Soveraigns have reduced the one the other and be first at peace till either the Pope conform to the will of Christ which we expect which would beget an unity of Spirit and Truth between us in the bond of peace or Christ to the mind and will of the Pope and have no Scriptures that shall signifie any thing contrary to his sense but that the Popes will shall be taken to be Christs Will where they interfere which is their aim in their engrossing the right of interpreting the Scriptures to their Church alone that is their Pope which would produce peace and union its true but such a carnall peace and slavish union as were worse than any War or Captivity or desolation whatsoever Purgatory indulgencies image worship Transubstantiation blind obedience Universal Monarchy over the whole Church c. let them be never so false or unreasonable or scandalous or absurd not only with all learned and sober men but with many of themselves in their secret thoughts and retirements yet because they support the Kitchin and adorn the Hall and carnal state and esteem of their Apostolick see they shall and must be owned and defended forever as Infallible Doctrines De fide more unalterable than the Laws of Medes and Persians by all her Catholick Sons as they tender their continuance within her Pale out of which with them there can be no Salvation and our worship and Liturgie shall be condemned as Impious and prophane till upon obedience and Submission to their Chair as was offered in Queen Elizabeths days they shall permit it to be Orthodox and Holy and to be used in our Churches without any alteration or further trouble and all our Protestant Doctrines which are the same in effect with Gods Holy Scriptures out of which they are drawn and built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner stone yet because they comport not with their carnal designs and greatness shall be condemned to be abjur'd as false and Heretical though the Authors of them Christ and his Apostles and his purest Church be involved with us in the same sentence and themselves in Gods wo and curse in the Prophet upon those that call good evil evil good light darkness and darkness light Esa 15.20 What Law of Nature or Nations or Conscience or Honour or Humanity or Civility or Faith or Plain-dealing which are indelible imbred instincts in Vulgar and Heathen Breasts much more in Christian and Generous will not the guides of that Church direct their charge to break and violate with assured hopes of Salvation and Immortal Glory for the feat so it tend to promote and advance their Holy Catholick cause which is with them as it were Gods last will and Testament which Abrogates and annuls all precedent wills the Eternal Laws of God and conscience being but obsolete or Corporation orders when they clash against the Infallible Bulls and paramount Oracles of his Holiness yea the contradiction shall be salved and heal'd and Christ by Interpretation which belongs to them is brought to say and sign their draught to be his own Will and meaning and their Atheime shall be fac'd with his Authority as Hypocrites do their Villanies with the cover of Religion as King Philip of Macedon is said to have made the Oracles to Phillipize and Prophesie for him What Civil War and combustion must this make in English and honest hearts who though they have a respect for Rome think fit nevertheless to reserve due Loyalty towards God and their Redeemer and their Country to be thus necessitated to offend against God and man to save their souls who in compliance with that Church and obedience to its commands and dictates upon perill of damnation must shocke the wise and settled Laws of their Nation and disturb publick peace and Union and bring fear and consternation upon their fellow Subjects that desire to live in quietness and slight and disparage the learned and Religious Clergy of this land and our unparallel'd Vniversities and disobey glorious and Paternal Counsels seal'd in bloud for Gracious Kings are Fathers to all their Subjects next to their own begotten and shame the cause of friends and fellow-sufferers loyally and sincerely defended to the last gasp in bloud and ruine and to give just cause of boast and triumph to others for early and wise fears and jealousies and fore-sight and at last reconcile the Nation by a secret judgment against themselves and profess the true Religion before men believed in the heart to be false by humane Patent and dispensation against Conscience And conceal a false Religion believed in the heart to be true And act to the prejudice of the professed before declaring for the intended like giving Hostile broadsides without an Hostile Flag against the Law of Nations and continue or forbear vitious living according to humane Indulgence and tedder above the fear of God Such twisted Arts and servile postures of the Soul set by God above humane reach and power such chymical sublimated hypocrisie and doubling to which all the Swords and Artillery of the World pointed and planted against a single breast ought not to be able to force a Coward to all Politicians and Head-pieces and Whisperers to gull and seduce a fool to though they may go down with more ease with French and Italian tempers innur'd by ill fate to absolute governments and cringes and Slavery how loathsome and repugnant and against the grain must they prove to any honest and generous and freeborne English spirit And whence can this Civil War and distraction arise but from some failer and breach and division of the allegiance of the heart in admitting some up-start usurper or Impostor to be co-ordinate and equal if not Superiour to Christ its natural Liege Lord and Soveraign which the Loyal part of the Soul will never be flattered or frighted to agree or yield to Thus the heart through its own folly suffers it self to be ever disturbed and racked between two contrary Potentates within its bowells God and Old Conscience command and approve of natural affection and truth and peace and love to Countrey and obedience to Parents and Kings and Mercy and Civility to all in Misery and Anxiety The Anti-god or New Conscience commands the contrary as a piece of Catholick zeal and Glorious hazard and self-denyal under pain of displeasure of the Holy See and St. Peter and St. Paul and exclusion out of the Pale of the Church and the like usual forms Plain therefore and evident it is that the whole Controversy between us and Papists is reduceable to one point touching the Right and Soveraignty of the heart and Conscience whose it is and ought to be whether the Lord Christ in my Text as we hold with St. Paul or the Pope and Successor to St. Peter as they maintain at Random If the Pope be God and Lord of the Soul and not Christ then we Protestants are much to blame in
