Servant to Saul 1 Sam. 22. 12. and David was Lord to Nathan 1 Reg. 1. 24. so neither were the Kings to execute the Sacerdotal Function but were bound to consult their Priests and Prophets as Joshua was Eleazer Num. 27. 21. by God's appointment and David did Abiathar 1 Sam. 23. 6. We are sure Saul Jeroboam Vziah were severely checked for exercising such Acts as formerly belonged to the Priests not that they were debarred from regulating and providing for the due discharge of the Priestly Offices for that is a part of their duty 1 Tim. 2. 1 2. and Arist l. 1. Ethic. c. 13. was herein Orthodox 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but they are to permit the Priests the exercises of their Functions and in matters of Religion to require the Law at their mouths Mal. 2. 7. which all Christian Kings have always granted Mr. Hobbs owneth that after the Ascension of our Lord the power Ecclesiastical was in Apostles after them in such as they had ordained and so delivered downward to others ordained by them and the great Erastian name hath yielded them a power to decide cases of Conscience and to declare what is lawfull what not This was respectively done but he fell far short of the mark for certainly to baptize Proselytes is a larger portion of power than bare interpreting or teaching the Law even a power to admit Members into the Christian Society and in all reason they who have power to admit have power occasionally to exclude hence that Gentleman was forced to confess they had power to bind and loose which in Scripture signifies to forbid and decree which is more than any Casuist or Preacher as such pretends to and is rather proper to a Legislative or Judicial Power which was sometimes exercised by the Church as when the Apostles upon a complaint where no less men than S. Paul and Barnabas were Advocates for the Plaintiffs passed an obligatory Decree Act. 15. 28. 16. 4. That Precept or Permission Tell the Church at least implies the Church had then power to take cognizance of trespasses and to say the civil Magistrate is that Church is ridiculous for then the sense would be Tell the trespass to Constantine three hundred years after it was committed for till then there was no certainly known Christian Emperour and Christians were not by the Discipline of the Church to seek for remedy at heathen Tribunals in the first instance Now as there was a subordination of these Powers so there was a distinction the one was the power of the Sword committed to the civil Magistrate to reward well-doers and to punish evil-doers of all kinds Rom. 13. 4. an Heretick a Schismatick an Idolater or Blasphemer as well as a Thief a Murtherer or a Traitor and this hath its immediate effect upon the outward man body and goods with reference to the concerns of this life Ezr. 7. 26. the other is the power of the Keys to labour in word and Doctrine to exhort and rebuke with all authority to rule well in spiritual concerns to bind and to loose 1 Tim. 1. 17. Tit. 1. 5. Matt. 16. 19. the proper operation whereof is upon the Soul with reference to the world to come There is a difference saith the above cited Joh. Frig. Refor Pol. between Dominion and Jurisdiction neither the Apostles nor chief Bishops exercised Dominion but their Offices having Jurisdiction p. 16. as in France saith he p. 17. the King hath the civil Dominion the Parliaments the Jurisdiction so in England the Queen hath the Dominion but the Bishops the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction hence Arist l. 10. Ethic. c. 9. n. 10. resolves Legislatours are differenced from Practitioners of Faculties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Professours are to Act Legislatours to prescribe rules for acting The King's power is the supreme that of Priests subordinate which difference proceeds not from the natural excellency of the one power above the other but from the all-wise disposition of God who is the chief power empowring as he is said to be natura naturans The Bishops with their subordinate Ministers are the Executours of Christ's last Will and Testament the King is the Supervisor and the Judge too to grant them Letters of Administration Bishops and Priests are the Ministers of Religion Kings are the Rulers of it and them The substance of the whole is the true Sons of the Church of England are the sole Assertors of the King's Supremacy not onely in expressions and complement but in fact and real operation not upon reasons of State or dictates of Prudence but the rule of Conscience which none of the Dissenters therefrom will allow Not the Erastians for they play at fast and loose with the King's Supremacy and by distinctions and limitations fix it certainly no where but make it as variable as their fortunes One of the most esteemed Partizans made this interpretation thereof The King is the supreme Governour but not the supreme Power Gallant Law Sophistry as if it were possible he could govern in chief who had not a power sutable thereto The Independents plead an exemption from it The Presbyterians utterly deny it Such a Supremacy as the