other Two according to common acceptation rather respect the governing and cleansing of Christs Church and therefore in the opinion of some no reason they should be committed to the power of every Presbyter as the Word and Sacraments are as Independents and Presbyters would have it For as there can be no order but confusion in a Common-wealth where every man ruleth so would there be no peace but confusion in the Church of Christ if every Presbyter might impose hands and use the Keys at his pleasure Though the Presbyter of each Church had charge of the Word and Sacraments even in the Apostles times yet might they not impose hands nor use the Keys without the Apostles or such as the Apostles departing or dying left to be their Substitutes and Successors in the Churches which they had planted At Samaria Philip preached and baptized 8 Acts 5.12 and albeit he dispensed the Word and Sacraments yet could he not impose hands on them but Peter and John came from Hierusalem and laid their hands on them and so they received the Holy Ghost 8. Acts 14.17 The Churches of Lystra 14. Acts 20. Iconium and Antioch were planted before yet were Paul and Barnabas forced at their return to increase the number of Presbyters in each of those places by Imposition of their hands v. 23. The Churches of Ephesus and Crete were erected by Paul and had their Presbyters yet could they not create others but Timothy and Titus were left there to impose hands and ordain Elders in every City as occasion required Tim. 1.5 Tit. 1.5 § Having thus briefly seen what Powers Christ left unto his Ministers to continue in the Church let us now consider to whom he committed them To whom were committed the Powers Christ left to continue in the Church I find several persons under several Names and Titles to whom these powers were committed and by them shared as Apostles Prophets Evangelists Teachers Pastors and Deacons § Touching the Apostles whom the Bishops did succeed they probably had a superior Vocation and Jurisdiction above Prophets and Evangelists Pastors Teachers Deacons and the 70 Disciples in the Church of God and had the government and oversight of them which will soon appear If we consider what Paul writeth of himself and unto them directing and appointing what to do and how to be conversant in the Church of God what to refrain in themselves what to rebuke in others In which cases it is not to be said that the Apostle presumed above his calling or had a several Commission distinct from the rest of the Apostles But in his doings and Writings we may perceive the height and strength of Apostolic Authority so guided by the spirit of wisdom that it displeased none in the Church but the proud and contentious troublers of the Church such as drew Disciples after them to reign over their Brethren or seduced the simple to serve their own turns as Diotrephes 3 John 9. These Prerogatives were so proper to the Apostles that no Evangelist nor Prophet in the New Testament came near it § Touching Prophets Prophets they were such as having otherwise learned the Gospel had a special gift of expounding Scriptures bestowed on them from above and of foreshewing things to come of this sort was Agabus and sundry others in Jerusalem Acts 11.27 Acts 21.10 who notwithstanding are not therefore to be reckoned with the Clergy because no mans gifts or qualities can make a Minister of Holy things unless Ordination do give him power And we no where find Prophets to have been made by Ordination but all whom the Church did ordain were to serve either as Presbyters or Deacons § Touching Evangelists they were Presbyters of principal sufficiency Evangelists whom the Apostles sent abroad and used as Agents in Ecclesiastical affairs wheresoever they saw need such were Annanias Acts 9.18 Apollos Acts 18.27 Timothy 2 Tim. 3.15.5.14.28 and others and were thus employed In Trajans days according to Eusebius many of the Apostles Disciples and Scholars to shew their willing minds in execution of that which Christ first of all required at the hands of Men they sold their Possessions gave them to the poor and undertook the labour of * Evangelista 1º qui Evangelium scripsit ut Matcus Luca c. 2º qui annunciat missus vel primo a Christo ante mortem sio 70 discipuli 10 Luke Vel 2º ab Apostolis sic Timotheus dicitur Evangelista a Paulo constitutus Presbyter Episcopus 3º A Christo post resurrectionem sic Annanias Acts 9.18 Evangelists they painfully preached Christ and delivered the Gospel to them who as yet had never heard the Doctrine of Faith § Touching Pastors and Teachers Pastors Teachers they were no other than Presbyters howbeit setled in some certain charge and thereby differing from Evangelists which title the Apostles likewise gave themselves 1 Pet. 1.5 The Elders which are among you I exhort who am also an Elder Albeit that Name was not proper but common unto them with others for of Presbyters some were greater some less in power and that by our Saviours own appointment the greater they which received fulness of spiritual power the less they to whom less was granted § Unto these 2 degrees appointed by Christ the Apostles soon after his Ascension annexed Deacons by Ordination Deacons whose office at first was to distribute the Churches Goods to provide therewith for the Poor and to see that all things of expence might be faithfully disposed of and they were also to attend upon the Presbyters at the time of Divine Service § By all which it appears that Churches Apostolic did know but 3 degrees in the power of Ecclesiastical order 1. Apostles 2. Presbyters 3. Deacons and afterwards instead of Apostles Bishops whether Bishops and Presbyters were two distinct Orders or one and the same I will not here enquire into only this is plain and beyond all contradiction viz. they have one and the same Ordination and Commission and not different and distinct and thereby become more essentially Officers of the Church § Many Errors have been broached and maintained and not without some more than ordinary warmth among the Ecclesiasties meerly through inadvertency through confounding and want of right distinguishing Services Offices and Orders Ecclesiastical the first of which three and in part the second may be executed by the Laity during which execution only they differ from others of the Laity which works and services they also may give over at any time and are no more of the Essence of the Church than Widows or indeed any other Laicks now are or were of old for that they are not admitted into the Church nor tyed by irrevocable Ordination as Bishops Presbyters and Deacons are which makes them to be of the Essence or more especially Officers of the Church These things considered there is no reason we should alter the Apostles Discipline without the Apostles warrant Produce that and we
teach his Body the Church all things and should continue with them unto the end of the World § For soon after his Ascention the Apostles together with the rest of the Body being met together in a great Assembly and after they had prayed the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and great Grace was upon them all 4. Act. 31.32.33 and accordingly the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every Man to profit withal to one the Word of Wisdome to another the Word of Knowledge to another faith c. and all by the same Spirit 1. Cor. 12.7.8 and all these for the edifying of the Body of Christ 4. Eph. 12 For though the Body be one yet hath it many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body whereof Christ is the head 1. Cor. 12.12 In the visible Government of the Church Christ appointed and instituted a Priesthood in which likewise it is dissimilar to all temporal Governments which quodam sensuis Independent of the Church though touching the application of the Authority to the Person it is elective and depending of the Body of the Church under this Priesthood is comprehended Bishops and Presbiters now what their Authority and Powers are vide their Commission 28. Mat. 19.20 go teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and loe I am with you always unto the end of the world other Powers besides these and laying on of hands especially coercive I know none derived unto them by any text of Scripture These Bishops these Presbiters these Ministers or Pastors are not Lords and Masters as in the Roman Church but are Servants to the Body of the Church For we preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your Servants for Jesus sake 2. Cor. 4.5 and these Authorities are not coercive but are given them to exhort reprove rebuke beseech intreat for Christs sake and by the mercies of God c. 12. Rom. 3. chap. 15.30 1 Thes 4.1 according to the Doctrines Precepts Rules and Commands set down in Scripture which are able to make us wise unto Salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus and which is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for Correction for instruction in righteousness that the Man of God may be perfected throughly furnished to all good works 2 Tim. 3.16.17 These and such like only are all the Powers that belong unto the Priesthood by any Law of God and there is no need of any other for what concerns punishment for Sins or the breach of moral Duties or municipal laws the Body hath Power to make laws and ordain punishments for any of its Members § I know that they have a long time hooked in by Head and shoulders a kind of coercive Power Excommunication by usurping to themselves the Power of Excommunication a thing I must confess that hath made a great noise and buzz in the world but in truth a magnificum nihil a meer ignis fatuus there being no such thing in the whole new Testament as now used and that which Pope and Presbiter would have to be it is as much in the Power of the Laicks against them as in them against the Laicks and most truly in the Body of the Church In the Romish Church the Bishop or his Vicar excommunicateth without the advice or participation of any many times also the Register only and that which is most important by Authority deligated a Clark of the first Tonsure deputed Comissary in some slight Cause doth excommunicate a Priest Yea Leo. 10. in the Council of Lateran in the 11. Session by a perpetual constitution of his hath granted faculty to a secular person to excommunicate the very Bishops and that which doth more import Navar saith c. 27 no. 11. that if any man shall obtain an excommunication of some Prelate if the obtainer shall not have an intent that the party be excommunicated he shall not be excommunicated moreover he saith ch 23. num 104. that the excommunication pronounced by the Law it self against him that payeth not a Pension for example sake on the Vigil of the Nativity is not incurred by him that payeth it not no not in many month's and years after if the Creditor thereof would not have it incurred But if on the other side after many Month's or Years he would have it incurred it is reputed to have been incurred from the day of the debt from the Vigil of the Nativity and so is the stile of the Court but the Council of Trent hath now expresly provided otherwise Ses 25. c. 3 forbidding secular Princes that they hinder not Prelates to excommunicate nor command that any excommunication be revoked considering that this is no part of their Office by this you may in little see what a nose of wax is made of excommunication and all this and much more grounded and occasioned from wrong Glosses put upon plain Texts But of this more fully hereafter § Though the Congregational men have not fully modelled out unto us the Platform of their Government and Discipline as the Presbyterians have done yet in general they do affirm Independency and Church-Government that to each gathered Church Christ hath given all Power and Authority requisite unto that Order and Discipline which he hath instituted for them to observe and to execute the same with Commands and Rules as before And negatively that there is not instituted by Christ any person or Church more extensive or Catholick entrusted with Power over other Churches and that each particular Church consists of Officers and Members which Members they call Brethren and the Officers they stile Pastors Teachers Elders and Deacons and that there are no stated Synods in a fixed combination of Churches nor any Synods appointed by Christ in any way of sub-ordination to one another nor no one Church to have Power of Censures but of inspection only over other Churches and Members thereof that Counsel and Advice might mutually be communicated That it was so in the days of the Apostles and continued so for some Generations after every Individual gathered Church every Christian Societie as it is natural to all Societies as well Christian as Civil governing it self by its own Laws and Constitutions whithout being obliged to any other superintendency hapily is so manifest that it would not be gainsaid But when the Church became planted and spread its Branches and took root in divers Nations and whole Common-wealths became Christian and Kings and Queens and other Civil Governments became Nursing-Fathers and Mothers of the Church then of necessity for the quiet state of the whole the case came to be altered it being then impossible that every individual Member or Brother of any Christian Kingdom or Common-wealth should personally meet to make Laws
