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
Member of the Militant Church is ordinarily a Member of the Christian Commonwealth or Kingdom wherein he lives and è contra That which differenceth the Church properly so called from a Society or Body meerly Civil is the diversity of Laws and Ordinances and the different manner of Union betwixt the Members of it A Church A Commonwealth or Body Civil are not necessarily two Bodies contra-distinct or Opposite as the Romanists often dream or presuppose in their Arguments brought for the Prerogatives of the Roman Church alledging that those have first their being and then they frame their Government and therefore are free and that all Jurisdiction is originally in them which they do communicate to Magistrates without depriving themselves of it But the Church did not make it self and its Government but Christ did first Institute Laws by which it should be Governed and then did Christ assemble it but rather one Body endowed with several or distinct Powers or Perfections when a Kingdom or Commonwealth becomes Christian and Consequently a Church it looseth nothing of what it had but rather acquires a New Perfection and Accomplishment by the Accrument of Divine Powers added to the Civil It may be true that when the Church was first Founded by Jesus Christ that it was altogether distinct from the Commonwealth for indeed it could not be then otherwise for that all Kingdoms and Commonwealths were then open and professed Enemies to the Gospel and therefore the Regiment given unto the Church by Jesus Christ was accordingly such as might be exercised by the Members thereof in any Nation and among any People be their Government what it would or their Enmity to the Gospel never so great without clashing or interfeering with it or with them and without the least disturbance of the quiet State of the Kingdom or People whereunto they were sent for their Conversion But when that Prophesie that Kings should be the Nursing Fathers and Queens the Nursing Mothers of the Church was to be fulfilled and whole Kingdoms embraced the Gospel and became Christians then the Church and Commonwealth became one and were no longer contra distinct Certainly the Justifying of Excommunications or Church Censures in this manner on such grounds and Positions is to speak modestly scarce safe or defensible For that they seem too much to Countenance and to approach too near unto the Positions of the Papists which are 1º that the Spiritual Power is above all Secular and Civil Power which Assertion were it rightly limited and Stated is in it self Orthodox as here is declared but the more Orthodox it is in it self the more Pernitious and deadly it makes the second Position unto which they seek to Wed it viz. 2º that this Supream and Spiritual Power is totally Stated in the Clergy as in a Body distinct from the Body Politick And the most of them hold the plenitude of this Power to be in the Pope from whom all Spiritual Power of Jurisdiction is derived unto the rest of the Clergy after the same manner as Jurisdiction in causes Temporal is derived unto the Inferior Magistrates from the Civil Monarch in each Kingdom And that the Regiment of the Church is Regimen Monarchicum a Visible Monarchy of which the Pope is the visible Monarch therefore without all doubt it is not only less Obnoxious to Cavils and Sophisms but also more truly Orthodoxal and more Justisiable to aver and maintain that the Church and Commonwealth Christian tho happily like Man and Wife before their Intermarriage were two Bodies two contradistinct Societies but being once Incorporated by mutual and reciprocal Wedlock do become one Body one Society endowed with several Powers and several Perfections newly acquired by such Intermarriage wherewith she was not endowed before her Intermarriage and so consequently the Powers of the Church do escheat into that of the Commonwealth whensoever it becomes Christian whereof the Pastors and Teachers are special Members and Officers according to their Commission but for no other ends nor purposes above the Laity though the Authors of these Positions do fully acknowledg that the Person of the Supream Magistrate must and ought to be exempted as to any outward effects of the Power of Excommunication Yet these Positions are subject unto so many nice and School distinctions that it is much to be feared that perverse and subtle wits would strongly Combate with us with our own Weapons and find or make a way to render the Power of the Magistrate only serviceable unto the Power or Interest of the Clergy Do but a little consider how subtelty Bellarmine in his tract against Gerson of Excommunication doth endeavour to erect and prove Regimen Ecclesiasticum to be Monarchicum upon the like fundamental right f. 4.142 whilst he affirms that the holy Church is not like to the Commonwealth of Venice or of Geneva or of other Cities which confer upon their Dukes and Princes that Power which themselves please in regard whereof it may be said that the Commonwealth is above the Prince neither yet is it like to an earthly Kingdom in which the People transfer their own Authority unto the Monarch and in certain Cases may free themselves from Royal Dominion and reduce themselves to the Government of Inferior Magistrates as did the Romans when they changed from Dominion Royal to Consular Government for the Church of Christ is a most perfect Kingdome and an absolute Monarchy which hath no dependance on the People neither from them had its Original but dependeth only upon the Divine Will and that this Kingdom doth not depend on Men Christ sheweth when he saith you chose not me but I chose you 15 John 16. thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall Reign on the Earth 5. Apoc. 10. And this is the cause why this Kingdom is in the Scripture resembled to a Family who then is a faithful and wise Servant whom his Lord hath made Ruler over his Houshold 24. Matth. 25. Because the Father of the Family doth not depend on the Family neither from them hath his Authority So by consequence the Vicar general of Christ doth not depend on the Church but only on Christ from whom he hath his Authority and doth affirm that Christ doth declare that a Bishop in his particular Church and the Pope in the Church Vniversal is as it were a high Steward in Gods Family quis enim fidelis dispensator et prudens 12 Luke 42. and hath Power over the Family and not the Family over him contra-Gers Yet by the leave of so great a Prelate St. Cyprian tho no Cardinal yet of greater reputation saith that the practise of those times which were freest from Corruption even when the Holy Martyrs were Bishops was that Pastors were subject to the Censures of the Church And lib. 1. c. 4. giveth an express Testimony where speaking of the People he saith Quando ipsa plebs maxime habeat potestatem vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes
to seed his Fock No no Ezekiel shews that their duty is to strengthen the Diseased to heal the Sick to bind up the broken to bring again that which was driven away and to jeek that which was lost this also is consonant to the Doctrine of St. Peter 1. Ep. 2 3. Feed the Flock of Christ taking the oversight thereof not for filthy Lucre but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over Gods Heritage but being Examples to the Flock Besides it can never be proved by Scripture that Christ's instituting Pastors in the Church did at any time exempt them from obedience to the Church she being the Common Parent of all Christians both Ecclesiastical and Secular and the Practice was so in the purest times as may appear by St. Cyprian Lib. 1. c. 4. Moreover when Christ ascended on high tho he led Captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men yet he did not divest himself of all power of Governing his Body the Church Militant here on Earth devolving it on the Pope but doth still continue to govern it internally and Spiritually by the secret influences and illapses of his Spirit and so will do until time shall be no more And altho the Popes have nothing at all to do with this kind of Government nor as yet in terminis have laid any claim thereunto yet their Illustrissimo Bellarmine hath had such effronted Impudence as to aver that the Pope is able to do all that which is necessary to the Conducting of Souls to Paradise unto which end certainly Divine Inspiration is most necessary and can take away all Impediments which the World or the Devil with all their force or Crast are able to oppose which doth covertly insinuate and attribute the same Spiritual Invisible power to be also in the Pope hoping it will not be seen but it is discovered for without such Insluences and assistances it is very improbable if not altogether impossible to be conducted to Heaven and if Bellarmine's Doctrine be good what need of petitioning Heaven for Graces it is but going to Rome a pleasant Journey where we may have all things necessary for our Journey to Paradise for asking for some merry Pence Romae omnia venalia As to the external Government of his Body and Church Militant here on Earth it consists here of visible men The Church to be Governed by its own Body So Christ himself would that it should be governed by visible men without divesting himself of his Spiritual influences and in order thereunto he appointed Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the Edifying of the Body of Christ Ephes 4.8 11 12. Who having in his life-time endowed them with power and commands to teach all Nationis Baptizing c. Matth. 28.19 which is all the Authority that ever Christ gave or bequeathed unto them and which is purely Spiritual without any mixture Temporal and that only as Ministers and Servants not as Lords of his Body which power tho it may be peculiar to the Clergy of the Church as chief Officers and Ministers thereof yet the application of the same Authority to the person is purely elective and depending on the Body hence it follows that the Body or Sheep having chosen their Bishop or Pastor he is now become subject to the Body and not the Body to him which Authority of choosing them a good or of Judging or of censuring a wicked Pastor being given them of Christ their Head and Father they cannot wave or devolve the same without committing great offence against God and if they should yet they cannot wholly divest themselves thereof Besides in disputes among themselves whether the Pope be above a Council very many of the most Learned of them do argue and agree that as the Head or Superior of the Inquisition is not Superior to the whole Congregation of the Inquisition being assembled nor do they admit that the rest of the Body hath no power over the Head especially being such a Head as the Body it self hath constituted They argue the like also from the examples of Kings and Kingdoms of which I shall make this use only that if these be good instances among themselves to prove a Council to be above the Pope it will hold also in minor collective Ecclesiastical Bodies Thus do they abuse all places of Scripture by wresting them from their proper meaning and intendment The Popes claims first modest then Impudent as I have hitherto shewed and therefore the Readers may do well to bear in their memories the Cautions and Observations laid down in the Paraenesis forementioned The pretensions of the Popes were at first modest as I have shewed you in Gregory in respect of that height of Impudence they have now arrived unto They claimed only precedency or Primacy not Supremacy but now their Judgments are Infallible their Jurisdiction Infinite their Empire boundless fetching in and Monopolizing all Churches and Kingdoms All Bishops but their Curates All Kings and Emperors but their Vassals for of the Pope was meant Gens regnum quod non servierit tibi eradicabitur and this Bellarmine Baronius and others of the same Leaven plead for not out of the Decretal Epistles or Constantine's Donations but out of Scripture The first and best Bishops of Rome thought more of their Martyrdom than of an Universal Monarchy expounding Scripture with contentedness according to the natural sence of the Text without racking or torturing it unto wrong ends and purposes But their Successors lost by degrees first conscience then Learning and now at last all Grace and Modesty This their Babel as it now stands was not built in a day but as the itching desires of this or that proud and haughty Pope of enlarging their Fringes and Phylacteries did increase so their claims and pretentions increased therewith At first they claimed a Primacy of Order or at most of Honor not of power among their Brethren only not over them And these contestations were with Bishops not yet with Emperors they medled yet only with the Keyes not with the Swords owning all their power to be meerly and purely Spiritual for the benefit of Souls nothing at all directly or indirectly temporal But when once they had put a Padlock on the Scriptures and Preached Ignorance up to be the Mother of Devotion then the Mystery of Iniquity became quickly advanced to that monstrous height which at this day we see but cannot remedy And the better to set out this Pageant not only some scraps and shadows of old Fathers and Councils but the Scripture it self our Lord Christ and St. Peter are brought upon the Stage and rackt and tortured to do obeysance unto this Monster of Iniquity whereas we may safely swear that there is not one word or Syllable of the Pope or his Power in all the Scripture Old or New but what is due to all Bishops in Common with him save only as he is described