he was to expect from any who had been Elder If the Gospel be true and Christian this Doctrine of blind obedience which is one of the chiefest pins or props that supports the Fabrick of that Church is false and Antichristian If God be in the World this pernicious Hellish Model that is so contrary thereunto ought to be hiss'd and exploded out of it with zeal and indignation by all Generous and Religious Princes and by every honest man that loves God or his Saviour or mankind But when the Inferiour obeys his Superiour from the heart as unto Christ the one commanding the other observing not what his own heart doth prompt or lead him to but what a conscientious heart directed by Christ gives leave to either and expects not from any other either observance or obedience further than usque ad Aras as far as Christs Law permits then all are right and happy in this Regular obedience in the Lord As I have already and may further shew And indeed without this Rule in my Text to regulate and enliven Quod tibi fieri non vis it self which is the Rule of Rules and the sum of the Scriptures all Societies and enjoyments all converse and friendship would be false irregular and degenerate Friendship it self would be Hollow-hearted Counsels treacherous Promises wind mens tongues full of nought but lyes their hearts of uncleanness and their hands of bloud and unrighteousness Their Justice would be Cruelty their Wealth an Idol their Power Tyranny their fears wild and causeless their Joys and pleasures mean and sordid their desires Feavers their mirth madness their Sorrows Apoplexies their Reasons Vagabond their best works but outward shew their Vertues Scene and Hypocrisie For when the Soul is out of Christ every Action is out of Tune and order and account for as our outward Acts without the heart are frigid and dead and null so the Actions of the Soul it self without an aim after Christ are all impure and illigitimate and null But Christ and the heart super-added to every Action shall give it Truth and Rectitude and life and permanency every thing becomes true and lovely by agreeing and answering to its proper Rule and measure When the heart agrees with Christ its rule and Judge all Hypocrisie and impurity departs when our thoughts agree with such a heart they are cur'd of their vanity when our lips agree with such thoughts and such a heart such a rule and Judge there will be no deceit in them when every Action of our whole man copies out our heart as our heart copies out Christ we recover our Original perfection which consists in agreement to that Idea and Image of God in Holiness and true Righteousness according to which we were created by him and were restored to it by Christ as we fell from it in the fall This is Truth throughout the whole man and Christian and that Truth perhaps which Pilate desired but did not deserve to know from our Saviour For in such Acts and converse which have life in them as from the heart and Sincerity and Holiness as unto Christ the Souls of all men upon trial and experience find Truth and satisfaction and peace of conscience in them and but disappointment and vexation and lies ever in the contrary And Praise and Honour and shame and Infamy from men and Life and Death Eternal from God following close upon the heels of the one and the other are suffrages for this Truth beyond exception And what makes good men makes good Subjects and Rulers by easie consequence Out of Christ all would be uppermost and Supreme and none a Servant or Subject to another from his heart and with his good will whence arise Wars and Rebellion and poysons and steelettoes at opportunities whereof Histories especially Heathenish are so full and some Christian to their greater shame But in Christ our subjection being transferr'd over from men to the Lord our slavery is extinguish'd and our service enobled and made agreeable to our Souls which know no Lord over them but God and Christ and all pride and stubborness and secret murmuring is now turn'd into good will from the heart towards our Superiours whether mild or hard As is expresly taken notice of by the Apostle and with care recommended to Inferiours in a parallel place Ephes 6.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with good will doing service to the Lord and not to men The Church makes no alteration in properties Luk. 12.14 or mens vocation 1 Cor. 7.20 much less in Constitutions of Governments or Civil Rights either of Kings or people but leaves all to the Reiglement of Municipal Laws and publick Contracts and local Customes which are secular things to which the Church is dead saving any thing of Conscience or duty to Christ or justice and mercy that may arise in and from them the Alteration therefore the Church makes is in the hearts and Souls of men and not in the outward things themselves It binds all rights and Duties established by Law upon any manner of persons with the bond of Conscience additional to that precedent bond of Law and Civil fear And humane Laws be they never so provident will have their oversights and holes for trangressors to escape if Conscience be not kept up in men which makes that which was a trespass in the outside against the Law to be treason in a Christian in the heart against Christ his Lord and he suffers for his offence not only as a Malefactor before men but as a Reprobate and Rebel in his Conscience to his Saviour Thus St. Paul states the matter of Christian obedience Wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake For whosoever resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Rom. 13.2 5. If therefore Inferiours would obey their Superiours from the heart as unto Christ according to my Text would there be such fraud in Servants or any sedition or Rebellion or Non-conformity in Christian Subjects towards their Christian Masters and Governours Could they have the heart or Conscience thus to fight against Christ out of a tender Conscience What else is it to be Antichrist and visible Terrene Atheists against visible and Terrene Gods Nothing gives a greater blow to the order of the Universe and more provokes God to try his title of Soveraignty against men to the certain misery of the weaker side than Disobedience and Rebellion to Parents and Princes that on Earth do represent him next to Tyranny and ill example in Princes and Parents themselves It being more stupendiously monstrous and irregular to find Kings that stand for Christ to be Merciless or unholy than Subjects that represent the Creature to be frail and froward More contrary to the course of nature and experience for Parents to be unnatural than Children to be undutiful or Masters to be unjust and cruel than Servants to be false or
