are transported with ariseth from the like ground as was in the hearts of Tobias and Sanballat Nehem. 4. Solatiam est malorum bonos Ca pere Ieron ut improbi suo malo delectantur ita invidi alienâ— bonâ— terquentur Amb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amb. and that scornfull crue against the Jews that by their means this Church of God as the Temple is built repayred clensed reformed That by their valiant courage learned skill and vigilant Industry the truth faith holy Ordinances and good manners of this Reformed Church are asserted vindicated preserved and restored from those ruines rubbige sords and demolishings by which erroneous ambitious covetous and licentious minds seek to waste infest and quite abolish the Reformed Religion both in England and every where else In order to which grand design the Anti-ministeriall Adversaries are not wanting to bring all manner of rayling accusationâ— and indign Calumnies against both the Ministers and Ministry of this Church Some of which I think it a shame for me by reciting of them to pollute either my Pen or the purer eyes of those readers who excell in Civility as much as those evill Speakers do in insolency and scurrility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 27.34 both for carriage and language against the best Ministers in England But it is no wonder if they give us the gall and vinegar of bitter reproaches to drink when they intend shortly to crucifie us All is less than was sayd and done to Christ himself It is part of our honour and blessing to have men speak all manner of evill of us Mat. 5.11 if we can but make it appear to be most falsly and and injuriously as well as most indignly and ungratefully Such manner of speaking becomes no mens mouths but those whose hearts abound with so much malice against the best Ministers who ought to be the best of men and generally are the best of speakers In honour to whose many reall and excellent gifts becomming the dignity of their holy place and function as also in charity to all others chiefly those who most despise and hate the Ministers of this Church I shall endevour to let all men see in the following part of this Apology the malice futility and falsity of those evill speakings wherewith some men please themselves the more because they think they please some others whom they fancy to have a very evill eye and an heavy hand toward such Ministers as most study to please God and to preserve the Reformed religion in this Church of Christ CAVIL or CALUMNY IV. Against the Ministry of England as Papal and Anti-Christian THe fourth Cavil or Calumny then wherewith the office and function of the Ministers of England is battered and defamed among the credulous weak and vulgar minds is this That if there be such a peculiar order and office of the Ministry established in Scripture by a Divine Institution and so continued in the Church by a right Ordination for some times of Primitive purity to a holy succession yet the present Station Calling and Authority of the Ministers of England is apparently Antichristian as derived from Episcopall Ordination and that descended from the Papall or Roman authority which was but of late years abolished as that of Episcopie they think now is neither of them seeming to them to be of Christs appointment or according to Scripture-rule and patern So that if it be necessary to have peculiar Ministers by office it is also necessary to cast off the former order and standing which is degenerated and to begin upon some new account which shall appear to be neerest to the pattern of Divine Institution and primitive practise how ever it may fail of a constant succession for above these 1600. years from Christ during all which time it is evident indeed that Bishops have had a chief place and influence in the Ordination of Ministers and for 1000. the Pope hath chalenged something of Supremacy and Jurisdiction in these Western Churches over all the Clergy both Bishops and Presbyters None of which are fit to serve in Gods house as Ministers while they are not clensed from that leprosie which they have contracted from the Pope and Prelates Answ I will first endevour to take off from the face of our Ministry this scandalous visard of the Papall authority 1 The Papal Usurpation no prejudice to the true Ministry of England more than to all other Christian Institutions which scares some people so very much that they are afraid to medle with any thing that ever passed the Popes fingers except only the lands and revenews of the Clergy Having removed this veil or covering which was sometime over these Western Churches we shall easily see the face of the holy Ministry no less than of other Christian Institutions restored without any Disfiguration or Essentiall change by any such mask as might sometimes be upon it through the policy and folly of many It were a very weak and injurious Conâ—ession no less prejudiciall to the Reformed Churches than pleasing to all the Romish party if the Pope could perswade us Protestants and other Christians to cast quite away and utterly abhor what ever the Papall usurpation hath abused or the Romish devotion hath used in matter of Christian religion Sure then we must seek for other Apostles and Saints other Scriptures and Sacraments another Gospel and Messias than Jesus Christ no less than other Bishops and Ministers For over all these the Popes of Rome have spread the skirts of their usurped authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ep. 67. Plato All things handled by men are subject to be sâ—yied 2 Thes 2.4 Antichristus ChristuÌ„ mentitur turpitudinem vitae falso nominis honore convestit Jerom. ad Geront Amara erat Ecclesia in nece martyrum amarior in conflictu haereticorum amarissima in moribus domesticorum Ber. â— 33. in Cant. Petri CathedraÌ„ occupat tanquam Leo paratus ad praedam bestia Apocalyptica cui datum est os loqueus blasphemias bellum gerere cum sanctis Ber. ep 125. Maâ— 21.13 Christus Templum Dei cauponibus latronibus deturpatum non diruit aut penitus detestatur sed purgamenta ista faeces ejiciendo Dei domum in diviniorem usum asserit hoc modo in pristinum honoram restituit Chem. Mat. 23.2 Mat. 15.6 their impure mixtures their corrupt doctrines and superstitious manners Who as far as they are Antichristian that is go in any wayes contrary to the holy rule and humble patern of Jesus Christ yet might yea and ought to sit in the Temple of God as all Antichristian spirits indeed do who cannot properly be but where there is a Profession of Christianity yet it doth not follow that the Catholique Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail so as to extinguish the name of Christ was either wholly ruined by Antichristian superstructures or that the whole fabrick of it must be pulled down