and Judicature one of the other is not denied by any Protestant Divines that I know of and it is or ought to be as little gain-said that it could not then be otherwise And why Christ knew that the Messengers which he sent to gather a People to himself out of Saracens and Insidels Jews and Gentiles by perswasive means only were to build up his Church within the Bosom of Kingdoms which were and would continue avowed Enemies to his Gospel every where for a long time then to come And therefore he gave them such Doctrines and such Commissions for Doctrine and Discipline as they might any where publish and exercise in a quiet and peaceable manner the Subjects of no Common-wealth being any where therein concerned in goods or person by vertue of that spiritual regiment whereunto Christian Religion once embraced did make them lyable And indeed if they had not a Government within themselves they could have none at all concerning Christian Religion For Princes and all Nations were then professed and bitter enemies to Christian Religion which Government did also extend it self unto small matters even such as were otherwise impleadable and remediable in the Civil Courts and Judicatures of the Kingdome or State though heathenish wherein and under whom they lived as Subjects Dare any of you saith St. Paul having a matter against another go to law before the unjust and not before the Saints do ye not know that the Saints shall judge the world and if the world shall be judged by you are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters 1 Cor. 6.1 2. So that upon the whole matter the Sum total of Religion that Christ committed to his Apostles and they to their successors consisted in the Doctrin and Discipline thereof viz. to preach him and him crucified and to perswade others to become Christians through the belief of one Lord one Faith and one Baptisme and when once admitted by the door of Baptism into the Christian Church then to become and to be accounted Members of the visible Church Christian As for Discipine that concerns moral righteousness and honesty of life and their contraries unrighteousness and dishonesty and therefore Christ gave them this General Precept viz. to love one another even our neighbours as our selves and if any did transgress the Vertues and Laws which belong unto moral righteousness and honesty of life which are not proper and peculiar unto Christian men as Christians but as Men what then the transgressors were first privatly to be admonished if the offence were private those that sinned openly were to be rebuked openly if they did not then repent and amend then to be admonished by two or three if still they remained incorrigible then to acquaint that Congregation of Christian Brethren of which they were Members and if still they continued refractory after private and publick Admonitions Warnings and Prayers then not to own them as Brethren nor to keep company with them with such no not to eat with them and in the end to pursue them as if Publicans and Heathens as not being worthy of the Name and Profession of Christians which they had put on they not living to the adorning but to the shame of the Gospel And this is the sum of the whol Government or Discipline which Christ after the death of the Apostles who having gifts extraordinary had also powers extraordinary which died with them left to his Church for ought appears by any Scripture extant And what need of more For if the Ministers of the everlasting Gospel have liberty to Instruct break Bread Baptize and Pray the Civil Christian Magistrat hath sufficient power by Gods own Ordinance to order all the rest § To me indeed it seems marvelous nay monstrous that out of so plain so intelligible so easily practicable directions for the Government of Christian Churches that so various so meerly wordly and pompous nay imperious and impious forms of Church Government should be drawn into use as have been hundreds of years practised both in the Eastern and Western Empires and all held forth to be according to the Gospel when in truth they all differ from the true Gospel Discipline as far as the East is from the West they being all degenerated into meer worldly forms set up for meer worldly self-ends and interests If any man can more plainly make out any other form from the Gospel it would be a favour my self I must confess to be Impar Negotio it is past my understanding Indeed to me it seems wonderful whilst I consider that though Histories are ful and plain how and when the several forms crept in and got Accruments partly by the supineness and negligence of the Brethren of their own Rights and Priviledges partly by the craft and subtlety of proud covetous and ambitious Clergy and partly by the carelesness of Princes who not willing to trouble themselves with the care of Religion devolved it upon others that they should yet endeavour to keep us hoodwinkt though they know that our eyes are now open If there be any other Gospel-form of Government let it plainly appear without offering violence to any Texts of Scripture if not why should we be wiser than Christ our Head and Lawgiver God only is truth and all men are subject to errors what remains but that all his Servants and more especially the Priests of the most high God whose lips above others should more especially preserve knowledg do abandon humane errors and fals superstructures and keep the praecepts of God only that they may remain stedfast in the truth only § Some are of opinion that there is no need at all of any Ecclesiastical Government as distinct from the Civil if Christian and Orthodox and if there be that yet the Body of the Church is to govern it self and not the Clergie or Officers the Body they are to teach them their duty but the provisionary coercive and executive power is seated in the Body and not in the Pope or Presbyter I know the grand objection against Independency is that it is destructive to Government and tends to Anarchy a meer slander rather than a just objection for if rightly considered it would be found the least Chagreen to any Civil Government of any Ecclesiastical Government at this very day in use in any Nation and if not mistaken I have Christ who was the Wisdom of the Father and his Apostles to justify me herein For the Government that is herein stated may be exercised under any Government how averse soever to Christianity it self without clashing or interfeering therewith And if Christ left no other Government as for certain he did not why should we pretend to be wiser than Christ himself The same was exercised by the Apostles and long after and how incroachments of power were gained to the Clergy Stories are full Vide Fra Paolo Sarpi his Treatise of Beneficiary Matters § On the contrary how thwarting Popish or Presbyterian Governments are to
the whole body politick whereof if the Presbyter or Independent judge themselves to be any part then is the Law even their own deed also as being made by the representatives of the whole wherein they are included as having their most proper representatives in our Parliaments and Convocations the undoubted Legislative Power of this Kingdom And is it reasonable in things of this nature and consequence to give men audience pleading for the overthrow of that which as it were their own very deed hath ratified Laws that have been approved both in Church and State may be no man doubteth again repealed and to that end also disputed against by the same Authority But this most properly is when the whole doth deliberate what Laws each part shall observe and not when a few run counter the Laws which the whole hath made in a full and free Parliament and lawfull Convocation Be it that some reasons induce some persons to be otherwise minded if those reasons be demonstrative and absolutely necessary such I confess discharge consciences and setteth them at full liberty but if probable only what thing was there ever set down so agreeable to sound reason but some probable shew against it may be made Is it meet that when Acts of Parliaments and Canons have been publickly received and long practised that general obedience thereunto should cease to be exacted in case some few led by some probable conceits should make open protestation of their dissatisfaction Certainly in such cases they are obliged to suspend their judgments for that in otherwise doing they offend against God by troubling his Church without any just or necessary cause For until the Civil Christian Magistrate whose power it is that I contend for doth otherwise order and determine obedience is to be given to the Laws Ecclesiastical and Civil if not contrary to the word of God Turpis est pars quae universo non congruit suo Out of which premises and of what will follow more particularly I shall take the liberty to assert and conclude that the Church of England in general is undeniably Independent and hath intrinsick power within it self without any forraign aid or dependency or any subordination to any other Person Church or Council to govern it self and that every Parish or Congregation thereof is not so Independent but rather that every particular doth depend upon the whole for that all ought to govern the whole and every particular thereof and every one ought to imploy himself most in that which is most particularly recommended to him and that the true Representatives of this Church of England and of all other National Churches is the Legislative Power thereof and that the King is the chief Governor thereof according to the constituted Laws and Canons thereof § And this Legislative Power hath lawful Authority to constitute all Qualifications unto all publick Ecclesiastical preferments so that they which will not submit to such qualifications shall be uncapable of such publick Benefices and Preferments But neither this nor any other Power throughout the whole Vniverse hath any lawful Authority to forbid the gathering of Churches or stop the mouths of any Bishop or Presbyter to preach the Gospel nor to forbid the solemn assembling together of the Saints or of the Brethren according to their several Commissions viz. go teach all Nations c. 28. Matth. 19.20 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works not forsaking the Assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is but exhort one another 10. Hebr. 24.25 if this had not been good Doctrine and practised even by Christ himself his Apostles and their followers maugre all the Interdicts of Jewish and Gentile States and Princes cursed Tyrants the Gospel had never been spread In such Cases where commands of Governments are contrary to commands of God it is undoubtedly better to obey God than Man I have dwelt the longer on this subject of Indepency for that though in truth it the be elder Brother unto Presbyterian Government by 1600 years yet it seems unto most to be but my Lord Musshrome and of yesterdays extract and very little understood by Vulgar Capacities In the Treaty whereof I have taken occasion in some measure to trace both the wayes of the Church and the wiles of the Church-Men from its very Infancy and shall pursue it farther when I come to shew what and who are meant by the term Church so that if possible the Government of the Church may be made easie and intelligible to every understanding Plain dealing is best and truth like beauty is most beautiful when stark naked stript of all paints and School-tricks and Glosses by which truth is more often confounded and defaced than brought unto light in its pure and natural colours § I shall now proceed and say something of the Presbyterian way but shall not meddle with their Model at all it being done and done to my hand it hangs on every Hedg and is decyphered and refelled in an Iliad of Pamphlets and is as perfectly disliked and disgusted as known and therefore I think we may bid them defiance set it up and establish it if they can especially if excommunication the main prop and pillar thereof were taken away without which it must necessarily fall to the ground and which is of no use in any Christian State and which in truth is a nemo scit utterly unknown to Scripture it self as now used especially And yet so fond are they of it and so wedded unto it and such is the selfishness of the Clergy of all perswasions and so great a Biass is their interest and love of domination that the very thought of parting with it doth cut them to the heart and it cannot be got from them without rending and tearing as if it were as perverse as an unclean spirit and though in truth it makes no return considerable unto any of them but what redounds unto their dishonour and reproach I shall only shew some of their tenets and practises by which you may the better judge of them and I shall not go far to fetch them and declare that now to erect and establish that Government here or in any other Christian Common-wealth were to erect Regnum in Regno and then in short process of time upon every difference and dispute as it happened in the State of Venice 1610. where Father Avaraldo a Capuchin being demanded by the Inquisitors at Rome for a certain opinion concerning Anti-Christ and from that Inquisition the process being sent to Bressia where the Father was the Inquisition at Bressia proceeded in the Cause without the Civil Assistants and answered them not without a design to cajole the Civil Magistrate out of his just right by a nice distinction viz. that they ought not to assist but only in causes which were begun at the proper Tribunal but not when the Denuntiation was given at Rome so in a very short time as
only the Ministers but the Teachers too as also the Elders and Deacons yea even of the Multitude which are willing to conser their gifts received of God 2 Cor. 4.13 to the common utility of the Church Luke 2.46 47. and c. 4.15 16. c. fol. 47.48 § During the Contest between Adrian the Sixth and the German Princes in Anno 1523. in the case of Luther they thinking it reasonable did signify unto his Holiness from the Dyet at Noremberg that married Priests and Religious persons who returned to the world in case they did commit any wickedness that the Prince or Magistrate in whose Territory they shall offend ought to give them their due chastisement which did not please the Pope and therefore he did reply That it would be against the Liberty of the Church and the Sickle would be put into another mans Field and those men would be censured by the World who were reserved unto Christ For Princes should not presume to believe that they were devolved to their Jurisdiction by their Apostacy nor that they could be punished by them and for their other Offences in regard the Character remaining in them and the Order they are ever under the power of the Church neither can Princes do more than delate them to their Bishops and Superiors that they may chastize them Conc. Trid. 27.28 Thus let Pope and Presbyter go hand in hand as to Spiritual Empire and Dominion Though it be besides my purpose to examine particulars yet in the general I cannot but wonder that so many learned and conscientious persons men of great abilities and good lives should countenance and defend that Church Discipline and Government as it is composed and compounded by Calvin the first Brocher and Hammerer thereof as taught by Christ and his Apostles in the Word of God when no Father ever witnessed no Council ever favoured no Church ever found out or practised it since the days of the Apostles and when the general and successive consent of all succeeding Ages is resolute against it as never expounding Pauls words in favour of it till about this last Century and this in opposition unto and derogation of Episcopal Regiment which on the contrary hath been observed every where for many Ages and Generations throughout the Christian world nemine contradicente except the old Heretick Aerius No Church till Calvins time ever alledging or perceiving the Word of God to be against it for if but any one Church upon the face of the whole earth that hath been governed by Calvins or the Scotch Presbytery or any one Church that hath not been ordered by Episcopal Regiment since the death of the Apostles could possibly have been found out no doubt but that we should long since have heard of it with our ears and seen it with our eyes in their Writings for that the Favourers and Abettors thereof have wanted neither abilities industry nor stomack neither to make it known Besides to me it seems strangely improbable I might say impossible that the Church of Christ should never know what belonged to the Government of her self till of late and that the Son of God should be spoiled of half his Kingdom by his own Servants Citizens nay Martyrs for 1500 years together without remorse or remembrance of any one man that so great injury was offered him and without one Champion to throw out his Gauntlet in the demand and challenge of his right Moreover how is it possible that all the Churches in the world should with one consent immediately on the Apostles deaths reject that form of governing the Church according to the Geneva cut which they would fain perswade you to believe was setled and approved by the Apostles and embrace a new and strange kind of Government Episcopal without Precept or Precedent for their so doing for my part I think it much more safe prudent and reasonable to esteem this a new device of Calvins a Chintera of his own brain set up to serve his own ends and to introduce his own Domination than to proclaim so many Apostolick men and antient learned Fathers to be manifest despisers of Episcopal Discipline and voluntary Supporters if not Inventers of Antichrists Pride and Tyranny § I find four Priviledges extraordinary given by Christ to the Apostolic Function requisite for the first founding of the Church What Privileges peculiar to the Apostles which died with them 1. Their Vocation immediate from Christ not from Men nor by Men Gal. 2.12 and their immediate instruction in the mystery of Christ by Christ himself 2. Their Commission extending over all the Earth without limitation to any place 3. Their direction infallible the Holy Ghost guiding them whether they wrote or spake This Office by consent of all Divines begun and ended in their persons to whom at first it was committed And except that Man of sin that hath entred by intrusion and violence into the Prerogatives royal of Christ no man would dare to arrogate the Privileges of this Calling He indeed challengeth as in the right of Peter universal power over the whole Church on earth He assumeth and appropriateth to himself glory of Miracles but all lying in form or end and if we were so mad as to believe infallible assistance of the Spirit in all things that he shall sententiously deliver to the Church out of his Chair of Pestilence Sapientum octavus Apostolorum 41. 