God and remember that the Redeemer of the oppressed is mighty and never more ready to avenge the Cause of the innocent and oppressed than when it is most neglected by his Vice-gerents Ahab and Jezabel exercised in Israel Authority without controul Who should punish the oppression of Naboth the Lord takes the Cause into his own Hand and causeth Dogs to lick hhis Blood in the very place where they licked the innocent Blood of Naboth and the Dogs did eat the Flesh of Jezabel that cursed Woman by the wall of Jezreel so there is Blood for Blood and an utter extinction of Ahab's posterity 1 Kings 21. lege Taleonis M. B. in his Sermon before his Majesty on the 2 Pet. 3.16 lays down for a sure Rule That it is the Duty of private men to submit their Judgments in matters of Religion to the Determinations of those whom God hath constituted to be their Spiritual Guides and Governours unless it manifestly appears that such Determinations are contrary to God's Word pag. 6. And so we are if any * Apollos Minister of Caesarea and of Iconia was an Eloquent Man mighty in the Scripture instructed in the way of the Lord servent in the Spirit why spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord and spake boldly in the Synagogue and yet Aquila and Priscilla his Wife Tent-makers when they heard him took him home and expounded to him the way of God more perfectly Acts 18.24 25 26. private Man teach another any Truths and to believe the private Man before any Spiritual Guides or Governours that preach and teach Untruths and every Man for himself is the proper Judge of what is taught The Apostles themselves tho' infallible submitted their Doctrines to the Judgment of their Disciples Judge ye Acts 4.19 1 Cor. 10.15 and so must our Guides and Governors which he would insinuate here to be the Clergy i. e. Bishops and Priests if so he will be mistaken they are only Officers in the Church to Teach Baptize c. but the Church in the truest sense i. e. the whole Congregation of the Faithful is to govern its own Body and the Officers thereof not the Officers the Church which will not please The Ecclesiastical Politician declares That it is absolutely necessary to the Peace and Government of the World that the Supreme Magistrate of every Commonwealth should be vested with a Power to Govern and Conduct the Consciences of Subjects in Affairs of Religion pag. 10. How is it possible that the Supreme Magistrate and our Spiritual Guides and Governors should both have the guide of our Consciences And that Peace and Tranquillity of Commonwealth being the prime and most important end of Government can never be sufficiently secured unless Religion be subject to the Authority of the Supreme Power pag. 11. And unless Princes have Power to bind their Subjects to that Religion that they apprehend most advantageous to publick Peace and Tranquillity and restrain those Religious mistakes that tend to its subversion they are no better than Statues and Images of Authority pag. 12. For it is clear if this Ecclesiastical Polititian may be believed that a Prince is endued with a Power to conduct Religion and that must be subject to his Dominion as well as other Affairs of State pag. 13. The consequence of which Doctrines are That if Nebuchadnezzar erect his prodigious Idol and upon pain of a fiery Furnace require all to Worship it all People Nations and Languages must presently be upon their Faces and for their warrant for so doing he assures them That in Cases and Disputes of publick concernment private Men are not properly sui Juris they have no Power over their own Actions they are not to be directed by their own Judgments or determined by their own Wills but by the Commands and Determinations of the publick Conscience And if there be any sin in the command he that imposed it shall answer for it and not I whose Duty is to obey the commands of Authority will warrant my Obedience my Obedience will hallow or at least excuse my Action and so secure me from Sin if not from Error because I follow the best Guide and most probable Direction I am capable of and tho' I may mistake my Integrity shall perserve my Innocence In all doubtful and disputable Cases it is better to err with Authority than to be in the right against it and therefore in all such matters their Commands are the Supreme Rule of Conscience not only because the danger of a little Error and so it is if it be disputable is over-weighed by the importance of the great Duty of Obedience but because they are the fittest Judges pag. 308 309. What is this but down-right asserting the abominable Papal Doctrines of Probability and of blind Obedience brave Doctrines for a Tory Church of England Man to Preach and Print impuné Good God! whether are we posting I thank God I have been taught better things viz. Every one of us shall give