profit of the difference and laugh at the follies and credulity of the appellants The Supremacy of the King in all Causes and over all Persons as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal being that which hath been learnedly evinced by our Writers and is solemnly recogniz'd every day in Gods presence in Prayers and Oaths according to the settlement of our Laws by the Wisdom of the Nation But though this inside of the Church be properly Secular and Temporal because visible yet the Secular Causes which belong to the determinations of Christian Secular Authorities are well and orderly distinguishable into Ecclesiastical and Christian or Temporal and Civill as the whole Commonwealth may be considered either as a Society of men or a Society of Christian men or Church In the first respect as men all are Subject to their own Kings and Laws in matters of life limb and property whether they be Christian or Holy or Heathen and Antichristian as they were before Christ came into into the World and must be to the Worlds end For Magistracy is Gods Ordinance whom all men therefore are to be subject to from the heart which alwayes attends what God appoints though manag'd by a Claudius who was weak and infamously credulous or Nero who for his cruelty was believed by many to be Antichrist for to such the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul command obedience and subjection not only for fear of wrath and power but for Conscience sake and the fear of God Rom. 13.5 1 Pet. 2.14 16. For they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Rom. 13.2 Yet on this undoubted unforfeitable right of Earthly Kings and Governours according to their several Constitutions by the Laws of their Kingdoms the Pope like a fift Monarch hath ever and still doth affect and design new incroachments as before upon the King of Heaven and spiritual pretences of Superiority Not only by exempting his Subjects and Clergy from secular subjection assuming to be the mother of the Child that 's not her own but also through his Emissaries and influence in the time of his Reign and Power in bringing the Lives of Subjects to the Stake and their States into Forfeiture from their Posterity for Opinions and the Heads and Crowns of Kings themselves to the like danger for the like insufficient cause Absolving Subjects of their Allegiance which Christ binds on every Soul and leading them into perjury and Rebellion which God forbids and damns being not only Traytors against Heaven and Earth therein but which is infinitly worse Traitor-makers as Satan is worse than a sinner and as many Traitor-makers by their Doctrine and what lyes in them as there are Subjects or Polls in any Kingdom they would absolve and seduce Which made the Nation joyn unanimously against their methods not only by Acts of Treason since the Reformation but of premunire long before A very Apostolical and comely deportment in a chief Professor of Christian Holiness and vertue that he and his Missionaries should deserve to be thrust and shoulder'd out like Pests by a wise and a Religious people and their Friends and the door made fast against them with the strongest Barricadoes that could be thought of Hanging and Drawing and Quartering Yea many of his own Confessors and Martyrs our Native Roman-Catholicks to this day who sincerely adhere to all his other Doctrines though Flead Alive with penalties and inconveniences for it yet disclaim and desert his infallible guidance in this particular and would be ready to venter Lives and Fortunes for their Laws and Countrey against any Invasion of the Land though countenanc'd or authoriz'd by the Pope for though such Loyalty be looked upon at Rome with an evil eye as hath lately appeared in the Irish Excommunications for the like principle and profession of Allegiance yet they are resolved to be true to their King let who will call them Hereticks for being honest Subjects And this their Resolution must be grounded either upon Policy or vain glory to avoid the danger as well as the Infamy of Rebellious principles or upon Conscience to God which only is true honour I am apt if I do no wrong to believe the last and to acknowledge and own all such by Consequence as true English Protestants as any in our own Church for preferring Conscience before the Pope which as I have proved is the chief point in difference between Papists and Protestants And the rather if they deal alike with the rest of their opinions which set us at distance from one another by the same rule which if it be good and right must hold in the rest as well as this dismissing all other Tenets that are excepted against and have no support from God or Conscience or the Scripture but the bare Authority of the Pontifical Chair For being so dangerously and perfidiously deceived while trusting to its judgement and of right interpreting in a case so evident and plain and Important as Neck and Estate and Salvation can amount to If they will suffer themselves again to be over-rul'd to differ from their Brethren upon no reason of Conscience but this bare Authority alone whereof they have had tryal of its fidelity and the old sophisme of believing as that Church believes This cannot be counted worthy and filial piety and well weighed Religion in them but a negligent unadvisedness equivalent to plain fault and folly especially there being present suffering and future hazard in the Case according to the known Proverb The Friend that deceives me once it is his fault twice it is my own All differences in our Religion being thus easily compos'd between us if they stand constant to their good principle throughout its consequences as reason binds them to and there will be no reason else to believe or trust their Loyalty what a day of bliss would it be to them and us to go hand in hand together like Christian as well as English brethren to their Churches and ours what peace to themselves in their concerns both within and without what tears of joy would it cause in their Protestant Tenants and dependants who would willingly resigne their lives to see that blessed day what acclamation and bone-fire throughout the Nation for the restoration of its strength and Union what Ecchoes and Halelujahs amongst the Angels of Heaven that delight in mens Salvation and return from Errour But should they offer to make themselves and us and the Nation happy with such a Festival How must they expect to be well lash'd for this by their Old Friends for Hereticks and Schismaticks and Apostates from the Holy See besides the ignobleness of changing and being unconstant to which I shall not now reply But those of them that through Gods Grace assisting them nowithstanding such discouragements and obstacles that will be leaders and examples to their brethren in such paths of Peace and Life and count it Glory and magnanimity to adhere to truth through shame and calumny and but an Heathenish
