have confiscated Estates where they might have taken away lives But that would have made the meekness which Christianity pretendeth to appear that Hypocrisie of our Sects Who are always humble always for Toleration till they get the Power into their own hands To shut up the Temples of Idols and to forbid Sacrifices was no more then to suppress that Sacriledge which the light and Law of Nature discovereth If any of the Imperial Laws make it death to sacrifice it is to be understood upon presumption that those Sacrifices were Inquiries into the life of the Prince or of their enemies To constrain them to be Christians by Penalties had been to make them counterfeit Christians Besides the Nations that bordered upon the Empire were all Idolaters And Christianity pretended to convert them as well as the Empire If the Emperors had punished their Subjects being Gentiles for being Idolaters must not the Neighbour Nations have persecuted the Christians their Subjects for being Christians The reason of the difference between the Law and the Gospel in this behalf is that which S. Austin giveth why the Law of Moses voids the Marriages of Jews with Gentiles Whereas S. Paul advises those that â—…ned Christians being married to Idolaters to continue in Wedlock with them desiring it S. Austins reason is this That the Law tendring only temporal promises expresly which Gentiles as well as Jews might did injoy in this world thought it too hard a temptation to trust a Jew in Wedlock with a Gentile by whâ—… he might be in danger to be seduced to prosperous Idolatry Whereas Christianity upon the advantage of the world to come assured by the Preaching of our Lord and his Apostles challengeth all other Religions as unable to resist it when it is performed as well as professed So that to suffer Idolaters in conversing with Christians was but the allowing of opportunity for the converting of Idolaters I think I have cause to make this an argument ad hominem that our Sectaries themselves cannot nor do require the Penalty of Idolatry by Moses Law upon Papists They that remember the time when the late Q. Mother of Royal memory came over do know what infusions the Pulpits then made into the minds of the people of the curse of God hanging upon the Nation for His Majesties Marriage The pretense was wholly upon the Law of Moses Which as I have shewed is not to the purpose among Christians But indeed those prognostications were no other then the Prophesies of the Devils Oracles among the Gentiles Foretelling the mischiefs which they intended or desired to do themselves This being a sufficient reason why the same pretense is not now on foot because it cannot be plausible after so dear experience of the mischief it tends to I think I am to take advantage of it in behalf of Truth and Justice That no Party can pretend the Penalty of Moses Law to lye in our Case Supposing not granting the Papists to be Idolaters according to Moses Law And is not the Case the same between the Reformation and the See of Rome At least it is so if the Reformation be that which it pretendeth For then the advantage must needs be so Visible that to allow conversation between the Professions that are at such distance is but to allow the means of bringing all Popish Recusants to Church when the Reformation is that which it pretendeth I grant that it falls out to be otherwise in our experience For they that are converted to the See of Rome at this time are converted by this miscarriage that they venture themselves into dispute with those which they are not able to deal with But the miscarriage is accidental Because of the Divisions within our selves arising from hence that our Reformation owneth not the Bounds which it requireth For by this means the Clergy of this Church is in contempt with their Flock and private Christians venture themselves into dispute with Recusants that is with their Priests without trusting their Pastors or acquainting them with what they do Which if they did do in due time such occasions would be opportunities of reducing Recusants to Church Besides to pursue the Idolatry of the See of Rome supposing not granting that so it is what would it be but to draw the Sword on both sides to try the quarrel of Religion with And therefore Soveraign Powers cannot give God account that they use the Right he gives them over Papists their Subjects pursuing them to the Penalty of Moses Law as Idolaters There is another reason for the same that appears now and then in the disputes of them that maintain the Religion of the See of Rome to be Idolaters For they have many times found themselves obliged to grant that their Idolatry is another kind of Idolatry then that which is prohibited and punished with death by the Law of Moses And if so it must be another kind of Penalty that belongs to it Now I suppose S. Paul says true that Covetousness is Idolatry and that there be those that make their Belly their God And whosoever understands the difference between the Old and the New Testament will allow that S. Hierom understood it Who in his Commentaries upon the Prophets makes all that they the Prophets say against the Idolatry of the ten Tribes to belong to the Heresies and Schisms of Christians and all Hereticks and Schismaticks to be Idolaters in the mystical sense of the Old Testament under the New Which is no more then our Lord says of the