4. Their power wonderful as well to convert and confirm Believers as to chastize and revenge Disobeyers whereby they did not only speak with tongues cure diseases work miracles know secrets understand all wisdom but gave the Holy Ghost to others that they might do the like and that they might store the whol world out of hand with meet Pastors and Teachers All which were given to their individual persons and were thought requisite by that wisdom which is above for the first spreading of the Faith and planting of Churches amongst Jews and Gentiles that all Nations might be converted unto Christ by the sight of their Miracles and directed by the truth of their Doctrine § But although all these died with their persons But and what delegated to their Successors to remain for ever yet are there other three and some make four points of Apostolic delegation which have and must have their permanency and perpetuity in the Church of Christ the better to maintain and propagate the Church once setled and Faith once preached As 1. Dispensing the Word 2. Administring the Sacraments 3. Imposing of hands 4. Guiding the Keys to shut or open the Kingdom of Heaven These especially the three first parts of the Apostolic Function are not decayed and cannot be wanted in the Church of God and are now seated in our Bishops and Presbyters by Apostolic successive delegation The first Two by reason they are the ordinary means and instruments by which the Spirit of God worketh each mans salvation must be general to all Pastors and Presbyters the
was his dumb Asse and like Micha's Leuite for a little better reward swallow down theft and Idolatry together § Authority it self hath not so rigorous a sway over the souls of men as to obtrude disliked Religions universally it must perswade as well as compel and convince as well as command or else great alterations cannot easily and suddenly be perfected And in this respect Proclamations of Princes and commanding Edicts mostly prove more efficacious Sermons than those from out of the Pulpits look back on former times and it is evident that before Constantine favoured Religion the Gospel spread but slowly and that not without a wondeful confluence of Heavenly Signs and Miracles wrought by our Saviour and his Disciples all which we may probably conjecture had never been in such plentiful manner manifested to the World had it not been to countervail the enmity and opposition of secular Authority And it may be conjectured nay presumed that had the Caesars heartily by command and example joyned in the propagation of Christs Doctrine more might have been effected towards the propagation of the Gospel by their Cooperation than all Christs Apostles Bishops and other Presbyters did effect by their extraordinary gifts and supernatural endowments we see also that Constantines Conversion was of more moment and did more conduce to the prosperity and propagation of Christianity than all the labours and endeavours of thousands of Preachers and Confessors and Martyrs which before had attempted the same We see Ed. 6. though a Minor in a short time very much dispelled the mists of Popish errors and superstition and when no men were more averse to the truth than the Clergy yet he set up the banner thereof in all his Dominions and redeemed millions of souls from the thraldom of Hell and Rome So Queen Elizabeth though a single woman was a most admirable instrument in the same design and what she did in England other Princes did the like in their Dominions whatsoever was effected by the labour of Ministers after our Saviour the same if not greater matters were sooner expedited by the ordinary Power and Wisdome of Princes when Ministers were generally opposite thereunto And as we see the spiritual power of Princes how strangely prevalent it is for the truth so we see most woful effects thereof against the truth Religion was not sooner reformed by E. 6. than it was deformed again by Q. M. And although many godly Ministers were here then setled as appears by the numerous Martyrs yet all those Ministers could not uphold Religion with all their labours and hands so strongly as Q. M. could subvert it with the least of her Fingers one fierce King of Spain bound himself in a cursed Oath to maintain the Popish Religion and to extirpate all contrary Doctrines out of his confines which taking effect accordingly It demonstrates and confirms that one Kings Enmity or supineness towards Religion is more pernitious than a thousand Ministers zeal is or can be advantagious to the spreading of the Gospel which consequence alone ought to sway and prevail very much with Princes to act very vigorously and very circumspectly in matters of Religion as being most eminently to accompt for it and for that their countenance or discountenance of the true or false Religion of sin or piety is next unto or a kind of an establishing the one or the other by a Law according to that antient received Maxim Regis ad exemplum totus componitur Orbis Therefore the examples of Kings and chief Magistrates being of such wonderful avail and indeed of more consequence than 20000 Pulpits no doubt if they would put in practice and follow the example of King Davids resolution in the 101 Psal to walk in their Houses with a perfect heart to behave themselves wisely in a perfect way to set no wicked thing before their eyes to hate the work of them that turn aside not to know a wicked person to shew no favour to give no countenance no preferment to any wicked person but to let their eyes be upon the faithful of the Land and on them that excel in virtue that they may dwell with them and that they and only they that walk in a perfect way do serve them that they that work deceit should not dwell in their Houses nor they that tell lies tarry in their Sght. No doubt I say but such Princes by such pious practices and examples would by such discountenancing of Sin and Sinners quickly destroy the wicked of the Land and cut off all wicked doers from the City of the Lord and would conduce much even to the making of a high way of holiness throughout the Land that wayfaring Men though Fools might noterre therein For who knoweth not that example doth as certainly kill Souls as Fire and Fagot do bodies and that an exemplary life of Men in Authority doth incline and invite their Subjects and Servants to the same whether it be holy or unholy more much more than Pulpits or any verbal Rhetorick St. Peter did not Preach Judaism but only for fear of offending the Jews did forbear to eat with the Gentiles yet St. Paul reproveth him for it to his face and interpreteth that fact of his as an effective and almost compulsive seducement Cogis Judaizare 2. Gal. 14. Why compellest thou the Gentiles to Judaize so Nehemiah 13. c. v. 17. Contended with the Nobles of Judah saying What evil thing is this that ye do and profane the Sabbath day and yet the Rulers had not sinned by personal commission but by partial Connivence and toleration of the sins of others Besides it is not the Clergy only that is so immediately and so universally responsable for the publick discountenancing of Religion being chiefly responsable for their particular Flocks only for even the abuses of the very Clergy it self will one day be set on the Magistrates account and according to that vast spiritual Power which God hath put into the hands of Princes so will God certainly require at their hands § Preaching is not the only means of Salvation nor Ministers the only Preachers nor Sacraments only efficacious because the Clergy only may administer them Though Pope and Presbyter call themselves only spiritual persons the Church and Lot of Christ and put Princes into the number of Temporal and Laymen and limit them to secular things yet God will not be so mocked they ought to acknowledge the character of Divinity which is so much more fairly stamped on Princes than it is on them and let them not rob Princes of that influence in sacred things which they themselves can never enjoy For as Princes must answer for wilful or negligent permitting a wicked Clergy so must Pope Presbyter and Independent answer for endeavouring to cajol Princes out of their Supream Power on pretence that Gods Message is so delivered to them Let Ministers assist Princes in their Spiritual and Religious Offices as Aaron and Hur did Moses let them not contend
for Supremacy over Causes and Persons Ecclesiastical and Civil but let them accompt it their most Supreme Service to attend on that Supremacy so shall more honour and sanctity pass from Pope and Presbyter to Kings and Emperors and more efficacy and vertue from Kings to Ministers more Grace and happiness from both to the People § Excommunication The main Argument used both by Pope and Presbyter to raise the Miter and Consistory above the Crown is drawn from the power of the Church in Excommunication which Sword Church men only claim and wherewith they think they may as freely strike Princes as Princes may strike them with their Temporal Sword of both which a word in general and also in particular as it relates to Princes Excommunication that great Popish and Presbyterian Thunderboult and Diana of their Discipline claimed to be their due Jure Divino and so highly exalted by them that it is not more monopolized nor advanced higher at Rome than it would be here by them within their Precincts if not curbed by the Civil Magistrate so apt it is to be tyrannically abused by Pope and Presbyter for experience tells us that if they might have their Will they would by virtue thereof put such a Spiritual Pad-lock upon the Temporal Sword and by their In ordine ad Spiritualia take such fast hold of it themselves that if they and Christian Princes should chance to differ they may be sure so long as their Doctrine concerning it will be believed to have the drawing of it themselves and leave poor Christian Princes to whom the Sword of Right more antient than Papacy or John Calvins Presbytery more properly belongs to defend themselves with the Scabbard for which several of them have paid dear witness amongst others those 17 Scotish Ministers who being convented before the Council of Scotland for holding a solemn Assembly at Aberdeen without the Kings leave 2. July 1605. utterly denied the Authority both of King and Council in that behalf affirming that in matters Ecclesiastical they neither ow nor ought to acknowledge themselves in any subjection either to the King or to his Council and that all spiritual differences should be tryed and determined by the Church meaning thereby themselves the Clergy for which cause and for denying the Kings Supremacy 6 of the chief of them were arraigned and condemned at Blackness in Scotland January 10. 1605. and how insolently some of the same Tribe vsed King James more than once he himself hath published in Print and their imperious exhorbitances may be read as in several other Books so in Presbytery Displayed printed 1644. and how they used King Charles the first I. M. hath demonstrated in his Tenure of Kings therein manifesting that they founded the Premises that enabled the Phanaticks to conclude that sanguinary and unparalled Catastrophe And that their good deeds also may be remembred we do recount them to have been very instrumental in the restoration of the Son which is some kind of expiation for their injuries done unto the Father Some and those of no small esteem in the Church are of opinion that the exercise of Excommunication was then only needful when no visible Church had any legal or civil remedy to preserve its unity or purge it self of gross Offenders or that the right or power of Excommunication which the Apostles and immediate Successors had did utterly expire when once whole Cities and Common-wealths became Christian and were enabled from the Supreme Civil Magistrate to punish Offenders and to enact coercive and penal Laws and other means necessary for the spreading and promulgating of the Gospel Sure I am that experience hath made it more than probable that after the Church and Common-wealths were so linked and interwoven together that every Member of the Common-wealth was enforced to become a Member of the Church and to be so admitted by the Church Governours the edge of this spiritual Sword was very much abated and the force of former spiritual Ordinances became stifled with the multitude of those persons against whom they were directed whether the defect be in the power it self or in such as have but to do not use it as they ought certain it is that this branch of discipline is not in our days so effectual as in former times it hath been The meer spiritual Power with which alone the Apostles and their Immediate Successors were endued was of greater efficacy than both the remainder of the like spiritual Power in Dermier Bishops and Pastors and all the strength of secular Civil Power wherewith Princes States or Kingdoms since the mutual incorporation of Common-wealths and Churches have as they were in conscience and Jure Divino bound assisted Prelates and Church Governours of this nature seems to be the Apostolical Rod. 1. Cor. 4.21 wherewith Paul threatneth the Corinthians whereby is meant as he explains himself 2. Cor. 13.10 ch 10.16 ch 13.2 To use sharpness to revenge all unrighteousness not to spare all which are expressions of a certain miraculous vertue of impossing punishment Thus Annanias and Saphira fell down dead 14. Acts 13. Elymas was smitten with blindness 1. Tim. 1.2 Himeneus Alexander and the Incestuous Corinthian were delivered to Sathan 1. Cor. 55. § To deliver to Sathan was plainly a point of miraculous Power which inflicted torment on the Body such as Saul in former times felt after his departure from God as Chrisostome and other Fathers interpret This is certain when the earthly powers used not their right of punishing God had given them to purge and defend the Church what was wanting in human aid God himself supplied by divine assistance After the Emperors took on them the Patronage of the Church whose office was to punish them that troubled the Church without or within the forenamed divine punishment expired And most properly that divine execution of revenge was the jurisdiction of God not of Men because the whole work was Gods not the Apostles God that he might give testimony to the truth of the Gospel preached as at the Apostles Prayers or presence or touch he healed diseases and cast out Divils so at their imprecation commanded men to be vexed with Diseases and seized by Divils Nor did Paul more by delivering men to Satan than did Peter and John by curing the lame man who say they did nothing by their own Power Acts 12. and ascribe the whole effect to God At the Prayers also of the Church did God often shew the like signs of his displeasure therefore are the Corinthians 1. Cor. 5.2 blamed that they mourned not to the end the Incestuous person might be taken away from among them And to the same effect is that wish not command of the Apostles to the Galatians 5.12 would they were cut off that trouble you This kind of Excommunication if it may be so called was a Corporal punishment and there is no appearance of any internal obduration by the binding power of Pope or Presbyter and
