and not to incroach upon the limits of Christs Kingdom upon any pretence exhorting the Noblemen that as they had been so they would still keep themselves free from working any prejudice to the liberty of the Gospel and being Executionres of the Malicious devices of those who sought the thraldome of the Gospel and that they would procure by their credit a continuation of all Controversies unto a free and lawful Assembly This Petition prevailing nothing Blake appeared and was convicted it being sound that the crimes and accusations contained in the Summons were seditious and treasonable and that his Majesty his Council and other Judges substituted by his Authority were competent Judges in all matters either Criminal or Civil as well to Ministers as other Subjects Though Robert Pont after the Summons were read protested that the Process in hand and whatsoever followed thereupon should not prejudice the liberty of the Church in matters of Doctrine whereunto the King answered he would only censure Treasonable Speeches of a Minister in a Sermon which he and his Council would judge Notwithstanding all this so gracious was the King that he sought by all gentle means and sound reasons prosering Pardon Amnesty and Restauration to Blake c. But the more gracious his condescentions were which were not a few the more refractory stubborn and insolent were the Presbyters insomuch that when the King sent to them that he did not intend to use Blake with rigor Mr. Robert Bruce in the Name of the rest answered that if the matter had concerned Blake alone the offer might be accepted But the liberty of Christs Kingdome had received such a wound by the said proceedings usurping spiritual Judicatory as if Blakes life and the lives of twenty others had been taken it would not have grieved the hearts of good Brethren so much as these injurious proceedings had done and that either these things behoved to be retreated or they would oppose so long as they had breath Brave Blades still and they were as good as their words standing it out to the uttermost by somenting sedition and raising tumults till at last some of the chiefest of them were forced to fly to New-Castle Upon all these Conferences with the King and answers returned of his Messages the Burden of their Song was still That their Messages and Commission ought not to be controuled in a Civil Judicature nay tho they preached seditiously or rebelliously for which tho they ought to be punished yet it ought to be first cognossed by the Church unto which the King once replied and shall not I have power to call and punish a Minister so preaching but must come to your Presbytery and be a Complainer I have good proof in the Process of Gibson and Ross what justice you would do me When nothing would satisfie them on the second of December sentence was given that Blake had fasly slandred and treasonably calumniated the King and his Queen Queen Elizabeth the Lords of his Council and Session therefore his punishment being remitted to the King it was ordained that till his Majesties pleasure should be declared he should be confined beyond the North Water and enter into his ward within six days There were several Treaties after this Sentence in order to an accommodation but still the same spirit reigned in them and they returned as proud and insolent answers in so much that the Lord Lyndsey told the King on their behalf that they durst convene against his Proclamation and do more than so and that they would not suffer Religion to be overthrown at which the King leaving the room Lyndsey returned to the Church and said there was no course but one Let us stay together that are here and promise to take one part and advertise our Friends and the Favourers of Religion to come unto us for it shall be either Theirs or Ours Hence a great clamour to Arms to bring out Haman others cryed The Sword of the Lord and Gideon so great was the fury of the People This produced new Petitions and new Conferences yet all but second parts to the same tune Great is Diana of the Ephesians the Liberties and Prerogatives and Scepter of the Church they will cry some hours some weeks together rather than they will lose their spiritual Independent Monarchy and Judicatory over King Council and People and during this furious contest Mr. John Welch preaching in the High Church said the King was possessed of a Devil and one Devil being cast out seven more was entred in place And that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hand which he confirmed by the example of a Father that falling in a frenzy might be taken by the Children and Servants of the Family and tied hand and foot from doing violence Brave Gospel Doctrine fit for Antichrist and his Pulpits who may perhaps grant Priviledges and Prerogatives to his Church exempting his Clergy and Ministers from all questioning But my Creed is that happily such Priviledges and Liberties may be in their Books or in their Alcoran but not in Bibliis sacris Thus the Chorus and Burden of the Song is that every Contradiction of a waspish Priest is an incroachment upon the limits of Christs Kingdom a prejudice to the liberty and seeking the thraldom of the Gospel c. whereas in truth it is the Priests that have incroached and usurped upon the Priviledges and Rights of the Church truly so called Deus bone as slight as they make of the King and his Council and other the Laity
Baptism or the like then they stiffly cry out where is your Rule your Warrant in Scripture for them And may not the Magistrate with as good Logick demand of Presbyter and Independent their express Warrant and Rule of Scripture for their Governments for receiving the Communion sitting or for their altering the time of taking of it or their Preaching in their Caps in a Cloak or Buff Coats as lately they did If men were humble and not wedded to their own fancies they might see the right Independency already established in this Kingdom and with no great difference from that of the Independents who would have only Churches voluntarily gathered and submitted unto whereby those that would might be of Peters or of Pauls or of any Ministers Congregation and those that would not might refuse to be of either or indeed of any so that in effect they having no power to compel the whole Kingdom might be either Atheists or Papists Quakers or Fanaticks nay Jews or Ranters or indeed what not if no better care were taken But the great wisdom of our Princes armed with the Sword and with Power to Command and Compel from on High well knowing it a duty incumbent upon them as it was once upon Paul to take care of all the persons and Churches within their Dominions and that they were to be accomptable to God for their good or evil Government in Church and State have divided this whole Nation into Precincts Parishes or Congregations call them what you will and hath allotted to every Parish a Church to which all are enjoyned to resort and frequent and a Minister endowed with maintenance who is to execute his Pastoral Office over them and his Parishoners are compellable by by the Laws Canons and Edicts of the Prince to receive their spiritual Food and Bread of Life at his hand and mouth and it is not left to them to come or not to come to the Church of God and hear the Law and the Gospel of Jesus Christ at their pleasure But care hath been and is still taken that the Ministers and Pastors shall not be without their Flocks nor the Flocks without their Pastors who are licenced and enjoyned to Pray Preach Baptize Now what is the difference The Congregational way is voluntary unlimited and unprescribed the Parochial is quodam modo compulsory bounded and circumscribed and so it ought to be or else how can Princes rationally give any good Accompt to God of their care of his Churches if they should leave every man to do herein what seemeth best in his own eyes as once in Israel when there was no King And if Princes have no Power to Prescribe Compel and Punish why should they be blamed and punished for the Idolatrous and otherwise erronious Worship of others And if they have power why do the Non-conformists quarrel at the use thereof one Parish is as little dependant on another as the Congregational men would have their Congregations to be and yet both Parishes and Congregations are properly and rather homogenial parts of Englands Church than so many distinct Churches though Quodam Modo they may be stiled Churches as Paul did Families in Houses in his time § Both Presbyters and Independents willingly oblige themselves to no form being against all set forms but leaving themselves at large in all their Administrations Our Supream Governours as in duty bound prescribe and enjoyn as in our Liturgy the daily teaching of the Fundamentals of Christianity that all his Subjects may be sure to have them sincerely dispenced unto them If there be no form for dispencing of them how can the Prince be sure that they are rightly dispenced and taught nay how can he be sure that they are taught at all and if not certain thereof how can he give to God a good and sure account that they were sincerely taught or that the Alcoran Talmude or Trent Creed were not taught instead thereof If our Liturgy be daily used the very solemn days which by Antient Institution of the Church are to be celebrated for the Commemoration of the Blessed Trinity Advent of our Saviour his Nativity Circumcision Passion Resurrection and Assention will so preserve these things among the Common People that is scarcely imaginable that they should be so grosly ignorant as not to have explicite knowledge of those mysteries of Christ so publickly and frequently solemnized in the Church The want of which Liturgy hath in these late times ushered in much ignorance even of the necessary fundamentals and made a wide Gap for ignorance nay Atheism not only to creep but to leap in amongst us How many Congregations or Parishes wanted the Holy Communion for the greater part of twenty years together in the late times now who was to blame or responsible to God for so hainous a sin as the keeping back the Bread of Life the Incumbent or the Civil Magistrate or both and who was in fault when it was afterwards given yet to those only that would sit and take it at a long Table denying it to others that desired to receive it in the most reverend manner by kneeling the Incumbent or the Magistrate that might have ruled it otherwaies thereby excommunicating in their sence at least with exclusion a Sacris all the Parish at one breath save a few What could his Imperial Infallible Holiness at Rome have done more imperiously then to deny the Bread of Life to those that would not submit to their ipse dixit The hainousness of this crime of robbing whole Parishes of the Lords own Supper Table Cup Body and Blood for so many years together in our late times is abundantly set forth attested and proved to be from Popish Principles in a Book entituled A new Discovery of some Romish Emissaries c. The sum then of the Contest will be between Prince and Priest whether Presbyterian Independant or Popish matters not much They being in the point of Domination not much different only the Independant is most moderate and the Pope most exorbitant extending his Supremacy and Jurisdiction over forrain Princes and beyond his own Territories even to the Excommunication nay Deposition of Kings and how much less the Presbyter claims Sa. Rutherford in the forenamed Book and his if I may call it his Book called Lex Rex do speak and as the Arguments are the same so the same Answer will reach them all § The Priests conceive by their mandate viz. Go teach all Nations Baptizing c. received from Christ Independant of any earthly Power that they have by vertue thereof Authority to put in execution that Mandate 1o. In their opinion to preach and pray what when and where they please Administer the Sacraments after what form and manner seems best unto every of them though never so different one from the other use any form of Discipline excommunicate whom and when they please and all this without being accomptable to any earthly power or having any Superior over them §
Politick the other Ecclesiastick what then hindereth that the Church now also on whom God hath bestowed a Christian Magistrate should be less content with one Government To me it seemeth monstrous to place two heads upon one body of a visible Church whose Commands Decrees and Government are divers so that the rule of one is not subject to the care of the other For the Ecclesiastical Senate or Presbytery would have the Supream Power of Punishing Vices even in Magistrates themselves though not with Corporal Punishment yet with Excommunication and debatring them from the Sacraments whereas one Magistrate appointed by God may now as well bridle all transgressions as he could of old was it not so in the Kingdom of Solomon which was as it were a Type of Christs Church reigning on this Earth And I do not find either under Moses or under the Judges or Kings or under the Government of those which were called Rulers such two discrepant Judicatories Nature denies saith Musculus two Authentick Governments in the same People whereof one is not subject to the other It is manifest that David did dispose of all Offices and Ministers of the Church 1 Ch. 22.27 Afterwards Solomon did not only build but consecrate the Temple and not a Priest Hitherto belongeth that famous History of Jehosaphat in the 2 Chr. 19. which doth perfectly clear this cause as also doth the History of Ezekias and indeed the whole Old Testament It is too well known that though Papists and Presbyters do allow something to secular Magistrates in the Rule of the Church yet the Supremacy of Power they do utterly and in very terms deny And having obtained possession of power in the Church and that as they hold out by Christs own institution they are very loath to resign the same again at the demand and into the hands of Princes It is true that when our Saviour first gave Commission to his Disciples to Preach Baptize and Propogate the true Faith in the World secular Authority being universally averse thereunto he was of necessity to commit for the present both Doctrines and Discipline to the charge of his Apostles yet not without a promise That Kings should be their Nursing Fathers and Queens the Nursing Mothers of his Church who though now they are come in and become friendly to Religion and willing to advance the spiritual prosperity of the Church as well as of the Temporal of the State yet both Papists and Presbyters having got possession are loath to be disquietted dreaming of a Spiritual Empire belonging to Priests more worthy and Sacred than that of the Emperors and so secretly preferring the Crosier before the Crown § Power and Government are things most awful and honourable and the truest owners thereof next under God are Princes whom the true legitimat Church ever looked upon as Cods immediate Vicegerents Deputies and Governours thereof St. Peter 1.2 Writing to the Church in the time of a Heathen and Impious Emperor commandeth every Soul to be Subject to the higher Powers He acknowlegeth power in a very Nero and that to be the higher Power And to that Power of that Nero he subjects every soul Christian and Heathen Priest and Layman and it may not seem strange that meer Power and Rule in an unbeliever and wicked Prince should be so sacred and inviolable We must take notice that the wickedness of Princes in ill Commands though it discharge us as to those ill Commands yet it doth not discharge their power or Rule either in those or any other For when Princes rule well they are to be obeyed when ill they are to be endured and this very endurance is an effect of obedience and subjection The violence of this or that Nero may be Tyrannous but the lawful Authority whereby the same violence is done is not Tyranny Neither is the Office of Kings the less Glorious because they can use force nor yet that of Ministers the more Glorious because they may use none but perswasive Motives and Allurements For Power it self being a Glorious Divine thing it must be most honourable to use it in Gods Cause and his Glory and the advance and increase of his Flock and Kingdom and therefore we see Iosiah and other good Kings are commended for using compulsion and on the contrary other Kings which used it not for the suppressing of Idolatry removing the high places and the like did draw curses on themselves and their subjects And whereas it is objected by I. M. and others that Force and Compulsion restrain only from the act of sin but not the Will from the liking thereof and that to compel outward profession is to compel Hypocrisy not to advance Religion But we see common experience teacheth us better effects thereof For Scotland Holland Denmark Sweden Bohemia England c. suffered great changes of Religion in a short space and these changes were wrought by the force of Civil Magistrates and could never else without strange Miracles from Heaven have been so soon compassed and these Changes have not proved the less sincere because Civil Authority wrought them as the Samaritan first believed Christ on the Womans word but then for his own sake so those that were compelled to the Wedding so many Papists in Queen Elizabeths dayes which came to our Churches first to save their Purses afterwards came out of liking of which the Pope being advertised forbad it and made it a Signum Distinctivum It s a shrewd sign that that Babe is spurious which the Mother is ashamed to bring to light and that is Falshood and Dross not Truth and Gold which dares not abide any Test and that those Masses are not of a Divine Origine that must be celebrated in an unknown Tongue and trusted only with the Priests who are parties to the Cheat. Besides the means used in all Laws of God and man to induce obedience are rewards and punishments both which may occasion Hypocrisie Corrupted man is as inclinable to dissemble Religion which he believes not as well for hope of reward as for fear of punishment which is vitio personae non praemii vel poenae else God would not have appointed them as mounds of his laws and motives of obedience The pious example of a good King is of mervelous inducement towards Religion yet one may hypocritically dissemble his Religion to please his Prince Example is so powerful a motive that it is said to compel 2 Gal. 14. Peccant magistratus cum minis paenis alios peccare non prohibent 13 Nehem. 17.21.22 If Nebuchadnezar erect his prodigious Idol and upon pain of a Fiery Furnace require all to worship it all People Nations and Languages are presently upon their faces If persecution be but threatned Demas-like we presently forsake the fellowship of Saints and imbrace this present world On the other side rewards of honour and preferment will cause some Balaam-like to run and ride and become more sensless of Gods wrath and indignation than