and decency but all was easily effected by the conventions of the chief heads and Fathers of the Churches the Bishops and Presbyters in any Province Patriarchate yea and in all the world which had commerce with the Roman Empire where the chief overseers of the Flock and representers of the Clergy met and so were best able to give an account of the state of the Church past and present or to advise for the future welfare of it So that many wise men think it may be sayd of Episcopall government in its right constâ—â—ution and use Platins in vita Pii 2. as Piâ—â— the second said of the marriages of Clergy-men He saw some reason why Marriage should be denied to them as to the honour of their Order and the redemption of them from secular cares c. But he saw much more reason to allow them that liberty which not only Nature Reason and Religion gives them as well as any men but even the honor of the Church required to avoyd the mischiefs and enormities which followed the contrary And beyond all dispute it appears after long dispute that if it be not necessary by Divine prescript and direction to have such Bishops among the Clergy yet there is no necessity made to appear against them either in Reason or Scripture Nor doth either Presbytery or Independency shew any so good title to divine right as Episcopacy doth which includes the good of both those and superads some thing of Order Unity and Excellency beyond them both for the good of Presbyters and people too Yea I have known some Ministers of good repute for Learning and Piety who were sometime great sticklers for the parity of Presbyterie yet they have since the mischiefs ensuing the change have confuted and quenched those former vain hopes and excessive heats confessed to me That they see nothing in an Episcopall priority or Presidency unlawfull as against Scripture or Religion only it was thought by many godly men inconvenient It may be so but those men did not foresee the after inconveniences which grow greater by many degrees So that I perceived that this long hot and bloody dispute which seemed to hold forth the question and title of Divine right for Presbytery without a Bishop was now referrable to the judgement of Prudence rather than of Conscience a matter of policie rather than piety Answer to what is urged in the Covenant against Episcopacy Tyrannicum Episcoporum regimen This calmness at last abates much of that rigor which some men superstitiously urge and impose from the Covenant against Episcopacy in any kind or form as if when Scripture and Reason and Antiquity and Catholique custome are all for a right Episcopacy it were of any force to be battered and Abolished by the Covenant the sense of which was sometime declared to be only against the Tyrannicall abusive and corrupt government of Bishops or those inconveniences which were conceived to be in the present Constitution exercise or use here in England which one that had great influence in composing the Covenant assured others was the meaning of the Composers and the Covenants intent was only to remove what was decayed in that antient Fabrick and so preserve what was sound and good in it The only lawfull and honest sense of this Covenant is sufficiently kept if the former Constitution of Episcopacy in England be so reformed as it easily may be and in reason ought to be in what ever it needed alteration or amendment However that Covenant being no infallible Oracle dictated from heaven but a politique Engine continued and carried on by a company of poor sinfull and fallible men upon whose heads we have lived to see that arrow fall which they thought to shoot only against the face of Episcopacy all its words and senses are certainly to be brought to the rules of every mans place and calling of a good conscience of right reason and of Scriptures Not may these with all Antiquity and the Fathers be forced to bow their sheafes and to do homage to that one Sheaf of humane Combination and novell Erection which holds forth as nothing for a headless Presbytery or Independency So nothing of Reason Scripture or Conscience against a right and primitive Episcopacy Against which to make a Covenant of extirpation must needs be so much a sin as it is against all reason and religion to abjure the use of any thing which is lawfull good and usefull And if it be not necessary as of Apostolike and divine Institution if there be not Precept divine commanding yet there is clear practise directing the Church that way of Episcopall government as best which some men wel knowing to have bin antiently approved and constantly followed by the Catholike Church they used in the Covenant that art against Episcopacy to soder Popery and Prelacy together thereby to bring the greater odium on Episcopacy â— Prelacy to Popery implying that they were both intollerable and inseparable whereas in truth there is nothing more ridiculously false and absurd than to think the Pope to be the Father or Fountain of Episcopacy or to affirm Prelacy to be Popery as now the word is commonly understood to signifie Error joyned with pride and superstition with tyranny There were many godly Bishops and holy Prelates in the primitive Churches which were equal or preceding in time as at Antioch Jerusalem Alexandria c. Episcopatus unus est cujus ingulis in sâ—â—idum pars temtur Cyp. de un Ecc. to any Bishop or Pope of Rome Many afterwards were equall to him in authority as to their severall Provinces Independent also as to any derivation of power from the Bishop of Rome As there are now many in the Christian world and were in the English Church both long before and ever since the Reformation Nor is the Pope by any wise men called Antichristian in any sense as he is a Bishop or Prelate of one Diocesse or Province Nor was he ever thought to be so by any judicious Protestant for then all Bishops in all the world as Bishops had ever been Antichrists and then the whole Church of Christ from the Apostles times must have had no other government ordination or Ministry but Antichristian which is a most impudent and intollerable blaspheming of God and the Lord Jesus and his blessed Spirit and of the whole Church As if Joh. 14.16 in stead of the Spirit of Truth it had received only the spirit of Error and lying in stead of Christs being alwayes with it by the Ministeriall gifts of his Spirit and the Apostles and their Successors Mat. 28.20 Ps 2.6 only Satan had presided in it by falsity and usurpation and as if in stead of all the ends of the earth given to Christ for his possession in the way of an Evangelicall kingdome and Ministry where truth and righteousness charity and order are his Throne and Scepter all had been exposed to Antichrists invasion that he
