Schollar scarse yet free from the lash of the rod. They commonly answer that these things may bee done by you but must not because you are not called thereto Biotica Whereas you are to meddle onely with the things of this life and such as may bee committed to the basest members of the Church Yea if you will beleeve Apollonius you are but separable accidents of the Church having for the end or finall cause of your Office onely the peace of your people but Religion honesty and piety onely remotely and improperly which are so many blasphemies by which they speak evill of the Rulers of the people For you are the Keepers of the Church Fathers Governours Captaines and Heads of the People God himselfe stiles You Gods Who seeth not that these Apollonian whirle-windes resist the Ordinance of God who prescribe bounds to Your knowledge and because of some petty worldly circumstances would exclude Your care about Church-matters God himselfe bids You Kisse the Sonne Isaiah foretels that You shall bee Nursing Fathers to the Church the Apostle tels us that the end and effect of your function is the preservation as well of Religion and Honesty as of publick tranquillity without any difference Beleeve not therefore Apollonius and his followers for if once they cheat you with these Canvase wares Saccaria that you may commit the whole businesse of Religion to them they will leave off to take care of the Church and will care for the things that belong to You They will leape from the Pulpit to the Throne This the Pope hath done a great while whom John Becholtius of Munster did imitate This doth Apollonius with his fellows carnestly hunt after in Middleburgh Despise the vaine buzzings of contentious men they are Aesops Wolves who desire that they alone may keep the sheepe that the dogges may bee removed from the flock Imitate rather godly Kings and Princes who by their examples have shined before You and chiefely Moses who being set over Aaron and the whole Priesthood not as a Priest or Prophet but as God or a Prince hee had no lesse care of Aarons Priesthood and of Religion then Aaron himselfe not that hee did execute that by himselfe which by divine and speciall priviledge was assigned to Aaron and his Priests but he directed the whole worship as it was instituted by God and did moderate it by that eminent power by which alone bee excelled Aaron and his Priests as their God and Prince Whose footsteps afterward Joshuah followed who was Prince over the Israelites and Moses his juccessour So likewise David Solomon and other pious Kings of whom Solomon by vertue of his regall authority alone deposed Abiathar the High Priest that hee might inflict upon him an Ecclesiasticall punishment that is that hee might not bee any longer the Lords Priest by which right hee placed Sadoc in his stead Godly Jehosaphat who was neither Priest nor Prophet appointed Ecclesiastick Judicatures as well as Civill and in them Judges and Presidents no Priest gainsaying him Yea in the third yeare of his Reigne hee sent from Town to Town not onely Priests but Civill Princes also with the Book of the Law to teach and Preach who truely although the worship of God was then decayed had been notwithstanding guilty of Sacriledge if hee had attempted either to offer Sacrifice or carry the Arke or enter into the Sanctuary or execute any of those things which God by speciall priviledge had granted to the Priests and denyed to all others Therefore sleight the Impostures of Apollonius and such as hee who alleadge to you the exemples of King Uzziah and Uzzah These are childrens rattles which hitherto wicked Antichrist hath used to affright fearfull superstitious people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These are empty tryes which experience and reason may teach you to despise For if to Pray publickly to Preach Gods Word to send Preachers to chuse Ecclesiastick Judges to remove a Priest from his Ministery to place another in his stead are matters of such speciall right as the going into the Sanctuary the burning of Incense and other things which God specially allotted to the Levites Uzzah alone had not falne down dead nor Uzziah been struck with Leprosâ—e nor the Philistimes troubled with the Hemorrods but innumerable pious Kings and Princes had been lyable to Gods wrath For although by the Law they abstained carefully from all Leviticall employments Yet if the Levites under this pretence had debarred them from every work of Divine Worship they had been laughed at as grosse Impostors They contained themselves within the prescript of the Law nor could these things bee thrust upon them as sacred and not to bee touched which God had not by an expresse Law separated The old Leviticall and templar separation is now abolished and yet this new Walachrian Levite perversely imitating the Jews challengeth in his Church-dressings that for holy and untangible which the old Levites themselves if they were alive would not debarre you from For it had been a most unworthy act to keepe off the High-Priest from medling else-where with holy things who might lawfully enter into the Holy of Holies this priviledge being granted there could bee nothing so sacred which bee might not touch How great then is the wrong which these new Priests offer to you under pretence of holinesse when they would affright You from medling with the Modern outward affaires of the Church Who have received from God a speciall power to enter every day into the now Christian Holy of Holyes There is now nothing in the Church nor in the whole world so sacred and infallible as the holy Scripture This is our Holy of Holies this is our Propitiatory Arke and Cherubim this is our Brest-plate shining with farre more brighter jewels then that of the Jews This is our Vrim and Thummim and whatsoever of old was venerable amongst the Jewes but now lost comes farre short of this which shall never perish though Heaven it selfe should fall In this concerning matter of salvation God doth answer You as well as the Priests whose answer is still certain and infallible Now whereas God himselfe by speciall warrant permits nay commands You to enter into this what madnesse is it that from the petty sacred things of this Church-furniture You should bee kept off from touching them under pretence of sanctity This is our Christian Liberty and felicity that wee are all now under Christ Kings Priests and Prophets That the generall priviledge of Christians is so large that no man is excluded from the administration of sacred things at this day if hee bee gifted I confesse it stands not with decency and Order that any man without calling should put his hand to the Modern Ministery yet the holinesse of the function is not hereby violated the Calling is at this day humane and oftentimes corrupted it serves for Order but conferres nothing to speciall sanctity Our Modern imposition of hands doth imitate the
be understood warily part 1. p. 29 30. at last he concludes that it is impossible for the Magistrate to nourish Christians with the dug which is not much lesse then to upbraid the Prophet with falshood who plainly saith it shall be which this man boldly saith shall not be by Kings properly but by Churchmen so that the Prophet should rather have fore-told Church-men shall be thy nursing fathers not Kings I confesse this title is figurative and not to be drawne beyond the Prophets intention This is also true that Magistrates cannot properly nourish the Church as nurses doe infants but so neither can any Ecclesiasticks doe at this day For as I said before no man is properly a father but he that hath seed within him and generates not he who casts anothers seed so none is a nurse precisely but she that hath milk in her brests and with this nurseth the infant which honour belongs to none but to God onely Gods grace alone is the nurse properly whose two brests are the old and new Testament in which all saring 〈◊〉 is truly contained which not onely Church-men but Magistrates and all Christians ought to suck as being the quickening and saving milke so that neither Magistrate nor Church-man is properly the Churches nurse except we feigne such a nurse as transferres milk from the brests of other women to here whe and that being in a manner corrupted at last by a pipe conveighs it into the infants mouth which were a monstrous kinds of nourishing So that now there is nothing belongs either to secular meâ— or Church-men but to distribute to Gods children the milk drawne and sucked out of the brests of grace in the two Testaments which is not properly to nourish except we will call milk-women who sell milk from house to house which fredeth infants nurses I think the Stilt-walker will say that there is no absurdity if he transferre the milk drawne out of the brests of Stripture into his braine as into a dug and from thence imparting it to the Church he performe the nurses part But I say this is an improper way of nourishing for as often as his study transferrs the milk which he sucks and drawes out of Scripture into his braine as into a milk-paile which is rank with malice and the filth of ignorance the milk which he distributes to Christians is vitiated by the vessell of his corrupted braine which is improperly to nourish So that now properly the question is concerning the right of distributing the milk which is contained in the brests of holy Scripture The old and new Papists excluding the Magistrate say that this right belongs onely to them The old Papists boldly like thieves and pyrates have driven all Chrisâ—ians away from the brests of Scripture forbidding the reading thereof by which cunning they have reserved alone the right of distriâ—uting that milk and they do it so sparingly and made so thin with waterish traditions that they starve many of Gods children The new Papists are more warie but withall more basec they commannd all Christians to suck out of the breasts of Scripture and to abound in it this also they command the Magistrates that they would flow with it and bestow it upon others or cause it to be bestowed yet they cry out that it is unlawfull for any or impossible except hee be a Church-man to distribute any drop of this nutritive milke because they alone have a power to conferre it by reason of their Vocation they confesse indeed that it is lawfull for Magistrates and all private men to bestow this milke privately but they will have us believe that whatsoever they doe there is not one drop of true nutritive milke bestowed by them for this is Stapletons perpetuall fraud that Gods Word is not truly milke but as it is preached by the Church which is as much as if you would say milke is not properly nutritive as it is milke but as it is publikely distributed so that in this they are like base Monopolists who confesse the milke to be nutritive in it self however it be drawn in or sucked out of the breast privately But they will not have it to bee accounted so except it be brought from them only I know it is an old song that this right is conferred onely up on Church-men by their vocation but I have shewed before sometimes that now there is no Vocation which is divine or which shewes any divine effects or confers any divine right but that it is meerly humane both in the manner and right thereof which though it was divine of old yet now it depends onely from the gifts requisite for that function which if they be found in any his Vocation tieth him as a hireling of necessity to performe this office but hindereth not others who are also furnished with these gifts from the free exercise thereof whence appeares the fraud and violence of Papists chiefly of the new ones who confesse that the quickning saving milk is contained in the breasts of the Scripture out of which all may suck and draw even Lay-men and may distribute it privately but publikely they must not or if they doe it is not nutritive which are meer mockeries However I have been large in discoursing of this nourishment yet this I affirme that Isaiah by this doubled and rare Prophecy did fore-tell some extraordinary matter of Magistrates when hee saith that they shall be nursing Fathers of the Church Apollonius thinks that nothing else is fore-told but onely that they shall procure bountifull stipends for Church-men to fatten themselves well and so may nourish the Church the better But this was no new or extraordinary matter God himselfe provided meat for the Levites and godly Kings had now a long time done that plentifully and it seems absurd to adscribe such a worke to Kings the chiefe perfection whereof could never bee reached by them but by Church-men onely Wherefore this seemes to agree with the said Prophet that Kings and Magistrates in the New Testament the Leviticall seperation being taken away should handle all ecclesiastick businesse by themselves or else that they should bee so diligent in them that if they did not perform all things by themselves yet at least they should bee so diligent in procuring of them that they should goe before church-men take the charge of them and prescribe to them no other wayes than if a Mother Queen who had permitted her infant to bee nursed and bred by nurses and her hand-maids afterward out of her motherly care should sit down among her nurses and maids and give her own brests to bee sucked performing her selfe all the parts of a nurse which we see many famous Princes have done in the New Testament Above other titles that of God is most illustrious with which the Psalmist honoureth Princes which title we never finde in Scripture given to church-men Aaron was an eminent man and was to bee the most worthy High-Priest yet God said
Provinces were silent Universites were a sleep learned men commended this one Apollonius was found out one Wallachran Classis which was well pleased with restlesse sloth Idle imployment slothfull businesse yet Apollonius â—ould not trust his businesse with a sinall Wallachran target he defends himself with the large sheeld of the whole Synod and States of Zeland For this he prefixed to his fables this tract was published according to the fourty sixt article of the Church politie established by the authority of the States of Ze land as if this rapsodie had been published by order of the whole Sinod and of the States also I warrant you before Apollonius was known Vitilitigator and borne the Synod pre-ordained that this make-bate or slandeter Apollonius injurious to all good men chiefly to his own Magistrates should without punishment cast abroad his fooleries and swelling words This cannot be true though Apollonius were the Phoenix and fairest of all birds which Heredotus writes doth appear every seventy yeare wee will rather beleeve that he expresseth the nature of Aetna which they say burneth and vomiteth every 70th yeare bals of fire Truly no man hath escaped the burning chalke of his most railing tongue Naphtam sometimes for fashion sâ—ke hee honoureth our famous Vedelius with the Title of Master Professor Master Doctor our worthy Brother and somtimes he calles him sacrilegious full of naughty tares a Parisite a Lyer a Wanton who trampleth on the Churches labours and rites and on the blood of Christ who spreads abroad his poyson and many more such as these to which the Apostle seemeth long agoe to have answered shall curssing and blessing proceed out of the same mouth and shall a fountaine send out of the same place both bitter and sweet water This wisdome descends not from above but is earthly carnall and devillish To these Apollonius addes further we think it neither safe nor lawfull for a few small questions about Church-government to raise troubles but now Vedelius was dissipating the holy rites of the Church and the liberties which Christ hath purchased with his own blood hee had subjected to the yoake of forraigne power hee means of the godly Magistrate secretly spreading his poyson hee gave occasion to Princes not very religious he seems to tax the Magistrates of Middleburgh that they should in their tyrannicall lust flye upon the the rites of the Church It may be asked why all other Churches and Classes sat down when the Church was in such danger he preferring himselfe to all others answers boldly Truly I like not that any of our side in whom the zeale of Gods House is grown cold in a cause of this moment should be luke-warme sit down and say nothing as though he alone of all the notable zelots should bee consumed by the fervent heat of Gods house whom the unbridled lust of railing and custome of lying hath driven to write which hereafter I will shew by divers examples and will prove it by a famous one in this place He feines that the Magistrate of Deventrie suppressed this tract of Vedelius Anno. 1638. which afterwards Vedelius published in our Vniversitie being but twice boyled coleworts That this is a meer fiction is cleare by Dr. Rivers letters concerning this tract which he wrot at the Hague the 28 of February 1638. so that this Davus hath not well distinguished his times for how in the beginning of this yeare could Dr. Rivet at the Hague see and allow this tract of Vedelius if at that time it was suppressed by the Magistrate at Deventre For either Vedelius published it without the knowledge and consent of the Magistrate which is absurd or else the Magistrate did quickly retract his purpose of suppressing it which had been no lesse temerarious and absurd or else it is false what Apollonius saith to wit that either they did or were willing to suppresse it as may be seene by all the circumstances For if Vedelius was such a raverious woolfe against the Church of Christ that then the Magistrate did suppresse his virulent writings what boldnesse was it according to the principles of Apollonius his Hierarchy for the Magistrate to fall upon a businesse of this consequence without the Clergies advice what supine negligence was it that all Divines in all Universities should be silent like dumb doggs untill this Lobster-eating-curre Hylax should first bark from the remote Walachran isle against Church-robbing so that not onely doth he accuse our University professors for too much stupidity and want of prudence in that they did not observe Vedelius his poyson but preferred such a sacriledgious blasphemer to be divinity professour but also accuseth Macovius and Rivet of perversnesse who by their letters openly approved and commended Vedelius his tract and opinion but if Apollonius had not maliciously winked with one of his eyes he would have been more tender of the honour of such worthy men But one were as good seeke for foode in the fire as for modesty in Apollonius Vedelius prefixed to his booke the letters of Macovius and Rivet which Apollonius would not see But that every good man may see them and hee too against his will I 'le set downe a few passages out of them Worthy Sir your disputation concerning the civill Magistrate against Bellarmine I have read with so much the more diligence by how much the more exactnesse it was written c. I doubt not but you 'l do on acceptable work to those that desires to know these things more exactly c. I confesse that by this your learned tract I am resolved of those things I doubted before and am instructed in divers passages which I knew not c. thus far Macovius Rivets judgement is more large which is this I have read and weighed the theologicall disputation concerning the Magistrate against Bellarmine which that famous and learned man N. Vedelius published c. I testifie that I have observed nothing in his answers and resolutions which in my judgement doth not agree with the doctrine of all reformed Churches concerning the same argument but especially that in those passages which hee hath alledged out of my Comentaries upon the Decalogue hee hath not wronged mee but hath fully expressed my meaning and I adjudge his opinion to bee very true c. Therefore by this my hand-writing I would testifie to all men that hee hath deserved well of the Church and who by his most learned lucubrations hath sufficiently proved how farre hee is from the wayes of Innovators c. Hee asserts the truth without prejudicing those things which belong to the Ministers of Gods word and the Church-governours according to Canonicall Scripture and the Ecclesiastick Canons deduced from thence neither can I see any reason why Orthodox men should in this businesse trouble him Thus Rivet Now let the Reader judge whether these men or Apollonius be made Sure they are diametrically opposite for he commends Vedelius for an
