necessary to the communion of the Church in his Dominions which the Soveraigns over other parts of the Church perhaps allow not But though as a Divine I admit this debate yet as a Christian and a Divine both I condemne the separation which they have made before it be decided The Church of England giveth to the King that power in Church matters which the Kings of Gods ancient people and Christian Emperours after them always practised This possession was enough to have kept Unity though the reason appeared not why Christian Princes should have the same right in the Church as the Kings of Judah had in the Synagogue For if they observe it well this right is no where established upon the Kings of Gods ancient people by way of precept in the Law For seeing the Law commanded them not to have a King but gave them leave to have a King when they would upon such terms as it requireth Deut. XVII 14. it cannot be said that any Right in matters of Religion is setled upon the King by that Law which never provided that there should be a King The question is then not whether the Kings of Judah had power in matters of Religion which is express in Scripture but upon what Title they had it which is not to be had but by Interpretation of the Law And this we shall finde if we consider that the Law was given to that people when they were freed from bondage and invested in the Soveraign power of themselves as to a Body Politick such as they became by submitting to it So that though many precepts thereof concern the conscience of particular persons yet there are also many that take hold of the community of the people for which particular persons cannot be answerable further then the Rate of that power by which they act in it As the destroying of Malefactors Idolaters in particular These Precepts then being given to the community of the People and the common Power of the People falling to the King constituted according to the Law aforesaid it followeth that being invested with the Power he stands thereby countable for the Laws to be inforced by it And then the question that remains will be no more but this Whether civill Societies and the Soveraign Powers of them are called to be Christian as such and not onely as particular persons A thing which Tertullian seems to have doubted of when he made an if of it Apologet. cap. XXI Si possent esse Caesares Christiani If Emperours could be Christians And Origen when he expounds the words of Moses I will provoke them to jealousie by a people which are not a people so he reads it of the Christians whereof there were some in all Nations and no whole Nation professed Christianity in X ad Rom. lib. VIII in Psal XXXVI Hom. I. seems to count this estate and condition essentiall to the Church But since Anabaptists are no more Anabaptists in denying the power of the Sword to be consistent with Christianity it seems there is no question left about this as indeed there ought to be none For the Prophesies which went before of the calling of the Gentiles to Christianity were not fulfilled till the Romane Empire professed to maintain it And thereby the will of God being fulfilled it is manifest that the will of God is that civill Societies the Powers of them should maintain Christianity by their Sword and the Acts to which it enableth But always with that difference from the Synagogue which hath been expressed For if the Church subsist in severall Soveraignties the power which each of them can have in Church matters must needs be concluded by that power which God hath ordained in his Church for the determining of such things the determining whereof shall become necessary to preserve the Unity of it Thus much premised the first point we are to debate is Whether Excommunication be a secular punishment amounting to an Outlawry or Banishment as Erastus would have it or the chiefe act of Ecclesiasticall Power the Power of the Spirituall Sword of the Church cutting from the visible communion thereof such as are lawfully presumed to be cut off from the invisible by sin For if there be a visible Society of the Church founded by God without dependence from man there must be in it a visible power to determine who shall be or not be members of it which by consequence is the Soveraign Power in the Society of the Church as the Power of the Sword is in civill Societies But Excommunication in the Synagogue was a temporall punishment such as I said and therefore it is argued that our Lord meant not of that when he said Dic Ecclesiae that terme in the Old Testament being used for the Congregation of Gods people in the quality of a civill Society And therefore when he addeth Let him he unto thee as a Heathen or a publican they say it is manifest that neither Ethnicks nor Publicans were excommunicate out of the Synagogue nor the Excommunicate excluded from the Service of God in the Temple or Synagogue And when our Lord addeth Whatsoever ye binde and loose on earth it is manifest say they in the language of the Jews used among the Talmud Doctors that bound and loose is nothing else but that which is declared to be bound or loose that is prohibited permitted and therefore the effect of the Keyes of the Church which is binding and loosing reaches no further then declaring what was lawfull and what unlawfull as to the Jews by the Law of Moses in point of conscience The first argument that I make against this opinion is drawn from the Power of Baptizing thereby understanding not the Office of ministring but the Right of granting that Sacrament Which we in this state of the Church doe not distinguish because all are born within the pale of the Church and by order thereof baptized infants But may see a necessary ground so to distinguish by S. Paul when he denies that he was sent to baptize but to preach the Gospel 1 Cor. I. 17. whereas the words of our Lord in the Gospel are manifest where he chargeth his Apostles to Preach and Teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost For the Baptizing of all that should turn Christians could not be personally commanded the Apostles but to preach to all Nations and to make Disciples out of all Nations this they might doe to those that might be Baptized by such as they should appoint We must note that it is in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make Disciples as the Syriack truly translates it Commanding first to bring men to be Disciples then to Baptize Now Disciples are those that were after called Christians such as we professe our selves Acts XI 26. those of whom our Lord saith in the Gospel that those that will doe his Fathers will are his Disciples Wherefore they are commanded
and professed Christianity they oppose the saying of the Apostle that it stands not with charity for the Church to injoin any thing which weak consciences may be offended at And that of our Lord that this would be will-worship and serving of God according to humane traditions which are all the arguments which those of the Congregations allege for their opinion so farre as I can learn It will be therefore worth the while to consider the cases which the Apostle decides upon that principle though I have done it in part already in my larger Discourse p. 309. for so long as the case is not understood in which the Apostle alleges it no marvell if it be brought to prove that which he never intended by it We know he resolves both the Romanes and the Corinthians by this sentence With the Corinthians the case was concerning the eating of things sacrificed to Idols which the Apostle manifestly distinguishes that it may be done two ways materially and formally materially when a man eats it as a creature of God giving him thanks for it which the Apostle therefore determines to be agreeable to Christianity 1 Cor. VIII 7. formally when a man eats it with conscience of the Idoll as a thing sacrificed to it as the Apostle expresses it that is with a religious respect to it which therefore he shews at large to be Idolatry 1 Cor. X. 7 14 Wherefore though things sacrificed to Idols be as free for Christians to eat as any men else yet in some cases and circumstances it so fell out that a Christian eating with a Gentile of their Sacrifices the remains whereof were the cheer which they feasted upon and their Feasts part of the Religion which they served their Idols with might be thought by a weak Christian to hold their Sacrificing as indifferent as their meat and he that thus thought be induced to eat them formally as things offered to Idols As eating them in the Temples of Idols or at a Feast made by a Gentile upon occasion of some Sacrifices 1 Cor. VIII 10. X. 27. In this case the Apostle determines that charity requires a Christian to forbear the use of his freedome when the use of it may occasion a weak Christian to fall into misprision of Idolatry But among the Romanes the case which S. Paul speaks to was between Christians converted from Jews and from Gentiles as appears by the particulars which he mentions to be scrupled at to wit days and meats kom XIV 2 5. and the offence likely thereby to come to passe this that Jewish Christians seeing the Heathenish eat things forbidden by the Law and perhaps among the rest things sacrificed to Idols forbidden not by the letter of the Law but by the interpretation and determination of it in force by the authority of the Synagogue or Consistory might imagine that Christians renounced the Law of God and by consequence the God of the Law and so out of zeal to the true God fall from Christianity and perish For this is manifestly the offence and stumbling which the Apostle speaks of Rom. XIV 13 15 20. as I have shewed out of Origen in the place afore quoted Here is then the sentence of the Apostle that when the use of those things wherein Christians are not limited by the Law of God becomes an occasion of falling into sin to those that understand not the reason of the freedome of Christians charity requires a Christian to forbear the use of this freedom From whence who so inferres that therefore no Ecclesiasticall Law can be of force