persons countries or Churches It is hard to discerne the Star of Prophecy so over any one man or place or time as that was over the house where Christ was in Bethlehem Hence many meteors falling Stars and fatuous fires are frequently discovered in the writings of fancifull and factious men as if all they did or desired or approved were evidently foretold and commended in the Revelation In whose Visions one sees this Princess another sees that learned man a third that State or Kingdome a fourth that Commander and Conqueror c. according as men list to fancy themselves or flatter others whose sparks are far extinct and their glory presently vanisheth as no way proportionable to that fixed light and ample glory which the spirit of prophecy holds forth chiefly to the Christian world in opposition to Heathens Jews or Antichrists After the way of these Prophetick fancies and passionate methods of some mens misinterpreting and misapplying Prophecies great Religion we see hath been placed by small mindes in pulling down and extirpating the ancient order and government of Episcopacy which was in all Churches as here in England from the first plantation of Christianity Also in setting up the supremacy of an headlesse Eldership and Presbytery or in dashing both of them into sheards and small pieces by the little stone of Independency How doe some glory in their dividing and destroying the ancient goodly frames of Churches that they may new modell them to their popular way of calling chusing and ordaining of Ministers Many boast much in their forsaking the calling and communion of all former Ministers and religious assemblies in their despising and demolishing the very places of publique meeting to serve God which not conscience of any divine particular precept but common reason and civility have presented Christian Religion withall for its honour and its professors conveniency Some here with us in England a place whose Genius much disposeth people to prophecies novelties and varieties are as Pygmalion with his Image so inamoured with their Corpusculo's the little new bodies of their gathered Churches that they deny any Nationall Church in any larger associatings of Christians by harmonies of confession and peaceable subordinations yea and many will allow no Catholick Church nor any religious sense to that article of our Creed denying any true Church at all to be now in the world Some place all Church power in paucities in parities in popular levellings and Independencies others contemn all those broken bodies as schismaticall slips having nothing in them of that goodly beauty stature strength and integrity to which the Church of Christ was wont to grow and wherein it flourished and continued conspicuous so many hundred of years before these novelties were broached or brewed either in England or any other countrey The height of some mens Religion and Reformation is to have neither Bishops nor Ministers of the ancient authority succession and ordination Others refuse these also of the new Presbyterian stamp which is not much older here in England than the figure and superscription of the last coin A third will have no Minister but such as the common people shall try chuse consecrate and judge Some will have no Minister at all by office or divine mission others will have any man a Minister or Prophet that lists to make or call himself one In like manner some will allow Baptism to no Infants others to none but such whose parents they judge to be Saints a third baptize the children of all that professe they beleive the truth of the Gospell a fourth sort deny the use of any water Baptism at all By a Catabaptisticall boldnesse or blindenesse magisterially contradicting and sophistically disputing against the expresse letter of the Scripture against the command of Jesus Christ against the practise of all the Apostles and against the custom of all Christian Churches Pretending as a rare and warm invention that the Baptisme of fire and of the Spirit which they now at last hold forth will both supply and explode that colder ceremony of sprinkling or dipping in water It is strange these Rabbies and Masters in Israel should be so silly as not to know that long before their brain brought forth any such blasphemous brood against baptizing by water all judicious Christians ever esteemed baptism by water to be an extern sign and meanes by which the wisedome of Christ thought fit to administer to his Church on earth not onely that distinctive mark of being his Disciples but also the representation of his bloud shed for their redemption and the obsignation of that Baptismall grace which his Spirit confers on those that are his by the cleansing of the conscience and renewing of the inward man 1 Pet. 3.21 Christians must not after the short and more compendious methods of their fancies therefore neglect the sign or ceremony because they presume of the thing signified but rather with humble obedience doe the duty and use the meanes divinely instituted that they may obtain the grace offered On the same grounds all outward Ministrations among Christians may be despised and abolished by those that pretend to the Spirits inward efficacy which is never in any man that doth not obey the Gospell in its outward mandates as well as the Spirit in its inward motions Proud idle and ignorant fancies are dayly finding shorter wayes to heaven than the wisdome of Christ hath laid out to his Church in following of which no good Christian can judge that there is either piety peace or safety Some boast much of their popular and plausible gifts for knowledge utterance prayer c. others slight all but inward grace and the Spirits dwelling in them Some dote much upon their select fraternities and covenanting congregations others are onely for private illuminations solitary seekings sublime raptures and higher assurances Some admire themselves in their tedious strictnesses and severer rigors by which they gird up the loins of their Religion so strait that it can hardly take civill breath or the air of common courtesie others joy as much in the Liberty they fancy themselves to have attained both of opinions and actions Some make every thing a sin and errour which they like not others count nothing a sin to which they have an impulse and are free as they call it Some tolerate all wayes of Religion in all men till it comes to be private Atheisme and publique confusion others crack all strings which will not be wound up to their pitch damning and destroying all that are not of their particular mode and heresie though never so novel and differing not onely from the Catholick practise of the primitive Churches but also from the expresse rule of the Scriptures Whom would not these monsters of novelties varieties and contradictions among Christians in their Religion as it is Christian and reformed too even amaze and greatly astonish ready to scare all men from any thing that wee in England call Religion Reformation Church or Conscience
suburbicaniarum ecclesiarum solicitudinem gerâ—â— Ruffin hist l. 1. c. 6. Concil Nicen. both Papal and Popular First The Romanists extend the cords of their Churches power and its head or chief Bishop so far as if it were properly Catholike and Oecumenical that is by divine appointment invested with sovereign Authority to extend and exercise Ecclesiastical polity and dominion over all other particular Churches in all ages and in all parts of the World So that it is say they necessary to salvation to be under this Roman jurisdiction c. Whereas it is certain That the Roman Church antiently was and still is properly speaking distinct from others in place as well as name and had antiently its limited power and jurisdiction extending to the suburbicanian Provinces which were Ten seven in Italy and three in Sicily Corsica and Sardinia Accoâ—ding to those like bounds which occasionally from civil titles both named and distinguished all other Churches from one another in both the Asiaes in Africa and in Europe as the Gallican German British c. Nor hath ever any thing either of Reason or Scripture been produced by any more than of true Antiquity whereby to prove That we are bound to any communion that is in the true meaning of