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
p. 369. taken away these words is no Riddle their Excuse is ready at hand viz. That they are not in the New Testament but of many other words which are found in the Breviaries and not in the New Testament it is said they come ex Traditione Apostolicâ and so they will tell us that however the Evangelists do not affirm it yet it comes by Tradition that old and bold Imposture that these words were directed to Peter Now then here ought to be some distinction by which there may appear a difference between this Tradition and the others which when it is made yet all will be too little to excuse that for many hundred years it was not so read and consequently so believed of all Catholicks for so many Ages that it was spoken particularly to Peter Dic Ecclesiae So that they must needs equivocate in the Noun Church and interpret it Dic tibi ipsi i.e. Tell it to thy self To this purpose we have a more signal corruption not of their Breviary but of the Gospel it self For in the Gospel Translated into Persian by Xauerius it is added after Dic Ecclesiae and if he refuse to hear the Church then tell it Romano Pontisici to the Pope of Rome and if he refuse to hear him let him be an Heathen c. yea yet farther it will be a Sence so palpably wrested to understand by the Church one sole Person and that not so much because the Noun it self cannot bear it as for that Christ himself interpreting it in the words immediately following saith Vbi sunt duo vel tres Where there are two or three gathered together c. So that it is apparently cleared that he understood by the Church a Congregation of two or three at the least assembled in his Name But grant them what they vehemently contend for viz. That Christ said to Peter himself Tell the Church yet for that very reason Peter himself was sent unto some other persons constituting a Church and therefore by the Term Church Peter could not possibly be meant or intended § It is objected out of John 9.12 That the Scribes and Pharisees did in Christs time thrust such as they deemed Offenders out of their Synagogue which they will needs have to be Excommunication and that the same power was bequeathed unto the Church Christian is Mat. 15.20 That they did so may be true but that they had good warrant so to do out of Moses I find not A Separation of the Leper from the Company of men and of the unclean from coming near the Holy Places are things Moses prescribeth but Excommunication no where that I know of A Bastard might not enter into the Congregation of the Lord unto the Tenth Generation Deut. 23.2 Nor yet the Ammonites or Moabites v. 23. But the Children of the Edomites and Egyptians were received in the Third Generation v. 8. Aliens were not admitted to be of the Number of the Lords People and any Uncleanness of the Flesh did separate for a season the Jews themselves from approaching near to the Congregation or Tabernacle of God but neither of these is Excommunication The Strangers which were not yet admitted could not be rejected the Natural Insirmities and Uncleanness of the Body as Leprosie Pollution Touching of the Dead c. are made Remembrances of our Corruption not Causes of Excommunication For greater Sins committed God appointed Corporal punishments for Wrongs he required Recompence for smaller Matters he accepted Sacrifices of Confession and Repentance other Censures in Moses I know none at least that will amount unto Excommunication The casting of Men out of their Synagogues was first devised by the Pharisees to serve their proud and aspiring humor for that the chiefest power of the Sword was translated unto Strangers and the highest Dignity remained unto the Sadduces Jos Antiq. lib. 18. c. 20. and though sharply pursued by them against Christ and his Disciples yet was it no spiritual course but rather a temporal loss of all such Honours Offices Priviledges and Freedoms as the parties had in Church or State where they lived and a plain adjudging them to imprisonment Scourging and such other Chastisements as the Synedrion by their Laws might and did inflict unto which I presume no Ministers of the Gospel will pretend or lay any claim St. John reports c. 19. v 38. That Joseph of Arimathea was Christs Disciple but secretly for fear of the Jews And c. 12.42 That many of the chief Rulers believed on him but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest they should be cast out of their Synagogue now Believers in Christ could be in no dread or fear of the Spiritual Curse and Excommunication of the Pharisees for that they excommunicated themselves when they forsook the Jewish Church and became Christians they better understood their Interest in Christ than so wherefore this casting out of the Synagogue if not wholly Civil yet at least was intermixed with the Civil Regiment and the terror thereof wholly proceeded from the power of the Sword confirmed by God to the Council and Elders of that Commonwealth which the Pastors of Christs Church may not usurp nor challenge unless the Civil Magistrate do Counsel and Authorize their Doings and if so yet questioned by some As for that other Phrase viz. He shall be cut off from the midst of his People so often used in the Law and so often and strongly insisted upon by some to express a kind of Excommunication and Anathematization I must take leave to dissent from them also that are so perswaded of the Sence of this Exposition Moses himself not the Rabbins is the best Expositor and out of him not out of them Proofs are to be sought In Levit. 18. God threatning Incest Adultery Sodomy Buggary and Offering Children unto Moloch concludeth v. 29 that whosoever shall commit any of these Abominations shall be cut off from among the People i.e. shall die the death as is expressed Levit. 20.3 4 17. Whoever shall give his Children unto Moloch shall die the death the People of the Land shall stone him to death and if the People of the Land kill him not then will I set my face against that Man and his Family and cut him off So for Incest they shall be cut off in the sight of their People i.e. openly put to death So likewise for any wilful breach of Gods Law The person that doth ought presumptuously c. therefore shall he be cut off from among his People i.e. suffer death When this kind of Speech is referred to the Magistrate then Execution is enjoyned when to God then it is a Commination denounced that he will plague and root them out and their Remembrances from the People of God Nahum 3. Jer. 11.22 23. Ezek. 14.8 13 21. Ezek. 21.28 The Separation mentioned Ezra 10.8 11 12. And Nehemiah's chasing away some that married strange Wives Nehem. 13. were joyned with Forfeitures of all their Goods
one place 1 Cor. 11.20 If therefore the whole Church he come together in one place 1 Cor. 14.23 Paul gave it in charge to the Elders of every particular Church as was that of Ephesus 20. Acts 17 28. That ye take heed unto all the Flock whereof the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own Blood Paul doth entitle the particular Congregation which was at Corinth and which properly and immediately he did instruct and admonish to the Body of Christ 1 Cor. 12.27 To be the Temple of God 2 Cor. 16. And to be one Virgine spoused to one Husband Christ 2 Cor. 11.2 We may not therefore saith he under pretence of Antiquity Unity humane Prudence or any Colour whatsoever remove the Ancient Bounds of the visible and ministerial Church which our first and right Fathers to wit Apostles have set in comparison of whom the most ancient of those which are so called are but Infants and beardless There is indeed one Church one Body one Spirit one Hope of our Calling one Lord one Faith one Baptism i. e. of one Kind and Nature not one in number as one Sea Neither was the Church of Rome in the Apostles days more one with the Church of Corinth than was the Baptism of Peter one with Pauls Baptism or than Peter and Paul were one neither was Peter or Paul more one whole intire perfect Man consisting of their Parts Essential and Integral without relation to other Men than is a particular Congregation rightly instituted and ordered A whole intire and perfect Church immediately and independently in respect of other Churches under Christ since the Pastor is not a Minister of some part of a Church but of the whole particular Church 20. Acts 28. If the Ministers Office be to be confined within the circle of a particular Congregation then also the Ministerial Church it self Now the Pastors Office is either circumscribed within these Bounds or else the Angel of the Church of Ephesus was also the Angel of the Church of Smyrna and so the Pastor of this Church is the Pastor of that and by consequence of all every Pastor is an universal Bishop or Pope by Office if not for execution yet for power according to which Power we are to judge of the Office § Before I proceed to return any answer I must make a general Paraenesis Paraenesis and lay it down as a general Precaution relating to the Applicacation of Texts of Scripture to which the Reader is to have respect throughout this Book in treating and handling of all Opinions which are divers and not few viz. It stands not with the Wisdom and Learning no nor yet with the sincerity of Ecclesiasticks how great soever how illuminated or how sincere soever they would be thought to be to alledge in favour of their Opinions Places and Texts of Scripture in a forreign or uncouth if not contrary sence to their own most natural meaning by urging some ambiguous or doubtful terms or Texts of Scripture that possibly may have a double meaning and accordingly setling a Position on some portion of Scripture in the one sense which is true and thereby purchasing some Credit and assent in the Readers minds by such Scripture Allegations and then in the Close conclude in another sense which is not true or contrary or at best not applicable to the Premisses or Positions first laid down It is I take it a received Axiome amongst Divines that that sense of Scripture which agreeth best with the literal words thereof is most genuine and most especially to be embrac'd and that which is farther fetcht as most forreign so least to be relyed on God be thanked this latter Generation is now come ex ephebis out of its minority and wardship wherein it hath been long held Captive by blind obedience and Romish Tyranny and begins now to relish and judge of Spiritual Viands not by the quality or condition or tast of them that cook it or serve it up unto us but by the savoury tast it hath of its own Indeed it is observable that an inordinate affection to find fault or to bring over others that are of a different perswasion to their own Opinions Volendi valde quicquid volunt of which they are so singularly fond that they on all occasions scruple not to intitle God and his Word to the patronage of them doth oftentimes transport Men yea zealous pious Men no less than any other affection whatsoever Hence is the Shop of transforming Texts of Scripture Ita veritatem amant ut velint vera esse quaecunque amant August Such lovers they are of truth that they wish all may be true which they love And vehement desires often reiterated are often metamorphosed into perswasions And therefore I heartily wish that Persons thus opinionated would consider that it is neither sound nor convenient no nor yet peaceable with a few ambiguous terms or with School quiddities or with Places of Scripture wrested or transformed to plant a Doctrine or introduce an opinion in the Church that will pervert or subvert the present setled state thereof Persons of great Learning and Reputation in the World ought above others to be so just as not to urge Scripture Allegations purposely to amuze or seduce the Readers but to look back unto the very Spring and Fountain wherefore they were recorded by the Prophets and Apostles and then to urge them in the truest understanding and intent thereof ☞ out of which no Writers with sincerity should dare with Sophistical Schoolies to seek or endeavour to carry them lest otherwise their Readers much biassed with the Abilities and Integrity of their Persons be thereby blindly led into errors by other Mens Passions and Interest So to handle Scripture is no new Artifice it was a trick even in our Saviours days and practised upon himself the putting of a wrong gloss upon Christs Word 14. Mark 58. made an evil ingredient towards his Condemnation The Pharises were most excellently gifted in this Art one while when Paul manifested Christs appearance unto them once in the way to Damascus and afterwards in the Temple commanding them to preach his Resurrection to the Gentiles they then with great indignation cryed Away with such a fellow from the Earth for it is not sit that he should live 22. Acts 8.17.18.22 Another while to serve their own turns and party against the Saduces who deny all Apparition of Spirit or Angel or hope of Resurrection from the dead which the Pharises confess Pauls conformity with the Pharises in manifesti g and proving the Resurrection from the dead doth relish so well with them that his other particular differences or dissentions from them no way displeases them For he giving express Testimony that Christ whom they had crucified did appear unto him did so please their humour that the Scribes which were on the Pharises part acquitted him by Proclamation viz.