when it meets with a weak conscience and therefore never because it may always meet with such will conclude the contrary of the Apostles meaning For when Christianity makes all things free to a Christian that are not limited by Gods Law it makes not the use of this freedome necessary to Christianity the Apostle saying expresly that the Kingdome of God is not meat and drink Rom. XIV 17. by consequence not the observing or not observing of days That is consists no more in not eating or not observing days then in eating in observing them So that as he that submits unto the Law of charity must forbear his freedome once and as often as the use of it ministreth offence so for the same reason must he always forbear the use of it whensoever the use of it comes to be restrained though not by Gods Law yet by the Law of the Church Because the greatest offence the greatest breach of charity is to call in question the Order established in the Church in the preservation whereof the Unity of the Church consisteth Whereunto thus much may be added that as the things that are determined by the Canons of the Church are not determined by Gods Law as to the species of the matter and subject of them yet as to the authority from whence the determination of them may proceed they may be said to be determined by Gods Law in as much as by Gods Law that authority is established by which those things are determinable which the good Order and Unity of the Church requires to be determined The evidence of which authority is as expresse in Gods Book as it can be in any Book inspired by God Those of the Congregations indeed betake themselves here to a Fort which they think cannot be approached when they say that what is written in the Scripture is revealed from above and therefore the Laws that are there recorded are no precedents to the Church to use the like right For it is manifest by the Scriptures of the Old Testament that there were many Laws Ordinances Constitutions or what you please to call them in force at that time which no Scripture can shew to have been commanded by revelation from God as the Law of God Daniel forbore the Kings meat because a portion of it was sacrificed to their Idols dedicating the whole to the honour of the same That is he forbore to eate things sacrificed to Idols materially Therefore that Order which we see was afterwards in force among the Jews was then in use and practice Not by the written Law of God therefore by the determination of those whom the Law gave Power to determine such matters The Prophet Joel reckons up many circumstances and ceremonies of the Jews publick Fasts and Humiliations Joel II. 15 16 17. which are so farre from being commanded by the law that the Jews Doctors confesse there is no further Order for any Fasts in the Law then that which they draw by a consequence far enough fetched out of Num. X. 9. where Order is given for making the Trumpets which they say and the Prophet supposes that their Fasts were proclaimed with Maimoni Tit. Taanith cap. I. In another Prophet Zac. VII 3. VIII 19. it appears that there were set Fasts which they were bound to solemnize every year on the fourth fifth seventh and tenth moneths As also it appears by the words of
though to an invisible purpose and the Power of giving Laws either to the whole or to severall parts of it of Divine Right But neither the whole nor the parts of it are necessarily convertible with any one State and yet the Church under severall States many times in extreme need of the use of that power which God hath given his Church to determine matters determinable Therefore this power cannot be vested in any of the States under which the Church is concerned but in those that have Power in behalf of the Churches respectively concerned The fourth argument is very copious from the exercise of this power in the Religion instituted by God among his ancient people of which nature there is nothing in the New Testament because in the times whereof it speaks Soveraign Powers were not Christian I have shewed in divers places of this Discourse that the High Consistory of the Jews at Jerusalem had power to determine all questions that became determinable in the matter of Laws given by God And yet there is great appearance that this Consistory it self was not constantly setled there according to Law till Josaphats time at least not the inferiour Consistories appointed by the Law of Deut. XVI 18. as the Chief by the Law of Deut. XVII 8 to be setled in the severall Cities For if so why should the Judges and Samuel ride circuit up and down the Country to minister justice according to the Law as we reade they did then Jud. V. 10. X. 4. XII 14. 1 Sam. VII 16. but not after Josaphats time And for this reason it seems Josaphat himself being to put this Law in force first sent Judges up and down the Cities 2 Chron. XVII 8 9. afterwards setled them according to the Law in the Cities of Juda as well as at Jerusalem 2 Chron. XIX 5 8. Besides Josephus in expresse terms rendring a reason of the disorder upon which the warre against Benjamin followed attributes it to this that the Consistories were not established according to Law Antiq. V. 2. And again Antiq. V. 5. he gives this for the cause why Eglon undertook to subdue the Israelites that they were in disorder and the Laws were not put in use And therefore it is justly to be presumed that the exact practice of this Law on which that of all the rest depended took not place till Josaphat applied the coactive power then in his hands to bring to effect that which God had established in point of Divine right The Consistory then by the Law is commanded to judge the People That is the Soveraign Power of the people is commanded to establish the Consistory Josaphat finds this command to take hold upon him as having the Power of that People in his hands So again God had commanded that Idolaters should be put to death and their Cities destroied the Consistory inquiring and sentencing as appears by the Jews Constitutions in Maimoni of Idolatry cap. IV. Deut. XIII 2 13 14. But suppose the disease grown too strong for the cure as we must needs suppose the Consistory unable to destroy an Idolatrous City when most Cities doe the like or to take away High Places when the Land is over-run with them then must the coactive Power of the Secular arm either restore the Law or be branded to posterity for not doing it as you see the Kings of Gods people are The Precept of building the Temple was given to the Body of the People therefore it takes hold upon David and the Powers under him his Princes his Officers and Commanders 1 Chro. XIII 2. XXVIII 1. In fine the Consistory by the Law was to determine matters undetermined in the Law whether in generall by giving Laws in questionable cases or in particular by sentencing causes But if the people slide back and cast away the yoke of the Law none but the Soveraign Power can reduce them under the Covenant of the Law to which they are born Therefore that Covenant is renued by Asa by Hezekiah by Josias by none but the King as first it was established by Moses King in Jesurun Deut. XXIX 1. XXXIII 5. 2 Chron. XV. 12 14. XXIX 10. XXXIV 31. And it is a very grosse mistake to imagine that the people renued it or any part of it without the consent of the Soveraign under Esdras and Nehemias Esd XI 1 Neh. X. 29 V. 12. For Esdras having obtained that Commission which we see Es VII 11 may well be thought thereby established in the quality of Head of the Consistory by the Soveraign Power as the Jews all report him But howsoever by that Commission we cannot doubt that he was inabled to swear them to the Law by which he was inabled to govern them in it his commission supposing a grant of full leave to live according to their Law But in Nehemias we must acknowledge a further power of Governor under the King of Persia as he cals himself expresly Neh. V. 14 15. which quality seems to me answerable to that of the Heads of the Captive Jews in Babylonia of whom we reade divers times in Josephus as well as in the Jews writings that they were Heads of their Nation in that Country having Heads of their Consistories under them at the same time as Esdras under Nehemias The proceedings then of Esdras and Nehemias as well as of the Kings of Juda prove no more then that which I said in the beginning of this Chapter that Soveraign Powers have Right to establish and restore all matters of Religion which can appear to be commanded by God For it is not in any common reason to imagine that by any Covenant of the Law renued by Esdras and Nehemias they conceived themselves inabled or obliged to maintain themselves by force in the profession and exercise of their Religion against their Soveraign in case he had not allowed it them Therefore of necessity that which they did was by Power derived by Commission from the Kings of Persia and so with reservation of their obedience to them who granting Nehemias and Esdras Power to govern the People in their Religion must needs be understood to grant them both the free profession and exercise of the same But having shewed that the Church hath Power by Divine Right to establish by a generall Act which you may call a Canon Constitution or Law all that Gods Law determineth not mediately and by consequence I conceive it remains proved by these particulars done under the Old Testament that the Church is to determine but the determinations of the Church to be maintained by the coactive Power of the Secular arm seeing they cannot come to effect in any Christian State otherwise Which also is immediately proved by some acts recorded in Scripture whereby that is limited which Gods Law had not determined It is said 1 Chro. XXV 1. That David and the Captains of the Militia divided the sonnes of Asaph Heman and Jeduthun to the service of God Here it were an