it a main peece of sanctity to sow perpetuall strife and make a breach between the Magistrates and Ministers as if it were a holy duty in Ministers to demand and take from godly Magistrates all the benefits they can but still to beware of their deceipts and treacheries the Reader cannot be so stupid as not to smell out the mockes and reproaches of Apolonius through his whole work against religious Magistrates some of which I will now set downe that every one may see what kind of vermin this Apolonius is who like a Wasp or Hornet goeth about to sting not onely our famous Vedelius but Macovius also Rivet his own Masters the best Divines of Christendome the Nationall Synod and the High and Mighty States themselves yet notwithstanding this giddy head who pretends a maiden-like modesty in the end of his Preface thus writes I seriously affirme that concerning this cause I have almost brought nothing of my own but have robbed the Lucubrations and Coffers of other men and have collected whatsoevr Divines have scatteringly sayd of this subject Thus like Proteus sometimes he lookes like a Lion and sometimes like a Buck He is a shrill Trumpeter of his own vertues every where but chiefly in this place where he subjects himselfe to all learned men when as indeed he exalts himselfe above them all So that he slights almost every man in comparison of himselfe how ever I will not envie this Locust the honour which he affecteth to wit that hee hath skipped over many mens Gardens and gnawed their Flowers this I 'le say freely that he hath taken more pains to turn over negligently humane writings then diligently the holy Scriptures as I wil hereafter make it appeare I confesse indeed that he like a Hog or like Aesops Cock hath laboriously turned over the Dung-hills of Popes School-men Jesuites Apostates and Sophisters perhaps that he might find out the Jewell of Truth which if he thought in-glorious to find in the neighbouring and pure Medowes of holy Scriptures as being lesse spirituall which I suspect hee deserveth to be defiled with their stench and filth and to be laughed at by all learned and godly men It is enough for me that I have made Apolonius his dissembled modesty and shamefastnesse appear but withall his Dogs face and impudency towards all The mans mad pride might be tolerated if he could any where else shew us his skill in Grammer or Logick but he who hath either a mind or leasure which I confesse are wanting to me to turn over all his patched Peeces shall find that he harps an hundred times on one string like a ridiculous Fidler so that one would nauseat to heare him He is so little versed in Latin phrases that he deserves to be whipt by Priscian for his many solicismes for he useth frequently the word coerciva for coercitiva A great deale he hath of such barbarous stuffe which the English cannot bear c. Now for his Logick although with a wide mouth he promise great matters yet he playes but a Canvasse Merchant imitating every where that Parasite in Plautus I sell ridiculous sayings goe too come and cheapen cavils flatteries and phantasticall perjuries I purpose not to run through all his labyrinths he cannot follow the guide of his own thread I will briefly contract his foolish circumlocutions thus The Church of Christ is holy and spirituall Therefore all her affaires and chiefly her government is holy and spirituall From hence he gathers this consequence Ergo the government businesse of the Church which he calls Church-dressing belongs onely to the Saints or spirituall men that is Ministers because they by speciall priviledge of their vocation are sanctified and consecrated From hence also he drawes out another confectary thus Ergo These Church-affaires belong not to Godly civill Magistrates because they were not sanctified to this work but are altogether unfit as being but mean members of the Church worldly whose power is dispoticall or Lordly Architectonicall and corporall earthly not heavenly which can produce no spirituall effect or touch the soul These are the Coleworts which he so often in his madnesse sets down to us I will handle each of them in order But first let the Reader be fore-warned that this whole Apolonian Fable for Church-government which he begins is so like the Popish Scheme that almost they differ in nothing save oneâ—y that with the Pope this is an old Comedy and a thing in possession but among the Apolonian Walachrans there are new Actors and a thing onely in expectation Surely such is the affinity every where of their principles assertions and argumentations that whosoever will but compare the Fictions of old Papists with these new ones will easily finde that the same Romish Church was mother to them both I confesse Apolonius is not so unskilfull of cheating or juggling but for fashions sake he hisses at Popery and by this trick he cleares himselfe from Arminianisme but brands our famous Vedelius with it This is the old trick of Heretickes and of all Novalists and as it were whorish paintings wherewith they paint their deformed scabs There is nothing wherein the Papists have more deluded the world then under the name of Church-holinesse and spirituality by which superstitious pretences the Pope hath gotten to himself the government of the whole world which web this our Apolonius hath begun again and hath made up the whole wooffe of the same threads so that almost in every page he casts abroad the lofty words of Church-holinesse and modern-spirituality Ampullas Therefore I hope my pains will not be lost if briefly I delineate the acceptions of these words lest the yoyson which lurketh under these guilded Mushromes Beletis may strangle the unwary CHAP. II. Of the divers acceptions of the CHURCH THe word Church in Scripture sometime signifieth every Congregation or Assembly of men gathered together whatsoever be the manner or end of their meeting So that seditious concourse of men at Ephesus against Paul is by Luke called the Church Ecceesia Acts 29.38 38. twice in that place is this word used for that tumultuous Assembly of seditious men But more specially it notes the Assemblies of men gathered together for the publick worship of God whether this Assembly be great or small So Paul honours private meetings at home by the name of Ecclesia or Church as those private meetings in the houses of Stephana and others for private devotion Now the forme of these Churches doth not properly consist in the mysticall and internall union with Christ but onely in the externall union which these men have among themselves when they meet to worship Christ and to make profession of their faith the chiefe heads of which consist in the preaching reading expounding or any ways meditating in the word of God in administring the SacrameÌ„ts upon occasion lastly in exercising the workes of charity among themselves as Christs Disciples did living according to
Ecclesiastick Chaire but some also have leapt out of the Bakers Weavers and Shoo-makers shops into the Pulpit and some of Mechanicall Tylers or Brick-layers have become grave Ministers I confesse that this is no other thing then what Christ did shew in the Aposties when he chose Disciples out of Fisher-men Publicans Tent-makers and all sort of Mechanickes onely this I say that if the Modern Church-discipline be ordered according to the Leviticall as Apolonius prates then Christ shewed a bad example and the Walach ian Novalist hath preposterously followed in excluding other stockes doth not tye the hope of Ministerial Church-sanctity to one stock alone But now I will deale bountifully with the Walachrans and will permit them to defend their cause with the old peculiar Levitical Rites But by what Art can they evince that to be of speciall right and sanctitie in the Christian Church which among the Levites was not of peculiar but of common right with the Magistrates and people Indeed all Levites were born with this priviledge to handle and touch the things of the Temple to offer Sacrifice to put on holy Vestiments to eat the holy Bread and other things which God expressly declared in his Law The High Priest had a peculiar priviledge to enter into the Holy of Holies to put on the holy Miter and Breast-plate which not onely was unlawfull for the people to doe but even for the Prophets themselves except in some extraordinary case but which of the high Priests upon this pretence durst exclude out of the whole Temple all other Priests which not onely of the Magistrates but even of the people themselves would have endured this If under pretext of Templebusinesseâ— and sacrificing these Levits durst have excluded all other Tribes and the whole people of Israel as uncleane and prophane from all other businesse of divine worship they had done no lesse absurdly then if they had cast out of their Tents and separated from all holy men the whole people as leprous Therefore the Levits were to contain themselves within the prescript of Gods Lawes nor were they to extend the pretext of Sanctity further then God had coÌ„manded I will not for certainty affirm that they have not been somtimes so immoderate in enlarging the prerogatives of their holinesse as that they have not chalenged somewhat never expresly granted by God for ambition seemes to be an innate evill in Church-men yet this I dare say that the old Levits were never so bold as to deny to Kings and the whole people many things which belonged to the worship and exercise of Religion such were in the Temple private and publick preaching and praying celebrating of the Sacraments making Lawes and Statutes of Ecclesiastick businesse judging and determining of Ecclesiastick causes curbing and punishing Priests even the high Priests when they failed in their Functions Lastly bestowing power upon Clergy-men to exercise their holy Function and taking the same away again 〈◊〉 all which I will make cleare hereafter by examples If this Wallachrian Iugler had weighed this well he had not so boldly obtruded upon the unwary the example of the ancient Leviticall worship for maintenance of his Church-discipline For he deales no otherwise then if some contentious Fellow should breake into ones House and should by certain Deeds shew that his Parents and Ancestors had right to some Benches or Stooles in that House by covenant or bargain whereas by the same Deeds it appeareth that either the Benches were worn or demolished or else that the right of possessing them was long since lost He notwithstanding violently seizeth not onely on the Benches but likewise driving out the inhabitants upon the whole House Surely whatsoever by speciall right heretofore belonged to the Levits and Clergy in the old Law is now known to be abolished and whatsoever holy Functions at this day remaine are not now peculiar to the Levits but common to all So that if now the Stilt-walker would plead his cause among the Levits they would shut him out of their Synagogue But because I am to speake more at large of this hereafter I will say no more at present of the acceptions and conditions of Sanctity till after I have touched one errour Lastly we must observe that the right of ordination of holy things belongs onely to God If we goe beyond his prescript with what specious pretext soever things or rites bee honoured they are not to be accounted truly sacred or holy For as all inherent sanctity and perfection is in God and flowes from him so likewise by his sole ordination things are called Relatively sacred or holy in divine worship From this Rule the Pope hath much deviated 2 Thess 2. who by his sole priviledge by which he is lawlesse and Pauls Antichrist extolling himselfe c. takes upon him liberty to sanctifie or as they call it Canonize as he pleaseth Men Places Dayes and things so that his subjects verily beleeve that what hee declares to be holy is holy indeed Hence it is that not being content with Jewish Rites and Ceremonies of the ancient Church doth daily devise new ones which hee thinkes may conduce to his honour and profit so that for a long time he hath opppressed Christians with the insupportable yoak of Ceremonies neither doth he this without some pretext of equity Bellarmine in some places stoutly affirmes that the Pope never yet introduced any Rite or sacred Ceremony into the Church which is not contained in holy Scripture But here hee useth a three-fold caution First that whatsoever frivolous interpretation the Pope giveth must be held consonant to Scripture which custome Philip Marnixius deriding in his Bee-hive shews out of Lindanus whom he calls Blindâ—sinus that there is no Rite so ridiculous in the Popes Histrionical Church-dressing for which they shall not find out some place of Scripture out of which it is coyned when the Popes Alchimisticall power of interpretation is added which can convert the frivolous drosse of his trifles into the pure gold of Sanctity But when he findes this way troublesome he useth this as a generall Maxime in the second place That that must bee counted a holy Rite and ceremony which is done with a good intention and for a holy use And as if this were not sufficient to refute Lutherans hee addes in the third place That these things may bee held for sacred Rites and Ceremonies which the Church judgeth to depend and in a manner to flow from those prime mysteries contained in Scripture by which trick the Pope doth wonderfully cheat the whole world that whensoever he produceth any Novelty to oppresse Christian Liberty which cannot be found in Scripture hee will have it to flow thence by way of consequence or by some connexion to depend from it Now because the Scripture defines no where how this dependency may be deduced from it hence it came to passe that there was no end of sacred dependences For each Pope took upon him this
liberty to adde new Ceremonies to the old Rites so this hath been the old Popish sport multiplying new Church-sanctities The new Walachrian Papists walk the same way For if you ask Apolonius What he calls the sacred Rites and Ceremonies of the Church he will not bee content with those which are directly in Gods Word for then there would be no use of legislative power in the Church but he will have those things accounted for Ecclesiastick Rites that are instituted out of a religious desire or affection For howsoever according to his wonted giddinesse hee defines elsewhere this matter more precisely Part. 1. p. 2 3 c. and withall contradicts himselfe yet in the beginning of his work thus he describes a Ceremony or sacred Rite That it is an action the goodnesse and praise whereof consisteth onely in the worship of God For because it is applied to divine worship in order to that religious will it hath sufficient honesty in which the Ceremony or holy Rite may lay its Foundation This exactly agrees with the Popish intentionall Sanctity Hee addes indeed The Church must diligently search that according to Gods word she appoint Rites and Ceremonies But this is to bee understood according to the Jesuiticall phrase and Diasect that Church-men onely must be Judges whether such or such things be consonant to Gods word or not It is too well known that the Romish Church is full of errours and that the whole dressing of Papall worship is Apostaticall not Apostolicall yet the Jesuites cry out that the Lutherans are liers in that the Church of Rome neither hath failed nor can faile and this they are ready to prove if the Pope may bee Judge in his own cause so that the Church of Rome can never be convinced of errour except she will confesse her errours which is impossible Apolonius playes the Cretian not much otherwise He confesseth that the Church cannot make Lawes in holy things or proclaime Geremonies but according to the Rule of Scripture which hee doth so interpret that the absolute power of judging what is consonant to Scripture is in the Church and Church-men For if any Lay Magistrate by his Authority enquire into Ecclesiastick Statutes or define Ecclesiastick matters or hinder Church-men from defining or making such things at their pleasure he cries out that this is Tyrannicall Simonaicall and Sacrilegious And that Lay-Magistrates like sheep ought modestly to submit themselves except the Clergie will not be reformed And of this also the Clergy must bee Judges For this will never agree with Apolonius his Divinity that the Civill Magistrate should bee Judge in Church-matters Which if true then who sees not a way opened to these new Papists for filling the reformed Churches with Rites and Ceremonies Neither is there any thing more easie then that these Bats should still dreame and finde out new Rites at which if the Magistrates wink there will bee nothing so repugnant to Scripture but will find assent and entertainment among the clergy nor any Monster so deformed which they will not thrust upon Gods people Witnesse the Walachran Classes where a giddy-headed Baawler hath cast out such prophane and seditious stuffe against worthy Vedelius and pious Princes And yet if hee lye not not onely the Consistory of Middleburgh but the whole Classis of Walaâ—rhria hath weighed proved and approved every thing The other thing wherein hee resembles Papists is this When he speakes of the Church sacred affaires he distinguisheth them into Primary and Secundary or dependents where surkes the old mystery of Popery For though Church-men have no liberty to institute primary sacred things yet they have power to impose upon Christians under pain of excommunication what by consequence flow from the former or seem to depend on them If this bee once yeelded to Apolonius and the Apolonian Church-Rulers nothing will be so absurd and prophane which may not put on the shew and Title of holinesse as often as it shall be taught that this is an Apendix of the prime sacred things The matter will be cleare by an example The prime sacred thing in the Church is the preaching of the Gospel Hence if it be gathered that these things are sacred also which necessarily depend from the former doubtlesse there will swarm abroad an innumerable brood of sacred things For there can be no preaching except there bee some Preachers Whence this necessarie consequence will follow That all Preachers even to Apolonius are sacred which I know he will not deny For there is nothing hee labours for more in all this work then to chalenge to himselfe the prerogative of sanctity above prophane Civill Magistrates But I will weave out this Web a little more It is impossible for a Minister to preach without a tongue lips and teeth Therefore it must follow that the tongue lips and teeth of the Minister are holy Now the tongue lips and teeth can frame no conception without the brain Ergo except Apolinius want braines his braines must bee also holy The brain can performe no function if the heart quicken it not by vitall spirits Therefore his heart and vitall spirits also must bee sacred The brain heart and tongue cannot operate except they be nourished by the Liver Veines and Intistines c. Ergo these also in the Preacher must be sacred I will not descend to the excrements of the body and make them also sacred by way of dependency onely this I l'e adde Apolonius can goe no where or stand to preach without feet whence it will follow that his feet are also sacred Now whereas it were immodest that he should come to Sermon bare-footed therefore he ought to be covered with a Cloak Breeches Stockins and Shooes for the better decorum will it not then follow that these also are sacred But what if the wayes be foule through which he walked and goeth up to the Pulpit with dirty shooes will not the Walachrian Divines be troubled with this quotlibeticall knot to wit whether the dirt and filth be not sacred I will not vilifie such things as are truly sacred I purpose onely to explode Apolonius his idle Appendices and sacred consequences by this one example He that will laugh at him may make triall in other things I will affirm this That no such liberty must be granted to any man much lesse to a giddy-headed Stilt-walker to authorize for sacred and holy whatsoever he dreames hath dependence from the primarie and true sacred Rites What mischiefe this produced among the old Papists may be seen by the infatuation of the people with this ridiculous and impious superstition For not onely are Monkes holy amongst them but also by this consequentiall inchantment their Hands Feet Gownes Hoods are kissed with strange veneration so that it is accounted a matter of no small sanctity and merit if one dye in a Monkes Gowne or lousie Wast-coat or if a superstitious Woman wrap about her head the holy Breeches of some Preacher to wit