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
The Prince on the other side though he pretend not to Preach Baptise impose hands administer Sacraments use the Keys or the like yet deems it more particularly and more especially within his Province to take care of these Priests and Priestly things to see that the Persons be able and well quallified and that they execute the Mandat according to the Doctrine of Faith and of the Gospel of Jesus Christ And as to countenance and maintain these that do perform their Function accordingly so to silence and punish those that do not else why should he be blamed for giving liberty to a Popish Priest or Phanatick Quaker more than unto an Independant or Presbyterian § A King is he that Ruleth others and the relation of the Word doth teach us that there can be no King but in respect of his Subjects and his duty towards them is to direct to command and punish in all things needful Where God chargeth the King to keep and observe all the words of the Law keeping and observing are not there referred to his private Actions as a Man but to his publick Functions as a King and therefore the Kings in these words received the charg and oversight of the whole Law that is an express command from God to see the Law kept and every part thereof observed of all men within his Dominions and the breakers of it Prophets Priests and People to be punished Now the Law contained all things that any way touched the true Service and Worship of God and therefore the Kings had one and the self same power to command and punish as well in the Precepts of Piâ—ty as other points of Policy neither did God favour or prosper any of the Kings of Israel or Judah but such as chiefly respected and carefully maintained the Ordinances of Religion prescribed unto them in Moses Law This Power is granted to belong to Princes even by some Papists themselves witness that moderate and learned Servite Padre Paolo throughout his History of the Inquisition where he complains and avers that amongst the perverse opinions of which this our unhappy Age is full this also is preached that the care of Religion doth not belong to the Prince that in other times Holy Bishops did not preach nor recommend any thing more to Princes than the care of Religion they warned them of nothing nor modestly rebuked them for any thing more than for their carelesness in it And now nothing is more preached than that to the Prince belongeth not the charge of Divine things though contrariwise the Holy Scripture be full of places wherein Religion is commended to the protection of Princes by the Divine Majesty which also promiseth Peace and Prosperity to those States where Piety is savoured and Desolation and Destruction threatned to those States wherein Divine things are held as Alien David though being entred into a Kingdom out of Order both internally and externally and being very busie both in Wars and framing a politick Government yet did set his chief care on matters of Religion Solomon entring into a quiet and exceeding well ordered Kingdom regarded also Religion more than any other part of the Government The Princes most applauded in former Ages as Constantine Theodosius Charlemain St. Lewis and others made it their chief care and travail to protect and rule the Affairs of the Church It is a great deceit to set forth this part as a thing of less moment since the neglect of this doth provoke the divine wrath experience tells that a State cannot stand untroubled where change of Religion cometh for that true Religion is the foundation of States He that ruleth over Men must be just ruling in the fear of God 2 Sam. 23.3 It is an abomination to Kings to commit wickedness for the Throne is established by righteousness 16. Prov. 12.14 It were a great absurdity to leave the total care of it to others under pretence that they are spiritual where temporal Authority will not reach or that a Prince hath any greater charge or imployment than this § As it is manifest that the Prince is not Pretor nor Prefect nor Proveditore no nor Priest nor Bishop So it is as true that he is to oversee and cause them to do their duties both the one and the other And here lieth the deceit that the particular care of Religion is proper to the Officers of the Church as the Civil Government is to the Prince who ought to do neither the one nor the other but is to direct all and to take heed that none do fail in his Office This being the Princes charge as well in matters of Religion as in any other part of the Government And as in other matters the Prince is to be informed of all occurrences so ought he to be particularly advertised of all that happeneth in matters of Religion And I conceive that therefore a Prince is more bound than a private Subject to fear and to serve God to be both zealous and jealous of his holy Faith to honour cherish and defend Gods true Church that he as Pope Eleutherius writ to King Lucius being Christs Vicar in his own Dominions should discharge Christs Place and Commands and also more bound to avoid Hypocrisie Superstition and all open and scandalous sins to preserve his Dignity and maintain his State and Royalty in the exercise of Religion Because Regis exemplum in numerabiles populos catervatim secum ducit and least that happen to his People which sometime fell out to the Jews through Moses long absence who thinking that in him they were deprived of the true God made themselves one of Gold § It is agreed by all That God hath not left humane Nature destitute of such remedies as are necessary to its conservation and that Rule and Dominion being necessary to the conservation where that Rule and Dominion is granted there all things necessary for the support of that Rule and Dominion are granted also It is farther granted also that supreme power ought to be entire and undivided and cannot else be sufficient for the protection of all if it do not extend over all without any other equal power to controul or diminish it and that therefore the supreme Temporal Magistrate ought to command Ecclesiastical persons as well as Civil Look back a little into the old Testament and consider the Jewish Church and Republick of which the Lord himself doth testify 4. Deut. 7.8 That his people hath Statutes and Laws so just and wise that the Institutes of no people that the Sanctions of no Republick that no Ordinances howsoever wisely constitute were able to compare with them therefore methinks that the Church and State should be most divinely and wisely ordered that cometh as near as the circumstances of the present matter will permit to the Constitution of the Jewish Church and State in which matters were so ordered by God that we find not any where two diverse Judicatories concerning manners the one
Election of Bishops purporting that a Cathedral being vacant the Metropolitan should write unto the Chapter the Name of him who was to be promoted who should afterwards be published in Pulpit in all the Parish-Churches of the City on Sunday and hanged on the Door of the Church and afterwards the Metropolitan should go to the City vacant and examine Witnesses concerning the Qualities of the Person and all his Letters Patents and Testimonials being read in the Chapter every one should be heard that would oppose any thing against his Person of all which an Instrument should be made and sent to the Pope and read in the Consistory But such a Decree was too good to pass in that Packt Council which having too much publick respect to the publick Good even of their own Catholick Church Protestant Churches having not the same reasons to complain was oppsed by all Arts and Industry by the Bishop of Bertinoro General Laynez and by all the Pentioners and Favourites of the Court of Rome which by much was the major part for the many and great inconveniences that would ensue thereby And what were they Forsooth that such a Decree would be a Cause of Calumnies and Seditions and that thereby some Authorities long since taken away would be restored to the People Vâ—â— Ao 870. Distinct 73. Padre Paolo Defence 75. with which they would usurp the Election of Bishops which formerly they were wont to have that this was to bind the Authority of the Pope that he could not gratifie any one Just and pregnant Reasons I must confess to perswade unto Usurpation of the Right of others and therefore it could not pass The like Opposition was made against the Article concerning those who were to be promoted to the greater Orders in which it was also said that their Names ought to be published to the People three Sundays and affixed to the doors of the Church and that their Letters Testimonial ought to be subscribed by four Priests and four Laicks of the Parish alledging that no Authority ought to be given to the Laicks in these Affairs which are purely Ecclesiastical 725 726. what Right soever they had unto them In the Discourse also of the Reformation of Cardinals a Congregation was ordained on purpose to consult and find a means that Princes might not intermeddle in the Conclave in the Election of the Pope so jealous and unwilling are they to have any Laick great or small to come within their Verge their Scrinia sacra or to intermeddle in such their Concerns though they have none de Jure but their Priesthood but what they have either obtained by Power or usurped by Fraud or by the Supineness or Favours of Pious Princes But when some of the Council thought in order to Reformation to make a Constitution that no Bishop should have any Temporal Offices either in Rome or in the Ecclesiastical Dominions that even that also would be a great prejudice to the Ecclesiasticks of France Polonia and of other Countries and Kingdoms where they are Councellors of Kings and have the Principal Offices of which they would soon be deprived by the instigation of the Secular Nobility for their own Interests and therefore that String was not to be touched upon but left unto the Popes ordering Furthermore the Bishop of St. Mark in the Dispute about the Title of the Council of Trent had the boldness to aver that the Laicks are most improperly called the Church for that the Canons determine that they have no Authority to command but Necessity to obey and that the Council ought to Decree that the Seculars ought humbly to receive the Doctrine of Faith which is given them by the Church without disputing or thinking of it Petro Soave Polano 141. That is in Romish understanding that that Religion which the Pope Obedience unto him being made by them a true Mark of the Church doth please to give them ought to be embraced by the Laicks without dispute What is this else but plainly and grosly to mock the world and to think all men Fools and Cuddens but themselves and to perswade themselves that all their Absurdities should be believed without more ado What is this less than to perswade Rational men that they are Bruits Horses or Asses void of all understanding or that hearing they do not hear or that seeing they do not see or that perceiving they do not understand Qui vult decipi decipiatur § Thus have I unto the meanest Capacities made plain and evident both by Precept and Practice out of the Word of Truth the Title and Interest which the whole Congregation of Believers have unto the Appellation and Powers of the Church and unto Ecclesiastical Concerns without wresting or perverting any one Text of Scripture § Now the Pope would very much oblige us if he would vouchsafe unto us but only one plain Text to warrant the Powers he exerciseth and lays claim unto over the Laity or how he comes to be so essential to the Church as to be put into the very definition thereof It being plain downright nonsence if it be good manners to say so to aver that any one single person alone how great soever can suffice to make a Church a Congregation for that at least two or three are necessarily required to make an Assembly or Congregation Ecclesia or the Church even in its Natural and Grammatical Construction signifying a Plurality or Multitude be it Civil or Ecclesiastical And as it is a new so it is an absurd kind of Trope devised by the Romanists to make the Pope a single person to signifie the Church I know the Papalins are most excellent Artists most rare Alchymists surpassing even those our Brethren Roseae Crucis who are modest Mountibanks in respect of these Audaces Jesuitae for they took the whole Book of Genesis to found their Phanatick Chymaeraes upon but these can extract their extravagancies out of two or three words only viz. Pasce oves meas i.e. Feed my Sheep out of this Word Pasce Bellarm. hath extracted so many Quintessences so many Elixirs so many Legions of Diabolical or Antichristian Arguments for the Popes Pride and Grandeur that he can hardly desire any thing that these would not afford him will he be a King as well as a Bishop and will he have Temporal Power to be as extensive as his Spiritual Bellarmine assures him that it is so for that Christ said to Peter Pasce i.e. Regio more Impera Play the Rex at pleasure In the ancient Church when any Heresie disturbed the Truth and publick Peace a grave Assembly of Bishops and others were called and the Book of God fairly laid open before them and out of it were all Doubts determined Now Scriptures and Councils are needless Will the Pope be supreme Judge of all Controversies Lib. 4. De Rom. Pontif. C. 1. C. 3. Bellarmine thinks the Claim to be well grounded upon this Pasce Joh. 21.17 And it is