Kings claimed and the two Houses of Parliament Erastian-wise craved indeed at first they did but beg it which after they plundred I disclaim said Henderson second Paper num 7. The true Nonconformist makes it the main work of his Book to charge it with Antichristianism The Pontificians perfectly abhor it The Prelatists are the onely defenders of it The Pontificians make Kings their Churches Ministers and Presbyterians make them their Kirk Ministers not the Ministers of God The Erastians and Independents are agreed they are originally the People's Ministers not God's The Prelatists assent with the Law of Christ and the Laws of the Kingdom the King is God's Minister Rom. 13. The Presbyterians and Independents resolve the Kingdom is in and under the Church and then the Government of that must be conformed to that of this If then the Presbyterians be rampant the civil Government must be Aristocratical If the Independents be the masters of Misrule it must be Democratical but if it happen the Erastians be the Sultans then the Game is King and no King at the best he is but their Trustee he must stand on his good behaviour and pass his accounts to the Patriots for the contracting good People If the Pope be the great Cham the civil Government must truckle SECT 3. To bring the matter nearer home there was a time when the blades of Fortune in 40 thought it prudent to declare they had no intentions for any alterations It was when the Earl of Essex his Army had scented and followed the Scent very hotly and when the King had objected the designs amongst them they formed a Declaration to renounce all such purposes Aug. 9. 42. as before they had protested against it as a slander and for once such an one as the Father of lies had
the Elderships should have the power of excommunicating all offenders even Princes themselves Hereupon in a just indignation he expressed his abhorrence of this bold seditious Proposition yet with great indiscretion he causelesly vented his wrath against Excommunication as it was a Church Discipline His Arguments improved by his Followers are these He supposed Excommunication did totally cut off the excommunicated from the internal and invisible Communion of the Church whereupon his Followers argued If the power of Excommunication be in the Church Officers then it lies in their power to save or damn men But his supposition is false and the inference of his Followers is wild as one and the most learned of them hath observed for he saith finis hujusmodi disciplinae c. The end of this discipline not final Sentence was is so still that the censured being deprived of the spiritual privileges of the Church they might be humbled to salvation This is the whole truth and nothing but the truth for its onely a barr from the external visible Society of Believers not to exclude men from heaven but to encline them to put themselves in a capacity to be received again into the peace of the Church for the enjoyment of those great privileges of holy commerce which all men religiously affected earnestly desire and value A method of Discipline which Christ and his Apostles thought proper to reduce and reclaim sinners It is medicinal in Saint Augustine's expression To. 9. Serm. de Poeniten med if that Tract be his ordained and applied for edification not destruction if for destruction it is for that of the Flesh that the Spirit might be saved 1 Cor. 5. 15. or it s a Chastisement the censured are thereby chastised of the Lord that they should not be condemned with the world 1 Cor. 11. 32. which Chastisement is not sweet or joyous for the present but grievous yet yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby Heb. 12. 11. 2. Excommunication say they is a censure inferring a civil Penalty therefore if the Church makes use of it she enlargeth her Phylacteries by an encroachment on the civil Power But where do those wrathfull Objectours find this or how can they prove it It was always reckoned in the Catalogue of spiritual gifts practised by the Church for spiritual ends and uses and exercised upon the members of the Church qua tales in that capacity onely if upon contempt hereof a civil Penalty was incurred this proceeded not from the quality and nature of the censure but from the authority of the civil Magistrate who so far respected the Church that he made provisions against the contempt of her Discipline That which the Church aims at is either to reduce the offender or to warn others or to discharge her duty in discountenancing and disowning dangerous prevailing Heresies Schisms and Scandals all which are of spiritual concernment and cognizance 3. The Bishops claim this power by Divine Right and why not Forsooth this is contrary to the Oath of Supremacy and sets up two Supremes in one Kingdom This is an high Charge I am persuaded if the great Turk was acquainted with this noble Argument he would in a rage destroy all the poor Christian Bishops in his Empire or else he would scorn and deride it as it justly deserveth For the Argument runs thus Ministers by a Divine Right challenge a power to baptize Proselytes