Independency Examined and Refuted

Independency examined, unmasked, refuted, by Twelve new particular Interrogatories.

C Ourteous Reader, it being expected by some, that I should (upon second thoughts) render) a more particular account of my disapprobation of the Independent Platforme, then I have lately done in my Twelve considerable serious Questions touching Churchgovernment, wherein I propounded my Reasons against the same, but in a general manner: I shall for thy further satisfaction, and our Churches peace (most necessary and desirable in these dangerous times) propose by way of Interrogation, my more particular Exceptions, against this New form of government, with all ingenuity and freedom, without reflection upon any particular persons, or just disgust (unless truth displease) to those who are contrary-minded: My only aim being to convince, reconcile, not irritate or disaffect them. The reason why I thus write by way of Question, not Descision, is, because (for ought I find) the Independents have not yet dogmatically, in direct terms▪ discovered to the world the full truth of what they assert, but politikely conceal the principal grounds, and more deformed parts of their Church-platform, till a further opportunity, for fear their very discovery at the first should cause their new building to miscarry. Whereupon I have rather chosen to pump out their determinations by the ensuing Questions to avoid mistakes then to refute them upon ba • e conjectures; following the Apostles seasonable advise, 1 Thes. 5. 21. Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.

1. Whether the Independent former of Church-government, now so much contended for as the only Church-government of divine institution, which all (say they) are bound to submit unto, be anywhere to be found in the Old or New Testament? What Texts or Presidents (if so essential and necessary as it pretended) do either directly prescribe or delineate it unto us? Under what dark cloud or veil hath it lain totally obscured, for hundreds yea thousands of years that it never appeared in any Church Nation, Republic in the world from Adams days till ours? And whether it be yet so clearly revealed to those who pretend best knowledge of it, as to be positively resolved on amongst them what it is, or what the benefits or mischiefs of it may prove to be? If not, I shall conclude of this New-government, as our Savior doth in his parabolical speech concerning New-wine, No man having drunk old Wine streightway desireth new for he saith, THE OLD IS BETTER: Old Presbytery, old unlordly Episcopacy, are (no doubt) far better for us then New Independency.

2. Whether some Independents do not extraordinarily eclipse, impeach, if not absolutely deny and subvert the lawful power of Civil Magistrates, all former Parliaments▪ and the present too, in all matters of Church-government and Potlesiasticall affairs, contrary to their solemn Covenant and Protestations, • o defend the ancient Privileges & authority of Parliament, and even quite blow • p all their ecclesiastic authority (by a new kind of Gun-powder) at one breath: yea lay most foul, scandalous, uncharitable censures upon the honorable Members of this Parliament, who deserve far better language from them▪ Witness this most observable dangerous passage, lately dropped from their pens, in A Reply of two of the brethren to A. S. (newly printed) pag. 81, 82.