it was miraculous and therefore it might be of use then when the Keys of Church-men could not err and when a Temporal Sword was wanting yet now it is utterly useless and abolished § For any other Excommunication of present or perpetual necessity in Ecclesiastical Regiment there is very little indeed no plain proof in Scripture if any at all it is the spiritual Scepter of the Pope and Presbyter without which their Empire would appear meerly Imaginary and therefore their Zeal is fierce and strong for it though their reasons be weak It seems to me a very obscure and lame deduction that the Keys of Heaven in the Gospel must needs import real Power and jurisdiction in Clergy men and in them only and that that Sword is as miraculous as it was or as useful as if it were miraculous and that the stroak of it is meerly Spiritual and not to be supplied by the Temporal Sword and that Princes are as well liable to it as other Laymen § In case of utter impenitency of open and obstinate perverseness Heaven is shut without the Pope or Presbyters Power and in case of feigned penitence neither the Popes nor Presbyters Keys can open effectually though they discern or discern not the hypocricy and in case of true penitence if Pope or Presbyter be mistaken yet Heaven will not remain shut § Some excellent writers against the usurped power of the Romish Church in use or exercise of St. Peters Keys as well before Luther as since have been of opinion that the visible Church hath only power to declare who are separated or excommunicated ipso facto from the holy Catholick Church and that she hath no power so to separate or excommunicate any unless they have first excommunicated themselves or voided their hopes or interests in the holy Catholick Church by heretical positions or opinions or by lewd and scandalous misdemeanors Of this opinion was that famous Wesselius which was intituled Lux Mundi before Luther arose or the so pure Light of the Gospel which we now enjoy Besides Divines themselves have not hitherto agreed nor are ever like to agree what this excommunication is or what the extent of it is or whether the Presbyter alone or joyned with the Laity or Lait without the Presbyter have power to execute it or whether it be so spiritually inherent in the Pope or Presbyter as that they can or cannot depute the execution thereof to Deligates or Proxies In these great straights and uncertainties concerning excommunication held out to be of such high concern as to make the excommunicated as it were accursed and cut off from the Church what shall poor Laicks do who are well assured that be their Commission what it will that it extends not to impower them to teach and much less to impose any Doctrines but what are undoubtedly and meerly true the Apostles themselves pretending to no other § Some endeavour to support this feigned pillar of their discipline by Arguments drawn from the Jewish manner of excommunication which according to some was twofold 1º called Niddui and was only a temporary separation commonly for 30 dayes from all commerce or society with any man within a certain distance This is it which is thought to be that which is called in the New Testament a casting out of the Synagogue 2o. The second more severe and terrible than the former was when a scandalous ossender with curses out of the Law of Moses in the publick audience of the whole Church without any limitation of time was excluded from the Communion of it This is that which is thought to be that which is called in the New Testament a delivering up unto Sathan in Hebrew this is called Cherim and in Greek Anathema which was twofold 1o. Simple when what I have now mentioned was performed 2o. with an addition of Anathema Maranatha or as the Syrian pronounce it Moranetho when besides all other maledictions out of the Law they added this clause Our Lord cometh by which form the excommunicated person as desperate without all hope of pardon or restitution was left unto the Lord to receive from him a heavy doom at his coming In imitation of this Jewish excommunication which generally is defined by almost all to be an exclusion of the Fellowship and Communion of Believers the Popish Divines have also framed 2 kinds of excommunication viz. 1o. A lesser 2o. the greater 1o. the lesser That the excommunicated is to be debarred not from the profession of the same Faith nor from giving his consent to the same Doctrine with the present Church whereof he is a visible Member but from the soel participation of the Sacraments have added also another which they term the greater Excommunication and Anathema and have against the clear sence of Scripture I wish the Presbyterians could herein plead not guilty defined it to be an interdiction of Churches private commerce and all other lawful converse because the Apostle Cor. 14. openly sheweth that neither the heathen nor any person whatsoever were forbidden from hearing of the Divine word from the Reading Thanksgivings and Prayers of Christians And I have not found extant in the Scripture any Precept or Example whereby it is commanded or taught that they who err only in life and manners should be removed from the Sacraments I do not read that any person at any time amongst the Jews was for such causes forbid by the Priests Levites Prophets Scribes or Pharases to come unto the Sacrifices Ceremonies or Sacraments The high Priests esteemed Christ and his Apostles most wicked persons yet we do not find that during Christs life or after his death that ever they went about to debar them of the Sacraments and Sacrifices instituted by God they reprehended indeed Christ for eating and drinking with Publicans and Sinners but not for praying in the Temple with them nor for going up with them and all others to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover neither did they debar any Publican Jew no nor the most cruel Hereticks the Sadduces from their Temple or Ceremonies but permitted them the honour to ascend the high Priest-hood and I do not indeed well see how the Priests could hinder the Scandalous sinners from eating of the Passover if they would for that they did not eat before the Priests but in their private Houses and I have not observed that the presence of a Priest was absolutely necessary to that matter And certainly if the law had permitted them to debar any from their Sacraments and Sacrifices but the Leprous and unclean they would certainly have debarred Christ and his Apostles such was their desperate and inveterate malice towards him and them presuming his design to have been to destroy their City and Temple their Name and Nation § Upon these and other like reasons and grounds there are some who do not stick to affirm that the Clergy hath not so much power to excommunicate the Laity as the Laity the Clergy all power being
the Ephesians c. 6.18 19 20. that they would always pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watch thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for him for what I pray that he might have a Dispensation not to preach or not to attend his Flock and be Non-resident or having put his hand to the Plough that he might look back or that he might have great Employments in Civil Affairs in Princes Courts that would necessarily hinder his preaching Nothing less What then Even that Vtterance might be given unto him that he might open his mouth boldly to dispence and make known the Mysteries of the Gospel for which he was an Ambassador Eph. 6.18 19 20. The like unto the Colossians c. 4.2 3. And did not the same Paul most solemnly and most severely charge Timothy before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom to preach the Word to be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke c. 2 Tim. 4.1 2. By which it demonstratively appears that in St. Paul's Grammar and Construction to dispense and make known are Terms Synonimous and Equivalent maugre the false Glosses of the Papalins And when think you would Paul unto whom by Revelation was made known the Mystery of Christ whereof he was made a Minister that he should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable Riches of Christ and to make all men see what is the Fellowship of the Mystery c. Eph. 3.2 3 8 9. or any other of the Apostles have besought Peter or any of his Successors of Rome for a Dispensation not to Preach They were better taught than so than to take other Civil Employments which must necessarily hinder them from preaching and declaring the Mystery of the Gospel for in true understanding to be a Priest and not to preach is to be no Priest having as much as in them lies un-priested themselves after the Character imprinted for Christ never gave any Authority to his Ministers but what was meerly and purely Spiritual Yet so it was that the Judgment of the whole Church or Congregation as is necessary and natural to all Societies Civil and Ecclesiastick for the sake of Order was fit to be conducted and managed by some one who should preside and guide the Actions and Deliberations propose the Matters and collect the Results of the Assembly which Care being always due to the most worthy and best qualified person for such an Action was mostly committed to the Bishop not of right but of choice § This kind of Judicial Proceeding was observed and kept on foot unto the Year 250 Ep. 5. f. 12 13 14. as is plainly to be seen by the Epistles of St. Cyprian who in the matter concerning those who did eat of Meats offered to Idols and subscribed to the Religion of the Gentiles writeth to the Presbytery that he doth not think to do any thing without their Counsel and the Consent of the People and writeth to the People that at his return he will examine the Causes and Merits thereof in their Presence and under their Iudgment And he wrote to those Priests who of their own heads reconciled some that they should give an Account unto the People Soon after this time of the Day these kinds of Proceedings begun to lose of their Purity and Simplicity and to degenerate into Empire For indeed as before so more especially and more confidently soon after Constantines Days and Donations the succeeding Bishops not without some Artifices and some Usurpations quickly began to set up for themselves and indeed in short time mounted so high that they became suspected of Princes and terrible to the People their Tribunals became a common Pleading-place having obtained Execution by the Ministry of the Civil Magistrate Petr. AErodius and to obtain the Name of Episcopal Jurisdiction and Episcopal Audience and the like This Rome was not built in one Day nor in one Age the Piety and Charity of that more pure Age made them and their Judgments to be had in great veneration which insensibly was the Cause that the Church in the truest sence not regarding the Charge given and laid upon them by Christ and his Apostles did supinely leave the Care to the Bishops who readily and with great care embraced it and soon erected their Tribunals This kind of Judgment though it were not like to the first in regard of the former viz. to determine all by the Opinion of the whole Church yet it had some semblance with it and Constantine finding some Ease and Conveniency to have Causes determined by the Authority of Religion added this to his other Powers granted to them viz. That no Appeal should lie from the Sentence of the Bishop and Valence the Emperor inlarged them in the Year 365. But those Judicial Proceedings and Negotiations did not please the best and most pious Bishops being of St. Pauls mind who deemed such Employments and Powers not fit for a Preacher of the Gospel and therefore would not take such himself But Arcadius and Honorius 70 years after the Law of Constantine finding the Bishops to degenerate and to abuse their Power revoked that Law in part ordaining that they should judge Causes of Religion not Civil except by consent and that they should not be thought to be a Court which not being observed in Rome by reason of the great power the Bishop there had Valentinian being there in the Year 452. did renew it but the succeeding Emperors restored some part of it and Justinian established unto them a Court and Audience c. By which means and gradations the Popes had got the Knack of encroaching and were thereby the better enabled to crave and get more and that not without making the world believe that those and more were their due and that not Jure Ecclesiastico only but Divino also a Band so sure and strong that it would hardly be loosed though Posterity should find Inconveniences and would redress them 200 years were not fully elapsed ere they claimed absolutely all Judicature Criminal and Civil over the Clergy and in some things over the Laity also pretending the Cause was Ecclesiastical Besides they contrived another kind of Judicature which they termed Mixt whereby they hooked in all Judicature to themselves so that after the Year 1050. having with much Art and Industry Monopolized all the Causes of the Clergy to themselves and very many of the Laity under the Title of Spirituality and almost all the rest under the Title of a Mixt Judicature and placing themselves above the Secular Magistrates upon pretence of Justice denied they were at length so bold as to say that the Bishop had the power to judge not by the grant or favour of Princes or by the will or concession of the People or the whole Church or by Custom or Vsage but that it was essential to the Episcopal Dignity and given to it by Christ whereby