communicate Christians and doe other offices belonging to their Functions Therefore they set up two Supremes in one Kingdom or thus The Scripture declareth the Holy Ghost made them Overseers to feed the Church of God sure they may pretend to Divine Right who derive their title from the Holy Ghost Therefore the Scripture contradicteth that Supremacy which it establisheth But in sober sadness did none of the first Christian Emperours or after Kings understand their Religion and Prerogative did they ever declare the Imperial and Episcopal power were incompatible were they all so blind they could not espie this so obvious an inconsistency or did any of our own great Councils before that of 40. ever make such a determination As for our own Kingdom we may without disparagement to their great wisedoms compare many of our Kings with the ablest of any or all of them King Henry the Eighth was a wise Prince one that would not bate an Ace of his Sovereignty yet he never scrupled at the Divine Right of Episcopacy Q. Elizabeth was as jealous of her Prerogative and as zealous for it as the highest and most masculine Spirit yet she reverenced and maintained the Order The greatest for Learning and Judgment the Father and the Son were as Prelatical as the Prelatists What King James his opinion was of Episcopacy is before related what it was concerning his Supremacy which he cogently asserted he thus expressed Premonition p. 108. It consists not in making Articles of Faith but in commanding obedience be given to the word of God in reforming Religion according to his prescribed will in assisting the spiritual Power this is to be noted with the temporal Sword in procuring due obedience to the Church mark this too in judging and cutting off all frivolous Questions and Schisms as Constantine did and finally in making a decorum to be observed in all things and establishing Order in all indifferent things King Charles the First of blessed memory hath above and beyond all others resolved the case in his answer to Henderson's Papers in his Reply to the Answer of the Isle of Wight Divines Rel. Car. fol. 691. and in his final Answer fol. 709. Sir Henry Spelman in his large History of Titles p. 157. thus stated it God hath committed the Tabernacle to Levi as well as the Kingdom to Judah and though Judah hath power over Levi as touching the outward Government even of the Temple it self yet Judah meddled not with the Oracle and the holy Ministery but received the will of God from the mouth of the Priest This is evident God for the promoting of Piety and Justice among men hath ordained two distinct Powers the Regal and the Sacerdotal which in the times of the Patriarchs were formally united and inseparably followed the first born of the male kind in every Family This he seemed to alter in the persons of Moses and Aaron investing Moses the younger Brother with the Regality Aaron the elder in the Priesthood both these received their Commissions from God Num. 16. Every power is the Ordinance of God but the Regal as Supreme the Sacerdotal as Subordinate which subordination is not essential or causal but moral by virtue of God's Constitution and accidental for Order's sake Certainly God who gives all power can order a subordination of powers derived from him the one to be superiour the other inferiour and God was pleased to dispose the distribution of those under the Mosaical dispensation that as the Priests were not to usurp the Regal for Abimelech was
the seventy Disciples which were not empty Titles but had distinct Offices the former not onely invested with dignities above the other but with power over them as appears by the Election of Matthias Now Christ was entrusted with the Keys Isa 22. 22. and honoured with the Sceptre Psal 45. 6. God committing the Government to him as the great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls 1 Pet. 2. 25. having the Key of David Rev. 3. 7. This he ordered by an immutable Law which neither could expire or be repealed For all power was given to him both in Heaven and Earth Matt. 28. 18. a power not onely to protect but to rule the Church not onely to rule the Consciences of its Members but externally to order and administer it as a publick Society a power to rule in himself or by Proxy and Delegates therefore it follows in the exhibition thereof that charge Go ye c. v. 19. without demurr or dispute For I have the power to commission you and do command you to execute it I have received it from my Father thus to exercise that power and empower you and to it I was solemnly consecrated by the descent of the Holy Ghost as S. Luke expresseth it Act. 10. 38. God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power which at least imports thus much As by the ceremony of anointing God promoted persons to high Dignities and Offices so Christ was regularly advanced to his prelatical Function to be the first and chief Bishop in the Christian Church from whose fulness all others were to receive grace for grace Num. 2. Christ having performed this Office in person took care that after his Ascension into Heaven the holy Apostles should succeed him whom he separated for this Office and over and above authorised them to depute and substitute others to keep the succession of Rulers This he consigned and passed over to them Luk. 22. 