Imprimatur, Geo. Thorp Rev. in C. P. & D. Dom. Gulielmo Archiep. Cant. à sacris Domest. Imprimatur, Carolus Alston, R. P. D. Hen. Episc. Lond. à sacris domesticis. Decemb. 18. 1678. CHRISTIAN LIBERTY Asserted in Opposition to the Roman Yoke, Delivered in a SERMON PREACHED IN His Majesty's Royal Chapel OF WINDSOR. The 8 th'. of Decemb. 1678. By John Butler, D. D. Canon of the said Chapel, And Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty. London: Printed by M. C. for Walter Kettilby, at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Churchyard. 1678. TO HIS Illustrious HIGHNESS PRINCE RUPERT, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria and Cumberland, Vice-Admiral of all England, Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter, Constable of His Majesty's Castle and Honour of Windsor, and One of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council, etc. The Publisher humbly Dedicates the ensuing Discourse. May it please your Highness, THat the following Discourse becomes Public, is chief owing to the earnest and often repeated instances of several Persons of Honour and Quality, who have persuaded themselves and me with them, that it may not be altogether useless in this dissolute and therefore staggering age. AND that it humbly approacheth your Highness is owing to your Highness' Love to our Nation, your unwearied industry for the support of the True Religion Established by Law amongst us, your known and just indignation against the Roman yoke, and to the many and signal favours which I most humbly and gratefully acknowledge to have been conferred upon me by your Highness' hands on all offered occasions, since I had first the Honour of depending on your Highness. By these considerations I think myself obliged as well out of gratitude as equity to make your Highness this small Present. Which (however defective in itself) will receive no small advantage by your Highness' favourable acceptance. With my hearty and daily prayers for your Highness' happiness here and hereafter, I humbly take leave in quality of Your HIGHNESS' Most obliged most Faithful and most Humble Servant Jo. BUTLER. A SERMON ON GALAT. v. v. I. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. WE find here the Galatians in danger of dealing by the Holy Apostle and themselves just as the Israelites would have done by Moses and themselves, after their deliverance from the Land of Egypt, out of the House of Bondage. Those, because in their journey towards the Land of Promise they met with some difficulties, would fain have been going back to serve again under their old tyrannical Oppressors: remembering indeed the fleshpots, the Leeks, the Onions, and the Garlic; but stupidly forgetting their making Brick without Straw, or being severely chastised if they did not do it, and that their Male Children had been ordered to be strangled, or otherwise made away so soon as they were born into the world. And these (I mean the Galatians) harkening to the sly insinuations of some false Prophets among them (converted Jews, who had a mind to glory in their Flesh) and weary also of suffering Gal. vi. 13. persecutions raised against them by means of those of the Circumcision, were wavering and staggering in their Religion and in great hazard of subjecting their necks to the yoke of the Ceremonial Law, wholly abrogated by the perfect active and passive obedience of Christ, contrary to the Doctrine which they had heard and believed, destructive of that liberty wherewith Christanity had enfranchised them, and particularly of all hopes of benefit by it in order to their salvation: for it follows immediately after my Text, Behold I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. AN unhappy parallel this! wherein however the Israelites have this advantage of them: they were but in via, these in patria; those journeying towards their promised Land, these put into actual possession of it; having by the preaching of this blessed Apostle been freed from the slavery of Idol-Worship, having had Jesus Christ crucified so evidently set forth amongst Gal. iii. 1. them, as if it had been done even before their very eyes, and having embraced the Doctrine of Justification by Faith without the works of the Law. IT was high time therefore for their spiritual father to take care of them and to cry out, Stand fast therefore, etc. AND I would to God that (as the Galatians imitated the Israelites in their senseless desire after their former servitude, so) many, very many amongst us did not write after the Galatians Copy. BUT now (that I may take up the Lamentation of the Prophet Baruch) Woe is me, for Isai. xlv. 3. the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow, I fainted in my sighing and I find no rest. GOD hath long since wonderfully brought us out of the darkness of Superstition and Idolatry into his marvellous light, set us at liberty one and all, King, Priest and People from most intolerable as well Temporal as Spiritual bondage under the Roman Yoke. And now after all we i e. too many amongst us (some out of vincible