inconvenience to imagine that Commanders of Warre should meddle with ordering the Tribe of Levi and the service of the Temple It is not so We are to understand there by the Militia the Companies of Priests that waited on the Service of the Temple the Captains of whom with David divided the Singers as they did the Priests 1 Chron. XXIV 3 6 7. Though elsewhere 1 Chron. XXIII 6. David alone is mentioned to doe it as by whose Power a businesse concerning the state of a Tribe in Israel was put in effect and force So Hezekias and his Princes and all the Synagogue advised about holding the Passeover in the second moneth 2 Chron. XXX 2. that is he advised with the Consistory who are there as in Jer. XXVI 10 11. called the Princes for so the Jews Constitutions in Maimoni in the Title of comming into the Sanctuary ca. IV. teach us to understand it So David and his Princes gave the Gibeonites to wait upon the Levites whereupon they are called Nethinim that is Given Esd VIII 20. where by David and the Princes we must understand by the same reason David and the great Consistory of his time So also Maimoni in the Title Erubin subinit or rather the Talmud Doctors whose credit he followeth tell us that Solomon and his Consistory brought that Constitution into practice concerning what rooms meats may be removed into upon the Sabbath Herewith agrees the practice of Christian Emperors if we consider the style and character of some of their Laws in the Codes by which the rest may be estimated seeing it is not possible to confider all in this abridgement There you shall finde a Law by which the Canons of the Church are inforced and the Governors of Provinces tied to observe and execute them long before the Code of Canons was made by Justinian a Law of the Empire There you shall finde the Audiences of Bishops established and the sentences of them inforced by the Secular arm the authority of them having been in force in the Society of the Church from the beginning as hath been said There you shall finde Laws by which men are judged Hereticks and Schismaticks as they acknowledged the Faith determined by such and such Councels or not as they communicated with such such Bishops or not which what is it but to take the Act of the Church for a Law and to give force to it by the Secular arm Which what prejudice can it import to any Christian State upon the face of the earth For first such Assemblies of the Church at which publick matters are determinable cannot meet but by allowance of the State In particular though the Church hath Right to assemble Councels when that appears the best course for deciding matters in difference yet it cannot be said that the Church was ever able to assemble a generall Councell without the command of Christian Princes after the example of Constantine the Great And this is the State of Religion for the present in Christendome The Power of determining matters of Religion rests as always it did in the respective Churches to be tied by those determinations But the Power to assemble in freedome those judgements which may be capable to conclude the Church must rest in the free agreement of the Soveraignties in Christendome Secondly it hath been cautioned afore that all Soveraign Powers have right to see not only that nothing be done in prejudice to their Estates but also in prejudice to that which is necessary to the salvation of all Christians or that which was from the beginning established in the Church by our Lord and his Apostles Therefore when Councels are assembled neither can they proceed nor conclude so as to oblige the Secular Powers either of Christendome or of their respective Soveraignties but by satisfying them that the determinations which they desire to bring to effect are most agreeable to that which is determined by Divine Right as well as to the Peace of the State And so the objection ceases that by making the Church independent upon the State as to the matter of their Laws and determinations we make two Heads in one Body For seeing there is by this determination no manner of coactive Power in the Church but all in the State for Excommunication constrains but upon supposition that a man resolves to be a Christian there remains but one Head in the Civile Society of every State so absolute over the persons that make the Church that the independent power thereof in Church matters will enable it to do nothing against but suffer all things from the Soveraign And yet so absolute and depending on God alone in Church matters that if a Soveraign professing Christianity should not onely forbid the profession of that Faith or the exercise of those Ordinances which God hath required to be served with but even the exercise of that Ecclesiasticall Power which shall be necessary to preserve the Unity of the Church it must needs be necessary for those that are trusted with the Power of the Church not only to disobey the commands of the Soveraign but to use that Power which their quality in the Society of the Church gives them to provide for the subsistence thereof without the assistance of Secular Powers A thing manifestly supposed by all the Bishops of the Ancient Church in all those Actions wherein they refused to obey their Emperors seduced by Hereticks and to suffer their Churches to be regulated by them to the prejudice of Christianity Particularly in that memorable refusall of Athanasius of Alexandria and Alexander of Constantinople to admit the Heretick Arius to Communion at the instant command of Constantine the Great Which most Christian action whosoever justifies not besides the appearance of favour to such an Heresie he will lay the Church open to the same ruine whensoever the Soveraign Power is seduced by the like And such a difference falling out so that to particular persons it cannot be clear who is in the Right it will be requisite for Christians in a doubtfull case at their utmost perils to adhere to the Guides of the Church against their lawfull Soveraigns though to no further effect then to suffer for the exercise of Christianity and the maintenance of the Society of the Church in Unity Now what strength and force the exercise of the Keys which is the Jurisdiction of the Church necessarily requires from the Secular arm may appear in that this Power hath been and may be inforced by Soveraigns of contrary Religions The first mention of Excommunication among the Jews is as you have seen under Esdras who proceeded by Commission from the King of Persia In the Title of both Codes of Justinian and Theodosius De Judae is Coelicolis you have a Law of the Christian Emperors whereby the Excommunications of the Jews are enacted and enforced by forbidding inferiour powers to make them void And thus was the sentence of the Church against Paulus Samosatenus ratified
and effect to the acts of the same But in matters already determined by them as Laws given to the Church if by injury of time the practice become contrary to the Law the Soveraign Power being Christian and bound to protect Christianity is bound to imploy it self in giving strength first to that which is ordained by our Lord and his Apostles By consequence if those whom the power of the Church is trusted with shall hinder the restoring of such Laws it may and ought by way of penalty to such persons to suppresse their power that so it may be committed to such as are willing to submit to the superiour Ordinance of our Lord and his Apostles A thing throughly proved both by the Right of Secular Powers in advancing Christianity with penalties and in establishing the exercise of it and in particular by all the examples of the pious Kings of Gods people reducing the Law into practice and suppressing the contrary thereof Seeing then that it is agreed upon by all that professe the Reformation that many and divers things ordained by our Lord and his Apostles whether to be beleeved or to be practised in the Church were so abolished by injury of time that it was requisite they should be restored though against the will of those that bore that power which the Apostles appointed necessary to conclude the Church it followeth that the necessity of Reformation inferreth not the abolishing of the Succession of the Apostles but that more Laws of our Lord and his Apostles and of more moment were preferred before it where it could not regularly be preserved Which when it may be preserved is to be so far preserved before all designs which may seem to humane judgement expedient to the advancement of Christianity that whosoever shall endevour without such cause to destroy the power derived from the Apostles by conferring it upon those that succeed them not in it and much more whosoever shall doe it to introduce Laws contrary to the Ordinance of the Apostles shall be thereby guilty of the horrible crime of Schism For it is to be remembred that there are some things immediately necessary to the salvation of particular Christians whether concerning Faith or good manners and there are other things necessary to the publick order and peace of the Church that by it Christians may be edified in all matters of the first kinde The denying of any point of the first kinde may for distinctions sake be called Heresie when a man is resolute and obstinate in it But in the other kinde it is not a false opinion that makes a man a Schismatick till he agree to destroy the Unity of the Church for it It can scarce fall out indeed that any man proceed to destroy the Unity of the Church without some false opinion in Christianity Yet it is not the opinion but the destroying of a true or erecting of a false power in the Church that makes Schism And it can scarce fall out that any man should broach a doctrine contrary to Christianity without an intent to make a Sect apart yet onely a false perswasion in matters necessary to salvation is enough to make an Heretick This is the reason that both Heresie and Schism goes many times under the common name of Heresies or Sects among the ancient Fathers of the Church Otherwise it is truly said that Heresie is contrary to Faith Schism to Charity because the crime of Heresie is found in a single person that denies some point of Faith though the name of it be generall onely to those and to all those that make Sects apart In the mean time we