29. I appoint you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed me Accordingly at the octaves of his Resurrection he both confirmed them Joh. 20. 21. As my Father hath sent me even so I send you and also consecrated them by that solemn Form ever since observed in the Catholick Church either in terms or words equivalent Receive ye the Holy Ghost This fully conserred on them the habitual power which actually they were not licensed to exercise till as he was they were authorized by the descent of the Holy Ghost and endued with power Luk. 24. 49. which happened soon after his Ascension Eph. 4. 11. when he took off this suspension and at Pentecost sent the promise of the Father upon them the Comforter Joh. 15. 26. the Holy Ghost Act. 1. 8. And so they were baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire which sate upon each of them Act. 2. 3. that every of them might be a respective Plenipotentiary in the Administration of his Kingdom This sitting of the Fire upon each of them as it destroyeth the Erastian Supposition for the Apostles were neither Civilians nor common Lawyers or Statesmen so it prejudgeth both the Papal and Presbyterian pretensions The Papal because it sate not upon one S. Peter which might have entitled him to a Jurisdiction over the rest but upon each of them that what power one of them had all and each of them had For before Christ had warranted to them twelve Thrones for every Apostle one Matt. 19. 28. as Camero hath observed that every one might enjoy the same entire authority and supremacy The Presbyterian because it sate not upon all as fellow Collegues or Common-council-men but as so many single Persons not that they could not or did not for a time act jointly but that it sate upon all and every of them so that the power was granted to them jointly and severally whereupon when they took their circuits to their several apartments they severally exercised their Function and Office Bullinger's conjecture is We have no Canonical Records of the Government of the Church but in the Acts of the Apostles where the Platform is described and exemplified in the person of S. Paul from whose example and practice we are to conclude how the rest of the Apostles first planted and then governed the Church Bul. part 2. Epit. Tempor rerum Tab. 6. de Apostal c. But evident it is S. Paul acted as a single person without any dependence upon all or any of the Twelve Therefore if this observation hold all the rest planted and governed severally if this fail the state and condition of their employment will enforce it For if they depended after the College was broken up upon any one or the whole Community they could not effectually have executed their Commission because upon every exigent especially when they removed from one Province to another they must have had the consent of that one or the whole to license and authorize them which was utterly impossible to obtain For they then being dispersed into several Regions of great distance one from another they must give up their work till at every occasion they had received orders whether to undertake and how to manage it Very few or none of them knew where to find S. Peter if they did they had no Post-office to transmit and return expresses and the College after it was dissolved never assembled again Impossible therefore it was for them to execute their Commission validly under those circumstances unless each of them had been a Plenipotentiary by the tenour thereof Num. 3. As Christ invested the Apostles with this power in a due subordination to himself so they in virtue of his investiture were to constitute others to succeed them in the principals thereof Confessedly the Apostolical Office was to reside in the Church for ever So J. O. Independ Catech. p. 119. and the ordained by them were of the same Order with them so WÃ lo p. 43 44 144. upon which account the title of Apostles was allowed in Scripture to many of those whom the Apostles had separated for the work of the Ministery Calvin speaks faintly to the point on 1 Cor. 4. 9. Tales interdum vocat Apostolos malo tamen c. yet at last he comes off more frankly telling us plainly who those us Apostles last were Qui in ordinem Apostolicum post Christi Resurrectionem asciti fuerunt As Apollo Sylvanus Pisc c. is very liberal S. Paul gave them this title Eo quod eodem munere fungerentur Saint James was ordained Bishop of Jerusalem by the Apostles in the nineteenth of Tiberius saith Blondel in Chron. p. 43. the next year after Christ's Ascension by his account which in his censure of the Pontifical Epistles he affirms from all antiquity and Walo p. 20. assures us he was none of the Twelve yet he is called an Apostle Gal. 1. 19. which Blondel Apol. pro sent Hier. p. 50. thus confirms Saint Matthew the Apostle was a Bishop and Saint James the Bishop was called
