A Golden Chain

Argum. 7. Inferior authority cannot bind the superior: now the courts of men and their authority are under conscience. For God in the heart of every man hath erected a tribunal seat, and in his stead he hath placed neither Saint nor Angel, nor any other creature whatsoever, but conscience it self, who therefore is the highest Judge that is or can be under God; by whose direction also courts are kept, and laws are made.

Argum. 7. Inferiour authoritie cannot bind the superiour: nowe the courts of men and their authority are vnder conscience. For God in the heart of euery man hath erected a tribunall seate, and in his stead hee hath placed neither Saint nor Angell, nor any other creature whatsoeuer, but conscience it selfe, who therefore is the highest Iudge that is or can be vnder God; by whose direction also courts are kept, and lawes are made.

Thus much of the Popish opinion: by which it appears that one of the principal notes of Antichrist agrees fitly to the Pope of Rome. Paul, 2. Thess. 2. makes it a special property of Antichrist to exalt himself against or above all that is called God, or worshipped. Now what doth the Pope else, when he takes upon him authority to make such laws as shall bind the con science, as properly and truly as Gods laws? and what doth he else when he ascribes to himself power to free mens consciences from the bond of such laws of God, as are unchangeable; as may appear in a Canon of the Council of Trent: the words are these,¹ If any shall say, that those degrees of consanguinity that be expressed in Leviticus, do only hinder matrimony to be made, and break it being made, and that the Church cannot dispense with some of them, or appoint that more degrees may hinder or break marriage, let him be accursed. O sacrilegious impiety! considering the laws of affinity and consanguinity, Leviticus 18