the Pope useth to doe but experience shewes the contrary Lastly they are all destitute of the gifts of Miracles in which chiefly Apostolicall Spirituality did shine so that in this power they exceeded all others But I doe not think that it was ever found yet that at the prayers of Apolonius the Church did shake or that lying Ananias and Sapphyra did fall down dead It is not unlikely if he had the power or spirit of Elias to bring down fire from heaven but he would doe it and burn up all his Magistrates though there were fifty of them such is his heat against them This I l'e say briefly That Christ is too rich a King of Spirituall gifts to imploy such poore and naked Embassadours as these who have no Badge or mark of his Embassie except you 'l call him the Kings Embassadour who taking upon him the name of an Embassadour but wanting Letters of Credence and have nothing to shew for his Commission wil in a tumultuous way proclaime the Kings Lawes and in the mean while transgresse the Lawes and for his owne benefit oppose and mock the King What I have sayd of Persons may be observed of Things to wit that there are divers degrees of Spirituality according to the Manner so that in this regard a thing is more holy and spirituall This may be seen in the Jewish Church-government as in a type the Ark Propitiatory Breast-plate Cherubim and other things that were kept in the Holy of Holies were most sacred and spirituall because in them God was in a manner immediatly There was lesse spirituality in the Holy of Holies which contained these things Inferiour to this was the Holy Place whither all the Priests came and yet more inferiour was the outward Court whither all the people repaired then Mount Zion on which stood the Temple and at last Jerusalem within which all these were inclosed All these had not the same sanctity but in many degrees different and he had playd the Impostor who under the Title of a general spirituality had made all holinesse equal and promiscuously removed all from the secret places Now though the Leviticall worship be abolished and external or locall Spirituality yet this remaines in Christian worship and Church-discipline that there is not the same degree of Spirituality but much different in the Manner Gods word is most spiritual which most plainly favours of the Holy Ghost its Authour as being properly ordained for saving of soules Hence it is most true that all things found in this for salvation are most spiritual To this is next true Faith which proceeding from this seed alwayes savours of Spirituality and in whom it is found him it makes spiritual Inferiour to these are Hope Charity Prayer and Confession which borrow their spirituality from it Heb. 11. For without faith it is impossible to please God and consequently to be truly spiritual They differ also in this for these are common to Hypocrites and wicked men so is not Faith Inferiour to these are the outward meanes of begetting faith and other vertues in us such are Reading and preaching of the Word and administration of Sacraments which have this prerogative of spirirituality that they are the proper meanes to conferre salvation and to constitute a Church yet these are much inferiour in dignity to Gods word and Faith For these are of themselves and alwayes spiritual but those are onely spiritual actions so farre as they are conversant about the others as their spiritual objects but chiefly if they be in a lawful and spiritual way Lastly these things are inferiour in degree which in the Church-Discipline belong onely to the wel-being or properly which remove the evil being that may arise from confusion and scandal such are at this day the Calling of Ministers Discipline and appoynting of Lawes All which we see performed and handled by wicked men Nor are they absolutely required to the internal form of the Church because in some sort she may bee without them For so long doe they retaine spirituality as they doe exactly answer the Rules of holy Scriptures especially so long as they carry plainly the markes and Badges of the Holy Ghost as was in the time of the Apostles I have briefly touched the differences and degrees of Spiritualitie that I might resist the fraud of Popery For it was very familiar with old Papists to confound all the degrees of Spiritualitie and principally to vent for chiefe spiritual things their owne businesse and actions which they performe about these properly spirituall things For they despise Gods word which is most spiritual and their onely contention is of the right of handling this Word whence they arrogate power and command to themselves So they make small account of true Faith and truly faithfull men which indeed are truly spiritual but their main strife is about the right of ruling punishing and censuring those spiritual men and in this they place all spiritualitie so that to themselves alone they claime the right of Spirituality and exclude all Christians as Lay-men and not spiritual The new Walachrian Papist with them keeps equal pace For hee doth not place properly spirituality in Gods Word in true Faith and other things truly spiritual For hee knowes that these are common to all Christians but hee seekes all the pretext of spirituality in Actions which are imployed about these things especially in such as hee thinks belong onely to him and such as he is In whom although as they are now there is much carnality but very little spirituality yet hee croakes so proudly of these actions and of the right of performing them as if the whole summe or highest pitch of spiritualitie consisted in them whose Plea is all one as if a Levit of old had compared the sanctity of the outward Court or of Mount Sion to the dignities of the Holy of Holies or Ark within it For as to these the other were ordained so also from these they received all their dignity of holinesse But let this premonition suffice concerning the acceptions of Church Spirituality and Sanctity which in the following discourse I wil handle more at large CHAP. V. How farre these things belong at this day to Church-affaires and Government HItherto I have delineated the acceptions of these words CHURCH SANCTITIE and SPIRITUALITIE under which Cloakes the old Papists heretofore have and the new Walachrian Papists now doe insnare and delude the unwary the summe of which was that clamourously they bragge of the vertues and sanctity of the Church under the Title of Catholick Church and Invisible which doubtlesse is Holy and Spirituall But when they come to the matter they turne aside to visible and particular Churches which oftentimes differ as much in holinesse and spirituality as the Kings Closet doth in cleannesse from a Swines-stigh For this abounds with hypocrites sinners and prophane wretches Again when they boast of the vertues of the visible Church they handle the matter as if they
pleaded for the universall Church Acts 15. whose dignity consists in faith and profession Hence also it is called the Church properly in opposition to the Rulers thereof but presently by a new cunning trick they turne aside to the Church Ministers and their Government that the whole power and dignity of the Church might be united in the Churches outward Government and Rulers excluding the body of the Church and the faithfull as lay and carnall men Lastly they doe so prate of spiritualities and the holinesse of Government and Rulers that they stay not upon the commendations of the prime and chiefe holy things such are GODS Word Faith Sacraments and other things which properly and primarily are spirituall but by a confused acception of Holy and Spirituall things they dispute of busines and actions of Church-matters and their dependencies about which they themselves are conversant in which things either there is no true spirituality at all or if there be it is â—â—â—y remote and improper nor any way to be compared to the Apostolicall Government This is surely Apolonius his Canvasse packe of which I have spoken often which he had not from Christ but from the Pope For he willing to be reverenced of all men every where he pretends the Name of Catholick Church and Spirituality with which when hee hath perswadeded mens mindes he presently perswades them also that the Government of the Church is most holy whence he contracts its sanctity to the ruling Clergie and because the spirituality of all Church-men by degrees is collected in the Pope as the head of all Hence the Pope acquires this dignity to himselfe to be thought and called Most spirituall most holy Father as 〈◊〉 the force form and quintessence of all spirituality resided in the Pope alone so that now among Papists none doubt but that the Eyes Mouth Tongue Heart yea Haires Skinne Hands Feet Heeles Shoulders Ribbes Belly I had almost sayd his Belches and Farts are either spirituall or smell of spirituality This priviledge of Sanctity by the worlds fatall errour hee hath now long possessed and I feare will possesse to the end of the World For though the Christian World should happen to bee freed of this first Antichrist yet we see by what is sayd a new Antichristian seed springing out of Apolonius who to the great disgrace of Magistrates doth dawb over with the strange painting of Spirituality the businesse of the Visible Church yet with this caution That he will have us beleeve that it resides not in the whole body but onely in the Ministers as the Captaines and Presidents thereof This Fiction having taken impression there is arisen among Church men such a pride of preheminence that there is none of them though never so basely born though promoted to the Pulpit by never so wicked meanes but thinkes himselfe in Church-matters exempted from all obedience to the Magistrate and that he is to rule them all Which Pride if at length as is seen in the Walachian Classis be setled in such a Chough or Jack-daw as Apolonius is how much I pray will the world be eased of Antichrist Apolonius will not be angry if in time I detect to godly-men his arts and cunning trickes and shew how like a Bird he is to the Romish Pope So that he must not wonder if hereafter all good men bite him For he will deservedly fall into Aesops Fable of the Cuckow about which almost all Birds doe flye as about an Hawke whereas it is a weak and feeble Bird For he sayth That the Cuckow once afked why all the Birds did peck at him as if he were an Hawke The Birds answered because in his feathers he was so like an Hawke that they were afraid lest in time he should be an Hawk But now to let this alone I will examine severally the workes of the Eoclesiastick Ministery by which as by Instruments inward Faith outward profession and union with Christ and his Church are procured and preserved which therefore are accounted scâ—â—â—ally Ecclesiastick businesse The first of these should be the publick reading of the holy Scriptures Ectypon For since it pleased God to comprehend the counterfeit of saving truth in writing he never granted so much to vocall preaching as not to have it examined and weighed in this balance of Scripture So that neither Prophets nor Apostles John 5. nor Christ himselfe were offended at this Act. 17. Hence not onely the reading of holy Scriptures in private hath been familiar with all good men but also among the publick Functions of the Church it hath been a solemne custome to read the Law that is the Scripture so that the chiefest men have not scorned to performe this duty sometimes That place Acts 13.14 is worth the noting Luke 4.16 and chiefly that of Luke where it is sayd that Christ being at Nazareth on the Sabbath day rose up and having taken the Booke did read that famous place in Esay 61.1 So that this task was performed by the best men and not put over to the meaner sort as now For at this day the holy Scripture is to be esteemed no lesse then Vrim and Thummim of old among the Jewes and the Sanctuary where God gave his Oracles For as soon as he gave off to deliver his Oracles there and ceased to send Prophets by whom he spake extraordinarily they had nothing certain but the Law and the Testimony that is the Scripture with which they ought to consult The Pope at this day utters many lies concerning his infallible power of deciding controversies The new reformed Papists trusting to their infallibility will have men beleeve their interpretations upon paine of excommunication and danger of hell fire But this should be known among Christians that now nothing is infallible except the Scripture alone which if we had not there should bee no certainty in divine worship or religion at all Surely such is the use and efficacie of reading the holy Scripture that it is knowne by experience of all Ages that in persecution many have been converted and saved onely by reading which the Pope Christs adversary the fatall tyrant of Christs Church knew too well who in the first beginning of Reformation that he might stop the course of the Gospel inhibited the reading of Scripture under pain of death but withall giving leave to preach For he knew that by the dumb and secret help of reading many were so well instructed that not onely thence got they knowledge and boldnesse to tax his errours but also to confesse the truth in the midst of flames and tortures Neither here doe I much regard Stapletons cavill that men cannot by bare reading be converted Rom. 11. because it is sayd How can they beleeve of whom they have not heard How can they heare without a Preacher Also Faith comes by hearing Because Paul hath not debarred from faith and salvation such as are corporally deafe for that they cannot heare but
in expressing the one sense of hearing he hath not excluded the other Besides faith comes by hearing either publick or privat reading Therefore Augustine warned the godly that they pray often and read the Scripture For when we pray sayth he we speak to God when we read God speaks again to us The most holy Ecclesiastick meanes then to beget and preserve faith in us is the reading of the Scripture and it is so much the more excellent in that it is not subject to the will or command of any man but most purely conveyes to us the liquor of divine Truth as it were out of a Fountaine of such uncorrupted sincerity that by reason of this sacred Function alone Christ commanded to heare the Scribes and Pharisees in all that they shall say But Apolonius doth not much strive about this spirituality and priviledge because there is in it nothing imperious but servile rather not would hee cry out that his sacred things were prophaned if perhaps the Magistrate should use this office of reading but would rather say that it is a testimony of civil servitude no otherwise then of old the Gibeonites y for deceiving Ioshâ—a were commanded to minister Wood and Water to the true Priests and Levits Next to reading is preaching Stapleton and the Jesuites are so proud of the priviledge of this Function that they claim a power to themselves to save souls for thus they reason No man can be saved without faith no man can have faith without hearing Gods word no man can heare without a Preacher no man can preach except he be sent to send belongs onely to the Governours of the Church Therefore they conclude That the care and power of saving depends on them By which Title they insult over all as if they were lay men if they offer to enquire more narrowly of matters of salvation as if the businesse of heaven did not belong to such This errour Apotonins breathes every where using almost the same weapons that the Jesuites doe to wit that modern preaching is the sanctified and spirituall meanes and by spirituall right Ecclesiastick belonging onely to Ministers by their right of Vocation But for others especially for worldly Magistrates it is neither lawfull nor possible I confesse that preaching is in some fort holy and usefull for the Church but hee that will compare the manner of it as it is at this day with that of the Apostles he will compare the shadow with the body for they were truly inspired by God and taught by God furnished with all the gifts of Knowledge Tongues Miracles by Divine authority as Christs Embassadours they preached and faithfully dispensed the Mysteries of God God speaking by them and therefore they abstained from all pleasing allurements of Arts and humane affections But at this day whasoever declamatory Art is in preaching it proceedes of humane and secular precepts with that pomp that now nothing in the Church is thought handsous but what savours of Quintilians Tropes or of Aristotles Metaphysicks This is no new thing for shortly after the Apostles departure the subtilties of Philosophers unknown to the Apostles were made use of to edifie the Church withall but with this successe that these Arts brought more darknesse then light into the Church for they layd the foundation of many errours and chiefly of Antichristianisme then springing up Which humane Artifices are now vented with such pride that all the Majesty of Gods word consisting in simplicity is by them obscured For although there is some use of these Arts against contradictors of the truth yet we know by experience that more contenttions differences and errours are raised then abolished by them â—â—ther did the Church ever fight with better successe then when the adversaries were confuted with pure Scripture Now if there be such failings in their vertues what shall we say of their vices We find by experience that they are destitute oftentimes of all things requisite by Paul in a Bishop and being armed with impudent Fore-heads as we see in Apolonius they rush upon this work with such pride that they make themselves spirituall holy Christs Legats and in a manner the Apostles fellows whereas they labour not alwayes to furnish the pure milk of Gods Word but rather to vent their own affections inventions and fictions and that with such eagernesse and quarrelling that they can scarce abstain from railing Though these things were mended according to the manner and example of the Apostles yet I would say that Apolonius is swelled with Antichrian pride and so are all our new Papists who place more holinesse and speciall spirituality in their preaching work then was ever held of old under the Levitical law or after under the Apostles For albeit that all were debarred from sacrificing except the Levits yet no man was hindered from preaching neither Princes nor Lay-people Moses Joshua David Solomon and other Princes did preach publickly When Josaphat Josiah and other Kings restored the worship of God they sent Priests Levits to teach and so they did likewise Lay-men When Religion was restored under Nehemiah Esdras and the Levits taught but it is added that Inshua and some of the people did publickly read and teach If this was of such speciall right as the Ecclesiastick and Leviticall Office of sacrificing entring into the Sanctuary separating and discovering of Lepers and other things which God granted to the Priests and Levits why was it so promicuously granted to the people Who will not say that the Levits and Apostles were irreligious and tramplers upon their owne holy Function in giving leave so promiscuously for men to preach that they hindered no man from it either publickly or privatly if hee was apt This may bee shewed by many examples Luke 2.46 First when CHRIST being about twelve yeares of age disputed publickly in the Temple with the Doctors For though he might justly doe this having a Divine calling thereto yet the Scribes and Pharisees knew not so much And indeed they were too proud of the priviledge of their Chaire and of preaching to suffer any much lesse a child to meddle with their y Office of preaching had they known that it was not lawfull for any to preach without the solemnities of calling but simply perceiving the gifts and aptitude in Christ to teach not being sollicitous whether he was called or not did make no scruple in permitting him to teach Such another place there is in Luke Luke 4.16 when Christ being at Naâ—â—reth took the Book and read and then preached all his hearers admiring him with attention Whence I gather that then there was no such need of writings to shew their Orders and Callings to preach but any man might preach that was apt For it is most certain that Christ had no ordinary vocation without which if it had been then so sacrilegious a thing to preach as Apolonius would now perswade us doubtlesse they had pulled Christ out of the Pulpit whom the Scribes and