and therefore criminal zeal, some out of worldly interest and some out of base Cowardice) are ready most ungratefully to be entangled with and subject our necks to the same insupportable yoke of bondage again. Nay (which is yet worse) as the Israelites had the better of the Galatians, in that those were only on their way towards their Promised Land, these in possession of it: So have the Galatians this advantage of us, that they were yet upon their feet, they were not yet quite fallen; for otherwise the Apostle would not have bid them stand, but rise up. BUT amongst us multitudes are fallen away, being already entangled with this yoke of bondage; and for others nets and snares are daily and hourly spread abroad not by Fishers but Hunters of men to entangle them. And all this done to the dishonour of Almighty God and his true Religion, the scandal and hazard of the State, the sorrow and anguish of all good men, and the exceeding great peril, if not utter loss of thousands of Souls. IS any one therefore fallen? Let him rise up again. Is any man yet standing, yet so as to stagger and waver in his Religion? Let him take heed lest he fall, always remembering (with which words the Apostle concludes the foregoing Chapter, and upon which he grounds the charge in my Text) that we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand therefore, stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. IN which words we have I. A Persuasion or Exhortation, Stand fast. II. A Dissuasion or Dehortation, Be not entangled. THE first, The Persuasion or Exhortation is backed with two cogent arguments. 1. THE one drawn ab utili & jucundo; from the profit and pleasure of thus standing; it is in liberty: The Galatians were and we are free. 2. THE other ab honesto: They were and so are we bound in honour and honesty to keep our ground and maintain our station in this liberty for the sake of him who had and hath made both them and us free; and that is Christ himself. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. OUR Second part also is fortified with two unanswerable arguments. 1. THE former drawn ab incommodo, from the mischief of quitting their station and being entangled: there was a yoke, a very heavy yoke of bondage in the case. Be not therefore entangled with the yoke of bondage. 2. THE latter ab absurdo; be not entangled again, q. d. Indeed if you had never been in bondage before, something might be said for you: your vacillation, your wavering and staggering would call rather for compassion than indignation. But for you, you who have been emancipated from the yoke to run your necks wilfully into it again, is such an egregious piece of folly and madness as deserves neither pity nor forgiveness. STAND Fast therefore, etc. and be not entangled, etc. I. To begin with the first, The Persuasion or Exhortation. Stand fast. IT was a very ill character that Jacob gave of his eldest son Reuben— unstable as water. Gen. xlix. 4. For that element falls under the definition of humidum (according to the old Philosophy) Quod difficilè suis, facilè alienis terminis continetur: which is morally true of an unstable irresolute man, you may empty him from vessel to vessel; indeed you may do what you will with him. Every wind of doctrine tosseth him, every tentation ensnares him, every passion overrules him, every prosperous accident lifts him up, and every ill one throws him down. In a word (as the Wiseman expresseth it) he is like a City Prov. xxv. 28. broken down and without Walls, easily taken in and brought into bondage. And all this proceeds from incogitancy. He cannot allow himself time to debate and consider (hardly to think, much less) to try all things; and therefore it is utterly impossible he should ever hold fast that which is good. The man lives by chance and not by choice; is just what every thing without will make him (neither more nor less) and so becomes an easy prey upon every onset. Now certainly to be thus is beneath the dignity not only of a Christian, but of a Man. FOR God's sake therefore let us look about us; Stand fast and quit ourselves like men. Let us not be like the Galatians here, of whom the Apostle says, that they could once run (ye did run well) and that now they were hardly Verse 7. able to stand: but let us be strong and of a good courage. THE Merchant before he goes to Sea is intent day and night upon his Adventure, computes the charge, considers the dangers threatened from piracy or shipwreck; and yet at last in an uncertain hope of gain goes on at all adventures; nothing can divert him from his purpose. THE good Soldier from five pounds to ten pence a day, considers that he must run through much hardship, and carry his life in his hand; yet in hope of Victory (which is not always to the strong neither) he resolutely wades through the one and hazards the other. And why (in the name of God) should not we put on equal resolutions for our perseverance in and defence of our Religion? having a sure and certain hope (if we keep our station and continue in well doing) of the Resurrection to Eternal