Interrog New Roman Church is Essentially requisite to constitute an Archbishop because it brings a round sum of Money to their Coffers and dependance and Canonical obedience to their See and the disowning the Supremacy of Temporal Soveraigns by Consequence But whether the Archbishops of Brittain so esteem'd for several Primitive Ages by Emperours and the great Councils of the Ancient Church who summon'd and own'd them under that dignity and Charter must lose their Ancient right and priviledge at the pleasure of a younger Church because it never complyed with its new and sordid devices b Innocentius 3 tius de Officio Misse c. 51. for gain and Lucre is justly a question of which more hereafter but their diminution in fact upon the reason that is implyed to occasion it sets it out of question that by the confession of the Popes themselves Brittain never own'd or acknowledged any Superiority that Rome pretended over it But though our Bishops never went to Rome for their Pall or Consecration yet they us'd not to stand upon such terms of distance from the Asiatic Churches nor the Church of Jerusalem though for some Ages by reason of the destruction of that City truckling under Daughter Cities that were of greater note and fame but really and originally the Mother of all Churches and particularly respected by the Church of Brittain upon that score For thither they us'd from hence to flock and resort as is observed by St. Hierome c Tom. 1 Epl. 17. Usher p. 202. thither d Idem â— 177. St. Helena repaired with her Retinue building and enriching Churches Thither Pelagius went and was cleared in their Councils explaining his own sense in e Idem 248. Greek before them against his Errours Whether it was his care and Interest to speak more warily or whether as one defends Calvin against a Jesuite charging him with Atheism that he read Calvin in Bellarmines Works and not in his own but it is rather to be supected that Pelagius was more truly guilty of his dangerous Heresie than that the Synods of his own Countrey should so explode him without cause or St. Augustine his honourer write so well in vain against him But not to digress but to speak more directly for Pelagius had he been Orthodox was but a f Idem p. 210. Layman thither our chiefest Brittish Doctors are recorded to repair St. David Paternus Elius or Teilaw and to be Consecrated Bishops by that Patriarch in order to to their return which the Brittish Church was so far from dis-rellishing that the first of them in full Synod was translated to be Archbishop of Menevia called afterwards by his Name upon the score of that Consecration together with his parts as before was mentioned out of e Usher p. 210. Idem p. 474. Girald vita S. David Giraldus Cambrensis whose aime was as himself declares to be another Gildas in delivering nothing but the Truth f Idem Preâ—at Cambriae Descript Many other Rites and Customes there were in use among the Brittains as Bede observes that were contrary to the unity of His Catholick Church g Bed lib. 2. c. 2. plurima alia faciebant unitati Ecclesiasticae contraria which took up a long dispute at the Synod of Streanshall from which the Brittains would by no means recede but preferr'd their own Traditions as well as they might before all that were followed by the Roman Church at that time which Bede calls the whole World whereby it appears that though our Brittish Antiquities are many of them lost and perished through Wars and desolations and the special malignity of the Church of Rome to suppress the memory and honour of so emulous a Church as this of Brittain was in its eyes and Abbot Dunawd's Books of the priviledges of the See of St. David and of the Ancient Rites and Customes of the Brittish Church mentioned in Pitseus were destroyed with many other at Bangor with its Monks and Monastery and h H. Lluid Fragm p. 58. Library and I pray God to preserve our English Libraries from the like rude zeal yet the account of its Customes and Antiquities is sufficiently preserved and contain'd in the first best Councils oâ— the Primitive Church and the Learned Orthodox Fathers of the East with whom it so entirely and exactly agreed and concurr'd in all sound Traditions as appears by the tast and instances I have already given from which Rome very much departed and stands notoriously censur'd by the Catholick Church as Schismatical for the same which abundantly proves the Brittish Church never was any Daughter of Rome nor could be not only because of Ancienter years and standing than her supposed Mother but because as wholly dislike to her in every line and feature and humour and Ceremony as are the Spaniards to the French though both Christians in their kind I shall add but two or three of their Homilitical Customes and Principles and pass on to the Characters of their Antagonists from Rome such I mean as had more influence upon their Converse with one another whether the respect of the Church to the Prince or the Prince and people to the Church or the people to one another As to their respect and Loyalty to their Prince There are no footsteps in the Primitive Church nor the Ancient Brittish for deposing Kings for Heresies or Scandal Spiritual Dicipline is not to alter or unsetle Civil rights It 's an Antichristian fift Monarchy Principle that offers at it If Rome be a Mother Church in any thing it is in this Whoever us'd it here had it from her forge Mens several rights as they are men and as they are Christians are as different as peace of Conscience and the peace of the Kingdom as the law of the land and the law of God as the Body and the Soul as Outlary and Excommunicatâ—on which the Church of Rome confounds together But the Brittish Clergy knew how to pay their several rights to God and Caesar to be faithful Servants to Christ and Loyal Subjects to their King they boldly reproved and censur'd the enormous vices of their Princes out of love to God and them and Countrie as appears by a Godwin Catalog Hector Boethius Hist lib. 8. Voadin Archbishop of London reproving King Vortigern for marrying Hengist's Daughter a Pagan when he had a lawfull Queen slain for it by the procurement of her Father not by Vortigern though a very ill man and more happy in such a Martyrdom than in a perfidious connivance in a whole skin and a ragged Conscience and also by Gildas his sharp reproofs remaining to this day against several of their chifest Princes for which not an hair of his head was touch'd by any of them as can be heard or read as likewise by b Bed lib. 3. c. 5. Aidanus his special severity against great offenders They severally reprov'd but never rebell'd against their Princes nor encourag'd any to it and they