for Supremacy over Causes and Persons Ecclesiastical and Civil but let them accompt it their most Supreme Service to attend on that Supremacy so shall more honour and sanctity pass from Pope and Presbyter to Kings and Emperors and more efficacy and vertue from Kings to Ministers more Grace and happiness from both to the People § Excommunication The main Argument used both by Pope and Presbyter to raise the Miter and Consistory above the Crown is drawn from the power of the Church in Excommunication which Sword Church men only claim and wherewith they think they may as freely strike Princes as Princes may strike them with their Temporal Sword of both which a word in general and also in particular as it relates to Princes Excommunication that great Popish and Presbyterian Thunderboult and Diana of their Discipline claimed to be their due Jure Divino and so highly exalted by them that it is not more monopolized nor advanced higher at Rome than it would be here by them within their Precincts if not curbed by the Civil Magistrate so apt it is to be tyrannically abused by Pope and Presbyter for experience tells us that if they might have their Will they would by virtue thereof put such a Spiritual Pad-lock upon the Temporal Sword and by their In ordine ad Spiritualia take such fast hold of it themselves that if they and Christian Princes should chance to differ they may be sure so long as their Doctrine concerning it will be believed to have the drawing of it themselves and leave poor Christian Princes to whom the Sword of Right more antient than Papacy or John Calvins Presbytery more properly belongs to defend themselves with the Scabbard for which several of them have paid dear witness amongst others those 17 Scotish Ministers who being convented before the Council of Scotland for holding a solemn Assembly at Aberdeen without the Kings leave 2. July 1605. utterly denied the Authority both of King and Council in that behalf affirming that in matters Ecclesiastical they neither ow nor ought to acknowledge themselves in any subjection either to the King or to his Council and that all spiritual differences should be tryed and determined by the Church meaning thereby themselves the Clergy for which cause and for denying the Kings Supremacy 6 of the chief of them were arraigned and condemned at Blackness in Scotland January 10. 1605. and how insolently some of the same Tribe vsed King James more than once he himself hath published in Print and their imperious exhorbitances may be read as in several other Books so in Presbytery Displayed printed 1644. and how they used King Charles the first I. M. hath demonstrated in his Tenure of Kings therein manifesting that they founded the Premises that enabled the Phanaticks to conclude that sanguinary and unparalled Catastrophe And that their good deeds also may be remembred we do recount them to have been very instrumental in the restoration of the Son which is some kind of expiation for their injuries done unto the Father Some and those of no small esteem in the Church are of opinion that the exercise of Excommunication was then only needful when no visible Church had any legal or civil remedy to preserve its unity or purge it self of gross Offenders or that the right or power of Excommunication which the Apostles and immediate Successors had did utterly expire when once whole Cities and Common-wealths became Christian and were enabled from the Supreme Civil Magistrate to punish Offenders and to enact coercive and penal Laws and other means necessary for the spreading and promulgating of the Gospel Sure I am that experience hath made it more than probable that after the Church and Common-wealths were so linked and interwoven together that every Member of the Common-wealth was enforced to become a Member of the Church and to be so admitted by the Church Governours the edge of this spiritual Sword was very much abated and the force of former spiritual Ordinances became stifled with the multitude of those persons against whom they were directed whether the defect be in the power it self or in such as have but to do not use it as they ought certain it is that this branch of discipline is not in our days so effectual as in former times it hath been The meer spiritual Power with which alone the Apostles and their Immediate Successors were endued was of greater efficacy than both the remainder of the like spiritual Power in Dermier Bishops and Pastors and all the strength of secular Civil Power wherewith Princes States or Kingdoms since the mutual incorporation of Common-wealths and Churches have as they were in conscience and Jure Divino bound assisted Prelates and Church Governours of this nature seems to be the Apostolical Rod. 1. Cor. 4.21 wherewith Paul threatneth the Corinthians whereby is meant as he explains himself 2. Cor. 13.10 ch 10.16 ch 13.2 To use sharpness to revenge all unrighteousness not to spare all which are expressions of a certain miraculous vertue of impossing punishment Thus Annanias and Saphira fell down dead 14. Acts 13. Elymas was smitten with blindness 1. Tim. 1.2 Himeneus Alexander and the Incestuous Corinthian were delivered to Sathan 1. Cor. 55. § To deliver to Sathan was plainly a point of miraculous Power which inflicted torment on the Body such as Saul in former times felt after his departure from God as Chrisostome and other Fathers interpret This is certain when the earthly powers used not their right of punishing God had given them to purge and defend the Church what was wanting in human aid God himself supplied by divine assistance After the Emperors took on them the Patronage of the Church whose office was to punish them that troubled the Church without or within the forenamed divine punishment expired And most properly that divine execution of revenge was the jurisdiction of God not of Men because the whole work was Gods not the Apostles God that he might give testimony to the truth of the Gospel preached as at the Apostles Prayers or presence or touch he healed diseases and cast out Divils so at their imprecation commanded men to be vexed with Diseases and seized by Divils Nor did Paul more by delivering men to Satan than did Peter and John by curing the lame man who say they did nothing by their own Power Acts 12. and ascribe the whole effect to God At the Prayers also of the Church did God often shew the like signs of his displeasure therefore are the Corinthians 1. Cor. 5.2 blamed that they mourned not to the end the Incestuous person might be taken away from among them And to the same effect is that wish not command of the Apostles to the Galatians 5.12 would they were cut off that trouble you This kind of Excommunication if it may be so called was a Corporal punishment and there is no appearance of any internal obduration by the binding power of Pope or Presbyter and
Loving one another of Doing all things decently and in order of Laying Hands suddenly on no man and describing Qualifications sit for the same to be their Guide and Directions That the Bishops and Priests were chosen by Popular Election until the Days of Constantine and some time after hath been demonstrated out of St Cyprian and others Afterwards when Pride Ambition Covetousness Self-Interest and Affectation of Domination had more universally corrupted the Minds of men and after the Donations of Constantine had given more Honour and more Power to the Christians then more eminently began the Spirit of Antichrist to work and every Interest began to set up for it self and the Priests and Bishops began then to be chosen sometimes by the People or Brethren sometimes by the Emperors sometimes by the Emperors People and Clergy and sometimes by the Clergy and People according as the several Interests grew more or less potent till at last it devolved where now it is at Rome even on the Cardinals who are well advanced from being Parish-Priests of Rome to be Peers and Compeers with Kings and Princes Vid. Fra. Paolo Sarpi of Beneficiary Matters It is undeniable that the Popes themselves were so chosen An. Dom. 233. p. 158. sometimes by one Interest sometimes by another Cornelius the 20th Pope was made Bishop of Rome by Testimony of the Clergy and Suffrage of the People It is true the Council of Laodicea congregated An. D. 364. under Liberius the 35th Pope or according to Coriolanus An. D. 321. Ordained That it was not to be granted to the People that they should make choice of those that were to serve at the Altar c. 13. But what Right they had so to Ordain appeareth not Notwithstanding which Bishops were chosen by Popular Election after this Council as may appear by the Great Nicene Council Assembled according to Baronius 6 years after the Council of Laodicaea in their Synodal Fpistle to the Church of Alexandria and to the beloved Brethren of Aegypt Libia and Pentapolis apud Theodoret lib. 1. c. 9. And that they enjoyed the same Liberty before the Nicene Council is clear by St Cyprian Ep. 68. Sect. 4. The People obeying the Lords Commandments and fearing God ought to separate themselves from a sinful Ruler and not to intermingle themselves with a Sacrilegious Priest seeing they especially have power either to elect worthy Priests or reject unworthy All the Romans as well Laity as Clergy chose Leo the 45th Pope Pelagius the Second the 63d Pope was chosen by the People so was Gregory the First the 64th Pope And so was Vitilianus the 76th Pope § The Suffrages of the People are so clearly manifested by all Antiquity that Pamelius himself in Ep. Cypr. 68. saith We deny not the old Rite of Electing Bishops by which they were wont to be chosen the People being present yea rather by the Voyces of the People for that it was observed in Affrica is evident by the Election of Eradius the Successor of St Austin concerninig which there is extant his 100 Ep. In Greece in the Age of Chrysostom as appeareth by his Third Book of Priesthood In Spain by Cyprian and Isidore in his Third Book of Offices In France by the Epistle of Celestinus In Rome by those things which were spoken upon the Epistle to Antonianus yea every where else by the 87th Epistle of Leo and that this Custom continued until Gregory the First appeareth by his Epistle yea even unto the Times of the Emperors Charles and Lodowick as it is manifest enough out of the first Book of their Chapters And the same Pamelius in another place saith The Manner of choosing the Bishop of Rome was often changed First St Peter chose his Successors Linus Cletus and Clemens then Anacletus and the rest unto the second Schism between Damasus and Vesicinus were Created by the Suffrages of the Clergy and the People If Pamelius a Papist confess all this what need have we of farther proof tho Histories swell with more of like Proofs Besides the Antiquity the Reason that it ought to be so hath the general Gospel and moral Equity for its justification God having set down no certain Rule for the way of Election it is most just and equitable that the People should choose their own Pastors because their own Souls the most precious thing that ever God created were concerned therein and for that by their so Electing they were the more engaged more quietly to receive and more diligently to hear the Word of Truth from their Mouths more heartily to love and reverence their Persons and also more chearfully and bountifully to maintain their Pastors and Bishops whom they themselves had chosen Before Constantines Conversion which according to Baronius was about the Year 312. the Elections without dispute were made by Clergy and People both in the Eastern and Western Empires but after his Days and Donations there grew Disputes Animosities and great Troubles between several Interests about Elections and more especially about those of the Bishops of Rome In his Days succeeded 3 Bishops of Rome Sylvester Marcus and Julius all chosen by the Suffrages of the Clergy and People And though in the Choice of Liberius Successor to Julius Constantius intermedled not yet before that he did interpose in the East and cast Proclus out of the Church The truth is sometimes the power of Election was given to the Emperor by Pope Canons and Councils sometimes the Emperor devolved his power again to the Clergy P. Adrian Leo Clement all with a Council granted it to Charles Otho and Henry Senate and People The Custom of choosing by the Emperor continued from Vigilius to Benedict the Second in which space there were about Twenty Popes all Created by Imperial Authority And P. Adrian the First with a whole Synod gave to Charles the Great who confirmed the Donations of Pipin who gave the Possessions of the Exarch of Ravenna and also Pentapolis as a Patrimony to St Peter which first enabled and encouraged them to contend affront and set at nought Kings and Emperors in future Ages the Right and Power of choosing the Popes and disposing of the See Apostolick and granted to him the Honour of being Patricius and designed that Bishops in all Provinces should take Investitures from him and that a Bishop should be Consecrated by none unless he were first invested by the Emperor Theoderick de Niem saith De Jure Princip Imperii cited by the Bishop of Ely in Resp ad Apolog. c. 8. the Roman People granted to him and translated upon him all their Right and Power and according to their example P. Adrian with all the Clergy People and the whole Sacred Synod granted to the Emperor Charles all their Right and Power of Electing the Pope Here all Interests pretenders to have power of Election voluntarily without compulsion devolved all their Authority upon the Emperor Charles and consequently was then indisputably invested therewith which
done with what Right or Justice could any succeeding Popes divest them of it After this Henry being Crowned Emperor by Clement the Second Platinâ— in Vita Clem. 2. he caused the Romans to swear that they would not meddle at all with Elections but by the Emperors Command for that he saw the World was come to that pass that every factious Fellow were he never so base so he were Rich and Potent might corrupt their Voyces and obtain the Popedom by bribes And well he might An. 912. N. 8. for Baronius himself complains in the very preceding Century that most silthy Harlots did bear all the sway at Rome This was the time when Strumpets did thrust their Lovers into the Seat of Peter This was that time when all Canons were put to silence the Pontisical Decrees stisled the antient Traditions proscribed the old Customs sacred Rites and former use of choosing the high Bishop utterly extinguished This was the time to say nothing of Formosus Luit pr. l. â— c. 6. Sergius and others when P. John the Twelfth exceeded in all monstrous Abominations polluted his own Fathers Concubine made his Palace a Stews put out the eyes of his Godfather gelded one of his Cardinals plaid at Dice invocating Jupiter and Venus and drunk a Health to the Devil Notwithstanding all the Right of Elections inherent in Kings and Emperors as Nursing Fathers of the Church and all the Grants conferred on the Emperor by all that did or could pretend to have any power thereof as Pope Senate Clergy People who not and notwithstanding the Oath they had taken not to interpose in the Elections yet ungrateful persidious Gregory the Seventh in a Council holden An. D. 1080. he excluded all Secular Princes whatsoever from Investitures reserving Elections to the Clergy and People only and was seconded by his Successors and Vrban he deposed his own Lord and Sovereign who confirmed him in the Popedom and gave away the Empire to Rodolph a Rebel promised Forgiveness of Sins to all that obeyed him forcing him at last to redeem his Peace and rather lose Investitures than the Empire Thus the Right of Elections which was for many hundreds of Years practised by the Greek Roman and German Emperors and Ratified by Clement the Second by Leo the Eighth by Adrian the First with their several Councils and before them all by Pope Vigilius and before him by the Practice Use and Approbation of the more Antient and Purest Times was now wrested and extorted from him and them by Perjury Cursing and Banning And as they excluded the Emperor reducing Elections to the Clergy and People so afterwards they excluded the People and brought them only to the Clergy after that they excluded the Clergy and Monopolized them only to the Cardinals since which time there have been as monstrous Popes as ever were before To say nothing of the Liberties of the Gallican Church whose Kings had the Choice of Bishops almost 300 years before the Empire came to their hands nor yet with what Artifices Labour and Sweat the Pragmatical Sanction set up by Charles the Seventh was endeavoured to be made null and of no effect by P. Pius the Second in the days of Lewis and by Leo the Tenth in the Reign of Francis the First I cannot but wonder to see how tame Christian Princes have been in suffering themselves to be thus imposed upon Had they had but the Mettle of Lewis the Twelfth the French King who being Excommunicated by Julius the Second stampt his Coyn with Perdam Nomen Babylonis or had they had but the Wisdom and Courage of Hen. 8. of England or had but followed the grave Advisoâ—s that Theoderick of Niem gave to Rupert King of the Romans they had long since been brought to be like the rest of their Brethren good and honest Prelates faithfully labouring in Gods Vineyard without Usurping the Rights of Princes and of their Fellow-Bishops § This was so palpable and undeniable that in the very Council of Trent it was urged by Thomas Passio a Cannon of Valentia That it was very plain by the Canons that in the Choice of Bishops and Deputations of Priest and Deacons the People of all sorts were present and gave Voice or Approbation of which the Hereticks the Lutherans made most pestiferous Use and therefore moved that the Voyces and Consent of the People in Ordination should be taken away and that the Pontifical also ought to be corrected and those Places expunged which make mention thereof because so long as they continued there the Hereticks would make use of them to prove that the Assistance of the People is necessary and thereby destroy the Church which according to the Romish Court-Dialect is the Pope It was urged moreover that the Places were many that made mention of the People giving their Suffrages and Consent in the Ordination of the Ministers of the Church and that they should be all blotted out of the Pontifical yet he recited but one viz. That where the Bishop at the Ordination of a Priest Pontif. Rom. de Ordinat Presb. viz. 38. Neque fuit frustra a Patribus institutum ut de electione eorum qui ad regimen Altaris adhibendi sunt consulatur etiam populus quia de vita conversatione praesentandi quod nunquam ignoratur à pluribus scitur à paucis necesse est ut facilius ei quis obedientiam exhibeat Ordinato cui assensus praebuerit Ordinando saith It was not without good reason that the Fathers had ordained That the Advice of the People should be taken touching the Elections of those Persons who were to serve at the Altar to the end that having given their Assent to their Ordination they might more readily yield Obedience to those who were so Ordained The Design of this righteous Canon was to have all that made against the Grandeur of his Holiness blotted out of the Pontifical that there might be no Trace or Footsteps of them left remaining for the future For if this and other Rites shall remain the Hereticks will always detract from the Catholick Church as Luther did Pietro Soave Polano 590. Therefore in this as well as in other points Indices expurgatorii are of most excellent Use to serve a Papal Turn Moreover Paulinus saith of himself That having a purpose to apply himself to the Service of God in the Clergy he would for humiliation pass through all Ecclesiastical Degrees Ostiarius Lector Exorcista Acolythus Subdiaconus Diaconus Presbyter Episcopus beginning from the Ostiary but whilst he was thinking to begin being but yet a Laick the Multitude took him by force in Barcelona on Christmas Day carried him before the Bishop and caused him to be Ordained Priest at the first which would not have been done if it had not been the Use in those Times Ibid. 587. Many of the Fathers also of the Council of Trent much desired that a Decree should pass concerning the
