these Five Limitations of Enjoined Ceremonies: First, that they be not against the Word of God *: Secondly, that Justification, or remission of sins, be not attributed to them: Thirdly, that the Church be not troubled with their multitude: Fourthly, that they be not decreed as necessary, and not to be changed: and, Lastly, that men be not so tied to them, but that, by occasion, they may be omitted, so it be without offence and contempt.

You see our limits. But your fear is in this last, contrary to his. He stands upon offence in omitting; you, in using as if it were a just offence, to displease a beholder; no offence, to displease and violate authority. What law could ever be made to offend none? Wise Cato might have taught you this, in Livy †, that no law can be commodious to all. Those lips, which preserve knowledge, must impart so much of it to their hearers, as to prevent their offence. Neither must lawgivers, ever foresee what constructions will be of their laws, but what ought to be. Those things, which your Consistory imposes, may you keep them if you list? Is not the willing neglect of your own Parlour-Decrees punished with Excommunication?

And now, what is all this to infallibility? The Sacred Synod determines these indifferent rites, for decency and comeliness to be used of those whom it concerns; therefore, it arrogates to itself infallibility: a conclusion, fit for a Separatist.

You stumble at the title of Sacred. Every straw lies in your way. Your Calepine could have taught you, that houses, castles, religious businesses, old age itself, have this style given them; and Virgil, vittásque resolvit sacrati capitis. No epithet is more ordinary to Councils and Synods. The reason whereof may be fetched from that inscription of the Elibertine Synod: of those nineteen Bishops is said, "When the Holy and Religious Bishops were set ‡." How few Councils have not had this title! To omit the late; "The Holy Synod of Carthage §," under Anastasius; "The Holy and Peacea ble Synod at Antioch ;" "The Holy Synod of God, and Apostolical ¶," at Rome, under Julius; "The Holy and Great Synod at Nice **;" and, not to be endless, "The Holy Synod of Laodicea tt," though but provincial. What do these idle exceptions argue, but want of greater?

*Aug. Epist. 86. In his enim rebus, de quibus nihil certi statuil Scriptura Divina, mos populi Dei vel instituta majorum pro lege tenenda sunt.

† Livius. Decad. 4. 1. iv. Nulla lex satis commoda omnibus est: id modò quæritur, si majori parti et in summâ prodest.

Cùm consedissent sancti et religiosi Episcopi. Bin. Tom. 1. p. 239.

§ Sancta Synod. Carthagi. 4. sub Anastasio. 553.

Sancta et Pacifica Synod. Antiochen. 1. p. 420.

¶ Sancti Dei et Apostolica Synodus. 413.

** Pervenit ad Sanctum Synodum. Can. Nic. 18. 309. tt Sancta Synod. Laodicena. 288.

SECT. 32.

Sins sold in our Courts.

Sep.-"Dispensations with the Laws of God and Sins of Men. To let pass your Ecclesiastical Consistories, wherein sins and absolutions from them are as venial and saleable as at Rome; is it not a law of the Eternal God, that the Ministers of the Gospel, the Bishops or Elders, should be apt and able to teach? 1 Tim. iii. 2. Titus i. 9. And is it not their grievous sin, to be unapt hereunto? Is. lvi. 10, 11. And yet, who knoweth not, that the Patrons amongst you present, that the Bishops institute, the Archdeacons induct, the Churches receive, and the Laws both Civil and Ecclesiastical allow and justify, Ministers unapt and unable to teach ?"

SOME great men, when they have done ill, outface their shame with enacting laws to make their sins lawful. While you thus charge our practice, you bewray your own: who, having separated from God's Church, devise slanders to colour your sin. We must be shameful, that you may be innocent. You load our Ecclesiastical Consistories with a shameless reproach. Far be it from us, to justify any man's personal sins: yet it is safer sinning to the better part. Fie on these odious comparisons. Sins as saleable as at Rome? Who knows not that, to be the Mart of all the World ? Perjuries, murders, treasons are there bought and sold: when ever in ours? The Pope's coffers can easily confute you alone. What tell you us of these? Let me tell you, money is as fit an advocate in a Consistory, as favour or malice. These, some of yours have complained of, as bitterly as you of ours *: as if we liked the abuses in Courts as if corrupt executions of wholesome laws must be imputed to the Church, whose wrongs they are. No less heinous, nor more true, is that, which followeth. True Elders, not yours, should be, indeed, didantinoí. This we call for as vehemently, not so tumultuously, as yourselves.