then had nothing to do with the Revenues but to govern them and consign them to another In progress of Time the Commendataries not without divers pretences of Honesty and Necessity made use of the Fruits and to enjoy them the longer sought means to hinder the Provision For remedy whereof Order was taken that the Commenda should not last longer than six Months but the Popes by the plenitude of their Power did pass these Limits and commended for a longer time and at length for the Life of the Commendataries giving him power to use the Fruits besides the necessary Charges This good Invention so degenerated was used in the corrupted times for a Cloak of Pluralities observing the words of the Law to give but one Benefice to one Man contrary to the Sence in regard that a Commendatary for Life is the same in reality with the Titular Great Exorbitancies were committed in the number of the Benefices Commended so that after the Lutheran Stirs began and all men demanded Reformation Clement the Seventh in the Year 1534. was not ashamed to commend unto his Nephew Hippolitus Cardinal de Medicis all the Benefices of the World Secular and Regular Dignities and Parsonages simple and with cure being vacant for Six Months to begin from the first day of his possession with power to dispose of and convert to his use all the Fruits This exorbitancy was the height of all which in former times the Court did not use though it gave in Commenda a very great number unto one Therefore the Union formerly invented and used for a good end was now made use of to palliate Plurality This was practised when a Church was destroyed or the Revenues usurped that little which remained together with the Charge being transferred to the next and all made one Benefice the Industry of the Courtier found out that besides these respects Benefices might be united so that by Collation thereof Plurality was wholly covered though in favour of some Cardinal or great Person 30 or 40 in divers places of Christendom were united But an Inconvenience did arise because a number of Benesices did decrease and the favour done to one was afterwards done to many without merit or demand to the great dammage of the Court and Channery And this was remedied with a subtle and witty Invention to unite as many Benesices as pleased the Pope only during the Life of him on whom they were conferred by whose death the Vnion was understood to be dissolved ipso sacte and the Benefices returned to the first state so they shewed the world their excellent Inventions conferring a Benesice which was but one in shew but many indeed Hist. Coun. Fr. Pâ—iro Soave Polano Trattato delle Benesiciare These things thus premised it is obvious to all even to those of the smallest understandings that it hath not been without grand Reason of State-Ecclesiastick that the Clergy have thus Magisterially Monopolized unto themselves the Name and Goods and Estate of the Church All which considered it is demonstrable that the Popish Clergy have under pretence of Piety cleverly cheated their Laity of their proper Goods Rights and Prerogatives for which their so doing they are more properly to be accounted Sacrilegious than H. 8. for retaking Abbeys and other which they called Church-Lands into his own and his Parliaments disposal to whom of just Right they did more properly belong than unto Popes and Popish Clergy I have examined all the most considerable Places or Texts of Scripture 〈…〉 wherein the Word Church is mentioned and I cannot understand that any one of them no not that famous and so much magnified and so much insisted upon place Matth. 18.15 20. whereof by wresting it from its genuine Sence so much ill use hath been made ought to be construed or restrained to the Pope no nor yet unto the Clergy only nay so far from it that most of them do strongly seem to intimate the whole Congregation of Believers distinct though not exclusive the Clergy to be the Church and yet such hath been the Pride and Ambition of Popes as to impose the scornful Name of Laity upon those that are not of the Clergy To use the Terms of Laity and Clergy as Terms distinguishing the Pastors from the Flock is acceptable and useful but when they will make so ill use thereof by affixing and thereby appropriating the Title of the Church and power thereof to themselves only that certainly is neither in the Text nor yet in their Commission but is very injurious to the rest of Gods Heritage it being manfest that the Popish Clergy having by Insinuations Tricks and Cheats devested the Church i.e. the Body of the Brethren of their primitive Right and Power it is evident to all the world what abominable abuses they have brought thereby into the Church whereas the Clergy in Apostolical sense are more truly they whom they call the Laity the Word Clerus being observed to be but only once used in the New Testament and there in that very sense and signification 1 Pet. 5.3 Where he admonisheth the Priests neque ut dominantes Cleris sed ut qui sitis exemplaria gregis viz. That they should not be as Lords over Clerum Domini i.e. Gods Heritage not Priests whereby is meant all the faithful flock of Christ as it follows but be examples of the Flock Now having once robb'd them of the Title it was but very convenient and sutable to their ambitious ends and purposes to strip them also of their Power for without peradventure all the Churches Power is vested in and doth of just Right belong to the Body of the Church to the Congregation of the Faithful Moreover in the very Ordination of Priests and Bishops it will be marvellous difficult clearly to prove whether the laying on of the Bishops hands or the lifting up of the hands of the Congregation conferred most for certainly in the most pure times they were jointly used Bellarmine indeed saith that the Holy Scripture doth no where give the Church power over the Pastors much less over the Supreme Pastor But Gerson affirmeth that Christ sent St. Peter to the Church when he said unto him Die Ecclesiae and he was as Learned as Bellarmine and if they cannot agree among themselves what shall their Flocks do or whom shall they believe It is confest that Christ hath given great powers to his Church truly so called and instituted Pastors to feed them with Knowledge and Vnderstanding and they are so well taught that they understand very well that Christ hath no where exempted Bellarmines Supreme Pastor our Supreme Vsurper from the Obedience of his Church but hath subjected him to the Censures of the Church § As to the Text it self Mat. 18.15 16 20. If there were no more in it than this that the Expositors themselves do much disser about the true Sence and Meaning thereof acknowledging it to be very hard to hit by reason that the state of
such as is common to the Laity in private offences i.e. to every Individual of the Church For what concerns Binding and Loosing the Words are plain and demonstrative viz. Whatsever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven which must have reference to the parties grieving and grieved it cannot be denied and those are every individual of the Church and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Again I say If two of you in general without denoting or pointing at the Clergy shall agree on Earth as touching any thing that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my â—ather which is in Heaven for where two or three indefinitely and not limited to the Pope or to those of the Presbytery only are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them Mat. 18.18 19 20. These are general Precepts and purport a general Duty binding every Christian and not especial or applicable only to Popes or Presbyters Christ then in these places speaketh of private men and offences which he only that is oppressed and wronged hath most right to reprove and forgive and therefore not only the Judgment of Pope and Presbyter making whom they please Banditi of the Church but the reprehension and admonition of our meanest Brother offended and injured by us must be regarded and reverenced for so much as the Lord on high heareth the desires and granteth the Prayers of any two joyning together for his Glory and others Good and in their own debts and trespasses private persons have more right to bind and loose their oppressors before God than either Pope or Presbyter This power here attributed to all Christians is no new Doctrine but hath been acknowledged for good by St. Austin Theophylact and others and it doth not in the least derogate from or impeach the publick use of the Keys in the hands of Bishops and Pastors for they had also their particular Commission John 20.23 Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose sins soever ye retain they are retained yea speaking particularly to one of them Mat. 16.19 I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven so that the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven all Priests received in Peter before Christ's Death and after his Resurrection he gave all his Apostles the like power as Cyprian and Jerome observe and that is a power which no Temporal or Civil Magistrate or Prince can confer it is derived unto them from a higher Power § I am not ignorant that these Doctrines are held as Heretical at Rome and that they that hold them are cursed with Bell Book and Candle which is obvious to every intelligent Reader that consults the first fifth and sixth Canons of the sourteenth Session of the Council of Trent and the Anathemaes following who shall find it to be so and I humbly conceive not without grand reason of State-Papal for should these Doctrines and these that depend upon them be received for Orthodox Adieu to all the Picklocks of all the secretest Councils of all Kingdoms and States where Romish Doctrines prevail and also Adieu to a world of Merry-pence that else would thereby come into their Sanctuary Sanctum Sanctorum their Coffers for commuting and mitigating of Penance c. For by their Institution of their Sacrament of Penance their Church understands it to be instituted by Christ an entire full and Sacramental Confession of all sins to be made by all persons of the years of discretion lapsed after Baptism and that Jure Divino it is absolutely necessary so to do and that because Christ before his Ascension into Heaven lest his Priests to be his Vicars tanquam Praesides Judices unto whom all mortal Sins ought to be brought and confessed whereby by vertue and power of the Keys of remission and retention of Sins Mat. 16.19 John 20.23 they pronounce Sentence and give Judgment which they cannot rightly do if you will believe themselves nor justly proportion or impose Penance upon a general Confession only except the lapsed declare their Sins unto them in specie sigillatim particularly and in kind Can. 5. This to me seems wonderful strange that if Christ would have introduced a Rite to confess our Sins so particularly and punctually to Romish Priests as that no Use was ever the like that yâ—â— he would be so understood by words ambiguous from which it must be drawn by very disjointed and unlinckt consequences very far fetcht consequences as incoherent as are Churton Sands of which the Neighborhood do merrily story that the Devil himself could never make Belropes thereof and not by most plain and perspicuous Terms as when he instituted the Eucharist there being not one plain word in the whole New Testament to command us so to do James indeed c. 5. v. 16. exhorts us to confess our faults one to another but what is that to Romish Priests James writ not to them but to the Twelve Tribes scattored abroad This Text is an Argument to perswade us to confess our faults one to another and to pray one for another that we may receive reciprocally the Councils Benefits and Consolatinos of each others Prayers but this institutes no Sacramental Confession to be performed to Romish Priests nor any power of pardoning to the Pope or his Priests nor any greater obligation on the Laity to confess to the Priest than on the Priests to confess to the Laity Mark the enforcement The effectual fervent Prayer of a righteous man Priest or not Priest availeth much Though these Canons make the Priests the only Ministrators of Absolution and Remission and that the Act in them is not Nudum Ministerium a naked Ministery of pronouncing and declaring Sins to be forgiven to the confessed but that it is in the Priest Act us Judicialis a Judicial Act by whom velut à Judice as by a Judge Sentence is pronounced Canon 6. They farther make the very Circumstances of Sins to alter the kind of them and therefore they have made two kinds of Sins viz. Mortal and Venial Canon 5. which is more than ever God himself made though he made two kinds of Sinners voz Penitent and Impenitent And in the conclusion they have Anathematized all those that are of contrary Opinions though there be not one plain Text of Scripture to warrant their so doing Now I would very fain know why the Institution being made by the Word Remitto the Form also was not Remitto I remit thy Sins rather than absolvo te I absolve thee and that if by these words a Sacrament of Absolution is instituted with this Form Absolvo te by which one is absolved why it doth not follow by an irresistable necessity that another Sacrament of Binding be not instituted in which this Form should likewise
