XXI. CHAP. Christ, a mere imposture, declareth it uncapable of any sacrilege to be committed in the using of it. In the mean time, the clergy (whose interest is no ways concerned in the scandals which the ecclesiastical courts may give, further than as they are hindered by the said courts to cure their scandals by the due use of their own office) do suffer, not only the scandals which are done under colour of their patents, but even the affronts of the ecclesiastical courts themselves, receiving appeals from the censure of their bishops upon the clergy. For, a few examples serving the bishops not to employ that jurisdiction which is so easily affronted, it must be acknowledged, that the debauches of the clergy are come to that height, that, till they be reformed, reformation is not duly pretended against the see of Rome. THE GROUND OF THE PROPER INTEREST OF THE CHURCH. BUT perhaps there be those, that are persuaded by the Leviathan, that a Church is nothing else but a Christian commonwealth; and that the civil power thereof, which is sovereign, hath full right to enjoin whatsoever it please for the Christian religion, exacting what penalties it please of recusants. There be others besides the Leviathan', that have maintained some branches of the same opinion; but he is the only man, that hath looked the whole question in the face with this answer. I will but relate the issue, which his own resolution hath driven him to, and leave him to judgment. For having objected to himself in his Latin book De Cive, that which is obvious to all understandings,— that then a Christian may be justly punished for his Christianity; he answers, that it is no inconvenience that he should; because by suffering he purchases an abundant re- 112 • See the quotations from the Leviathan, above in the Epilogue, Bk. I. Of the Pr. of Chr. Tr., c. ii. § 10, note 1; and other references in Just Weights and Measures, c. iv. § 2, note g. P Scil. Selden, Louis Du Moulin, &c. See Epilogue, Bk. I. Of the Pr. of Chr. Tr., cc. xi., xx. See quotations in Epilogue, ibid., c. ii. § 10, note 1: and Just Weights and Measures, c. iv. § 2, note h. ward. I know not whether any man told him, or whether CHAP. himself took notice, that this was the answer of Julian the XXII. apostate, making himself sport with the complaints of the Christians; that they were beholding to him for the kingdom of heaven, which they gained by suffering his persecutions;-but that it was not for the credit of his doctrine to bring Christian princes into the predicament of Julian the apostate. And therefore, upon second thoughts, his Leviathan answers: that a subject is bound to obey all that his sovereign commands in religion, whether he be Christian or not; insomuch that, if he command him to renounce Christ, he is bound to do it with his mouth, and shall be saved, believing in Him with his heart, nevertheless. This answer shews the necessary issue of this opinion; that he who holds it, if he be as bad as his word, is as necessarily an apostate as Julian the apostate. The hope of salvation, and the right of communion with the Church, lies not only in "the heart," which "believes to righteousness," but in "the mouth," [Rom. which "professeth to salvation." The profession which is x. 10.] 113 made at our baptism, is a condition without which it cannot be had. It is the taking up of Christ's cross, which the [Matt. x. gospel requireth. He, that declares himself free in any case 24; Mark whatsoever to renounce Christ, though he hath not done it, viii. 34, x. hath declared himself free of the bond, which he entered ix. 28, xiv. 27.] into at his baptism; and as he is no more a Christian to God, no more should he be to the Church. If further he sayt (as the propositions, first maintained, and afterwards recanted, by his late disciple at Cambridge", do import), that See ibid. § 3, note j. The passage in the text relating to Scargill was added while the book was being printed: as it does not occur in the MS. ... See above in Just Weights and blasphemous, and atheistical opinions, Measures, c. iv. § 2, note i. professing that I gloried to be a Hobbist and an atheist ;" &c. &c., "and whereas the Vice-Chancellor and heads of the said University, upon notice of these my foul enormities, upon a full examination and clear conviction of these premised offences, after suspension from my degree did expell me out of the said University" &c. &c.The positions expressly renounced are, "particularly, 1. that all right of dominion is founded only in power, 2. that all moral righteousness is founded only in the law of the civil magistrate, 3. that the holy Scriptures are made law only by civil authority, 4. that whatsoever the civil magistrate commands is to be "The Recantation of Daniel Scargill, publicly made before the University of Cambridge in Great St. Mary's, July the 25th, 1669," is in the Somers Tracts, vol. vii. pp. 369-371. of Sir W. Scott's edition. It begins, "Whereas I Daniel Scargill, late bachelor of arts, and Fellow of Corpus Christi College in the University of Cambridge,. have lately vented and publicly asserted in the said University diverse wicked, 38, xvi. 21; Luke CHAP. there is no difference between good and bad before civil XXII. power that is sovereign enact it; then must it be said further, that he is properly an atheist. For if God govern not the world, if He reward not the good, if He punish not the bad, though man do not (pardon me God and all good Christians, if I repeat blasphemy, that it may never more be repeated); then is He not God. Particularly, if