Heathens Infidels and all that would come even purposely to pollute and scorn the holy Mysteries 1 Cor. 10. 16. 2 Cor. 6. 14. Acts 2. 47 c. 16. It is necessary therefore that some men be the Judges who are fit and who shall be admitted Else there can be no difference Of this see my Treatise of Confirmation 17. Every man is not to be the sole publick Judge for himself For then there would be still no difference nor the Mysteries kept from common scorns 18. The Magistrate is not made the first and proper Judge For then he must make a Calling of it and attend upon this very thing to try the baptized and the admitted which is no small work For he that judgeth must first try the Case and that with the diligence which the weight of it requireth Acts 8. 37. 19. The People are not to be the ordinary Judges for else they must all leave their Callings to attend baptizings and such works as thâ—se and must do that which most of them are unfit to do And Christ hath put all out of doubt by putting the Keys into the Pastors hands and commanding their study and attending to this work and calling them the Rulers Guides Pastors Fathers Stewards Overseers c. and commanding the people to obey them with submission and telling not the people or Magistrates but the Pastors of the great and dreadful account that they must give Heb. 13. 17. Matth. 24. 45 46 47. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. 1 Tim. 4. 15 16. 20. He that will lay this work upon people or Magistrates is their cruel enemy and brings on them a most heavy burden and consequently makes it their duty to prepare and study for it and to avoid all other business that hindereth it and would lay them under the terrors of a most tremendous reckoning unto God 21. Seeing it is a trust that must be committed to some or other common reason tells us that it is better in their hands that Christ hath put it in by Office and who spend their lives in preparation for it than in theirs that neither have the preparations nor the Office 1 Cor. 9. 16. 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 22. It is the great end of Christs coming into the world to destroy the works of the Devil and to purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works and to save his people from their sins and to vindicate the Holiness of God And the world is so apt to judge of Christs doctrine by his followers that the Holiness and Concord of Christians is one of Christs great appointed means for his own and his Fathers glory in the world That as Gods greatness shineth forth in the frame of nature so might his Holiness in the Church And the Enemies of Holiness and condemned by their Creed when they profess to believe the Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints And Rome it self doth own the name and pretence of Holiness 23. Travellers well know that the great hinderance of the Conversion of Infidels and Heathens Turks Persians Indians Tartarians c. is the wicked lives of the professed Christians that are next them when they see that Christians are more false and cruel and drunken and beastly and divided c. than themselves 24. Those therefore that would have the Church lye common without Christs Discipline to all the most prophane and wicked that will come in and have communion with it are indeed Antichristian even open enemies to the Church to holiness and to the saving of the Infidel and Heathen world 1 Cor. 5. 6 11 12 13. 1 Pet. 2. 9. Tit. 2. 14. 25. The Devil hath fought in all Ages as subtilly and diligently against the holy Discipline of Christ as against the Christian Doctrine 26. True Discipline doth so wonderfully displease the guilty and lose mens love and especially the Richer sort and all mens carnal interest and nature inclineth them so much to man-pleasing and flattery that Ministers have abundance more need to be driven to the exercise of Discipline than restrained from it except it be the corrupt and carnal Discipline which the Popish and tyrannizing Clergy do exercise where the Magistrate himself upholdeth them in Grandure and lendeth them his Sword Let Discipline be but such as Christ appointed and stand of it self and then it is but few that will have any more cause to be restrained from it than from too much preaching Though still I yield that there must be limits for the wilful and the indiscrâ—et 1 Cor. 5. 3 John 9. 27. The true Discipline of Christ hath been acknowledged to be his Ordinance in all the Churches almost in the world since the Apostles dayes till now save that as you open it since Constantines time it hath been much corrupted by the mixture of the secular force and the Emperours lending his Church-power to the Bishops and Councils 28. Government hath two parts Antecedent to mens facts which is Legislation and Consequent which is Judgement and Execution Christ is the only Lawgiver of Universal Laws to the universal Church and the Author of his own Doctrine and the substantials of his Worship But yet there are many undetermined circumstances which may and must be antecedently determined some by each Pastor some by a consent of Pastors and some by Magistrates if they please I will name you twenty lately named elsewhere 1. What day besides the Lords day and what hour the Church shall meet 2. How long the Prayers Reading and Sermons