Samaritans That they worshipped they knew not what At such time when it was well enough known that the Samaritans were no Idolaters worshipping the only true God of Israel For certainly though all Superstition be not Idolatry yet all Idolatry is Superstition Because the chief of Superstitions is Idolatry All Superstitions stand upon the same ground as Idolatry and aim at the same mark Man is sensible by that Conscience which the light of Nature creates that one true God is to be worshipped And that as himself shall require not as his Creature is willing to allow And being therefore sensible that Concupiscence allows him not that Service which Conscience requires they are willing to pay him in Coin of their own stamping Usurping the Prerogative of his Soveraignty even in that whereby they pretend to pay their Allegiance Is there any other sourse of Idolatry but this For is it not reasonable to think that men can satisfie themselves and put off the Gods they have made themselves with that which the jealous God the true God will not be served with And therefore Religion teaches that Idolatry is the Worship of the Devil Not only because he teaches it But because he holds the Opinion of a God by corresponding with Idolaters in their Idolatries And what is all Superstition but redeeming the Service of God in Spirit and Truth by the service of our Bodies or Estates which may be done when the inward
Christendom have something else to do then to imploy the forces of their Dominions to that purpose And that if it prove for the Interest of some of them at some times it will prove not to be for the Interest of others at the same or other times Of which Interest as they are indeed and in Conscience to give account to God and not to the See of Rome so that they will ever make the See of Rome the Judge of them what appearance can there be So it is time of the day for them to hearken to Reason whether they regard God and Religion or Interest and themselves But is not our Case the same Or are not we transported as far with the conceit that they are limbs of Antichrist and Idolaters as they are with the conceit that we are Hereticks and Schismaticks Have we not as long expected when the Kings would joyn to strip the Whore of Babylon naked as they when they would joyn to reduce the Hereticks by force And is it not yet time of the day for us whatsoever opinion those that imploy their time in searching the meaning of a Prophesie may have at least to make it no Principle of our Profession nor to maintain Separation upon the Account of it Knowing that were the Pope twenty times Antichrist and the Papists Idolaters he can never be Antichrist nor they Idolaters for any thing that the consent of the Catholick Church either alloweth or injoyneth So that whatever become of any Prophesie in Gods Word and the sense of it the bounds of Reformation will be the very same And he will be no less an Heretick or a Schismatick that makes the Pope Antichrist or the Papists Idolaters for doing or believing any thing which the Church from the beginning hath injoyned or allowed to be believed or to be done then if he pretended no Prophesie to prove it If ever any people had cause to reflect upon the sad consequences of this conceit we are they that shall find no probable reason to impute the mischiefs of the late Vsurpation to but the hope of fulfilling this sense of this Prophesie It is a vain thing to think that a man who believed no God could Act a counterfeited Religion throughout as we have seen the Usurper do He that could hope to be saved either without Faith or without good Works by having Christ alive at the Heart why should not he think that all the foul way he went through was the Service of God having intended to strip the Whore of Babylon by his means Neither Manichaeus nor Mahomet nor any Enthusiast can be barred of the like aim with this if once he make his private Spirit parallel to the Scripture For that which the same Authority last dictates as in Wills and Testaments must take place I say not that this is the Case of those that interpret this Prophesie of the See of Rome I believe they follow their Reason in expounding Scripture by Scripture But if their Reason be not the Reason of Religion the Reason of that Christianity which we all have Interest in the private Spirit that follows it may take all for Gods Service though never so wicked that is done in prosecution of it In the mean time Division increasing among us as it does I think I gratifie our selves and not the See of Rome in proposing that truth which reconciles the Interest of Reformation to the Interest of Vnity in the Church For in Civil War as Schism is nothing but a Civil War in the Church that Party that divides is the likely to Ruine And though the first hopes of the See of Rome have proved addle yet if our Divisions prevail they must needs have fresh hopes to prevail by our Divisions CHAP. VIII That it is the Duty of this Kingdom and of all Christian Soveraignties ANd therefore I must freely profess my opinion without any manner of hope that ever the See of Rome will abate any thing of their rigour Though the Reformation should content themselves with these terms For I find by the proceeding of former times that it is their Maxime to stand to that which they have once done And to mark those Popes to posterity that have abated any thing from