they put such a Hook in the Noses and such a Yoke on the Necks of Laicks and Civil Magistrates that the Papalins themselves have never since been able to shake it off unto this very day And though the Laws of the Emperors remain in the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian and in the Capitulars of Charles the Great and Lewis the Debonaire and though all Stories both Ecclesiastical and Prophane do shew how when and by whom these Powers have been granted adding the Reasons and Causes yet so demonstrable so notorious a Truth hath not had such power but that a bare Ipse dixit of the Popes without any proof at all hath been able to overcome it which the Canonists have so far maintained as to declare those Hereticks who do not suffer themselves that have been thus long blindfold to remain hoodwinkt still Though the Light of this Truth was not so extinguished but that both Learned and Pious men in those very first times did oppose their Doctrine viz. That no Civil Magistrate could meddle in any of those Causes which the Clergy had appropriated because they are Spiritual and that Laicks are uncapable of things Spiritual yet the opposition of the better who had the Truth on their side could not overcome the greater part and so upon the Spiritual Power given by Christ to the Church to bind and loose and upon the Institution of St. Paul to compose Contentions among Christians without going to the Tribunal of Infidels in tract of time and by many gradations a Temporal Tribunal hath been built by their own Industry Arts and Ambition and for their own Use Ends and Interests more remarkable than ever was in the world or can be parallell'd for thereby they have erected Regnum in Regno raised to themselves an Empire independent of the Commonwealth and which is more intolerable established on such grounds such as Jus Divinum is it which have so prevailed with such admirable success that it hath given the Pope of Rome as much at once as former Bishops were getting in 1300 years before and all this by making not the Power to bind and loose the foundation of Jurisdiction but the power of seeding and so affirming that all Jurisdiction was given the Pope by Christ in the person of Peter when he said to him Feed my Sheep § But to return to the other Branch viz. Excommunication Excommunication for the lawful force and use whereof they also plead strongly out of the same Chapter Matth. 18.17 If he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen man and Publican of which a little more here pretending also that the Antient Writers lean very much that way It may be so yet happily if their full scope sence and meaning were fathomed and comprehended and not this and that Scrap and Sentence here and there expunged and picked out and wrested to serve a turn against the Meaning of the Fathers happily they would not be found so clearly on their side as they ween for but be it so that Excommunication may hereout be drawn and deduced yet certes it must then also be of the same Nature as binding and loosing is of in the same place and will then also belong to Privateers For they belonging both unto one thing and unto the same persons by the self-same words will naturally and necessarily fall into the same Predicament and then the meaning of those words are no more but Pursue them in those Courts that thou wouldest a Pagan and Publican that should do thee wrong and what affinity hath this with Excommunication used in the Church of Rome or else those words may be understood of a private forsaking of all company with the wrong-doer as thou wouldest shun Pagans or Publicans until he repent and reform himself which if you please to call Excommunication be it so but then also it belongs to every Individual of the Church and not unto Ecclesiasticks only and is sutable to many other Precepts of the Apostles viz. to withdraw our selves from every Brother that walketh disorderly 2 Thes 3.6 14 15. 1 Cor. 5.11 13. but that they should be kept from the Word and Sacraments and that Divine Service must cease if an obstinate excommunicate person will not quit the Church there is not any one plain Text nor Syllable in the whole Bible This is an Excommunication of their own making not of Christs Institution And yet Excommunication was declared by the then Brethren Presbyters in the Ordinance of Aug. 29. 1648. to be shutting out of a person from the Communion of the Church but what Warrant out of the Word of God they had so to do non constat Other Expressions and Powers there are recorded in Scripture of which they make use for the founding and upholding of Excommunication as the Delivery unto Sathan 1 Cor. 5.5 as Hymenaeus and Alexander and the Incestuous Person were the striking of Ananias and Saphira dead by Peter and of Elymas the Sorcerer blind by Paul owning himself to have vengeance in readiness against all disobedience 2 Cor. 10.6 and his professing that he will not spare 2 Cor. 13.2 As also when some for abusing the Lords Supper became weak and sick and fell asleep or became dead These and the like might have been Arguments for the like Powers had they not died with the Apostles but with Excommunication they have no Analogy no Resemblance they were Arrows indeed in the Quivers of the Apostles Tokens as one of them expresseth 2 Cor. 12.12 of an Apostle wrought with Signs and Wonders and mighty Deeds but no Arguments for Excommunication whereby it is evident that in their Days when as yet there were no Christian Magistrates to punish the Sins and Offences of the Brethren the power of God sometimes by himself sometimes by his Apostles did afflict and punish the disobedient more or less grievously according as their Sins were more or less heinous that thereby they might learn not to blaspheme nor yet to detain the Truth of God in unrighteousness and that the rest might fear to provoke his Wrath and Indignation by like Sins and Uncleanness For without all controversie the Delivery unto Sathan the smiting some with Death and others with Blindness and Sickness were Corporal punishments and of a far different Nature from that of Excommunication even according to their own shewing there being not any other punishment belonging to the essence of Excommunication but the sole debarring from the participation of the Word and Sacraments § However let us a little consider the Delivery of the Incestuous person unto Sathan 1 Cor. 5. of which no small use is made to justifie Excommunication Take the Story as it lies plainly in the Text without any Vizards or Equivocations St. Paul understanding that there was such fornication at Corinth as was not so much as named among the Gentiles viz. that one should have his Fathers Wife wrote unto them his first Epistle and
appear rather to be taken than given as this Author suggests Certainly this great Cloud of Witnesses will cure our Author of this his fear and set him and all others right as to Matter of Fact in this Point and so I leave it § Other Objections he makes against Liturgies if imposed as that they occasion neglect and disabilities that they hinder the due Exercise and Improvement of Spiritual Gifts and that they are an unwarrantable Abridgement of that Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and therefore sin in the Vse and Imposition thereof These I take to be rather Libels than just Objections for that there is no property belonging unto a good Pastor but what is very consistent with the true Nature and Use of sound Liturgies as hath been shewed already But if there be any such Watch-men that are blind ignorant dumb Dogs that cannot bark sleeping lying down loving to slumber greedy Dogs which can never have enough lazy idle Shepherds that cannot understand Isa 56.10 11. that will take occasion from the Imposition of Liturgies to neglect to feed their Flocks to strengthen the Diseased to heal the Sick to bind up that which is broken and to seek that which is lost yet this cannot without slander be imputed unto the Nature and Condition of Liturgies or their Imposition but unto the Shepherds themselves who will exact their due but neglect their Duty who take the hire of Labourers but live as Loiterers who love Pride fulness of Bread and abundance of Idleness and to feed themselves and not the Lords Flock Ezek. 34.3 looking to their own ways every one for his gain from his Quarter saying We will fetch Wine and fill our selves with Strong Drink and to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant Isa 56.10 11 12. the more shame for those that ordain such and put such into Preferments and no doubt but God will in his due time require his Flock at the Hands of such Pastors and feed them with judgment causing their Habitation to mourn and themselves to howl for that God will spoil their Glory Zech. 11.3 for indeed I know no power that Gospel-Ministers can undoubtedly challenge by their Charter from Heaven but to preach in season out of season to teach their Flock and duly to Administer Gods Ordinances and Sacraments And if this should be denied them by vertue of the Imposition of Liturgies or that Liturgies were really exclusive of that Provision of Means that Christ hath ordained for the Edification of his Church as this Author seems to brand them it were better that both Liturgies and my self were tied to a Mil-stone and both cast into the midst of the Sea than that I should thus plead for them but being clearly convinced of the contrary I shall go to that which is last to be touched viz. § That Liturgies if imposed are against Christian Liberty § Christian Liberty I must confess is a specious and glorious term a most precious and most excellent thing an inestimable Blessing purchased by the death of the Son of God Jesus Christ blessed for ever and therefore ought not to be infringed or impeached by any and let him be Anathema that would willingly and knowingly endeavour it And as it is a thing of very high concern to all Christians so it is very apt to be highly wrested and abused contrary to the holy Ghost by Christians of divers perswasions every man Writing and shaping it to his own humor and fancying to themselves liberty in such and such things and then wresting places to favour their fancies which were never so intended by the Holy Ghost which crime is chiefly charged and falls most heavily upon the Anabaptists who do embrace an opinion very Licentious Extravagant and even destructive to all Government holding that a Christian Mans Liberty is lost and the Soul which Christ hath Redeemed unto himself injuriously drawn into Servitude under the Yoak of Humane power if any Law be now imposed besides the Gospel of Jesus Christ in obedience whereunto the Spirit of God and not the constraint of Men is to lead us according to that of the Blessed Apostle such as are lead by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Rom. 8.14 and not such as live in Thraldom unto Men therefore their Judgment is that amongst Christians there must be no Magistrates for if there must be Magistrates they must have Power to make Laws besides the Laws of God but this Power they have not because Christians have a free use of all the Creatures of God by Christian Liberty Next unto the Anabaptists it falls heavy I wish I could say not Justly upon some scrupulous Non-conformists that under pretence of Christian Liberty wherein they say they ought to stand fast and so no doubt they ought they often deny obedience to the Lawful Commands of the Magistrate in the business of the Lord and so use or rather abuse their Liberty for a Cloak to cover their malitiousness I will not say but their misunderstandings and not as the Servants of God 1 Pet. 2.16 There are others of the like Synagogue of Libertines as Phanaticks Quakers Ranters Adamites others But because they are Persons having no Principles no Mediums whereon to Ground and Regulate Discourses or Disputations I shall wave and a little look into the true nature of Christian Liberty which according to Calvin contains some higher thing than the Liberty in the use of Ceremonies and which I take to be a Spiritual Right or Condition in all the parts of it because it pertains to Conscience Be the extent of this Liberty what it will in it self it is inwardly in the Conscience But the publick use of it being in outward things and Actions is therefore under the Order of Humane Laws because Liberty is in Conscience and the Magistrates Authority pertains to the Body § For to make all restraint of the Outward Man in matters indifferent Confer at Hamp Court 70 71. an Impeachment of Christian Liberty what were it else but even to bring Flat Anabaptism and Anarchy into Church and State and to overthrow all bounds of Subjection and Obedience to lawful Authority For wherein can the immediate Power and Authority of Rulers consist or the due obedience of Inferiours be shown if not in indifferent and Arbitrary things For things absolutely necessary and commanded by God we are bound to do whether Humane Authority required them or no and things absolutely unlawful as Prohibited by God we are bound not to do whether Humane Authority forbid them or no there are no other things left then wherein to express properly the obedience due to Superiour Authority than indifferent things In rebus mediis lex posita est obedientiae Bern. Ep. if any retort as some have done that if we are obliged to do things absolutely necessary and commanded by God and obliged not to do things absolutely unlawful and forbidden by God without the Interposition