Life. To which purpose give me leave seasonably to advise you not to trust too much to your own strength, but (in the words of our Apostle) to be strong in the Lord and in the power Eph. vi. 10. of his might; and to beg fervently and incessantly, that he would strengthen our weak hands, Job iv. 4. that he would strengthen and confirm our feeble Isai. xxxv. 3. knees, that so we may be able to withstand in the Eph. vi. 13. evil day and having done all to stand. IN the mean time taught and commanded by God himself, I am not afraid to say to them that are of a fearful heart— Be strong, Isai. xxxv. 4. fear not; behold your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense, he will come and save you. AND more than this I think I need not say upon the first general of my Text — Stand fast. I shall now descend to the two prevailing arguments with which the Apostle enforceth this persuasion or exhortation. THE first (as we told you before) is drawn ab utili & jucundo, from the profit and pleasure of thus standing, it is in liberty; the Galatians were, and we are free. BUT it fares now with us as it did then with them. The Jews had a mind by putting upon them the yoke of Circumcision (which was once a Commandment of God) to glory in their flesh: and the Church or Court Chap. vi. 13. of Rome ('tis all one to me which) would by making us receive for Doctrines the commandments never of God but of men, fain glory in our flesh, but with a design undoubtedly to use it very coarsely; as I question not in the following part of my Discourse to make it most evident. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith we are made free. LIBERTY and Freedom! Why is it possible that either the Galatians or we, or indeed any man should come to that pass as to stand in need of persuasions to preserve that? that, upon which no man could yet ever set any price? Certainly both they and we must be bewitched first.— I shall not desire to be excused either for the harshness or homeliness of the expression: for it was the very case of the Galatians here, against whom our Apostle exclaims thus. — O foolish Galatians, who hath Chap. iii. 1. bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth? THE Truth is, they were bewitched with the fear of eternal Damnation which had been positively denounced against them by some of the Jews who were Zealous of the Law, and might possibly Zealously affect them, Chap. iv. 17. but not well. Of such you read Act. xv. 1. Certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren saying, except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. BUT besides this, another charm by which they were bewitched, was their weariness of past and fear of future persecutions, if they did not comply with the Jews. THESE were the Bugbears of the Galatians, and they are ours. EXCEPT ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved, said some of the Jews to them. And except ye become Roman Catholics (which yet every youth that hath but learned half his Logic will tell you is nonsense) ye cannot be saved! No; but, with much more fierceness; you shall be damned, say the Papists with one mouth to us.— And I would fain know why so. To obviate what the Zealous Jews had said to terrify the Galatians, the Apostle asks them this question — this only Gal. iii. 2. would I learn of you: received you the spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of faith? q. d. did I who am a Jew, when I preached to you the Gospel of Christ (upon which, the Lord working with me, you received the Holy Ghost, and saw that Doctrine confirmed by miracles) did I oblige you to any such custom? AND This only would I learn of the Papists, did we first receive the Gospel from them? I know very well that some of them want not confidence to affirm any thing, but we are better assured that Christianity was planted in this Island long before any of the Pope's agents set their feet here. And when they did come, what did they do for us, but corrupt our Religion by degrees, and draw us into their yoke by making us believe, that if we did not keep close communion with and observe them in all things, we should certainly be damned? BUT the Galatians were weary of their past and afraid of their future persecutions, if they did not comply with the Jews. THE more Fools they. ARE ye so foolish (says our Apostle) have Ch. iii. 3, 4. ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. q. d. Have ye embraced the Gospel with resolutions to suffer in the profession of it? have ye done it hitherto, and will ye now by foolishly thinking to avoid persecutions lose the Crown laid up in store for you on that account? THE more fools they, and the more cowards we. WE have suffered in the defence of our Religion, of the cause of God and his Vicegerents against a schismatical and rebellious generation of men, but yet such as were set on and managed undoubtedly by our old implacable adversaries of Rome. How many men of all ranks and degrees with an invincible courage lost their Estates, their Liberties, their Lives in the quarrel! and are we faint-hearted now? Have a care. He that seeks thus to save his life is in a fair way to lose it. BUT stay, is the Liberty wherewith we are made free worth the contending for, i. e. so as to oblige us to die (if called to it) rather than yield to the Roman Yoke? IS it! I do not in the least doubt it. I am sure the first blessed instruments of our happy Reformation and their followers thought so: else they would never have lost their Lives in the cause. BUT (Good God) in what an age do we live! when a sort of men among ourselves of lose and corrupt principles have not stuck to affront the memory of those blessed men and women with the name of Foxian Martyrs! Such fellows will look to themselves I'll warrant them. NOW to satisfy you in the point, I will in as few words as I can give you an account of this liberty wherewith we are made free: and then tell me what you think on't. WE have the Oracles of God, those Fountains of living water (which contain all things necessary for our Salvation) put into our hands 2 Tim. 3. 17. and read to us, according to the Apostles times in a known tongue. We have the Word of God purely dispensed by Workmen that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. We have the Sacraments rightly and duly administered according to our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ his own holy Institution. And all this (which characterizeth a true Church) in order to our future happiness. Then, which both tends to that and also to our present well-being, we are taught to obey our King, and all that are put in authority under him without resisting; to suffer death rather than lift up a finger against him: never to expect to see the face of God with comfort unless we be of a peaceable disposition and live an holy life, so taking the holy Jesus for our pattern as yet (despairing most justly of all benefit from our own or others pretended righteousness) to rely upon his most meritorious Death and Passion for our Salvation. In a word, to honour all men, to love the Brotherhood, (nay our very enemies) to fear God and honour the King. These for brevity's sake I offer only as a specimen of that great and glorious liberty wherewith we are made free. And what think ye now? is not this liberty worth the contending for? worth every man's contending for? I will not so much as suspect that any person here thinks otherwise. But if any such there be, I shall only desire your patience a little while, till I come to paint out to them the yoke of bondage, which is to be given us in exchange for this liberty; and then I hope they will be satisfied. In the mean time let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith we are made free. Stand fast therefore. For Christ his sake stand fast. Which is the Apostles second argument to enforce his exhortation— Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. CHRIST made the Galatians, us and the whole world free by his meritorious Death and Passion on his part, and by faith and repentance on ours. Christ made us free, by enjoining us no more than his own perfect law of liberty: leaving power indeed to the Guides of the Church to take care that all things should be done with decency and order; but not to alter or diminish, no nor to add a tittle that was not built upon that foundation. And all the Epistles of the holy Apostles are but so many Comments upon that Law. As for the straw therefore and stubble which our adversaries of Rome have built upon this foundation in order to our making brick for the repair of their tottering Tower— away with it. LET us follow Christ the author and finisher of our faith, and not the corrupter of it; Christ the Captain of our Salvation, the Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls, and not his pretended Lieutenant and Vicar who acts both beyond and contrary to his Commission. Remember I beseech you, your first Vow when you were baptised into Christ who purchased your liberty by shedding his own most precious Blood for you; and not into that man or Church who are most notoriously known ready to take it from you at the expense of your blood, if they cannot compass it by other means. Remember that at that time you promised faithfully to be the Soldiers of Christ, and to fight manfully under his Banner: and do not run from your Colours by ungratefully and cowardly quitting your Post. STAND fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. AND now one would think the Apostle had said enough to make his Galatians stand fast, by urging to them their liberty and the author of it; that there needed no more to be said in the case; and that therefore, if those would not prevail upon them, all other arguments would prove insignificant and useless. NO such matter. He knew very well that if he did not show them as well the danger and absurdity of quitting their station as the profit and pleasure of keeping it, they would be wavering still. TAUGHT therefore by this blessed Apostle (as well as by Moses who did not think it enough to set life and good before the people, unless he shown them also death and