from Legall uncleannesse But for morall impurity wee know no other meanes to be expiated from it but repentance and prayer for pardon This may bee seen in David so long as he slept in his sinne and begged not for pardon hee was uncleane but after hee confessed his sinne Psal 32. and asked pardon Nathan told him that God had pardoned his sinne So David himselfe sayth that so long as he did not confesse and repent his sin remained but when he confessed his sin and begged for pardon God forgave him God himselfe every where hath appoynted this generall Rule That at what time soever a sinner did convert from his sinnes hee would not remember his former iniquities yea though they were as red as Scarlet and blood Isal â— yea upon their conversion they should bee made whiter then Wooll or Snow Which Law Iohn repeates If wee acknowledge our sinnes 1 Iohn 1. God is just and faithfull who will cleanse us from all unrigteousnesse This Christ shewed in the Pharisees and Publicans prayers For this by confessing his finnes and asking pardon was forgiven and cleansed the other in not confessing but reckoning up his vertues remained unclean Which doe clearly shew that they who are morally unclean are cleansed by repentance alone Hence it followes that if a faithfull man though grievously fallen yet if he repent and seek for reconciliation with God hee is no more polluted morally but cleane in Gods sight Iohn upon this onely ground baptized any that were morally polluted Luk. 16. if they were purged by repentance alone and confession Why then should man invade Gods right to think him unclean whom God esteemeth clean Why should a prating Priest think him unworthy of sacred things whom God hath not declared to be unworthy Thus the Pope playes in holy things that hee is not content with that Law of expiation which to God is satisfactory For so he should lose the profit and honour which he gets by his sacred Jurisdiction Therefore hee afsumes to himselfe to judge of Christians repentance and for this cause prescribes times and penitentiary penalties which after hee moderates by indulgences and remits when he pleaseth This is beleeved by foolish men who think that this is done by speciall priviledge he in the meane while like a Cheater wipes them of their money For he imposeth on rich men such penitentiary punishments as he knowes will be most inconvenient for them Whence oftentimes this penance is redeemed with a great fumme of money By which Merchandice the Popes Exchequer must become very rich Of this disease of Covetousnesse and Avarice the Pope hath been so long sick that shortly after the time of Phocas sâ—aven hundred yeares agoe one Isaatius a Patrician and Embassadour of Heraclius the Emperour robbed the Palace of Lateran under Pope Severinus the first affirming that it was unfit that the Popes Exchequer should be fuller then the Emperours I doubt not but the Stile-walker is exactly skilfull in the Papall Arts and therefore hath assumed to himselfe as a speciall priviledge the right of excluding Christians from the Supper and of appoynting the time how long they shall forbeare hoping also that by this cunning hee may procure of the richer sort of Christians who will bee impatient to forbeare long either money or else good cheere or the promise of some Office or some other kind of gratification How ever hee may either enjoy or bee frustrated of his hopes wise Christians and honest-hearted Magistrates ought to be assured that these Walachrians play the lying Cretians in making their Walachrian Tribunall more rigid and precise then Christs own Tribunall For he declares that they who are morally unclean are made pure by faith alone and repentance and therefore worthy of his sacred Mysteries They on the contrary debarre from their Sacraments Antichristian-like faithfull and penitent men as unclean untill they have given satisfaction to their particular and usurped right But they goe about to wash out this spot For say they it is not sufficient that one declare himselfe to be penitent but this liberty of sinning must be kept under by the Rod of the lesser Censure that the scandall received must be expiated as it were with an Ecclesiastick and spirituall penance I answer It is most certain that the licentious liberty of sinning is to bee curbed in Gods people and scandals to bee removed But I deny that it is in mans power to choose what meanes hee pleaseth and that what he chooseth must be held for divine They are as much deceived as if the old Levites had taken upon them to expiate at their pleasure those that were ceremonially polluted For GOD hath set down the manner of expiating every sinne which being truly Divine they could not transgresse Now I would have the Walachrian Stilt-walker shew us by what Law hath God commanded Preachers to remove scandall from the Church so as that a penitent sinner should be debarred from the Supper so long time as the Church-men shall prefixe as if this power were given to them by a sacred and Divine right Hee shall as soone finde this in Scripture as the rest of his lies with which hee hath stuffed his patched peeces to be divine truth For the Scripture is ignorant of the modern lesser Censure yea it is repugnant to the institution of the Apostles and their practice as may bee seen by the Church or Corinth in which Paul reproves their filthiest sinnes with which hee saith most of them were tainted Surely in this case if ever occasion was offered to debarre them from the Communion and that for a long time that the licentiousnesse of sinne might be for the time to come enrbed and present scandals removed 1 Cor. 11. But what did Paul in this case He forbids them not but plainly commands them to receive the Sacrament he prescribes no penitentiary punishments nor the manner or times of repentance but wills every man to examine himselfe and so to eate and drinke So that hence it followes necessarily that either Paul prostituted those holy Mysteries to the uncleane or else that he was ignorant of this Walachrian sanctity But they will object That Paul gave strict charge concerning the incestuous Corinthian that as naughty leaven he should be cast out of the Church I answer that Paul speakes there of delivering over to Satan and not of the lesser Censure which is the fiction of Church-men for establishing of which this is alledged idlely Secondly the proceeding of Paul with the incestuous Corinthian shewes that hee was ignorant of the figment of lesser Excommunication For not onely was that an abominable and capitall Crime which was committed by that member of the Church of Corinth by polluting himselfe once and againe but having no sense or feeling of his sinne hee wallowed like a filthy Swine in the uncleane mire of sinne in marrying and lying with his step-mother whom for his impenitencie and security in sinne Paul
then Gold is like Drosse For the old Censure first instituted by GOD and used by the Jewes was practised by Apostolicall Churches and that by the command of Christ and his Apostles This consisted first in verball reprehension which all were bound to exercise and that by divine right Levit. 19.17 Heb. 3.13 1 Thess 5.11 12 13 14. Secondly in Separation when they withdrew themselves from their company and avoyded the conversation of such as were not bettered by admonition and reprehension Mat. 18.15.16 1 Cor. 5.9.10 11. Which separation was made for two causes First that by this the contagion of sinne might bee avoyded Secondly that the sinner seeing himselfe despised might be ashamed and so might hence take an occasion to repent The Jewes in Christs time by vertue of this Censure alone debarred Publicans and sinners from their companies in privat whom they could not keep out of the Temple who therefore reproved Christ because he did eat and drink and keep company with Publicans and sinners whose institution Christ did not absolutely reprove but corrected shewing that it was not simply unlawfull to converse with Publicans and sinners but lawfull when any furnished with the gifts of instructing admonishing and reproving like a Physitian cures them of their evils and spirituall maladies This Doctrine Paul urgeth 2 Thess 3.6.14 where hee teacheth that we must not converse with them who live disorderly that being by this separation contemned they might be ashamed but that they should bee excommunicated out of the Church or debarred from Divine worship and meanes of salvation wee read not in Scripture but rather to admonish them to reprove them as brethren but not reject them as enemies And as he teacheth in 2 Tim. 2. v. 25. we must use them with lenity although they make resistance This is the ancient Censure grounded on Divine Precepts and the practice of Antiquity of most Divine right and most fit to remove sinne and scandall out of the Church which had it continued all Ecclesiastick tyranny had been removed out of the Church neither had so much carelesnesse and contagion of scandals fallen among Christians especially their Rulers For each Christian being sollicitous of his own and neighbours salvation by admonishing reproving and separating them when need required hee had removed from his brethren sinnes and scandall yea even from the Doctors themselves by right of this fraternity as we see how Paul reproved Peter when he walked not uprightly and how Aquila and Priscilla did instruct and admonish that famous Teacher Apollos But now here we see the Churches infelicity for the Pride of the Doctors especially among Papists hath taken away this old Censure because it gave too much power to all and singular Christians whom they began to account for Lay-men and thought it unworthy that the care of great businesse should be committed to every member of the Church But Clergie-men took all this upon themselves and made that Office peculiar to themselves which God had granted to all and singular Whence arise these mischiefes which we see this day in the Church First in that the common sort of Christians laying aside all care of the Church and holy mysteries give themselves totally over to worldly businesse leaving the Office of censuring to Ministers altogether Secondly in that the Clergy are so puffed up with this prerogative that they thinke themselves the onely Judges of censures and Manners and that they are armed with such power as if they could by divine priviledge open and shut heaven bind and loose and make of a Christian a prophane man and a Publican which perswasion as soon as it possessed mens minds it first brought Ecclesiastick tyranny into the Church and at length begot Antichristian Popes who by this power of censuring hath subjected to himselfe all Christians especially the Kings of the earth As we may see in that wicked Hildebrand of whom we spoke before who about the yeare 1080. forced Henry the fourth Emperour a man of a degenerate spirit and who had committed adultery with the Whore of Babel Platina to make a journey bare-footed through Ice and Snow to him being then at Canassa where for three dayes togother he did humbly intreat to bee admitted which he could not obtaine without the intercession of dishonest Mythildes and her Ruffians by whose mediation he was admitted at last to fall down at that wicked Popes feet and to receive pardon I confesse at this day the Popes pride is not so great because out of the Revelation wee are taught that many Kings now forsake the Whore and spoyle her But whatsoever he doth at this day in his intollerable pride he doth it under the sole Title of the Sword and of the power of Censuring whose thunder-bolt is Excommunication And though this mocker of all holy things knowes and beleeves that this his thunder is not more valid then a Fart yet he perswades the timerous superstitious people and they beleeve him that it is a thing of great spirituality and force So that one who was too superstitious seeing with what pomp excommunication was denounced at Rome cried out that doubtlesse hee was thrust out of heaven whom the Pope thus excommunicated For he is a pleasant Actor in this Play which is performed with strange running up and downe of Church-Ruffians and the Popes Parasites with great jangling of Bells with a wonderfull kindling of fires and Torches and a sudden putting of them out and although in this he doth nothing but what with as great dexterity is performed daily by Stage-players in their Tragedies yet by a fatall efficacy of error he hath so prevailed with Princes that they beleeve him to be a most holy Father whom they see and often confesse to be a most wicked knave and that his excommunication is a matter of wonderfull force and sanctity albeit they know that hee debarres them not from heaven but from their earthly goods except they resist him by force of armes The chiefe places out of which heretofore the Antichristian Gyants did beat out the Popes Ecclesiastick thunder of the greater Censure are these Matth. 16.19 Matth. 18.17 18. Iohn 20.21 23. 1 Cor. 5.4.5 and that is of chiefe account which Christ promised to Peter in giving him the Keyâ—s of the Kingdome of Heaven that is power to forgive and retaine sinnes and to bind that in Heaven which is bound on earth this is commonly thought to bee given to Peter and the Bishops of Rome by speciall priviledge with which Title the Pope is so proud that he carries the Keyes in his Armes as if he were that Door-keeper or Claviger of hell mentioned in the Revelation and so ascribes to himselfe alone as being Peters successor this power of the Keyes By the perswasion of this superstion he hath subjected the whole world to him For so he threatens that hee will shut Heaven gates against all those who will not obey him The Walachriah Stilt-Walker being instructed in the
Popes school he trumpets out every where the power of the Apostolicall Keyes with so great pride of Jurisdiction and of commanding power that the Popes Keyes and those of Apolonius seem to bee made by the same Vulcan which want nothing but a little better polishing which in time will be done For who ever will turne over the Papists writings and these of Apolonius shall see that whatsoever the Pope proudly bragges of concerning his Hierarchy in the right of Peters succession the same doth Apolonius and the new Walachrian Papists proudly challenge in right of Apostolicall succession Nor do I deny but this hath been too common among divers reformed teachers to be somewhat superstitiously affected with this right of the Keyes and of Excommunication which is not to be wondred at seeing some of the Reformers had been bred in the Romish Church whose Botchers shop was filled with such old trash of Jurisdiction it could scarce be otherwise but that the most part being born there must smell of that mother But afterwards some others treading in their foot-steps and prouder then the former did too much advance this Ecclesiastick power of the Keyes So that we must confesse it hath fallen out with many Reformers as it doth with those who goe about to purge out the Garlick which they have eate who though they doe what they can to purge and remove it yet they cease not to smell more or lesse of it This may bee seen in many chiefly in our Walachrian Stilt-walker who above all others delighting in the menstruous blood of his Romish mother and smelling so rank of it boasts so proudly every where of the power of the Keyes that you shall scarce find his equall whose fooleries that I may now refell this I say That there is nothing more certaine then that Christ in promising the Keyes to Peter and the Apostles did conferre on them no vulgar thing but what was both new rare and excellent and by which he would exalt them above humane reach as it were when he gave them this power of heavens Keyes Whence it is not likely that by these is meant so small and easie a matter as the Church at this day exerciseth For what great or rare matter is this if a Church-Ruler or Preacher say at this day the Kingdome of Heaven is open to thee if thou beleeve if thou beleevest not it is shut against thee Not onely was this the ancient preaching but almost every ordinary man in the Church can say so Yea whoever reads the Scripture or heares but a childe reading them hee exerciseth this judgement of himselfe and useth the Key For if he see any disobedient hee will judge that heaven is shut against him if hee repent not If again hee see him convert he will judge that heaven is opened and so will use this Key Neither must Church-men think that they have now more power in using this Key For we finde by experience that Clergy Assemblies Consistories Classes or Synods are no more powerfull in denouncing this judgement then any private man being intent on the thing and