been so extreamly and publickly mischievous God would not have suffered it Besides if Scandal shall not remain unpunishable in the Prince yet it shall in the Spiritual Man which is a Mischief of the same nature with the other For if Caesar shall abide the Censure of this or that froward Pope or Consistory what Judgment shall the Pope or Consistory abide If this Spiritual Supremacy rest in any one that one must be unpunishable for two Supreams are things incompatible And if this Supremacy rest in more than one is is very hardly consistent with Monarchy for the one or other must be transcendent § Without all contradiction it is a manifest violence to use the Power of excommunication be it what it will if any such thing there be at all granted by Christ contrary to his own Institution and towards him that hath Power and unjustly useth the same the remedy is to have recourse to a Superior if he may but if there be no Superior to whom to have recourse God hath allowed no other remedy to a Prince thus offended but to make resistance with his own force opposing himself and force to force because it comes from God And the Civil Being of every Common-wealth or Kingdom is to the end of his Glory And therefore a Prince cannot permit without a sin and offence that his own Liberty should be infringed which is the Civil Being of every Principality and there is no doubt but that negligence in defending it is a dangerous offence to God and most hainous if he voluntarily suffer it to be usurped and incroached upon § To obey therefore the Commandements of God Kings when accosted and assaulted by Excommunication Papal or Presbyterian may and ought to oppose themselves against the Authors of them that will take away the Power which God hath given them to make Laws both Civil and Ecclesiastical and with Justice to defend themselves and their injured Subjects in their Lives Honours Goods and Religion And as the Innocent by an error in facto unjustly excommunicated to avoid scandal is bound patiently to endure So when the Error is in Jure and the manifest injustice thereof is apparent to avoid scandal likewise the Prince is bound to resist and oppose himself against the Injury Because there is no doubt but that such unjust Censures are against Magistracy it self and therefore when it shall be known to other Kingdoms that such a Prince or State for fear of unjust Censures and those invalid hath yielded unto violence whereof there are Examples not a few and omitted to exercise and execute his Natural Power they would be exceedingly scandalized thereat as also the Subjects that should discover such a vain fear they would become very perverse And therefore for this cause also it is both equal and necessary for the Prince to make due resistance for such no doubt or more weighty Reasons have our Kings and Queens defended themselves and their Subjects against all such Thunderbolts and so did the Venetians against Paul the Fifth who without any colour of reason excommunicated them being not a few Millions of Men The like have the Emperors and Kings of England and of France done and they had Authority so to do by their great Charter from Heaven The Church both Laity and Clergy but especially the Clergy ought to pacifie their Minds and Consciences attending the Service of God under the protection of their Princes constantly believing that the Holy Ghost was promised and given to all the Faithful both Laity and Clergy amongst whom Christ himself is present when they are congregated in his Name and that none can justly be excluded out of the Holy Catholick Church except by their own sins they be first excluded out of the favour of God and that the obedience which God commands us to perform to our Ecclesiastical Superiors is not a foolish or ridiculous Subjection nor the Power of Pope or Presbyters an Arbitrary Judgment but both the one and the other must be ruled by the Law of God who Deut. 17.10 11 12. ordained not an absolute obedience to the Priest but a prescribed observance according to the Law-Divine Facies quaecunque dixerint qui praesunt loco quem eligerit Jehovah docuerint te juxta Legem ejus It is the Word of God only not of Men in the Priests Mouths that me must obey God only is an Infallible Rule to whom only we must profess and yield obedience without all exception He that generally professeth this towards others without the Commandments of God as the Papists do sinneth and whosoever supposeth any Humane Will to be infallible as the Papists do committeth great Blasphemy in ascribing to the Creature a Property only Divine We have an Example hereof in the Acts when the Ancient Church expostulated and contended with Peter himself about the Vocation of the Gentiles he did not thunder against them with hideous and abominable Excommunications nor use menacing Language nor went about to silence them but he taught and perswaded them by Reason and Authority of Divine Revelations and the Words of our Saviour The very same Peter commanded the Elders to feed the Flock of God taking the over-sight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy Lucre for Cardinalisme or Nepotisme sake but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over Gods Heritage but being Examples to the Flock 1 Pet. 5.2 3. by which it is evident that Priests must not domineer nor command with Empire but with Holy Deportment and Instructions of Piety for that they have no Dominion of our Faith but are or should be Helpers of our Joy 2 Cor. 1.24 The very same St. Peter when he erred in Antioch St. Paul did not forbear boldly to reprehend him in the presence of all Men Gal. 2.11 St. Paul's superexcellency above any thing that we can pretend unto was no Warrant for him to oppose himself against one whom it was not lawful to resist Who more humble or gave greater acknowledgement of his due Reverence to the High Priest than Paul did In this questionless Paul did no more than what the least of us may do with due Reverence to his Holiness Quaecunque scripta sunt ad nostram Doctrinam scripta sunt Rom. 15.4 the Holy Ghost would never have written this History but for our Example to the end we might imitate it And we see that all the Popish Doctors in discussing how any one may oppose himself to the Pope when he erreth and governs unworthily they have recourse to this Example Let no Man therefore be troubled depending only on the Authority of a Pope for that according to their own Doctors not one but two Keys were given to Peter and to the rest of the Apostles and if they be not both used together the effect of Loosing and Binding doth not ensue the one being of Power the other of Knowledge and Discretion Christ never gave Power to be used without due Knowledge and Circumspection
but with great and exquisite Judgment the which wanting Power only takes no effect The Canonists themselves say That the Power of Binding and Loosing is intended by a Key not erring and Pope Leo expresly affirmeth it in a Canon speaking of this Priviledge given by St. Peter Manet ergo Petri privilegium ubicunque ex ipsius fertur aequitate Judicium nec nimia est vel severitas vel remissio ubi nihil erit ligatum vel solutum nisi quod Beatus Petrus solverit aut ligaverit 24. q. 1. c. Manet § Of old the Holy Bishops did preach and teach Princes that they having two Callings the one of Christians the other of Princes were bound in both of them to serve God as Christians in observing the Divine Precepts as every other private Person but as Princes to serve God by ordaining just and good Laws and directing their Subjects to Piety Honesty and Justice by having his Eyes on the Faithful of the Land that they that excel in Vertue and Piety may dwell with him by not countenancing wicked Persons by erecting publick Places of Worship and as much as in them lyeth by chalking out a High-way of Holiness throughout their Dominions by their Good and Pious Example that way-faring Men though Fools might not erre therein by punishing all such as transgress Gods Commandments especially those of the Decalogue wherein those that sin against the first Table which more immediately concern the Divine Honour are worse than those that sin against the Second which concern Justice amongst Men Wherefore Kings are more bound to punish Blasphemies Heresies and Perjuries than Murders and Thefts For this cause were divers Laws made against such Crimes as are Registred in the Justinian and Theodosian Codes imposing on the guilty Pecuniary Mulcts Banishment Privation of Part or of all their Goods according to the Circumstances of the Offence the execution of which Laws are committed to their Secular Officers And accordingly this our Kingdom from its Original of being Christian hath been accustomed to sentence and punish in case of grievous offence any Person Ecclesiastical of what Degree or Order soever by which means it hath hitherto preserved the Ancient and Independent Liberty of its true Dominion and Empire § Every Criminal Judgment hath three parts 1. For Example Criminal Judgment hath three parts The Cognisance of the Cause 2. The Cognisance of the Fact 3. The Sentence 1. For Example In the Judgment of Heresie or the Cognisance of the Reason is whether such an Opinion be Heretical or no 2. The Cognisance of the Fact is whether the Person so accused or denounced hath defended or held the same 3. The Sentence consisteth either of Absolving or Condemning The first Cognisance what Opinion was Heretical was mostly Ecclesiastical but not absolutely exclusive of Secular Learned Men appointed by the Emperors And when there grew any difficulty of some Opinion the Emperor did require the Judgment of Bishops and if need were did call Councils For the Cognisance of the Fact whether the accused Person were Innocent or Guilty that he might have the punishment ordained by the Laws of the Emperor and the Sentence of Condemnation or Absolution did all belong to the Secular Power Thus were matters ordered for Causes of Heresie c. in the Church under the Roman Empire until about 800 Years after Christ when the Eastern Empire being divided from the Western this Form rested in the Eastern till the end of it In the Western the Princes needed not make any Laws nor take much care about this Business seeing for the space of 300 Years from 800 to 1100 there were very few Hereticks found in those Parts and when any Case did happen which chanced but very seldom the Bishop did judge of it in the same manner as he proceeded against Ecclesiastical Persons as against Infringers of Holy-days Breakers of Fasts and such like judging and punishing them themselves in those Places where they had Jurisdiction granted them by the Princes and where they had not the like Power they did implore the Secular Aid to punish them After the Year 1100. by reason of the continual differences which for about fifty Years before had been between the Emperors and Popes and lasted afterwards for a whole Age until about 1200 Years with frequent Jars and Wars and the wicked life of the then Clergy there did arise an infinite number of Hereticks as the Papists are pleased to call them whose most common Heresies were against the Popes Authority and where the Multitude of them exceeded there was a forced Toleration About this time of the day Pope Innocent the fourth subtilly designed by introducing the Inquisition Inquisition more Authoritatively to deprive the Civil Magistrates of their Rights over Causes and Persons Ecclesiastical to whose Judgment was committed the punishment of Heresie c. by the Ancient Laws of the Empire and by the Laws of Frederick the second and by particular Statutes which each City was forced to make for the preservation of their own indubitable and independent Right of Governing Ecclesiastical Causes and Persons according to their great Charter from Heaven But the Pope sinding great opposition from all Places he offered one Expedient which in shew made the Civil Magistrate the Inquisitors Companion but in Substance and Effect his Lacquey This Opposition grew so strong and was so universal that the Pope could not introduce his Tribunals Inquisitory except it were in the Provinces of Lombardy Romania and Marca Trevisana nor in them neither for all his Bulls and severe Edicts as he desired no nor yet as he did without great reluctancy and opposition from the Civil Magistrates though in those three Provinces his Authority was very great they having no Prince and each City governing it self and where the Pope also had a part because he had assisted them in their late Wars And although the said Frederick Anno 1244. set forth four Proclamations receiving the Fathers Inquisitors into his protection and imposing the Penalty of Fire the first Law that imposed death upon obstinate Hereticks for which kindness and assistance of his he was admirably well requited by the same Pope who first excommunicated and then deposed him and as Hier-Marius reports corrupted one to poison him which not taking effect corrupted another to strangle him so that Alexander the fourth his Successor Anno 1259. and Clement the fourth 1265. were constrained to moderate the Edicts of Innocent the fourth And four other succeeding Popes employed themselves in overcoming the difficulties which thwarted them in setling the Inquisition After some moderation it being setled in those three Provinces it afterwards crept into Tuscany and so into Arragon and into some Cities of Germany and France out of which it was soon exiled and in Arragon they were reduced to a very small number Into the Kingdom of Naples it was not brought there being little correspondence between the Popes and the Kings thereof In the