Sep.-"Insufficiency and Non-Residency of Ministers. Is it not a law of the Eternal God, that the Elders should feed the flock, over which they are set; labouring amongst them in the Word and Doctrine? Acts xx. 28. 1 Pet. v. 1, 2. And is it not sin to omit this duty?"

THAT they should feed their flocks with Word and Doctrine, we require more than you. That Patrons present, Bishops institute, Archdeacons induct some, which are unable, we grant and bewail: but, that our Church-Laws justify them, we deny, and you slander:

* G. Johns. Troubles and Excommunications at Amsterdam.

for our law, if you know not, requires *, that every one to be admitted to the Ministry should understand the Articles of Religion, not only as they are compendiously set down in the Creed, but as they are at large in our Book of Articles; neither understand them only, but be able to prove them sufficiently out of the Scripture; and that, not in English only, but in Latin also. This competency would prove him, for knowledge, Sidantinóv. If this be not performed, blame the persons, clear the law. Profound Master Hooker tells you t, that both arguments from Light of Nature, Laws and Statutes of Scripture, the Canons that are taken out of ancient Synods, the Decrees and Constitutions of sincerest times, the sentences of all Antiquity, and, in a word, every man's full consent and conscience, is against ignorance in them that have charge and cure of souls. And, in the same book ‡, "Did any thing more aggravate the crime of Jeroboam's apostacy, than that he chose to have his Clergy the scum and refuse of his whole land? Let no man spare to tell it them, they are not faithful towards God, that burden wilfully his Church with such swarms of unworthy creatures." Neither is it long, since a zealous and learned Sermon §, dedicated to our present Lord Archbishop by his own Chaplain, hath no less taxed this abuse, whether of insufficiency or negligence, though with more discretion, than can be expected from your malicious pen. Learn, henceforth, not to diffuse crimes to the innocent.

Sep.-"Dispensations for Pluralities. Plead not for Baal. Your Dispensations for Non-Residency and Pluralities of Benefices, as for two, three, or more; yea, tot quot, as many as a man will have or can get; are so many Dispensations with the Laws of God and sins of men. These things are too impious, to be defended; and too manifest, to be denied."

FOR the rest: your Baal in our Dispensations for Pluralities would thus plead for himself. First, he would bid you learn of your Doctor to distinguish of sins. "Sins," saith he , "are either controvertible or manifest: if controvertible or doubtful, men ought to bear one with another's different judgment; if they do not, &c. they sin." Such is this. If some be resolved, others doubt; and, in whole volumes, plead, whether convenience or necessity ¶. How could your charity compare these with sins evicted? Secondly, he would tell you, that these Dispensations are intended and directed, not against the offence of God, but the danger of human laws: not securing from sin, but from loss.

But, for both these points of Non-Residence and Sufficiency, if

* Can. 34.

†M. Hooker's Fifth Book of Ecclesiastical Polity.

§ D. Downame, of the Office and Dignity of the Ministry.

+ P. 263.
Counterp. p. 179.

Dist, 34. Can. Lector. Papa potest contra Apostolum dispensare. & Caus. 25. q. 1. Can. Sunt quidam. Dispensat. in Evangelio, &c. De Concess. Præbend. Tit. 8. Can. Proposuit. Secundum plenitudinem potestatis, de jure possumus supra jus dispensare. et Glossa paulò infrà: Papa contra Apostolum dispensat, &c.

you sought not rather strife than satisfaction, his Majesty's Speech, in the Conference at Hampton Court*, might have stayed the course of your quarrellous pen. No reasonable mind, but would rest in that gracious and royal determination.

Lastly, why look you not to your own Elders, at home? Even your handful hath not avoided this crime of Non-Residency +. What wonder is it, if our world of men have not escaped?