proud and politick Romanists to that subjection to the Pope and his party which may be most for his and their honor and profit with the Church of Rome further than the rule of Christian charity obligeth every Christian and every part of the Catholike Church to communicate in truth and love with all those that in any judgement of charity are to be counted true Christians so far as they appear to us to be such Nor is it less evident That many Churches and Christians have scarce ever known much less owned any claim of subjection upon them by the Roman Church Which however they had antiently a priority of order and precedency yielded to it and its chief Bishop for the eminency of the City the honor of the Empire and the excellency of the reputed Founders and Planters Saint Peter and Saint Paul also for the renown of the faith patience and charity of that Church which was famous in all the World Yet Rom. 1. â— all this Primacy or Priority of Order which was civilly by others granted and might modestly be accepted by the chief Bishop in the Roman Province as to matter of place and precedency or Votes in publick Counscis and Synods This I say is very far from that * Greg. Mag. ep 30. ad Mauri Aug. Fidenter dico quia quisquis se universalem sacerdotem vel Episcopum vocat vel vocari desiderat in elatione suâ Antichristum praecurrit quia superbiendo se caeteris praeponit De Cyriaco Constantinop Episcope hunc frivoli nominis superbia typhum affectante Greg. M. l 4. ep 32 36. Antichristian Supremacy of usurped power tyrannick dominion and arbitrary jurisdiction the very suspition and temptation to which the holy and humble Bishops of Rome were ever jealous of and avoided especially Gregory the Great who was in nothing more worthy of that title than in this That he so greatly detested protested against and refused the title of Vniversal Bishop when it was offered to him by the Councel of Chalcedon Which both name and thing was in after times gained and chalenged by the pride policy covetousness and ambition of those Bishops of Rome who by some of their own sides confession as * Baronius an 912. tom 10. Foedissima nunc Romanae ecclesia facies cùm Romae dominarentur potentissima ac sordidissima merâ—â—rices Baronius * See Genebrard ad Sec. 10. Pontifices per an 150. à virtute majorum prorsus desecerunt Genebrard and others were sufficiently degenerated from that Primitive humility and sanctity which were eminent in the first Bishops of Rome in those purer and primitive times who never thought of any one of those Three Crowns which flatterers in after ages have fully hammered and set on the heads of the Bishops of Rome in a Supremacy not of Order but of Power and plenary Jurisdiction above all Christians or Churches or Councils in the Christian World which hath justly occasioned so many parts of the Catholike Church in that regard to make a necessary separation not from any thing that is Christian among them but from the usurpation tyranny and superstition of those bishops of the Roman Church and their Faction who unjustly claim and rigorously exercise dominion over the Consciences and Liberties of all other Churches and Christians With whom the Roman pride now refuseth to hold such peaceable communion as ought universally to be among Christians in respect of order and charity unless they will all submit to that tyranny and usurpation which hath nothing in it but secular pride vain pomp and worldly dominion Yet still those of the Roman Church know That all the Reformed Churches as well as we of England ever did and do hold a Christian communion in charity with them so far as by the Word of God we conceive they hold with the head or root of the Church Christ Jesus with the ground and rule of Faith the Scriptures and with all those holy Professors in the purest and primitive Churches Of whose faith lives and deaths having some Monuments left us by the writings of eminent Bishops and others we judge what was the tenor both of the Faith Maners and Charity of those purer times which we highly venerate and strive to imitate Possibly we might now subscribe to that Letter which the Abbot and Monks of Bangor sent to Austin whom some report to be a proud and bloody Monk when he came to this Nation and required obedience of them and all Christians here to the Pope which Letter is thus translated out of Saxonick by that grave and learned Gentleman Sir Henry Spelman Sir Henry Spelman Concil Brit. Anno Christi 590. out of the Saxon Manuscript a lover and adorner of this Church of England by his life and learned Labors Be it known to you without doubt that every one of us are obedient and subject to the Church of God and to the Pope of Rome and to every true godly Christian to love every one in his degree in perfect charity and to help every one of them by word and deed to be the children of God and other obedience than this we know not due to him whom you call Pope nor do we own him to be Father of Fathers Isca one of the three Metropolis in Britain Caerusk in Monmouthshire Antiq. Brit. This obedience we are ever ready to give and pay to him and every Christian continually Beside we are under our own Bishop of Caerleon upon Usk who is to oversee us under God and to cause us to keep the way spiritual Nor will this benefit of the Popes pretended Infallibility 11. The pretended Infallibility in the Pope or Church of Rome
errors or publike disorders and scandals which it concerned all Christians and Churches to see repressed or amended Of Excommunication and censures Praesident prolati quique seniores honorem islam non pretio sed testimonio adepti Tertul. Apol. c. 39. The â—do Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 10. Quod sacris Episcoporum conciliis constitutum fuerit id ad divinam voluntatem est referendum Const M. dictum Euseb vit Const Episcopi in Synodo Sardicensi Dei amantissimi Reges adjuvantâ— divina gratia nos congregaverunt In illa concilla totus desiderio feror in istis devotione immoror amore condeleâ—tor inhaereo consensu emulatione persisto in quibus non hominum traditiones obstinatius defensantur aut superstitiosius observantur sed diligentur humiliterque inquiritur quae sit voluntas Dei bona bene placens Bern. Ep. 19. The wise and excellent Discipline of the Church and the power of using and applying of it which so many now either vainly arrogate or ambitiously Court was not of old as a bodkin put into every mechanicks hands or as a sword committed to every brawny arm nor yet was it such a brutum fulmen a thunder-bolt which the confident hand of every factionist might take to himself and Grasp or use to his private revenge or to the advantage of his party and design But Discipline together with Government in the Church was only committed and concredited after the example of the ApostolicÌ„all times by the wisdom humility consent and subjection of all good Christians in their severall stations either as Princes or Subjects to those learned grave and godly men Bishops and Presbyters who were ablest for gifts eminentest for their labours and highest in place and Ministeriall authority in the Churches of Christ whose assemblies or convenings were greater or smaller and their influence accordingly obliging valid and effectuall for the good of those Churches over which they were ascending from the first and least Country Congregations as the smallest yet considerable branches of a visible Church till it arose like Ezekiels waters from the Anckles to the Knees and Loyns and Head to such large plenary and powerfull an Authority as represented many famous Churches and sometimes the greatest and conversable parts of the Catholick Church throughout the whole world as in generall Councils called Oecumeniall Of Synods and Councils Out of which Synods and Councils however disorders and inconveniences as Nazianzene and others complain cannot be wholy kept out they still consisting of sinfull and so frail men yet they were subject to far less evils Cyp. Nazi orat 19. Ruffin Hist l. 1. c. 19. 