boldly Written that to restrain the Obedience due unto the Pope unto things concerning the Salvation of the Soul is to bring it to nothing That St. Paul appealed to Caesar who was not his Judge and not to St. Peter lest the By-standers should have laughed at him That the Holy Bishops of Old shewed themselves subject to Emperors because the times so required others adjoyned farther that then it was meet to introduce the Empire of the Pope by little and little it being a thing unseasonable to despoil Princes newly converted of their Estates and also to permit something unto them for to interess them Other like discourses they made which many Godly persons abhorred to read and reputed them Blasphemies Hist of the Inquisition Sparsim § Moreover these were not the Scriblings of some Vulgar Pens but some Ecclesiasticks of very great quality Printed in favour of the Roman Pontiffs cause a very seditious Sheet wherein was affirmed against all sound Doctrine that Marriages within the State of the Republick were invalid the Matrimonial Conjunction Adultery and the Children all Bastards that it was not only lawful butmeritorious for Pastors to abandon their Flocks And whither did all this tend but to unty the very Bonds of the Civil Government of all States To contradict which there was published a Treatise of John Gerson written 150 years before to which was adjoyned a Letter exhorting all Curates to take care of their Churches not fearing the Offence of God by not observing the Interdict Soon after came out a Treatise of Cardinal Bellarmine against that of Gerson then followed the admonition of Cardinal Baronius as also a discourse of Cardinal Colonna endeavouring to terrifie the Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks placed in the greatest places by the fear of censures and the privation of their Dignities and Benefices Bellarmine aimed to shake the devout Consciences by exalting the Authority of the Pope so far as to make it equal to that of God Bellarmine Baroâ—ius Colonna In summ all the three Cardinals laboured mainly how conscientiously let the World judge to disguise the truth that it should not be discovered These are not only false and Blasphemous but new Doctrines also never known to the Old Romans for many hundred of years The Sun at Noon never saw these abominations until within these 3 or 400 years whereby it is apparent that they are not all Rome which are of Rome neither are they all Legitimate Children begotten in the Lord by the Doctrines of St. Peter but are the degenerate and Bastard Plants and Successors tho they boast of their succeeding Peter in his Local Chair at Rome tho they differ from him in his Doctrines and tho in the truest understanding the Protestants are the Legitimate Children of St. Peter and not those that stile themselves St. Peter's Successors at Rome § The Antient Fathers taught obedience to Princes Antient Fathers taught obedience to Princes but never taught that the Pope hath Power to abrogate the Laws of Princes in Temporal matters or to deprive them of their Crowns or free their Subjects â—â— their Allegiance that to depose Kings from their Thrones is a new thing never attempted till within these 600 years and is against the Scriptures and the examples of Jesus Christ and of his Saints and to teach that in Case of Controversie between the Pope and a Prince it is lawful to pursue the Prince with frauds and open force or that the Subjects which do Rebel against him do by that means obtain the Remission of their sins are Doctrines Seditious and Sacrilegious That Ecclesiastical men by Divine Law are not exempted from the Secular Power neither in their Persons nor in their Goods though they have received from Godly and Devout Princes since Constantine the Great until Frederick the Second divers Priviledges which they had power only to grant for their own times and their own Dominions which did exempt them from the power of Inferior Magistrates only but not from their own Soveraign Authority That the exemptions granted by Popes unto the Order of the Clergy have not been admitted in some places and in others admitted only in part and that they have been valid so far only as they have been received that notwithstanding any Papal exemption the Prince hath still power over their Persons and Goods whensoever necessity constrains him to serve himself of them And if at any time they should abuse such exemption to the perturbation of the publick tranquillity that the Prince is obliged to provide a remedy Now that these Evils having gotten such exorbitant growth and have been so troublesom to all States and Kingdoms whom may Kings and Princes blame but themselves who not having that due regard to the Divine Precepts which so straitly oblige them to take knowledge of Gods most Holy Law and of Religion but have altogether neglected this duty as if Religion were a thing that did not concern them and as if they were not to render an account to God neither for themselves nor for their Subjects by neglecting the care and defence of it against the Divine Precepts of Gods word the Doctrine of Sacred Canons and Fathers and the Practice of Pious Princes contenting themselves with a Religion without knowing what it is or how it should be kept from Corruption tollerating for their own Ease and worldly Interests the people to be kept in ignorance and to be deceived by often alterations under pretence and Mask of Religion and Piety with a dayly permission not only to Religious persons but to all sorts of men to invent new Orders and Rites as Jesuitism Inquisition c. for their own profit Interest and Greatness without considering that in the end every old Order Rite and Custom carries along with it its own Credit which invites belief and so Religion becomes changeable and meerly serviceable to the Interests and Ends of those that manage it And these alterations having been once received and a while continued by the present Kings and Princes have been no small obligation to their Heirs and Successors to continue them upon the reason of Authority stampt upon them by time and custom A thing that often happens in all humane affairs but chiefly in Religion when superstition and false Doctrines are broached and invented for ends not suitable to pure Religion and undefiled As every Government so that of the Church more especially requires watchfulness and faithfulness and he that dischargeth himself of these destroyeth himself of so much of his Authority and happily doth not perceive it till it be lost and cannot be recovered again which hath been the Case of many supine and negligent Princes Kings and Princes ought not in any prudence to trust to the Pope or any other Ecclesiastick mens care nor have recourse to any one but to abound in care themselves forbidding all that may hurt a good Government lest his Subjects be circumvented and induced to embrace and favour opinions
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
sit in the seat of God I have a Heart like the Heart of God Ezek. 28.2.6 whilst he exalteth himself above all that is called God above all Magistrates to the Abasure of Gods Lieutenants above measure and much more than he ought attributing that to themselves which is proper and peculiar unto God only Were not our first Parents so tempted by Sathan ye shall be as Gods Gen. 3. I admire Gods insinite patience and mercy yet wonder that they have hitherto escaped the Judgment of Herod and have not long ere this been eaten up of Vermin because to this very day they have not given God the glory by expunging all such expressions bordering so near upon nay indeed are the quintescence of Blasphemy out of their extravagants and Decretals Canons and Authors when by their Indices Expurgatorii they have obliterated and expunged many Divine Truths out of the Antient Fathers and Books nay out of God's own Commandements out of his own Decalogue written with his own finger on Tables of Stone and split another into two that the same number might still remain And are they thus Hogen Mogen in words only Have not their Acts and Enterprises been answerable What say you to deposing of Kings of Emperors or if any thing in Magistracy may be more transcendent To speak of Kings of Italy France England Translating their Kingdoms oft attempted sometimes executed is but to speak them modest in pride and haughtiness these in their esteem being but Dii minorum Gentium what thing you of the deportment of Alexander the Third towards the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa doth it not proclaim him in pride Luciferian Such facts read many in the Cardinal de Rom. Pont. Lib. 5. c. 8. not related only but justified as done de Jure and pleaded as evidence to prove that the Pope hath Supream Power Temporal on Earth tho not directly yet in Ordine ad Deum for all Spiritualia How long Lord Holy and Just dost thou not avenge the Abasures of thy Lieutenants upon that false Prophet Stir up O Lord the Spirit of Princes that once the lofty looks of that proud man may be brought low Who is there amongst the Lords Anointed ones whose heart the Lord hath inclined to be an instrument of his vengeance upon this Pater omnium fornicationum Abominationum terrae his God be with them And if hereto the offering of the People be not willing unworthy they to see the peace and welfare of the everlasting Gospel But that I may not in the least prevaricate with my Lord Cardinal Bellarmine so great a Prince so great a Scholastick nor yet seem in the least to imitate him in his equivocating arguings of which I so much complain I shall joyn issue with him upon his own Instance viz. For the Pope is able to do all that is necessary to the conducting of Souls to Paradise Perche puo five tâ—tto questo che è necessario à condurreâ—i ' anime in Paradiso puo ' levare tutti gli impedimenti che il mundo o' l' demonio con tutta la loro fozza o' astutia and can take away all the Impediments which the World or Devil can lay in the way A doughty Prince doubtless To answer which I must preliminarily once more Interrogate His Holiness Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts Who hath given understanding to the Heart Is it the Inspiration of His Holiness or of the Almighty that giveth understanding Wilt thou then disanul his Judgments Wilt thou rob him of his glory that thou maist seem righteous or that thou maist be Dominus fac totum To conduct the Soul of an Infant into Paradise which is yet in the Mothers Womb and cannot be brought forth alive necessary it is one way or other to make it partaker of Grace can the Pope do it I trow not For neither can he institute a Sacrament for this purpose nor grant that the Child should be cut out of the Mothers Belly and therefore the Pope cannot do any thing necessary to conduct this Soul into Paradice According to like Romish Doctrine a man being Actually in some mortal sin and in this State deprived of his Wits cannot be saved unless he recover his wits again and repent himself can the Pope restore him to his wits again I trow not and yet according to their own Doctrine it is necessary for this Mans Salvation But if he can he shall have my Vote to be Doctor to all the Bedlams in the World Nothing more necessary to Salvation than the Internal motions of the mind Can the Pope influence the Hearts of men by secret Heavenly suggestions and illapses of the Spirit Can he speak unto the Hearts of men in a Dream in a Vision in the Night when deep sleep falleth upon them in slumbrings upon the Bed Can he then open the Ears of men and seal their Instruction All these and much more can and doth God do that he may withdraw Man from his purpose and hide pride from him Job 33.14 15 16 17. No no the fining pot is for Silver and the Furnace for Gold Prov. 17.3 But God only searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins Jer. 17.20 and Ch. 20.12 And their own St. Thomas denyeth that the Pope hath any power over the hearts and minds of men If Bellarmine will not believe nor Scripture nor St. Thomas yet I hope he will believe himself who in his own Book de Rom. Pont. makes a long discourse prescribing limits to the Pope's Authority and touching many things which the Pope cannot do oportet mendacem esse memorem Infinite indeed are the things which are necessary for the conducting a Soul into Paradise which are not subject to the Pope's Authority If He can remove all Impediments which the World and the Devil can lay in the way with all their Subtilty why then doth he not convert all Jews Turks Infidels and Hereticks Nay can they save their own Souls by removing all Impediments c. then can the Devils too some of them so peerelesly vicious full of all unrighteousness not in their own Persons only but like Jeroboam making Israel to sin St. Paul is too nice and too modest when he reckons Fornicators Adulterers Effeminate Covetous Extortioners 1 Cor. 16.9 10. among the damned Crue Let not the Laws Curse touch them except they be found unholy profane Murtherers Parricides Sodomites Perjured what not Nor he reputed the Man of Sin except he be found amongst Bishops Christian as Ahab amongst Kings of Israel a sine pare a none such that have sold themselves to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord. Ly their own Chroniclers Martin Polon Anno 986. Platina in Bonifac. 7. in Sylv. 2. in Benedicto 9. Martin Polon Anno 1042. Beno Cardin. de vita gestis Hild. or were their Popes many such Necromancers in express league with the Devil purposely Sacrificing unto him Masters of that Hellish Art to