yea of the vilest and most unworthy of men. Brethren, bona verba quaeso: Is this your printed, public, avowed language of Parliaments and the Members of it, even to the very face of the most religious, best-deserving Parliament that ever sat, which hath been most indulgent to you hitherto? Is this your so much boasted preaching, writing, fighting for the privileges and rights of Parliaments, which ever since the first planting of Religion among us to this present, have framed and fashioned the government of our Churches in all ages, as I can demonstratively manifest by good Antiquities? Certainly this language of yours (with sundry other like passages in this your much-applauded Reply) cause intelligent men to suspect, that the design of some of your party is, to hug embrace the Parliament, in show, just as the Yvie doth the Tree, thereby to advance yourselves (the only absolute Ecclesiastical Dictators, law-givers) and your independent Churches by degrees above the Parliament, and then to over-top, suppress its power in the end; or else to ruin it & us for the present, by endeavoring to raise schisms among us, both in Parliament, City, Country, and our Armies, because they now discern the major part of both Houses and the Synod inclined against your Independent novelties. If this be the accursed project of any of you, (for I dare not harbor so ill a thought of the greatest part) the Lord will both discover and avenge it to their infamy, in due season: In the mean time, to answer the substance of this most derogatory scandalous passage against Parliaments; I sadly refer it to all rational men's judgments in the world, Whether a Parliament of the most eminent, religious, learned, grave, zealous wisest Peers and Commons of this Realm (the representative body and grand Council of the Kingdom) assisted with the advice judgment of an Assembly of the most orthodox pious conscientious▪ learned Ministers in our Church, specially selected for this purpose, & of the chiefest of your Independent party▪ be not more fit to form, & fashion the government of the Churches of Christ, and better able to resolve, 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 determine upon long and serious debate, what Church-government is most agreeable to the Word of God, and fittest for every particular Parish-church throughout this Island, for the advancement of God's glory, the people's salvation, the general peace and tranquility of Church and State then any one or two Independent Ministers, with five or six of their illiterate, impolitick, and perchance inconsiderate Members (to use no harsher epithet) assembled in a private Conventicle, can do in two or three hours space? And whether it be meeter that these should prescribe a church-government, discipline to themselves the Parliament, Synod, and whole Kingdom to boot; or the Parliament and Assembly to them, who deem themselves wiser, holier in their own vain conceits, then a thousand Parliaments, Synods put together? I doubt not they will all confess, that in their Congregational debates about any point of order, discipline government or doctrine, in any of their Independent Churches, the major voice or party ought to over-rule and bind the less; And if so, let them yield me a solid reason, when they are able, why the Ecclesiastical constitutions, Resolutions, Orders, Edicts of the greatest part of an whole National Parliament, Synod, Kingdom, should not much more bind both them and all their Independent Churches as well as others, as they have ever hitherto done? And why a combined Presbytery, of many, learned Ministers, Lawyers, Gentlemen of best judgment, quality, should not be fitter to decide all Church-controversies and affairs of moment within their prefixed limits, by general Laws and Canons settled in Parliament by common consent, then any Independent or popular Tribunal of lesser judgment and experience, by their own arbitrary private edicts? Else they must deny what the holy Ghost informs us, That two are better then one; that in the multitude of Counselors there is safety: or that the pious Kings in the Old Testament, or a National Council, or Parliament of their Princes, Nobles, Elders, Captains, and people of best quality, had any lawful power to reform or settle all weighty Ecclesiastical Church-affairs; as they ever did by God's own command and approbation.

3. Whether it be not the Independents professed Tenet, if truly and positively laid down, that every Minister hath a divine right and liberty, to gather to himself an Independent Church, not of Pagans, Infidels converted by himself alone, but of all the eminentest Christians formerly converted, and regenerated by the Ministry of others (especially if rich or potent persons, able to give them large contributions and support) who shall voluntarily submit themselves to his Ministry, and such a Church-government as he shall dictate to them: though by our established laws and customs, (which our solemn Vow and Covenant obligeth us to maintain) they be Parishioners to twenty other godly Ministers, by whose Ministry they were first regenerated and built up in grace? That every Christian hath a free liberty, by the Law of God, to unite himself to what Independent Congregation he pleaseth; the husband to one Congregation, the wife to another, the children to a third, the servants to a fourth; nay, every distinct person in a family to a several Church, (and that not only without, but against the consents of their own Magistrates, Ministers, Husbands, Parents, Masters, who have no jurisdiction (as some say) over their consciences herein; so as one great family shall be divided into members of twenty or thirty several Independent Churches, if they please, and those perchance different one from another in their government, opinions, discipline, ceremonies? That those whose consciences or judgments will not permit them to join with their Independent Churches, (which they profess to be canonical (though guided by no canons) and of divine assertion, denying all other Church-government to be so) must be wholly excluded (as Heathens and Reprobates) from being members of any Church; or rather (by the self-same Christian liberty as Independents plead for) they may unite themselves into Presbyterial or Hierarchical Churches, or what other form they please to elect: and so we shall have an Independent Church-government in one part of a Family, Parish, Town, County, Kingdom; a Presbyterial in another; an Episcopal in a third: and by this means if the husband be a great stickler for Episcopacy, and member of a Prelatical Church; the wise a fierce zealot for Independency, and a member of such a congregation; the children or servants stout champions for Presbytery, and members of such assemblies, what confusion distraction, implacable contestations, schisms, tumults this Licentiousness (for I cannot style it Freedom of conscience) would soon inevitably engender in all Families, Villages, Cities, Counties, Kingdoms, to their utter ruin and desolation, the meanest capacity may with ease divine; without the help of an Oracle. However, it would unavoidably subvert all ancient bounds of Parishes, all settled maintenance for the Ministry by tithes or otherwise and put all Ministers into the condition of Friars mendicants, to live (as Independents do) upon the Alms or voluntary contributions of their several congregations, to whose humors, errors, opinions, they must either readily conform, or else starve for want of subsistence, in case of their displeasure, being subject to casheering upon every small dislike.