evil) I shall pursue his method, and proceed to the second general part of my Text, the Dissuasion or Dehortation, Be not entangled, Nolite contineri, nè illaqueamini, nè implicemini, nè retiamini (for so many ways the original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is translated, and the sense in each rendition is much the same) as though the Apostle should have said, you are now in a state of liberty and freedom which Christ hath purchased for you; have a care of such nets and snares, such artifices and cunning devices as are laid and prepared to deprive you of it. Have a care of their fair pretences. So our Apostle — as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain Chap. vi. vers. 12. you to be circumcised. Have a care of being entangled by their fawning concessions and crafty distinctions. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, saith the Apostle. And therefore V 9 h. c. as he tells them — I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to the whole Vers. 3. Law: So I testify to all those that are wavering and ready to be entangled by the arts of those perverters, that they must sooner or later submit themselves to the whole law of that Church; unless they would be looked upon as half Papists, who are in the esteem of the ruling part of that Church little better than Protestants, and shall perhaps far little better when occasion shall serve. The plain truth of it is this; and herein lies the cheat. If any person whom they have a mind to make a Proselyte, boggle at their Antichristian doctrine and practice of giving the Sacrament under one kind only; they will tell him very softly that indeed it is true, the Church hath for many weighty reasons altered the primitive Institution; but that yet however if he cannot with a quiet mind submit to the Canon in that particular, he shall be dispensed with, and receive it in both, till he be clearly convinced and fully satisfied. But then 'tis an hundred to one they impose upon him by giving him unconsecrated Wine. If he startle and stand amazed (as well he may) at the horrid and barbarous doctrine of excommunicating and deposing Emperors, Kings and Princes from their regalities and dignities, not only for being Heretics themselves, as they please to call them (nay their very being male morati will do it) but for not extirpating Heretics out of their dominions with fire and sword, if warned so to do; and thereupon having absolved their Subjects from their allegiance, of giving their dominions to others if they cannot persuade any of their own people to dispatch them out of the way by the knife or poison: If any one (I say) whom they are about to entangle, start or stare at such horrid and barbarous doctrines, they are dexterously ready to assure him that there is a very great mistake in this whole matter. For (alas) these are only the opinions of some few private Doctors amongst them, and not the doctrine of the Church. No, by no means. God forbidden. Though all this while, as that Church hath never yet censured such positions, so one (not to mention more) of these Councils which they call general, hath in a very Concil. Lat. 4. great measure asserted them; and the Popes, whenever they have had a will and power enough in their hands, have not been sparing to justify and put them in execution. AS for their art of entangling by striking a terror into the minds of their intended proselytes on the account of persecution, telling them (which is a common Topick among them) Well, well; we shall be all of one Religion within these two or three years, or within such or such a time; and such like threatening expressions: indeed silly women laden with iniquity, and children void of understanding, if they be entangled herewith, may be pitied; but for men and women that have been well grounded in the Principles of our Religion to be catcht with such chaff— it is a crime unpardonable. TO conclude this part of my discourse upon the Dissuasion or Dehortation. If you find that they would entangle you by telling you (as they seldom fail to do) that if you come over to them, undergo their penance (perhaps they will get some body or other to do it for you) and die in their Communion; whatever your crimes be, you shall be certainly saved: but that if you live and die, though never so full of faith and good works, out of their Communion, you stand Excommunicate, and will be as certainly damned: Fear them not; stand fast and be not entangled. WHAT! Enter into Communion with, or fear the excommunication of such as stand excommunicate themselves! and that by an Apostle too! Let no man startle at what I say. I'll make my words good. This very Chap. i 8. Apostle says expressly, though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel to you than that which we have preached unto you, Anathema sit, let him be accursed. And for fear such bold Innovators should not take his word for it, he repeats it Verse 9 again, as we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other Gospel to you than that you have received, Anathema sit, let him be accursed. NOW that they have justly incurred this sentence of excommunication (let them get it off how they can) will easily appear if we take but a view of the yoke which upon our being entangled, they have prepared for our necks. 