pretend great zeal against Ignorance and Sin and the other is aggrieved at promiscuous Communions though both of them by their barkings and bawlings against this Church and the Discipline and Government thereof have and do still obstruct the methods which she hath provided as remedies against those maladies Now that those Offices which she hath determined for those ends are proper and very instrumental through the assistence of the Divine grace which accompanies and inanimates them to devoutly affected Christians most effectual thereto they will be necessitated to acknowledge by observing the Order prescribed which lies thus Every Infant is to be solemnly matriculated into the Church by holy Baptism these baptized in a competent time are to be catechised in the principles of Christian Religion and then to be confirmed by the Bishop and are required to give attention to the reading and preaching of the word of God Being thus prepared they are admittable to the great mystery of the holy Eucharist and for neglect of these means the offenders are liable to the censures of the Church That these methods are Scriptural and Apostolical most of the Dissenters acknowledge some of them indeed scruple at Confirmation but Calvin conceives it to be originally Apostolical with whom more than a whole Jury of reformed Divines have given in their Verdict Mr. Baxter thinketh it would quiet the wrangle about the formality of a Church Covenant and Membership Mr. Brinsley of Yarmouth was of opinion it would remove all the fears and jealousies of vain Disputers Calvin is positive this office was performed by the Bishop from the beginning and Mr. Dallee commends that of S. Hier. Episcopus c. in Dial. inter Orth. and Lucef In this I blame the Presbyterians and Independents because at present they hang together by the tails but for all the fair copies of their Countenances if their wished and laboured for turn come their faces will look several ways If the Presbyterians get the start and keep their ground for a while they will soon proclaim the Independents to be Babylonians If the Independents once more out-wit the Presbyterians and turn them out of power and trust then the Independents will face about and tell them roundly they are Egyptians SECT 5. As for the Papists the best they can brag on is their unity of which they rant highly that they and they onely have found out the true way to it this is a mere bravado to which a wise and learned person made heretofore this return viz. Let me see the Jesuits and Seculars reconciled in England a Dominican and Jesuit in Doctrinal Papistry French and Italians in state Papistry then I shall allow them a little to vapour their oral and conclave Traditionists are hard at it in their confutations of each other their great heads of Unity Pope Sixtus and Clemens fell very foul one with another they cannot agree about the Supremacy of a Pope and a Council nor which of their four or five Churches is the infallible one the Popes and Councils have declared several ways upon the points which obviates their common shift viz. Their clashings and bickerings are but in scholastick opinions and niceties for then the definitions of Popes and Councils are no matters of Faith But here again they quarrel for some assert a Doctrine is heretical by its repugnancy to what is revealed by Christ others affirm a Doctrine is heretical because the Church hath declared so it s the former sort thus confutes If the Doctrine be heretical from the Churches declaration then the Church hath power to make Articles of Faith about which also there is a great bustle among them for some of them peremptorily deny the Church hath any power to make Articles of Faith but most of the Canonists and all the Popes Exchequer men affirm it so schismatically are they divided about their Church the Head thereof with the terms and objects of their pretended Unity when these are smartly objected to them their onely salvo is Their Rule would be a means to hold them in unity if it were followed Very good for the plain English of this is their Rule about which they so smartly wrangle and concerning which they could never yet agree will or may be a means of unity when they are agreed about it In opposition whereto we assert the Rule which we propose is not flexible like theirs but infallible viz. the sure word of God duly applied for the application whereof we take in the consentient judgment of the universal Church in matters of Faith and in points of practice the constant usage thereof these we stand to because if they be not the true means of unity the true Church of God which always relied on these and no other had never any If to this some Romanists give assent as some of them do they are so far English Episcopal Protestants From all which premised there is great reason and good warranty to conclude that under the Government of King and Bishops the Civil Power is most safely fixed mixt Communion Ignorance and Sin are most effectually provided against Unity and Obedience storngly guarded therefore whatsoever good or desirable can be expected from Erastianism Presbyterianism