4. Whether Independents must not necessarily grant from their own principles, that as every Minister hath free liberty to congregate what Church he pleaseth, of men suitable to his own opinions, practice; so also particular persons have a like liberty to unite themselves together into a Church, to elect what Minister they think best, and prescribe to themselves what government they shall conceive to be most suitable to the Scriptures? And if so, then every man will heap to himself Teachers, and erect Churches after his own lusts: mere Papists▪ and Popishly affected persons, will set up Popish Churches and Priests; Arminians, Arminian Churches and Preachers; Anabaptists, Anabaptistical Ministers and Assemblies; Arians, Anti-Trinitarians, such conventicles and Pastors; Libertines, a licentious Church and Ministry; yea, every Heretic, Sectary, or guidy-pated Enthusiast, upon pretext of new Revelations and discoveries of concealed Evangelical truths, (though when exactly scanned they may oft times prove old errors or mere diabolical delusions) will erect new Independent Churches of their own (and that for succession and perpetuity to the perverting of infinite souls), uncontrollable, unsuppressible by any Ecclesiastical or Civil authority: And thus in few months, or years space at least, through Satan's instigations, our own depraved judgments, (a verse to unity, piety, purity, but prone to Error, Heresy, Schisms, lies yea lying phantasies) and through defect of a severe coercive power, in Ecclesiastical Synods-Parliaments, temporal Magistrates, (who as some new Independent Lights inform us, have no coercive power to suppress these springing heresies, but only by a non-communion with or refuting them by the word to which they will obstinately refuse to hearken, as deeming their own opinions most divine:) we shall have almost as many several heresies, sects, Churches, as there are families, persons; (Quot homines tot sententiae, tot Ecclesiae:) Yea, if they thus admit every Minister, or secular person, to have a divine right, freedom, to set up such an independent Church and government as he pleaseth; then by the self-same reason, they must have a like liberty to elect erect, what civil form of government they please; to set up a new Independent Republic, Corporation Kingdom, Magistracy, in every family, parish, city, county, and to cast off all former civil Governors, Governments, Laws at pleasure, as well as Ecclesiastical; there being the self-same grounds both of obligation, obedience to, and exemption from the one as other. And if men by their Christian liberty shall thus be wholly exempted at their pleasure, as well from all temporal as ecclesiastical Laws and forms of government, (as grant me but the one, they must of necessity yield the other; the same Texts, Reasons obliging us equally in both, and Kings, Parliaments having the self-same jurisdiction in and over all ecclesiastical matters, which are not positively of divine institution and injunction, as in and over temporal) what an Anarchy and Ataxy this will suddenly introduce, to turn all Kingdoms, Republics, Nations, Corporations, Churches, Families, and the World itself, quite upside down, and ruin them by schisms; I tremble to imagine.

5. Whether the Minister alone, or the Congregation without the Minister, or both conjoined, have power in their Independent Churches to make and prescribe particular forms of Church-covenants, orders, conditions, to all who are or shall be admitted members of their new erected congregations? If the Minister alone, without the people, (which I suppose they grant, because he is the principal actor in gathering their new Churches to himself, and the sole person who must first admit them to be members of his Flock, upon his own conditions:) I would then demand; whether every Independent Minister arrogates not as much or more power to himself, in making, prescribing laws and covenants to his congregation by his own inherent authority, without consent of King, Parliament, Synod, or People, as the Pope himself usurpeth, and far more power, authority, then Independents either do or dare ascribe to Christian Princes, Magistrates, Councils, or the Parliament? to all and every of which they absolutely deny any power of making or prescribing ecclesiastical laws, covenants, canons, to bind them, or their independent Churches or any members of them; yea any sufficient coercive power to restrain or punish Heretics, Schismatics, or Broachers of heterodox novel opinions, to disturb the Churches or Republics tranquility. If the people alone without the Minister, or both conjoined, then you invest every Independent Conventicle, consisting of never so few inconsiderable ignorant members, with a greater legislative power, and ecclesiastical authority, then you allow to whole National Parliaments, Councils, consisting of most eminent, learned, pious persons of all sorts; who by your New doctrine have no jurisdiction at all to make or enjoin any form of church-government, covenant, ecclesiastical laws or canons, to any particular churches: as if the eminentest Ministers and members of churches, by becoming members of Parliaments or Councils, did thereby forfeit and lose the right or exercise of that power, in those great representative bodies of the whole Kingdom and church of England, which you readily allow both them and others in every private church or Conventicle: A most strange and senseless whimsie.