must consider that the word Schism signifies the state as well as the crime in which sense all that are in the state of Schism are not in the crime of Schism but those that give the cause of it For as it is resolved that Warre cannot be just on both sides that make War so is it true that the cause of all divisions in the Church must needs be only on one side and not on both And that side which gives the cause are rightfully called Schismaticks though both sides be in the state of Schism as he in S. Augustine said of Tarquin and Lucrece that being two in one act yet one of them onely committed Adultery If then the Laws given by our Lord and his Apostles be restored by consent of some part of the Councell and Synod requisite to oblige any respective part of the Church and the Succession of the Apostles propagated by them alone in opposition to the rest that consent not unto them the cause of Schism cannot lie on this side which concurreth with the Primitive Succession of our Lord and his Apostles but upon them that violate the Communion of the Church by refusing such Laws and the right of such persons as acknowledge the same the condition of the Unity and Communion of the Church consisting as much in the rest of Laws given by our Lord and the Apostles as in that of the Succession and power of the Apostles Which is the case of the Church of England But whoever by virtue of any authority under heaven shall usurp Ecclesiasticall Power shall usurp the Succession of the Apostles and take it from them that rightfully stand possest of it upon pretense of governing the Church by such Laws as he is really perswaded but falsly to be commanded the Church by our Lord and his Apostles this whosoever shall doe or be accessory to is guilty of Schism The issue then of this whole dispute stands upon this point how and by what means it may be evidenced what Laws of the Faith and Manners of particular Christians of the publick Order of the Church have been given the Church by our Lord and his Apostles A point which cannot be resolved aright but by them which resolve aright for what reasons and upon what grounds and motives they are Christians For without doubt the true reasons and motives of Christianity if they be pursued and improved by due consequence will either discover the truth of any thing disputable in the matter of Christianity or that it is not determinable by any revealed truth Here it is much to be considered that the truth of things revealed by God is not manifested to the mindes of them to whom and by whom God reveals them to the World by the same means as to them whom he speaks to by their means Moses and the Prophets our Lord and his Apostles when they were sent to declare the will of God to his People were first assured themselves that what they were sent to declare to the world was first revealed to themselves by God and then were enabled to assure the world of the same By what means they were assured themselves concerns me not here to enquire It is enough that they were always enabled to do such works as might assure the world that they were sent by God For how could they demand
is manifest that he which requireth the Unity of Ecclesiasticall Assemblies supposeth a Society of the Church to procure and maintain the same But it is not this passage of S. Paul alone wherein this privilege is supposed intimated or expressed but wheresoever there is mention in any part of Scriptures of any Ordinance of the Service of God instituted or exercised at the Assemblies of Gods faithfull people provided that it may appear otherwise by the Scripture to be common to the Law and the Gospel there you have the Charter or Patent of this grant and privilege and by consequence of the Society of the Church founded upon it But though Erastus securely taketh it for granted that Christian States have right to exercise their Soveraign Power in Church matters because it was so in the Synagogue yet I doe not understand how he would convince them that at this time deny this consequence among us Seeing there is so much difference between the Law and the Gospel between the Church and the Synagogue that that which is held in the one cannot be presumed to hold under the other without a reason common to both And so far as that reason prevails and no further must the Power and Interesse of States in Church matters be understood to prevail And truly there is a saying of S. Jeromes which may justly move a tender spirit to doubt whether this Interesse of States in Church matters be from God or not For seeing it is most true and visible to experience which he says Ecclesiam postquam coepit habere Christianos Magistratus factam esse opibus majorem virtutibus autem minorem That the Church since it began to have Christian Magistrates is become greater in wealth or power but lesse in virtues And that it is a presumption in reason that that which goeth before is the cause of that which followeth upon it when no other cause appeareth well may it be doubted that the Interesse of Secular Powers in Church matters is not from God from which so great a decay of Christianity proceedeth which must not be imputed to any thing which God hath appointed To which agreeth that Legend in the life of Pope Sylvester which saith that when Constantine had endowed the Church so largely there was a voice from heaven heard to say Hodie venenum effusum est in Ecclesiam To day is there poison poured out upon the Church The reason then which here I render upon which the Kings of Gods ancient people had that power in maters of Religion which by the Scriptures we know they did exercise I hope will appear reasonable to them that have perused the IV Chapter and seen how it is not destructive but cumulative to that which by the Law in matters of the Law is given to the Consistory And since it accrued to the King not by the Law because not constituted by it but by the desire of the People admitted and assented unto by God by which he became Head of a People already in Covenant with God what difference is there between this case and the case of a whole people together with the Powers of the same converted to Christianity but this that the Israelites were in Covenant with God before they were under Kings for though Moses and the Judges had Regall Power yet it was not by a standing Law Christian Nations under the Powers of the World before they became Christian Unlesse it be further that the Church is one of all Nations the Synagogue of equall extent with the People of Isâ—ael which is not of consequence to this purpose The Apostle rendring a reason why he commands Secular Powers to be prayed for at the Assemblies of the Church 1 Tim. II. 2 3 4. assigneth the end of them to be That we may lead a quiet life in all godlinesse and honesty Which is manifestly said in respect of Secular Powers that are not Christian For of them the Church justly expects protection and quietnesse paying them prayers subjection and duties But he addes further this reason Because this is good and acceptable to God our Saviour who would have no man to perish but to come to the knowledge of his truth If then the will of God be that the Soveraign Powers of the Gentiles be converted to Christianity is it not his will that they imploy themselves to the advancement of it not onely as Christians but as Soveraigns which cannot be expected from Gentiles There is reason therefore to ground this Interesse upon the declared will of God concerning the calling of the Gentiles the Apostle having declared that their Secular Powers are invited to the Faith and the Prophesies of the Old Testament having declared that their Kings Queens should come to the Church and advance it Psal II. 10 11 12. LXXII 10 11. Es XLIX 23. LX. 13. This reason is far more effectuall to me by the Prophesies left the Church in the Apocalypse The main scope and drift whereof I am much perswaded to be nothing else but to foretell the conversion of the Romane Empire to Christianity and the punishment of the Heathens that persecuted the same For if the intent of those Prophesies be to shew that it was Gods will that the Empire should become Christian and that the reign of the Saints upon earth there foretold is nothing else but the advancement of Christianity to the Government of the Empire and by consequence of other Kingdomes into which the Empire was to be dissolved it cannot be doubted that Christian Powers attain the same right in matters of Religion which the Kings of Gods ancient People always had by the making of Christianity the Religion of any State This opinion it was not my purpose to publish at the writing of this Discourse because it is like to become a mark of contradiction to the most part being possessed more or lesse of a far other sense But having considered since how many and horrible scandals are on foot by the consequences of that sense so that I cannot condemne my self of giving scandall by publishing the best means I can see to take it away and having met with another reason necessitating me to declare it for the effectuall proceeding of this Discourse I will put it down in the Review of the last Chapter where that necessity rises desiring those that seek further satisfaction in this reason to reade it there for that purpose As for the objection that was made from the decay of Christianity after the Powers of the World protected it and enriched the Church it is a meer mistake of that which is accidentall for the true cause For the coming in of the World to the Church is one thing and the Power of the State in Church matters is another though this depend upon that And it is true that the coming of the World into the Church was the decay of Christianity but the Power of the State in the Church is a prop to sustain it from