1. AND that is the first argument ab incommodo, which our Apostle urgeth to enforce this Dissuasion or Dehortation— there is a yoke in the case. BE not therefore entangled with the yoke of bondage. I will begin with the first part of their yoke (which we occasionally mentioned before) their denying to the people the Cup in the Holy Sacrament. A yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear. OUR blessed Saviour instituted eating and drinking the Symbols of his Body and Blood apart; the Apostles and the Church after them constantly practised it for above a thousand years together: and now we must be sacrilegiously robbed of it for reasons of their own invention, (for Christ's Vicar must be wiser than his Master) and because they will please to have it so. THEY tell us that the Church hath an unlimited power to do such things, and to make such alterations. Believe it that list: I have something else to do. BUT this is a very small matter with them. HEAR what Bellarmine says of the unbounded power of the Pope alone in all cases. If the Pope should so far err as to call vice De Rom. Pont. lib. 4. c. 5. virtue and virtue vice, and command them to be accordingly practised and forborn, the Church were bound to submit and conform herself, unless she would sin against Conscience. WELL said Cardinal! THE good man had forgot that God himself had accursed those that call evil good and good evil. But (to let that pass) how comes so great a man to suppose what he had taken so great pains to prove impossible, i. e. that his Holiness can err? and how comes he to pull down what he had before (as much as in him lay) built up, i. e. the Pope's infallibility? For if we be not assured of the real and unalterable difference betwixt virtue and vice, we have no certainty: and where there is no certainty, it is impossible there can be any infallibility. Which doctrine of infallibility (for I must hasten) is the very beam of the yoke to be laid upon us in lieu of the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. WE are by God's providence yet free from the yoke (we celebrate the Supper of the Lord with eating and drinking according to his own most holy Institution) Be not therefore entangled with this yoke of bondage. TAKE for a second part of their yoke the doctrine of Transubstantiation: than which I am sure Jacob Behmen has not any thing in all his enthusiastic writings more monstrously mysterious and unintelligible. As if no man could possibly become a good Christian, unless he threw away his memory and understanding at the same time. TRANSUBSTANTIATION! a name and thing so unknown to all antiquity and so utterly impossible in itself, that I must shake hands with my nature before I can bring my neck to the yoke. INDEED if the Assertors of that doctrine can once mould me into such a temper as that (with the Comedian) I could run in their hand, and in one and the same breath affirm with them that a Cloud looks like a Camel, like a Weazel and like a Whale— much may be done. Till than they must give me leave (and if they will not give it me, I shall make bold to take it) to belive my senses both inward and outward, which I humbly conceive and am verily persuaded God and Nature did not bestow upon me with a design to deceive and cheat me. IF they ask (as they usually do) why do we then believe the doctrine of the Trinity, which on this occasion they will have to be as much against human reason? I answer by denying what they take for granted, i. e. That the doctrine of the Trinity and that of Transubstantiation are alike against reason. That I and two more can be one, or that any created being can be in more than one place at the same is indeed against reason; because we have distinct beings and are distinctly circumscribed by our own proper limits and places: but that God who is infinite in power and fills all places with his unbounded presence, may be whatever he pleaseth to reveal and declare himself to be, as touching his Divine Nature, is (if above, yet) not at all against my reason. BUT (to end this Paragraph) to what purpose should I be obliged in this matter to call white black, and black white? Cui bono? Cannot the same God who at the Preaching of the Gospel of his Son by his Apostles conferred the Holy Ghost on those that never heard of him before; and cannot that Son of God, who Instituted Holy Baptism to the mystical washing away of sin, confer Grace and Spiritual nourishment to my soul upon my humble and grateful commemoration of his meritorious Death and Passion, in eating and drinking the Consecrated Elements, without the Priests turning by I know not how many unconceivable Miracles, not only the Bread and Wine, but even the Bread alone into his real Body and Blood? IT cannot be expected that I should, within the time allotted me, say all that can be said (if I could do it) upon