6. Whether it be lawful or justifiable by the Word of God, for any Independent Minister of England, contrary to the Laws of the Realm and Inhibitions of Parliament, of his own bare authority to congregate and erect an independent congregation; or to prescribe a particular form of church-government, together with a church-covenant (in nature of a solemn Oath) to which every particular member of his new congregation must subscribe before admission into his Church? Whether there be any the least precept, president in Scripture, or Antiquity to warrant such an irregular usurped authority and power among Christians; which the very Apostles themselves never claimed? Whether all the particular churches in any Nation, Kingdom, city, Republic professing the same orthodox Faith, though divided (for more conveniency) into several congregations, be not all members of, and constitute but one entire National church, or common Christian Society, as they did at first, before thus multiplied, augmented? (even as all the particular houses, parishes, societies in London are members of and make but one city and corporation; all the families, parishes, towns, counties in England, but one Kingdom or Republic; and as all particular and National churches in the world, make up but one entire catholic militant church:) whence both in Scripture phrase, and common speech in all Authors. Languages whatsoever, they are commonly called by the name of One Church, in the singular number; as, the Church of England, France, Scotland, Ireland; the Eastern, Western, Greek, Latin Church; the Church of the Jews, Gentiles, &c. And if so, then let our Independents show me, if they can, the least color of Scripture or reason, why the Parliament and Assembly (chosen to assist them by public consent) representing our whole church, State, may not as lawfully set up and prescribe a new church-government, discipline, laws and canons, agreeable to and not discrepant from God's Word, to bind all particular churches and persons within our Realm, as well as pull down and demolish the old, or make temporal laws and ordinances to bind all persons, societies, members of the Realm, (and Independents too as well as others) both to obedience and punishment; or else forever disclaim their new-minted government, their declamations, arguments against the power of national Synods Parliaments in Ecclesiastical matters and church-government, as most ridiculous and absurd.

7. Whether the members of every Independent Church, may at their own free liberty, when ever they please, desert their own particular Church, and become members of other Independent or Presbyterial Congregations, without the license or dispensation of their own Church or Minister first obtained? If yea, then why oblige they them to the contrary by particular Church-covenants; or refuse to admit any members of one Independent Church into another, without such consent or license first obtained; or at least repute it a grand injury in that Church or Minister who admits them? (especially if they be wealthy members, for some say poor ones, and persons of meaner condition, are not much regarded by Independents, no more then poor or contemptible offices.) If nay, then by what law or conscience do, or can they congregate their Independent Churches out of twenty or thirty several parishes and congregations, not only without any authority of the State, or license of the Ministers or whole Churches in those Parishes; but even against their express wills and desires; yet think they do God good service; these Ministers, Parishes, no injustice by it, though it be directly contrary to their own Principles, and these common dictates of God and Nature; Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri ne feceris: and, All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them, for this is the Law and the Prophets?

8. Whether Independents peremptory refusal, to admit any to be member, of their Churches, to receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or to have their children baptized among them, unless they will first subscribe to such particular Church-covenants; Orders as they shall prescribe; and their rigid Excommunication, rejection of such members who have taken their Covenants, in case they subscribe not to all their further dictates and opinions, without any re-admission, till they shall promise an universal conformity in opinion and practice to whatever is required by their Independent Minister or congregations; be not an usurpation of as great yea greater coercive power over the consciences, persons of Christians, as Presbyterians, Parliaments claim, or as the Bishops themselves in the height of their pride and tyranny (as Bishops) ever challenged or usurped? Notwithstanding Christian liberty of conscience, in opinions, practice, (which they pretend to leave arbitrary to every man's free election) be the principal pillar to support, the sweetest inescating bait to entice men to embrace their Independency? If they say, they imprison enforce no man's person or conscience, but leave all persons, consciences free: I answer, that the excluding men from their church-assemblies, sacraments, Christian communion, yea their very innocent infants from baptism itself in their independent Churches, unless they will conform to their arbitrary Church-covenants, dictates, prescriptions (warranted by no Scripture or divine examples) is a far greater grievance, violence, coertion to the persons, conscience of Christians, then all imprisonment, Racks and corporal tortures in the world: yea an unjust exclusion of them from that undoubted right to the ordinances and Church of Christ wherewith God himself hath invested them.

