of St. Cyprian in the council of Carthage; "It remains (saith he) that we all speak what every one of us doth think, judging no man, and refusing to communicate with no man that shall happen to be of a differing judgment:" neque enim quisquam nostrum se episcopum episcoporum constituit, aut tyrannico terrore ad obsequendi necessitatem collegas suos adegit; quando habeat omnis episcopus, pro licentia libertatis et potestatis suæ, arbitrium proprium, tanquam judicari ab alio non possit, cum nec ipse possit alterum judicare: sed expectemus universi judicium Domini nostri Jesu Christi, qui unus et solus habet potestatem et præponendi nos in ecclesiæ suæ gubernatione, et de actu nostro judicandi; ""for none of us makes himself a bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror compels his colleagues to a necessity of complying: for every bishop hath a liberty and power of his own arbitrement, neither can he be judged by any one, nor himself judge any other; but we all must expect the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by himself and alone hath power of setting us over the government of his church, and of judging us for what we do."-Now if all bishops be equal in their power, then the pope can, by the laws of Christ, make laws no more than any bishop can; and what the legislative of the bishop is, I have already declared and proved: and therefore for these and infinite other reasons, the consciences of Christians may be at peace as to the canons of the popes, out of his temporal jurisdiction. Concerning which other reasons, who please to require them, may find enough in Spalatensis ", in the replies of our English prelates in the questions of supremacy and allegiance, in Chamier, Moulin, Gerard, and divers others. I have the less need to insist upon any more particulars, because I write in a church, where this question is well understood, and sufficiently determined to all effects of conscience. I only add the saying of Æneas Sylvius ", who was himself a pope; "Ante concilium Nicenum, quisque sibi vivebat, et parvus respectus habebatur ad ecclesiam Romanam; ""Before the Nicene council, every man lived to himself" (that is, by his proper measures, the limits of his own church), " and little regard was had to the church of Rome." Sect. 4. Of the Matter and Conditions of ecclesiastical Laws required to the Obligation of Conscience. RULE XVII. Ecclesiastical Laws, that are merely such, cannot be 1. I Do not mean only that ecclesiastical laws can be abrogated by an authority as great, as that which made them; for all positive laws, both of God and man, can be so, and yet there are some of both, which have been obligatory to all men under such a government, and during such a period, that have been called perpetual and for ever. But that which is here intended, is of greater consequence and concern to the conscience, and it is this,-That ecclesiastical laws merely such, that is, those which do not involve a divine law within their matter, must be so made, as that they do not infringe Christian liberty; and, secondly, that they be so enjoined, that the commandments of men be not taught for doctrines.' These are very material considerations, but of great difficulty; and therefore it is fit, they be most seriously considered. 2. They must be imposed so as to leave our liberty unharmed; that is, that the law be not universal, not with an intent to oblige all Christendom, except they will be obliged, that is, do consent. For laws are in public, as actions in particular; actions are done by single men, and laws are made by limited communities. A society cannot be said to do an action, and the whole world cannot be said to make a law; but as the action is done by a determined person, so the law is made by a determined government, as by the church of England, of Rome, of Milan; and the Catholic church never yet did meet since the apostles' days in any assembly to make a law, that shall bind all Christians, whether they consent or no. And because one church hath not, by any word of Christ, authority over another church, and one king is not superior to another king, but all are supreme in their own dominions, of which the church is at least a part, and if they be all Christian, it is that church, that Chris tian dominion; it must necessarily follow, that no ecclesiastical law can be made with a power of passing necessary obligation upon all Christians. And therefore the code of the Catholic church was nothing but a collection of some private constitutions, which were consented to by many churches, and to which they bound themselves, but did not long stand so, but changed them more or less according as they pleased. And when the Roman emperors made any canon ecclesiastical into a law, it was a part of the civil law, and by that authority, did oblige as other civil laws did, not all the world, but only the Roman world, the subjects of that dominion. 3. But when any law or canon ecclesiastical is made, it is made by a certain number of ecclesiastics, or by all. If by all, then all consent first or last, and then every bishop may govern his charge by that measure; but that was never yet reduced to practice, and prevails only by consent: but if by a certain number only, then they can but by that measure rule their own subjects; but if they obtrude it upon others, then comes in the precept of the Apostle, "Stand fast in the liberty, with which Christ hath made you free, and be not again entangled in the yoke of bondage.” 