carefull to search out the truth so that wee find by experience that one Lay-man hath judged better and hath made better use of this Key then a whole Synod For though Apolonius prate much concerning the speciall assistance of the holy Ghost yet we finde no other effects thereof then what the Pope boldly bragges concerning his infallibillity and yet hee is the lyingest faisister that ever the world saw So then these Church-men are very oftentimes deceived who bragge so much of the power and certitude of the Keyes Let Apolonius witnesse then which no man is a more impudent bragger of this power of the Keyes except the Pope and yet by his preaching Key he hath produced so many lies that he may seem to carry not the Key of Heaven but of Hell with Apollion And that you may not think this to be a personall errour except he will also â—e in this lo the whole Walachrian Classis hath coÌ„ ented to these fictions so that hence appears the false judgement of the Church in the use of the preaching Key because not onely it is not of greater force then a private Christian mans iudgement but oftentimes of lesse validity For at this day the iudgement of Church-men is so corrupted with affections that we may beleeve many whom they condemn to hell shall surely enioy heaven and on the contrary they shall goe to hell whom they iudge worthy of heaven by their Key How ever the matter be it cannot be evidently proved that now Church-men have any greater power in using the Keyes of Heaven then any particular member of the Church whilst in their Sermons their threatnings and promises of life eternall are conditionall Whence it is not likely that Christ gave so little right as this to the Apostles under the glorious title of the Keyes of heaven and of so solemne a promise but that there was in this some high matter and peculiar to the Apostles onely which I place in this because they were the first Heralds of salvation performed now by Christ and of heaven opened by him which was never proper before nor after to any of Gods Embassadours Before the work of salvation was performed salvation was hoped for but then heaven was in a manner shut as yet After Christs Ascension it was truly opened And this priviledge the Apostles had that they were the first witnesses hereof Besides before that time heaven was shut against the Gentiles who as it were by a partition wall were debarred from entring thither so that no man nay not the greatest Prophets before this had power to open heaven promiscuously to all Gentiles the Jewes being forsaken This matter was so high and rare that even the Apostles though illuminate by Gods Spirit came to know this when it was late and not without Miracles too which being understood they without wearisomnesse by a divine wonderful rapture contemning all dangers carried the Gospel almost through all the world so that Thomas himselfe as grave Authours witnesse preached and travelled as farre as India Which indeed was notable and nothing else but the opening of heaven To this was added their infallible power of preaching that they sayd nothing but by Gods prescription For the preaching Key which Christ promised and gave to his Disciples was so excellent and divine that with it he gave unto those first Patriarchs of the Church graces by which they delivered the truth infallibly so that not onely did they shew Heaven opened but by their infallible doctrine as with a Key did open it to every one and declared it infallibly by their divine power of judging to whom it was opened or shut so that what they bound and shut on earth was truly bound and shut in heaven And contrarily This power after the Apostles ceased For what they once opened remaines open nor can it be shut again by any The Pope
bragges that this right remaines onely for him as being Peters successor and so commonly his subjects beleeve But this is an impudent lye fit for Antichrist Our Apellonians doe indeed convince the Pope of sacriledge for his bragging thus and yet they themselves are more impudently puffed up with this power of the Keyes For they confesse and in effect prove that they cannot preach infallibly and yet they cry out that he is guilty of sacriledge who doubts of their possessing their Key now Which impudency is farre greater then that of the Pope For he assumes to himselfe the right of opening heaven because he saith that he hath an infallible Key and truly Apostolicall But these will have the same right ascribed to them and yet doe confesse that they are not infallible Although hee bee an Impostor who promiseth to open the Treasure making shew of having that Key which hee hath not yet hee is a more impudent Impostor who cries out that hee will open the Treasure and yet confesseth that either he hath no Key or if he shewes any Key it is so unfit and rusty that it cannot open the Lock For because the moderne preaching Key wants true spirituality which is the infallibility of truth it is to be accounted a dead body or like a Clock which is moved about with wheels But these are set on work by the weight of honour and gain No otherwise can wee think of the Judiciall or Censoriall Key which in the Apostles by reason of their gifts and power was alwayes just and effectuall For they had a most divine certitude of Judicature so that they conferred Heaven upon none nor debarred any from it but by a sure knowledge and revelation so that assuredly Heaven was shut against them whom they bound and whose sins were retained on earth and it was certainly opened to them whom they loosed and pardoned It is sufficiently evident that these gifts and power were in the Apostles All which as most rare and exceeding humane reach were promised to the Apostles under the power of the Keyes which is apparent to all who will not shut their eyes wilfully against the light of truth Whence it is cleare that the Keyes are terminated in the Apostles because those conditions with the gifts which I spoke and which make up the Jurisdiction of the Keyes are ceased with them So with as great right they make the Apostles Office permanent and perpetuall in the Church as the use of these heavenly Keyes So that it is frivolous and ridiculous for Apolonius and the Pope to bragge so much of the power of the Keyes as though hee had power to shut and open heaven to binde and loose on Earth what is bound and loosed in Heaven Whereas hee knowes not whom he shall certainly shut out of heaven or shut in And oftentimes perversly hee looseth and judgeth worthy of heaven whom God bindeth and shutteth out of heaven And contrarily he excludes from heaven whom God thinkes worthy of Heaven so that he who compares the vizard of our moderne Censure and Excommunicacion to that of the Apostles seemes no otherwise to play the foole then the Jewes did who were wont to prate strange things of the sanctity of their Temple and fought for the honour thereof against Titus till they were destroyed And yet they might have known had they not been blind that that was not the old Temple of Solomon because it wanted Urim and Thummim and all the benefites of Divine presence and assistance which made up the particular sanctity of that Temple But there seemes to bee a plainer place Matth. 18.17 Tell the Church and if hee heares not the Church let him bee to thee as a Publican and Heathen In which words they say Christ hath given to the Church Judiciall Ecclesiastick power of excommunication which at this day is in use both amongst the old and new Papists The vanity of this conceit will bee easily seen if wee doe but observe that Christ in these words doth not instruct his Disciples as they were to be the over-seers and Rulers of the Church but onely taught ordinary things which are common to all Christians by the right of fraternity according to that generall Rule given to all by GOD Deuter. 17.19 Thou shalt not hate thy brother but sharply reprove him neither shalt thou suffer any evill in him Which Law CHRIST here sheweth must be kept not onely when a brother shall offend God or others but then also when he wrongs us which brotherly duty Christ will have wisely to bee exercised and with moderation lest this reproofe may seem to proceed from revenge or evill words by which the mind of the injuring brother may bee exasperated hee will have the brothers offence to be covered and not to be divulged but will have the difference to be taken up in private between brother and brother by two other brothers whose admonitions if the offending brother slight Christ permits not that the brother offended shall forsake the brother offending but then will have the brothers offence brought out in publicke that it may be made known to all the Church not to stirre up all odiously against him but that they might save him and that he who could not be brought to concord by the reproofe of one or more brothers may be brought to it by the admonitions of some in the Church or all Which endeavour of the Church being brotherly and charitable if the offending brother goe on to contemne the offended brother is not onely permitted but also commanded to esteem of the other at a Publican and Heathen that is that he shall have no private commerce with him as the Apostle describes and declares this act 1 Cor. 5.9.11 and 2 Thess 3.6.14 For Christ alludes to the custome that then was among the Jewes and of which we have already spoken Hence now it appeares that the old and new Papists have shamefully corrupted this place in turning this brotherly and charitable duty into an authoritative and judiciall Office and very insolently have appropriated the word CHURCH to the Rulers and Over-seers of the Church onely Tell the Church that is saith the Papist tell the Bishop which is truly a foolish interpretation unworthy of refutation Tell the Church that is say our new Papists tell the Rulers of the Church which is an unaccustomed acception of this word For they cannot produce one place out of Scripture in which the word CHURCH is appropriated to the Rulers onely I know the Walachrian Stilt-Walker babbles much every where of the Church representative and that the word Church is given to the Rulers thereof because they represent the Church But because hee learned this not out of Scripture but out of Popish writings the inventors of this I answer him briefly That to him who sayes much and proves nothing of right no priviledge belongs which as it is true in humane things so much more in Divine and sacred matters Whence I now
Statutes and Ordinances by what milde name soever he calls them are to be held for Lawes For because they prescribe to Christians under most grievovs punishments what they must doe or not doe as I will hereafter shew who seeth not that these Ordinances have the nature of Lawes So that he playes the cunning Iougler in venting abroad his Holinesse For amongst other Artifices wherein these cheating Hucksters or Regraters doe abound this is one that walking in the darke under a Vizard or Vaile which they can turne as they will they use when they please to increase and lessen their Greatnesse in a minute so that they deceive the most cunning men that are as that they can scarâ—e think this to bee the same person which they see If it were the purpose of this VValachrian to learne this art of these Knaves I confesse he is a ready Scholler and deserves to weare Aristotles breeches in their Schoole But that he may not deceive the too credulous by this art in heightning and shortning suddenly the sanctity of his Lawes I will in few words expedite matter First I affirme that Church-men such as they are now have he legislative power in Church-businesses that is to make Lawes properly so called Neither is it materiall whether here we call them Lawes or Statutes for Statutes are Lawes When they prohibite punish promise command and obliege all to observe them But the failing of observation presupposeth a penalty Hence it is cleere that hee only hath power to make laws who hath power only to punish the breakers of Lawes Hence this whole legislative power is called jurisdiction which consists in constituting that is in making and executing the Law So that it is a common Maxime among Lawyers that hee only hath this power who is invested with majesty and the supreame power For the Law is a decree of supreame Power and there is no constitution of Lawes without the power of punishing and executing without Empire or Principality there is no jurisdiction For they who can onely judge and have no power to execute such is inferiour Judges they want jurisdiction l. 5.15 D. de re jud l. sin c. ubi apud quem cogu in in t rest By which we may see what a troubler and confounder of the world the Power is who hath produced such Monsters So that hee hath made the Emperour a Hangman and an Inferiour to judge the Emperor for hee hath assumed to himselfe the highest Pawn in Church-matters and under this pretext to judge and determine of Magistrates But that he may not defile his Church-sanctity hee abstaines from execution and the use of the sword he carryes it indeed and shewes it to Princes as it were upbraiding them that hee hath snatch it from theÌ„ yet of himself he doth not draw except very seldome but commands Kings to draw it when he pleaseth Thus he grants Kings power to execute but hath snatcht from them the power of judging and ordaining So that now the Prince being divested of all power of judging wanders up and down like a great Hang-man or Gyant being armed onely for this end that hee might serve the Pope that most monstrous Tyrant Our Stilt-walker the Pope Ape in every thing flyers with the same wings He confesseth that he is subject to Princes but not in Church-matters For in these hee claimes right to make Lawes even for Magistrates which they must be bound to obey and to submit themselves and if they obey not he saith that he is armed with divine power of censuring and excommunication But if one take the boldnesse to deny obedience to the Statutes and Penalties that then the Magistrate is bound in duty to assist the Church-men with his sword at whose beck he must draw it to punish the refractory that they may keepe the Churches statutes Who seeth not here the idea of Poperie Among all Godly men it is beleeved that it belongs only to God to make lawes concerning things necessary to his Worship and Salvation For as God every where examines obedience so chiefly in his worship he will have us to adhere to his Lawes onely So that he accounts it stupendious boldnesse for any to worship him 1 Sam. 15. according to mens precepts He is so rigid in this Isa 29.13 that he will not only have the substance of his Worship but the very Rites and circumstances to bo observed according to his prescript as wee may see by the Samaritans who being returned home from the captivity were devoured by Lyons 2 Sam 17 because they worshipped not God and yet it is said there that they did worship God whence it appears that they observed the substance but neglected the rites and circumstances of his worship For which cause Priests were sent from Babylon who might teach them the Rites of his Worship better by which meanes they were delivered from the Lyons So it is cleere that the whole substance and necessary circumstances of divine worship must be sought onely from the mouth of God and his commands And because wee can consult with God no where but in the Scripture it is evident that nothing can be taken for Law or divine institution necessary for salvation but what is in plaine teaâ—mes set down in Scripture So that the Church hath no power legislative at all except in things not necessary and indifferent to which I will prescribe these Rules 1. Let not any Rites and Ceremonies be used in Divine Worship which doe not plainly agree with Gods Word and with that order and decencie fit for such a Worship The Pope here makes Religious Intentions his rules by which pretext he increaseth dayly ceremonies to that number that by them hee oppresseth Christians and exalts himselfe The Stilt-walker delirous to imitate this Papall power in multiplying Lawes prescribes also the same Rule which is so large and loose that he can dayly delight himselfe with dreams of new Lawes and Rites which hee may belch out and proclaime to his People that hee may upbraid their servitude I deny not but here and else-where he contradicts himself for he is so rigid that he calls it Superstition to make any act to be of holy use or to give it place in Divine Worship without a Divine Law Which I impute either to the mans giddinesse or to a desire he hath to deceive For if hee admit of no act in Religion but what is plainely contained in Scripture Why doth hee under paine of Sacriledge keepe off Religious Magistrates from making of Ecclesiastick Lawes in calling them sacrilegious if they offer to make Lawes for the Church without Church-mens assistance Is it not lawfull for pious Princes to command men that they observe Christs Lawes and Ordinances set downe in Scripture Is there such oddes whether this be enjoyned by Lay-men or Church-men so it be agreeable to Christs Lawes For the Treverian prates openly else-where that Magistrates must not make Church Lawes because they should