the rigour of their Predecessors For being arrived at this Greatness by this Rigour and obstinacy in all Pretenses right or wrong they will always think themselves obliged in Reason of State not to yield so much as the Cup in the Eucharist Though the Council of Trent leave it in the Popes Power to grant it Because granting that any thing is and hath been amiss who shall secure them that nothing more shall be questioned then is indeed amiss when we see no point in Religion remain unquestioned some time or some where Not considering all the While that this Rigor is the cause of Division and Division the cause of these Questions And that the Reason of Reformation being owned on both sides there is a Ground restored for Confidence that they who accept of it will stand to those Bounds which it setleth But if the See of Rome can have no Power against the Whole Church Much less can any other Church or any part of the Church or any Secular Power that protecteth it make that to be Reformation which the Whole Church alloweth not Or secure their Subjects Consciences of the Salvation they seek in exercising their Christianity according to their Laws but by confining the Reformation which they maintain within those Bounds which the Faith and the Laws of the Whole Church either require or allow Now how can the Interest of the Nation be secured without due ground for hope of Gods blessing upon that which shall be done How can there be ground to expect Gods blessing till it appear how all Subjects of this Kingdom shall stand discharged at the day of Judgment following that form which the Kingdom inacteth rather then that which the See of Rome requireth For there are other Christian Princes and Soveraignties that command their Subjects to obey the See of Rome whose Subjects must as well stand discharged to God upon the same Plea as the Subjects of Reformed Princes and States And how shall the Consciences of them that make Laws be secured if they cannot secure the Consciences of them for whom they are made Or how can Gods blessing be expected if this security cannot be evidenced It is not yet time to ask how those that allow not the Reformation upon these Terms should be punished Because there are that pretend that no punishment can be inflicted for disobeying any Law of the Kingdom by which Religion is setled But it is time to say that they make it a very ridiculous thing for the Legislative Power to make Laws for the Kingdom which they can inact by no Penalty And how shall this difficulty be voided but by demanding nothing but that which Christianity will require of all Christians That no Christian Kingdom
they can challenge by their Orders what pretense is there to imagine that there can be any such Crime as Schism if this be not it That God should bless that which is done by such gross Vsurpation as this is And when all this is said it remains free for me to say That there is no other way to restore and to preserve Vnity within the Reformation but by establishing and maintaining Episcopacy in that Authority which it hath always had for the determining of differences Nor maintain that Authority but by confining it within the Bounds which the Faith and the Laws of the whole Church do limit As for the Fanaticks which make our Orders void because the Pope is Antichrist and the Mass Idolatry whence our Bishops received and where they exercised their Orders I will only consider the Case of the Donatists forejudged by the whole Church They pleaded in point of fact that Caecilianus was Ordained by Apostates A thing which the Church was so clear in that the African Bishops offered to give up their Sees if it were proved But besides in point of Right had it been proved and Caecilianus owned by the Church because it did not appear or because they thought the Canons ought to be dispensed with for Unities sake those that Ordained Caecilianus having repented of their Apostacy shall we imagine that the Church was lost by owning those that had been Apostates and their Ordinations The Donatists are branded for Hereticks and Schismaticks maintaining all the Laws of the Church but that of Unity And shall Lay-Christians presuming to authorize Lay-Christians to consecrate the Eucharist and set up Churches be esteemed less then Hereticks and Schismaticks Let those that pretend to Unity find that Forbearance which a favourable construction of their actions signifies But Charity to the sound obligeth to take the profession of Schismaticks in the worst sense which if we do the making of Independent Congregations Churches will be the denying of One Catholick Church and the making of them Hereticks that do it CHAP. XVI That changing the Laws for the Weak is not Forbearance BUt if it be a thing absurd in common sense to allow them their Orders much more absurd will it be to change the Ecclesiastical Laws of the Land for their sakes Which is nothing else but to purchase their Ministry at the price of our Religion which the Ecclesiastical Laws contain Here we must distinguish two questions For it may be lawful for Christian people to live by those Laws which it was not lawful for Superiors in Church and State to make A thing evident to all that believe that it was possible for our Ancestors before the Reformation to be saved under the abuses of the Church of Rome But our question is whether or no the Laws of Superiors injoyn