From the same opinion, that the present Church is the kingdom of God, it proceeds that pastors, deacons, and all other ministers of the Church, take the name to themselves of the clergy; giving to other Christians the name of laity, that is, simply people. For clergy signifies those, whose maintenance is that revenue, which God having reserved to himself during his reign over the Israelites, assigned to the tribe of Levi, (who were to be his public ministers, and had no portion of land set them out to live on, as their brethren,) to be their inheritance. The Pope therefore, pretending the present Church to be, as the realm of Israel, the kingdom of God, challenging to himself and his subordinate ministers, the like revenue, as the inheritance of God, the name of clergy was suitable to that claim. And thence it is, that tithes, and other tributes paid to the Levites, as God’s right, amongst the Israelites, have a long time been demanded, and taken of Christians, by ecclesiastics, jure divino, that is, in God’s right. By which means, the people every where were obliged to a double tribute; one to the state, another to the clergy; whereof, that to the clergy, being the tenth of their revenue, is double to that which a king of Athens, and esteemed a tyrant, exacted of his subjects for the defraying of all public charges: for he demanded no more but the twentieth part, and yet abundantly maintained therewith the commonwealth. And in the kingdom of the Jews, during the sacerdotal reign of God, the tithes and offerings were the whole public revenue.
And that the pastors are the clergy.
From the same mistaking of the present Church for the kingdom of God, came in the distinction between the civil and the canon laws: the civil law being the acts of sovereigns in their own dominions, and the canon law being the acts of the Pope in the same dominion. Which canons, though they were but canons, that is, rules propounded, and but voluntarily received by Christian princes, till the translation of the empire to Charlemagne; yet afterwards, as the power of the Pope increased, became rules commanded, and the emperors themselves, to avoid greater mischiefs, which the people blinded might be led into, were forced to let them pass for laws.
From hence it is, that in all dominions where the Pope’s ecclesiastical power is entirely received, Jews, Turks, and Gentiles, are in the Roman Church tolerated in their religion, as far forth, as in the exercise and profession thereof they offend not against the civil power: whereas in a Christian, though a stranger, not to be of the Roman religion, is capital; because the Pope pretendeth, that all Christians, are his subjects. For otherwise it were as much against the law of nations, to persecute a Christian stranger, for professing the religion of his own country, as an infidel; or rather more, in as much as they that are not against Christ, are with him.
From the same it is, that in every Christian state there are certain men, that are exempt, by ecclesiastical liberty, from the tributes, and from the tribunals of the civil state; for so are the secular clergy, besides monks and friars, which in many places bear so great a proportion to the common people, as if need were, there might be raised out of them alone, an army, sufficient for any war the Church militant should employ them in, against their own, or other princes.
Error from mistaking consecration for conjuration.
A second general abuse of Scripture, is the turning of consecration into conjuration, or enchantment. To consecrate, is, in Scripture, to offer, give, or dedicate, in pious and decent language and gesture, a man, or any other thing to God, by separating of it from common use; that is to say, to sanctify, or make it God’s, and to be used only by those, whom God hath appointed to be his public ministers, (as I have already proved at large in the [XXXV]th chapter,) and thereby to change, not the thing consecrated, but only the use of it, from being profane and common, to be holy, and peculiar to God’s service. But when by such words, the nature or quality of the thing itself, is pretended to be changed, it is not consecration, but either an extraordinary work of God, or a vain and impious conjuration. But seeing, for the frequency of pretending the change of nature in their consecrations, it cannot be esteemed a work extraordinary, it is no other than a conjuration or incantation, whereby they would have men to believe an alteration of nature that is not, contrary to the testimony of man’s sight, and of all the rest of his senses. As for example, when the priest, instead of consecrating bread and wine to God’s peculiar service in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, (which is but a separation of it from the common use, to signify, that is, to put men in mind of their redemption, by the passion of Christ, whose body was broken, and blood shed upon the cross for our transgressions,) pretends, that by saying of the words of our Saviour, This is my body, and this is my blood, the nature of bread is no more there, but his very body; notwithstanding there appeareth not to the sight, or other sense of the receiver, any thing that appeared not before the consecration. The Egyptian conjurers, that are said to have turned their rods to serpents, and the water into blood, are thought but to have deluded the senses of the spectators, by a false show of things, yet are esteemed enchanters. But what should we have thought of them, if there had appeared in their rods nothing like a serpent, and in the water enchanted, nothing like blood, nor like any thing else but water, but that they had faced down the king, that they were serpents that looked like rods, and that it was blood that seemed water? That had been both enchantment, and lying. And yet in this daily act of the priest, they do the very same, by turning the holy words into the manner of a charm, which produceth nothing new to the sense; but they face us down, that it hath turned the bread into a man; nay more, into a God; and require men to worship it, as if it were our Saviour himself present God and man, and thereby to commit most gross idolatry. For if it be enough to excuse it of idolatry, to say it is no more bread, but God; why should not the same excuse serve the Egyptians, in case they had the faces to say, the leeks and onions they worshipped, were not very leeks and onions, but a divinity under their species, or likeness. The words, This is my body, are equivalent to these, this signifies, or represents my body; and it is an ordinary figure of speech: but to take it literally, is an abuse; nor though so taken, can it extend any further, than to the bread which Christ himself with his own hands consecrated. For he never said, that of what bread soever, any priest whatsoever, should say, This is my body, or, this is Christ’s body, the same should presently be transubstantiated. Nor did the Church of Rome ever establish this transubstantiation, till the time of Innocent the Third; which was not above 500 years ago, when the power of popes was at the highest, and the darkness of the time grown so great, as men discerned not the bread that was given them to eat, especially when it was stamped with the figure of Christ upon the cross, as if they would have men believe it were transubstantiated, not only into the body of Christ, but also into the wood of his cross, and that they did eat both together in the sacrament.
Incantation in the ceremonies of baptism:
The like incantation, instead of consecration, is used also in the sacrament of baptism: where the abuse of God’s name in each several person, and in the whole Trinity, with the sign of the cross at each name, maketh up the charm. As first, when they make the holy water, the priest saith, I conjure thee, thou creature of water, in the name of God the Father Almighty, and in the name of Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, and in virtue of the Holy Ghost, that thou become conjured water, to drive away all the powers of the enemy, and to eradicate, and supplant the enemy, &c. And the same in the benediction of the salt to be mingled with it: That thou become conjured salt, that all phantasms, and knavery of the devil’s fraud may fly and depart from the place wherein thou art sprinkled; and every unclean spirit be conjured by Him that shall come to judge the quick and the dead. The same in the benediction of the oil; That all the power of the enemy, all the host of the devil, all assaults and phantasms of Satan, may be driven away by this creature of oil. And for the infant that is to be baptized, he is subject to many charms: first, at the church door the priest blows thrice in the child’s face, and says: Go out of him unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost the comforter. As if all children, till blown on by the priest, were demoniacs. Again, before his entrance into the church, he saith as before, I conjure thee, &c. to go out, and depart from this servant of God. And again the same exorcism is repeated once more before he be baptized. These, and some other incantations, are those that are used instead of benedictions, and consecrations, in administration of the sacraments of baptism, and the Lord’s supper; wherein every thing that serveth to those holy uses, except the unhallowed spittle of the priest, hath some set form of exorcism.
And in marriage, in visitation of the sick, and in consecration of places.