shall be 3. When and how often publick Fasts and Thanksgivings be 4. What place the Church shall meet in 5. Of the Form Ornaments Seats c. of the Temples 6. The place and form of the Pulpit 7. The subject of the present Sermon and the Chapter to be read 8. The Method of the Sermon 9. The Words of Sermons and Prayers 10. Of using or not using Books and Sermon Notes for memory 11. What Translation of Scripture to use 12. And what Version and Meeter of the Psalms 13. And what Tune to sing in 14. What form of Catechism to use 15. Of decent Habits especially in publick Worship 16. By what professing sign to testifie our consent to the Churches Confession of faith Whether by speaking or lifting up the hand or standing up 17. Of decent Gestures in the acts of publick Worship 18. Of Font Table Cups Cloathes and other Utensils 19. Making new Officers for these actions circa sacra as Door-keepers Clarks Churchwardens c. 20. Judging when any private man shall speak in the Church and when he shall be silent and such other Orders necessary to peace and Edification 1 Cor. 14. 28 29. 33. 26 40. 29. Most of these should be left to every Pastors judgement some may be determined by the Magistrate but yet some are fittest for the Concordant determination of Consociated Churches in a Synod or by consent But none of them
Renowned applauded Doctors teach that the Pope may excommunicate Kings and that an excommunicated King is no King and he that killeth him killeth not a King When the Roman Council under Greg. 7. decreeth that the Pope may depose Emperours And the same Greg. 7. li. 4. Ep. 7. conspireth in the like Doctrine The Oration of Card. Peron is well known If so great a Kingdom as France that glorieth of its Church-liberties can bear so much what will not those bear that are less able to deliver themselves The words of this Great and pretendedly Moderate Cardinal in a Moderate Kingdom in a publick Writing against a Protestant Learned King King James pag. 453. as cited by A. Bishop Usher of Babylon pag. 163. is fit to be written on the Doors of all Princes and of the Pope himself in Capital Letters viz. By this Article that Kings may not be deposed by the Pope We are cast headlong into a manifest Heresie as binding us to confess that for many Ages past the Catholick Church hath been banished out of the whole world For if the Champions of the Doctrine contrary to this Article do hold an impious and detestable opinion contrary to Gods Word then doubtless the Pope for so many hundred years expired hath not been the Head of the Church but a HERETICK and the ANTICHRIST What would you have more to satisfie Kings than their own profession that Either the Pope may depose Kings or 〈◊〉 he is not the Head of the Church but an Heretick and Antichâ—iâ—t and hath been so for many hundred years Can you shâ—w their Interest plainlier than all this And lest any say that this is but the Doctrine of the Jesuits remember that Perron was another kind of man and the famous Perverter of King Henry the fourth And I will cite here the words of one more of a multitude even one that wrote so long ago as to be numbred with the Fathers in Biblioth Patr. To. 4 p. 913. and a Roman Cardinal Bertrard Card. Epis. Eduens de Orig. usu Jurisd Qu. 4. Respondeo dico quod Potestas Spiritualis debet dominari omni humanae Creaturae per rationes Hostiensis Item quia Jesus Christus silius Dei dum fuit in hoc mundo etiam ab aeternâ— naturalis dominus fuit de jure naturali in Imperatores quoseunque alios depositionis sententias ferre potuisset damnationis quaseunque alias Utpote in personas quas creaverat donis naturalibus gratuito donaverat etiam conservabat Et eadem ratione etiam ejus Vicarius potest Nam non videtur discretus Dominus fuisse ut cum reverentia ejus loquar nisi unicum post se talem Vicarium reliquisset qui haec omnia posset Fuit autem iste Vicarius ejus Petrus apud Mattheum Et idem dicendum est de successoribus Petri cum eadem absurditas sequeretur si post mortem Petri humanam naturam a se creatam sine regimine unius personae reliquisset I will English it lest the unlearned believe not what Fathers what a Biblioth Patrum what Cardinals and what Doctrines the Roman Clergy obtrude upon the Christian world I answer and say that the spiritual Power ought to have domination over every humane creature by Hostiensis reasons Also because Jesus Christ the Son of God while he was in this world and also from Eternity was the Natural Lord and by Natural Right could pass the sentence of Deposition and of Damnation and any other upon Emperours and upon any others as being persons that he had created and endowed with Natural Gifts and freely and also preserved And by the same reason his Vicar can do it For the Lord seemeth not to have been discreet that I may speak with reverence to him unless he had left behind him one such Vicar who could do all these things And in Matthew this his Vicar was Peter And the same must be said of the successors of Peter seeing the same absurdity would follow if after the death of Peter he had left humane nature created by himself without the Regiment of One person Do you think this is not plain dealing enough if men are willing to understand I know that there were Emperours and Princes that strugled hard before they suffered themselves to be thus