account of himself to God Rom. 14.12 The soul that sinneth it shall die Ezek. 28.20 The soul of the publick conscience shall not be put to death for the sins of the private nor the souls of private consciences be put to death for the sins of the publick but every man shall be put to death for his own sin Deut. 24.16 Daw-Divines to Print that the publick Conscience shall stand between the private Conscience sinning by his Command and the Judgment of the great Day and excuse from Sin I thank God that I have been taught by true Church of England Men indeed that God never created Men nor ever endued them with Conscisciences or gave them Talents of Reason or Judgment subject and enslaved to the Judgment Conscience or Reason of others but hath endued and trusted every Man with his own proper Talent of Conscience Reason and Judgment to chuse for himself according to which only he shall be judged and stand or fall at the Day of Judgment and not according to any publick Conscience There would be very little need of Priests if blind Obedience ought to prevail and not our own free choice He proceeds and tells us That God hath appointed the Magistrates to be his Trustees and Officials here upon Earth to act and determine in moral Virtues and pious Devotions according to all accidents and emergencies of Affairs to assign new particulars of the Divine Law to declare new bounds of right and wrong which the Law of God neither doth nor can limit pag. 18. That it s absolutely necessary to the Peace and Happiness of Kingdoms that there be set up a more severe Government over Mens Consciences and Religions and Perswasions than over their Vices and Immoralities Preface to his Eccl. Pol. p. 53. And that Princes may with less bazard give liberty to Mens Vices and Debaucheries than to their Consciences pag. 55. I have heard it also preached before the King That it is better to
command was to have peace one with another Mark 9.50 and the unity of the spirit is preserved by the bond of peace Ephes 4.3 But the little self-ends of Earth and Interest of the Preferments Ambition and Domination is the cause of Controversies Animosities and Contentions to which Priests are as subject as others 2. I say There were false Prophets among the Jews and was foretold that as there were false Prophets among them so there should be false teachers among us 2 Pet. 2.1 And St. Paul forewarned the Bishop of Ephesus That out of your own selves should arise men speaking perverse things Acts 20.30 and Christ himself when he cautioneth us to beware of false Prophets by calling which shall be found false by their teaching St. Paul also granteth many to be ministers of Christ by profession and yet in words and deeds the ministers of Satan 2 Cor. 11.13 14 15. such false Apostles saith he are deceitful workers and transform themselves into the Apostles of Christ and for certain these Priests of such different Perswasions Principles and Doctrines cannot both be in the right and therefore good Reason that if poor Laicks are to live and die Eternally according to the Doctrines our Pastors pulpit to us it is but just and right that we should try the Spirits as commanded John 1.41 and judg of Doctrine as directed Cor. 10.15 for certainly we are not to live by the deputy Faith of our Officers but by our own Faith and must stand and fall accordingly Now seeing our Teachers cannot agree Doctrines as in point of Resistance and Passive Obedience taking and refusing new Oaths Ceremonies Conformity as well as in many others they do not and both cannot be in the right then are their Flocks in a very sad condition Pulpit-rebels both to the one and to the other as the one or the other prevails for neither are Infallible so that we are clearly left to be our own Judges and both Priest and People have no other Divine Rule or Authority without them warrantable to one another as a common Ground or Rule either for Holy living or decision of Controversies in Matters of Religion unto which all ought to submit but the Scriptures nor any other within either Priest or People But the Illumination of the Spirit so interpreting the same Scriptures as warrantable both to Priests and People and to such whose Consciences they can so perswade can have no other ground in matters of Religion but only from the same Scriptures and these not being possible to be understood without Divine Illumination which no man can know at all times to be in himself much less to be at any time for certain in another and therefore the Scriptures being the only infallible Rule of life and of judging Controversies and the Light within us no farther Light than wherein it agrees with this Word if it do not it is Darkness not Light Now these things considered will justifie our taking up the Cudgels for our own Defence and Justification in these great