Fruit thereof Nostrorum quilibet de legibus interrogatus facilius quam nomen suum recitat they knew the Law as well as their own Names To this agrees Acts 15.21 to after times Stories give witness Socrates of the Church at Alexandria once or twice a-week the Scriptures are read in the Assembly and so necessary they thought it that they ordained an Order of Readers who had to that Function their Solemn Consecration So was Julian afterwards the Apostate ordained a Reader in the Church of Nicomedia Then consider the Power of it 1. For discerning things that differ and trial of Doctrines taught by the Preachers to which End Esay calls to the Law and to the Testimony and Beraeans practised it with commendations 2. The People are thereby better acquainted with the Letter of Scriptures and Language of the Holy Ghost which always carries much more Awe Majesty and Conviction than what is not Scripture the Power of it being exceeding great to work knowledge God having in things necessary condescended even unto the meanest Capacity it confirms Faith and always is a strong Preparative to saving Faith and Conversion as to Austin was the obeying of the Voice from Heaven Tolle lege to Junius the reading of St. Johns Gospel in Josiah what remorse and compunction wrought it 2 Kings 22.20 what Godly Sorrow to Repentance wrought it in the Corinthians 2 Cor. 7.8 9. of such necessity and avail to Gods People is the naked reading of Scriptures in the Congregation These Considerations should and I hope will instruct us to beware how in our Judgment we vilisie this so holy and wholesom an Ordinance of God it being as much Gods Ordinance that the Scriptures be read in the Congregation as that they be interpreted and applied to the People by Preachments Let us not be Monsters in our Worship attributing a Nemis to some Ordinances thereby debasing or derogating from other Ordinances Sathans Policy herein is not inconsiderable that would thereby fain make us prophane Anabaptists or Quakers to contemn all Gods Ordinances by permitting us to over-admire some one that the rest may be despicable in our esteem Prayer amongst Romanists we see half Idolized Preaching too prophanely scoffed at Reading there are that most magnifie There are of another Strain desiring to turn our whole Liturgy after the French or Geneva Schomme into a meer Preachment Know ye not that these all are Holy Ordinances of God necessary useful powerful to their Ends assigned of them all may we not say they are ordained of God they that contemn shall receive condemnation who except prejudice or unpreparedness have forestalled his profiting hath not felt Gods Spirit by reading to enlighten admonish excite mortifie c. or can think God hath in vain with such adjuration enjoyned it to those that are Guides of the Congregation I say as our Saviour of the Commandments Whoso contemns the least of these Ordinances and teacheth Men so he shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5.19.29 Petrus Cunaeus de Repub. Hebr. lib. 2. c. 17. affirms That howsoever the Law was read amongst them in the former times either in publick or private yet the bare Text was only read without gloss or descant Interpretatio Magistrorum nulla Commentatio nulla but in the second Temple when there were no Prophets then did the Scribes and Doctors begin to Comment and make several Expositions on the Holy Text ex quo natae disputationes sententiae contrariae from whence saith he sprang up Debates and doubtful Disputations and most probable it is saith another upon him that from this Liberty of Interpretation sprung up diversity of Judgments from whence arose the several Sects of Pharises Essenes and Saduces who by their difference of Opinions did distract the Multitude and condemn one another even so c. Therefore thrice accursed is that practise of Rome monopolizing Scriptures to the Clergy all Participes Criminis Parties to the Cheat as their Priviledge and Prerogative interdicting the People acquaintance with them without faculty first obtained from the Ordinary to some few but at no hand may be publickly read in a Vulgar Tongue Luke 11.52 Is not this the taking away the Key of Knowledge and hindering those that would enter in what I beseech you was Gods aim in that Gift of Tongues what time he meant to set open to Gentiles the door of Faith but that every one might hear in that Tongue wherein he was born the wonderful Works of God Acts 2.8.11 To what purpose were the Labours of Ancients translating Scriptures into Vulgar Languages as Hierom into the Dalmatian Chrysostome into the Armenian Tongue Vulphilas into the Language of the Goths In Bedes time were extant Translations into six several Languages for the use of the People of this Island Vainly except to the Laity also their use was freely intended This Apostrophe by the By relating only to Romanists who by so doing Amongst Jews under Antiochus 1597. do vilifie the Gift of Tongues and act diametrically contrary to the whole Ch. 14. of the first of the Corinthians thereby making themselves wiser than Christ and his Apostles It can be but a frivolous Cavil for our Anti-liturgists to say that the Intendment of the before-recited Portions of Scripture is for the reading of Scriptures only and not for any thing that is composed by Man whereas St. Pauls Charge to Timothy was general viz. That he should give attendance to Reading to Exhortation to Doctrine 1 Tim. 4.13 If this may be allowed for currant I doubt it may prove as strong against Sermons and where are we then The Sermons of our Priests and of our days are not so the Word of God as the Sermons of the Apostles were nay they are but quodam modo and interpretativè termed Gods Word because his Word is the Subject of which they treat and Liturgies in this sense are or should be as much the Word of God as Sermons for the Wit and Gifts of Man gives equally the Being and Form to them both Will you confine the Spirit and ascribe Vital Operation to Sermons alone or to the Administrations of every Individual Priest only and not unto those composed by Bodies Collective Is that to divide the Word aright nay is it not partial dispensation so to rob Peter to pay Paul to derogate from and to deprive one Gift and Way of Administration of its just Efficacy and Operation and to attribute it wholly to another Gift of the same Stamp Nay is it not imparting the most peculiar Glory of the Word of God unto that which is not properly his Word nor no more his Word than Liturgies are Apostolick Sermons were no doubt unto such as heard them the Word of God and are not their Writings so now to us Sermons are not the only Preaching which doth save Souls Writing or reading of what is written and spoken speaking either extempore or premeditately do differ indeed yet not
Canons 1. Of Spiritual things 2. Of Temporal things 3. Of those that are mixt of both the Care of the first belongs to the Pope within his own Territories and to the Ecclesiastical Order observing the Canons With the Second he hath nothing to do out of his own Dominions quatenus a Bishop And Princes ought to take as much care of the third as Church-men if not more And those Princes are too unworthy ignorant and mean that will suffer themselves to be excluded or usurped upon And if the Pope of Rome use all his power to make men believe that Princes ought to be excluded why then do they which have the advantage of many clear Texts of Scripture of the Judgments of Councils and Fathers together with the practice of all times suffer themselves to be so abused If they did understand and would maintain in them the power which God and the people hath given them they would quickly put off the Mask and make those blush that design so to abuse the goodness and simplicity of others and would vindicate themselves from the constant injuries which are offered them and not suffer themselves to be led by the Nose as they are as if they had offended Religion by defending the power which God had granted unto them and the Jurisdiction whereof a Prince ought not to suffer the least diminution but rather put a Flook into their Nostrils as Henry the Eighth did Certainly not only for truth and conscience sake but even for necessity and reason of good Government every Faithful Man but most especially Princes ought carefully to defend and to make the preservation of Religion their chiefest concern and business For this end God hath appointed Princes as his Lieutenants and conferred Greatness and Majesty upon them to make them Protectors Defenders Conservators and Nursing Fathers of his Church in which calling the greatest of them can never give a good account to God neither can it answer the ends of Government they are intrusted withall by God and Man except it be by a continual and Vigilant care in matters of Religion And how be it there be many abuses yet that is not to be imputed to the fault of Religion which is in it self true James 1.4 pure and Holy but unto them that abuse it Perfection and absolute purity endeavoring to be perfect and intire wanting nothing is the very end whereunto the Church and every Individual thereof ought to pretend and aspire unto tho it be not the path wherein they alwayes tread Tho divers Times do require divers Laws and Orders and tho Popes for the more excellent Government should make more reasonable Laws than other Princes which is not reasonable to believe and should impose them to be received which he ought not to do yet as in the World nothing can be held unchangeable and every custom ought to be accommodated to the time and persons so it is to be done by them only whom in reason and of just right it concerns to do it and by no others viz. by the lawful and natural Prince by the advice and consent of his people and not by the Pope If any one not lawfully called thereunto could rule common business of himself which tho he did do with good intent and happy Issue yet did he nevertheless transgress Divine and humane Laws For to give just force unto a Law it is not sufficient that it be convenient and reasonable for that it is essential that it be made by those who have full power to make them and this not only for the preservation of Power and Jurisdiction but also for the necessity of a good Government It is a strange piece of Jesuitical non-sensical Polity to hearken unto them when they tell us that Laws in all Kingdoms may be without confusion because they are of force and in use at Rome and yet things are there in a quiet and peaceable condition the State of Rome being different from that of other Princes For that the Romans most impudently and against all reason affirm that they are above these Ordinances if they think sit they may or may not observe them or dispence with them and they do wonderfully serve for their ends as well when they are observed as when they are disobeyed because they are not to be ruled by the Laws but they do rule and govern the Laws In other Kingdoms when the Laws are once published and received they are no more in the Princes power they must then run to Rome to seek a Remedy where they regard not what is behooful to another State but to their own and what will serve their own Turn and Ends best Their great Design being to monopolize under colour of Religion the Administration of some certain things without which States cannot be governed by which means Rome would become Mistress of the World and judge of all Governments proposing that if there be any Inconvenience they should have recourse to the Pope and he will redress But the Remedy which comes not from the same Prince but from them who have their proper and distinct Interests is worser than the disease God whose works are perfect and who is the Author of all Principalities and Order gives to every Government as much power as is necessary to Govern it self well neither will he have it acknowledged from any other but from his Divine Majesty All that which Kings acknowledge from others but from God and their own Subjects is meer Slavery and Subjection whether in Civil or Ecclesiastick concerns § As it is destructive to Kings to acknowledge the Pope to have the least power in the making of their Laws so it is no less destructive to allow him any priviledge to suspend them it being nothing less than to confess a want of Wisdom or of Authority to ordain them which in effect is to cut the very sinews of Government which must needs be hazarded if they grant him but a power by his Censures to constrain them but unto a Suspension a thing deadly pernitious to the liberty of all Soveraign Princes who must necessarily rest deprived of all Soveraignty when they submit themselves unto the Pope who shall have power by his Excommunications or Interdicts to force them to regulate or suspend their Laws and Ordinances after his Will and pretence of Ecclesiastical libâ—rty will produce this monstrous effect that no Law shall be exempt from the Censure of the Pope seeing he attributeth to himself Authority to define and determine even against the opinion of all the World what Laws are just or unjust nay but to suspend the least Law for fear or at the menace of another necessarily infers a Subjection And to give Popes never so little in things of this nature is but to make them more Insolent and to give them encouragement to demand and stuggle for more and to minister occasions to conceive pretensions above all Princes for what power soever they now enjoy beyond Preaching
own Sabbath were ordained for men and not men for the Sabbath nor yet for Popes that what Powers soever of Right belongs unto them they are given unto them for the good and benefit of Christians and not to Tyrannize or Lord it over Gods Heritage 2. That God hath not given unto Popes any greater Authority in the Government of their Dominions whether of Church or State than unto other Princes and Bishops to whom God hath also confirmed and ratified all Power that is necessary for the good of the Governed And as it appertaineth not to other Emperors and Kings to govern Romish Church or State so it doth as little appertain to Popes to Govern either Church or State of other Kingdoms 3. That no people were or ever will be contented with a Government which tends more to the benefit grandeur pomp and pride of life of those that Govern than to the good and comfort of those that are governed it being the natural and fundamental right of the governed to apply and devolve as much of their own power without divesting themselves thereof as they please to one or more Persons subject nevertheless to the trusts reposed in them to be alwayes imployed and improved to the behoof and benefit of the governed 4. That all people do with some contentedness endure a reasonable Bond but from an excessive one every one doth naturally endeavor by all means tho indirect to free themselves The Antient History of Nodus Gordianus which because Alexander could not unty he cut in pieces whereby Oraculi sortem vel elusit vel imâ—â—evit is applicable to all Humane tyes and Obligations not excepting Governments Ecclesiastick or Civil which if of such a Nature that those that are unjustly or too hard bound may free themselves by ordinary way of Justice then they are endured with some patience But if there be no ordinary means to relieve themselves then they ever have had and I fear ever will have recourse to means extraordinary tho Indirect as Seditions and the like Wherefore it is undoubtedly doing God the best Service to keep every Government within its due bounds which is absolutely necessary for the preserving and propagating of Religion and for keeping the State in quiet temperament and that to grant Ecclesiasticks exorbitant Authority thinking it to be a favoring of Religion as heretofore they did perswade some Emperors with design to get their power into their own hands is an undiscreet Zeal prone to end in the dishonour of God damage of Religion and in publick confusion As God himself without respect to Persons made the Earth by his Power established the World by his Wisdom stretched out the Heavens by his understanding Jer. 51.15 so he never made Kingdoms and Nations for Popes or Princes but both the one and the other for the Comfort and Solace of the governed Think you that if his Vicars or Ambassadors or Vice Royes govern otherwise than according to his own Rules and Precepts who will measure all by his own Line and righteousness by his own Plummet that they shall go unpunished I tell you nay but except they repent they shall all likewise perish His Holiness himself