Independency or Popery is really experimented in Episcopacy and therefore this in true polity ought to be retained and supported the other modes are not to be admitted or entertained not the Erastians for they play at fast and loose with Kings and the Church they respect no Government present to which their submission is compliance not obedience Not the Presbyterians for they encroach upon and vilifie Kingly authority if they find a King they will if they dare shackle him or in our Northern expression houghband him Not the Independents for with them Kings are the Peoples Creatures and Trustees neither will they permit him with their good wills to intermeddle in Church Affairs Not the Pontificians for reasons given by the learned Doctor Stillingfleet and that honourable Person who seconded him It is therefore the clear interest of the Crown if it would have a Church National to govern by it ought to be Protestant Episcopal as a late ingenious Writer hath observed lest if it be held of the Pope Kirk or People in Capite it totter and fall That Probleme which Dr. Prideaux Ep. Ded. ad fasc Contro An suprematus Papalis sit potiùs Antichristianus quà m Presbyterianus aut Enthusiasticus may hence easily be resolved if we be not too palpably partial we must declare them all or none at all to be Tyrannical or Antichristian The best Argument ever yet produced to prove the Pope to be Antichrist is his bold challenge over all Kings and Monarchs to depose them and dispose of their Crowns and Dignities which if it be good it will hold as strongly against all other Sectaries for they are as truly the Limbs of Antichrist who preach and press Rebellion against their lawfull Sovereign and those commissionated by
him upon a Puritan Vote or Republican Resolution as they who prove and prosecute it upon the Pope's Placet or Fiat that cannot be the mystery of Godliness and Saintship in a Presbyterian or Independent which is presumed to be the mystery of Iniquity in the Pope and if the Doctrine of Rebellion be the mark of the Beast in a Pontifician it cannot be a sign of Election in a Smectymnuan or Owenist for if the Pope by the plenitude of his power can discharge Subjects from the Oath and bonds of Allegiance then the Sectaries by what names or titles soever divided or subdivided can free themselves upon easier terms for one will absolve himself by a dormant dispensation of the spirit another excuse himself by the pretence of a new light a third will plead Providence a fourth Conscience and the Blades of Fortune will stand upon their privileges The result of this tedious Chapter is God had always a Church this Church had always a Government this was always detemined by God who in the first Ages of the world settled this power on the first-born who were both Kings and Priests after he separated these Offices Moses to hold the Kingly power Aaron the Priestly yet he so ordered that the Priestly power should be subordinate to the Regal he foretold the like order should be established in the Christian Church that Nations should flow into it Isa 2. 2. and the Kings of those Nations should be nursing Fathers to it Isa 49. 23. that together with them should be spiritual Fathers Bishops as Prefects therein Isa 60. 17. for Clement according to that Copy which the Apostle useth reads that Comma thus viz. I will make thy Bishops peace so do the Seventy who in nineteen other places render the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bishop so Pagnine from R. Abraham and Buxtorf what we translate Office Psal 109. 8. they reade Prefecture which S. Peter Acts 1. 2. calls Bishoprick what was thus prophesied God in the fulness of time determined by his all-wise providence verified when the Church was first governed by our Lord Jesus Christ who had under him Commission-officers his Apostles and under them the Seventy Disciples After his Ascension and descent of the Holy Ghost the Apostles ruled in chief having Attendants and Assistants to them whom they after substituted as the necessities of the Church required for Bishops with Deacons and Priests under their Jurisdiction Thus the Church stood and was governed for 300 years till the nursing Fathers appeared then and ever since Kings and Bishops have presided in it Kings having the Dominion Bishops the Jurisdiction in the Catholick Church This was one great end of the Reformation to restore our Kings and Bishops to their universally acknowledged Rights due to them by Divine Law this of all other Governments is the most Christian rational and practicable because most suiting with the main end of Government which is that we may live quiet and peaceable lives without any Faction or Schism in all godliness and honesty and this therefore and no other is to be retained in the Church both upon the true measures of piety and prudence CHAP. IV. THE next thing canvassed in this Church is the constituted Worship of God by Liturgy with Ceremonies and Holy-days SECT 1. If it can be evinced that prescribed Forms were used in the Three first Centuries it will follow in the judgment of all unprejudiced persons they are still to be practised and imposed Num. 1. Our Lord and Saviour prescribed a Form to his Disciples Matt. 6. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not onely for the Matter but very Form for this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. is the same with that Numb 6. 23. according to the Septuagint which did not respect onely the Substance but the Words as they were dictated S. Luke makes it clear When ye pray say Verba recitationem certam praescribit saith Melanch he gave them an Express saith Diod. long before them S. Cypr. de Orat. Dom. Christ consulting the salvation of his people delivered them Etiam orandi Formam and before him Tert. de Or. c. 1 9. Novam c. he ordered a new Form of Prayer and before them both in Trajan's Reign the Christians ordinarily used it as our Greg. observ'd from Lucian The Context will confirm the interpretation for it is generally received the Jewish Teachers did compose Forms for their Disciples S. John Baptist did whereupon Christ's Disciples moved him also for a Form Luk. 11. 1. that thereby they might be owned for such In compliance whereto our Saviour granted their Petition yet with that caution to decline novelty that he took much of it from the Jewish Euchologue as not onely our Greg. hath noted but Drusius also and Capellus plain it is from the manner of its composure it was not delivered as a Directory but as a Liturgy not onely as a Rule to form our Prayers by but a form to pray in good reasons also there are to persuade us notwithstanding the silence of the Scripture that the Disciples constantly so used it for it was a Symbol of their Discipleship not unto them as common Jews who onely used the Church Ritual but as Christ's retainers whose privilege and honour it was to have a Form of his setting they under this relation moved him for a Form in order to its observation and to discriminate them from other Jews or Disciples of other Masters Num. 2. Our Saviour himself practised composed Forms Matt. 26. 30. which Cam. assures us was the solemn customary Hymn which concluded the Supper and it is the more probable because the Disciples joyned with Christ in it which they could not have done unless they had been well acquainted with it Again he used the same prayer thrice Matt. 26. 44. so upon his complaint upon the Cross he used the words of David Psal 22. 1. and when he gave up the Ghost Luk. 23. 46. he took a Form from Psal 31. 7. Num. 3. We have the Presidents of S. Peter and S. John attending the ordinary service Acts 3. 1. which the circumstances of time and place do evince for if they neglected the daily Service or used any other they would have given an offence to the Jews whose conversion they endeavoured this is confirmed from that observation of learned men that the first Christians accommodated all their Offices to the Jewish Ritual and revived the moral Service of God practised in the Jewish Church which was always by a determinate Form saith Capel from Maim Syn. Crit. in Loc. and appears from Luk. 1. 10. compared with Rev. 8. 4. for at the time of Incense they had three Forms called Emeth Gnaboah and Shemshalom because they began with these words Lightf Desc of the Temple Service Mr. Selden in his Notes on Eut. p. 41. from Maim relates The Jews were permitted to have their voluntary prayers yet not on the Sabbath
c. as having many singular fine Wits among them whereas the Puritans have none but grossum Caputs so that if matters come to handling between Jesuits and them they are sure to be ridden like fools but had he lived from 41 till 80. he would have found they were as great Artists in the mysteries of iniquity as his Brethren the Jesuits or himself For they have a more Serpentine and subtile way in training up their Proselytes and Novices upon these three accounts 1. They initiate them with Fastings solemn Vows and Promises Sermons and Sacraments though thereby they prostitute all the Ordinances of God to enchant and bind them fast in the Confederacy 2. They then instruct them in the most refined mysteries of equivocating and mental reservation Ferguson Dr. Owen's Champion and Lob Mr. Baxter's Second shall vie Loyalty with any Jesuit and practise Treason as cleverly and out-doe them too in a Plot. Lewes the usurper of a Loyal Minister's Living at Totnam-high-Cross by a Farce educated his Scholars for he was a Schoolmaster to Gentlemens Sons as well as Preacher to the People in the art of King-killing by setting up an High-Court of Justice arraigning condemning and cutting off the head of a Shock-water-Dog Mr. Long 's Comp. Hist of Plots p. 186. so that after our Church and State-menders are moulded into a Faction the Jesuits may go to School to them to receive full instructions in the art they had learned them yet here is a trick the Jesuits never taught them which is to be so fool-hardy as to threaten the Government which both of late and heretofore they have done Cartwright's Prayer was Give us grace as one man to set our selves against the Bishops Penry in his Supplication threatned the very Parliament with