Of Church. SECT. VI:

THus having in few Images exprest
The effect which each extremity brings forth,
Within Mans nature, to disturb mans rest;
What enemies again they be to worth,
As either Gyves, which freedom doe restrain,
Or Jubiles which let confusion raign.

There rests to shew, what these degrees of vice
Work. when they fixt be to the moulds of might;
As what relation to the prejudice,
Or help they yeeld of universal right;
Vice getting forces far above her own,
When it spreads from a perfon to a Throne,

For as in Princes natures, if there be
An Audit taken, what each kind of passion
Works and by what usurp't authority,
Order and reason's peace they do disfashion;
Within mans little world, it proves the same
Which of pow'rs great world doth confound the frame.

Whence spread Kings self-love into Church or Law,
Pulpit and Bar streight feel corrupted might
Which bounded will not be, much less in awe.
Of Heavenly censure, or of Earthly right:
Besides Creation and each other part
Withers, When Pow'r turns Nature into Art.

For as between the object and our sence,
Look where the mediums do prove dim or cleer,
Mens minds receive forms of intelligence,
Which makes things either fair or foul appear,
So between powers lust, and peoples right,
The mediums help to cleer or dazel light.

Therefore to let down these high pillar'd Thrones
To lower Orbs where Prince and People mixe,
As Church, Laws, Commerce, Rights well temper'd Zones,
Where neither part extremity can fixe,
Either to bind Transcendence by constraint,
Or spoil mankind of all rights but complaint,

And where by this well-ballancing of Might,
Regalities of Crowns stand undeclin'd,
Whose beings are not to be infinite,
And so of greater price then all mankind;
But in desire and function temper'd so
As they may current with their people go.

When Theopompus, Lacedemons King
Had rais'd up a Plebean Magistrate,
(Like Roman Tribunes) which the soaring wing
Of Soveraign excesses might abate;
He therein saw, although he bound his Child,
Yet in a less room he did surer build.

For infinite ambition to extend
The bounds of pow'r (which finite pow'rs must weld)
As vain is, as desire to comprehend,
And plant Eternity in natures field;
Whereby the idle, and the over-doing
Alike run on, their own destruction woing.

Active then yet without excess of Spirit,
Strong Princes must be in their Government,
Their influence in every thing of merit,
Not with an idle, glorious name content,
But quick in nimble use, and change of wombs,
Which else prove Peoples snares, and Princes tombs.

Placing the first foundation of their Raigns
Upon that frame, which all frames else exceeds;
Religion, by whose name the Scepter gains
More of the world, and greater reverence breeds
In Forrainer, and home-bred subjects too,
Then much expence of blood and wealth can do.

For with what force Gods true Religion spreads,
Is by her shadow superstition known;
When Midas having over Phrygia shed
Seeds of this Ceremony, till then unknown,
Made Asia safer by that empty word,
Then his forefathers had done by the sword?

And is not Mahomets forg'd Alcoran
Both with the Heathen in Authority:
And to the Christians misled Miter-throne
Become a very rack of Tiranny?
Their spirits united, eating men like food,
And making ill ends with strong Armies good.

Religions fair name by insinuation
Secretly seiseth all pow'rs of the mind,
In understanding raiseth admiration,
Worship in Will, which native sweet links bind
The soul of Man, and having got possession
Give pow'rfull Will an ordinate progression.

Forming in Conscience lines of equity,
To temper Laws, and without force infuse
A home-born practice of civility,
Currant with that which all the world doth use,
Whereby divided Kingdoms may unite
If not in truth, at least in outward rite.

Therefore I say Pow'r should be provident
In judging this chief strength of Tyranny
With caution, that the Clergy Government
Give not the Miter Crown-supremacy;
Making the Sultan and the Caliph one,
To Tyrannize both Cair and Babylon.

The Churches proper Arms be Tears and Prayers,
Peters true Keys to open Earth, and Sky,
Which if the Priest out of his prides despair
Will into Tybris cast, and Pauls sword try;
Gods sacred word he therein doth abandon,
And runs with fleshly confidence at random:

Mild people therefore honour you your King,
Reverence your Priests, but never under one
Frail Creature both your soul and body bring,
But keep the better part to God alone,
The soul his Image is, and onely he
Knows what it is, and what it ought to be

Lest else by some idolatrous conceit,
You give them, that at sin can cast no stone,
Me…ns to pluck down the Godhead by deceit,
And upon Mans inventions raise a Throne:
Besides, where sword, and Canons do unite,
The peoples bondage there proves infinite.

Princes again wake, and be well advis'd,
How suddenly in Man Kings pow'r is drown'd,
The Miter rais'd, the Scepter prejudic'd,
If you leave all rights Superstition bound;
For then as souls more dear, then bodies are:
So these Church-visions may strain nature far.

Kings therefore that fear superstitious Might,
Must cross their courses in their infancy,
By which the Druids, with their shadow'd light,
Got Goods from them that took their words, to be
Treble rewarded in the life to come;
And works not Paradice the same for Rome?

For with such mystical dexterity,
Racking the living Souls through rage of sin,
And dying souls with horrors mystery,
Did not the Miter from the Scepter win
The third part of the world, till Luther came,
Who fhak't the Doctrine of that double frame?

Lie not France, Poland, Italy and Spain
Still as the Snow doth, when it threatens more,
Like Engines, fitted to draw back again
Those that the true light severed before?
And was not Venice excommunicate,
For curbing such false purchases of late?

Which endless thirst of sacred Avarice,
If in the infancy it be not bounded
Will hardly by prosperity grow wise;
For as this Church is on apparence founded
So besides Schools, and Cells which vail her shame,
Hath she not Armies to extend her name?