not excepted according unto Jer. 23.1 2. Wo to the Pastors that destroy and scatter the Sheep of my Pasture Therefore thus saith the Lord ye have scattered my Flocks and driven them away and have not visited them behold I will visit upon you the evil of your doings I say again is it reasonable to believe that ever God who created light and darkness Heaven and Earth the Sea and all things that are therein and created and formed all Mankind in general a little lower than the Angels out of one and the same Clay in his own likeness and after his own Image without respect to these or those Persons Popes or others and gave unto Mankind in General Dominion over the Fish of the Sea and over the Foul of the Air and over the Cattel and over all the Earth and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth and all this for the good and comfort of all men in general should yet subject all Mankind Emperors Kings and Temporal Princes not excepted to the will and pleasure of one Pope or one Vicar or one Ambassador or one Vice-Roy as Vniversal Monarch to be governed and guided by the Will and pleasure of these men because they stile themselves Gods Vicars nay Gods on Earth whereby one Mans will may become all mens misery No! God made all Governors in the World for the good and happiness of the governed and not the governed to be subject to the Will Lusts and Pleasures of the Governors he never gave Precepts nor Commands relating to Government and Governors but what conduced to the good of the governed and alwayes rebuked and punished all such Governors as well those that he anointed and set up himself as severely as those whom the People did choose that walked and governed contrary to his Rules and Precepts Did God think you send his own Son out of his own bosom to take on him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man humble himself and became obedient to that shameful death the death of the Cross for us Men and our Salvation in General And can we then be so sottish as to believe that all Mankind were made to be Slaves and Vassals unto one Compito one Vicar General made Governor by themselves by delegating their own Power without divesting themselves thereof upon this or that man for their own good and benefit and for the better Government of their whole body either explicitely or implicitely alwayes implyed and alwayes so to be understood undoubtedly all Governors in the World whether Ecclesiastick or Civil be their Power what it will never so absolute never so Arbitrary yet by the Law of God they ought to govern no otherwise than Christ himself would govern were he come in glory to Reign on Earth and to square their Actions according to the Dictates and Laws of God delivered unto us by the Prophets and Apostles And tho so to govern be a happiness and a favour indeed unto the Subjects yet it is an absolute duty unto God and Man and of which he will certainly one day exact an Account The reason is demonstrable for that no man living Paternal Government excepted nor any number of men whatsoever can have any compleat lawful Authority over any Politick Society of men but he must have it either by consent of Parties or immediate appointment of God Hooker 70. Notwithstanding this natural right of publick Societies I appeal to all Story if ever it were Recorded that ever any Pope quitted his pretensions to his Supremacy or to his pretended power over any Temporal Prince that was at variance with him since the day that they first took them up unless he were Cudgelled into better manners and better obedience
England and letting John see the danger he was in advised him to become the Popes Foedatary John enforced by the present peril accepted the advice and made his Kingdom Tributary to the Pope to pay him yearly 1000 Marks of Gold Pandulphus hereupon returned into France and commanded Philip upon pain of Excommunication that he should molest John no longer as being now become the Foedatary of the Church but Philip refused to obey and the War continued whereupon in the year 1215. in the Council of Lateran Pope Innocent sent out an Excommunication against all those that molested John King of England And for that Cause in the year 1216. Another Legate called Guallo went to Paris who by vertue of that Sentence of Excommunication commanded Philip and Lewis his Son to forbear to pass with an Army into England which they were then prepared to do But notwithstanding all this Lewis desisted not but entred John's Kingdom with a great power altho the same Guallo was gone over into England and there ceased not dayly to thunder out his Excommunications This War continued unto the death of John after which Lewis had gotten many places of that Kingdom into his hands made Truce for five years with Henry the Son of John who succeeded his Father Thus you see how the very Holiness of Rome can Handy Dandy play fast and loose with Kings themselves § Concerning the desperate damnable Doctrines of this Chapter Novit little ought to be said for that they rather deserve a Spunge than an answer to be obliterated out of all Records minds and memories and because Gabriel Biel a man of their own Leaven hath taken great pains on that Can. Lec 75. to give some tollerable interpretation but can find none but this viz. that this Decretal and all other of the same tenor must be understood in foro poenitentiae A lame shift to help a lame Dog over a stile But Bellarmine will not be so consined he will extend it farther Frier Paolo and mark what follows even according to men of Rome that whoever will affirm as Bellarmine doth that they are to be understood in foro exteriori shall have much ado to avoid the absurdities and the utter overthrow of the Secular Power ordained of God and the confusion of the World which will arise out of these Doctrines For his purpose is to conclude that where Princes use their Power to the hurt of their own Souls or their Peoples and to the prejudice of Christian Religion the Pope may take the matter in hand to redress it If this must go for currant Doctrine mark what will follow viz. There is no action of man in Individuo but it is either a good work or it is a sin Now if it belongs to the Pope to exercise Jurisdiction over all Sins and withall to take upon him to determine what is sin and what not I say there is no longer any Prince but the Pope nay farther there is no place left for any private Government In sum the Pope may by this Doctrine examine all Laws all Edicts all Parliaments all Councils all Successions all Translation of Princes he may call in question and examine all Inheritances and Contracts of all private Men all Marriages all Treatises of Peace and War between Prince and Prince because it belongs to the Shepherd to have a care of his Sheep And this inference doth not only necessarily follow of this supposition but it is also allowed by the Canonists that write upon that Chapter Novit And yet nevertheless have the wisest men and of the most understanding noted and taxed it to be full of Absurdities which to avoid some have out of that Chapter Novit framed a distinction where there can be none viz. that it is one thing to judge of the matter or of the Action or of the contract and another to judge of the sin for if it be the Pope's right to judge of all things as they are sins and to forbid them and to enforce all men to obey his determinations therein what is there more left then for the Prince to do Not one of Democritus's Moats for Bellarmine hath taught us a very general Doctrine that to judge whether any Law contain in it sin or not it belongs to the Pope as it belongs to the Ecclesiastical Judge to determine whether a Civil Contract contain in it the sin of Vsury Hence it will necessarily follow Che il giudicare st una lege centient pâ—ccato è pregiudicio alla chiâ—â—a tocca alt ' isteslo sommo Pontifice che è gindice supren o si come il giudlcare se un contratto civile contengo peccato di usura appertiene al medisimo Giudice Ecclesiallico quals appertient la cognitione de i pâ—ccati f. 330 331. that not only the Pope but every Ecclesiastical Judge shall have Power to determine all matters for it can belong no more to him to judge whether a Contract offend in Usury than whether it contain any other wrong or Injury to his neighbor for all that do so are sins as well as the other And by the same reason it will belong to the Ecclesiastical Judge to determine of all manner of sin And in brief because there is no Action or Affair either Publick or Private whereunto sin is not Incident if it shall be in the Power of the Ecclesiastical Judge to determine and judge of it and either to allow it or forbid it and to enforce obedience to his own determinations All transactions about Contracts all Courts of Justice and all private Families may well be transferred into the Bishops Palace good grist to that Mill But the true Christian Doctrine and the common practice all the World over avoids all these absurdities subjecting all Crimes and Offences unto the Temporal Jurisdiction according to the example of Christ and his Apostles who never pretended to have or exercise any Temporal coertion or coactive Authority over mens sins And if the Pope were Christ's true Vicar indeed he would never usurp more than ever Christ exercised himself or gave him Authority to do The main business of Peter and of the rest of the Apostles was to Teach and Preach dayly in the Temple and in every House Jesus Christ Acts 5.42 Thus you see that these very Doctrines contained in the Chapter Novit need little of our Confutation it is done to our hands by several of themselves and according to their own St. Thomas they are too general because there must be excepted all internal motions of the mind whereof the Pope hath no power at all to judge unless it be in foro Poenitentiae in which also every Priest hath equal power with himself no pleasing Doctrine at Rome and of this sort are the greatest number of sins And their own Divines and Canonists do generally agree that in the Excommunications granted against Hereticks those are not comprized which err mentally so that they which attempt to defend as
wheresoever he heard there was a Treaty to hold a Council And after a certain time he took the power to himself which the Roman Emperors used to convocate a Council of the whole Empire and to be President himself if present if absent to send Legates to be Presidents But a little more than one Age being past it was very necessary that every Nation should Assemble by it self and resolve according to the Number of Voices and that the general decision should be established not by the suffrages of particular men but by the plurality of the voices of the Nations so it was observed in the Council of Constance and Basil which use as it is good where the Government is free as it was when the world had no Pope so it ill befits the Pope who desires all Councils to be subject to him § Having thus summarily given a short prospect of the state of the Church in the first and purer times and how in succeeding times it came by degrees to be altered I proceed and say again to the Independents that be it as they would have it that the gathered Churches by one Apostle were not subject to the inspection and subordination of an other or of all the Apostles the cause of such Independency being then and in them reasonable for that each Apostle was guided by an infallible Spirit and so not absolutely necessary and yet even in their times it was thought fit to call a Council for setling of some differences yet it doth not therefore follow nor cannot demonstratively be proved that every individual Pastor after the times of the Apostles had their select Congregations seperate and distinct from others or that those Congregations were Independent free and exempt from all inspection or superintendency of Magistrates or Bishops or other Presbiters The conjectures and probabilities and they have no Arguments of an other nature seem strong for the contrary for Religion did first take place in Cities which had their Ecclesiastical Colledges consisting of Presbiters and Deacons whom first the Apostles and their Deligats the Evangelists did both ordain and govern such were the Colledges of Jerusalem Antioch Ephesus Rome Corinth aâ—â— the rest where the Apostles are known to have planted our Faith and Religion Now Religion in those days and places and the cure of Souls was their general charge in common over all that were about them neither had any one Presbyter for ought that appears by any ecclesiastical History his several cure or seperate title distinct and apart until the division of Parishes which was first made by the People when a certain number of Inhabitants having received the true Faith built a Temple for the exercising of their Religion hired a Priest and did constitute a Church which by them was called a Parish and when the number was increased if one Church and Priest were not sufficient they who were most remote did build another and sit themselves better And in process of time for the sake of good Order and concord custom began to have the Bishops consent also and †Hic Titulos in urbe Roma divisit presbiteris Evaristus Bishop in the Sea of Rome about the year 112. began to assign precincts to ever Church or Title which the Christians held and to appoint unto each Presbyter a certain compass whereof himself should take charge alone him †Hic Presbiteris ecclesias divisit coemiteria parochias dio diaeceses constituit Dionisius papa 24. followed Ao. 268. which was found so commodious that all parts of Christendom followed the example and among the rest our Churches in the reign of Ercombert the 7th King of Kent †Hoc de Honorio maxime memo rabile Godwins Episc p. 59. Honorius also being then Arch-Bishop of Canterbury about the year 636. became divided in like manner and have so continued ever since Other distinction of the Churches there doth not appear any in the Writings of the Apostles save those according to Cities only 15. Acts 36.1 Apocal. 20. wherein they planted the Gospel of Christ and erected ecclesiastical Colledges of Presbyters and Deacons ordained by the Apostles to exercise ecclesiastical functions promiscuously and at large till the said Evaristus did about 100 years after Christ distinguish the Church of Rome into Parishes tying each one to his proper station so that indesinite care of souls and indefinite ordination do approach nearer the Apostles times and example And prescription for the congregational way may be more justly grounded on the example of the People who are the Brethren who are the Church and of Evaristus then of any Apostle of Christ Moreover this the Independents will hardly evade each Church in the Apostles days had many Presbyters that laboured in the Word the Scriptures do plainly witness it In the Church of Jerusalem 15. Acts 6.23 of Antioch 13. Acts 1. of Ephesus 20. Acts 17.28 of whom 16. Rom. of Corinth 1 Corinth 14.29 of Phillippi 1. Phil. 1. of Thessalonica 1. Thes 5.12 of other Churches the like is affirmed 13. Heb. 7. James 5.14 1. Pet. 5.1 Now if each Church had more Presbiters and Pastors than one in the days of the Apostles as it is manifest they had then can it be hardly made out by right reason that every individual Presbyter or Pastor had his particular and circumscribed gathered Church free of all subordination they seem contradictory in themselves On the contrary in the more pure times no man was ever ordained for some hundred of years to whom there was not appointed both his proper and special Office and Charge and Antiquity knew no distinction between Ordination and Benefice and ordaining was the same thing as to give an Office and the right of having ones livelyhood from the common goods of the Church § The Independents do farther aver for their own justification and that most truly that it is a thing natural that all free and Independent Societies should themselves make their own Laws of which sort they take their gathered Churches to be which is the thing questioned and denyed and say they are not Independent for the reasons shewed But be it so yet then it is averred that it is as true and as natural that the Legislative-Christian-Power should and doth belong to the whole England for example and not to any certain Parish City or Country as to London York c. of a Politick Body though happily some one part may have a greater share therein than some others And as this right doth naturally belong to a Commonwealth so it must needs belong to the Church of God which in the truest understanding is the Commonwealth if Christian and the Peopele thereof do publickly embrace the true Religion As this very thing doth make it the Church so the whole England not any certain part as St. Paul in London St. Peter at Westminster or at York hath the power of making Laws and constitutions ecclesiastical A Law is the deed of