bloud-shed if they did not reform Vdal in great confidence said Presbytery shall prevail and come in that way and by that means as shall make all their hearts to ake that shall withstand it all this last clause is extant in the Records of the Star-Chamber The Confessions and Subscriptions of Coppinger and Arthington are found in Dr. Cosins his Book entituled Conspiracy for a pretended Reformation From all which premisses it abundantly appears they are a traiterous turbulent hypocritical and singular Sect and therefore no true Christians no true Protestants 3. They teach their followers never to confess when examined by lawfull authority or if they do yet so auckwardly and ambiguously that nothing can be fairly concluded which they industriously doe to obstruct justice and so baffle the Law that it cannot have its due course against the vilest and rankest Mutineers This in one old instance new ones abound from Ful. Hist l. 9. p. 209. That Mr. Stone freely declared contrary it seems to the judgment of the main body of the Faction that silence unlawfull which justly causeth suspicion of evil as of Treason and Sedition See more in Bishop Bancroft's Survey which how frequently of late hath been practised is too notorious SECT 5. Seeing then the Puritan principles are as dangerous as the Jesuitical and their practices when prosperous as destructive no reason can be assigned by the received rules of common prudence why Puritans should enjoy the privileges of comprehension c. and the Papists debarred For common prudence will determine all under the same guilt should be liable to the same sentence of condemnation What the reasons of State may be to grant a toleration or privilege to one party and not to the other is not to be disputed or sawcily examined by inferiours or if the Government please to relax or repeal the Laws to both This is plain the higher power may with as good reason dispense with the execution of the Law as inferiour whether Charter or Commission Officers may wave and in a manner out-law them in favour of a party though thereby they run the hazard of perjury and perfidiousness All wise men as a great wise man hath observed desire to live under such a Government where the Prince with a good conscience may remit the rigour of the Laws as for those that are otherwise minded I wish them no other punishment but this that the penal Laws may be strictly executed upon them till they reform their judgment If therefore the arguments which are alledged for the standing of the Laws against Papists be good as I am persuaded they are then the same reasons will much more evince the Laws against Puritans should still be upheld which will the better appear if those arguments be produced and applied They are these 1. The question is whether Treason be not Treason because a man thinks himself bound in Conscience to commit it It is resolved in the affirmative This turns the Puritans pretence of Conscience in the like cases quite out of doors for no man's Conscience can alter the nature of things that that which is evil should become good because his Conscience that is his corrupted judgment tells him it is so or that which is good to become evil by a persuasion of Conscience that is because he is so instructed or conceited Now the Jesuits are as strait laced in their Consciences as the Puritans are thinking themselves as fast bound by the Popes Decrees and their own Vows as the Puritans do from their Swearings and Leaguings or from the Votes and Resolutions of their Demagogues 2. Whether Magistrates have not reason to make severe Laws when dangerous and destructive principles to Government are embraced as part of Religion It is affirmed Here the case is the same again both parties aver the lawfulness of resisting the civil Magistrate under colour of Religion both hold the same treasonable principles in substance and terms differing onely in the power to warrant them The Jesuits deriving it from the Pope the Puritans from the determinations of their Kirk Assemblies or their Patriots and this we know this Kingdom would never endure to be so far enslaved to the Pope as it was to that traiterous Crew Intestine broils confusions and usurpations are more destructive than the challenges and filchings of a Foreigner and our late glorious King said It was more honourable for a King to be invaded and almost destroyed by a foreign enemy than to be despised at home Bibl. Reg. p. 286. 3. Civil Magistrates have in them a natural inherent right and power to preserve the Government and punish those who disturb it or would overthrow it and therefore an authority to judge of those actions which are dangerous to it This hath been determined by the Civil Magistrate that the actions of both have been and are dangerous to the Government and over and above that the actions of the Puritans tend to the dishonour of God to the prejudice and ruine of the safety and peace both of Church and Kingdom witness the preambles to the first and second Acts of Uniformity and many more 4. Where there is a suspicion of a number of persons not easily discerned