SECT. 33.

Our Loyalty to Princes cleared: theirs questioned.

Sep.-"Disposition of Kingdoms, and Deposition of Princes. You are wiser, and I hope honester, than thus to attempt; though that received maxim amongst you "No Ceremony, no Bishop; no Bishop, no King;" savours too strongly of that weed. But, what though you be loyal to earthly kings and their crowns and kingdoms, yet if you be traitors and rebels against the King of his Church, Jesus Christ, and the Sceptre of his Kingdom; not suffering him, by his laws and officers, to reign over you; but, instead of them, do stoop to Antichrist in his Offices and Ordinances; shall your loyalty towards men excuse your treasons against the Lord? Though you now cry never so loud, We have no king but Cæsar; John xix. 15: yet is there another King, one Jesus, which shall return and pass a heavy doom upon the rebellious; Luke xix. 27. These enemies, which would not have me reign over them, bring them and slay them before me."

own.

You, that confess our wisdom and honesty, must now plead for your Your hope is not more of us, than our fear of you. To depose kings and dispose kingdoms, is a proud work . You want power; but what is your will?

For Excommunication, it is clear enough: while you fully hold, that every private man hath as much power in this censure, as the Pastor; and that priuces must be equally subject, with them, to these their censures. Let any man now devise, if the Brownists could have a king, how that king could stand one day unexcommunicated?

Or, if this censure meddle only with his soul, not with his sceptre §, how more than credible is it, that some of your assemblies, in Queen Elizabeth's days, concluded, that she was not, even in our sense, Supreme Head of the Church, neither had authority to make laws ecclesiastical in the Church || ?

It is well, if you will disclaim it. But you know your received

*Sum. Confer. p. 52.

+ M. White's Discourse.

§ Ibid.

Bar, against Gyfford. Inconst, of Brow. p. 113.
Enquiry into Tho. White.

position; That no one Church is superior to other. No authority, therefore, can reverse this decree: your will may do it.

Yea, what better than rebellion appears in your next clause; while you accuse our loyalty to an earthly king, as treasonable to the King of the Church, Christ Jesus? If our loyalty be a sin, where is yours? If we be traitors in our obedience, what do you make of him that commands it? Whether you would have us each man to play the rex, and erect a new government; or whether you accuse us as rebels to Christ, in obeying the old; God bless King James from such subjects *.

But whose is that, so unsavoury weed; "No Bishop, no King?" Know you whom you accuse? let me shew you your adversary. It is King James himself, in his Hampton Conference. Is there not now suspicion in the word? Surely, you had cause to fear, that the king would prove no good subject: belike, not to Christ.

What do you else, in the next, but proclaim his opposition to the King of Kings? or ours, in not opposing his? As if we might say, with the Israelites, O Lord our God, other lords, besides thee, have ruled us; Is. xxvi. 13.

If we would admit each of your Elders to be so many Kings in the Church, we should stoop under Christ's ordinances. Shew us your commission; and let it appear, whether we be enemies, or you usurpers. Alas, you both refuse the rule of his true deputy, and set up false. Let this fearful doom of Christ light, where it is most due: Even so let thine enemies perish, O Lord.

SECT. 34.

Errors of Free-will, &c. feigned upon the Church of England. Sep.-" Parting stakes with God in Conversion. Not to speak of the error of Universal Grace, and, consequently, of Free-Will, that groweth on apace amongst you, what do you else, but put in for a part with God in conversion; though not through freedom of will, yet in a devised Ministry, the means of conversion? it being the Lord's peculiar, as well to appoint the outward Ministry of conversion, as to give the inward grace."

Go on to slander. Even that, which you say you will not speak, you do speak, with much spite and no truth.

What hath our Church to do, with errors of Universal Grace or Free-Will: errors, which her Articles do flatly oppose? What shamelessness is this! Is she guilty, even of that, which she condemns? If some few private judgments shall conceive or bring forth an error, shall the whole Church do penance? Would God, that wicked and heretical Anabaptism did not more grow upon you, than those errors upon us! You had more need to defend, than accuse.

* Page 36.