and dangerous Disputes having Souls Lives Fortunes Liberties to save and enjoy as well as Ecclesiasticks Though the Church of England be the best constituted Church in the World wherein the lively Oracles of God are purely Preached and full fraught with many very worthy pious and learned Priests and Prelates yet there are amongst them many false Prophets and no wonder was not there a Judas among the Twelve and false Teachers nay very many time-servers that pimp for Domination Honors Preferments and other vile and base ends and like Micha's Levite for a little better reward swallow any thing stick at nothing by School-quirks and false Reasonings perverting Scriptures to rob whole Kingdoms of their Laws Liberties and Religion that daub with untempered Mortar flatter Profaneness court and allure Royalties to Perjury and Robbery whilst they Preach Quod libet licet and Sovereignty absolutely Absolute to be in Kings and their unaccountableness betray Truths smothering and dissembling the Strictness and Purity of holy Ways I contend not here against the lazy Drones that suck the Hony from the Bees by their Non-residency nor against the Dammees Euphoniae gratia these are personal Sins and hurt others only by Example and such there are but my contest is against those Ecclesiasticks who living and had interest at the upper end of the World not only usurped more Powers than they had right unto but abused those Powers and that Interest they had at Court from which abuse of Power pulpiting Divine Prerogatives of Kings beyond measure their unaccountableness misconstruing and extending Passive Obedience beyond its just Bounds Which have been the Harrangues of Prints and Pulpits till their own Copiholds came to be concerned come all the disturbances of Government in Church and State to whole Kingdoms No wonder then if contempt be poured on such of the Clergy and on such of them only as Preach such destructive Doctrines as deserve the severe Reprimand of whole Kingdoms for thereby all Laws Liberty Property Religion and Honesty would be trampled under foot Therefore it 's no Crime in the Laity to stand up in the defence of their own Rights and Concerns As it is the duty of Priests Ministers of the Gospel to teach us with Wisdom and Knowledge so it is our duty to esteem them highly in love if they do so for their Works sake and they that labour in the Word and Doctrine are worthy of double Honour and double Revenue they cannot have too much but they that do not Teach us with Knowledge and Understanding are worthy of neither but when they abuse and usurp Powers they have no right unto and claim them as their due by the most Potent Claim in the World Jure Divino monstrum horrendum Witness Excommunication because there hath as of old so of more late Days so much ill use made thereof of which I shall only say with Erastus de Excommunicatione that there is no such thing as it is now used in all the Scripture in Sanctis Scripturâ—s nullum extat mandatum sed commentum est pure humanum p. 67. Which renders the Execution thereof abominable To wrest Scripture to maintain such unlawful Powers doth very ill become the Priests of the most High God As it is their Duty to Teach so it is our Priviledge and Right to judge of their Doctrines yea and to put them in mind and admonish them also of their duty Coloss 4.17 Mistake me not as if this were bent against the Bishops only no no Papist Presbyter Independant are all to blame in this Point and it 's no excuse to us if we are deceived by the cunning Crastiness of our Ghostly Fathers whereby they lie in wait to deceive Let us look a little back no farther than our own Times and Memories and let them stand or fall in the good Graces of the Kingdom according to their Merits or Demerits Rushworth 644 1628. In the time of
offend in Doctrine than in Discipline Sure much Learning or Haughty Pride and Ambition Self-ends and Interest hath made these Men mad And so fulfilled the Prophecy of Hosea 9.7 The Prophet is a fool and the Spiritual man mad Sure God hath turned these wise Ecclesiastical Polititians backwards and made their knowledge foollish Isai 44.25 However I will say thus much to them That Liberty of Conscience is undeniably the right of every true Believer viz. to judge of such things as belong chiefly to the knowledge and service of God whether they are above the reach and light of Nature and therefore liable to be variously understood by human Reason or enjoyned or forbidden by Divine Precept and to follow that full perswasion whereby every one is assured that his Belief and Practice as far as he is able to apprehend is according to the Will of God and his Holy Spirit within him which undoubtedly we ought to follow much rather than any publick Conscience or Law of Man Magistrate or not Magistrate as both the Word of God