the keyes to Peter Ergo to Peter alone Christ said to Peter seed my sheep and when thou art converted confirme thy Brethren Ergo this power he gave to Peter only to feed his sheep and to strengthen all his Brethren of the whole world and which is all one to reigne over all the people and Kings of the earth whence he leaps with ease to the Pope Peters fuccessor that he may conclude these inspeakable priviledges to belong to him alone the Stilt-walker doth excellently well follow this Jesuiticall Divinity for as often as he finds in Scripture that Teachers are called Bishops Captains Fathers c. he presently concludes that this right belongs alwayes and absolutely to Ministers alone as we shall see in what followeth His third fraud is that of conditionall propositions he makes absolute and applies to himselfe those priviledges which belonged onely to the Apostles or at this day appertaine to them under a condition onely who have things requisite for these priviledges this is the play of old Papists when the Church is called the mother of Christians which title belongs onely to the Catholike and truly Apostolicall Church they understand this of all the Church or at least of their Romish When it is said of Teachers He that heareth or rejecteth you heareth or rejecteth Christ which is onely true absolutely of the Apostles and of infallible Preachers they understand this of themselves chiefly of the Pope although they confesse him to be a most impure monster This VValachrian Papist speaketh in the same dialect whatsoever in Scripture is said of the Church of preaching of vocation of censuring and of the keyes being holy and spirituall as under the Apostles this he interprets of his moderne Church and Discipline in which he is as sottish as if some Caiaphas or Ananias who were wicked High Priests in the time of Christ and of Paul had ascribed to themselves the praises and titles that were given to Aaron Eleazar and Zadoc who then lived when the holy of holies and all the sacred things of the Temple did shine with divine honour which in Christs time were polluted with many spots and vices and not only did they lose the circumstances but almost the whole substance of sanctity or if some Impostor and Money-changer should brag that his coyne were sound and currant which being brought to the touchstone the gold-weights or triall of defraying of charges will bee found to be base metall adulterated coyne and to be washed light and clipped what I have now said in generall I would have to bee observed for in every Epithete that the Papists brag of you shall find nothing but sophistry The Stilt-walker prides himselfe every where in this title 1. Titulus membrum principale that he is the eye eare hand and the Prince a Member of the Church whence he goeth about to perswade unwary men that to him and such as he belongs an Authoritative Government in the Church I answer that these titles are no where to be found spoken plainly of Preachers but are consequentially onely drawne out of Scripture which way of demonstration as we have said is not sure but inclining to error But if this were spoken plainely it were a figurative speech and metaphoricall which if wrested imprudently would beget many absurdities suppose one to be an eye eare nose and hand in the Church what wise man will thence conclude that whatsoever belongs to these Members in the body belongs to him The eye is most tender round inconstant and moveable it alone sheds tears it shews in what we delight and is the window of impudency The nose is in the middest of the face jetting out swelling breathing in and out ayre and pride and the instrument of indignation so if I should philosophically speake of the eares hand and other members many things will be raised which may belong to Apollonius but with disgrace he will say I suppose that it is the property of the eye to see and to direct of the nose to smell of the eares to heare of the hands to work whence the dignity and office of Ministers may be borrowed but who will perswade us that these similitudes do note onely vertues and not vices in Ministers but if we should grant that there be eyes in the Church to see eares to heare and that the chiefe parts are appointed for chiefe functions by what art can he perswade us that this Prerogative belongs to Preachers onely Paul truly in two places speaks excellently of the diversity use and consent of the principall and servile parts of mans body and of the Church but he that will diligently weigh all things shall finde no where that it was Pauls meaning in those places to give to Preachers and Ministers alone the honor of being alwaies principall parts as eyes nose eares c. in the body of Christ that they might thence climbe up to the top of pride and domineering but he rather urgeth the contrary that most honor is to be given to those that are lesse worthy and more weake because of necessary use nor doth he define any thing else but that to him is due in the Church the honor of chiefe member but yet without pride and command on whom God hath bestowed chiefe gifts for serving and looking to the Church in which though the Apostles did miraculously excell yet they never so bragged of their principality but that they yeelded a parity and in some things a superiority over themselves even to those members that were lesse worthy so far was that Apostolicall Government from pride that no absurdity or disgrace followed if one and the same man to day were an eye to morrow but an eare now the foot then the hand and sometimes the knee that is they applyed themselves to any office as time and need required Who will not then storm to heare a VValachrian Stilt-walker so insolently bragging of these titles as if he were subject to none in Church-businesse nay not to the Magistrate though he be the chiefe of all because he thinks the title of eye eare nose and hand belongs to him by the right of his office whereas we may see by his writings that if he be the eye he is pur-blind or else blood-shot if he be the nose he is a snotty nose if the eare he is troubled with the singing of sedition and pride or else he is thick of hearing lastly he is become mad with the intoxicating wine of Church-majesty Marejetice lymphatus so that neither hand nor foot can rightly performe their duty so that he seems to be fit enough to bee the neck or throat or if you will the Cuckow of the Romish Church The title of Bishop Seer or Overseer is honorable Episcopi Ezech. 83. the Church Teachers are also called lights in a candlestick or on a hill out of all which Papists gather that they have authoritative right to judge and know all things whence at last
also shewed a great measure of spirituall gifts in themselves so that not without cause their authority was great in the Church yet not as Christs proper and immediate Legates but of the Apostles yet they were divine and excelled in the gifts of the Spirit Since their departure that glorious way of calling and conferring of gifts by imposition of hands ceased that scarce three hundred yeares after Christ did there any whit of this rare vocation remaine yea Antichrist breaking out in the place of gifts all sorts of corruption and vices succeeded And yet if we look upon the lights of ancient times namely Austin yea Bernard in the yeare 1300. shining as a light in Cimmerian darknesse we must confesse that this Walachrian Jugler is but ice to compare to those fires of whom I think none durst venture to proclaime himselfe Christs immediate Legate as this trifler every where doth He is like those Painters Luke 2. which picture the Virgin Mary in Princely robes and with rich hangings because she was descended of the royall blood of King David of whose riches she had nothing when Christ was born but was destitute of all riches The titles that remaine are as blasphemous as fallacious 9. Pontisicis the Apostle in that notable place to the Hebrewes willing to exalt above all humane reach Christs incommunicable and ever to be adored vocation Heb. 5.4 to his eternall Priesthood and Mediatorship for the whole race of mankinde doth chiefly illustrate it by the excellency of the manner which he declared by the typicall calling of Aaron in glory exceeding the inauguration of all the Leviticall High Priests that succeeded him which notwithstanding the manner of Christs eternall Priesthood did infinitely excell in that he received his inauguration not from any earthly man but from heaven for to none of the Angels was it said Thou art my sonne this day have I begotten thee of which the Apostle speaks plainly when he saith Heb. 1.5 no man takes unto himselfe this honour but he who is called of God as Aaron was and Christ whence it is apparent that it is temeritie for any man after Christ to take upon him the priviledge of this title yet Antichrist the old Romish Pope durst doe it priding himselfe in this as in many other things that he hath succeeded Christ as his Vicar and high Priest in the Militant Church Our Stilt-walker following the foot-steps of his Predecessor doth not indeed as yet brag that he is high Priest but desirous to make an impression of the excellency of his preaching function upon unskilfull and superstitious people he is so often commending it that he would have all men believe what the Apostle speakes of Christ alone and Aaron to be meant of himselfe and such as he for he takes this for a generall rule that no man is called to a sacred function except also this belong to him that he hath not assumed this honour but hath received it of God This indeed did appeare in Aaron typically in Christ truly But he that will search for this in the Popes naughty vocation or in that vicious and humane calling of Apollonius as I have described it will wrong Christ 10. Titâ—â—â— spousi quad sit maritus Ecclesiae and will make us believe that to be true which we see and know to be contrary Apollonius thinks it also no meane title for a Bishop to be called the Bridegroome and Husband of the Church if this be true they will suppose that the Church whose lesser and meaner part is the Magistrate must bee subject to the Minister as a wife to the husband because it is plainely said to the woman thy will shall bee subject to thy husband But these parabolicall allusions are of little weight among wise men if in Scripture sometimes the title of Husband or Bridegroome were given to Ministers but it is so farre from this that in it we find the Baptist conferring this honour on Christ alone that he is the Bridegroome because he hath the Bride reserving to himselfe the title of friend onely which modesty is farre different from the pride of moderne Papists who boldly prate that they are the Bridegroomes and therefore have the Bride I think that it is more injurious to Christs incommunicable honour for one to call himselfe a Vicar Bridegroom or Husband then the Ministeriall head of the Church Concerning the indignity of this last many books have been written against the Pope whereas notwithstanding it is evident that this involves no dishonour to Christ if he have under him a Ministeriall held but it containes obscoenity for one to be called Vicar Bridegroome or secondary Husband of Christs Church upon earth But I will not spend time about this as any great matter I will only drive this Walachrian Papist to quotlibetary fooleries by which he may with his old friends delight or vex himselfe For first I will aske if a Pastor or Preacher be the Bridegroom or Husband of the Church what kind of Husbands were the Apostles who had no particular Church but had the care of all If he say they were not Husbands or Bridegroomes which they themselves would have easily acknowledged he will make them lesse worthy then the Walachrian night-birds but if on the contrary he doe confesse it he will bring upon them the suspition of bawdrie as though they had power every where to lie with other mens wives Which monster Mahomet in his Alcoran did challenge to himselfe that according to his propheticall majesty he might have power to leap into every womans bed Againe if he saith that the Church is married to ordinary Pastors I aske whether it be not an unseemly thing for one woman to have many husbands which no Law doth allow and yet in this spirituall marriage there is nothing more common for many Churches have two three foure Pastors and perhaps the Church of Middleburg hath many more and consequently husbands which if he shall make use of as his Vicars to lie with his wife Apollonius himselfe will make her to be suspected of adultery except he be assured that she will be loyall to him as the cheif husband yet he shall carrie the hornes when he gives way to his colleagues as his underlings to make use of her But if one Church be duly married to one husbands I aske again if any thing can be more proper for marriage then indissolubility but in this holy and spirituall wedding there is nothing more absurd for no sooner doe young men leave the Schoole but out of the heat of their youth they begin to be suiters neither is there any Church so meane and poor to which they will not make suite as if shee were the fairest Bride in the World if so be shee will confer upon them a pastorall Cloak and a stipend but this is not with any intention to stay alwayes with this wife but like insects they gather company till they can
get wings with which they may flie higher which when they have got they take no longer delight in their former wives but like adulterers they begin to woe other women which are much more beautifull either because of rich Citizens or Citie commodities or for some others worldly respect And those spirituall husbands are oftentimes so impudently importunate that not onely do they use unlawfull wayes to obtaine their new Brides but make such haste also that before the former be lawfully divorsed they marry with the later Now I will aske this also if the Church be the Ministers wife how will it stand with the chastity of Wedlock that a busie Minister who loves other mens fruit better then his own should go to delight himself in other Provinces and leave his Church to other spirituall Husbands that they may performe the dues of Matrimony to her Is not he a Bawde to his own wife especially if by gluttony or sloth his meanes being spent this Husband of the Church be forced to saile to the Indies or some other part of the world to recover his losses in which case he forsakes his Wife and for the time joynes himself to a richer and lest shee should be forsaken like a Widow some other Husband succeeds in the place of the former who notwithstanding doth not suffer himself to be divorted totally from the former Wife but reserves a power to return to her if this later afterwards displease him Many things could be alledged against the Ecclesiastick marriages of Ministers and their Churches which seem to me so immodest that if it be true what these night-birds whisper that Ministers are the Husbands of their Churches all Churches will be accounted bawdy-houses and Ministers Bawdes or Whooremongers but enough of this title There is one thing remaining for establishing of Apollonius his Kingdom which I wonder that he who is in every thing the Popes Ape did not also borrow this of him there is a notable place in Jeremie Jer. 1.10 where God sending the Prophet as his Ambassador doth inaugurate him with this high elogie Behold this day I set thee over Nations and Kingdoms to pluck up and demolish to destroy and to overthrow to build and to plant c. If this elogie should be taken literally you would think it gave so much power to Jeremie that it might seem he had leave to command imperiously all Kings and Nations but Jeremie by his own example taught that this was not to be taken literally because he so performed that great Ambassie that floating through divers injuries opprobrious speeches prisons and many dangers he preached Gods judgements in great humility The Pope who strangely despiseth Gods word hath farre otherwise expounded this elogie for Sixtus the fifth in the Bull by which he excommunicated Elizabeth Queen of England in the yeere 1588. so takes these words that by them he assumes power to overthrow the whole Kingdome of England for performing of which he had Philip of Spaine ready as his executioner who by his mighty Fleet of a 150. Ships resolved then to invade that Kingdom and by the Popes command to extinguish all the Protestants but that paper-thunder vanished into the wind it appeares then by his Popes Bull what his spirituall power is that if he cannot by himself immediatly yet by his souldiers he may overthrow Kingdoms and Nations with the spirituall Sword of Excommunication and that by the same priviledge which Jeremie had who though he was the first possessor thereof yet took so small pride in it that he plainly shew by the moderation of his life that he could see no such thing in that priviledge as the Pope by his new interpretation draws from it but what can be expected else from Antichrist the man of sin and sonne of perdition the Walachrian Stilt-walker conscious of his own weaknesse durst never as I know apply this elogie to himselfe who notwithstanding seemes to observe his clandestine counsels and machinations which he is daily practising against the Magistrates of Middleburg they say that there is nothing he desires more then that he may once have power to overthrow and extirpate the Government of that famous City by the severity of which alone he perceives that his unbridled desire of domineering is curbed and though no catechisme is with him of greater esteeme as is thought then that he may recommend to trustie men the care to leave no occasion unattempted for overthrowing the foundations of that Government and dissolving the bands of their union yet I wil counsel him that he would not be too busie eager about this hemp work lest whilst he studies to weave this Church-web wherewith he may adorne himself sit â—â—st he end in a Magistrates rope wherewith he may hang himself I have briefly touched the elogies by which Papists do every where extoll the majesty of their Church some whereof are fained and not found in Scripture most are figurative and metaphoricall but all conditionall which shew not what Ministers are but what they should be to wit Pastors Leaders Fathers and Overseers of the Church and so they are to be accounted if they be endowed with gifts requisite for these Functions and use them aright wherefore when Teachers were divinely inspired the calling divine and imposition of hands effectuall Christians might lawfully rest in and give obedience to their Pastors and Leaders as unto faithfull Fathers Bishops and Ambassadors of Christ even as to God or Christ himself because they were infallible but this happinesse lasted not long for even whilst the Apostles were living false brethren crept into Churches who proud of their eloquence and vocation durst equall yea preferre themselves to the Apostles so that these Divine men then gave warning to Christians not to beleve absolutely every spirit but first to examine according to Scripture whether or not these spirits were of God If Christians then stood in need of such circumspection when there were so many infallible Teachers to whom they might in blind obedience safely trust their soules how carefull now must we be of our salvation when for the space of so many hundred yeers there hath been none found in all the world whom God hath so assisted with infallibility as that we may safely rely upon him the Pope hath now for a long time strangely bewitched the world in making Christians beleeve he is infallible and this supine credulity hath in Gods just judgement cast innumerable soules into hell nor is the Pope onely guity of this remerity there is no Monk or Priest so drunk as will not bragge of the character of his vocation and boldly cry out that he is a Captain a Watchman of souls as set over the souls of men a Houshelder of heaven an Ambassador of Christ which is performed by these brawlers with such eagernes oftentimes that they imprecate all curses against themselves and pawne their bodies and souls to the people if they teach or lead them otherwayes