Election of Bishops purporting that a Cathedral being vacant the Metropolitan should write unto the Chapter the Name of him who was to be promoted who should afterwards be published in Pulpit in all the Parish-Churches of the City on Sunday and hanged on the Door of the Church and afterwards the Metropolitan should go to the City vacant and examine Witnesses concerning the Qualities of the Person and all his Letters Patents and Testimonials being read in the Chapter every one should be heard that would oppose any thing against his Person of all which an Instrument should be made and sent to the Pope and read in the Consistory But such a Decree was too good to pass in that Packt Council which having too much publick respect to the publick Good even of their own Catholick Church Protestant Churches having not the same reasons to complain was oppsed by all Arts and Industry by the Bishop of Bertinoro General Laynez and by all the Pentioners and Favourites of the Court of Rome which by much was the major part for the many and great inconveniences that would ensue thereby And what were they Forsooth that such a Decree would be a Cause of Calumnies and Seditions and that thereby some Authorities long since taken away would be restored to the People Vâ—â— Ao 870. Distinct 73. Padre Paolo Defence 75. with which they would usurp the Election of Bishops which formerly they were wont to have that this was to bind the Authority of the Pope that he could not gratifie any one Just and pregnant Reasons I must confess to perswade unto Usurpation of the Right of others and therefore it could not pass The like Opposition was made against the Article concerning those who were to be promoted to the greater Orders in which it was also said that their Names ought to be published to the People three Sundays and affixed to the doors of the Church and that their Letters Testimonial ought to be subscribed by four Priests and four Laicks of the Parish alledging that no Authority ought to be given to the Laicks in these Affairs which are purely Ecclesiastical 725 726. what Right soever they had unto them In the Discourse also of the Reformation of Cardinals a Congregation was ordained on purpose to consult and find a means that Princes might not intermeddle in the Conclave in the Election of the Pope so jealous and unwilling are they to have any Laick great or small to come within their Verge their Scrinia sacra or to intermeddle in such their Concerns though they have none de Jure but their Priesthood but what they have either obtained by Power or usurped by Fraud or by the Supineness or Favours of Pious Princes But when some of the Council thought in order to Reformation to make a Constitution that no Bishop should have any Temporal Offices either in Rome or in the Ecclesiastical Dominions that even that also would be a great prejudice to the Ecclesiasticks of France Polonia and of other Countries and Kingdoms where they are Councellors of Kings and have the Principal Offices of which they would soon be deprived by the instigation of the Secular Nobility for their own Interests and therefore that String was not to be touched upon but left unto the Popes ordering Furthermore the Bishop of St. Mark in the Dispute about the Title of the Council of Trent had the boldness to aver that the Laicks are most improperly called the Church for that the Canons determine that they have no Authority to command but Necessity to obey and that the Council ought to Decree that the Seculars ought humbly to receive the Doctrine of Faith which is given them by the Church without disputing or thinking of it Petro Soave Polano 141. That is in Romish understanding that that Religion which the Pope Obedience unto him being made by them a true Mark of the Church doth please to give them ought to be embraced by the Laicks without dispute What is this else but plainly and grosly to mock the world and to think all men Fools and Cuddens but themselves and to perswade themselves that all their Absurdities should be believed without more ado What is this less than to perswade Rational men that they are Bruits Horses or Asses void of all understanding or that hearing they do not hear or that seeing they do not see or that perceiving they do not understand Qui vult decipi decipiatur § Thus have I unto the meanest Capacities made plain and evident both by Precept and Practice out of the Word of Truth the Title and Interest which the whole Congregation of Believers have unto the Appellation and Powers of the Church and unto Ecclesiastical Concerns without wresting or perverting any one Text of Scripture § Now the Pope would very much oblige us if he would vouchsafe unto us but only one plain Text to warrant the Powers he exerciseth and lays claim unto over the Laity or how he comes to be so essential to the Church as to be put into the very definition thereof It being plain downright nonsence if it be good manners to say so to aver that any one single person alone how great soever can suffice to make a Church a Congregation for that at least two or three are necessarily required to make an Assembly or Congregation Ecclesia or the Church even in its Natural and Grammatical Construction signifying a Plurality or Multitude be it Civil or Ecclesiastical And as it is a new so it is an absurd kind of Trope devised by the Romanists to make the Pope a single person to signifie the Church I know the Papalins are most excellent Artists most rare Alchymists surpassing even those our Brethren Roseae Crucis who are modest Mountibanks in respect of these Audaces Jesuitae for they took the whole Book of Genesis to found their Phanatick Chymaeraes upon but these can extract their extravagancies out of two or three words only viz. Pasce oves meas i.e. Feed my Sheep out of this Word Pasce Bellarm. hath extracted so many Quintessences so many Elixirs so many Legions of Diabolical or Antichristian Arguments for the Popes Pride and Grandeur that he can hardly desire any thing that these would not afford him will he be a King as well as a Bishop and will he have Temporal Power to be as extensive as his Spiritual Bellarmine assures him that it is so for that Christ said to Peter Pasce i.e. Regio more Impera Play the Rex at pleasure In the ancient Church when any Heresie disturbed the Truth and publick Peace a grave Assembly of Bishops and others were called and the Book of God fairly laid open before them and out of it were all Doubts determined Now Scriptures and Councils are needless Will the Pope be supreme Judge of all Controversies Lib. 4. De Rom. Pontif. C. 1. C. 3. Bellarmine thinks the Claim to be well grounded upon this Pasce Joh. 21.17 And it is
a great wonder in his Judgment that the Pope was never thought infallible till this last age since this Pasce implies this also so clearly and if the Hereticks do not believe that his Holiness hath power to make new Articles of Faith and when they cry shame upon Pope Pius the Fourth for adding Twelve new Articles to the old Apostles Creed it is because they are ignorant and know not what Pasce signifieth In sum this one Word with them contains more Matter than all the Bible besides It works Miracles makes the Pope omnipotent gives him all power not only in Heaven and on Earth but even in Purgatory a place that God knows nothing of for if you ask by what Authority he takes upon him to pardon Sins and Souls after Death to give or sell the Saints Merits to dispence with Oaths to depose Kings and dispose of their Kingdoms or if he list to murder them c. If you look the Popes Lexicon as Dr. Potter well observes you shall find that Pasce expresly denotes all this Authority and enables him to be not only a Prince or a Pastor or Bishop but even a Butcher too by the self-same Logick for what is murdering of Kings and that by Mariana his quacunque arte less than savage Butchery For according to Sententia Baronii Cardinalis super excommunicatione Venetorum Ministerium Petri est duplex pascere occidere Feed my Sheep Joh. 21.15 16 17. Kill and eat Acts 10.13 dixit enimei Dominus Pasce oves meas Joh. 21.15 16 17. Audivitque è Coelo vocem occide manduca Acts 10.13 The Words I confess are plain and words of truth and their natural Sence obvious to every Capacity but such Conclusions and Deductions from them as are drawn by the Popes Partizans and Sycophants are strangely uncouth and utterly unknown to right Reason and so notoriously false that they carry their own Confutation in their Foreheads that they that run may read them and need no other Answer yet in their due place they shall be touched § But to return The Esteem and Powers allotted to the Brethren or body of the Church by the Apostles they did preserve unto themselves above 250 years after Christ which is very plain and manifest by the abundant Testimony of the most Antient Fathers and Old Canons as by Clement First Bishop of Rome who lived in or near the Apostles days by Tertullian and Cyprian who lived in the Third Century with divers others but because to cite the whole Caravan of Witnesses at large and in particular would make this very Paragraph swell into a Volume I forbear and shall only gently touch some of them hereafter that by them you may guess at the rest § As in the first and purest times the Name and Title of Church was common to all Congregations and Societies of Believers so unto them also according to all antient Records did belong also the Use and Propriety of the Goods which were called Ecclesiastical in which times the poor and the Ministers had their Food and Rayment from one common Fund or Bank and which is observable those were more principally provided for than these But not long after this excellent Use was perverted by the Subtilty of the Clergy and the poor put in the lowest place which according to the former Use ought to have continued in the first and chiefest And when the Name of the Church became appropriated to the Clergy only all other Christians being excluded then that was applied to few which belonged to all and that to the rich which first served for the poor In the beginning of those Times the Clergy having divided among themselves all the Revenues of the Church the Charges which before were and were called Ministeries and Offices of Spiritual Care the Temporalty and Profits being now most esteemed were now called Benesices and so long as the Old Canons remained that one man should not be Ordained unto Two Titles Titulus was the Old Word for a Church Many Ages after Christ A Bishoprick before the World was divided into Parishes was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Parish and whoever was Ordeined in and for one Bishoprick he could not belong unto two And for many Ages there were no Tithes paid or due but the Church and Clergy were maintained by the Oblations of the People and those by the old Canons divided into four parts none could have more than one Benefice But the Revenues being by Wars or Inundations diminished and become not sufficient for their Maintenance one Man might hold two yet so as that he should attend them both This was begun in favour not of the Man Benesiced but of the Church which because it could not have a proper Minister might have at least some other Service upon pretence of the insufficiency of the Benefice and that none could be found to serve in them they began to grant more of them unto one though no necessity appeared for the Service of the Churches and the Mask being taken away by little and little they were not ashamed to do it for the Man Benesiced But the World being scandalized thereat there was a Moderation used whereupon a distinction began of Men tied to Residence and not tied and of Benesices compatible and not compatible calling those of Residency incompatible one with another Trattato delle materie benesiciarie 144 145 c. and the other compatible with these and with themselves yet the Gloss of the Canonist to make a shew at least of Honesty always declared that many Benefices should not be given to one but when one is not sufficient for maintenance But they cut this Sufficiency very large proportioning it not to the Person but to the Quality not esteeming it sufficient for an ordinary Priest if it were not enough for himself the Family of his Parents three Servants and an Horse and more if he were Noble and Learned And it is strange how much they allowed for a Bishop in regard of the Decorum he was to keep For Cardinals it is sufficient to note the common Saying of the Court that they are equal unto Kings by which they conclude Aequiparantâ—r Regibus 144. that no Revenue is too much for them except it be more than enough for a King The Custom being begun and neither the World nor Equity being able to resist it the Popes reserved to themselves power to dispence with the Incompatible and to have more than two of the other But to find a colourable way to put this in practice they laid hold on Commendaes Commendaes a thing instituted at first to good purpose but after used to this end only For when by reason of Wars Pestilence and other such Causes the Election or Provision could not be made so soon the Superiour did recommend the vacant Church to some honest and worthy man to take care of it besides the care of his own until a Rector were provided who