that which Gods Law forbids Inferiors to do Otherwise it is pernicious to all Government that Inferiors should take upon them to judge the Acts of Superiors But if the matter of the Law be within the Power that makes it to require an Exception for tender Consciences is to say that there is no Power in the World to give any Law to those tender Consciences Was there ever any Heresie any Schism any Religion pretending Christianity that did not alledge Scripture for themselves Did ever any man alledge it that would not be thought to be touched at the heart with it What is there for a Christian to doubt at where the Exception of tender Consciences lyes not Or how shall we that agree against the See of Rome but agree not in the terms and grounds of Reformation be tryed in the sense of the Scripture Can any man imagine that S. Paul intended to destroy his own Authority of giving Law to the Church which he exercised when he ordered the Jews and Gentiles at Rome to forbear one another Or is this Authority dead with the Apostles What Church then can there be alive if there be no Authority deriyed from the Apostles to give Law to it But the Authority is not questioned so it provide for weak Consciences Episcopacy will be owned if the Secular Power will force it to take them for their Presbyters whose Ministry they cannot give account to God of Being both authorized and exercised by Laws made without and against their Authority This no Christianity can justifie Christianity maintains the Estates of the World in all the Right they had when they became Christians And cannot justifie it self to the World otherwise How should the World receive it upon other terms But if the World stand upon the same terms having received Christianity as afore then must Christianity and the Church continue in the same Rights which it had before the World received it No exception to be allowed but as afore If it appear that the Faith and Laws of the Primitive Church be decayed Not if it seem to private Spirits that the Scripture is not fulfilled In the mean time is it for the honour of the Religion we profess that Weakness which at the best is negative ignorance in truth perhaps wilful ignorance should give Law to it Is it reason that they who have failed to destroy both Church and Kingdom should give Law to both As if a Child should govern the House because he will be framfold and disquieted otherwise Surely it is that which the Emperor said to his Niece Put as tibi injuriam fieri nisi imperas But is that the way to have Peace in Religion When Inferiors shall be made to tread upon the necks of their Superiors they will be so modest for the future as to stay there They will be content to have their Doctrine regulated by them as the Law of the Kingdom requires Or they will think fit that the Bishops be content with their Revenues and leave them to Preach what they please Surely they that can carry the dispute of a hundred years wherein the Bishops had so visibly the better that Club-law was found requisite to get the advantage will not lay down the Cudgels here So they that agree in conforming to the Laws differing every day in that which the Law determines not the Recusants on both sides may make hay in the heat of our Contentions and profit more by such a Law then by the War which destroyed this Church But especially the Atheists who have profited so well under these Contentions as to make that visible which was but foreseen under the Usurper That no Religion would in time stand to be the Religion of the Kingdom They having the Priviledge of the Laws and not liable to any Infamy when the differences maintained make Religion contemptible shall have cause to thank all that shall have done their work by solliciting such Laws CHAP. XVII Of the Opinion of Regeneration by Baptism ONe point I must not pass over in silence which hath been named for a point to be changed That all passages seeming to determine the Opinion of Baptismal
man is not subject to God Such are the Invocations of Saints the Worshipping of their Reliques and Images the Pilgrimages and Indulgences commended or commanded by the See of Rome And such they may be owned to be by him that dare not undertake them to be that Idolatry that was punishable with death by the Law of Moses And being such it will be punishable in all who for an undue respect to the See of Rome will not have their fellow-subjects freed from superstitious customs Nor obey the Laws of their Country that give them this freedom But if this be the due Reason for which it is punishable the same Reason will render them punishable who think they serve God by running into Conventicles in despite of the Laws of God and their Country For what is that but a pretense of paying the debt of Religion which Christianity makes due to God by worshipping an Idol of their own setting up That is as I said afore by worshipping God according to an Imagination of their own erecting and not according to that which the common Christianity requires And thus I am come to the Conclusion which I intended without disputing whether or no the Papists by their Religion do exercise that Idolatry which is punishable by death in Moses Law For if capital Penalty lye not in our Case If it be agreed upon that they are punishable upon the same Ground for which the other sort of Recusants are punishable then is the way clear