by his high disloyalty though not by his resolution and many other great parts if rightly used And what makes our Frustrations to be Panegyricks in many mouthes of his Attainments but that having the same men and courage and preparations and more we take not the same method to prosper in a good cause as he did in a bad And to borrow light from vanity what can the skill of the best Player avail if the Dice be altogether against him For some will say that Interest and reason of State all may see that the temper of the whole Nation and the wise may observe that Heaven and fate forbid the banes and realliance of this Land with Popery For who are more miserably rent and divided then we now of this Nation are though restor'd Our people distrusting their Princes and our Princes their people whereby our strength and glory by mutual subductions is brought to nothing like a Merchant that hath 10000 l. Stock and is 20000 l. in Debt and all this only by striving against fate And making Popery and our selves the weaker by favouring it against Profession Interest Duty Oaths Trusts halting between God and Belial between Christ and the Pope between Protestant and Papist being as they say neither good fish nor flesh but deservedly weak and improsperous and contemptible and acting all in the dark like men under fear or guilt or self condemnation yet a sincere Resolution to be firm and true to God and Protestant truth without further doubling Cures the whole Nation in an Instant clears all Debts dissolves all jealousies and fears strengthens all Interests opens all hands and hearts and purses and makes us Brittains again happy and united within our selves and serviceable to our friends and formidable to our enemies and acceptable to God All our Divisions in this Nation for these 1600 years and upwards were ever rais'd and fomented by harbouring Rome within our bowels either with or against our wills The Picts from the North and the Scots or Irish from the West were enemies heretofore to the Brittains though much their flesh and bloud solely upon the score of Rome upon the like inducement as Roman-Catholicks at this day are enemies to our peace and Nation the one gnawing our bowells as the other did Infest our borders upon the same score of Rome For the Roman power ruling here while Picts and Scots were unreduc'd forc'd the Brittains to serve and fight against them whether they would or not and them to fight against us by consequence and Provocation The Roman cheat since prevailing upon many through their want of love to the truth makes men enemies and Spies and Traitors to their own Countrey not through force but by their own choice and zeal to serve and promote the ambitious ends of Forreigners which less intoxicate than mens own personal lusts and passions and renders them therefore more inexcusable and despicable than any other Traitors or Malefactors whatsoever that set up for themselves An hearty embraceing of the Ancient Apostolick Brittish Faith which the Scotch and Irish defended with us heretofore against Monk Augustine and planted amongst the English before he and his Successors sowed their Tares amongst them which our Roman-Catholicks are so fond of would unite these three Nations as one man in mutual love and peace and truth and prosperity and renown and strength and Gods blessing which was the whole aime and designe of this discourse and an effectual care taken against Roman seducers on the one hand and compassion towards the seduced on the other and the exemplification of our own right faith by an answerable good life would under God easily effect this reduction They are unnaturally unkind to their own Countrey that take part with Rome against it which was ever a bad neighbour to our Brittain returning us evil for good It destroyed our Empire through the ambition of Maximus our Church through Monk Augustine whereas we ever did but Cures upon it Planting the first Gospel amongst them before the arrival of St. Peter or St. Paul Ridding their Roman World of the remainders of their old Pagan Idolatry which there was in great power and value by the zeal of our Great Constantine and healing their new Christian Idolatry in good part wherewith it was as much enamour'd by our Henry the 8th his President Let them beware of the Repentance of another Generous Prince descending together from the same Royal Brittish stock and of no less a spirit who being once fully undeceived shall see great wrongs to the Innocent to be repair'd great indignities to his own Interest and honour to be reveng'd and chastiz'd as King Henry did his Incest great oppression to patient Protestancy both at home and in Neighouring Kingdoms yea and great abuse to all Christendom in general by Holy frauds and Impostures and abominable Idolatries to be reliev'd and redress'd to whom Cromwel their Terrour was but a Blazing-warning Meteor who shall unite to himself both the heart of God and of the three Nations by his zeal for his cause and glory against such Hypocrites and everlasting troâ—â—â—â—ers of Kingdoms and Churches and judge it a design commensurate to his Princely Grandeur and Renown to go along with Fate and Providence to put a period to their Kingdom of Lyes and Forgeries and Profanations and begin the overthrow of Turkish by suppressing Christian Antichrist the great enemy of Souls and Truth which gave the other its chief rise and growth and was the first president in Christian Kingdoms of Rebellion against lawful Soveraigns upon the pretence of Religion the only obstacle of the Union of all Christian Churches by his Pride and usurpations And the most dangerous enemies to all humane Society and Government and to all Faith and Truth among men and Christians which support them by Dispens'd Perjuries Licensed Dissimulations Equivocations Mental Reservations Canoniz'd Tteasons c. The like practices being never known or heard of in the World before amongst sober Heathens nor the most wild and barbarous much less amongst the Primitive Christians and Martyrs but only the Gnostick Disciples of Simon Magus If it be the Fate of Brittain to give Rome another Cure and Castigation without which neither England nor Christendom are like be at rest And none are easier and sooner reduc'd than such whose principles and practices have long warr'd against Heaven and the Brittish Proverb saith Drwg y Ceidw Diawl ei wâas The Devil ill brings off his Servant It were to be wish'd and prayed it might please the Almighty to effect it mildly by the Authority and power of a generous and lawful Prince like as Constantine was from hence and not for our neglect raise a Tyrannical Cromwel for the scourge and ruine of their Degenerate Church as he did Ruffinus heretofore for the overthrow of their Degenerate Empire who is a Balaus Cent. 1.42 reported to be a Brittain born and his name greatly proves his Original were he born elsewhere