been so extreamly and publickly mischievous God would not have suffered it Besides if Scandal shall not remain unpunishable in the Prince yet it shall in the Spiritual Man which is a Mischief of the same nature with the other For if Caesar shall abide the Censure of this or that froward Pope or Consistory what Judgment shall the Pope or Consistory abide If this Spiritual Supremacy rest in any one that one must be unpunishable for two Supreams are things incompatible And if this Supremacy rest in more than one is is very hardly consistent with Monarchy for the one or other must be transcendent § Without all contradiction it is a manifest violence to use the Power of excommunication be it what it will if any such thing there be at all granted by Christ contrary to his own Institution and towards him that hath Power and unjustly useth the same the remedy is to have recourse to a Superior if he may but if there be no Superior to whom to have recourse God hath allowed no other remedy to a Prince thus offended but to make resistance with his own force opposing himself and force to force because it comes from God And the Civil Being of every Common-wealth or Kingdom is to the end of his Glory And therefore a Prince cannot permit without a sin and offence that his own Liberty should be infringed which is the Civil Being of every Principality and there is no doubt but that negligence in defending it is a dangerous offence to God and most hainous if he voluntarily suffer it to be usurped and incroached upon § To obey therefore the Commandements of God Kings when accosted and assaulted by Excommunication Papal or Presbyterian may and ought to oppose themselves against the Authors of them that will take away the Power which God hath given them to make Laws both Civil and Ecclesiastical and with Justice to defend themselves and their injured Subjects in their Lives Honours Goods and Religion And as the Innocent by an error in facto unjustly excommunicated to avoid scandal is bound patiently to endure So when the Error is in Jure and the manifest injustice thereof is apparent to avoid scandal likewise the Prince is bound to resist and oppose himself against the Injury Because there is no doubt but that such unjust Censures are against Magistracy it self and therefore when it shall be known to other Kingdoms that such a Prince or State for fear of unjust Censures and those invalid hath yielded unto violence whereof there are Examples not a few and omitted to exercise and execute his Natural Power they would be exceedingly scandalized thereat as also the Subjects that should discover such a vain fear they would become very perverse And therefore for this cause also it is both equal and necessary for the Prince to make due resistance for such no doubt or more weighty Reasons have our Kings and Queens defended themselves and their Subjects against all such Thunderbolts and so did the Venetians against Paul the Fifth who without any colour of reason excommunicated them being not a few Millions of Men The like have the Emperors and Kings of England and of France done and they had Authority so to do by their great Charter from Heaven The Church both Laity and Clergy but especially the Clergy ought to pacifie their Minds and Consciences attending the Service of God under the protection of their Princes constantly believing that the Holy Ghost was promised and given to all the Faithful both Laity and Clergy amongst whom Christ himself is present when they are congregated in his Name and that none can justly be excluded out of the Holy Catholick Church except by their own sins they be first excluded out of the favour of God and that the obedience which God commands us to perform to our Ecclesiastical Superiors is not a foolish or ridiculous Subjection nor the Power of Pope or Presbyters an Arbitrary Judgment but both the one and the other must be ruled by the Law of God who Deut. 17.10 11 12. ordained not an absolute obedience to the Priest but a prescribed observance according to the Law-Divine Facies quaecunque dixerint qui praesunt loco quem eligerit Jehovah docuerint te juxta Legem ejus It is the Word of God only not of Men in the Priests Mouths that me must obey God only is an Infallible Rule to whom only we must profess and yield obedience without all exception He that generally professeth this towards others without the Commandments of God as the Papists do sinneth and whosoever supposeth any Humane Will to be infallible as the Papists do committeth great Blasphemy in ascribing to the Creature a Property only Divine We have an Example hereof in the Acts when the Ancient Church expostulated and contended with Peter himself about the Vocation of the Gentiles he did not thunder against them with hideous and abominable Excommunications nor use menacing Language nor went about to silence them but he taught and perswaded them by Reason and Authority of Divine Revelations and the Words of our Saviour The very same Peter commanded the Elders to feed the Flock of God taking the over-sight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy Lucre for Cardinalisme or Nepotisme sake but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over Gods Heritage but being Examples to the Flock 1 Pet. 5.2 3. by which it is evident that Priests must not domineer nor command with Empire but with Holy Deportment and Instructions of Piety for that they have no Dominion of our Faith but are or should be Helpers of our Joy 2 Cor. 1.24 The very same St. Peter when he erred in Antioch St. Paul did not forbear boldly to reprehend him in the presence of all Men Gal. 2.11 St. Paul's superexcellency above any thing that we can pretend unto was no Warrant for him to oppose himself against one whom it was not lawful to resist Who more humble or gave greater acknowledgement of his due Reverence to the High Priest than Paul did In this questionless Paul did no more than what the least of us may do with due Reverence to his Holiness Quaecunque scripta sunt ad nostram Doctrinam scripta sunt Rom. 15.4 the Holy Ghost would never have written this History but for our Example to the end we might imitate it And we see that all the Popish Doctors in discussing how any one may oppose himself to the Pope when he erreth and governs unworthily they have recourse to this Example Let no Man therefore be troubled depending only on the Authority of a Pope for that according to their own Doctors not one but two Keys were given to Peter and to the rest of the Apostles and if they be not both used together the effect of Loosing and Binding doth not ensue the one being of Power the other of Knowledge and Discretion Christ never gave Power to be used without due Knowledge and Circumspection
rows another pretends to argue only against Liturgies in general how consonant soever they be to Gospel-Truths and Doctrines for against such he must dispute or he hath no Adversary that I know of I am sure I am no defender of any other and their Imposition whilst he shoots many envenomed Arrows against our established Liturgy wherein his own consent is involved because established by Act of Parliament and Convocation and perhaps subscribed unto by himself and then concludes That on these and no better terms is that prescribed Liturgy we treat of introduced and imposed which Terms are 1. That it is not appointed of God 2. Not practised in the Purer Times 3. An Humane Invention 4. Hinders Edification 5. An Abridgement of Christian Liberty 6. That it is made necessary by the Commands of Men and then admires with what peace and satisfaction to their own Souls Men can pretend to Act as by Commission from Christ as the chief Administrators of his Gospel and Worship on the Farth and make it their whole business almost to teach Men to do and observe what he never commanded and rigorously to enquire after into the observation of their own commands whilst those of the Lord Jesus are openly neglected I 'le make no exasperating Comment on these and other the like severe Reflections on our Anti-Liturgists because he pretends to use it only by way of Instance neither will I as I said at first go about to defend every thing relating to this or that Liturgy my design being only to defend the Composition Use and Imposition of a wholesom Form of sound words formed into that which we now call a Liturgy It 's enough for me if such a Liturgy may be composed against which there can be no just exception and that there may be such I have never read or heard to the contrary § The Ends of Liturgies our Author reduces singly into one viz. That the Ordinances and Institutions of Christ may be publickly administred and solemnized in the Church with Decency and Order unto the Edification of Assemblies wherein they are used But because he confesseth that there is no other assigned that he knows of I shall take liberty to Assign one or two more though this alone be sufficient 1. That so many Fundamental Truths the necessary and common Food of all the Sons and Daughters of the Church should be daily and purely read and taught as well as the Ordinances and Institutions administred without corrupt Glosses or Comments as may be sufsicient to make the Comers thereunto wise unto Salvation And that our English Liturgy contains such Truths needs no proof it 's Matter of Fact and proves it self And if it doth not appear to be so unto the Author let him discover its desiciency the radical necessary Truth that is not there taught or not rightly taught therein and I shall acknowledge it and yet if it were defective it can only be a just exception against this Liturgy but not against Liturgies in general that may be otherwise composed 2. One other and great End of Liturgies relates to the Civil Magistrates who impose Liturgies as the best Medium to justifie their Pastoral Care pardon the Expression it as rightly belongs to them as to Popes or Presbyters of the Souls as well as of the Bodies of their Flocks their Subjects in that they command them to be daily fed with the sincere Milk and other stronger Meat of the Word Ezek. 34.23 Now Princes are as truly Pastors as Priests and that of Christs Flock yea Pastors of the Pastors as a Bishop once called King Edgar whose principal charge and care is or ought to be that Divine Things may be rightly ordered and the Salvation of Men procured Hence it was that Constantine called himself a Bishop and other Emperors had the Title of Renowned Pontiffs or Priests In the Emperor Martianus the Roman Bishop extols his Priestly Mind and Apostolical Affection and Theodoret mentions the Apostolical Cares of Theodosius wherefore the Kings Power is also Spiritual as it is conversant about Religion which is a Spiritual thing as it is also Military Naval or Maritime c. though he be neither Mariner nor Soldier And Balsamo Bishop of Antioch observes that in those times the Emperors did instruct the People in Religion And how good Josiah went up into the House of the Lord and all the Men of Judah and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem and the Priests and the Levites and all the People great and small and how he read in their Ears all the words of the Book of the Covenant and how he made a Covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord c. and how he caused all that were present to stand to it c. is recorded 2 Chron. 34. and is worthy of the Imitation of all Princes Such and many other prudent Considerations no doubt made our good Josiah Edw. 6. and his Counsellors however this Author writes slightingly as to the Case of Liturgies f. 37. of that never to be forgotten Reformation to take care that as there is a Common Salvation Jud. 3. and a Common Faith Tit. 1.4 which is alike precious 2 Pet. 1.1 in the highest Apostle and meanest Believer for we may not think that Heaven was prepared for deep Clarks only a Rule of Faith besides that large measure of Knowledge whereof all are not capable common to small and great which they moulded into the Form of a Liturgy if he please to give me leave so to express it and not wrest my words beyond my meaning containing so many Credenda and Agenda so many things to be believed and done by all Christians of such weight and moment that if believed and a Life led accordingly would doubtless bring all such Believers in their appointed times to Eternal Bliss and such Credenda are contained in our Liturgy deny it that can without a Slander For indeed Liturgies have a more special regard to the weaker sort and meanest Capacities Ignorance of Scripture and of the Principles of Catholick Faith that are absolutely necessary to Salvation being a dangerous Gulfe and the chiefest support of Popery and therefore is it so plainly so methodically and in such few apt and Scripture Expressions composed both for the Credenda and the Agenda that the meanest may understand all necessary Truths and not mistake and they are so often read and taught by the frequent use thereof that even Babes do suck them in almost with their Milk and can hardly be forgotten nay the very Solemn Days which by the Ancient Institution of the Church are celebrated for the Commemoration of the Blessed Trinity the Nativity Passion Resurrection Silvest in summa verb. sidei §. 6. Tho. in secunda secundae q. 3. Art 7. and Ascention of our Saviour Christ doth so preserve the memory of these things among the Common People that by the Popish Doctors themselves it is made an Argument of gross and supine Ignorance
that any should not have explicit knowledge of those Mysteries of Christ which are thus publickly plainly and frequently solemnized in the Church Vsh 25. Furthermore this very Discourse hath furnished me with one very good Quotation for the Justifying the command of Liturgies by the Magistrate and hath not impeached the Reasons thereof by any thing he hath written in derogation thereof though he hath endeavoured it After he hath told us f. 33. That in the Latin Church Ambrose used one Form Gregory another and Isidor a third and that it is not unlikely but that the Liturgies were as many as were the Episcopal Churches of those days Hence saith he in the beginning of the fifth he might have said in the fourth Century in which Ambrose flourished by which it appears ex ore tuo that they are no very Novel Invention and that the wisdom of Ages for the good they have found by them have thought fit to continue them to this day and therefore certainly not temerariously to be disputed against in an African Council Can. 70. which is the 103d in the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africanae it is provided that no Prayers be read in the Administration of the Eucharist but such as have been approved in the same Council or have been observed by some prudent Men formerly Ne forte aliquid contra fidem vel per ignorantiam vel per minus studium sit compositum which Canon with some addition is confirmed in the Second Milevitan Council Can. 12. and the Reason given in both is Lest there should any thing contrary to the Faith creep into their way of Worship He farther adds f. 34. That many parts of the World especially the last in those days swarmed with Antitrinitarian and other Hereticks who many of them by unsuspected wiles and dissimulations and subscriptions of Confessions and why may not these be practised again and why may not Princes now use Liturgies a Remedy found out it seems by Prelates and derived to our days attested by many Ages to have been effectual against such and the like evil Machinations of Sathan and his Disciples as well as Prelates did of old endeavoured to creep into the Office of the Ministry of the Church partly out of blind zeal to diffuse the poison of their abominations partly out of carnal policy c. which increased the necessity of composing such Forms of publick Worship as being silled with the Expressions pointing against Errors of those times might be a means to keep Seducers from imposing themselves on Ecclesiastical Administrations Thus there is no Ancient Liturgy but it is full of the Expressions that had been consented upon in the Councils that were convened for the condemnation of those Errors which were in those days most rife and pernitious Though these very Reasons abstract from those relating to the Power of Princes herein prevail very much with me and I am confident will with most rational and most unbiassed Persons for the establishing of Liturgies yet our Author slights them because it doth not appear unto him that these Reasons could possibly be taken from the Word the Practise of the Apostles or the Churches by them planted or those that followed them for some Generations nor from any Council held before their days and so is not much concerned to know what they were If our Author as an unbiassed and disinteressed unconcerned Person had consulted Scripture as much about the Power of Kings in things pertaining to God as he hath done about the Liberties and Priviledges of his own Order he could never have said that these Reasons could not be possibly taken from Scripture for Kings have their Power from Scripture as well as Priests Though I have herein said something of the Kings Power and more I suspect than all of his Profession will cheerfully subscribe unto yet I will say somewhat more here In the Christian Church the Right and Office of the highest Power is not only conversant about the whole Body of Religion but about the single Parts also as Reasons and Examples do evince Indeed it cannot be otherwise for he that hath Right upon the Whole hath Right upon the Parts An Example is Ezekias who that he might suppress the Adorers Superstition took away the Brazen Serpent though set up by Moses and by the same Right against the Decrees of the second Nicene Synod Charles the Great forbade the Adoration of Images Moreover it is most plain that the Supream Powers used their Authority in defining things which the Divine Law hath left undefined The King of Ninevey proclaimed a Fast David commands the Ark to be transported Solomon orders all things for the Ornament of the Temple and after him Josiah who also takes care that the Treasure destined for Sacred Vses be not alienated The Constitutions in Theodosius and Justinians Codes and the Novels and the French Capitulars justifie the same but because not in Scripture I only mention them here It seems very reasonable that if Princes have power to pull down a Brazen Serpent though set up for the healing of the People by a Prophet when once the People commit Idolatry by offering Incense to it that they have also just Power to erect or command an unquestionable Liturgy that may really and effectually conduce to the preventing or suppressing of Idolatry And therefore if the very words of such Liturgy were not commanded precisely to be read but were only in the Nature of a Directory which happily may not be displeasing to our Author what could hinder but that some Popish Priests might again introduce at the time of Baptizing of Infants the use of Spittle the kissing of them the blowing in the face of them to blow away the Devil forsooth to give them the Eucharist and many more such Fopperies now generally difused amongst Protestants and others may baptize in Nomine Patris Filij Spiritus Sancti as we do others in Nomine Patris Majoris Filij Minoris as the Arrians did others in Nomine Patris per Filium in Spiritu Sancto others not in the Name of the Trinity but in the Death of Christ c. and who shall hinder them Other Sacrilegious Priests might also rob Gods dear Children of their Blessed Viands of half their just due in the Eucharist and give them Bread only keeping the Wine to themselves and teach them that the Bread in their Hands is a proper real and propitiatory Sacrifice of Christ for the Living and for the Dead and that which they eat under the shew of Bread to be the very Flesh of Christ whereas in truth they eat only the Substance of Bread and indeed may make them believe that the very Moon is made of Green Cheese infect their Flocks at their pleasure with Arrianisme Socinianisme the Doctrines of Adamites Ranters Quakers and indeed what not And if they did so why were the Prince to be blamed if he did not prevent it if he had no