these and the following subjects; and therefore I refer you for your further satisfaction and confirmation, to the labours of those many Pious and Learned men of our Church, who have in this and all other points controverted betwixt us, so baffled our Adversaries of Rome, that though they will have the last word (there is no help for that) they have nothing left them which with modesty they can say for themselves. As for us, we are yet by the Grace of God free from this groundless, useless and senseless yoke of Transubstantiation: Be not therefore entangled with this yoke of bondage. WHAT shall I say of the Doctrine of the Pope's Supremacy over the whole World? his pretended power to confer and take away Crowns and Kingdoms? and in the stead of God himself (for King David makes it his peculiar Prerogative, and so doth his Son too) to pull down one and set up another? They tell us a great many fine stories of St. Peter's Keys, and St. Paul's Sword: but alas! they are but stories, ambitious imaginations of their own brains. Now before I give mine own opinion in the case so far as we are concerned, I crave leave to tell you what one of their late Pamphleteers hath affirmed in it, viz. That Oliver Cromwell had as much right to exclude the Royal Family and set up for himself, as King Henry the Eighth had to throw off his Obedience to the Pope. Spoken like a good Subject, and a well read man! Is there no difference between an home-born Prince and a foreign Usurper? And for God's sake, what power or profit had ever the Popes of Rome in this Kingdom, but what was either granted them by the indulgence and bounty of devout and unwary Princes, or else what they extorted by watching their opportunities and fishing in troubled waters? the last of which was no Title at all, and the first being abused was justly forfeited. THE first considerable footing that his Holiness got here was by Austin the Monk about the year 600. and then the Foundation was laid in blood, in the blood of twelve hundred Monks. A truer story I am sure than that of their 11000 Virgin-Martyrs. And, as the Naturalists say, ex quibus componimur, ex iisdem nutrimur, so I may say of them. If you prove good children, believe as the Church believes and do what she bids you right or wrong; pay your first-fruits, tenths, Peterpences and other perquisites which the Apostolic Sea claims (all which however I think better in the King of England's Exchequer than in the Roman Aerary) than his Holiness smiles at your easiness, and his word is — Si populus vult decipi, decipiatur, etc. but if you do not, look to yourselves; the note is changed into that of Nabuchadnezzar (his Predecessor in old Babylon)— If you worship not, you shall be cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. But suppose we should (not grant but) give them what they contend for, i. e. that they did first Preach the Gospel to our Forefathers in this Island; what will they get by it? Put the Case I should have the happiness to convert a rich Jew, or an Indian to the Christian Faith; am I thereby presently invested with a power over his Estate, Liberty and Life? A blessed Reformation, this! Christ sent his disciples forth as sheep among wolves; but the Church or Court of Rome (for I protest I can make no distinction between them) sends forth her disciples as wolves among sheep, to kill, to tear and to destroy. I do not find that Christ's disciples received any Commission to cut the throats of all such as would not submit to the Gospel: but I am sure that both they and their followers chose rather to suffer death than to cause any disturbance in the State, otherwise than by Preaching that Gospel according to their Commission. Our Saviour wrought a Miracle to testify his obedience to the Civil power: and had not that blessed Son of God himself given his followers an example by patiently submitting to the Sentence of Death under unjust Judges, because they were in Authority, we had at this day (for aught I know) wanted a Saviour ourselves. THE Jesuits tell us indeed that the Primitive Church and the First Bishops of Rome did not execute this power because they were then in Incunabulis, in the Cradle and under Persecution. But I hope the Son of God did not want that power — If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight for me, saith he— and to Peter himself — Put up thy sword into his sheath, for cannot I pray now to my Father and he shall give me more than twelve legions of Angels? But I forget myself. THE time would fail me to speak of their Divine Service in an unknown tongue; OF their invocations and adorations of Angels and Saints departed; OF their worshipping of Images, and (in order thereunto) utterly abolishing the second Commandment; OF works of Supererogation, all expressly contrary to the written word of God, (which therefore they destroy or make void through their Traditions;) OF their Purgatory; OF Indulgences; OF Pilgrimages. I will name no more, I am weary on't: they all being the unlawful Engines for the enlargement of their dominion, and support of their grandeur by filthy lucre. THESE and many, very many more make up that yoke which is to be given us in exchange for that blessed liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and which by God's superabundant and no way deserved mercy we yet enjoy. BE not therefore entangled with this yoke of bondage. 