before me to proceed to declare what Penalties both sorts of Recusants are to be or may be punished with Supposing our Reformation confined within those Bounds which the Faith and the Laws of the Catholick Church either determine or allow CHAP. XXVIII All that take Arms against the Soveraign to Reform Religion may be liable to Capital Punishment BUt if the Papists cannot be liable to capital punishment as Idolaters neither can they be liable to it as limbs of Antichrist The name of Antichrist is a challenge of Soveraign Power Because the name of Christ is so Signifying a Prince and a Prophet raised and setled by Gods immediate Word which is the Soveraign Title For Antichrist can signifie nothing but a counterfeit Christ One that pretends to be Christ and is not Our Lord Christ being the Messias which the Fathers and Prophets from the beginning expected But the Soveraignty of Christ is declared by himself to be a meer Spiritual Soveraignty which all the Jews even the Apostles before our Lords death expected to be a temporal Kingdom And therefore whososoever it is that groundeth Soveraignty upon Christianity though he be not Antichrist for that yet is he the enemy of all Christian States for it And so are the Subjects of all Christian States that think themselves free of their Allegiance to Princes or States Excommunicated by the Pope And upon this account I deny not that Papists may become liable to capital punishment or to banishment with confiscation Which seems to be of the two the greater punishment But this neither common to all Papists nor proper to Papists alone For that this is not the Faith of all Papists I need no more then the distance between the Secular Priests and the Jesuits here to prove And that it is not proper to Papists alone I need no more then the Scottish Covenant and the troubles of the three Kingdoms upon it to prove And therefore it is a thing absolutely necessary to make those Penalties just which the Laws inflict upon the Papists that they distinguish between the Cause of Religion common to all and the Cause of them that make it a point of Religion to violate their Allegiance to a Soveraign deposed by the Pope Nay it will be necessary in point of Justice to impose the same Penalties upon all of all Religions that may think themselves discharged of their Allegiance upon any account of Religion whatsoever It is manifest that they who take Arms against their Soveraign to reform Religion do ground themselves upon the Title of Religion and think themselves tyed by their Christianity to do it As they who take Arms against their Prince deposed by the Pope think themselves tyed in Christianity to execute his Sentence Those whom the people follow in reforming Religion against the will of their Soveraign Those they make as much Judges in reforming Religion as the other do the Pope And all that refuse to secure their Soveraign by Oath that they will neither lead nor follow any man in reforming Religion without his Authority deserve to be out of the protection of that Sword which he weareth not in vain They fall into the Case of the Jews expecting the Messias For when they imagine that he is come they will think themselves dispensed with by their Religion for any Bond of Allegiance But Christian Princes and States are not wont so far as I know to think themselves secured by the Oath of Jews Let this be a difference which they make between Jews and Christians to take the Oath of their Christian Subjects for security of their Allegiance Because true Christianity obliges all good Christians to bear Allegiance to their Soveraigns not to be dispensed with upon any account of Christianity Notwithstanding we see that there are those that count themselves the best Christians that do think themselves dispensed with in their Allegiance upon divers and several accounts of their Christianity But let this Kingdom having had tryal of contrary pretenses think it self bound to declare the same Penalties against the same Crimes And able to impose the utmost Penalties upon all that shall refuse to secure their Soveraign by Oath of their Allegiance And since the allowance which the Law makes in understanding the Oath of Supremacy evidences that it may be understood in a sense offensive in point of Religion let it be thought time to antiquate the old and to inact a new form that may tye all Subjects as Subjects without pretense of offending any Religion by condemning all Religions that make difficulty to undertake it for irreligious CHAP. XXIX What Penalties the Protection of Religion requires NOw I am to say how far Christian Powers are to punish Hereticks and Schismaticks For it is too late for me to say that they may punish their Conventicles having declared the reason why they may do it And being now only to draw the consequence of that reason how far they are to do or may do it Here I must first marvel at our Independents some of whom have disputed in very good earnest that it is not lawful for Civil Powers to impose Penalties upon Religion Whereas the World knows that there never was any such Religion in the World as that of Independents before the planting of New England And that since those that framed Independent Congregations there upon a Covenant whereby they renounce One Catholick Church and One Baptism for Remission of Sins have not only banished Antinomians and put Quakers to