to be Anti-Christ Thess 2.2 yet these men with the Quintescence of Sophistry have observed many new Mysteries in the Old and New Testament and plainly see the Pope in all his Pontificalibus in many Texts thereof which we may safely swear the Holy Prophets Evangelists and Apostles never saw nor intended nor possible for any mortal wit to make good As to the Text The Nation and Kingdom that will not serve thee shall be rooted out By thee if you will believe the Papists Esa 6â— 12 is now since the Incarnation of Jesus meant the Church of Rome that is in their Dialect the Pope which happily incouraged Pope Julius the Third to stamp his Coynes with this Circumscription Gens quae non servierit tibi peribit Now service in Romish understanding is to be Executioners of the Popes Commands without questioning whether just or unjust Sententia Pastoris sive injusta timenda and according to some tenenda I can easily be perswaded to believe that Papists do understand the true Scope and meaning of that Text and Chapter viz. Isay 60.12 as well as we but I cannot be so easily perswaded that they who draw such wrong Conclusions out of such right Premisses do believe themselves I doubt they rather presume to out-wit us by their Subtilties and Sophistry then convince us by sound reason The whole Scope and purport of that Chapter is only to set forth the Glory of the Church in the abundant Access of the Gentiles and the great and glorious blessings that shall accrew unto them after a short assliction Now if by intendment of the Prophet the Pope is meant by the 12. Verse we shall have brave Popes indeed for then unto them also must necessarily belong all those other glorious Attributes Recorded in the same Chapter for they all are relatives tending and pointing unto one and the same thing and if they belong unto Signior Papa then by the rule of consequences is the glory of the Lord risen upon them and darkness shall cover the Earth and gross darkness the People but the Lord shall arise upon him and his glory shall be seen upon him v. 1 2. and the Gentiles shall come to his light and Kings to the brightness of his rising v. 3. And the Sons of Strangers shall build up his Walls and their Kings shall Minister unto him his Gates shall be open continually they shall noi be shut day nor night that men may bring unto him the forces of the Gentiles and that their Kings may be brought and the Nation and Kingdom that will not serve him shall perish v. 10 11 12. And the Sons also of them that afflicted him shall come and bow unto him and all that despised him shall fall down at the Soles of his Feet to kiss his Feet and they shall call him not the Vicar of Christ but the City of the Lord the Sion of the Holy one of Israel not of Rome v. 14. And God will make him an eternal excellency not a Butcher of Kings and Saints but a joy of many Generations and he shall suck the Milk of the Gentiles and shall suck the Breasts of Kings c. and so to the end of the Chapter Now either all these glorious Consignments must belong peculiarly unto him or not any one of them as every one that hath learnt his Grammer can easily tell And he that is but little versed in Scripture can tell that they belong not to him but unto Christ What is this appropriating unto himself Attributes Divine less than to oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God or that is Worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God 2 Thess 2.4 who I beseech you is more omnipotent Christ the eternal Head and Law-giver of his Body the Church or his Romish Vicar that claims to Interpret and dispence with God's own Laws at his pleasure I wonder if ever such Blasphemies shall be forgiven Now under these borrowed figurative Speeches the Prophet describes the Glory of the Church of the Gentiles and more especially of Christ the Head thereof and doth thereby denote Christ's Spiritual Worship and Service and not the least hint of any Temporal Dominion to be devolved on Nostro Signior Papa so the Texts are admirable and true in their own proper sense and meaning but the Application of them made by the Papists is erroneous nay devillish even from their Father the Devil This misapplication of Texts is the general vein of Fallacy that runs quite thro most Popish Interpreters descanting on Texts of Scripture Now Kings and Kingdoms serve the Church not in that she exerciseth any Temporal Dominion of her self but because God hath given and committed the Sceptre of his Word by which he Rules and Governs unto the Churches Care and Custody So the Homage of bowing and falling down at the Soles of his Feet are honors indeed but not due to the Pope but to their and our Head Christ blessed for ever who is worshipped in the Church not as Papists deem who think they Worship Christ when they kiss his Vicars Pantable with the Cross imbroidered upon it but when they serve and honor him by obeying his voice in the Ministery of his word so the Strangers and Gentiles should willingly submit themselves to yield obedience unto Christ whose Majesty shines in the Doctrine which himself Administers by the Service of men so by Milk and Breasts are meant the Service and Obedience the Gentiles should render unto the Church to nourish her off-spring so all these sigurative expressions must be referred to the Spiritual Estate of the Church that God may be purely worshipped in her that the Ministery of the word may be advanced by all the Sons of the Church unto which the Pope is as much obliged as the meanest of his Vassals by all which it is apparent that there is not one Jota of that Text giving the least Temporal Power to the Pope over Kings and Princes In this saith St. Austin Kings serve God if in their Kingdoms they command that which is good and prohibit that which is evil not in Temporal affairs only but in matters of Religion also Cont. Cresc Lib. 3. c. 5.1 And again Ep. 48. Kings serve Christ in making Laws for Christ so that commanding the People to reverence the word and obey God and the making of strict Laws to keep men in the Faith and Church of Christ that is the true service which Princes owe to Christ and his Sion his Church and which Papists deny them to meddle withall and endeavor to prove that Popes only are Rulers of the Church out of Acts 20.28 take heed therefore unto your selves and unto all the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to feed the Church of God And out of Hebr. 13.7.17 Remember them which have the Rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God whose faith follow
in vogue and as prevalent amongst them as ever And is it now time a day to plead for favors connivences and Indulgences for such a Generation of such Hellish-minded and Principled men after so many more fresh diabolical contrivances and plottings now in agitation against King and Kingdom Laws Liberties Religion what not And suffer our selves to be wheedled into compliance and association with them upon what C. H. H. and E. C. write or what Rome dreads men famous indeed in their Generation the one for Antient Noble Birth the other for plotting his own and the King and Kingdoms ruine but he was snared by the work of his own hands and in the Net that he made was his own foot taken and so let all the implacable and irreconcileable Enemies of God and the King be snared Very pretty a very fine whim to make all England as very Mungril-Christians as Rome it self like those of Samaria who feared God yet served Idols and like those of Israel who swear by the Lord and Melcom their right hand of Fellowship being but the right hand of falsehood Psalm 144.8 11. that they may be snares and traps unto us Is this the way for the Sons of God to purifie themselves even â—s he is pure and to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect 1 John 3.3 Is it not rather to toss us to and fro like Children and to carry us about with every wind of Doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive Eph. c. 14. is it not rather to pervert the right wayes of the Lord and to invite us to joyn in Abominations with other men Is this the right way and method to hold the Mystery of Faith 〈…〉 consciences And to keep our selves unspotted of the world 1 Tim. â— â— 2 James 15 16 17. and pure by not pertaking of other mens sins 2 Timothy 5.22 Whence is this wisdom which is not pure but Sensual Earthly Devillish No better than Jeroboam's Politick device of setting up two Calves in Dan and Bethel The narrow rules of the Apostles viz. to abstain from all 〈◊〉 of evel to resist unto blood striving against sin will not allow 〈◊〉 dâ—â—bing with such untempered Morter 〈◊〉 the ill consequences and fruits of this wisdom this Politick 〈…〉 First We hazzard our selves and Posterity to Infection 〈…〉 5 6 13. A little Leaven leaveneth the whole lump 2. Unto the â—â—ath of God Come out of her my People that ye be not partakers of her â—â—ns and that ye receive not of her Plagues Apoc. 18.4 3. We hazard and encourage even the Papalins themselves to obstinate Impiety 4. We blemish our own sincerity and heavenly-mindedness 5. Quantum in nobis we encourage others to the like Linsey-wolsey-medly-mongril-worship Saints of old were more scrupulous more wary David would not sit with vain Persons neither would he go in with Dissemblers but hated the Congregation of evil doers and would not sit with the wicked Psalm 26.4 5. so Jeremy sate not in the Assembly of Mockers nor rejoyced Jer. 15.17 The Lord himself commanded that if any Person Son Brother Daughter the Wife of thy bosom or thy Friend which is as thy own soul shall intice to Idolatry as by sad experience we know they dayly do Importunately Indefatigably or any City shall set up a new Worship the one shall he killed the other destroyed Deut. 13.6.9.13.15 and the undoubted Precept is to separate the pretious from the vile and let them return unto thee but return thou not to them Jer. 15.19 the Gospel confirms the same is it possible that righteousness can have Fellowship with unrighteousness or that light should have communion with darkness Or can Christ have concord with Belial Or can the Temple of God have Agreement with Idols 2 Cor. 6.15 which Temple we are wherefore come out from among them and be separate v. 16.17 And in truth what is it less or other than to have Fellowship with Devils 1 Cor. 10.20 David expelled not courted the Idolatrous Jebusites out of Jerusalem 2 Sam. 5.8 Asa put Maacha his Mother from her Regiment because she was an Idolatress and brake down her Idols 2 Chron. 15.16 the Law was Thou shalt make no Covenant with them nor with their Gods they shall not dwell in thy Land lest they make thee sin against me Exod. 23.32 33. Deut. 7.2 3 4. Where Gods Ark is there Dagon shall be thrust out of his place and fall down before it Sam. 1.5 To Conclude this point having treated more fully of this Subject elsewhere Have we not had above an hundred years experience of their incessant evil Machinations and deportments towards us and our Religion Have they ever been quiet Was Queen Elizabeth ever five years without a design against her Life Was King James free from their Conspiracies either here or in Scotland Do they not boast at this very day that notwithstanding all that hath been done discovered and executed that still their Plot drives on and boast that it is so deeply laid that it cannot be discovered nor prevented Besides what security can they possibly give for their peaceable deportment They are Devotees sworn to another Forreign Head and Oaths made to us are not of any force to oblige them according to their own Maxim Nulla Fides servanda cum Haereticis and therefore we have no reason to confide in them but to secure our selves Do they not compass Sea and Land and dayly pervert the right wayes of the Lord by making divers Proselytes and them thereby two fold more the Children of Hell than they were before Have they changed their Principles Or are their Contrivances and Plottings against Church and State even at this very day less numerous or less dangerous than at any time heretofore Can we be so blind as not to see not to perceive that they are playing their old Games over again and that they will Iterate and Reiterate them again and again as from Age to Age they have hitherto successively done And is it not then profound reason of State in us and pure Religion to boot to give this Crudele genus these unreasonable blood-thirsty men more Countenance more freedom more power amongst us by nourishing them in our bosoms qui vult decipi decipiatur my Prayer shall be from this ill kind of men Libera nos Domine and I do not doubt but that all true and sincere English Protestants having Souls Bodies and Estates to save loving God their King and their Country will think themselves highly oblidged by all these obligations and Tenures to the best of their power and knowledge to maintain the true Protestant Established Religion which stands Diametrically opposite to all the forementioned abominable Errors and will not hazard their Temporal Estates much less the Eternal wellfare of their immortal Souls by a sinful compliance and Kings and Princes least of all for that there is no Prince nor Nation that