18. In causa Athenasii Factionis macula sociavit concilium non judicandi sed opprimendi causa agebatur sub Constantio Concil Nicae secundum ab Artianis coactuÌ„ terrae motu impeditum Theod. l. 2. c. 19. and Errataes than attend the small scattered and separate bodies of there later decimo sexto editions In multitude of Counsellors there is wisdom safety and honour Prov. 11.14 Nor may we cast away those goodly large Robes which the prudence and piety of the antients made because they are subject to be soyled or rent by the hands of folly It is better for the Church to enjoy the gleanings of the antients Integrity Wisdom and Charity in ordering of the Church than to have the whole harvest of later mens sowings which have large straw of promises and shews but little grain of solid benefit yea much cockle too and many thistles of most choaking and offensive consequences The very rags of true antiquity doe better cover the nakedness and more adorne thee body of any Church than any of those cobweb-garments of later making which are torn in pieces while they are putting on and fitting to these new bodies of odd shapen Churches All reason and experience teacheth that those grand communicative wayes of Christian Churches in the joynt Counsels of grave learned and Godly men drawing all into union harmony and peace for the publike and generall good were far more probable though perhaps not absolutely necessary means to preserve both the doctrine of Faith and good manners unblameable among Christians than any of those small and broken Potsheards of private Independency can be which carry little ability and as little authority or vertue with them appearing like the Serpents teeth sown by Cadmus every where rising up in armed parties divided against and destroying one another till they have cleared the Field as of all such new and angry productions so of all those antient and excellent constitutions of Christian Churches which were bound up as Bibles in greater or lesser volumes It being so naturall to all men to affect what they call liberty and power if once mean men can by any arts obtein any shadow of them they are out of the shew of much zeal and conscience most pragmaticall And first begin to think no Church well reformed unless they bring them to their models Then their modell must be new lest their Authors should seem to have been idle being alwaies more concerned for the reformation of any men than of themselves God grant that while temerity and confidence pretends to plant none but new and rare flowers and to root up all old ones as ill weeds in the Church that themselves and their odd inventions with their rash abolitions prove not at last the most noxious plants that ever pestered the Garden of this Church To what some men urge by abusing that text against the good Orders Canons and Constitutions or Customs of the Church 31. Of prudence in ordering the Church affairs Mat. 15.13 That every plant which the Father hath not planted shall be pulled up therefore say they nothing of humane prudence is tolerable in the ordering of any Church I answer first none of those that quarrelled at the Church of Englands Motes but are thought by many learned and Godly men to have beams in their own eyes if Scripture right reason and antiquity may judge for nothing is alleged as more different from any of these amongst us than what may be found among the new Modellers who as they were in number and quality much inferior so they were never thought more wise or learned nor so calm and composed nor so publike and unpassionate in their Counsels and determinations as those many excellent men and Churches were both antient and modern to whose examples agreeable to the Canon of the Scriptures the Church of England was conformed n his rebus in quibus nihil certi statuit Scriptura mos populi Dei vel instituta majorum pro lege tenendi sunt Aug. Ep. 89. Disciplina nulla est melior gravi prudentique viro in his quae liberas habent observationes quam ut co modo agat quo agere viderit Ecclesiam ad quam cunque forte divenerit Quod enim neque contra fidem neque bonos more 's injungitur indâ—fferenter est habendum
exemplo Timothei ecclesiae ordinationem custodirent Ambr. in 1 Tim. 6. not arbitrarily and precariously but as a trust and duty of necessity out of conscience and with all divine power authority and fidelity as Ambassadors from Christ for God as Heralds as Angels or Messengers sent from God as Laborers together with God in his Husbandry the Church as Woers and Espousers having Commission or Letters of credence to treat of and make up a marriage and espousals between Christ and the Church which sacred office of trust and honor none without due authority delegated to him from Christ might perform any more than Haman might presume to court Queen Esther before the King Ahasuerus During these Primitive times of the Apostles Ministry of the Gospel before they had finished their mortal pilgrimage we read them careful to ordain Presbyters in every City and Church to give them charge of their Ministry to fulfil it of their flocks to feed and guide them in Christs way both for truth and orders over whom the Lord had made them over-seers by the Apostles appointment who not onely thus ordained others to succeed them immediately but gave command as from the Lord to these as namely to Timothy and Titus to take great care for an holy succession of Ministers such as should be apt to teach able and faithful men to whom they should commit the Ministry of the Word of life so as the Word or Institution of Christ might be kept unblamable till the coming of Jesus Christ 1 Tim. 6.14 by an holy order and office of Ministers duly ordained with the solemn imposition of hands as a visible token to men of the peculiar designiation of them and no others but those to this Office and Function who must attend on the Ministry give an account of their charge and care of souls to God Thus we finde beyond all dispute for Three Generations after Christ First in the Apostles secondly from them to others by name to Timothy and Titus thirdly from them to others by them to be ordained Bishops and Deacons the holy Ministry instituted by Christ is carried on in an orderly succession in the same Name with the same Authority to the same holy ends and offices as far as the History of the New Testament extends which is not above thirty years after Christs Ascension And we have after all these the next Succession testifying the minde of the