subjected And these Emperours had Lawyers Statesmen and Divines that took their parts as all the Treatises in Goldastus his three Volumes de Monarch and his Imp. Constit. shew But still those that sided with the Pope spake contrary as the argumentations of those Books besides the Authors whom they oppose do shew And alas Occham and Marsilius Patavinus and Widdrington and Barclay came all too late For all that Secular Power which was cloaked with the name of Ecclesiastical and Spiritual was before so deeply rooted in the Papacy that they durst plead for no more than that Princes are not subject to the Pope in Temporals But as you truly note abundance of Temporals and of the Magistrates proper work about things Ecclesiastical was still vailed under the name of Spiritual And at last even the Temporal Power again claimed more subtilly and indirectly as in ordine ad spiritualia But you 'l say that All men are naturally so regardful of their own Interest and especially Princes that it is not possible they should be so servile tame and self-abasing as to give away so great a part of their Kingdoms to a Forreigner yea to one that claimeth all by himself or by his most famous Writers and by his Councils claimeth a power to depose them They that with their own Nobles and other Subjects are so jealous of their Prerogatives would never so far depose themselves if they did but know what they do And therefore when Popish Princes understand the matter they will shake off the yoke and reâ—ssume their right Answ. It 's true that Protestant Princes and States have done so And the true meaning of our Oath of Supremacy is the same with your main design And though some have stumbled at those words that the King is Supream Governour in all Causes Ecclesiastical the meaning is only as hath been oft publickly declared that he is the Supream Civil or Coactive Governour by the Sword in all Causes Ecclesiastical so far as they fall under that Coactive or Coercive Government And hereby the King doth but reassume the Royal Power over the Clergy and the affairs of Religion which the Pope had usurped under the name of Ecclesiastical For it s well known what was called Ecclesiastical Power in England in the times of Popery so that this much of the Vail is removed long ago among all Protestants And if you peruse but Bishop Bilsons excellent Tract of Christian Subjection and Bishop Andrews his Tortura Torti to pass by all others you will see that this Case is better opened than I for my part am able to open
of Christ in those Countreys where Popery and Church-tyranny prevail hath long been by the Magistrates annexing their executions to the sentence of the Church as it is called and becoming the meer Executioners of the judgement of other men No Magistrate should be debased so as to be made the Churches Executioner If the Magistrate will punish a man it must not be meerly quatenus excommunicate that is as punished already but for the fault for which he was excommunicate And if so then he must try and judge him for that fault at his own barr and not punish him unheard because the Church hath sentenced him And if Rulers would more leave the Church to the exercise of its proper power and let excommunication do what it can of it self unless the nature of the crime require a distinct Secular judgement and punishment it would do much to heal all the divisions and perturbations in the Christian world For which course I have these Reasons following to urge 1. It is a great contempt and reproach to Christs institution of discipline to tell the world that it is a powerless uneffectual thing of it self unless the Secular Sword do enforce it Such Pastors vilifie their own power also which is so useless 2. It is a corrupting of Christs discipline and destroying the use of it For it cannot be known now what the Keyes do of themselves when the Sword goeth with them No man knoweth when Repentance professed is credibly real and moved by divine Motives and when it is dissembled for avoiding of the Secular punishment 3. It must leave the Pastors conscience unsatisfied in his administrations and bind him to abuse Christ when he must say to men If you had but rather say that you repent than lye in a Gaol I absolve you and give you the Sacraments and pronounce you pardoned by Christ. Who can administer on these terms 4. It is a dangerous deluding of the sinners soul that seemeth intimated by this way 5. It is a wilful corrupting and confounding of the Church when men shall be forced to be its members though they be Infidels Heathens or most impious if they had but rather say they are Christians than lye in Gaol And by this means it is that no man can know who are really of the Church of Rome or of any tyrannical Church but only who had rather say they are of the Church than be undone which any Infidel and Atheist will soon do Therefore let not Rome boast of the number of her members which are unknown 6. It is a changing of Christs terms of Covenant Christianity Communion and Absolution when Christ saith He that from his heart believeth and repenteth and forsaketh the flesh and the world for me shall be my Disciple and be pardoned and he that credibly professeth thus much shall be taken into the Church which are truly Christs terms now cometh the Church-tyrant and saith