of their lawfull Soveraigns the subject of their Sermons seeing that all parts of Christianity may be throughly taught the people and every person of the people as fully understand how grievous every sin is as if they be stirred to malign and detest their Superiours by being told of their sins How much more when the actions in their whole kinds are not sins but may be involved with such circumstances as make them consistent with Christianity Besides seeing it is not every Preacher that is to regulate the proceedings of the Church in such sins of publick persons as appear to destroy Christianity to run before the publick censure of the Church in declaring what it ought to doe is not the zeal of a Christian but such a scandall as leaves the person that does it liable himself to censure The sin of Will-worship which I acknowledge p. 188. is as far distant from that voluntary service of God under the Gospel which answers to the voluntary Sacrifices of the Law in my meaning as it is in deed For as the Law had voluntary Sacrifices or freewill offerings not commanded by it but to be offered according to it the price whereof consisted in the frank disposition of him that offered the same So can it not be doubted that the Sacrifices of Christians their Prayers and their Alms all the Works of Free bounty and goodnesse together with Fasting and single life with continence and whatsoever else gives men more means and advantages to abound in the same may be offered to God out of our free-will not being under any Law requiring it at our hands Onely the difference is this that whereas the Sacrifices of the Law are things neither good nor bad but as they are tendred to God either in obedience to the Law or according to the same all Sacrifice which we can tender to God under the Gospel must needs consist in the spirituall worship of God Not in the means whereby it is advanced that is more plentifully or cordially performed Now though the spirituall worship of God is always commanded yet seeing it is not commanded to be done and exercised always it is much in the disposition of Christians what times what places what manner what measure what circumstances they will determine to themselves being not always determined by Gods Law for the tendring of the Sacrifice of Christians which being so determined shall be as truly a voluntary Sacrifice or freewill Offering as any under the Law and so much more excellent as the Law is lesse excellent then the Gospel If this may be received to goe under the name of Will-worship I am so far from counting Will-worship a sin that I acknowledge that to be the height of Christianity from whence it proceedeth But I conceive the word is not improperly used to signifie that which the Jews are reproved by our Lord after the Prophet Esay for because they worshipped God according to Doctrines taught by Traditions of men Not because they practised the Law according to the determinations of the Greek Consistory which as I have many ways shewed they had expresse power by the Law to make and therefore our Lord also commands them to obey Mat. XXIII 2. But because they thought there was a great deal of holinesse in practicing the Precepts of the Law precisely as their Elders had determined which setting aside the obedience of Gods Ordinance was nothing in Gods esteem in comparison of that justice and mercy and piety wherein the service of God then as always consisted We cannot but observe that this sin is taxed by the Prophets oftentimes as well in the practice of those precepts which are expressed in the Scripture of Moses his Law as by our Lord and the Prophet Esay in the ptactice of those which were introduced by humane authority Psal XL. 7 L. 8 Es I. 12 Jerem. VII 21 and therefore consisteth not in observing things introduced by men but in tendring to God for the service of God that which was not necessarily joyned with the inward holinesse of the heart which God is to be served with This sin of the Jews I conceive is found correspondently in other professions not onely of Gentiles and Mahumetanes which cannot worship God without it but also of Christians professing true Christianity when they worship not God according to it But not because they acknowledge humane constitutions which by Gods Ordinance cannot be avoided but because they may vainly please themselves in imagining that they please God in observing them without that disposition of the heart which God is to be served with And this sin of the Jews as Eusebius cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Epiphanius also in some of the ancient Hereticks cals it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which satisfies me that it may be called Wil-worship in English Though whether the former voluntary and frank service of God is not also called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I dispute not here The reason why the Ceremonies of Divine Service which are here p. 192. proved to have been used under the Apostles cannot continue the same in the Church of all times and places I have briefly expressed p. 325. so that notwithstanding the Ceremonies of the service of God in publick ought to be such as may conduce to the same end for which it may appear those were instituted which were in force under the Apostles That it is a mistake to think that Soveraign Powers are called Gods in the Scripture as is said p. 214. appears further by Exod. XXII 28. Thou shalt not curse Gods neither shalt thou speak evill of the Ruler of thy people For in this place the Prince of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a name common to Kings Judges and all their Governours in Chief that were of their own Nation whether absolute or under strangers Therefore the Sacrifice enjoyned Levit. IV. 22. belonged to the King when they were under Kings as the Jews agree Therefore it is given the King also Ezek. XII 10. VII 27. XIX 1. And therefore this Law is acknowledged by S. Paul to belong to the High Priest Acts XXIII 5. because as I said afore the High Priests had then the Chief Power within their own People as they had upon the return from Babylonia Wherefore seeing this Precept consists of two parts the second whereof belongs to the King the first must belong to the Judges of their Consistories according to the resolution of the Jews that all and onely Judges made by Imposition of Hands are called Gods in the Scriptures That which is here said p. 228. of the quality of Governour under the King of Persia in which and by which Nehemiah restoreth the Law and swears the people to it is to be compared with that which you finde here since in the 57 page of this Review Whereby it will rather appear that he was Governour of that Province by the like Commission as other Governours of
the beginning of Saint Luke speaking of the Old Testament Erat autem populi gratia discernere spiritus ut sciret quos in Prophetarum numerum referre deberet quos tanquam bonus nummularius reprobare Now saith he it was a grace that the people had to discern spirits so as to know whom to reckon among the Prophets whom like a good Banker to refuse And I have found in a written copy containing expositions of divers Greek words of the Old and New Testament this Glosse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is discerning of Spirits spoken of 1 Cor. XII 9. is the distinguishing between those that prophesied truly and falsly And this I beleeve to be S. Pauls meaning because of the correspondence of that which S. Ambrose relateth of the Synagogue I must therefore needs beleeve that the Church was provided by God of means to be resolved who spoke by the Holy Ghost who onely pretended so to doe But that Christian States should have Power to elect Pastors because Christian Churches were able to judge whom the Holy Ghost had elected whom not is a consequence which I understand not For as it was then one thing to elect another to discern whom the Holy Ghost had elected so a Christian State is now far another thing then the Church of Antiochia was at that time Neither is it any thing available to this purpose which this author laboureth to prove that the Soveraign Power together with the Power of interpreting the Word of God were both in the High Priests of the Jews and afterwards in the Kings of Gods people after that they were established For by the particulars here declared from p. 225. it will appear that it was no otherwise in the Kings of Gods people then it is now in Christian Princes and States excepting that the Law was given to one People the Gospel sent to all Nations to wit as for the Power of inforcing Gods Law in the way of Fact Whereas the Power of determining the Law of God in the way of Right was as much estated upon the Consistories of that People by Gods Laws as the Power of giving Rules to the Church is now upon the Synods of the same Neither is the People of Israel a Priestly Kingdome as Moses cals them Exod. XIX 6. because the Priests were to be Kings of them For the Originall imports a Kingdome of Priests which Onkelus translates Kings and Priests as also the New Testament Apoc. I. 6. V. 10. Which if it signifie that all the Israelites should be both Kings and Priests then certainly it inforceth not that their High Priests should be their Kings But that they should be Kings because redeemed from the servitude of strangers to be a people Lords of themselves and Priests because redeemed to spend their time in sacrificing and feasting upon their sacrifices which is the estate under the figure whereof God promiseth unto them that which he meant to his Church and they still expect under their Messias Es LXI 6. though they sacrificed not in person but by their Priests appointed in their stead by Imposition of the Elders hands Num. VIII 10. As for the charge of Josuah to goe in and out at the word of Eleazar Num. XXVII 21. it is expresly declared there to be said in regard of the Oracle of God by Vrim and Thummim which the High Priest was to declare as you see by Deut. XXXIII 8. and Josuah to consult in all his undertakings For this is one of the principall reasons why the government of that people before they had Kings was as Josephus cals it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Empire of God because he by his Oracles of Vrim and Thummim prescribed how they were to proceed in their