bids us and the very dictate of Reason tells us Acts 4.19 Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye And we have no other outward Divine Rule to judge by than the Scriptures nor no other within us but the illumination of the Spirit so interpreting that Scripture as warrantably only unto our selves which commands us to search the Scriptures daily whether those things are so Acts 17.11 and gives us Reason also let every man prove his own not his Magistrates work and then shall he have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another tho' publick Conscience for every man shall bear his own burden Gal. 6.4 5. Is it not false Doctrine in the Papists to teach that Believers only as the Church believes are discharged in God's Account Is it not the general consent of sound Protestants that neither Traditions Councils nor Canons of any visible Church much less any Edicts of any Magistrate or Civil Session but the Scripture only can be the final Judge or Rule in matrers of Religion and that only in the Conscience of every Christian to himself For if the Church be not sufficient to be implicitly and blindly believed as certain it is not what can there else be named of more Authority than the Church but the Conscience than which God only is greater 1 John 3.20 But if any shall pretend that the Scripture judges to his Conscience for other Men as this proud and saucy Politician doth he makes himself greater than the Church Scripture or Consciences of other Men a presumption too high for any mortal since every true Christian able to give a reason of his Faith hath the word of God before him the promised holy Spirit and the mind of Christ within him 1 Cor. 2.16 A much better and safer guide of Conscience than this Polititian in publick Conscience who in this is no less a Pope than the Pope at Rome The Spiritual man judgeth all things but himself is judged of no man 1 Cor. 2.15 And is not the Pope deservedly esteemed Antichristian for appropriating to himself such Infallibity over both Conscience and Scripture Whether tends all this but to make themselves to have Dominion over our Faith and Lords over God's Heritage which the Aposties utterly disclaimed and accounted themselves only helpers of cur joy and to be feeders of the flock not by constraint but willingly 1 Pet. 5.2 3. 2 Cor. 1.24 If Bishop Saunderson can judge The Word of God doth expresly forbid us to subject our Consciences to the Judgment of any other or to usurp Dominion over the Consciences of any other Saunderson's 10 Lectures 1660. v. 3. Lect. 30. § p. 103. None but God alone hath Power to impose a Law upon the Conscience of any Man to which it ought to be subjected as obliging by it self For there is but one Law-giver who can both save and destroy James 4.12 not one picked out amongst many not one above many but one exclusively i. e. one and but one onely who art thou that dost judge another It doth not belong to thee to thrust thy sawcy Sickle into the Harvest of another Man much less to fling thy self into the Throne of Almighty God to him it belongeth alone to judge of the Consciences of Men to whom alone it doth belong to impose Laws on the Consciences of men which none can do but God alone Conscientiis Dominari velle est Arcem Coeli invadere said Maximilian the first To exercise a Domination over Consciences is to invade the Power of Heaven He is a plunderer of the Glory of God and an usurper of that Tower that is due unto him that claims a right to the Consciences of Men or practise an usurpation over them v. Lect. 4. § 9 10 11. He tells us moreover That if Princes will be Resolute and if they will Govern so they must be they may easily make the most stubborn Consciences to bend to their Resolutions pag. 271. Princes must be sure to bind on at first their Ecclesiastical Laws with the straitest knot and afterwards keep them in force by the severity of their execution pag. 221. So easie is it for Men to deserve to be punished for their Consciences that there is no Nation in the World in which were Government rightly understood and duly managed mistakes and abuses of Religion would not supply the Gallies with vastly greater Numbers than Villanies pag. 223. Brave Doctrines for a Tory Church of England Man to Preach impuné Sure this Anonimus Ecclesiastical Polititian would make a brave Mufty or Inquisitor General or a Compito with a Dog-whip in his Hand which would affright worse than the Inquisition and make many much honester Men than himself know sorrow in abundance These and many more Positions of the same complexion are the Farci of that Pestilent Book which well becomes a thorough-paced Church of England Priest such Positions and Doctrines brings contempt on such of the Clergy as being a reproach to any Church and which the Church of England doth not Teach