Lord and the Apostles Clemens the Scholar of Saint Paul mentioned Phil. 4.3 who in his divine Epistle testifies That the Apostles ordained every where the first-fruits or prime Believers for Bishops and Deacons Pag. 54. And pag. 57. the Apostles appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinct Offices as at present 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That when these slept with the Lord others tried and approved men should succeed and execute their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy Ministry than which testimony nothing can be more evident After that he blames the Corinthians for raising sedition for one or two mens sake against all the Presbytery Pag. 62. And exhorts at last Let the flock of Christ be at peace with the Presbyters ordained to be over it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So after Be subject to the Presbyters c. Thus the excellent methods of Christs grace and wisdom toward his Church appear as to this peculiar Office and constant Function of the Evangelical Ministry commanding men to work the work of God that they may have eternal life John 6.29 which is to believe in him whom the Father hath sent sealed and anointed with full power to suffer to satisfie to merit to fulfil all Righteosness Also to declare and confirm this to his Church constantly teaching guiding and sanctifying it He hath for this end taken care that faithful able and credible men should be ordained in an holy constant succession to bear witness or record of him to all posterity that so others might by hearing believe without which ordinarily they cannot Rom. 10.14 15. Nor can they hear with regard or in prudence give credit and honor to the speaker or obey with conscience the things spoken unless the Preacher be such an one as entreth in by the door John 10.1 into the sheepfold such as is sent by God either immediately as the Apostles or mediately as their Successors from them and after them who could never have preached and suffered with that confidence conscience and authority unless they had been conscious that they were rightly sent of God Rom. 10.14 15. Psal 68.11 Isai 53.1 1 Cor. 1.18 and Christ At whose Word onely this great company of Preachers were sent into the world who so mightily in a short time prevailed as to perswade men every where to believe a report so strange so incredible so ridiculous so foolish to flesh and blood and to the wisdom of the world Thus far then the tenor of the whole New Testament 6. Distinct Characters and Notes of the Ministerial Office John 15.19 and that one Apostolike Writer Clemens witnesseth that as Jesus Christ the great Prophet and chief Shepherd 1 Pet. 5.4 was sent and impowred with all power from the Father to carry on the great work of saving sinners by gathering them out of the world into the fold and bosom of his Church So he did this and will ever be doing it till his comming again by ordeining and continuing such means and Ministry Mat. 28.20 as he saw fittest to bring men into and to guide them in Joh. 21.15 Feed my Lambs my Sheep Acts 20.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To feed as Shepheards the flock 1 Pet. 5.2 1 Cor. 4.4 Let a man so account of us as the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God c. 2 Tim. 4.1 2. 2 Tim. 4.5 Acts 20.29 1 Tim 4.11 Mat. 28. ult Heb. 13.14 Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account c. Luke 12.43 Blessed is that servant the faithfull and wise Steward set over the house-hold whom his Master comming shall find so doing Dan. 12.3 1 Cor. 9.17 If I do this willingly I have a reward c. the wayes of saving truth of Religious orders and of holy lives Investing as we have seen particular persons whose names are recorded with peculiar power to teach to gather to feed and govern his Church by Doctrine by Sacraments and by holy Discipline Setting those men in peculiar relations and Offices to his Church as Fathers Stewards Bishops Shepheards Rulers Watchmen calling them by peculiar names and distinct titles as light of the world Salt of the earth Mat. 5.13 Fishers of men Mat. 4.19 Stars in his right hand Rev. 2.1 Angels of the Churches Requiring of them peculiar duties as to Preach the word in season and out of season to feed his Lambs and Sheep to fulfill the work of their Ministry to take care of the flock against grievous Wolves
or some other remarkable judgement fell upon them as on King Uzzah So long as Gods love to the Jews was seconded with his jealousie for their good When indeed their Apostacies and Rebellions had alienated Gods love from them he then suffered those sad and unsanctified levellings to come among them consecrating the meanest of the people and who ever would relieve his worldly necessities by being a Priest to those Talismanick Calves under which new modes and figurations the Israelites were for some wicked reason of State perswaded by Jeroboam to worship their God So Herod when he had got the Kingdom over the Jews ex ima infima â—lâ—be constituit sacerdotes made of the basest people Priests c. Euseb Hist l. 1. c. 7. Which severe indulgence of God to them in suffering them to have such sorry and unsanctified Priests was no other but a fearful presaging of those desolations which soon after befel that people of Israel for the sins of Jeroboam who by his policy of new fashioned Priests and levelled that is abolished and profaned Religion is for ever branded with that mark of making Israel to sin 1 King 13.34 and was the occasion of cutting off his name and destroying his posterity from off the face of the earth Certainly in times when the Jews feared God if all the Priests and Levites whom God had appointed to minister before him had failed by death or defection the Ark in the Wilderness must have stood still or the service of the Temple have ceased till by some new Commission or Authority the Lord had signified his pleasure to his Church and people Nor would the devout and zealous Jews have thought presently every stout Porter or lusty Butcher would well enough supply the room of the Priests and Levites much less would they have beat and crouded the true Priests yet living and serving in their offices and courses out of their places onely because those others had naturally shouldâ—rs which could bear the Ark and the holy Vessels or hands which had skill to slay a beast and dress a sacrifice I see no reason why the Evangelical Ministry should be less sacred or inviolable since it hath as much of reason order usefulness and necessity also no less express authority from Christ and divine Institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. l. â— together with many hundreds of years holy and constant succession in all Churches That to invade this or violate and abrogate it seems no less to any true Christian than to croud Christ out of his throne to justle him out of his Priestly Prophetick and Kingly Offices It is like Julian the Apostate loudly to blaspheme or proudly to resist and insolently to do despight too that holy Spirit of truth power and order by which these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gifts of power and authority Ministerial have always been and are still given and dispenced to his Church in the way which Christ appointed which the holy Apostles practised and the Christian Churches have always imitated 5. I might yet adde the common notions and universal dictates of all mankinde who by the light of nature 10. Light of Nature in the Heathens Diu proximi sunt Deâ—â—um sacerdotes Tul. and that innate veneration of some Deity which they esteemed the inventer and institutor of their Religion agreed always in this That whatever Gods or Religions they owned their holy Rites and Mysteries were always publickâ—y taught celebrated and maintained by such as were solemnlâ— invest d with and reverenced under the peculiar name and honor of that sacrâ—d Office and sâ—cerdotal Function which they held divine as Herâ—d tus tells us which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 none not initiated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herod Euterp or not consecrated by the wonted Ceremonies might profanely usurp Plutarch Plutarch Moral p. 778. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tac. Ann. l. 3. A. Gellius l. 3. c. 15. Sacerdotes è rudibus indoctis impolitis sacrandi non sunt quibus non datum est intelligere civilia multo magis denegatum est disserere divina Min. Fael Sacerdotes Egyptii constituebant ex optimatibus tum genere tum scientia Clem. Alex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Julian Imp. epist Sacerdotalis vita politicae Praestantier 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato Phedo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In bello victores cum sint solent omnes gentes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Al. 2 Tim. 3.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unthankful unholy without natural affections disobedient c. 2 Cor. 4.7 11 12. Earthen vessels Death worketh in us c. tells us both among Romans and Greeks they generally in all Cities paid great honor and respect to their Priests and holy men because those obtained of the gods good things not onely for themselves and their families but for the whole Cities where they lived Tacitus tells us That the cheif Priests were also by the Divine Munificence esteemed the chiefest of men least subject to anger envy or other mean affections from any men So Aul. Gellius setâ— down at large the solemnities and honors for vestments and other regards which among the Romans was used toward the Flamines Diales or chief Priests whom they esteemed next their gods whose word was always to be taken without any oath they thought all holy things profaned if any men unsacred presumed to meddle with them or partake of them much more if such an one officiated in them It cannot be any thing of true Christian piety or holiness which makes any men in the Church of Christ degenerate from the very principles of nature whose light is never despised by any but those that are without natural affections among other their black Characters which are proper to those who have a fâ—rm of godliness but deny the power of it The strangest prodigies that ever were indeed of so profane a wantonness under pretences of enlarged piety striving to remove all bounds of duty and respect to God or man nor did ever sober men think themselves absolved from that honor and respect which is due to God and his holy Service or Ministry because of the personal infirmities which may be seen in those that are his Ministers to us We shall neither as men nor Christians have any to serve God or man in the way of true Christian Religion if we will allow none with their failings The Divine is to be distinguished from the Man there may be the power of God with the weakness of man as in Saint Paul Nor need we be more choise and curious than God himself is 11. A peculiar Office of Ministry necessary for the Church 6. Nor is there a greater benefit and conveniency to the Church than a necessity of having a special calling and divine institution of the Ministers of the Gospel For we may not in this trust to the good natures and good wills of Christians in common if personal
Cyclopes Non tam spectandum quid agat quisque quam quo ordine nec tam quo animo quam quâ disciplina Ep. Wint. Andrews Ordo postulat ut virtute eminentiores sint loco superiores qui habeant rationum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 1. V d. Clem. Ro. Epist ad Corinth Numb 11.17 they cannot but daily see a necessity of exact order and distinct power which must be observed among themselves as soldiers without which Armies will be but heaps upon heaps confused crouds and noises of men if any one who fancies his own or an others sufficiencies shall presently usurp the power and intrude into the office of Captain and Commander whose work is not onely to use a few good words now and than but to fight valiantly and yet to keep both himself and others in good order No less is order necessary to the Church in its Societies over which able and fit Ministers duly placed have not onely the work of Preaching lying on their Consciences which requires more than ordinary and vulgar abilities but they have many other great and weighty affairs which they are to discharge both publickly and privately as workmen that need not to be ashamed as those that are meet instruments and workers together with God and Christ in the great work of saving souls to which if onely memory and a voluble tongue and an oratorious confidence would have served there needed not so great preparations and power of the Spirit from on high to come on the Apostles which not onely furnished them with Matter what to say and Languages wherein but with just and full authority to preach Christs Gospel in Christs Name and to settle a like constant Authority Order and Power Ministerial in all Churches for holy Administrations putting upon their Successors whom they ordained in every place as the spirit of Moses was put on the seventy Elders of that Spirit that is of that same power Ministerial which they had immediately from Christ Nor was any one not rightly ordained antiently esteemed as any Minister of the Church nor any thing he did valid nor were any that adhered to such disorderly walkers and impostors ever reckoned among good Christians or as sound Members in the Church Cypr. Epist 76. De Baptisandis Novatianis ad Magnum Novatianus in Ecclesia non est nec Episcopus â—â—mputari potest qui Evangelica Apostolica autoritate contempta nemini succedens à se ipso ortus est Habere enim aut tenere Ecclesiam nullo modo potest qui ordinatus in Ecclesia non est Quomodo gregi Christi annumerari potest qui legitimum non sequitur pastorem quomodo pastor haberi debet qui manente vero pastore in Ecclesia Dei ordinatione succedanea praesidente nemini succedens à seipso incipiens alienus sit dominicae pacis divina veritatis inimicus As Saint Cyprian most eloquently and zealously writes concerning Novatianus who usurped the office of a Bishop and Pastor among some credulous and weak people despising the Ordination of the Church How can he be counted a Bishop or Minister in the Church who thus like a Mushroom grows up from himself How can he have any office in the Church who is not placed there by the officers in the Church which hath ever had in it true Pastors who by a successive Ordination have received