9. Whether Independents refusal to admit such Christians, who are not notoriously scandalous in their lives, nor grossly ignorant in the Principles of Religion, to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, when they earnestly desire to receive it, or profess a cordial present remorse of all their former sinful courses, with an unfeigned resolution to live a pious holy life for the future, only upon this suspicion or apprehension, that they are but carnal men, not truly regenerated or sanctified by God's Spirit, (though they cannot certainly judge of their present spiritual conditions, infallibly known to God alone) be not a very uncharitable, arrogant, yea unchristian practice, contrary to our Savior's own immediate example, who at the first institution of this Sacrament admitted Judas to his last Supper as well as his fellow-disciples, though he certainly knew him to be both a Traitor and Devil; opposite to the injunction of Paul himself, who though he dissuades unworthy Receivers from eating and drinking the Lord's Supper without due preparation and examination, for fear of eating and drinking damnation or judgment to, and drawing down temporal diseases on themselves; yet he simply excludes none from receiving it, at their own perils, who are willing, or desirous to participate of it, nor gives any authority to Ministers absolutely to seclude them from it, unless excommunicated and notoriously scandalous. And whether their present denial to administer the Sacrament in their churches to those who are truly religious, earnestly longing even frequently to receive it for their spiritual comfort, according to Christ's own institution, only for fear lest some unregenerate persons should communicate with them, and depriving their whole congregations of this most comfortable necessary ordinance for sundry months, nay years, (as some have done) upon this groundless, unwarrantable reason • , refuted by Christ's own example, who administered the Sacrament to the other Disciples though there were a Judas amongst them; by the practice, doctrine of Paul himself 1 Cor. 11. 17. to 34. and the usage of all Christian churches throughout the Universe, be not an over-rigid, uncharitable, unjust (that I say not impious) action, injurious to Christ himself, to the souls and spiritual estates of those good Christians secluded from the Sacrament, and a more transcendent strain of tyrannical usurpation over the souls, the consciences of Christians, and ordinances of God himself, than ever our most domineering Lordly Prelates exercised, or any Presbyterians have hitherto pretended to lay claim unto? If this proceed not from a domineering spirit, and be not an excessive Lording of it over the Lord's inheritance, yea over Christ himself in this his ordinance, I profess I am much mistaken: Yea, I fear this spiritual pride and excessive uncharitableness of some, who take upon them by their own inherent power to erect new Congregations, and set up new forms of church-government, Discipline, &c. in Christian States, Churches, already planted, without, yea against their Parliaments, or Christian Magistrates authority, when as the very Apostles did never by their own ordinary jurisdiction, as private Ministers, but only by their extraordinary calling, as Apostles; or in and by their Canonical Epistles, dictated by God's Spirit prescribe any matters of church-government, Discipline, Rites, or order to the particular Churches first gathered and planted by themselves alone, as is evident by Acts 7, 1. to 8. c. 14. 22, 23. Tit. 1. 5. 1 Cor. c. 7. & 11. & 12. & 14. c. 16. 1. 2. Jam. 2. 2. 3. c. 5. 13. 14. 15. 16. except in and by a public Synod, Acts 15.) and thus debar others from the Sacrament, as unmeet Receivers, upon such unwarrantable grounds, do make themselves far more uncapable, unmeet to receive it, than those they thus exclude.