Dog with a fire Brand in his Mouth the signification and application whereof I leave to every Reader to make Only his deportment towards the Albigenses is storied to be rabying against whom he so Preached adeo quidem ut câ—ntum haereticorum millia uh octo Millibus catholicorum fusa intersercta fuisse perhibeantur saith one of him and of those who became Captives 180 were Burnt to Death the first Example that I find in the Church of Rome of putting Dissenting Bretheren to Death Of this order was this precious Inquisitor Jacomello to Arms alleadging for their Justification that Magistrates were set over them by God and themselves for the good and behoof of the Governed and not the Governed Ordained for the Lusts of Magistrates to be destroyed and killed at pleasure that their Condition being desperate they might use Arms in their own Defence and that in their Condition their appeal unto Arms was not so much against the Prince as against the Pope who usurped more Authority than did Dejure belong unto him and did also abuse the Authority of their Prince by subtle and crafty seducements for his own sinister ends Hence there were War all this year and part of the next And the Duke having made more than a years tryal to reduce them by Wars and Punishments being therein assisted with Money from the Pope and at last after many Skirmishes an Appeal being made unto the Lord of Hoasts by a formal pitcht Battel the Duke lost 7000 men slew but 14 of his Enemies and tho he did often recruit his Army yet had he always the worst Therefore the Duke wisely considering that he did thereby only make his Subjects the more Warlike and teach and inure them more Stoutly to Offend him Consume his own Country and VVast his Treasury he resolved to receive them into favour and made an agreement with them 5º Junij in which he pardoned all past faults gave them Liberty of Conscience appointed them places where they might meet gave leave to those that were Fled to return and restitution of Goods to those that were Banished Which Agreement very much distasted the Pope that an Italian Prince who had been Assisted by him and might have more need of him should yet permit Hereticks to Live freely in his Territories and for that the example would be urged by greater Princes when they inclined to permit another Religion whereof he bitterly complained in the Consistory comparing the Ministers of the most Catholick King with the Duke who having about the same time discovered 3000 Lutherans who went out of Cosenza and retired themselves to the Mountains to Live according to their Doctrine did Hang some Burn others and put the rest into the Gallies but the Duke justifying his Cause with such Reasons which the Pope not being able to answer did Acquiesce And are not such Councils such Advisocs greater marks of an Hireling or a Butcher than Obedience to the Pope a true Mark of the Church Appello ad Caesarem Deum Deorum Dominum Dominorum qui non accipit personam neque recipit munus 10 of Deut. 17. § About the same time there were great Troubles and Disorders in France for cause of Religion Multitudes disdaining to see poor Innocent Christians drawn every day to the Stake to be Burned Guilty of nothing but of Zeal to Worship God to keep a more intimate near and dear Communion with their God and to fave their own Souls These Humors were not Purged nor yet allaied neither by Punishments nor Pardons proferred and Proclaimed but that greater Tumults were raised in Province Languedoc and Poicton whether the Preachers of Geneva were called and came willingly by whose Sermons the number of the Protestants did daily increase examples of great fear being always joyned with others of equal boldness for the quieting of which Humors Francis the 2d the 11º Aprilis 1559. intimated a National Synod as a proper Remedy But the same Hireling Pius the 4th as before in the cause of the Duke of Savoy did most severely complain that the King had Pardoned Hereticks and Errors committed against Religion wherein none had Power but himself and that he would not by any means Consent to an Assembly of Prelates either in France or elsewhere for that a National Council of that or of any other Kingdom would be a kind of Schism from the universal Church give bad example to other Nations and make Prelates proud assuming greater Authority with Diminution of his own and that to consent to a National Synod was to consent that the Axe should be laid to the Root of the Papacy and that by consequence it was an Alienation from the Apostolick See As if God had not given to every National Church and State all things necessary to Govern themselves by but that they must all run to Rome and Romish Priests for redress nay this good Shepherd commanded his Nuntio to intimate farther to the King that if he would resolve to compel his Subjects by force that he would assist him with all his Power and Labour that the King of Spain and Princes of Italy should do the like But if he refused to compel his Subjects by force then his Nuntio was to insinuate to him that all the mischief and Poyson came from Geneva that the extirpation of that root would take away great part of the nourishments of the Evils that disquieted his Dominions § Dissentions and Troubles Fears and Jealousies still increasing in France the King maugre all the Popes Arguments and Interests called a great Assembly at Fountain Bleau 21 Aug. 1560. who being Petitioned by the Reformatists desired nothing but a moderation of their cruel Punishments and that they might make publick profession of their Religion to avoid suspition which might arise by Conventicles or private Assemblies John Monluc the Bishop of Valence did therein complain that Provision had not been made against them because the Popes had no other aim but to hold the Princes in Wars and the Princes thinking to suppress the Evil with Racks and Tortures having not attained their desired end nor the Magistrates and Bishops justly performed their Duty the principal Remedy was to fly unto God to assemble Godly Men to find a way to root out the Vices of the Clergy to forbid Infamous and Immodest Songs and instead of them to Command the Singing of Psalms and Holy Hymns in the Vulgar Tongue And farther shewed that they did grievously erre who troubled the Publick with Arms upon pretence of Religion and that their error was as great who Condemned to Death those that adhered to the New Doctrine only for the Opinion of Piety During these disorders Francis the first Dying the 5th of Dec. 1560. and Charles the 9th Aged 10 years Succeeding he more like the good Shepherd than he that Styled himself Pius by the mature advice of his Council after Solemn and great Consultations and deliberations about the Troubles and Disorders in
most true pessimus quisque asperrime rectorem patitur contra facile imperium in bonos qui metuentes magis quam metuendi Salust ad Caesarem the most wicked are the most impatient of Authority and contrarily the best men are the most obedient fearing others more than they are to be feared themselves And therefore that great Prince Augustus had wont to say that Religion and Piety did Deisie Princes The Piety of a Soverain consisteth in his care for the maintenance and preservation of Religion as the Propagator and Protector thereof This conduceth unto his own honour and Preservation for they that truly fear God dare not attempt nor think of any thing either against their Prince who is the Image of God upon Earth or against the State Nothing but Religion can maintain humane Society without it all manner of wickedness and Savage Cruelties would abound Religion only doth bridle and keep in Order Common-weals The State of the Romans saith Cicero himself did increase and flourish more by Religion than by all other means wherefore it ought to be the Princes chiefest care that Religion be preserved in its purity according to the just Laws and Ceremonies of the same He must likewise endeavor to hinder Innovations and Controversies therein For that change in Religion and a wrong done thereunto draweth along with it a change and declination in the Common-wealth as Mecenas well discourseth to Augustus Dion Religion of all Weapons is most potent overcometh all affections and charity it self and is the surest bond of Humane Society Kingdoms are more bounded and more divided by Religion than by any other Confines and Boundaries whatsoever He that is bigot in his Religion contemneth Wife Children Kindred nay his own Life if there be difference in Religion in the same Family the Father is against the Son and the Son against the Father The Mother against the Daughter and the Daughter against the Mother the Mother in Law against the Daughter in Law and the Daughter in Law against the Mother in Law Luke 12.5 3. it is storied to be the Observation of King James of ever Blessed Memory that the Puritans of that Age were not to be obliged and that not without great reason for that no obligation can be Paramount to that of Religion and Conscience wherein God hath the chief Throne As it is not to be tollerated that every one should shape out his own Religion and bring in new Rites at his pleasure and consequently trouble the publick peace so it is most necessary that every one both Kings Priests and People should amend themselves because a good life is a most vehement Orator to perswade And Magistrates are more bound than private men to fear God He that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God 2 Sam. 23.3 and it is an Abomination to Kings to commit Wickedness for the Throne is Established by Righteousness Pet. 16.12.14 to be zealous of Holy Faith that they discharge Christ his place in whose stead they are And they are also more bound to avoid Hypocrisie and Superstition to maintain their Power and State in the exercise of Religion to take great heed that that does not happen to their People which sometime fell out to the Jews through Moses long absence who thinking that in him they were deprived of the true God they made them one of Gold A thing which if it were well considered the World would not be at that pass which now it is at He that ruleth with the best Arts of peace useth this as a chief instrument to cause the people to believe this as a firm truth viz. that the Prince is ordained by God for the good of his people and ruleth with approbation of Divine Authority and the Subject consequently is obliged to obey him in all his lawful commands Princes of all others have most reason to justifie and advance Religion as having no other right or title consent excepted to Govern by that is Obligatory If they disclaim that Adieu to all other rights and pretentions For that over any one single person and much less over a multitude and such is every Politick Society in the World no one man nor yet any number of men have compleat lawful Authority to be Lord or Judge Paternal Government excepted which even nature it self hath Established from the very Creation of man all men having ever been taken as lawful Lords and Kings in their own Houses all the World over but by consent of men or by immediate appointment of God unto whom all the World is subject Hook Eccl. Pol. f. 70. As all Princes and Civil Magistrates whether of Kingdoms or Republicks have two callings the one of Christian the other of Governors so in both of them they are obliged by the strictest Bonds of Divine Precepts to serve God both as Christians in observing the Divine Precepts in general as every other private person with all their hearts minds and souls and as Princes also with well ordering of Laws and exemplarily encouraging and exhorting their Subjects to Piety Honesty and Justice punishing all such as transgress Gods Commandements especially those of the Decalogue This Power God hath given to Princes not peculiarly for their own use only so that they may not suffer it to be impaired without sin for that it proceedeth from God and is given by him for the good and benefit of the Governed and therefore they ought to be marvellous careful not to suffer it in the least to be diminished or Impeached by Pope or any other Ecclesiastick who for many Centuries under a shew of Zeal have quo jure quave injuriû endeavoured to make way for their Ambition and to usurp and monopolize that power to themselves which of indubitable Right belongeth to the civil Magistrate least it thereby become insufficient for good and intire Government and thereby both Prince and People suffer Injury and God be offended For if Princes be not bound to the governed yet to God it is a debt and duty which cannot be fully and truly paid but by preserving his publick Authority intire and by no means suffering it to be impeached or diminished which Power is not Arbitrary so as to govern according to fancy quod libet licet and so one mans will may become the cause of all mens misery such an apprehension might cause even a Saint to be misled and to walk besides his rule which is the word of God by me Kings Raign and Princes decree Justice Prov. 8.15 It is unknown to few how Ecclesiasticks for some hundreds of years by-past have with all their might laboured to Usurp Temporal Jurisdiction from Princes and how great progress they have made in it tho not without great disturbances of the Civil Governments wherein they have endeavored it and which the revolution of many Ages hath not as yet wholly recovered and for want of which whole Nations fare the worse unto this very day And of
repugnant to good Government Certainly those Princes are much very much to blame and guilty of a great sin that neglect to preserve that Jurisdiction and Power that God and the Governed have given them because their Authority is given unto them not for themselves but for the benefit of the People they being the depositaries the Custodes and Executors not the Patrons of that Authority to change impeach or diminish it at their own Will and pleasure Wherefore it is a gross ignorance and a most wretched sin not to maintain that which God hath conferred upon them and Princes are not peradventure guilty of a greater sin and offence before God than out of an ignorant Zeal to have suffered so great a part of their power to be usurped from them by Ecclesiasticks and that they are no longer able to rule their people committed to their Charge without admitting and intermixing an Ecclesiastical Government to bear some sway of which all Popish Princes are highly guilty The long negligence of Princes in this particular hath been pernitious to the true legitimate Church of God truly so called and to all Ecclesiastical Order and happily the true Original found of all those mischiefs which by gradations hath brought into the Church the most Worldly politick and selfish Government that ever was and thereby busied the Ecclesiasticks in things not only different but also contrary to the Instituted Ministery of Christ keeping Christendom in perpetual discord and even the Divisions that are at this day amongst Christians so irreconcileable by any other means than the Omnipotent and miraculous hand of God which were not bred so much by Obstinacy in diversity of Opinions and Contrariety of Doctrine as from the strife about Jurisdiction which after by degeneration and growing into Factions hath taken up the Mask of Religion And it is observable that the best Princes from time to time have been they that have kept their Jurisdiction most intire and the negligent Princes they that have given away or lost a great part or by their Insufficiency suffered others to Usurp or Metamorphize it with a deformation from its purity which it first had in the Church And for a probate of this it is not necessary to run back to the examples of the Constantines the Theodosioes the Justinians whose Laws and Codes whoever will read shall find this to be true but to those that are nearer to our own Age and to those whom the Roman Church this day acknowledgeth to be even the Basis of their Temporal Greatness Charles the Fifth Philip the Second and other Catholick Kings It will be hard to find such a Government amongst Christians which at some time or other hath not suffered by Encounters with the Court of Rome about its Jurisdiction It was about 1100 years since the abuse of imploying Spiritual Arms to Worldly ends crept in to maintain their usurped Powers whereby they have given an Eternal Scandal to Religion and are now grown so Kâ—gnaviter impudentes That the Catholick Religion with them is no other but what their own pride ambition interests will and pleasure do dictate Memorials are in all Histories of the lamentable Tragedies that have succeeded when Popes have proceeded to Excommunicate Princes and publish Interdicts against Kings and States and what hath been the occasion of the quarrels but Jurisdiction witness the centum gravamina of Germany During the Quarrels between Pope Paul the Fifth and the State of Venice there wanted not Writers that reckoned up the intollerable oppression of Princes by Popes who both in times past and present make lamentable and continual complaints of them A Catalogue of which Books may be seen at the end of the Memoires of Philip de Canay and also in Goldastus The dayly vexation which they have by the Nuntioes treating with Princes as imperiously and insolently as if they were his Slaves carrying alwayes before them the Medusaes head Pretence of Religion to fright the fearful and such as do not dive and penetrate into the depth of their Secrets the Arcana of the Papacy which happily the profoundest Polititians are not able to do so dark are their works and so deep even unto Hell do they dig to hide their Councils a shrewd sign that they are deeds of darkness and cannot abide the light They farther shewed that nothing would content the Pontificians but the Servitude and Subjection of all Italy at least So easily and ordinarily is Religion made a Stalking Horse or Instrument of the greatest wickedness by those who are either fallen from Truth or else fascinated by some more potent error suffering themselves to be guided or blinded by corrupt and worldly Byasses Paul the Fifth was so bent upon his own Jurisdiction and of that Pontificial Chair that his great design was to Establish a Congregation in Rome whose only study and charge should be to consider of the means whereby Ecclesiastical Authority might be maintained and enlarged and to mortifie the presumptions of Secular Princes In order whereunto he sent into all Courts and Kingdoms such Nuntioes and Agitators as were inclinable to like thoughts His Nuntio in Venice was so passionate in this Cause that he blushed not to say unto the Duke in full Assembly that Almes and other works of Piety the frequenting of Sacraments and all other good and Christian Actions ad nihilum valent ultra were nothing available if men did not favor the Ecclesiastical liberty these were his words And in his ordinary discourse would often say that Christian perfection doth not consist in Almes-Deeds and Devotions but in exalting the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction which is the true Cement of that perfection No wonder that the Nuntio was so peremptory when the Pope himself would say that he was placed in that Chair for to sustain the Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical that he would not endure Secular Princes to Judgâ— Ecclesiastical Persons who are not subject unto Kings and whom they cannot Chastise tho they be Rebellious that he had power over all and could deprive Kings and to this end had Legions of Angels for his aid and assistance that tho he should lose his skin yet would maintain the Cause of God and his own Reputation and in defence whereof he would think himself happy to lose his blood Trim Tram like Master like Man Moreover they are arrived at the Quintescence of Policy as to maintain in all places a terrible faction and pay them with the Purses of that State whereof they Plot the utter Ruine Whither all these Doctrines tend he that will but open his eyes may see even to make the Pope the Head and Confaloniere the chief Standard-bearer of the Church and Emperors Kings and Princes their Caudataries only to carry their Traines after them In plain English if these Doctrines be received as true and Censures and Excommunication of any force or virtue as they are but mear vanity and Bug-beares All Princes were in a sad condition nay utterly undone both in