Catholicorum haec explicantium citantium inseruntur By this holy Inquisition also these men so wise are they in their Generation have endeavoured to appropriate and monopolize unto themselves the whole power of the Press and as much as in them lyes to cajole the secular power thereof and not without grand reason of State Ecclesiastick for they have been so dexterous at it that they have already expunged the ancient Authors and Councils of all that makes for temporal Authority Ab initio non fuit sic The matter of Fact stands thus the reasonableness of the Practice shall follow In the primitive Church Heretical Books were examined and declared to be such by the Councils but not prohibited by them nor by the Pope but by the Prince The first Council of Nice condemned the Heretical Doctrine of Arius but Constantine the Emperor did forbid his Books by Imperial Law The second Council of Constantinople did declare Eunomias to be an Heretick but the Emperor Arcadius did prohibit the Books of the Eunomians and Maniches by a Law which is in the Theodosian Code The third Council of Ephesus declared Nestorius to be an Heretick and his Books were forbidden by a Law of Theodosius which is in the body of the Civil Laws The fourth Council of Chalcedon condemned the Eutychians and their Books were forbidden by a Law of the Emperor Martian which is in the same aforesaid Book and in Spain the King Ricaredus those of the Arrians This was the manner of the Church until the year 800. since which Times the Popes of Rome have by Usurpation declared divers Writers to be Hereticks and heretical that will not subscribe to the Canons of that Conventicle of Trent But all this while the Press was not guarded nor Transcribing forbidden but left free Books only and those but few censured and prohibited until after the year 1200. and then also but sparingly until about the time of Wickliff H-usse and Jerome of Praghe which was about 1371. in the days of Edw. 3d. Rich. 2d and Pope Martin 5th who by his Bull excommunicated all Sects of Hereticks in their esteem especially Wicklefists and Hussites and had recourse also unto a stricter Guardianship of the Press and also to Excommunication nay to Fire and Fagot also against them and their Books and good reason and high time it was so to do for that their Doctrines touched to the quick the Reformation of the Heretical Doctrines and lewd practices of the Court of Rome and therefore that faithless and jugling Council of Constance in a time of Schism did condemn them their * Counted to be 200 Volumes by Aenaeas Sylisias and Jo. Cocleus in his Book de Historia Hussitarum Books and Bones though Wickliffe had been quiet in his Grave above 40 years before causing them to be taken up burned and their Ashes to be thrown into the River such was their rancour of heart since which Times the Popes succeeding have made it their grand Concern to prosecute the same design which is still on foot at this very day viz. to lay Foundations to maintain and make great the Authority of the Court of Rome by depriving men of knowledge which is absolutely necessary to defend themselves from Abuses Vsurpations and Delusions with which the Court of Rome is full fraught And therefore Paul 4th caused an Index to be composed which being perfected Anno 1659. was so severe and strict that there scarcely remained a Book to be read if rightly observed for that therein many Authors and Books were condemned which for 1 2 or 300 years had usually been read by the Romanists with the privity and without the Contradiction of the Popes then ruling and amongst the Modern some of those which were Printed in Italy even in Rome it self with approbation of the Inquisition and allowed also by the Brief of the Pope himself are forbidden as Erasmus on the New Testament which Leo 10th having read approved by his Brief dated the tenth day of September One thousand five hundred and eighteen But which is most considerable as to the main of my intent and purpose is to shew that where the Hogen Mogen Pontiff not unlike the chief Musty doth domineer there the very bowels of orthodox and sound Books wherein the Authority of Kings and Civil Magistrates is defended from the Vsurpations of the Clergy and in which the Hypocrisies and Tyrannies of the Clergie are manifested are hellishly raked into purged prohibited and condemned with strange Cruelties and which is yet more abominable this is done under the colour of Faith and Religion by which the people under that very pretence of Religion are miserably cheated and deluded A greater mystery of Iniquity was never broached then to use Religion so dirtily as under pretence thereof to make men as much as in them lyes insensible nay brutish by keeping them from the knowledge and consequently from the love of the truth What is this less then Antichristian and like men abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate and to sit as God in the Temple of God as Judex vivorum mortuorum working after the working of Satan with all power and deceivableness of unrighteousness But though the Court of Rome hath assumed to it self to prohibit Books whether they concerned Religion or other Matters yet before these latter years they have not been so impudent as to dare to say that the Prince also hath not power to forbid Books Cardinal Baronius was the first that spake that boldly but was not seconded by any a long time after but he in the beginning of the year 1605. printing the 11th Tome of his Ecclesiastical Annals libelled therein the Monarchy of Sicily with much bitterness and against many Kings of Arragon and especially against King Ferdinand the Catholick and the Progenitors of the Fathers side of him who then reigned which Book coming to Naples and Millan were prohibited by the King's Officers whereof the Cardinal having notice made a bitter Invective against those Officers unto the Colledge of Cardinals assembled in the vacancy of the See of Clement the 8th for that in so doing they had forsooth laid hands on Ecclesiastical Authority And afterwards when Paul the 5th was chosen Pope he wrote unto the King of Spain the 13th of June the same year wherein amongst other things he concluded that to the Pope only did belong the approving of Books of all kinds much more Ecclesiastical ones Notwithstanding the King of Spain was so wise as to abett and continue the Prohibition of his Officers at which the Cardinal was so netled that he could not contain himself but printing his 12th Tome 1607. he inserted a Discourse stigmatizing that Prohibition as abominable and impious affirming that Princes do it because the Books rebuke their unjust acts and that it was to take out of St. Peter's hands and putting into the Prince's one of the Keys given him by Christ viz. the Key of knowledge to
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
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
this Life and in that which is to come meer Vassals they and their Subjects likewise in no better condition than the Sheep in Demosthenes where the Dogs were to be banished and the Wolves to be their Guardians for they endeavor to make the World believe that they have power over their Souls and Bodies at their pleasure both in this Life and after Death These have been the Collections and Observations of Fra. Paolo and other learned and faithful Writers and eye-witnesses The best is Ab initio non fuit sie there are no such Doctrines in Bibliis Sacris but the contrary And our Doctrines concerning these points and indeed our Religion is the same which is contained in the Scriptures in General Councils and in the Fathers of the First Three I might say Five Ages which have not been purified in their Purgatory their Indices expurg and agrees with the Articles of Faith and only differs in those which they have lately invented and added which he that examines them one by one shall find that none of them make for the Glory of God but all for the Increase of the Grandeur Wealth worldly Power and Jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Order so that in truth the true Roman Religion such as it was in the dayes of the Apostles and some Centuries next succeeding is insensibly but manifestly Bastardized and become spurious at Rome and all reduced to a new fashioned Religion which chiefly if not only makes for the pomp and Interest of the Court of Rome So that in truth these latter Popes are no more nor otherwise the true Possessors or Successors of St. Peter's Doctrines at Rome than the Grand Signior is of the Doctrines of St. James's at Jerusalem or of St. Paul's in those famous Churches of Asia In the dayes of Sixtus Quintus that Great Prince there lived in Italy that famous Alchymist and Impostor Nick-named Mamugna who was verily believed that he could make Gold not by the Vulgar only but by Cardinals Princes nay by the Pope himself One more wise and more merry than the rest habiting himself like this famous Alchymist went up and down the City of Venice in a Gondelo well fraught with a Cargo of fire Bellows Crucible Glasses c. crying Al Magmugna A tre lire il soldo del loro sino who buyes a shillings worth of pure Gold for nine pence which being told the Turkish Chiaus made this short answer Il gran signore dumque verra a servirlo if he can make Gold the Great Turk shall come to be his Servant I shall make no other Application or inference of this Mountebank Story than what is natural qui vult decipi decipiatur if Princes will be content to let false and base Coin go for currant be it so But in truth all the Papalins were not of the same mind and opinions with those famous Cardinals and Jesuits the Popes Partisans nor with the Court of Rome but Books were Printed Pro and Con by Papalins themselves in great numbers For besides the Papalins within the State of Venice the Sorbonists were very Orthodox and maintained the Defence of the lawful Secular Power opposing themselves against the Usurpations of Rome and maintaining the Liberty of the Gallican Church for that Kingdom holds it for a matter most certain and apparent that Popes have no power over Princes and that they ought not to proceed by Censures against them or their Officers in things which concern the State And as soon as the King knew of the publication of the Monitory at Rome he complained greatly of the too hasty proceedings of the Pope and sent a dispatch to him with speed requesting him to accommodate the differences The King of Polonia absolutely denyed the publishing of the Popes Monitory for that it did not stand with reason to govern themselves after another fashion towards that Republick of Venice whose Cause was common with his own Kingdom The Catholick King of Spain on whom the Pope relyed for Succors for that he had sometime before made liberal offers unto His Holiness from which he retreated in time of necessity and advised him to neglect his own private Interests for the universal good of Christendom and said that it did not beseem the Father of all Christendom to ground a War so cruel and pernitious to Christian People upon a King so pious and that His Holiness would abase the Apostolick Dignity if he sustained by humane means the Authority which God had given him Quarrels of Paul the Fifth pag. 374 375 376. Thus you see Rome it self divided the Pope and Court of Rome differing in this their greatest point and Diana Jurisdiction both from the old and from the more Novel Church of Rome as well as from that of the Church of the Protestants And thus you may perceive the unquiet and uncertain State that all Princes are like to be in and their Condition never like to be better whilst such monstrous State-destroying-Principles are held for Gospel at Rome For it matters not whether these Doctrines are true or false or received and believed by others or no nor yet whether Protestants or Papists it is all a case so long as so believed at Rome You see the State of Venice a Popish Republick no more safe nor quiet than England a Protestant Kingdom Had the Popes Swords been keen and powerful enough no doubt but that they would have brought both those States in their respective differences and quarrels as once Frederick Barbarossa the Emperor to that Brute Alexander the Third creeping on their knees to obtain Absolution from their Sentences of Excommunication or as Henry the Fourth whom Hildebrand would not release from his Excommunication till he came bare-foot to Canusium in a bitter cold Winter waiting three dayes before the Popes Palace for his Absolution which he hardly obtained by the Intercession of the Dutchess Matilda The Pope besides that he is the Head of Romish Religion is also a Prince who hath for more than 600 years by past aspired to the Monarchy of all Italy at least I might say at an universal Monarchy Temporal and Spiritual which he hath been some time so near to obtain that it is a wonder that he hath misled of it seeing he leaves no stone unturned quacunque arte to enlarge his Jurisdiction He hath three great charges upon him 1. That of Religion 2. That of Ecclesiastical affairs 3. The Temporalty of his Estate The care of all which I shall not grudge him as of right belonging unto him in one or other of his Capacities so he kept within his own Dominions and Territories tho happily all of the Romish Religion will not allow him so much for that all Bishops ought to be governed by the Canons and in which both Pope and all Bishops antiently in the best and purest dayes did acknowledge the Supream power to be to which they all submitted and not by the Pope alone there being also three kinds of