publick affairs Another reason being this because he stirred them up Judges when he pleased which being of his immediate appointment are so far acknowledged by him that when they were weary of Samuel and desired a King God declareth that it was not Samuel but himself whom they refused And therefore it is not to be said that of Right the High Priests ought to have had the Power though de facto the Judges had it during their time For if it be said that the Israelites cast off God Jud. II. 10. because they would not be subject to the High Priest but imbraced the Judges it could not be understood how they should refuse God by refusing Samuel that was one of the Judges Therefore the Soveraign Power was of right in the Judges for which it is said Jud. XVII 7. as also XVIII 1. XIX 1. XXI 25. that there was no King in Israel speaking of the time before the Judges when Josephus and all the circumstance shews these things fell out though they were not always obeyed Jud. II. 17. because as Prophets they laboured to recall the people from their Idolatries That which is here said of the Mariage of Booz and Ruth p. 241. seems to be confirmed by the opinion of Epiphanius that our Lord was invited to the Mariage at Cana in Galilee that as a Prophet he might blesse the Mariage For what is this but the same that the Church always practised afterwards in Blessing Mariages to signifie that they were approved to be made according to the Law of God For which reason also the custome of celebrating Mariages with the Sacrament of the Eucharist was established that the Power of the Keys from which the Communion of the Eucharist proceeds might declare thereby an approbation of that which was done CHAP. V. SEeing it is here declared p. 255. that whosoever thinks himself authorized by his Religion to unsettle the publick peace or to maintain his Religion by force his civile obedience being dispensed with by the same is thereby an enemy to the State and liable to temporall punishment according to the degree of that which he doth it may be thought requisite here to resolve two cases that may be put in this point The one whether the enemies of the Religion in force may become liable to punishment for blasphemies and slanders upon the Religion of the State The other to what temporall punishment men may become liable by exercising their Religion not being expresly permitted by the State to be exercised To the first my answer is resolutely affirmative For seeing that Christianity enjoyneth us to seek the good of all that are enemies to it it is not imaginable that it should oblige any Christian to defame or blaspheme any contrary Religion seeing that must needs redound to the disgrace of them that professe it most of all if they be the publick Powers that maintain it all irreverence of whom upon what cause soever must needs tend to weaken the arm of Government and thereby to unsettle the publick peace And therefore you see what testimony the Apostles have from a stranger Acts XIX 37. You have brought these men that are neither Church robbers nor
consequence reduce the Authority they pretend to what measure the people shall please whom by their proceedings they inable to make and unmake members and Pastors at their pleasure But I dispute not the consequence of their design before they declare what they are agreed upon in it Besides they conceive they have this Right in the Church because they are Saints as Anabaptists conceive that by the same title they have Right to the Goods of this world and as Christians conceive they have those Rights which they pretend to in the Visible Church by lawfull Ordination and Baptism And that they are Saints they seem to presume upon this ground that they have been admitted to such a Congregation upon Covenant to live in such Society for which they separate from the Church It shall be enough to levell the grounds and reasons from Scripture upon which they have parted from the Church under pretence of recovering the freedom of Saints before they are agreed wherein this freedom consists and how far it extends And truly that which I have hitherto proved seems to be a peremptory prescription against their pretence For if the Apostles ordered the Bodies of severall Churches to consist of the whole numbers of Christians contained in severall Cities and in the Territories of them which no common sense can possibly imagine that they could assemble all together at any time for the service of God it follows of necessity that the power of Governing those Churches was not deposited by the Apostles in the Body of the People whereof those Churches did or should consist For where the Power is in the People there the whole Body of the People must have means to Assemble to take Order in such things as concern the state of it Wherefore the Assemblies of the Church being only for Divine Service and at those Assemblies it being impossible that all the people of those Churches should meet common sense must pronounce that the Power of taking Order in the common affairs of Churches is not deposited by the Apostles in the Body of the People Another exception there is to all or most of the particulars which they alledge out of the scriptures far more peremptory then his For those things upon which they ground the right interess of the people in the Church were done under the Apostles that is not only in their time but also in concurrence with their Right and Power in the Government of the Church So that if we beleeve or if we prove the chief Power to have been then in the Apostles it cannot by the Scriptures which they produce be proved to remain in the People because their evidence cannot prove any greater Power or Right to be now in the People then belonged to them when the Scriptures they allege were said or done under the Apostles Now I suppose I shall not need to intreat any man to grant me that the Soveraign Power of the Church was then in the Apostles which their Commission will easily evince The name of an Apostle seemeth to have been borrowed by our Lord from the ordinary use of that people For in their Law it ordinarily signifieth a mans Proxy or Commissary deputed to some purpose And therefore the signification of it in the Scriptures is very large So that when we reade of Epaphroditus Apostle of the Philippians Phil. II. 25 30. or of Luke and Titus Apostles of the Churches 2 Cor. VIII 19 20 23. we are not to conceive by this name any thing like the Office of the Apostles of Christ For these later are plainly called Apostles of the Churches as deputed by them to carry their Contributions to Jerusalem And Epaphroditus of the Philippians as imploied by them to wait upon and furnish S. Paul with his necessary charges at Rome The power of Christs Apostles then must not be valued by the name of Apostle nor by the person of our Lord Christ that sends them for he might have sent other manner of men upon inferiour errands and all been Apostles But by the work which they are trusted with expressed in their Commission As my Father sent me Whos 's soever sins ye remit and Goe preach and teach all Nations For if God ordain his Church to be one Visible Society to serve him in the Profession of the Gospel and trust onely his Apostles and the Church with the Power of the Keys the root of all Ecclesiasticall Power as hath been said either the Church must challenge it against the Apostles which is not but by them or it must be understood to have been then in the Church because it was in the Apostles in whom it was before the Church which was founded by them whereupon the Office of the Apostles is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Bishoprick before the Church was whereof they were Bishops to wit in Judas Acts I. 9. A meaning easie to be read in the number of them For the Church being the spirituall Israel as Israel according to the flesh coming of XII Patriarchs had always XII Princes of their Tribes and LXX Presbyters members of the great Consistory to govern them in the greatest matters concerning the State of the whole People under one King or Judge or under God when they had neither King nor Judge So did our Saviour appoint XII Patriarchs as it were of his spirituall People LXX Governours of another Rank both under the name of Apostles in whom should rest the whole Power of governing that People whereof himself in heaven remains always King A perfect evidence hereof is the deriving of other Power from them as theirs is derived from Christ We reade in the Scriptures of Euangelists and we reade of another sort of Apostles which if we understand not to be of the number of the LXX we must needs conceive to be so called because they were Apostles of the Apostles that is persons sent by the XII Apostles to assist them in the work committed to their trust which it is plain could not be executed by them in person alone And indeed those whom the Scripture cals false Apostles 2 Cor. XI 13. and that said they were Apostles and were not Apoc. II. 2. what can we imagine they were but such as pretended to be imploied by other Apostles perhaps by S. Peter to Corinth who had a hand in the founding of that Church as we learn by Dionysius of Corinth in Eusebius Eccles Histor II. 25. agreeing with the beginning of S. Pauls first Epistle but intended indeed under their names and authorities to pull down that which was built by their fellow Apostles And in this sense perhaps S. Paul calls Andronicus and Junias eminent among the Apostles Rom. XVI 7. because it may be they were imploied by himself or by S. Peter about the Gospel at Rome And hereby we may take measure what Euangelists were For seeing it appears by the Scripture that they were the Apostles Scholars deputed by them and limited to such imploiment as