succeeded the Roman should be Antichrist yet none must be Catholicks and right Christians but they alone How far they may prevail on any of our Great ones with their tale and story I cannot tell yet the generality of the Nation God be praised are not so forsaken by him as to love to be so deluded but are as deaf as Vlysses against such charms what attempts soever have been used to prepare and mollifie them by debauchery for the Imposture and ready to answer these Impostors as did the Neighbour-hood in the fable the beggar at Towns-end with his counterfeit Lame legg Quaere Pergrinum vicinia tota reclamat go to Japan or Hispaniola to set up your Stage and boast your receipts In England mens eyes are open and the mystery too well known yea the Wisest and Stoutest and most Prosperous of our Kings and Princes in former Ages our Renown'd Edwards and Henries and Elizabeth have sufficiently unkennel'd these Foxes and hunted them and their craft and their stink and their fire-brands and their trouble far out of our Church and State But when ever by a Judgement upon a Nation they light upon any that are more tractable and credulous their first attempt will be immediately like that of a Crow setting upon a young Lamb for prey to play first at the eyes to peck them both out to sink and fix Implicit Faith and blind obedience like two hollow pits instead And then the rest of the design shall be finish'd with less disturbance and every blow and Inconvenience never seen till it light and then also Conscience and Honour and Publick Peace and Truth and the Allegiance of the soul to Christ must make no objections after the Judgement is once Idolatrously resign'd yea should they offer to draw back when they see their errour and danger for to err is human to recover is Angelical to persevere is Diabolical How will these false guides grinne and shake their heads if not brew worse things in them at their departure or their return from Forreign cheats to God and their Country and the Truth How will they rip up and wound his name and honour with the Imputations of Inconstancy Weakness Apostacy Perjury and what not as the unclean Spirit tore the man in the Gospel when he was to quit possession for doing no more but what themselves as they are men and Christians ought to do in point of duty and safety upon the Eternal Allegiance of their Souls to Christ and the Truth and count it high honour and glory in great ones to lead It being in reason a greater Arrival and perfection to be wise and holy against the deceitfulness of sin and Satan than to be couragious amidst dangers Scipio and Alexander being more admir'd in Story for their Continence than for their Conquest for their Victories over Beauty than over Enemies If our Romish Pretenders had any the least descent or resemblance in bloud or temper or Spirit with the Ancient Roman Worthyes or any drop of Camillus or Scipioes bloud in their Veines who valued the honour and Sanctity of their false Gods above their lives and Empire could their great and clear Spirits thus descend to pervert the Gospel into matter of Trade and Merchandize or truel and plaister their mean and unworthy ends with the bloud of the Son of God And make his Glorious Resurrection and Ascention a Varnish for their secular usurpations And his chief Apostles and Holy Catholick Church complices and Vouchers of all their Frauds and Tyrannies and Treasons Which is manifestly done when any wrong to men or Churches as the Case was made plain in our Brittish are palliated with their Sacred Names and Authorities as the practice is as plain and common in their Romish Church towards us and all Christendom besides If it be counted miserable Ignominious Harlotry corpore questum facere how much more abominable is it to make the like Trade and sinful gain of the Gospel and Christ and their own Souls as well as those of their Brethren It were far more fair and generous in them and the lesser of the two evils to renounce and deny Christ and his Religion outright than so to profess it and to spit in the face of their Redeemer than thus to kiss him and to abuse without ceasing his most Holy Name and Faith to â—oâ— and deal and cheat and disturb the World as it were a less indignity to a person of honour to be denyed Quarter than preserv'd alive to tread Morâ—eâ— or to gâ—ind in a Mill. Tolerabilior esâ— qâ—â— morâ— jubet quam qui turpiteâ— vivere Can any sort of Christians be more realâ—y Heathens saving such Ambidextrous Protestants who for their present advantage and Interest can promote Popery in their Countrey though they believe it to be a false and a dead Religion and betray their own which they possess and know to be most Orthodox and sound preferring madly a superlative Carnal self before both Religions and their own truth But though those of Rome are far from Old Romans either in Faith or Fame or Bloud yet so are not we in England from the Old Brittains in either of these respects But far ouâ—â—oing both in another good quality of containing our selves within the bounds of our Isle without great and just cause to sally out and not coveting turbulently other mens rights or their Kingdoms or Churches which is true past doubt of the Brittains in Wales and was prov'd before at large as to the English In the great and as it were second Deluge of Christendom for their Gygantick sins by Goths and Vandalls and Normans and Saxons for inundations of Nations in Mystical Scriptures are compar'd to those of Waters Rev. 17.15 wherein most other people were swept away and drown'd and their Languages and names obliterated and Scepters and Churches overturn'd our Brittains alone charg'd through and surviv'd the brunt of all Invasions and swame to Land through all those Billowes alive and safe with their Bibles in their hands and their Creed in their hearts and their own Language in their mouths living to see their Church restor'd to its old liberty and purity their Crown to their own Flesh and Bloud and the divided Island to great Brittain again Before their nunc Dimiâ—â—is and dissolution by Incorporation with the English Nation or rather Re-union with their Loeâ—â—â—a Brethren recovering themselves through Gods wonderful mercies and Resurrections to innocent and long sufferers and his blasts and periods upon Lines of Bloud and violence in 〈◊〉 Princes and Nobles and Generality into Oâ—a 〈…〉 again as was prov'd before diâ—â—câ—ing perhaps in names and Dialect but not in Nature and Humour and Succession to the like generous defence of their Faith and Glory being â—oth observâ—d in their Dispositions for the most part to be alike Fearless and Harmless and Warlike and Liberâ—l and Religious and subject to Indignation and neither the one nor the other our Modern or Middle or most