4. For when Christ hath made us free from the law of ceremonies, which God appointed to that nation, and to which all other nations were bound, if they came into that communion; it would be intolerable, that the churches, who rejoiced in their freedom from that yoke, which God had imposed, should submit themselves to a yoke of ordinances, which men should make for though before they could not, yet now they may, exercise communion, and use the same religion without communicating in rites and ordinances. 5. This does no way concern the subjects of any government (what liberty they are to retain and use, I shall discourse in the following numbers); but it concerns distinct churches under distinct governments,-and it means, as appears plainly by the context and the whole analogy of the thing, that the Christian churches must suffer no man to put a law upon them, who is not their governor. If he have undertaken a pious discipline, let him propound it, and, for o Galat. v. 1. God's glory and the zeal of souls, endeavour to persuade it; for all that is not against Christian liberty, until any man or any church, shall impose it, and command it, whether the churches please or no, whether they judge it expedient or no, whether it be for their edification, or not for their edification: that is not to be suffered; it is against our evangelical liberty, and the apostolical injunction. 3 6. And this was so well understood by the primitive churches, that, though the bishops did appoint temporary and occasional fasts in their churches upon emergent and great accidents, as Tertullian affirms, yet they would suffer no bishop to impose any law of fasting upon others, but all churches would keep their own liberty, as I have already ́proved in this chapter P: and when Montanus did vyotelas . voμoĴɛTɛïv, 'make a law of fasting, not for his own church, but intended that all Christians should keep the fasts appointed, they made an outcry against him and would not endure it; and yet he did it only for discipline, not for doctrine,for piety, not as of necessity,—as appears in Tertullian's book of fasting, in the first and second chapters 9; and they also did keep fasting-days set and solemn, every bishop in his own church, at what times they would, but almost all upon Good Friday; but this was by consent and with liberty, and that they ought to defend, and so they did. But ecclesiastical Laws must not be perpetual. 7. That is when they are made, they are relative to time and place, to persons and occasions, subject to all changes, fitted for use and the advantage of churches, ministering to edification, and complying with charity. Now whatsoever is made with these conditions, cannot be perpetual; and whatsoever ecclesiastical law hath not these conditions, the churches ought not to receive, because they are impediments, not advantages to the service of God. If they be thus qualified, no good man will refuse them: if they be not, they are the laws of tyrants, not of spiritual fathers: for this whole affair is fully stated in those words of our blessed Saviour; reproving of the Pharisees and their ecclesiastical laws, he says, "they, by their traditions, did evacuate the command P Rule 13. n. 9. 9 Vide ctiam cap. 13. 15. ment of God, and they taught for doctrines the commandments of men." The full sense of which when we understand, we have the full measure of ecclesiastical laws, not only as they relate to the churches and communities of Christians under distinct governments, but to every single Christian under his own governor and superior. These, I say, are the negative measures: that is, ecclesiastical laws are not good and are not binding, if they be imposed against the interest of a divine commandment, or if they be taught as doctrines. Of the first there is no doubt, and in it there is no difficulty: but in the latter, there is a very great one. 8. For when our superiors impose a law of discipline, they say it is good, it is pleasing to God, it is a good instrument and ministry to some virtue, or at least it is an act of obedience, and that it is so, is true doctrine: what hurt can there be in all this? The commandments of men are bound upon us by the commandment of God, and therefore when they are once imposed, they cease to be indifferent, and therefore may then become didaxal, doctrines' and points of religion; what then is that which our blessed Saviour reproves? and what is our negative measure of ecclesiastical laws? 9. To this the answer is best given by a narrative of what the Pharisees did, and was reproved: for all was not repugnant to the law of God, neither is all that amiss which men teach to be done. For our blessed Saviour commanded us to hear them that' sat in Moses' chair, and to do whatsoever they commanded:' not absolutely whatsoever, but whatsoever of a certain sort; that is, 1. Whatsoever they taught by a probable interpretation of what was doubtful; 2. Or by faithful council concerning things belonging to piety and charity; 3. Or by a determining to circumstances of time and place those things, which were left to their choice and conduct. 10. Whatsoever was besides these, that is, 1. Whatsoever had its foundation in the opinions of men, and not in something certainly derived from God, if brought into religion and imposed on men's consciences as a part of the service of God, that is the teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.' But besides this, 2. If what is deduced only by probable interpretation, be obtruded as a matter of faith; or, 3. If what |