2. ESPECIALLY considering the absurdity of being so entangled; which is the Apostles second argument to fortify this Dissuasion or Dehortation — be not entangled again. SED quid valet istud Rursus? how comes the Apostle to dissuade the Galatians from being entangled again with the yoke of bondage, who never had the law of Moses delivered to them, and so had never before been circumcised? whatever others answer, I think there will be no great difficulty in the case, if instead of the yoke you read a yoke, which the original will bear as well as the other: and then the sense is this— you have by the preaching of Christ crucified among you been freed from one yoke, that of Idol-worship; no not run your necks into another of Circumcision. BE not entangled again. BUT then even here again the Galatians have the advantage of us: for they were submitting their necks to a yoke sometime imposed by God himself as absolutely necessary; but we by taking on us the Roman Yoke again submit ourselves to a yoke of bondage made up of mere human inventions, contrary to God's word, and destructive both of true Religion and civil Societies. BE not therefore entangled again. WOULD the Doctors go to School again? a School, where they shall be taught better manners than to rely only upon the all-sufficient merits of their Saviour: than to be subject to any other power than that of our Lord God the Pope. And in order thereunto they must learn a new lesson, to live a single life (whether they can do it honestly or no, it makes no matter) for fear lest having wives and children they should give the State security of their obedience to their undoubted and lawful Sovereign: Nay (which is more) to be the Pope's executioners, and whenever heis angry and shall please to put their native Country under an interdict, to proclaim his Bull for Excommunicating their Prince and absolving themselves and fellow Subjects from their allegiance to him, and to surcease all religious Offices in the Church. Would the Doctors (I say) go to School again? WOULD a Servant manumitted and having a good stock wherewith to set up for himself be bound apprentice again? Would a General of an Army turn private Soldier again? WOULD a man become a child again? A Patient lately recovered from an ill habit of body or some desperate disease, relapse and fall sick again? WOULD a Prince, who holds his Imperial Crown only from God, lay it down at the feet of an insolent pretender to a power of kicking it off from his head, and giving it unto whomsoever he will? AND if these things be absurd; it must needs be so in us, if we return to the Roman yoke again. BE not therefore entangled again. FOR God's sake, whatever the genius of the Galatians was, let not us in so weighty a matter as this verify our own Country-Proverb which says, that an Englishman never knows when a thing is well. STAND fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. I have now finished my meditations upon the Text: in the delivery whereof I have discharged my bounden duty without any sinister ends; without either hope of good or fear of evil in this life; but (I confess) not without having an eye to the recompense of reward in that which is to come. I hope no man will be displeased with me for what I have said. But if any such there be, I am not careful to answer them in this matter. I shall only make use of the Apostles honest Apology — Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? Chap. iv. 16. TO conclude; give me leave once more to pursue the Apostles method, who shuts up this Epistle with earnest persuasions that his Galatians would trouble him no more about these Chap. vi. 17. matters; but forsake the lusts of the flesh and live a virtuous and a pious life: the only way (if we could at last be persuaded to believe it) to beget unity among ourselves, to avert Gods just and dreadful judgements and to make him favourable and gracious to our Zion. I say therefore (in the words of the Prophet Daniel) as well to myself as to all that hear me Chap. iv. 17. this day — Let my Counsel now be acceptable to you; let us break off our sins by Righteousness and our iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of our tranquillity. And to that end WE humbly beseech thee, O Father, mercifully to look upon our infirmities, and for the Glory of thy Name turn from us all those evils that we most Righteously have deserved: and grant that in all our troubles we may put our whole trust and confidence in thy mercy, and evermore serve thee in holiness and pureness of living to thy Honour and Glory through our only Mediator and Advocate Jesus Christ our Lord. AS many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God; to whom be ascribed and given all Power and Praise now and evermore. FINIS.