corruption of naturall light made matter of Religion as hath been said of Idolaters and as it may be said of the whole spawn of Gnosticks from Simon Magus to the Manichees their Heires and Successors which as they corrupted Christianity with Heathenisme so they tooke away the difference of good and bad and brought in under pretense of Religion such horrible uncleannesse as nature abhorres Which being by mistake of the Gentiles imposed upon the Primitive Christians as by the defense which they make for themselves they doe evidence sufficiently that they are wronged by those reports so they declare that if they were true they would not refuse the persecutions which they plead against The 2d case is when any thing prejudiciall to Civile Society is held and professed as part of Christianity For as that which is prejudiciall to the publick Peace must needs be punishable by those Powers which are trusted with the maintenance of publicke Peace and that with the utmost punishment when the case deserves it So it is certain that it is not Christianity which is punished in so doing because Christianity contains nothing prejudiciall to Civile Society and publick Peace Setting these cases aside if no man can be constrained by capitall punishment to become a Christian it followeth that no Heretick Schismatick or Apostate from Christianity can be punishable with death meerly for the opinion which he professeth The same reasons rightly improved seem to conclude that no man is punishable by the civile death of Banishment from his native Country and People meerly for an opinion which he beleeveth and professeth though falsly to be part of Christianity For you see there is a great difference between the case of the Law and the Gospel The Law is the condition of a Covenant between God and the People of Israel by which they were all estated in the Land of Promise and every one in his severall interesse in the same So that whosoever should renounce or violate the condition of this Covenant which is the Law must needs become liable to the punishment of Death when the Law establisheth it and therefore to that of Banishment or civile Death or any lesse punishment when the Law enableth to establish it But the Gospel is the condition of a Covenant which tenders the Kingdome of heaven to all those that imbrace and observe it And therefore requires all Nations Kingdomes States and Commonwealths to enter into one Society of the Church meerly for the common service of God upon conscience of the same Faith and duty of the same obedience But otherwise acknowledging the same obligation both of Civile and Domestick Society as afore Whereupon it follows that as Christians imbracing Christianity freely because it cannot be truly imbraced otherwise purchase themselves thereby no Right or Privilege against the Secular Powers which were over them afore So no Secular Powers that are Soveraign by professing Christianity themselves purchase any Right and Power as to God of inforcing Christianity upon their Subjects by such Penalties as the Constitution of those Civile Societies which they govern enables them not to inflict according to the common Law of all Nations Wherefore seeing common reason discovereth not the truth of Christianity to us and therefore the common Law of Nations enjoineth not Christianity as the condition of Civile Society but that Civile Societies as they subsisted before Christianity so still subsist upon principles which for their Originall are afore it though for their perfection after it it seems that the Soveraign Powers of Civile Societies are not enabled to make Christianity the condition of being a member of those States which they govern But if Secular Powers be not enabled to punish the renouncing of Christianity or of any part of it with Naturall or Civile death doth it therefore follow that all men are by Gods Law to be left to their freedome to beleeve and professe what they please I suppose there are very great Penalties under the rate of those which the Constitution of Civile Societies by the Common Law of Nations will enable the Soveraign Powers thereof to punish the neglect of Christianity with when they have avowed it for the Religion of the States which they govern For in that case the neglect of Christianity is not onely a sin against God and a good conscience but against Civile Society and that reverence which every man owes the Powers that conclude his own People in thankfulnesse to the invaluable benefit of peaceable protection which he enjoies by the same Secondly seeing that all Religion excepting true Christianity is a most powerfull means of disturbing the publick peace of civile Societies though perhaps it professe no such thing expresly it follows by consequence that all Powers that are trusted with the preservation of publick Peace are enabled to forbid that which is not true Christianity by all penalties under those that have been excepted So that when true Christianity is forbidden under such penalties the fault shall be not in usurping but in abusing the Power in applying it to a wrong subject not in straining it to that which it extendeth not to And in so doing that is in suffering that which is so done it is not to be thought that Christianity can be wronged though wrong be done to the men that are Christians For seeing it is the common profession of Christians to bear Christs Crosse and seeing it was the disposition of God to advance Christianity to the Stern of the Romane Empire and to the Rule of other Christian Kingdomes and Commonwealths by demonstrating that it was not prejudiciall to Civile Society by the sufferings of the Primitive Christians it followeth that whatsoever a man holds for true Christianity cannot be demonstrated to be so as God hath appointed Christianity to be demonstrated but by the sufferings of them that professe it And therefore it remains agreeable to reason that God hath given Secular Powers such right to restrain pretended Christianity that when it is used against the true it cannot be said to be usurped but abused It will be said for it is said already that any constraint to Christianity by temporall punishment will serve but to confirm some and engage them to that which they have once professed contrary to truth and that others who to avoid punishment shall outwardly submit to what inwardly they approve not must needs forfeit all power of Christianity by preferring the world before any part of it To which it must be answered that all this granted proves not that it is unjust or that civile Powers have no right to make such Laws but that it is not expedient the exercise of it being probably to no good purpose which defeats not the right till it be proved that it cannot be exercised to any good purpose which in this point cannot be done For it is as probably said on the other side that by temporall Penalties a man is induced to consider with lesse prejudice that which the
Preach continually so as to edifie the Church by their Preaching as it was for Apostles Apostolicall persons and Prophets is not for a reasonable man to imagine And those that stand so much upon Preaching twice every Lords Day would finde themselves at a marvellous exigent if they should prove either the necessity of it in point of Right by the Scriptures or the utility of it in point of Fact by the abilities of the men whom themselves set about it As for Prayer I yeeld that it is a Precept of God that the Prayers of Christian Congregations be presented to God by the Presbyters But what Prayers none but those which the Eucharist was celebrated with of which I spoke afore All the world will never shew any title in the Scriptures or the originall practice of the Church to prove that the Apostles ordained these prayers before or after the Sermons of Presbyters which are now made the greatest part of the exercise of Christianity unlesse it be because the Sermon went before the Eucharist as Acts XX. 7. 1 Cor. XIV 16. The Prayers which the Presbyters offer to God in behalf of the Church being by the institution of the Apostles onely those which the Eucharist is celebrated with I acknowledge that under the Apostles the Prayers of the Church were not prescribed but conceived by those that were emploied in that office by the Church But in consideration of the Propheticall Revelations and immediate inspirations which the persons emploied about that Office were then graced with to shew the truth of Christianity and the presence of God in the Church And therefore since those graces ceased I have shewed in the Apostolicall Form of Divine Service p. 348. that those Prayers of the Church which went not with the Eucharist were ministred by Deacons because it was found necessary that both the one and the other should be done in a prescript form to avoid the scandals of Christianity that we see come by referring it to all persons that are trusted to officiate publick service And I am astonished that any Christian should imagine that God should be pleased with the conceptions of the minde or expressions of the tongue setting aside the affection of the heart that any man prays with But now by the pretense on foot which makes the exercise of Christianity to consist in a Sermon and a Prayer conceived before or after it not onely the celebration of the Eucharist which the Apostles ordained to be as frequent as the Prayers of the Presbyters and which the Church of England recommends on all Sundaies and Festivals is turned out of doors to three or four times a year But also all the publick Service of God by Prayer Reading the Scriptures and the Praises of God forbidden when the Preachers mouth opens not And by referring the form of Prayer and matter of Doctrine to each mans discretion the exercise of Religion is turned into a Lecture of State infused into the conscience of the hearers by desiring of God the interesse of that faction for which a man Preaches And by this means they that doe challenge to themselves the title of Apostles when they style themselves Ministers of Christ and of the Gospel are now discovered by their adversaries of the Congregations to be Ministers of that Power which set them up as indeed they must needs be when a double number of Votes in their Presbyteries is able to cast them out of the Church if they prove not faithfull Ministers The ruine of Christianity is