Canons 1. Of Spiritual things 2. Of Temporal things 3. Of those that are mixt of both the Care of the first belongs to the Pope within his own Territories and to the Ecclesiastical Order observing the Canons With the Second he hath nothing to do out of his own Dominions quatenus a Bishop And Princes ought to take as much care of the third as Church-men if not more And those Princes are too unworthy ignorant and mean that will suffer themselves to be excluded or usurped upon And if the Pope of Rome use all his power to make men believe that Princes ought to be excluded why then do they which have the advantage of many clear Texts of Scripture of the Judgments of Councils and Fathers together with the practice of all times suffer themselves to be so abused If they did understand and would maintain in them the power which God and the people hath given them they would quickly put off the Mask and make those blush that design so to abuse the goodness and simplicity of others and would vindicate themselves from the constant injuries which are offered them and not suffer themselves to be led by the Nose as they are as if they had offended Religion by defending the power which God had granted unto them and the Jurisdiction whereof a Prince ought not to suffer the least diminution but rather put a Flook into their Nostrils as Henry the Eighth did Certainly not only for truth and conscience sake but even for necessity and reason of good Government every Faithful Man but most especially Princes ought carefully to defend and to make the preservation of Religion their chiefest concern and business For this end God hath appointed Princes as his Lieutenants and conferred Greatness and Majesty upon them to make them Protectors Defenders Conservators and Nursing Fathers of his Church in which calling the greatest of them can never give a good account to God neither can it answer the ends of Government they are intrusted withall by God and Man except it be by a continual and Vigilant care in matters of Religion And how be it there be many abuses yet that is not to be imputed to the fault of Religion which is in it self true James 1.4 pure and Holy but unto them that abuse it Perfection and absolute purity endeavoring to be perfect and intire wanting nothing is the very end whereunto the Church and every Individual thereof ought to pretend and aspire unto tho it be not the path wherein they alwayes tread Tho divers Times do require divers Laws and Orders and tho Popes for the more excellent Government should make more reasonable Laws than other Princes which is not reasonable to believe and should impose them to be received which he ought not to do yet as in the World nothing can be held unchangeable and every custom ought to be accommodated to the time and persons so it is to be done by them only whom in reason and of just right it concerns to do it and by no others viz. by the lawful and natural Prince by the advice and consent of his people and not by the Pope If any one not lawfully called thereunto could rule common business of himself which tho he did do with good intent and happy Issue yet did he nevertheless transgress Divine and humane Laws For to give just force unto a Law it is not sufficient that it be convenient and reasonable for that it is essential that it be made by those who have full power to make them and this not only for the preservation of Power and Jurisdiction but also for the necessity of a good Government It is a strange piece of Jesuitical non-sensical Polity to hearken unto them when they tell us that Laws in all Kingdoms may be without confusion because they are of force and in use at Rome and yet things are there in a quiet and peaceable condition the State of Rome being different from that of other Princes For that the Romans most impudently and against all reason affirm that they are above these Ordinances if they think sit they may or may not observe them or dispence with them and they do wonderfully serve for their ends as well when they are observed as when they are disobeyed because they are not to be ruled by the Laws but they do rule and govern the Laws In other Kingdoms when the Laws are once published and received they are no more in the Princes power they must then run to Rome to seek a Remedy where they regard not what is behooful to another State but to their own and what will serve their own Turn and Ends best Their great Design being to monopolize under colour of Religion the Administration of some certain things without which States cannot be governed by which means Rome would become Mistress of the World and judge of all Governments proposing that if there be any Inconvenience they should have recourse to the Pope and he will redress But the Remedy which comes not from the same Prince but from them who have their proper and distinct Interests is worser than the disease God whose works are perfect and who is the Author of all Principalities and Order gives to every Government as much power as is necessary to Govern it self well neither will he have it acknowledged from any other but from his Divine Majesty All that which Kings acknowledge from others but from God and their own Subjects is meer Slavery and Subjection whether in Civil or Ecclesiastick concerns § As it is destructive to Kings to acknowledge the Pope to have the least power in the making of their Laws so it is no less destructive to allow him any priviledge to suspend them it being nothing less than to confess a want of Wisdom or of Authority to ordain them which in effect is to cut the very sinews of Government which must needs be hazarded if they grant him but a power by his Censures to constrain them but unto a Suspension a thing deadly pernitious to the liberty of all Soveraign Princes who must necessarily rest deprived of all Soveraignty when they submit themselves unto the Pope who shall have power by his Excommunications or Interdicts to force them to regulate or suspend their Laws and Ordinances after his Will and pretence of Ecclesiastical libâ—rty will produce this monstrous effect that no Law shall be exempt from the Censure of the Pope seeing he attributeth to himself Authority to define and determine even against the opinion of all the World what Laws are just or unjust nay but to suspend the least Law for fear or at the menace of another necessarily infers a Subjection And to give Popes never so little in things of this nature is but to make them more Insolent and to give them encouragement to demand and stuggle for more and to minister occasions to conceive pretensions above all Princes for what power soever they now enjoy beyond Preaching
milites tuos subtrahis and a little after requirat ergo Dominus meus piissimus quis prior imperatorum talem legem dederit subtilius extimet si debuit dari And concluding in the end what it is that he desires of the Emperor saith unde per eundem tremendum Judicem deprecor ne illae tantae lachrimae tantae orationes tanta jejunia tantaeque elemoslnae Domini mei ex qualibet occasione apud omnipotentis Dei oculos fuscentur sed aut temperanda pietas vestra aut mutando rigorem ejusdem legis inflectat such humble and decent remonstrance well-becoming a Pious Bishop or Pastor deserves not to be termed by Bellarmine A sharp reprehension But what follows is yet more worthy to be considered Ego quident jussioni subjectus eandem legem per diversas partes terrarum transmitto quia lex ipsa omnipotenti Deo minime concordat ecce per suggestionis meae paginam Dominis nuntiavi utrobique ergo quae debui exolvi qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro Deo quod sensi minime tacui By which humble expressions it appears that it was not a sharp reprehension but rather an humble and respective remonstrance which hath no agreement with the Doctrine wich Bellarmine hath published wherein he makes the Pope Supream Temporal Monarch and the Princes of the World less than his Vassals as his words do necessarily infer altho they dare not yet avow it in express terms Consider Reader whether Gregory calling himself so often the Emperors unworthy Servant and his saying that as one that acknowledgeth himself subject to his Commandement he had sent abroad into divers parts of the World a Law which in his conscience he held not to be just And that other saying of his that in so doing he rendred unto the Emperor that obedience that was due unto him whether I say these Speeches do agree with the Doctrine which Bellarmine hath published who ever desires to know more of Gregory's modesty prudence and submissive deportment towards his Lord the Emperor may receive full satisfaction if he please to read his 64th Epistle I shall end this with this observation of Bellarmines great subtilty in that he forbears to quote the place it self of Gregory being so exact and subtle in his Allegation of other places But what if Pope Gregory did sharply reprove him It was but his duty Quatenus a Bishop which priviledge belongs to all Bishops as well as to the Pope as being in the same Commission viz. Tell Judah of her sins and Israel of her transgressions so it is but according to the duty of all Priests to dispense the word of truth be therewith displeased who will And all being granted it makes nothing at all for the Impery of Popes over Princes His next Fortress Ch. Novit examined is the Chapter Novit which because it most particularly concerned John King of England you shall have the true ground and History thereof This Chapter Novit de Judiciis was indeed admirably well designed and well Calculated for Papal Grandeur and Impery but not in the least what pretence soever was held out for the just right of Kings or of any other Mode of Civil Government good of Christians or glory of God It was designed purposely by Innocent the Third to trample on the necks of Kings as once that Monster Alexander the Third did on the prostrate neck of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa blasphemously arrogating to himself for his warrant Psalm 91.13 Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and Adder the young Lion and the Dragon shalt thou trample under thy feet as if David more than 1000 years before there was any Pope should particularly Prophesie of Popes And he followed this blow with all the might he had by endeavoring to put it in practice on John King of England and Philip Augustus King of France But the truth is he wanted the Welch-mans Back-sword with two Edges for he neither had the true Bilbo-blade Temporal Power sufficient to force obedience nor yet the Sword of the Spirit Rightful Authority to do what he did He only sent out his Voice yea and that a mighty voice by thundring out his abominable Excommunications which only proved to be vox praeterea nihil Take the Scene and History as it then lay After long Wars between Philip Augustus King of France and Richard King of England About Anno Dom. 1199. Richard died and his Brother John surnamed Lackland succeeded him either by the Nomination or appointment of his Brother as some affirm or by Usurpation upon Arthur who was Son to Geossery another Elder Brother of his But those Territories which John possessed in France submitted themselves to the Dominion of Arthur followed the faction of the French King and was supported by him But at length about Anno Dom. 1200. by means of a Marriage between Lewis Son and Heir and Successor of the French King and Blanche of Castile King John's Sisters Daughter of which Marriage issued afterwards St. Lewis A Peace was concluded between Philip and John wherein Arthur was likewise comprised upon this Condition that John should do Homage to Philip for the Dominions of Brittany and Normandy and Arthur should do Homage for the same unto John After this upon some occasion that fell out Arthur was put in Prison by his Uncle the King of England and there died Anno Dom. 1203. and the common opinion was that he was murthered by his Uncles command whereupon Philip Augustus as Chief Lord of the Fee caused John to be cited to Paris and upon default of his appearance condemned him and confiscated those Territories which he held of him and went afterwards with an Army to seize them into his hands by force John pretended that this was directly against the Peace and Treatise between them and made his complaint to Innocent the Third who commanded both the Kings upon pain of Excommunication to keep Peace and to surcease from War and sent also a Legate unto them for that purpose John for whose advantage this Commandment was did gladly embrace but Philip found himself much grieved and took great exceptions against it and so did the Prelates of France in this behalf unto whom Innocent the Third made that answer contained in the Chapter Novit Philip for all that desisted not from his former purpose but went on and conquered by the Sword all the Territories that the English at that time possessed in France neither could the Pope prevail any thing by his Commands In the year 1208. Innocent the Third Excommunicated John and Interdicted his whole Kingdom which continued six years and three months yet did not John yield to obey the Pope in that he required of him The Pope sent Pandulphus his Legate into France to Philip to perswade him to make War upon John Philip made his preparations accordingly and many Barrons of England combined themselves with him but in the mean time Pandulphus coming into
Bellarmine doth this Proposition viz. that the Pope may judge of all sins they are forced to except the greater part of particular sins Besides a Prince may sin by breaking his own Laws as the same St. Thomas proves 1.2 quaest 96. Art 5. yet of this sin he cannot be judged of any but God alone as Cajetane in that place declareth shewing that in foro Poenitentiae and in the sight of God is all one in sence Certes to affirm that a Prince transgressing his own Laws should be therein subject to the Censures of the Pope were wholly to take away the Power and Authority of Princes And to affirm that he should be subject to them in other Crimes and not in that were to overthrow the very ground of the reason presupposed in that infamous Chapter Novit Moreover it is very necessary well to observe the very words of Innocent the Third Intendimus decernere de peccato cujus ad nos pertinet sine dubitatione Censura quam in quemlibet exercere possumus debemus And a little after Ad officium nostrum spectat de quocunque peccato mortali corripere quemlibet Christianum which Bellarmine Translates le tutti di Principi del mundo All the Princes of the World by which it is plain he had more than an ordinary Pique at Kings and Princes Now if he be bound by the duty of his place quia potestas nostra non est ex homine sed ex Deo to denounce censures against every mortal sin and against every Christian so offending surely if he do it not he sins and endangers damnation to himself And yet we do not find that the Pope sends out any Censures against the Curtizans the Concubines of Priests and profest Harlots who yet abide and persist notoriously in their sins Besides if by quemlibet Christianum be understood all the Princes of the World as Bellarmine hath rendred it it belongs to him to Excommunicate the Turk the King of Persia the Tartar cum multis aliis And St. Peter's Successor must accuse St. Paul of false Doctrine who said 1 Cor. 1.5.12 quid mihi de his qui foris sunt judicare what have I to do to Judge them that are without § I have insisted the longer on this Chapter Novit because it was designed purposely under pretence of favor to make an Ass of England and her King it being made use of to that very end and also against the French King as appears by the Story And trow you Contrives she not Complots she not at this very day to make England once more to carry the Saddle If ever the like Fate betides us or if ever it be again the Stile of England I cannot say less than Not the Pope only but the Devil rides us § His next recourse is unto another Buckram Decretal Extravagant Vnam Sanctam examined rightly stiled Extravagant called unam Sanctam I must confess I could wish that before he had made any use thereof that he had first reconciled it with another of Pope Clement the Fifth who succeeded him not long after which begins thus Meruit de privilegiis cap. 2. extravag com where Clement saith that he determineth and declareth that by the said Extravagant Vnam Sanctam Meruit charissimi filil nostri Philippi Regis Francorum Illustris sincerae affectionis ad nos Ecclesiam Rom. integritas progenitorum suorum praeclara merita meruerunt Meruit insuper Regnicolarum puritas ac devotionis sinceritas ut tam regem quam regnum favore benevolo prosequamur Hinc est quod nos Regi Regno per definitionem declarationâ—m