He that will say that he believeth and repenteth rather than he will forsake the flesh and the world and will choose the Church before a Gaol shall be pardoned and have communion with the Church or at least have the seals of pardon to delude him 7. By this means the Church is mostly constituted in such Countreys of the grossest wicked hypocrites And it is made a scorn to Infidels and Heathens and their conversion hindered thereby when they see that Christians are worse than they 8. And by this means these hypocrites ruine the Church it self as an enemies Souldiers in an Army And nominal Christians and Pastors that are heartily enemies to Christ do him more wrong and cause more divisions and ruines in the Church than they could have done if they had staid without 9. It destroyeth most of the hopes or the success of those Pastors as to the converting and saving of mens souls Because when the Magistrate is made but their executioner the people take all their sufferings as from them And they will bear that from a Magistrate which they will not bear from a Minister whose Office is to Rule them by Reason and by Love And so such Pastors are usually feared and hated by the people whereby they are disabled to do them that saving good which can be done on none against his will 1 Cor. 8. 13. 9. 22. 1 Tim. 4. 16. 10. And hereby a Church-tyranny is set and kept up in the world by which persecutions and divisions have been maintained for many hundred years and the Ministers of Christ have been forbidden to preach his Gospel to the unspeakable injury of souls and the lives of many hundred thousands have been a Sacrifice to the Pride and Avarice and Cruelty of the Clergy to the great dishonour of the Christian Name 11. And hereby Princes have had a power set over them to the diminution of their proper power and part of their dominion subjugated to others under the false name of Ecclesiastical Authority yea and their own standing made troublesome and unsafe and multitudes dethroned and Wars raised against them by the Clergies pretended power or instigation of which all the Wars between the â—erman Emperours and the Papalines are full proof recorded in all the Histories collected by Freherus Ruberus and Pistorius in Sabbellicus Nauclerus and multitudes of other Historians and our English Histories by Ingulphus Matthew Paris Hoveden c. And the Italian by Guicciardine and many others Nay what Countrey is there where the Papal and Tyrannical Clergy have not overtopt or troubled the State 12. And when all this is done they would deceive the Princes themselves into a Consent and so into the guilt of their own disturbance and their peoples misery And cast all the odium upon them and say we do but deliver you into the hands of the Secular Power it is they that do the execution on you when yet a General Council the Rule of their Religion Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 2 3. deposeth such Temporal Lords that will not do such execution 65. He that desireth the Communion of the Church doth take it for a grievous punishment to be cast out of it And he that doth not desire it is unfit for it Therefore he that cannot feel the penalty of an Excommunication alone but only of a Mulct or Prison may be fit enough for further punishment but is unfit for the Communion of the Church 66. Yet is the Magistrate the Protector of the Church a Keeper of her Peace and Priviledges and of both Tables and must use his power to promote Religion 67. To which end he may prudently by moderate means constrain some that neglect their own salvation to hear Gods Word and confer with such as can instruct them and use those means which God hath made universally necessary to bring the ignorant to knowledge and may restrain them from actual open sin and from scorn and opposition of the means that should convert them and from hindering others from the means of salvation and from
it And it is seldom heard of for all the industry and subtilty of Rome that any Prince or State doth Voluntarily turn Papist that is once delivered from the Yoke and that ever again parteth with his power when he hath recovered it But yet that even this Argument from Notorious Interest doth not recover the Liberty of Countreys subject to the Pope you will the less wonder if you consider these three things 1. That the Papal Interest hath got such rooting in their Subjects minds that it is not in their power to reassume their right The Clergy are so numerous subtile ubiquitary and potent and the people so commonly deceived and so tenacious of ancient Customs that to make this Change might cast all into a flame And they think it better to lose part than all And no doubt but the examples of Henry the third and Henry the fourth of France maked some think that if they displease the Pope and his Consederates they have not sufficient security for their lives 2. And Princes stand usually on such terms of danger or jealousie from one another that they are fain to keep such a Peace at home lest they expose themselves to a greater mischief from abroad And they are broken by the Papal subtilty especially in Germany and Italy into such Fractions and petty Principalities that few of them are strong enough to defend themselves against the Confederates of the Pope when potent Emperours heretofore