and which are so vile that they much more deserve Fire and Faggot than those burnt in Oxford July 1683. but instead thereof he was made a Bishop Whether tends all this treacherous dealings with the People of God Whilst like the Ministers of Jeroboam ye lay such Snares in Mispah and spread such Nets upon Tabor teaching and perswading Kings to use Laws Menaces and Subtilties to force and confine the People to Regal and State Religion be it true or false or at least to force them to dissemble or to walk in a neutrality or indifferency between God and Baal or else to make the Souls of Men and God's Glory subordinate to the Lusts and Risings of Kings and Priests who Balaam-like for the hope of Honour or Preferments or like Micha's Levite for a little better reward crouch and cringe and
submitting to the narrow and more strict Rules of the Apostles of abstaining from all appearance of Evil of resisting unto Blood siriving against sin of endeavouring to be holy as our Heavenly Father is Holy and perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect And certainly it is much more agreeable tot he Mind of Christ to Conventicle with Assemblies of the Faithful than to be blind watch men ignerant dumb Dogs that cannot bark sleeping lying down loving to slumber yea greedy Dogs that cannot have enough shopherds that cannot understand that look to their own way every one for his gain 〈◊〉 56.10 11. that feed themselves but not the flock Ezek. 34.2 3 4. Such as these are they that teach for hire and divine for money that soist their own Straw and Stubble upon the foundation laid by Christ our Lord that will understand God other wise than he will be understood and will not account that sense of Scripture truest that most restraineth their corrupt humours that thwarteth and crosseth their high imaginations and designs We have with us and amongst us thousands that ask Counsel at their Stocks and whose Staff declareth unto them for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err and they have gone a whoring from under their God Hos 4.12 and yet not excommunicated nor so severely persecuted as those that Conventicle and Assemble with the Brotherhood We have also with us thousands of worthy very worthy pious and learned Prelates Priests and People that labour in the Word and Doctrine and mourn in secret for the violences done to such Assemblies in whom the Light of the Glorious Gospel most eminently and gloriously shineth and who preach and practice God's pure and sincere Ordinances so that no Nation under Heaven hath them more purely taught and exalted in Mercies than our own It is the rotten part of the Clergy only whose Popish and other Books publishing Doctrines destructive to whole Kingdoms only herein meant that occasions such contempt of the Clergy the very tail of Priests Isai 9.15 that teach Lyes and Doctrines that subject the whole Race of Mankind unto slavery and vassallage whose Hearts the love of the Wrold of Riches Honours and Preferments hath debauched and prevailed with to hearken to the Flesh when she pleads her secular contentments no need of this zeal this accurateness this pressing this violence for Heaven and upon presumptuous and false prejudices to account such strictness unnecessary presuming on the easiness of a future Reformation not considering that the least sin doth desile the Soul and that the smallest omission qualifie for Hell but can delight in sinful and desperate fellowships blessing themselves in their own wickedness and yet revile and malign our Conventicles much better imployed than themselves being bewitcht to dore on present Contentments to dispence with much unjust Liberty using lawful things unlawfully to steal even from God's own Day to gratifie their own corrupt humours and fleshly desires Rom. 8.5 6 7 13 14. by promoting and countenancing a Book of Sports but discountenancing and prohibiting Sermons on Sundays in the Afternoon and Lectures on the Week-days Pulpit-preaching is the least part of a Ministers work Paul taught from house to house day and night with tears Acts 20.20 Most certainly St. Paul was more Heavenly minded who accounted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge not notional only but experimental also of Christ Jesus our Lord for whom he suffered the loss of all things and accounted them but dung that he might win Christ Phil 3.9 If these sticklers against Conventicles did but live now as they will wish they had done when they come to die a time speedily approaching they would be of another mind and would not be of the Bedlam opinion of the World who like not such zeal such strictness such violence for Heaven Assembling together for edification and comfort is a Command from Heaven and no human Law ought to contradict it nor hath any Government more Power to forbid private