civil power can oblige a man to say or swear that which he means not, there remains not that ground for civil society, which the heathen ["Ao themselves (whom nevertheless St. Paul truly calls " atheists") ἐν τῷ κόσμο." Ephes. ii. 12.] maintained. For what ground for civil trust, if there be no 114 obeyed, notwithstanding [it be] con- ism (Bk. i. c. i. pp. 8, 9), viz., that good and evil are so only vóμg, and not pure; and against one Szydlovius (and others), who in a book called Vindiciæ Quæst. Aliquot Difficilium, published at Franeker, had revived Ockham's position, that good and evil are the arbitrary will of God. See above, Plea of Weakness and Tender Consciences &c., sect. v. § 3, note a: and Bramhall there quoted. "It was no part of our meaning to vary from the articles of the catholic faith in any thing, nor to vary from the Church of Christ in any other thing, declared by the Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary to salvation: only to make an ordinance by policies necessary and convenient to repress vice and for good conservation of the realm in peace, unity, and tranquillity, from ravine and spoil, insuing much the ancient customs of this realm in that behalf." 25 Hen. VIII. c. 21. § 19. Act for Exoneration &c. now. XXII. with the rights of the crown, in Church matters, which it CHAP. doth not distinguish; knowing how difficult it is to distinguish between them, as not knowing, that ever the ground upon which they are to be distinguished, was delivered till But there is an Act of the fifth of Queen Elizabeth', 115 by which that abatement in the sense of the supremacy of the crown in Church matters, which had been declared by her Injunctions" from the beginning of her reign, to prevent misconstructions, was made a law of the land. This Act, because it undertaketh not to limit the supremacy by distinguishing the interest of the crown from the interest of the Church (for the difficulty of satisfying all consciences), gives the subject leave to declare the sense in which he takes that oath; reserving to himself that, which religion requires a Christian to reserve for the Church. Which was not the sense of them, that believed no catholic Church, no visible right of it. And by virtue of this declaration it is, that myself have undertaken to declare that limitation, which the catholic Church requireth. For how many prelates and divines of this Church (King James of excellent memory in particular) have done the same? But it is no other, than that which the canons of King James declare; when they describe this supremacy to be "the same, which the godly kings of God's ancient people," which the Roman "emperors of the primitive" times (before that corruption came in, 116 which we protest against), did exercise. Here have you the due bounds of this supremacy settled by law upon the true ground of it. For it is manifest, that it cannot be derived from the rights of the kings of God's ancient people aloned; because there could be no catholic Church before the calling of the Gentiles. But the empire, embracing the faith, when the Church was settled upon that faith and those laws, that are now as visible as the laws of England (from which present titles are derived) can be visible, must needs have that right, from which the right of all present sovereignties must See Just Weights and Measures, c. xix. § 1, note g. z See ibid., note e. b Scil. in his Apol. pro Juram. Fidel., Præmon. &c. See Bramhall, Schism Guarded, sect. i. cc. 3, 4, Works, Pt. i. Disc. iv. a. ii. pp. 392, sq., and the • Canons of 1603, can. 2. See Epilogue, Bk. III. Of the XXII. CHAP. be derived; because the Church (whose interest concurreth with the interest of them all in the same matters) is always one and the same, and ought so to be, from the first to the second coming of Christ. And that answers any difficulty that may be objected, when any law of any Roman emperor, or other Christian prince or state, seems to infringe the canons of the Church. For the protection of the crown being of such advantage as it is, both for the enlarging and maintaining of Christianity; it is enough, that the Church can continue one and the same visible Church by one and 117 the same visible laws: though the force and effect of them be hindered now and then, here and there, by some acts of secular power, which in some regards may advance the Church as much as they hinder it in others. It was necessary for the crown under Henry the Eighth, to vindicate the supremacy from the pretence of the pope's secular power, which had been on foot divers ages afore; and, therefore, not to have to do with him, that pretended to assoil the subjects of princes, whom he should excommunicate, of their allegiance, till they might own him upon terms consistent with the protection they owe their people. And it was still more necessary under Edward the Sixth, when the Reformation was enacted; which they knew well enough that the pope would not endure. But when the right of the crown in Church-matters is declared by law to be the same, which "the kings of God's ancient people" and "the first Christian emperors" did exercise, the ground of that interest and the bounds of that interest, which the Church must challenge if it will continue a Church, are declared to be the same, which the faith and the laws of the whole Church from the be- 118 ginning do allow. : CHAPTER XXIII., OF RESTORING AND REFORMING THE JURISDICTIONS OF THE CROWN AND this makes the reformation of our ecclesiastical laws as easy, as it is visibly the cure of all distempers in religion |