hee saith that this end is not immediate proximate proper which it may by its selfe produce but onely by accident by the Ministers of the Church and of piety so that though the Scripture should say a hundred times that the end of Magistracy and the chiefe intent of the Magistrate is the care of Religion and advancing of salvation this will not a whit move the Stilt-walker for he on the contrary will say that he hath no right to these sacred affaires but he must continue in his proper end which is the care of peace and worldly good things but matters of salvation are an improper end remote by accident for obtaining of which he of himselfe doth nothing but to procure that it may be done by Christians especially by Preachers to wit if he build faire Churches bestow large stipends upon Ministers get good bread and generous wine for the Lords Supper the taste whereof may warme the Preachers spirits if they affoord good tables and plentifull feasts and invite oftentimes the Preachers thither that shaking off the gravitie of mechanicke sobriety their spirits may bee made fine and subtill for pumping out the starrie spiritualities of their Church-Discipline which things when they have fallen out heretofore according to his desire I doubt not but he hath oftentimes said to himselfe of his discipline as the Pope once said of Christian Religion How much honour and profit hath this fable of Christ brought us How much honour and delights are conferred upon us by this fable of the wonderfull sanctity of Church-Discipline The indignity of the thing and the manifest corruption of Scripture have driven me against my will to break this jest upon the VValachrian fained sanctity of their Church-Discipline and Doctrine I wish that before he had abused this excellent place of Paul with so many childish subterfuges he had read Calvins Commentary upon this place which for fashions sake he so much esteems that he calls him his Calvin but here truly he rejects and neglects him as a stranger for rarities sake I will set downe here a few passages If then any care either of the publike peace or of piety or of honesty move us let us remember that a care must be had of them he meanes Magistrates by whose Ministery so many excellent things come to us If one ask whether we should pray for Kings by whom we reap no such thing I answer that our wishes tend to this that being ruled by Gods Spirit they would begin to be Ministers of those good things which heretofore they have deprived us of c. For this principle must be alwayes remembred Stilt-walker pricke up your eares that God hath ordained Magistrates as well for the preservation of religion as of publike peace and honesty no otherwise then the earth is ordained for procreation of food Therefore as we praying for our daily bread beseech God that he would fructifie the earth with his blessing so in those former bounties we ought to looke upon the ordinary meanes which he hath in his providence set up c. Besides let Princes and all Magistrates be warned here of their duty for it is not sufficient if in rendring to every man his due they suppresse all injuries and cherish peace except also they study to promote religion and by honest discipline to compose mens manners For David doth not exhort them in vaine to kisse the Sonne Esay 49. nor doth Esay in vaine call them nursing fathers of the Church Therefore let them not flatter themselves if they neglect to afford their help in maintaining divine worship As these passages are notable and godly so they are diametrically opposite to this Walachrians fictions So farre is he from denying the care of religion to belong to the Magistrate properly proximately by it selfe as the Stilt-walker prates that he rather shewes him to bee principally ordained by God to take care of religion and that not remotely improperly and by accident but properly and by himselfe except this Walachrian Papist will perswade us that it belongs to the earth improperly remotely and by accident to produce fruits so that if we weigh this matter with an even hand we shall finde that Calvin ascribes more and greater parts to the Magistrate in promoting religion and salvation then to the Ministers themselves Rom. 13. For these are onely considered as husbandmen and sowers of the seed but the Magistrates as the earth But as we know the earth is the more proper and neerer cause of corne which receiveth the seed into its bosome some and ripens it then the husbandmen who rest after they have sowed and removed what may hinder the growth thereof even so Calvin either wrote unwisely or els he hath made the civill Magistrate the prime chief efficient cause of religion procuring of salvation I have been somwhat large about the end of the civill and Ecclesiastick power that I might refell all the Stilt-walkers fooleries he truly deales no otherwise with Magistrates then Circe in Homer did with Vlysses his Fellows whom though they were other ways prudent men yet she is said to have changed them with her singing and rod into hogs so that they could not lift up towards heaven their brissly necks and this she did to make them her slaves Even so this Impostor that he might reigne alone in his Ecclesiastick Kingdome by his preaching rod indeavours to make beasts of Magistrates that they may believe the care of heaven and salvation belongs nothing to them but that it exceeds their capacity and that they have abundantly discharged their office if they have thought onely with Martha of corporall earthly and culinarie things and like hogs wallow perpetually in things fading and onely fit for the belly leaving high and heavenly matters to Church-men The third difference between the civill and Ecclesiastick power he placeth in the meanes which they use which he feignes to be most different and as farre as heaven is from earth The power of the Magistrate saith he exerciseth its judgment after a carnall way by a corporall sword by a force externall coactive and armed but for that of the Church after a spirituall manner by censure reproofe suspension and excommunication And elswhere he calls these meanes sanctified and spirituall so here againe he considereth his Church-businesse and government as heavenly and spirituall but the secular as carnall and earthly I answer Here Apollonius fills his bag-pipes of lies againe that he may adorne the fringes of his Church-government For both the Members of the antecedent are false and fallatious that the falshood may be found out I will aske whether hee thinks the meanes which the Magistrate useth which wrongfully he calls carnall to be quite void of spirituality so that they neither have nor can have it Againe whether the Ecclesastick meanes chiefly those of the Walachrian Church-government be such as have no corporality or carnality in them If he affirmes that and denies this sense
Magistrates cannot rule the Church This argument also is made up of divers lies for it is false that the Civill Government is alwayes Monarchicall the Government of our Country is Aristocraticall such also is that of the Venetians Helvetians and others another lye is that the Church-Government is alwayes Aristocraticall because under Heli Samuel Macchabees and others it was Monarchicall yea in the New Testament it was not still Aristocratical but oftentimes Monarchicall For I ask when Christ lived upon the earth and ruled the Church whether the Church-government was not then Monarchicall Doubtlesse it was if ever it was Again when Paul alone was at Antioch and in Syria was not then the government of that Church Monarchicall For who was to be compared with so great an Apostle Lastly when John the Apostle was alone in the world for he lived longest had not then the Church on earth a notable Monarch Surely if such a Doctor at this day could be found in the world he should be as it were the Monarch of the Church and worthy to whom the whole Christian world should rise and give honour Whence the Pope makes no bad consequence in calling himself the head and Monarch of the whole Church and not Kings and Princes because they rise and give honour to him if it be true what he brags that hee is Peters successor and endowed with the gifts of infallibility as well as Peter But because experience teacheth that he wants all Peters gifts chiefly that of infallibility and on the contrary to be nothing els but a monster and load of all vices hence it is that he is a meere Impostor and a mocker of Christianity and Princes are miserably deluded in yeelding so much to so unworthy and wicked a man All then that the Stilt-walker babbles for Oracles are meere lies But this I will add that though Christ and his Apostles were by right Monarchs of the Church yet they still ruled the Church with that moderation that their government seemed rather Aristocraticall then monarchicall so that hence it appeares there is no necessity that he should alwayes rule monarchically who hath the right of Monarchie for he may use it aristocratically If this be true of Ecclesiasticks why should it not also hold in civill Princes that though they be Monarchs yet they may handle Church-matters in an Aristocraticall way as oftentimes Kings do And so the Kingdome of the Church shall not be monarchicall though a Monarch live in it ruling Aristocratically He ascribes much strength to this Ram which he is still shewing as if it had exceeding great Hornes whereas indeed it is a horn-lesse calfe The power formally Ecclesiastick depends immediately from Christ the Mediator the Churches husband who gave Apostles Prophets Teachers par 1. p. 37. and Pastors to his Church but not Magistrates Ephes 4. And hath placed this power in the Church Mat. 18. But Magistrates are not the Church whence he gathers that the Magistrates office is neither requisite nor belonging to the Church and consequently that it appertaineth no wayes to them to use the Churches power He parted this one Argument into divers I have gathered his fooleries together in one bundle that I may fling them downe together First wee must note that this is an old and oftentimes refuted device of his in perswading us that Ecclesiastick power hath for its author Christ the Mediator and Spouse of his Church but not the Civill Power I have shewed before and now will more at large demonstrate that this is a most notorious lye His principall Argument is par 1. p 37 that while Christ lived on the earth he did all Church functions either by himselfe or by his Apostles but did not meddle with the Magistrates office but refused it and prohibited it to his Apostles whence Anabaptist-like he concludes that Magistracie hath neither Christ for its Author not belongs to the Church all which are a meere heape of lyes For first I aske whence learned he that no Function is required for the Church till the end of the world but what Christ must discharge either by himselfe or by his Disciples living upon the earth The Scripture saith no such thing but is the meere fiction of Apollonius otherwise let him tell me when did Christ or his Apostles performe the Precentors part in the Church because Martyr doubts whether in the Apostolicall Church there was any use of publique singing which wee borrowed at best from the Jewish Church many offices ceased in the Churches upon the Apostles departure to supply which Necessity hath gathered together many things mans industry hath found out without any sin or blemish if Antichrist had not corrupted all with multitudes His other lye is that Christ and his Apostles did not here discharge the Magistrates office that Fiction I have already refelled for they used a co-active externall power equivalent to the sword Christ with a whip purged the Temple Mat. 21. John 8. he suffered the judgement concerning the Adulteresse to be referred to him with his word he cast to the ground the Souldiers that came to apprehend him and chiefly when on the day of Palms sitting upon an Asse he rid to Jerusalem in a Princely but humble pompe suffering the acclamations of the People and their garments to be spread in his way Mat. 21. as if he had been a King which is so manifest that Mathew adds Zacharies Prophesie to be fulfilled Behold thy King cometh to thee meeke c. So the Apostles inflicted in the Church corporall punishments as death blindnes c. All which evince that however they despised and avoided the pride and earthly pompe of Civill government yet the office it selfe they discharged in the Church when necessity required But saith he Christ being exalted gave to the Church gifts and offices necessary for it among which the office of the Magistrate is not mentioned whence he concludes that this is not requisite fore difying of the Church I answer among these offices mention is made of Governours 1 Cor. 12. and of Rulers Rom. 12. which Calvin and Aretius on those places shew to have been censures of life and manners supplying the Magistrates office Lastly suppose that in those places no mention is made of Magistracie did he therefore not ordain it Yea Peter did plainly institute this and chiefly Paul Rom. 13. and 1 Tim. 2. as I have at large shewed before neither needs he tell us that Christ himselfe gave these offices by himselfe but Magistracie he commended onely by the Apostles this is but a frivolous cavill for he sent the Apostles onely immediately then the Apostles instituted the other functions and after them Timothy Titus and others whence it appeares that Christ the Mediator being exalted is no lesse the author of Magistracy then of Church offices because that by a most famous Elogy of the same Apostle is ratifyed in the name and authority of Christ exalted by whose government alone
now all things in heaven earth and under the earth are ordained and ruled as I have often shewed He objects that these offices and gifts were given to the Church but not Magistracy I answer that these were given indeed to the Church or in the Church as it is said 1 Cor. 12. but Ephes 4. the Apostle sayth that they were given to men using a generall word so Paul gave and instituted to the whole world the office of Magistracy but under them also to the Church because he makes him to have the charge of every soul except he will say that Churchmen want foules whence it followes that Paul hath also subjected the Church to the Civill powers so that she must be by them defended in good things and punished in evill What wise man then will deny that Christ hath instituted Magistracy and hath not given it to the Church when as he by Paul hath ordained the Magistrate for his alone Legat upon earth to whom alone he will have all soules be subject and therefore Ecclesiasticks also and that for conscience sake by whose sword and authority he will have the Church defended in good things all these are so cleare in this place of Paul and in other Scriptures that by no meanes can they be darkened I know this Divinity doth not please the Stilt-walker who is possessed with papisticall furie that the Magistrates office is not Ecclesiasticall that is necessary for the edification and conservation of the Church yet he rather placeth this office without the Church not within or in it par 1. p. 24. because that phrase is too ambiguous to him and repugnant to Divine right and therefore placeth the Magistrates office onely about the Church or Churchmen so that he speakes no other wayes of Magistrates then Heccius and other Cornuted Asses of Luther who comming to the Conference at Wormes was not presently admitted into the full Assembly where the whole Quire was of holy Church-men but was lead first apart into a private closet which these Cornuted Beasts said was well done and according to Scripture for it is written Without shall be Dogs and Witches Not much more reverently doth this Walachrian prate of godly Magistrates whom every where he fasteneth to the cares of this world as carnall men but elevates the Church and Churchmen above the world even to the Skies but these are meere chimera's the Scripture on the other side doth so extoll Magistracy as a thing perpetuall in the Church and so necessary that it cannot be parted from her and without this shee cannot subsist but must wither no otherwise then corne that wants earth as Calvin speaketh which I will shew hereafter more at large He prates every where that the Church under the Apostles and at other times wanted the civill Magistrate but these are Lyes which I have already refuted and will hereafter refute more and if this impossibility should fall out that the Church were totally destitute of civill government yet it should not cease to be an office in the Church and as it were a part necessary for the constitution thereof for as a body that hath lost a foote remaines yet without that foote but lame being destitute of a necessary part so the Church may consist without Magistracy but not long and that with much difficulty for presently there would arise Anarchy and every one would do as he listed which because Apollonius doth what he can to bring into his City under hope of a new Popery hence arise so many railing devises by which he endeavours to hisse out the Magistrates as meere worldly men that they must not meddle with Church-businesse how ever the matter be because the Church hath often wanted godly Teachers Sacraments and other things requisite for her I might also as well inferre that these belong not to the Church but are accidents circumjacent which were most absurd to the Stilt-walker Perhaps he will object if this were true then Christ had made the Churches power imperfect and lame which must depend from an outward civill power but this is repugnant with Mat. 18. tell the Church where he hath furnished her with full power I answer That all these are Jesuiticall fictions which they have devised for their Hierarchy and which he hath borrowed from them for first I deny when Christ said tell the Church that he understood by these words as if he had armed Church-men being discriminated from Lay-men with full power of exercising Government among themselves excluding the Magistrate For I said before that by the word Church is understood in Scripture any kind of meeting whether meerly Ecclesiastick or Ecclesiastick and Civill yea any tumultnary Assembly called together to determine businesse Act. 19. Act. 15. and oftentimes the whole body of the faithfull in opposition to their Rulers somtimes the body of the Church with their Rulers but never for ought I know the Rulers separate from the body Now here Apollonius must needs goe to consult with the Delphick three-footed stool that he may divine to us what Christ meant here by the Church seeing he did not define it in this place nor do we see it elsewhere explained in Scripture Apollonius doubtlesse with the Papists having a watchfull eye over his merchandise rather understands it of the Church-Rulers for this is all his care that this wonderfull Ecclesiastick power by many windings and turnings being snatched from the body of the Church and chiefly the Magistrate may be setled onely in the Governours as in the Center that is in the Consistory and because Deacons are onely positively Church-men as bellowes in a paire of Organs Elders onely comparatively as the pipes which of themselves sound not hence at last the whole power ends in Preachers superlatively Ecclesiastick as if they were Masters of the musick and so sing and play upon that Ecclesiastick Organ that every pipe shall yeeld no other sound then what pleaseth these Organists Thus the old and new Papists doe play the Philosophers upon this there tell the Church as if Christ had meant tell the Pope or the Clergie or the Preachers of the Gospell but of this never a word in Matthew yea it is contrary for Christ being so understood should have named a Judge who was neither then nor long after in the world What an absurdity had it been for Christ to have said to the godly that you may free your consciences from strife with your brother go to the Consistory or Church-Rulers which were not then nor to be in many years after Whence it is more likely that Christ by the Church meant there a Judge or Arbitrator in controversies indefinitely and as I said elsewhere without any expresse quality that is such a one as they could repaire to whether consisting of Ecclesiasticks and Civill Magistrates as the Sanhedraham was then or onely of Ecclesiasticks as afterwards under the Apostles or of Civill Magistrates as was in the Church after Magistrates became Christians