than publick preaching of the Gospel Human Laws and Ordinances or Customs against the Law of God or Nature are corruption and derogate from the Authority of the Almighty and are ipso facto void and null Pope Paul the Fourth usually cursed Colloquies Councils Dyets for that they were always upon his Back I lay no such charge to our Clergy that do not favour of fancy such Conventicles But I vehemently suspect that they look upon them as reproaches to themselves as being the more diligent and the more laborious and the more zealous in the word and Doctrine than themselves These differences would not be if they would be governed according to the Scriptures which ought to be the rule of Resolutions without respect to private Ends and worldly Interests and manifest vices corrected according to the Wrod of God For which Reasons I conceive it a Spiritual Tyranny to forbid the Assembling of Bretheren together for the glory of God the increase of Godliness and of Brotherly Love among the Faithful And therefore conclude that suppressing such Conventicles cannot proceed from the Wisdom which is from above which is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated full of mercy and good sruits without partiality and without bypecrisie James 3.17 but from that wisdom which is earthly sensual devillish For why should not that Liberty be granted to this Age which other Ages have enjoyed with Spiritual Fruit even in the infancy and purest Ages of the Church and when all Nations were bitter and accursed Enemies to christ and his Gospel Certainly to forbid the Faithful to assemble to improve and make use of their proper Gifts and Graces in publick or in private to bring Souls to Heaven cannot proceed from any good intent For the Holy Ghost is nto the Clergy Petultar but variety of Spiritual Gifts and Graces belongs so essentially to the perfection of the Church that it is the very glory thereof and of every individual We are all so addicted to Sin and so prone to Impieties that all the allurements and inticements to holy living ought to be encouraged not discountenanced nor prohibited lest the care of strict Piety and eact walking in the ways of Holiness be abandoned And those Solemn Assemblies are but to husband are precious moments of lie for one Hour whereof tormented Souls in Hell would give all the World if they had the disposal thereof to be but in the same possibilities of Salvation to make their Peace and Reconciliation with their provoked God to the advantage of the Lord of the Harvest that when he comes he may find them so doing It seems very strange to thinking Men and to right Reason it self to deprive Men of their true Spiritual Liberty and their just Right and then perswade them to be content and speak evil of them accounting them Seditious Schismatical and Phanatical if they do not acquiesce And they are not only against the liberty of
that Christ was preached in season and out of season though out of envy and strife though not sincerely though but in pretence and not in truth were living now and here would condemn our Conventicles or would not rather be in the midst of them himself I appeal to God and your own Consciences if you your selves ought not to continue stedfast in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of Bread from House to House and Prayers If Conventicles in our Days do endeavour to come as near as they can to continue stedfast in the Doctrine and Fellowship of the Apostles why should they be interrupted Were not Spiritual Men mad doting upon mediocrities of Grace they would never burlesque the purity and simplicity of the Gospel nor the most strict ways of Piety and by ungrounded prejudices mis-judge them as Shagreen to good Government According to my Divinity Preaching in season out of season though not sincerely though but in pretence though not in truth Crimes of which I hope our Conventicles are no ways guilty and to become all things to all men that by all means they may save some is but to do the Will of their Master but more especially when their assembling and associating in such Conventicles is only to redeem and improve precious time by endeavouring to make all moments of their life comfortable and beneficial to themselves and others sparing sufficient time to humble themselves and to keep a constant communion with their and our God Pope Pius the Fourth could say That he would humble himself to Heresie in regard what ever was done to gain Souls to Christ did become that See And shall Protestants Clergy and not Clergy be like the Saduces and be grieved at heart that the People be taught the right ways of the Lord Absit I hope the Church of England tho' there have been and still are scab'd Sheep among them is not yet so corrupted as to have that laid to her charge which Christ told the Scribes and