s insensibly received and admitted into its rest at last and then and there lost forever and found forever in the Bosom of the Immense Ocean so is it most an end with every Christian soul at the beginning and progress and end of his Christian Race who is as sure to reach to his rest and glory in the bosom of God forever as Rivers to reach the Sea which they are reaching every day nearer and nearer as they move towards it in the channel that leads unto it and is the very same Element with it To conclude if all could be perswaded and won to walk up to this short and Catholick Rule which reaches all Nations and Churches and Conditions and Vocations and degrees to discharge all their duties to one another from the heart as unto Christ there would be more truth and veracity in the World not only towards Brethren but towards enemies and strangers who have Christ in mens hearts to hold in their behalf any promise pawn'd and made unto them the violation whereof carries as much of Atheism and contempt of Christ within the heart as dishonesty without towards him it wrongs There would be more meekness and patience towards enemies and persecutors if not for their sakes yet for Christs who commands forgiveness and love to enemies More obedience or submission to all Governours to the best for Christ's sake and their own to the worst for Christ sake however being our necessary duty and their due Almes There would be more love and readiness to help one another by Counsel or Purse or Prayer instead of eating and devouring one another by Craft and Power when it shall be consider'd that every benefit or wrong we do to our Neighbour without we do both in a higher degree and greater edge to Christ himself within our hearts to our Eternal reward or reckoning This would make men true Christians and Loyal Subjects and tender Fathers and Governours and just Masters and right members in their respective Communities and Societies and trusts and Genuine Sons of the Church not only of England our Mother on Earth but of Jerusalem above the Mother of us all in Heaven to the saving of our Souls Infallibly when the whole stock of Mountebank Indulgencies shall faile to effect the Cure This little Commandment well observ'd would be the Harmony of the World set Heaven and Earth in Tune again and God at peace with his Creatures and plant joy and concord and the peace of God which passeth all understanding in every Kingdom in every City in every Family in every Breast And that Angelical Prophetical Anthem at our Saviours Birth would recover its Truth and Power in the World And Glory should be to God on high and on Earth peace and good will towards men FINIS A Particular Table of the Contents PART I. MOral experiments proving the Body to be as nothing in comparison of the Soul pag. 1 2 11. Masters and Princes Symbols of Christ how 4. How the Stature of a Christian reaches from Earth to Heaven p. 5. The Heart is never without its God p. 7. 20. Sincere Heathens and Carnal Christians compar'd and which preferr'd 7. Outside Duties in Religion necessary though nothing when compar'd to the Inside p. 8. None ought to vilifie their own Faith before a fair and open Renuntiation ibid. Sincere and dangerous mistakes arising from the comparative excellency of the Soul above the Body p. 9 Monkery and Non-conformity compar'd p. 9 10. How a thought of the Soul true or false is preferr'd before Estate Health and Life p. 11. Three properties requir'd to Act from the heart p. 12. Of force about Religion p. 13 14. Both good and bad men are for pleasure and the difference and the necessity of Divine Grace to set the will free p. 14 15. The Heart is for God and Christ and none beside why How p. 16. seqq Two reasons why the heart is so and how the Soul is Correlate to God p. 19. seqq An Irrefragable proof of the Deity from wicked mens experience and why it operates not upon some p 20 21. The Scheme and Hypothesis of the Christian Faith out of St. Paul and Creed and Fathers and Baptismal Vow p. 21 22. The right rule to chuse or avoid Communion with Churches p. 23. The Christian Hypothesis the best foundation and support of Societies p 23 24. A description of a true and right member of a Society p. 25. seq Honour is more than Life Conscience more than Honour what more than Conscience p. 27. Of a false member and of self-love how sordid and destructive of it self p. 28. seqq What makes good Men good Subjects good Rulers p. 31. seqq The great Rule of doing as we would be done by fenc'd and exalted by the Text p. 32. seq Blind obedience and implicit Faith in the Church of Rome to Superiours fairly examin'd and found unsound and unworthy p. 32. 33. seq What is Truth p. 37. Which the greater sin Tyranny or Rebellion p. 38 39. Plenitude of Soveraignty and Liberty consistent p. 40. Christs Divinity prov'd against Socinians p. 41 42. SECT I. An Exhortation to adhere to the Church of England against Rome p. 43. seqq The way to be Infallible p. 44. Worship in an unknown Tongue excludes the heart p. 44. seq Men are to be Infallible for themselves first for their Brethren next p. 47. The Controversy consists in the Election of a right or wrong Infallible guide p. 47. This Question stated in the sense of both parties p. 48 49 51. All other Controversies would end if this were decided p. 51. Obedience to the wrong is disobedience to the Right Soveraign ibid. Three Questions propos'd to find out the true p. 52. The heart cannot be without a guide Christ or sin or man of sin p. 53. The Principles of Government with the last p. 54 55 No Law of Christ or Conscience or Countrey must be heeded against his Authority and Interest p. 56 57 The Soul is Gods Temple and the Pope instead of Christ affects to be Soveraigâ— there p. 61 62. Great folly and danger to hearken to a Perkin Warheck p. 63 64. The Principles of Protestants how they prove the uniform Loyalty of the heart to Christ as the right Soveraign p. 63 64. How the Brittish Church knowes the Scriptures to be Gods word p. 64. How our Controversies about things indifferent are decidable by these Principles p 65 66. Christ is the Judge of quick and dead and who are his Depuâ—â—â—â—on Earth 47 67. And nothing to be acted against him by â—â—â—s Authority p. 67. Such as be Hereticks with the Pope but Catholicks with God are in no danger p. 67. SECT II. Rome no Mother Churâ—h to us not Loyal to Christ her Soveraign p. 68 69. Every Church may be consider'd three wayes 1. According to its Inside 2. Outside 3. Or extraction p. 69. Jerusalem above not Rome is the Mother Church to all Christians in respect of their inside