could not do it And many of them especially the House of Austria do take this Copartnership of the Pope to be a great part of their strength And as anciently many Emperours were forced to choose their Caesars and Copartners when the defence of the Empire was too hard for themselves alone so divers Princes are glad to make use of the Papal interest and power for their own security though upon terms that else would never be submitted to And in some Countreys the Rebellious disposition of the Subjects driveth them to accept of this dear remedy and they choose rather to strengthen themselves by a Copartner than to stoop to the wills of their inferiours For here you must take notice that the pretence of a Jus divinum and of Spirituality and the Interest of Christ and of the safety of their souls doth make this kind of servitude much less dishonourable than it is to be overtopt by a neighbour Prince or to be curbed by their subjects For what dishonour is it for a man to be subject to his Maker and Redeemer Nay what greater honour can there be And the Roman Clergy have used themselves to Canonize those Princes that have been most zealous for their Grandure and to raise the fame and praises of such as have raised that which they call the Church that the very ambition of the Clergies Praises doth do much to tempt some to a tame acceptance of a Copartner who pretendeth to be the Vicar of Christ When this servitude goeth for sanctity and carrieth not with it the reproach of other sorts of servitude 3. And it greatly furthereth their success that the Popes Agents are commonly bred up in Learning and so are made able to over-wit the Laity And that it is their great design to gratifie the Lusts of Princes by indulging their voluptuous sensual lives that so they may spend their dayes in such things as will never advance their understandings to an ability to discern the cheats of their Copartners And they detestably cherish the Ignorance of the Common Laity that they may be the fitter to be led and mastered by them even as men keep women from Learning and great attainments lest they should be the more uncapable of subjection And thus as Satan leadeth men to Hell so the Papal Usurper bringeth the Laity into their power by their own consent by such pleasing baits as make their servitude easie to them And it is not your telling them of their interest that will prevail against all these temptations They that will lose Heaven and their salvation by such cheats may lose half of their earthly Dominions by them as long as the other half sufficeth to satisfie their concupiscence and to maintain their honour and pleasure in the world The Roman Usurpation consisteth of two parts 1. The Usurpation of such a Pastoral Power as they have no right to 2. The Usurpation of a great part of the Magistrates power sometime directly and sometimes indirectly in ordine ad spiritualia and constantly by the cheat of the false name of Church power put upon the Magistrates part of Church Government as if it were the Clergies part I. The Usurpation of a Pastoral power which belongeth not to them is the chief part of their Iniquity And it consisteth in these among other particulars 1. In the impious and arrogant claim of an Universal Pastorship over all the world The Roman Prelate must be the Teacher of all the world the High Priest of all the world and the Spiritual Ruler of all the world which because he cannot do by himself he must do by others as far as he can to uphold his usurpation He must be the Law-giver and the Judge of all the world even at the Antipodes and where he hath no acquaintance nor access 2. By this he undertaketh to be a Bishop in other mens Diocesses and to rule in all matters where he hath no more power than any Pastor hath in another Pastoral Charge 3. And by this he undertaketh to be the Spiritual Father and Governour of all the Kings and Rulers of the Christian world and so to have the power of excommunicating them when he thinketh there is cause and to brand them as uncapable of Christian communion with their own Subjects or with any other Christians 4. By this he usurpeth authority of imposing what Pastors he please even such as will carry on his interest upon all the Churches in the world and depriving both Princes and people of their just liberty of choice 5. By this also he usurpeth the power of deposing what Bishops or Pastors he please and depriving the people of their necessary helps and faithfullest Teachers Yea of putting whole Nations under Interdicts of serving and honouring God in Church-assemblies commanding all Pastors to shut up the Church doors and forbidding them to perfom their office and to preach Christs Gospel or administer his holy Sacraments 6. By this he sendeth forth his Missionaries and setteth up Societies of Jesuits and Fryers to do his work and commandeth all Princes and people to receive and countenance them 7. By this he layeth claim to a right of maintenance for Himself and his Missionaries in all parts of the world in the name of Christ who hath said that the labourer is worthy of his hire 8. By this he granteth Dispensations Pardons Indulgences commandeth praying to Saints and Angels and praying for the Dead as being in Purgatory and by this he setteth up his whole new frame of self-devised Worship