Kingdome and Christ said absolutely to the Apostles that were to bee Rulers of the Church you should not reigne but serve whence hee gathers that the whole government and power of the Church should be without command and rather with service these are the enthymems which hee after a Jesuiticall manner hath patched together I answer That I cannot read in that place the Stilt-walkers fiction to wit that the whole power or government of the Church should be without command or Architectonicall power alwaies For if he say that the whole power of the Church was in the Aposties to whom he speaks here he asks the thing in question or at least supposeth it For the chiefe part of Ecclesiasticall power and government is alwaies as I said in the Magistrate and in the supream power whence it fell out that in the Apostles time this Architectonicall power resided in Christ and his Apostles miraculously because the ordinary Magistrates were enemies 2. I deny that this Law which he gave here to the Apostles was perpetuall at least it cannot be shewed out of this place that what Christ there commanded his Apostles doth belong alwaies and to every Minister of the Church this will be cleare by an example When Christ sent Apostles he said to them take not a staffe or bag nor money nor two coats nor houses would he allow them but whatsoever house they came into they should abide there till they departed c. all this he commanded the Apostles that were to be Rulers in the Church when hee sent them to that purpose For except one will allow the institution of Monks of Beggars of nastie Anchorites which are ridiculous among Papists every one may see that these precepts are not perpetuall and common to all Preachers This literall exposition should not be welcome I think to the Stilt-walker and his Walachrian Papists to have never above one coat to be without money in their purse and to have neither a house of their owne nor hired but hop to and fro like locusts If so many Lawes so solemnly delivered to the Apostles the Church-Governours are not perpetuall and necessarie to the Church It will be a difficult thing out of the circumstances of the place to draw a just difference by which it may appear that this Law is perpetuall and common to all Ministers which if he should effect with his rusty instruments he will never make this to be true that what was prohibited to the Apostles or Bishops was prohibited to the whole Church For many absurdities will arise they may not meddle with secular affaires nor wear rich soft and Court-garments nor wander from place to place nor bee abroad sometimes in the Country about their businesse Must none of those things be done by anie in the Church They be frivolous fictions which arise hence in that the Walachrian Papist thinkes that nothing is Ecclesiastick or belonging to the Form and Government of the Church but what is concluded in the Consistory or Quire of Preachers alone the Scripture contrarily makes Kings and Magistrates the chiefe part of the Church to wit tutors and nursing fathers and as Calvin saith as it were the earth in spirituall husbandrie let me shew by a simile or two the stupiditie of this Walachrian it is all one as if one resolving to be a husband-man provideth seed horses and instruments fit for husbandry have also Plowmen Waterers and Planters in a readinesse and thinks that he is now persectly furnished for husbandry whereas he hath not Land or Fields to sow his seed in or play the husbandman upon he doubtlesse will bee laughed at as a foole and one altogether ignorant of agriculture Mat. 13. I confesse that out of Christs Parable all men are as the ground into which the seed is cast but this is not repugnant to Calvins Simile for private men are but little clods separated from one another in the ground on which the seed immediately falls but the Magistrate is considered as the generall ground which if it did not containe all the clods together they could not fructifie but would fall away and the seed wither in them So fitly doth this Simile of Calvins expresse the Magistrates office in the Church and the Stilt-walkers stupidity who is still striving to thrust the Magistrate out of the Church I will use another Simile which Paul intimates 1 Cor. 4. when he calls Preachers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Rowers in the lower seat of the Church whence he considereth the Church visible as a Ship Now who will imagine a Ship in a tempestuous Sea without a Master or Mariner Christs Church then must have a Master or Steers-man It is asked who this is The Stilt-walker sayth it is he and his Preachers because they are Captaines and Governours and many other prating Speeches which I have heretofore refuted I say that they are not even because Paul calls them Rowers and that of the lowest ranke in this Ship who ever saw in the Kingsship or Gally that the naked Rowers and those of the inferiour ranke tyed to their Oares should have the command of the Ship This stands not with reason and experience and if the Stilt-walker did not perceive this absurdity the law of Christ would convince him for he as the Master of the Ship said you Rowers must not do so that is I will not have you to beare rule in my Ship Hence then it appeares that to whomsoever the government of the Ship belongs it belongs not ordinarily to the Preachers by the Princes own expresse will now there remaines nothing but that this Ship of Christ either want a Master or else some other must be sought for besides the Preachers who cannot be her Masters the Walachrian to award this blow saith that there is no Master which is the scope of his whole argument that he may drive out of the Church architectonicall power and may place it only about the Church but the absurdity of this will appeare out of this Simile it is incongruous to imagine a great Ship in the vast Sea without a Master or Pilot or to conceive such a Master who is not within the Ships decks but without them flying about like a Coot or Sea-mew These opinions of the Walachrian are chimaeras and monsters the Master then should be within the ship and if this night-bird were not purposely mad he would see that this can be no other then the Magistrate because he confesseth himself that the Magistrate is the head and father of the people But if he should again deny what hee hath granted Paul would convince him who makes the Magistrate the generall governour of every soul that is of this ship of Christs also So that here al the Stilt-walkers false opinions tumble down together towit That the Architectonicall power should be without the Church that the Magistrates supream regiment cannot be within the Church but that all the power and government of the
from Christ What was that Not only to receive the bread broken and eat but to take break eat drink distribute among themselves with reverence For he saith that all this rite which he received from Christ he delivers to them I wonder whence this superstitious partition should arise that the Pastors alone under pain of sacrilege must have right to receive break and distribute the Bread with the Wine and that other Christians must only receive eat drink and examine themselves well before as a certain Divine speaks for although he enjoyns the whole Church with the Bishops that they should each one prove themselves yet the moderne Hierarchie assume also this priviledge to themselves of prescribing to others power to trie themselves whereof they are to be Judges but to trie themselves they think they are not liable to but that they may without any proofe at all thrust in upon the Sacrament For by vertue of their speciall spirituality they may dispense with trying themselves and with all their vices He that doth not smell this Popish Garlick he is certainly a dull-nosed Divine Therefore I gather out of this place that Pasters alone have not right to take bread in the Supper to breake and distribute it and that it is no sacriledge if a Deacon Elder or faithfull Magistrate or any other member of the Church that is a godly man do the same I confesse that for orders sake and decency in processe of time these solemne actions were appropriated to preaching Ministers but this did not proceed from any divine precept and therfore if any be so superstitious as to believe in case the Pastor be dead absent or sicke that a Deacon Elder or any famous member of the Church had minister the Sacrament he seems to me to have licked not onely the outward but the inward rine also of the Masse Briefly I will say this Apollonius can finde nothing in the ancient Leviticall worship which by speciall right he can transferre as sacred into the moderne Church-discipline For all the affaires of this moderne government which he counts so specially holy were under the Levites not of any speciall right but common to all Magistrates He took these rather from the Papists but so unfitly that both Priests and Levites may laugh at him His last dart against Magistrates is cleft into divers parts filled with poyson of malice and contempt Magistracie is onely a separable accident of the Church it consisteth of the basest Members of the Church whence hee concludes that it is a most unworthy thing that the Magistrate should guide the Church and perform Church-businesses I answered before that Apollonius did againe pre-suppose a falshood that in the Apostles time and at other times the Church wanted a Magistrate of whom againe I will discourse Now I will explode this Philosophers consequence he thinks that to be a separable accident which can be a way without the destruction of the subject whether it be a substance or an accident by which shilosophie he can make at his pleasure an accident of a substance to wit if a thiefe take away Apollonius his cloak from him then it will be an accident if in his purse hee hath ten Crownes and his purse-bearer steale one because Apollonius his purse remaines with the rest of his money that crowne will bee then not a substance but an accident so that the Stilt-walker must not be moved if he somtimes have such a losse seeing it is but the losse of an accident nor will the thiefe deserve any great punishment who did not steale a substance but an accident If we may prate so in Divinity then the written Word of God will prove an accident separable from the Church because without it the Church hath been sometime the Apostolick office will be an accident of the Church because the Church was sometime without it and is now againe and let me speak without blasphemy Christs actuall passion and incarnation will be a separable accident of the Church because it was onely in the fulnesse of time and now long since hath ceased So absurd then is this Philosophie What if Magistracy be accidentall to the Church Will it therefore follow that the Magistrate can do nothing in the Church Are not accidents the originall of all operations without which substances can do nothing For though a coal burneth yet it burneth not without a fiery quality and heat I will not urge further this absurdity of Apollonius because I know that he is more affraid of this secular accident then he hath hope in an Ecclesiastick substance so that accidentally he vexeth himselfe and in vaine in thrusting this accident out of the Church which if it were absent by the concourse of Ecclesiastick substances on a sudden heat and cold bodies moist and dry would bring in again the old chaos so that I may truly say against Aristotles Tenent the secular accident sustains the Ecclesiastick substance or els it would fall to the ground But now I will passe from the accident to the substance For the Stilt-walker is such a wonderfull Philosopher that of Magistrates he can on a sudden make an accident and againe a substance for he makes them members of the Church but of the meanest or vilest sort the reason is because Paul saith set them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church 1 Cor. 6.4 whence by a Walachrian paraphrase he concludes that at all times the meanest members of the Church are to be Judges part 1. p. 14 15. wherefore by inverting the Proposition he collects that whosoever are Judges are to be accounted for the meanest members of the Church though they had been heretofore the most learned of the Church Thus doth hee use the Scripture like a nose of wax that he may perswade us that Magiftrates are to be esteemed no better then Asses as the Papists compare Magistrates and Kings to the Asse on which Christ sate I do not think the Stilt-walker wrote this in earnest for they say that he earnestly endeavours to place his Legate a latere on the bench directly that so he may sit in it also indirectly But now I will shew how he handleth the Scripture irreverently and abuseth this place of Paul that he may make it serve his phancie This I will cleare by a plaine explication of the words there was an ill custome among the Corinthians that Christians went to law one with another about worldly businesses which controversies they did not take up among themselves but had them decided by Magistrates that were Infidels and Enemies of Christ Paul as hee ought to have done reproves this custome and like a good Physitian prescribes remedies to mend it one whereof was above the rest that they should lay aside their quarrels and rather suffer losse for if all Christians were of this moderation rather to suffer losse then to go to Law all occasions of quarrell would be cut off But the Corinthians wanted this
THAT which hath rays'd a coyle in the Army And truly to informe you with the first Rise the Growth and progresse of it and how at hath been headed and handed on I should have told you of the admirable care and patience of the Generall I should have elecred the common Souldier I should have extolled many officers I should have acquainted you with what subtile boldnesse some men drive on their Designe to to oppose those Worthies by whose Authority they have acted and performed great and glorious things I should have represented to you the sad condition wherein wee are but having spoken something of LIBERTY the last week lest I might be mistaken for a Libertine I will begin this weeke with something concerning RELIGION For this is the Bond by which we doe oblige our selves to God in a commanded obedience for the performance of holy Duties according to his Will and Word I say a commanded obedience for should we sancy a Divine worship of our own there would be as many Religions as men since every man doth differ from another as much in opinion as in countenance and is more precisely singular in the businesse of Divinity We should not therefore trust to our own darke and false and misguiding lights but in submission unto order apply our selves to such Pastors and teachers who presume not too much on private inspirations but take paines to receive their light from the Counsells and Doctors of the Church who so the suppressing of Ignorance and superstition have been famous in their Generation and shall be forevermore Tuesday May 11. THe printed Bookes of the Confession of Faith with notes of Scripture annexed to it were this day delivered to the Members of both Houses of Parliament the Members subscribed their Names at the receipt thereof before the Bookes are published the Parliament are to giue their Licence and approbation of them This day Judge Jenkins a Prisoner in the Tower Petitioned the House of Commons whereupon it was ordered that an Ordinance should be drawn up and brought in for his tryall which it is believed will be very speedy It was this day ordered that no Passes shall be granted to go beyond the Seas but upon businesse of some great concernment A Vessell was taken passing from Dover unto Calit wherein were some Merchants and their Wives who intended for a day or two to see forraigne Countries onely for their pleasure and to make mecry at Calice but the Pinnace being taken by Captaine Mildmay they were sent prisoners to Captaine Batten who as I heare hath with some check discharged them A Letter was received from Sir John Hâ—lland one of our Commissioners with the King at Holmby wherein he desires leave to goe awhile about some businesse of his owne into Hampshire The Earle of Dâ—â—â—igh did also write to the House of â—â—ords that for a certaine space of time he might have leave to come to London to the condiscending of which I shall acquaint you in the passages of the day following Wednesday May 12. THe Commons this day received a Message from the House of Lords concerning the Letters of the Earle of Diâ—bigh for his comming to the City to which the House of Commons did give their assent A Letter being the day before received from the Scort Commissioners concerning the going of the Earle of Daâ—â—irmâ—â—ing unto the King at Holmby It was this day Ordered that the said Earle should have accesse unto the King according to agreement This day the House of Commons finished the Propositions to be sent unto the King and they were passed with this Caution That all such who have compounded for their Estates shall be free Provided that they have delivered a just account of their Estates and at a true Rate It was Ordered that the Assent of the House of Peeres should be had unto it Collonel Rainsborought Ordinance for the reducing of Iarsoy was this day sent unto the Lord for their Concurrence The differences in Gaâ—â—osoâ— betwixt the Deputy Governour Collonel Russell and the Inhabitants of that Island were referred to a Committee to have them examined Letters from Wales did this day confirme that the Souldiers at Poole in Mountgomeryshire have made a new Insurrection and have seized upon the persons of two of the Committee and a Gentleman who was Collector of monyes in that County Master Thomson who was the Collector had his liberty upon his assurance that he would within three dayes pay three hundred pound unto the Souldiers It was this day Ordered by the Lords that the Ordinance for the two hundred thousand pound for the securing of all those who shaâ—â— advance the said monyes for the service of England and Ireland shall be forthwith Printed The Ordinance is extant at large to which I shall referre you The Lady Cave who brought Letters from the Quâ—â—nâ— unto his Majesty and perempterily and boldly affirming that she would deliver them unto him was taken examined and sent Prisoner to Northampton she was said to be as full of height of spirit 〈◊〉 her deportment as she was delicate in her beantyes From Ireland we heare but little this weeke of action I shall in this place insert some Proceedings of the generall Assembly of the Confederate Catholicâ—es in Ireland WHereas the Confederate Roman Catholicks of preâ—anâ— have been forced to take Armes for the necessary defence and preservation of their Religion plotted and by many foul practises endeavoured to be quite suppressed by the Puritan faction as also for the defence safeguard and maintenance of his Maâ—esties regall power just prerogatives and rights invaded upon by the Mangnant Parliamentary partie of England Ireland and Scotland and for the presrvation of the Religion lives liberties possessions estates and rights of the said Confederate Catholiques have to that effect heretofore taken an Oath of Association in Declaration and firme binding of a reall and unanimouâ— union among them for the effects aforesaid It is ordered that all and every Magistrate and Officer aswell within Cities and Towns Corporate as likewise all manner of Offficers of what name condition or degree either in the Marshall or Civill List within the Quarters of the confederate Catholicks shall upon the taking of any imployment sweare and take the Oath of Association aforesaid Otherwise not to be admitted in any such publick trust or imployment And all and every Magistrate or other Officer of what nature name or comdition whatsoever already in authority or intrusted from the Confederate Catholicks in any imployment either Civill or Martiall that shall fail or refuse to take the Oath aforesaid to be immediately upon such refusall displaced and put from command power Office or imployment among the said Confederate Catholicks and to be treated with and proceeded against as an enemy in manner as before declared forasmuch as grievous and daily complaints are made against the Commanders and Officers of the Army for their contempts and disobedience to the Orders of such as