Gods Truth resisting God therein and preferring man before him which is Papistry or making the Pope an Idol And the Papists on the contrary say they obey the Pope as Christs Infallibe Vicar on Earth in his decisions and thereby Christ himself by consequence and enjoy Peace and Union agmonst themselves as the reward of this Submission And that Protestants are guided by a Private spirit which cannot be seen or met under the colour of Christ and Scripture and are led and Imbroyled by it in Eternal Sects and Divisions which is a Fanaticism that cannot be of God And I suppose both sides will easily subscribe this repetition of their Case and main exceptions against each other to be faithful and true and agreeing with their minds Now there are Three Questions to be run over to find out the true wherein we differ The first of Right the second of Opinion the third of Fact The first or Questio juris whether in the General or the Abstract without relation to parties or circumstances whether I say by way of Major Proposition Truth as Gods mind is to be follow'd by the heart and errour to be shunned as contrary to his mind and the nature of our souls is out of question and by both agreed to The second that each side believe and suppose in their minds and perswasions their own Opinion to be Truth and their Adversaries to be an errour is also yeilded to and that the Opinion of the one or the other that is Gods mind too as well as mans mind is not the Private Opinion of man but the absolute Catholick Truth of God to be followed by all hearts which is a rule and measure to end the controversie by the Question therefore between us is of Fact or the Assumption and Minor Proposition What parties Opinion is the mind of God too whose Facts and principles agree with the right rule and guide who do as they should do or to put it in the words of my Text which party doth whatsoever it doth from the heart as unto the Lord and not unto men or who to men and therefore not from the heart unto the Lord or by way of Simile which Dyall most agrees with the Sun it being pre-allowed 1. That the Sun goes right 2. That the Dyall which best agrees with it is truest For the further clearing hereof the heart as I have shewed cannot be alone without its guide and confident to advize it no more than Ivie without an Oak or Wall to bear it or a stone without its weight and Bias towards its Center As of solitary persons it 's said they are either Angels or Beasts because of the objects the soul is sure to entertain though solitary so the heart can never be alone but through heed or heedlesness and want of grace will of necessity chuse a God true or false either Christ or bosom sin or a man of sin to be led by The will and design of the first if chosen for an head and Soveraign will be Gods glory and the souls bliss of the second the desires and satisfactions of the flesh of the third Secular Power and Authority over every thing that is called God 2 Thess 2.4 The Laws of Christ are in holy Scriptures of sin In the carnal fancy of the man of sin in blind obedience and strong delusions The force and Co-ercive Power of the first lyes in life and Death Eternal of the second in carnal joyes and sorrows which in fleshly minds make Jubiles and Earth-quaks equal to Heaven and Hell as to them of the third in false Salvation to his Catholicks and false damnation to his Hereticks as Satan was ever the Ape of the Almighty Christ will not admit of any Soveraign in the heart before or beside himself which is observed to be the reason he could not be received according to the desires of the Senate in the days of Tiberius into the number of their Gods at Rome for all were to be quitted to admit him but bosom sin is more Civil will allow of Religion to co-habit with it but if it offers to contradict or controul it must quit and pack the man of sin will admit both of sin and Christ will indulge and dispense with sin that may advance his Grandeur and by all means admit of Christ for Interest and Lustre to his designs and ambition but if sin or Truth shall offer to clash with or Impede his secular ends and Master Interest the one shall be discontinued the other excluded for expedience and all to give place to the Soveraign who is own'd To let pass the servitude and slavery of the heart to sin Rom. 6.12 Against which as our greatest misery and Captivity we stand upon our Christian Watch and Warfare throughout our whole life I 'le Instance in the slavery of the heart to a man of sin which is like unto the former and is the everlasting breach and difference between Protestancy and Popery and will fully discover and prove the point in Question who obey the right or the wrong Superiour of the heart who Christ and who a man that is contrary unto him The true Christian Church in her Christs Cross and her Baptismall vow doth bind and teach her Children to die to this world and its Pomps and Vanities and to live to Heaven and Christ But the Romish Church or its Rulers which is the same with them insists on nothing more than secular Grandeur and domination in this present world and on nothing less that on Christian Truths when they stand in contrariety to the former The first fundamental Article in the Popes Religion is Romes greatness and his own Supremacy and Perogative over all orders of men guarded with spirituall Lightning and Thunder-bolts as Paradice with a flaming Sword with the motto Noli me Tangere any Article of the Creed or precept of the Dialogue or Institution of Christ himself shall be sooner spar'd or dispensed with or dismissed yea Heaven and Earth shall pass away with them before any one jot of the Rights and acquisitions of the Triple Crown whether rightly or wrongly come by shall be curtailed or diminished in the least All Errours that favour this Interest must be believed to be Orthodox Truths all wickedness that promotes it Meritorious all Truths that oppose it to be Heretical and damnable by those that have surrendred that intire obedience and submission of heart and Judgement to a mortall guide which was due to none but the immortall Lord in my Text For as where sin rules the heart all virtue and sobriety shall be judged folly and Impertinence And miserable debauchery true Liberty and pleasure so where the man of sin gets into the same Throne all Truths that cross him shall be Heresies all errours that please him and advance his Interest shall become Orthodox Truths and Catholick traditions and no truce or accommodation can be settled between the subjects of either till such Antagonist