yet greater in going about to Reform Religion by the Sword and taking up Arms upon the Title of Christianity whether it be pretended or not For they that say that the Christians of Tertullians time would have defended themselves by force against the persecutions of the Romane Emperors if they had been able must needs say that Christians may and ought to defend themselves upon the Title of their Christianity As both Buchanane and Bellarmine by consequence must doe when they say that the reason why S. Paul commands Christians to be subject to the Secular Powers of his time was because they were not able to resist But I doe remember to have read in Burroughs his Lectures on Hoses which I speak to doe him right that the Title of this War is not grounded on Religion as Religion but as professed by this Kingdome Which I conceive cannot be said by those that advance the Covenant or allow two clauses of it The first when it promiseth to maintain the Kings person and estate in maintenance of Religion For if the maintenance of the State be limited within the condition of Religion then it is professed by consequence that the Soveraign Power of the State is not to be maintained when Religion is not maintained by it which if it did maintain Religion were to be maintained Therefore Religion is the ground upon which those that enter into the Covenant undertake to maintain one another without any exception in the maintenance of the same Therefore that War is made upon the Title of Religion which maintains not the State but in the maintenance of it The second when it faith that this is done that those which grone under the yoke of Antichrist may be moved to do the like Which belonging to the Subjects of Popish Princes professeth Religion to be the Title of those Arms which all of like Religion may use what ever the State be under which they live Now would I fain know of any friend of the Covenant What is the difference between it and the Holy League of France under Henry the third as to this point and in this regard There is indeed difference enough between the subjects in which the two Leagues suppose Religion to consist and there is as much in the Rule of the same which both suppose But as to the right which Religion introduceth of maintaining it self by force both Covenants agree in supposing it And thereby found temporall right upon the Grace of Christianity contrary to that which I presuppose from the beginning seeing whatsoever is purchased by such Arms is the production of that Title under which they are born True it is that Religion is not the onely Title of that League or this Covenant both of them pretending as well abuse in Government But it is to be considered on the other side that these two Titles are not subordinate but concurrent That is that this Right of maintaining Religion by force of Arms riseth from the truth of Religion in it self presupposed and not by the establishment of Religion by the Laws of any State for the Religion of the same Because not by that Power by which these Laws were made And therefore by consequence makes those that take Arms and joyn in Covenant supreme Judges of all that is questioned in Religion Which being of much more consideration to all Christians then the good estate of any Commonwealth though both Titles concurre in this War yet it
upon the doing of the act it was to be signified that it might be known what was to be done The Excommunication of Andronicus is by Synesius his eight and fiftieth Epistle signified to the Churches with this protestation That if any Church admitted him without giving satisfaction to theirs it would thereby cause Schism and dissolve the unity of the Church Infinite more might be produced to this purpose for hereupon it is that all Bishops are many times in the Primitive Records of the Church accounted to have a charge of the whole Church because of their interesse to give advise and thereby to concur in the setling of all affairs of other Churches that might conduce to the quiet or unquietnesse of the Whole Which as it was solemnely done by the Assemblies of Synods so it was every day done by this intercourse which in time of Persecution supplied the use of them to better effect then they were found to produce in time of peace And this seems to me a peremptory argument against the Presbyteries because this intercourse was a matter of daily necessity whereas by the design of the Presbyteries there is no standing Body to which the Church can have recourse for assistance in the ordinary occasions thereof which concern other parts but the Presbyteries of Congregations which themselves condemne as uncapable to deal in such matters when they give them not power to excommunicate Therefore it is of consequence that in the greatest residences of the World those Bodies of Churches should be always standing to which the Church might have daily resort either to receive or communicate advise judgement sentence and whatsoever was to passe for the maintenance of unity in the exercise of Christianity so that what there should be received might by consequence be presumed to be received by all Christians contained under the same not having any pretense to oppose such a consent as they were prejudiced with And thus upon the proof of the institution of Churches in Cities it follows that the Power of the Keys and all the productions and branches of the same as to their respective Bodies in concurrence with other Churches of like Rank and dependence on those of higher is by consequence deposited with the same To conceive aright of the correspondence between the Constitution of the Church and the Synagogue which it is manifest our Lord himself pointed at in choosing XII Apostles and LXX Disciples as it is touched here p. 72. we are to deduce it from the vailing of the Gospel within the Law and the discovering of the New Testament by taking away the vail of the Old By reason whereof the Church is the spirituall Israel as the Synagogue was Israel according to the flesh no otherwise then the Gospel is the Law spiritually understood A thing so manifest by all the passages of the Old Testament produced expounded and applied not onely by the Apostles but by our Lord himself in the New that he shall of necessity doe great wrong to Christianity that shall take in hand to maintain it against Judaism without drawing this ground into consequence Now it is manifest that the People of Israel being made a free People by the act of God bringing them out of Aegypt and entitling them to the Land of Promise upon the Covenant of the Law had Moses not onely for their Prophet and chief Priest for by him Aaron and his Successors are put in possession of the Priesthood and the Tabernacle it self and all the pertinences thereof made and consecrated but also for their King their Lawgiver their Judge and Commander in Chief of their forces under God if not rather God by Moses For after the decease of Moses we see that either God by some extraordinary immediate signification of his will and pleasure stirred up some man to be in his stead for the time or if there were none such then he took upon him to rule their proceedings himself in as much as by answering their demands by Vrim and Thummim he directed them what to doe and what courses to follow in the publick affairs that concerned the State of that People Whereupon when they required Samuel to make them a King he declareth that it was not Samuel but himself whom they had rejected because they had rejected him whom God had immediately given them in his own stead so that by his naturall death the Power returned to God as at the beginning Under Moses the XII Heads of the Tribes Representatives of the XII Patriarchs commanded the Militia of their respective Tribes divided into Thousands Hundreds Fifties and Tens which division by divers passages of the Scriptures appears to have continued to after ages without doubt for no other reason but because the Lot of every Tribe was divided amongst them according to the same And the chief of these divisions are they whom Moses upon Jethroes advise assumed to himself to judge the causes of lesse moment referring the greater to him who over and above that charge was to goe between the people and God in all things which he should please immediately to determine as you may see by the Text of Exodus XIX 16 19 20. This Office it is which he assumed afterwards LXX of the Elders of Israel to assist him in which by the Law so often quoted of Deut. XVII 8 are afterwards made a standing Court resident at the place of the Tabernacle to judge the last result of all causes concerning the Law and to determine all matter of Right not determined by the letter of the same So that by consequence the judgement of inferiour causes arising upon the Laws given by God resorteth unto the inferiour Consistories of severall Cities constituted by the Law of Deut. XVI 18. though perhaps partly in the Hands of those Captains before the Laws were altogether provided or put in force which dependeth much on the possession of the Land of Promise This is the reason that those of the High Consistory are called the Elders of Israel but those of other Consistories barely Elders or the Elders of such or such a City as Deut. XXII 2 3. Let thy Elders goe forth and let the Elders of the next City take Thy Elders that is the Elders of Israel So those of the Great Consistory are ordinarily called in the Gospel as also the Scribes of the People and thy Scribes is used there for those of the High Consistory whereas the bare name of Scribes extended far further to other manner of persons As also the bare name of Rulers and that of Rulers of the People of Israel are to be understood with the like difference Now wherein consists the correspondence between the Order of the Church and this of the Synagogue The King of the Church without doubt is our Lord Christ alone who hath absolute Power over it and because he is in heaven his Militia is also heavenly even Michael and his Angels that fight for the Church against the Devil and