banae memoriae Bonisacii Papae Octavi Praedecessoris viri quae incipit Unam Sanctam Nullum volumus vel Intendimus praejudicium generari nec quo id per illam Rex Regnum Regnicolae praelibati amplius Ecclesiae sint subjecti Romanae quam antea existebant sed omnia intelligantur in eodem esse statu quo erant ante definitionem praefaram tam quantum ad Ecclesiam quam etiam ad Regem Regnum Regnieolas superius nominatos there shall be no prejudice or injury done to the King and Kingdom of France nor that the said King and Kingdom shall be any more or otherwise subject to the Church of Rome than they were before but that all things shall continue in the State they were in before that Extravagant Now it had not been unworthy so great an Ecclesiastick as my Lord Cardinal Bellarmine was to have dealt so ingenuously as to have declared whether Boniface in this Extravagant Vnam Sanctam did make a Declaration of Jus Divinum in this point i.e. expound and declare that Jurisdiction which the Pope hath de Jure Divino over Princes or whether he did thereby impose a new subjection over Princes in some matters wherein God had not made them subject before unto the Popes Be it which His Eminency pleaseth it will avail him nought if Boniface meant the latter then it was an Innovation after the year 1294. A meer Extravagant after English Construction a void Decree an Vsurpation an Incroachment and an abuse of the Power given them by God by enlarging it beyond its just bounds Besides by what reason Scriptural or other could Clement declare or mean that France alone should be exempted from that Extravagant and not all other Princes and Kingdoms Neither was it a matter or favor to be yielded as in recompence of the good deserts of that King and Kingdom but a thing due unto them of right and Justice Now if Boniface intended it as a Declaration of Jus Divinum it were worthy our knowledge to know by what right Clement could free the King and Kingdom of France from that subjection which God had appointed them unto the case being very clear according to their own Doctrine that the Pope cannot exempt any man from his own Power and Jurisdiction which he holds de Jure Divino so it undeniably follows that if Boniface were in the right Clement was in the wrong and è contra Pope against Pope no news at all Besides that which Boniface saith in that Extravagant viz. si deviat terrena potestas judicabitur à potestate spirituali that the Authority Temporal when it erreth ought to be corrected and rectified by the Spiritual be a Declaration of the Law of God yet then according to as wise honest and learned of your own Fraternity as ever writ in your defence it ought to be understood only for so much as concerns the Salvation of their Souls and that only in foro Dei and Abstract from all Temporal Power of that kind which the Lawyers term Coactive and that all the Ecclesiastical Power over Princes is therefore only Spiritual And herein we shall not need to have recourse to Signior Papa our Lord the Pope for that this kind of Authority is in every Bishop and Priest how Heretical soever it be esteemed by some
others very likely persons in whom the Spirit of the living God should dwell Silvester the Second Gregory the Seventh Poysoners and otherwise Murderers of all that stood in their way to the Popedom One Hildebrand in Thirteen years thus Devilishly made away Clement the Seventh Damasus the Second Leo the Ninth Benedict the Tenth Nicholas the Second Alexander the Second Prophane even to horror Hildebrand angry at his breaden God as before Luxurious to Incest Sodomy Bestiality John the Twelfth gave Orders in his Stable amongst his Horses abused his Fathers Concubine made his Palace a Stews put out his Ghostly Fathers Eyes Gelded one of his Cardinals drank Healths to the Devil ran about in Armes to Fire Houses and at Dice called for help of Jupiter and Venus and good reason for Jupiter's Dice alwayes ran luckily But why rake we in this Dunghil when Bellarmine who thus pleads for such Divine Attributes to belong to Popes without any Inconvenience confesseth these and many others amongst Popes to have been so tainted as Stories describe them and that of Fifty Popes together there was not one virtuous person very probable persons indeed and very likely above all other Priests and Bishops to be endued with power from on high to remove all Impediments which the World or the Devil can lay in the way with all their Subtilty men of such might are they Alack Alack they have no more such power than the rest of their Neighbors mortal weights all subject to passions and Infirmities Preces Lachrymae the only such means and Authority one or the other have and the Popes themselves have as much need of our Prayers as we of theirs the true Doctrine hereof is that God hath not only not given the Pope Authority to remove all Impediments which the World or the Devil can lay in the way with all their Subtilty but hath thought it fit for the good of his Church and his own glory to permit many of them quorsum tunc whither then tend all those struglings even to enlarge that power which God hath given to this High Priest beyond its just bounds within which God hath limited and restrained it the pest and bane of all peace and good Government in the World both in Church and State Bellarmine will not yet acquiesce but will make Scripture speak for him whilst he saith that whoso fears not Gods Vicar fears not God himself because he hath said to his Vicars he which heareth you heareth me Luke 10.16 Now Bellarmine could not be ignorant of the whole Scope of that Chapter where there is not the least mention of any Vicars or Supream Bishops but of the Preachers of Gods word who if they shall preach purely the Doctrine of Christ without humane erroneous mixtures who so heareth them heareth Christ and he that despisesh them despiseth Christ Luke 10. but if they Preach any other Gospel let them be accursed not hearkned unto not obeyed Gal. 1.8 for Christ appointed other seventy in the same Chapter that they should go before him into all places whether he was to go and he teacheth them how they should go and what they should Preach and what they should do when they were not received nor hearkned unto and in the conclusion of all he adds he which heareth you heareth me whereby it is plainly apparent not to School-men and great Clerks only but unto every indifferent understanding that Christ speaketh here as a Preacher to all other Preachers and so not exclusive the Pope of Rome Quatenus a Bishop but that Impropriety of Speech is not to be allowed as to say Christ saith to his Vicars he which heareth you heareth me For it will not follow as Bellarmine would have it that who so fears not God's Vicars fears not God himself because he saith to his Vicars he which heareth you c. As if to say that indiscreet and unrighteous commands and censures are not to be feared were as much as to say that God is not to be feared nor his Vicar and that he that will fear God must stand bound to subject himself even to the Indiscretion and errors of Prelates to whom God hath given no power at all farther than it shall be accompanied with discretion and be suitable and agreeing to his own just commands thus to Traverse plain Texts of Scripture and prevaricate with them proceedeth it not from minds corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ What is it less than to Preach another Jesus another Spirit another Gospel than whatever Christ or his Apostles did teach or deliver Is not this to make lyes their refuge and under falshood to hide themselves Gerson in the same Treatise Che quando il Prelato abusa la potesta della chiaui piu sprezza egli lechiaui piu gravemente pecca che non fa il suddito quando non obedisce al suo Praelato di qui si raccoglie che sia opera meritoria in simili casi resistere in faccia al Prelato come fece san Paolo à Pietro that when a Prelate abuseth the power of the Keys he doth more disparage the Keys and offends more grievously than doth any Man subject to his Jurisdiction when he obeyeth not his Prelate and hence it is gathered that it is a meritorious work in such like to resist the Prelate to his face as Paul did Peter Bellarmine on the other side saith Che la dottrina del Gersone pare poco sicura mene fundato le consideriamo solamente l'usar male la potesta il non valere obedire alla potesta maggiore peccato è non volere obedire che usar male la potesta perche chi usar male la potesta sa un peccato al' ingiustitia offende un huomo suo suddito ma chi non uuole obbedire al Prelato che giustamente comande dispregia la sua scommunica sa un peccato di rebelliâ—ne ossende la divina maestia nel suo vicario cosi disse Christo qui vos spernit me spernit Lue. 10.16 Apostolo nella 1 Thess 4.8 qui haec spernit non hominem spernit sed deum questo dispregiare Dio nel suo Vicario st chiama da Samuel Proseta nel 1. Samuel 15.22 23. una sorte d' Idolatriae that Gerson's Doctrine seems scarcely safe and less grounded and if we shall simply consider the misusing of this power and the disobeying of this power it is a greater sin willfully not to obey than it is to use this power amiss because he that abuseth this power commits but a sin of Injustice and offends a man subject to him but he that will not obey the Prelate that commands justly and despiseth his Excommunication commits a sin of Rebellion and offends God's Divine Majesty in his Vicar and so saith Christ He which despiseth you despiseth me Luke 10.16 and the Apostle Thess 4.8 qui haec spernit non hominem spernit sed Deum he
all these horrid Acts and Doctrines whereby it is manifest what influences they have upon Princes when once admitted to be their Consessors Deus Bone To what an incredible prodigious excess of wickedness are these men arrived unto and which is yet more detestable and formidable they are Implacable Incorrigible Indefatigable and persevering in their King-killing Principles and designs tho all Nations as well Papal as other abhor them make Laws against them nay banish them erect Pillars with Inscriptions to their perpetual Infamy to which bear witness the Parisians Almaignes Hungarians Venetians as unworthy to live under any honest Laws or any Civil Government and by express Decrees determined never to recall them and yet prevail they do and so they furiously drive on as if they designed to make Treason to stand in the first rank of Christian virtues and Marthering of Princes to be esteemed the fairest and shortest way to Heaven without ever coming to Purgatory To which purpose have they not Written Books â—râ—â—ted Schools wherein they teach the Method and manner of King-killing and reduced this horrid practice into an Art yea into a Kabala of that old Mahumetan of the Mountain of Saracen Progeny and Race of Moors used to confirm and resolve those that are his to kill Christian Princes in the Holy Land § These things in good earnest considered it is no time to Court compliance with or plead for Indulgence for them who will allow none to others but to abandon them and their Errors Superstitions Idolatries Deeds of darkness owned and justified by those men of sin the Sons of Perdition who oppose and exalt themselves above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that they as God sit in the Temple of God St. Peter's Chair shewing themselves that they are God Infallible working after the manner of Sathan with all power and signs and Lying Wonders Opt. Max. supr numen in terris with all deceivableness of unrighteousness and will not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved but have brought in damnable Heresies and boast themselves of Idols and take pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thess 2 3 4. c. Mentior If I do not believe that so many demonstrable Characters of St. Paâ—l's men of sin Sons of Perdition can be so justly fastned on an Church in the World as on Rome's Church if they can then write that Church Antichristian and let Rome stand Candidate for Saint-ship Shall we then be Wheedled into Compliance and to trick it with Rome by a Jesuitical slight of contriving differences and enmity between Papists and Papists Divide impera distinguishing the Court of Rome from the Church of Rome between true Catholicks and State Catholicks i. e. the Jesuits from the rest of the Orders i. e. from all other Papists God forbid Can they be more divided than they are Or is there ever a Barrel better Herring of them Can there be greater enmity than there is already between the Jansenists and the Molinists between the Jacobins and the Jesuits between the Dominicans and Franciscans and indeed between the Jesuits and all their other Orders But to pass by all their differences of another nature between them let us bring it home in particular to our own doors and to our own concerns When Mary afterwards Queen of England desired of her Brother Edward the Sixth to have the free use of the Mass in her Family alledging her conscience that her House was her Flock c. The King by his Council answered that she should have her House or Flock but not exempt from the Kings Laws and Orders Religion Law and Reason forbidding it Policy abhorring it and Her Grace may not require it If we come to Queen Elizabeths dayes did not Herring-men in her dayes complain and bitterly rail against Fisher-men Clodius accuset Maechos Catilina Cethegum Be their differences and enmities one towards another in all other things what they will yet in this they all consent and agree and that by most solemn Oaths to set up their Lord God their Pope and to Plot and contrive the ruine and destruction of Protestants and Protestant Kings and Kingdoms quacunque arte Was ever more bitterness exprest by Tongue and Pen than was in her dayes exprest by the one against the other Jesuits against Seculars and Regulars and they against Jesuits and yet all plotted against the Queen and her Religion even whilst most highly courted by the writings both of the one and the other magnifying her Clemency and justifying her proceedings But the Queen and her Council would not be so wheedled but wisely considering that long before Jesuitism was spawned the Papists did universally incline and take part with the Popes against their Temporal Princes and therefore would not conside in them but banished both the one and the other and by wholsome Laws inflicting moderate punishments and Mulcts provided for their own safety against the one and the other And it is observable that some of those very Seculars viz. Watson and Clark that magnified the Queen to the skies in their Books were the very first that came to the Gallows for Treason against her and it is farther observed by the Lord Burleigh that tho the Seculars railed most bitterly against the Jesuits yet they never discovered any one Treason against her tho scarce four years passed all her Reign without a Treason Did not King James declare to his Parliament V. His works p. 494 495. May 19. 1603. that the Pope did not only claim to be Spiritual Head of all Christians but also to have an Imperial civil power over all Kings and Emperors dethroning and decrowning Princes with his Foot at pleasure c. And farther to clear himself before his Privy Council and Nobles in the Star-Chamber from favouring of Popery solemnly pray that before any of his Issue should maintain any other Religion than what he truly professed and maintained that God would take them out of the World V. Sir Geo. Crock's Report Part 2. Ter. 2. Jacobi Regis in Banco Regis And good reason King James had to be steady to Protestanism for in the very life time of Queen Elizabeth the common voice among the Jesuits was that if King James would turn Catholick they would follow him but if not they would all dye against him Watson Quodlibets p. 150. and Clement the Eighth by two Breves endeavored to exclude him from this Crown unless he would take an Oath to promote the Roman Catholick Interest And in a Book dedicated to Essex under the Counterfeit name of Dolman in which Book despising the right of Birth it is projected that the Antient Laws of the Land concerning Hereditary Succession to the Crown of England are to be altered that new Laws are to be brought in concerning Election that no man but a Roman Catholick of what blood soever they be is to be admitted King Are not now the same Principles as much