Pow'r for a Pensil, Conscience for a Table,
To write opinion in of any fashion,
With Wits distinctions, ever Merchantable,
Between a Princes Throne and Peoples Passion?
Upon which Texts she raiseth or puls down
All, but those objects, which advance her Crown

Pow'r therefore, be she needy, or ambitious,
Dispos'd to peace, or unto war enclin'd,
Whether religious in her life, or vicious,
Must not to Miters so enthral Mankind;
As above Truth, and Force, Moncks may prevail,
On their false visions Crown-Rights to entail.

Again, let not her Clerks by Simons ways,
Lay wast endowments of devoted spirits;
And so pull down, what their forefathers raisd
With honour in their actions, if not merit;
Least as by pride they once got up too high,
Their baseness feel the next extremity.

For first besides the scandal, and contempt
Which those base courses on their Doctrine cast;
The stately monuments are not exempt,
Because without means, no time-works can last;
And from high pomp a desperate descent
Shews both in State and Church misgovernment.

Whereof let her take heed, since when Estates
From such a greatness do begin to fall,
Descent is unto them precipitate:
For as one Gangren'd member ruines all;
So what the modesty of one time leaves,
The time succeeding certainly bereaves.

Therefore must Thrones (as Gods of forms exterior)
Cast up this Earthly mettal in good mould;
And when men to professions prove superior,
Restrain proud thoughts, from doing what they would,
Guiding the weak, and strong, to such extension,
As may to order sacrifice invention.

And hereby work that formal unity,
Which brooks no new, or irreligious Sects,
To nurse up Faction or Impiety,
Change ever teaching people to neglect:
But raise the painful, learned, and devout
To plant obeying conscience thorowout.

Veyling her Doctrine with Antiquity,
Whence, and where although contradicting Sects
Strive to derive, and prove their pedigree,
As safest humane levels to direct
Into what mould opinion should be cast,
To make her true, at least like truth to last.

Or if their times will not permit a Truce,
In wrangling questions, which break natures peace,
And therein offer God and Man abuse;
Let pow'r yet wisely make their practice cease,
In Church or Courts, and bind them to the Schools,
As business for idle, witty fools.

Ordering that people from the Pulpit hear
Nothing, but that which seems mans life to mend;
As shadows of eternal hope and fear,
Which do contract the ill, and good extend,
Not idle Theorick, to tickle wit,
Empty of goodness, much more nice then fit.

To which refining end, it may seem just,
That in the Church the supream Magistrates
Should ancient be, ere they be put in trust,
Since aged wit best tempers, and abates
These heady and exorbitant affections,
Which are of blind proud youth the imperfections.

The Roman Laws for Magistrates admit
None that had not pass'd the meridian line
Of youth, and humours incident to it;
And shall it not in functions Divine
Be more absurd, to let that youth appear,
And teach what wise men think scarce fit to hear?

Besides, chaste life years easilier may observe,
Which temper in Cathedral Dignity,
Though Wives be lawful, yet doth well deserve,
As to their functions leaving them more free:
Instance their Learned works that liv'd alone,
Where married Bishops left us few, or none.

And if men shall object, that this restraint
Of lawful Marriage will encrease the sin,
And so the beauty of the Church attaint,
By bringing scandal through mans frailty in,
I say mans fall is sins, not Churches shame,
Ordain'd by censure to enlarge her Fame.

Censure, the life of Discipline, which bears
Pow'rs spiritual Standard, fit to govern all
Opinions, Actions, Humours, Hopes, and Fears,
Spread knowledge, make obedience general;
Whence Man instructed well, and kept in awe,
If not the inward, yet keeps outward Law.

Which form is all that Tyranny expects,
I mean, to win, to change, and yet unite;
Where a true King in his estate affects
So from within man, to work out the right,
As his Will need not limit or allay
The liberties of Gods immortal way.

Where Tyrants discipline is never free,
But ballanced, proportioned, and bounded
So with the temporal ends of Tyranny,
And ways whereon pow'rs greatnesses are founded;
As in Creation, Fame, Life, Death, or War,
Or any other heads that Soveraign are.

Pow'r may not be opposed, or confounded;
But each inferior Orb command or serve,
With proper latitudes distinctly bounded,
To censure all States that presume to swerve,
Whereby the common people and the Throne
May mutually protected be in one.

Not rent asunder by sophistication
Of one frail sinner, whose supremacy
Stands by prophane or under-valuation
Of Gods anointed Soveraignity:
And by dividing subjects from their Kings
Soars above those Thrones, which first gave them wings.

Affecting such irrevocable might
With us, as to their Mufty, Turks liv'd under,
Or rather sacriledge more infinite,
From Jove to wrest away the fearful Thunder:
Salmoneus pride, as if the truth then fell,
When he alone rul'd not Earth, Heav'n and Hell.

Salmoneus who while he his Carroach drave
Over the brazen Bridge of Elis stream,
And did with artificial Thunder brave
Jove, till he pierc't him with a lightning beam;
From which example who will an Idol be,
Must rest assur'd to feel a Deity.

Thus much to shew the outward Churches use,
In framing up the superstitious sphear,
Subject alike to order, or abuse,
Chain'd with immortal seeming hopes and fear;
Which shadow-like their beings yet bereave,
By trusting to be, when their bodies leave.

Whereif that outward work which pow'r pretends,
Were life indeed, not frail Hypocrisie,
Monarchs should need no other Laws to friend,
Conscience being Base of their authority;
By whose want, frailty flashing out mans error
Makes Thrones enwall themselves with Laws of terror.