given to the Body of the Church and not to the Priests thereof to govern it self and that there is no other excommunication then what is common to both viz. To withdraw our selves from every Brother that walketh disorderly 2 Thess 3.6 If any obey not our saying have no company with him that he may be ashamed v. 34. not to eat with the Brother that is a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolater or a Rayler or a Drunkard or an Extortioner 1 Cor. 5.11 and put away from amongst you that evil person v. 13. All which precepts belong to all both Laity and Clergy indifferently Let excommunication be what it will if any there be An exclusion from the Word and Sacraments it cannot be yet what ever it is it is attributed to the Church and that most rightfully But then it is to be considered that by the venerable and Apostolical name of Church was antiently and ab initio understood all the faithful as well Laity as Clergy though of latter years it hath been injuriously wrested to signify the Clergy only whereas in truth the Laity as well as the Clergy as lively stones are built up a spiritual house an holy Priesthood a chosen Generation to offer up Spiritual Sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2.5.9 For it is certain that St. Peter gave the title of Clergy to all Christians in general and that Pope Higinus who lived in the second Century and his Successors most injuriousty took it from them usurping and appropriating the name of Church to themselves and their Priests only which is since attributed to the Popes only by the Pope and Court of Rome and their Creatures and condemning the rest of Gods holy people to an injurious and alienate appellation of Laity separating themselves from the Laity as unclean and prophane by local partitions in Churches c. and so the distinction insensibly crept in by degrees § Because the Word and term Church hath been so much wrested and abused by men of different perswasions for different ends and interests By Church is to be mean◠〈…〉 Apostolical and Legitimate 〈…〉 but not that which is usurpâ—d and imployed to the subversion of publick Government and of Religion it self for it is certain that nothing hath been so great a hindrance to the grwoth and propagation of the truly Catholick Religion as the extending the just liberties thereof into licence by grasping at more and other powers than ever Christ gave them by any Commission which alone hath caused and maintained so great and deplorable divisions in Religion and so little understood by the vulgar both of Protestants and Papists and that I may open the eyes of some that yeild blind obedience and magnify the Pope and indeed I know not what nor whom for the Church and to shew in little the tricks and artisices of the Popish Clergy to increase their Power and Coffers I shall shew how when and where it was first used in the New Testament and how degenerated and what ill use hath been made of since By the word Church in the New Testament is meant the society of Christians or number of Believers in Christ Vide. 19. Art of Religion already come and to come in the flesh crucified dead buried and ascended into Heaven for the planting and increasing whereof Christ himself laboured during his abode on earth by Miracles Signs and Wonders and after his Resurrection before he was taken up and a Cloud had received him out of their sight he appointed his eleven Disciples Judas having fallen by transgression from his Ministry and Apostleship that he might go to his own place to teach all Nations baptizing them and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever he had commanded them 28 Mat. 19.20 and to preach repentance and remission of sins in his Name among all Nations beginning at Jerusalem 24 Luk. 47 charging them to tarry in the City of Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high v. 49. After they had received the Holy Ghost in that miraculous manner of cloven tongues on the day of Pentecost Peter standing up with the eleven preached so powerfully unto the multitude then and there gathered to understand the wonderful miracle of cloven tongues ushered in by a rushing mighty wind and to see the effects thereof that at that Sermon there were converted about 3000. Souls which gladly received him and were baptized and continued stedfast in the Apostles Doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread from house to house and in prayers praising God and having favour with all the people 2 Acts v. 41.42 and the Lord added to the Church i. e. to all the Apostles and Disciples left by Christ and unto those converted at this Sermon of St. Peters daily such as should be saved 2 Acts 47. the first society or congregation that we read of called a Church in the new Testament 47. so that from this very day and time and upon this occasion which was within few dayes after Christs Aesension was the Congregation or Societies of Believers called the Church And it is here more especially to be observed that the name of Church was not here given as peculiar to the Apostles or Clergy but as common to all believers the number of whom daily increasing quickly came to be cantonzied divided and subdivided into Cities Provinces Countries Houses Hence the various expressions so were the Churches established in the Faith and increased in number daily 16 Acts 5. All the Churches of the Gentiles 16. Rom. 4. All the Churches of the Saints 1 Cor. 14.33 The Churches throughout Judea Galilee and Samaria 9 Acts 30. 1 Gal. 21.22 So ordain in all Churches 1 Cor. 7.17 The Churches of Asia salute you 1 Cor. 16.19 The Church at Antioch 13 Acts 1. The Churches of Thessalonians 1 Thes 1.1 The Church that is at Babilon saluteth you 1 Pet. 5.13 The seven Churches of Asia Apocal. hence also more minute subdivisions as great Pricilla and Aqvila together with the Church in their House 1 Cor. 16.19 salute Nymphas and the Church in his House 4 Colos 15. Paul and Timothy to Philemon and to the Church in his House Philemon 2. When St. Paul sent for the Elders of Ephesus and willed them to take heed to themselves and all the Flock over which the holy Ghost had made them overseers to feed the Church of God 28 Act. 17.28 What meant he by the Church the Priests to whom he spake or the people the People no doubt the Church is never taken in the New or Old Testament for the Priests alone but generally for the whole Congregation of the faithful Having thus demonstrated who are meant by the word and term of Church let us now consider what powers and priviledges they were indulged and endowed withal both Priest and People from Christ § What Powers and Priviledges did belong to the Ecclesiasticks as Apostles Bishops Priests and Deacons I have intimated
before shewing that the Apostles had jurisdiction over Prophets Evangelists Presbyters and Deacons and I think will not be denied Then the Canons stiled Apostolical say Canon 38. let the Presbyters and Deacons do nothing without the knowledge or consent of the Bishop he is the man that is trusted with the Lords People and that must render an account of their Souls Ignatius Bishop of Antioch almost 30 years in the Apostles times agreeth fully with that Canon saying do nothing neither Presbyter nor Deacon without the Bishop neither let any thing seem orderly without his liking for it is unlawful and displeasing unto God And again without the Bishop let no man do any thing that pertaineth to the Church Ignat. ep 3. ad Magnes Ibid. ep 7. ad Smyrneos Cencil Ancyran can 13. Laodicens 56. Aralatens c. 19. Tolet. 1. c. 20. by which it plainly appears that in the purest times Bishops were both Pastors of the Churches and Governours of the Presbyters in every City that believed so long as they ruled well and were instead of the Apostles and as their Successors they had charge of ordaining others for the work of the Ministry and guiding the Keys with the advice and Consent of the Brethren and Church there Congregated § Christ being now ascended in triumph into Heaven the eleven Apostles returned from Mount Olivet unto Jerusalem where they continued with one accord in Prayer and Supplication with the Women and Mary the Mother of Jesus and with his Brethren and Peter standing up in the midst of the Disciples the number of Names together being about 120. moved that of these Men which had companied with them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out amongst them one might be ordained in the room of Judas to be a witness with them of his Resurrection and they appointed two Joseph called Barsabas who was surnamed Justus and Matthias And they prayed and said thou Lord which knowest the hearts of all men shew whether of these two thou hast chosen that he may take part of this Ministry and Apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell that he might go to his own place And they gave forth their lots and the lot fell upon Matthias and he was numbred with the eleven Apostles 1. Acts 12. c. It s observable that this being the first and most considerable action that the Apostles together with those Disciples who had given their Names to Christ did after his Ascension and before the Holy Ghost had been powered out upon them they did not go about it without taking the other Disciples which were Laicks into their Council and making them partakers of the Facts for when they had prayed they cast Lots The like the Apostles did when there grew a'murmuring for the neglect of the Grecian Widdows they called the Multitude of the Disciples directing them to look out seven men of honest report full of the Holy Ghost and Wisdome c. And the saying pleased the whole Multitude and they chose Steven and the rest whom they set before the Apostles who laid their hands on them 2. Acts 2.3.4.5.6 so that upon the whole matter the choice and election of those seven Deacons was committed by the whole Chorus of the Apostles unto the Multitude they had their concern their part to act in it Paul being in danger of being killed by the Jews at Jerusalem the Brethren having notice thereof brought him down to Caesarea and sent him forth to Tarsus 9. Acts. 30. News being brought to the Apostles and Brethren that were at Jerusalem of the Conversion of Cornelius when Peter came up to Hierusalen they that were of the Circumcision the Brethren there contended with him saying thou wentest in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with them 11. Acts 23. by which it is manifest that the Brethren the Church that then was at Jerusalem by their own right did impose a kind of necessity on Peter Prince of the Apostles and Pope of Rome in the esteem of Romanists to vindicate himself by rehearsing the whole matter and he as humbly without standing upon his Apostolical Dignity or Papal Authority did give the Body of the Church satisfaction and then had their approbation also by their saying then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life v. 18. When Peter was miraculously delivered out of Prison by an Angel he came to the House of Mary where many were gathered together praying 12. Acts 12. and spake unto them saying go shew these things unto James president of the Church at Jerusalem and to the Brethren v. 17. and that ex aequo that the whole Body might sympathize and participate of the joy and might not be held in suspence between Hope and Fear In the Church at Antioch famous for Prophets and Teachers as they were ministring to the Lord and fasting the holy Ghost said to the whole Congregation seperate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them and when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them by the Elders they sent them away 13. Acts 1.2.3 Paul and Barnabas having been persecuted from Iconium returned to Antioch and having gathered the Church together they rehearsed all that God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles 14. Acts 27.15 Acts 1. In the Church of Antioch there being a great dissention raised by certain men which came down from Judea concerning Circumcision with whom Paul and Barnabas had had no small disputation they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the Apostles and Elders about this question where they were received of the Church and of the Apostles and Elders and they declared all things that God had done with them and after Peter had spoken all the Multitude kept silence and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul declaring it c. and it pleased the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church to send chosen men of their own Company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas and wrote Letters by them the title of which Letters was the Apostles and Elders and Brethren send greeting unto the Brethren c. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and unto us to lay upon you no greater Burthen than these necessary things c. when they came to Antioch and when they had gathered the Multitude together they delivered the Epistle and Judas and Silas being Prophets also themselves exhorted the Brethren and confirmed them 32. and afterwards were let go in peace from the Brethren unto the Apostles 33. and Paul chose Silas and departed being recommended by the Brethren unto the Grace of God 40. And the Brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Baeraea 17. Acts 10. And the Brethren sent away Paul to go as it were by Sea v. 14. and Paul took his leave of the Brethren 18. Acts 18. and when he had landed