10. Whether that noted Text of Matth. 18. 15, 16, 17. If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go tell him his fault between thee and him alone; if he will hear thee, then thou hast gained thy brother: But if he will not hear, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of one or two witnesses everything may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, TELL IT TO THE CHURCH; but if he neglect TO HEARE THE CHURCH, let him be to thee as an heathen man and a Publican; be meant of any Independent or ecclesiastical Consitory, excommunication, or church-censures properly so called? or not rather of the Jewish Synedrium, Council, or civil court of justice, and of a civil excommunication, like to an Outlawry at the common Law, as Mr Selden with others more t • uely interp • t • t? Since our Savior speaks there, 1. of a private trespass done to a private person, of which no church, classes, or ecclesiastical consistory, hath proper conusance; not of a public scandal to the congregation, or any scandalous crime or vice as is evident by the very first words, and by Luk. 17. 3, 4. compared with •• n▪ 50. 17. 1 King 8. 31. 2. Of a demand of private satisfaction, first personally, next in presence of witness, before any complaint to the church or council. 3. Of no censure or judgment passed, but barely of an admonition given by the church to the party offending; which if neglected and not heard, then 4. Not the church, council, and all other persons, but only the party offended was to repute (but not excommunicate out of the church or congregation) him as an heathen, and a publicane, (which were both odious to the Jews, who had no civil conversation with them, and were no members of the Jewish church except Proselytes) as the express words, let him be TO THEE (not any others) as an heathen and a pulican, (that, is converse no more with him, but avoid his company, 2 Thes. 3. 14.) resolve, Which Reasons, compared with Matth. 5. 22, 25. c. 10. 17. c. 12. 14. c. 22. 15. c. 27. 1, 7. Acts 18. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. c. 16. 20, 21. c. 17. 6. c. 23. 1. 14, 15. c. 24. 1. to 7. c. 25. & 26. infallibly evidence, the Church or Assembly in this Text to be meant only of the Temporal court, Council, or Sanhedrin of the Jews, not of any Ecclesiastical or Church-Judicatory, or excommunication, as Papists anciently, with some others now determine.

11. Whether the Apostles and members of the first evangelical Synod, we read of Acts 15. sat and voted in it as Apostles only, endued with a spirit of infallibility (which was a peculiar privilege to them alone,) or else in their ordinary capacity, as Elders and chief members of it? If as Apostles only, and in that extraordinary capacity, as Independents assert: then 1. Paul and Barnabas being Apostles as well as they, might have decided that controversy at Antioch, without sending to Jerusalem to determine it: 2. The church at Antioch would have sent to none but the Apostles to resolve their doubts, and not to the Elders at Jerusalem as well as to the Apostles, as they did verse. 2. Thirdly, Paul and Barnabas would have put the question to the Apostles only, not to the Elders and church as well as to them, which they did verse. 4, 5, 6. Fourthly, the Apostles would not have called a Synod of all the Apostles Elders and Brethren at Jerusalem to consider of or consult about this thing verse. 6. but have determined it presently by their infallible spirit without consultation, or a Synods assistance. Fifthly, Peter and James would not have argued the case so largely, and proved it by arguments and Scriptures as they did, one after another, verse. 17 to 23. but have peremptorily resolved it without dispute, had they sat and determined it by their extraordinary infallible power. Sixthly, the final resolution, letters, and canons of this Synod had run only in the Apostles names, had they proceeded only by their Apostolical infallible authority, and not in the names of the Elders and Brethren too, (coupled together with theirs both in the letters and canons, verse. 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28. c. 16. 4. c. 21. 18. 25.) who were not all endued with the self-same infallibility and power as the Apostles were, for ought can be proved; Therefore their assembling in this council, not in their extraordinary capacity as Apostles only, but as Elders, Ministers; and the Elders, Brethren's sitting together in Council with them, upon this controversy and occasion, is an undeniable Scripture-authority for the lawfulness, use of Parliaments, Councils, Synods under the Gospel, upon all like necessary occasions; and for their power to determine controversies of Religion, to make Canons in things necessary for the churches peace and government, (there being no one place in Scripture against it, but many Texts in the Old Testament to back it, elsewhere quoted) mauger all evasions, exceptions to elude it.