Pharisees That in vain they worshipped God teaching for Doctrines Mens Commandments and of which St. Austin complained in the Church wherein he lived which was so corrupted that the Commandments of God are laid aside teaching for Doctrines Mens Commandments and those exacted with such Severity nay with Tyranny that they were more severely censured who transgressed them than those who transgressed the Laws of God It is certainly so in Rome I will I could say it had never been so in England It is absurd to cry The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord boasting of the Priviledges that the Gospel doth afford us and at the same time to prevaricate with God and the Redeemed of his own Blood to give them stones instead of bread and serpents instead of fish by such their destructive Doctrines and punish more for Non-conforming than for not Preaching and as by Excommunication to deny and abridge the excommunicate the participation of Sermons Sacraments Sabbaths c. all outward means of Grace and Repentance Did St. Paul and the Corinthians forbid him whom they had delivered to Satan to come to their Assemblies or partake of the Sacraments Did Christ ever forbid Publicans and Sinners to come unto him Did he not eat the Passover with Judas the greatest of Sinners When the Pharisees objected his eating and drinking with Sinners as a crime did not he tell him That they that are whole need not a Physician but they that are sick Matth. 9.11 12. Did he not converse daily with them Did he not cast out unclean Spirits nay Devils out of them And yet our excommunicates tho' but for Niff-Naffs must not approach the Temple of the Lord nor assemble in the Holy Congregations This hath been the practise of some Centuries of Years both of the Popish and Protestant Churches when in truth there 's no such thing in Holy Writ as it hath been and still is used in both Churches And that Excommunication that is mentioned in Scripture if any at all is in the body of the Church and not in the Officers thereof and which the Laity have as much Authority to exercise against the Clergy as the Clergy against the Laity it cannot be denied Is it recorded in any Scripture Old or New that the Church doors were to be shut against the vilest Sinners or Sacraments or Communion denied unto them and yet the use of Excommunication hath been and still is such in both Churches I should account it a marvellous happiness if any thing that I have written might so far prevail with our Clergy as seriously to take into their consideration their interessing and intermedling with Civil Affairs and Imployments and also Excommunication which bring so much odium and contempt upon them and lay to Heart how many hundreds of Years the Church hath been imposed upon and abused by them The abuse of which by the Roman Pontiffs hath been abominable even against Emperors Kings Princes and States that all Histories swell therewith and stinks in the Nostrils of God and Man But not so much abused by any Protestant Churches By Excommunication as now used they have done as much as in them lay to frustrate the whole design of the Gospel by debaring the Excommunicates the use and enjoyment of the outward means of Grace and Repentance What strange kind of Sacriledge is this that when Christ hath appointed Sabbaths Sermons Sacraments c. for the conversion of Sinners to him and for establishing and confirming them when converted our Priests out of self-Ends and Interests preach up another Doctrine viz. Excommunication which debars the benefit of them all and so by a new Gospel of their own do as much as in them lieth send People to the Devil instead of allowing them the means of Salvation How contrary how unlike were the Gospel-censures of old to this now in vogue they were for Edification not for Destruction as this knack or spell of Excommunication is Besides the Spiritual prejudices to the Salvation of Souls by Priests-craft it is extended also unto Temporals as that the Excommunicate cannot sue at Law for any Debts Land or for redress of injuries done unto him nor at his Death dispose of his Goods or Estate If this be Gospel I understand not Gospel-truths It 's a shame that Religion should be thus made use of and used so dirtily as to make it serve turns and Godliness to wait upon Gain Pride and Domination of Priests It would be a marvellous happiness to these Nations if the Church of England Men would yet be so wise and considerate in these evil and confounding times as to fettle among themselves the distracting Doubts of taking our New Oaths of Passive Obedience of Non-resistance of Allegiance of Praying for our KING For whilst they are of such different Opinions among themselves what would they have us sid Mortals the Laicks to do A separation if not worse must ensue and that of the highest nature and