in vogue and as prevalent amongst them as ever And is it now time a day to plead for favors connivences and Indulgences for such a Generation of such Hellish-minded and Principled men after so many more fresh diabolical contrivances and plottings now in agitation against King and Kingdom Laws Liberties Religion what not And suffer our selves to be wheedled into compliance and association with them upon what C. H. H. and E. C. write or what Rome dreads men famous indeed in their Generation the one for Antient Noble Birth the other for plotting his own and the King and Kingdoms ruine but he was snared by the work of his own hands and in the Net that he made was his own foot taken and so let all the implacable and irreconcileable Enemies of God and the King be snared Very pretty a very fine whim to make all England as very Mungril-Christians as Rome it self like those of Samaria who feared God yet served Idols and like those of Israel who swear by the Lord and Melcom their right hand of Fellowship being but the right hand of falsehood Psalm 144.8 11. that they may be snares and traps unto us Is this the way for the Sons of God to purifie themselves even â—s he is pure and to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect 1 John 3.3 Is it not rather to toss us to and fro like Children and to carry us about with every wind of Doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive Eph. c. 14. is it not rather to pervert the right wayes of the Lord and to invite us to joyn in Abominations with other men Is this the right way and method to hold the Mystery of Faith 〈…〉 consciences And to keep our selves unspotted of the world 1 Tim. â— â— 2 James 15 16 17. and pure by not pertaking of other mens sins 2 Timothy 5.22 Whence is this wisdom which is not pure but Sensual Earthly Devillish No better than Jeroboam's Politick device of setting up two Calves in Dan and Bethel The narrow rules of the Apostles viz. to abstain from all 〈◊〉 of evel to resist unto blood striving against sin will not allow 〈◊〉 dâ—â—bing with such untempered Morter 〈◊〉 the ill consequences and fruits of this wisdom this Politick 〈…〉 First We hazzard our selves and Posterity to Infection 〈…〉 5 6 13. A little Leaven leaveneth the whole lump 2. Unto the â—â—ath of God Come out of her my People that ye be not partakers of her â—â—ns and that ye receive not of her Plagues Apoc. 18.4 3. We hazard and encourage even the Papalins themselves to obstinate Impiety 4. We blemish our own sincerity and heavenly-mindedness 5. Quantum in nobis we encourage others to the like Linsey-wolsey-medly-mongril-worship Saints of old were more scrupulous more wary David would not sit with vain Persons neither would he go in with Dissemblers but hated the Congregation of evil doers and would not sit with the wicked Psalm 26.4 5. so Jeremy sate not in the Assembly of Mockers nor rejoyced Jer. 15.17 The Lord himself commanded that if any Person Son Brother Daughter the Wife of thy bosom or thy Friend which is as thy own soul shall intice to Idolatry as by sad experience we know they dayly do Importunately Indefatigably or any City shall set up a new Worship the one shall he killed the other destroyed Deut. 13.6.9.13.15 and the undoubted Precept is to separate the pretious from the vile and let them return unto thee but return thou not to them Jer. 15.19 the Gospel confirms the same is it possible that righteousness can have Fellowship with unrighteousness or that light should have communion with darkness Or can Christ have concord with Belial Or can the Temple of God have Agreement with Idols 2 Cor. 6.15 which Temple we are wherefore come out from among them and be separate v. 16.17 And in truth what is it less or other than to have Fellowship with Devils 1 Cor. 10.20 David expelled not courted the Idolatrous Jebusites out of Jerusalem 2 Sam. 5.8 Asa put Maacha his Mother from her Regiment because she was an Idolatress and brake down her Idols 2 Chron. 15.16 the Law was Thou shalt make no Covenant with them nor with their Gods they shall not dwell in thy Land lest they make thee sin against me Exod. 23.32 33. Deut. 7.2 3 4. Where Gods Ark is there Dagon shall be thrust out of his place and fall down before it Sam. 1.5 To Conclude this point having treated more fully of this Subject elsewhere Have we not had above an hundred years experience of their incessant evil Machinations and deportments towards us and our Religion Have they ever been quiet Was Queen Elizabeth ever five years without a design against her Life Was King James free from their Conspiracies either here or in Scotland Do they not boast at this very day that notwithstanding all that hath been done discovered and executed that still their Plot drives on and boast that it is so deeply laid that it cannot be discovered nor prevented Besides what security can they possibly give for their peaceable deportment They are Devotees sworn to another Forreign Head and Oaths made to us are not of any force to oblige them according to their own Maxim Nulla Fides servanda cum Haereticis and therefore we have no reason to confide in them but to secure our selves Do they not compass Sea and Land and dayly pervert the right wayes of the Lord by making divers Proselytes and them thereby two fold more the Children of Hell than they were before Have they changed their Principles Or are their Contrivances and Plottings against Church and State even at this very day less numerous or less dangerous than at any time heretofore Can we be so blind as not to see not to perceive that they are playing their old Games over again and that they will Iterate and Reiterate them again and again as from Age to Age they have hitherto successively done And is it not then profound reason of State in us and pure Religion to boot to give this Crudele genus these unreasonable blood-thirsty men more Countenance more freedom more power amongst us by nourishing them in our bosoms qui vult decipi decipiatur my Prayer shall be from this ill kind of men Libera nos Domine and I do not doubt but that all true and sincere English Protestants having Souls Bodies and Estates to save loving God their King and their Country will think themselves highly oblidged by all these obligations and Tenures to the best of their power and knowledge to maintain the true Protestant Established Religion which stands Diametrically opposite to all the forementioned abominable Errors and will not hazard their Temporal Estates much less the Eternal wellfare of their immortal Souls by a sinful compliance and Kings and Princes least of all for that there is no Prince nor Nation that
were altogether unacquainted with the Doctrines of Ecclesiastical greatness Liberties or Licence rather Immunities and Jurisdictions that are now claimed by the now degenerate and Bastardized Romanists who tho of Rome yet are not true Romanists indeed who under a Spiritual pretence but with a secret ambitious end and desire of Worldly Wealth and Domination would free themselves from the obedience due unto the Prince and by false insinuations take away the love and reverence due by the people unto their Prince and cement it unto themselves And to bring these things to pass they have lately invented a Doctrine of Vniversal Monarchy and have erected an Order of Jesuits and a Court of Inquisition whose main concern and design is to maintain the Popes Power to be above that of Kings which Doctrine was unheard of till the dayes of Hildebrand I. Gregory the Seventh 1073. neither is there any Book found concerning it till about the year 1300. then did they begin to write of it scatteringly Vide Gold astum but there were not above two Books which treated of nothing else but this until about the year 1400. and three until the year 1500. after this the number encreased a little but it was tolerable But after the year 1560. this Doctrine began to encrease in such manner that they gave over writing of other Doctrines and little was printed in Italy but Books in diminution of Secular Authority and exaltation of the Ecclesiastical The Confessors likewise need no other learning to be approved of whence is universally spread a perverse opinion that Princes and Magistrates are humane Inventions yea and Tyrannical that they ought only by compulsion to be obeyed that the disobeying of Laws and defrauding the Publick Revenues is no sin and he that doth not pay if he can but fly from it remains not guilty before God And contrarywise that every beck of Ecclesiastical persons without any other thought ought to be taken for a Divine Precept and binds the conscience And this Doctrine above all others is the chiefest cause of most or of all the Inconveniencies which have happened in these latter Ages In Italy Books that defend the Princes Temporal Authority and affirm that Ecclesiastical Persons are also subject to publick Constitutions and punishable if they violate the publick tranquillity these are condemned Books and suppressed more than any others They have gelded the Books of Antient Authors by new Printing of them and taken out all which argue or plead for Temporal Aurhority so that if in Authors we find no good Doctrine favouring Temporal Authority we know who hath taken it away If we find any that exalteth the Ecclesiastical we know who hath put it in and in truth we can be assured of the truth of no Book that hath been under their censures And it is also most evident that those who desire to have an unquestionable liberty to brand the lawful Temporal Power and that Doctrine which opposeth it self to their attempts with the name of Tyranny do design that under pretence of Religion they may become Arbitrators of all Government From henceforth these Doctrines and Tenets did wonderfully increase and multiply spawning out others as prodigious and Monstrous as themselves so that in the Sixteenth Century and in the dayes of Paul the Fifth more especially they arrived unto most admirable perfection for in his dayes Books were Printed as one well observes by hundreds Padre Paolo nay by thousands the purports of which being summarily collected by a diligent Observator and Contemporary of the same time he hath Recorded them to be that the Temporal Power of Princes is subordinate to the Power Ecclesiastical and subject to it consequently that the Pope hath Authority to deprive Princes of their Estates for their faults and errors which they commit in Government yea tho they have not committed any fault when the Pope shall judge it fit for the good of the Church that the Pope may free Subjects from their obedience and from their fidelity which they owe unto their Princes in which case they are obliged to cast off all subjection and even to pursue the Prince if the Pope command it and altho they all agreed to hold these maximes yet they were not all at Accord touching the manner for they that were touched with a little shame said so great an Authoriy did not reside in the Pope because Jesus Christ had not given him any Temporal Authority but because this was necessary for the Spiritual Wherefore Jesus Christ giving Spiritual Authority had given also indirectly the Temporal which was a vain shift seeing they made no other difference than of words But the greater part of these men spake plainly that the Pope hath all Authority in Heaven and Earth both Spiritual and Temporal over all Princes of the World no otherwise than over his Subjects and Vassals that he might correct them for any fault whatsoever that he is a Temporal Monarch over all the Earth that from any Temporal Soveraign Prince men might appeal to the Pope that he might give Laws to all Princes and annul those which were made by them for the exemption of Ecclesiasticks they all with one voice denied that they held it by the Grace and Priviledges of Princes altho their Laws to that purpose Constitutions and Priviledges be yet extant but they were not agreed how they had received it some of them affirming that it was de Jure Divino others that it came by constitutions of Popes and Councils But all consented upon this that they are not subject to the Prince no not in case of Treason and that they are not bound to obey the Laws unless it were vi directivâ And some passed so far as to say that the Ecclesiasticks ought to examine whether the Laws and Commands of the Prince be just and whether the People be obliged to obey them and that they owe not unto the Prince either contributions customs or obedience that the Pope cannot erre or fail because he hath the assistance of the Holy Spirit and therefore that it is necessary to obey his Commandments whether they be just or unjust That to him appertains the clearing of all difficulties so as it is not lawful for any to depart from his resolution nor to make reply tho the resolution be unjust That tho all the World differ in opinion from the Pope yet it is meet nevertheless to yield to him and he is not excused from sin who follows not his advice tho all the World judge it to be false Their Books were full also of such other Maxims that the Pope is a God upon Earth a Son of Justice a light of Religion that the Judgment of God and the Pope is one and the same thing as also the Tribunal and the Court of the Pope and God That to doubt of the Power of the Pope is as much as to doubt of the Power of God And it is notable what Cardinal Bellarmine hath
boldly Written that to restrain the Obedience due unto the Pope unto things concerning the Salvation of the Soul is to bring it to nothing That St. Paul appealed to Caesar who was not his Judge and not to St. Peter lest the By-standers should have laughed at him That the Holy Bishops of Old shewed themselves subject to Emperors because the times so required others adjoyned farther that then it was meet to introduce the Empire of the Pope by little and little it being a thing unseasonable to despoil Princes newly converted of their Estates and also to permit something unto them for to interess them Other like discourses they made which many Godly persons abhorred to read and reputed them Blasphemies Hist of the Inquisition Sparsim § Moreover these were not the Scriblings of some Vulgar Pens but some Ecclesiasticks of very great quality Printed in favour of the Roman Pontiffs cause a very seditious Sheet wherein was affirmed against all sound Doctrine that Marriages within the State of the Republick were invalid the Matrimonial Conjunction Adultery and the Children all Bastards that it was not only lawful butmeritorious for Pastors to abandon their Flocks And whither did all this tend but to unty the very Bonds of the Civil Government of all States To contradict which there was published a Treatise of John Gerson written 150 years before to which was adjoyned a Letter exhorting all Curates to take care of their Churches not fearing the Offence of God by not observing the Interdict Soon after came out a Treatise of Cardinal Bellarmine against that of Gerson then followed the admonition of Cardinal Baronius as also a discourse of Cardinal Colonna endeavouring to terrifie the Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks placed in the greatest places by the fear of censures and the privation of their Dignities and Benefices Bellarmine aimed to shake the devout Consciences by exalting the Authority of the Pope so far as to make it equal to that of God Bellarmine Baroâ—ius Colonna In summ all the three Cardinals laboured mainly how conscientiously let the World judge to disguise the truth that it should not be discovered These are not only false and Blasphemous but new Doctrines also never known to the Old Romans for many hundred of years The Sun at Noon never saw these abominations until within these 3 or 400 years whereby it is apparent that they are not all Rome which are of Rome neither are they all Legitimate Children begotten in the Lord by the Doctrines of St. Peter but are the degenerate and Bastard Plants and Successors tho they boast of their succeeding Peter in his Local Chair at Rome tho they differ from him in his Doctrines and tho in the truest understanding the Protestants are the Legitimate Children of St. Peter and not those that stile themselves St. Peter's Successors at Rome § The Antient Fathers taught obedience to Princes Antient Fathers taught obedience to Princes but never taught that the Pope hath Power to abrogate the Laws of Princes in Temporal matters or to deprive them of their Crowns or free their Subjects â—â— their Allegiance that to depose Kings from their Thrones is a new thing never attempted till within these 600 years and is against the Scriptures and the examples of Jesus Christ and of his Saints and to teach that in Case of Controversie between the Pope and a Prince it is lawful to pursue the Prince with frauds and open force or that the Subjects which do Rebel against him do by that means obtain the Remission of their sins are Doctrines Seditious and Sacrilegious That Ecclesiastical men by Divine Law are not exempted from the Secular Power neither in their Persons nor in their Goods though they have received from Godly and Devout Princes since Constantine the Great until Frederick the Second divers Priviledges which they had power only to grant for their own times and their own Dominions which did exempt them from the power of Inferior Magistrates only but not from their own Soveraign Authority That the exemptions granted by Popes unto the Order of the Clergy have not been admitted in some places and in others admitted only in part and that they have been valid so far only as they have been received that notwithstanding any Papal exemption the Prince hath still power over their Persons and Goods whensoever necessity constrains him to serve himself of them And if at any time they should abuse such exemption to the perturbation of the publick tranquillity that the Prince is obliged to provide a remedy Now that these Evils having gotten such exorbitant growth and have been so troublesom to all States and Kingdoms whom may Kings and Princes blame but themselves who not having that due regard to the Divine Precepts which so straitly oblige them to take knowledge of Gods most Holy Law and of Religion but have altogether neglected this duty as if Religion were a thing that did not concern them and as if they were not to render an account to God neither for themselves nor for their Subjects by neglecting the care and defence of it against the Divine Precepts of Gods word the Doctrine of Sacred Canons and Fathers and the Practice of Pious Princes contenting themselves with a Religion without knowing what it is or how it should be kept from Corruption tollerating for their own Ease and worldly Interests the people to be kept in ignorance and to be deceived by often alterations under pretence and Mask of Religion and Piety with a dayly permission not only to Religious persons but to all sorts of men to invent new Orders and Rites as Jesuitism Inquisition c. for their own profit Interest and Greatness without considering that in the end every old Order Rite and Custom carries along with it its own Credit which invites belief and so Religion becomes changeable and meerly serviceable to the Interests and Ends of those that manage it And these alterations having been once received and a while continued by the present Kings and Princes have been no small obligation to their Heirs and Successors to continue them upon the reason of Authority stampt upon them by time and custom A thing that often happens in all humane affairs but chiefly in Religion when superstition and false Doctrines are broached and invented for ends not suitable to pure Religion and undefiled As every Government so that of the Church more especially requires watchfulness and faithfulness and he that dischargeth himself of these destroyeth himself of so much of his Authority and happily doth not perceive it till it be lost and cannot be recovered again which hath been the Case of many supine and negligent Princes Kings and Princes ought not in any prudence to trust to the Pope or any other Ecclesiastick mens care nor have recourse to any one but to abound in care themselves forbidding all that may hurt a good Government lest his Subjects be circumvented and induced to embrace and favour opinions