12. Whether the temporal Magistrate, Parliament, and civil State, have not a lawful coercive power, though not to restrain the preaching of the Gospel and truth of God, yet to suppress, restrain, imprison, confine, banish the broachers of any heresies, schisms, erroneous seditious doctrines, enthusiasms, or setters up of new forms of Ecclesiastical government without lawful authority, to the endangering of the people's souls, or disturbance of the Churches, Kingdoms peace, as well as Ministers and particular Churches Christians, power to reprove, refute, avoid, excommunicate or anathematize them, notwithstanding some Independents new-minted objections against it: and that by virtue of Deut. 13. 1. to 12. Lev. 24. 11. to 17. Num. 26. throughout, Josh. 7. 25. 26. c. 22. 11. to 34. Psal. 101. 4 5, 8. 4, 5, 8. 1 King. 18. 40. 2 King. 10. 21, to 29. c. 23. 5. 20. 2 Chro. 34. 4. 5. Rom. 13. 1. to 6. 1 Pet. 2. 14. Gal. 5. 12. Rev. 2. 20. c. 19. 20. 21. cap. 17. 16. And the ten horns (interpreted to be ten Kings v. 12.) shall hate the whore (with all her Panders) and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her with fire: for God hath put it into their hearts TO FVLFILL HIS WILL, Ezra 7. 26. And whosoever will not do the Law of thy God, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or unto banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment, with sundry other Texts. Hence Christian Princes, Magistrates, Parliaments, in all ages and churches in the world have made severe temporal Laws, Edicts against, and inflicted corporal punishment, banishment, confiscation of goods, (and in some cases death it self) upon Heretics, Schismatics, disturbers of the churches peace with erroneous or seditious doctrines: which lawful power of theirs hath ever been asserted by the most orthodox Churches, Writers in all ages, and never oppugned by any but Anabaptists, who deny all civil Magistrates, or such licentious Heretics, Schismatics, or false Teachers, who would spread their pestilent errors, and seditious novel positions without restraint; or durst never suffer Martyrdom for, or seal them with the loss of their Liberties, Lives, Estates, which godly orthodox Martyrs and Christians have cheerfully undergone, under Pagan, Heretical, and Popish Kings, Magistrates. And if we either deny, abolish, eclipse, diminish, or suspend this necessary coercive power (the principal means under God to suppress, extirpate all growing errors, schisms, which disturb the churches trantranquilitie, seduce unstable souls) our church and realms will be soon overgrown with dangerous errors, heresies, schisms, and brought to speedy desolation; the contemptible sword of excommunication, or non-communion, and the bare preaching of God's Word to obstinate Heretics, Papists, Schismatics, (who will contemn the Word, and excommunicate all other churches dissenting from them, as heretical, schismatical, as fast as they excommunicate or discommon them, and so propagate, perpetuate their heresies, schisms, without redress) being unable to suppress such peremptory offenders, without the temporal Magistrates sword of justice added to them; Who having a lawful jurisdiction derived to them in the Gospel, to punish and suppress all evil doers, without distinction, have doubtless an unquestionable authority to punish obstinate Heretics, Schismatics, false Teachers, with temporal censures, who are the greatest malefactors, sinning against the Word and Truth of God, disturbing the peace of Church, State, seducing and destroying people's souls; a far greater crime then to murder their bodies, or rob them of their estates. In brief, all Protestant Churches whatsoever, in their public Confessions acknowledge, that the care of preserving, propagating true Religion; of suppressing, extirpating htresies, errors, schisms, superstition, idolatry, and the fautors of them, by temporal punishments and censures of all sorts, doth principally belong to Christian Magistrates, Kings, Princes: (Which duty they can in no sort execute, if now (with the Anabaptists) ou deny them this most just coercive power:) That all lawful civil Magistrates and Powers whatsoever, though instituted by men, are even in the New Testament expressly resolved, to be the Ordinances of God, and all their just commands, Laws, Edicts, (not repugnant to God's Word) readily to be obeyed and submitted to, EVEN FOR CONSCIENCE, and FOR THE LORD'S SAKE, under pain of sin and condemnation: Therefore what ever our pious Parliament, the supreme power, by advice of the Assembly, after much Fasting, Prayer, Disputes, Advice, and serious consultation, shall order, decree touching Church-government or discipline, as most consonant and not repugnant to God's Word, ought in point of conscience to be submitted to by Independents and all others, as to a Government, Discipline, Ordinance approved of by God; and if any Heretics, false Teachers, Schismatics obstinately refuse conformity after due admonition, and all good means used to reclaim them the Poets Divinity and Policy must then take place, as well in Eclcesiasticall as civil and natural maladies:

Deut. 12. 8.