power to preside in the Church He that sets up of his own new score and succeeds none formerly ordained is both an alien to and an enemy of the peace and truth divine Nor can that sheep be reckoned as one of Christs flock who doth not follow a lawfully ordained Pastor Thus Saint Cyprian a Learned holy Bishop and after a Martyr for Christ testifies the sense of the Church and all true Christians in his time who flourished in the third Century after Christ I will onely adde one place more out of Tertullian Tertul. lib. de Praescrip adv Haereses Edant Haeretici origines Ecclesiarum suarum evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum ita per successiones ab initio decurrentium ut primus ille Episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis vel Apostolicis virâ— qui tamen cum Apostolis perseveraverint habuerit autorem antecessorem Hoc enim modo Ecclesiae Apostolicae tensus suos deferunt Sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia habeus Polycarpum à Johanne Collocatum resert Sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro Ordinatum c. Traditionem itaque Apostolorum in toto mundo manifestatam in Ecclesia adest perspicere omnibus qui verè velius audere Et habemus enumerare eos qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis successores eorum usque ad nos Quibus etiam ipsas Ecclesias remittebant suum ipsorum locum Magisterii tradentes Qui nihil tale cognoverunt neque docuerunt quale ab his deliratur Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 3. De iis quâ— decedunt ab Apostolica Successione who lived before Saint Cyprian in the end of the second Century whom Cyprian usually called his Master for the learning warmth force and eloquence which were in his works till his defection Let these new Masters saith he and their Disciplies set forth to us the Original of their Churches the Catalogue and Succession of their Bishops and Ministers so running upward without interruption that it may appear their first Bishop or Presbyter had some Apostle or some that persevered with the Apostle for their predecessor and ordainer For thus the true and Apostolically planted Churches do ever make their reckonings as the Church of Smyrna had their first Bishop Polycarpus placed among them by St. John the Apostle So the Church of Rome and Antioch had their Pastors or Bishops setled by the Apostle Peter Thus Tertullian and with him Irenaeus and all the antients who sought to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace Eph. 4.3 The purity of doctrine and power of holy Discipline in the Church of Christ These holy men never dreamed of Self-ordainers or of gifted yet unordained Ministers nor did they own any Christians in Church Society or Ecclesiastick Order and holy Communion where there was not an evident distinct and personally demonstrable Succession of Bishops Pastors and Teachers in Ministerial Authority so constituted by holy Ordination lineally descended and rightly derived from the Apostolical Stem and the Root Jesus Christ. Nor is this so divine an Institution so solemn an Ordination 17. Peculiar Officers as Ministers most necessary for the common peoples good as to Religion so sacred a Mission and so clear and constant a Succession of Ministers whose office it is to bear witness of the Name of Christ in his love and sufferings and merits to the end of the World till the number of Saints be perfected till the work of the Ministry is finished and the Body of Christ his Church fully edified Eph. 4.12 This I say is not of more concernment
Sacrament we reject together with the consequentiall Idolatry of worshiping the bread Also the sacrilege of detaining the Cup of the Lord from the people we cannot allow as being contrary both to the primitive practise of the Church and to the express command of Christ in the Institution which was after also revealed to St. Paul by Christ himself Yet still we use and observe the Sacramentall Elements with the same high estimation and veneration which pious and purest antiquity ever did bear to that Sacred mysterie how ever we forbear to use some of their expressions whose Oratory occasioned in part the after error which mistook that as spoken of the Bread in its nature which magnified it only in the Sacramentall use and mysterie which is indeed very high retaining both the Elements words and holy form which Christ instituted and Christians alwayes used not so much disputing and determining the manner of Sacramentall union as endevouring after those graces which may make us worthy Communicants and reall partakers of the Body and Bâ—ood of Jesus Christ when we do receive that dreadfull yet most desirable seal of our Faith which consigns fuller to us and confirms in us those comforts which as sinners we want and may have most really and only from Christ not by eating his flesh in a bodily and gross way with our mouths but by receiving him by a true and lively faith into our souls as he is set forth to us in the Scriptures to be God incarnate the only Saviour of the world of whose merit death passion body and blood we are by the same faith though in less degrees of strength really partakers and nourished to eternall life before we receive him in that Sacrament of the Lords Supper yea though we never should have opportunity so to receive him which is but the same object received by the same faith to the same end though in a different manner and with different degrees So for Baptism Baptism we retain the substance of that holy Sacrament as we find it in the Scriptures rejecting only those superfluous dresses of Salt Spittle Oyl Insufflation and the like which cumber and deform that duty and Ordinance but they do not destroy it nor do ever any Protestants that are of any name or honour for Religion re-baptise those who were baptised in the Roman Church Concil Laodicenum omits only the Apocal. Apocrypha Books Hieron in Prolog Galaten Josephus l. 1. cont Appio we i. e. the Jews have not infinite and diffâ—rent Books but only 22. which are justly called Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mosis 5. Prophet 13. Psal 4. The rest from Artaxereâ— to these times have not the like credit because not a certain succession of Prophets The Apocryphall additions of the Romish Church to the Canon of the Scriptures we reject from being rules of faith however we approve their excellent morals And this we do upon the same grounds that the Jewish Church of old and the Primitive Christian for the most part ever did yet we retain those books as oracles of God which we have received with and from the Romish Church as of divine inspiration according to that testimony which both the Jewish and Christian Churches fidelity have given us of them The eâ—une dull and spiritless and formall devotions Prayers in a language not vulgar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nis de Placilla orat Funcb Delinquens soli Deo cognitus de reatis nudare apud homines verecunda conscientia non cogitur Ser. 34. Chrysol So Ber. s 42. Non expedit omnibus omnia inâ—â—tescere quae scimus de nobis in Cant. Liturgies and prayers used by the Romanists in any tongue unknown to the most and with so many vain repetitions we refuse yet still we retain the holy custom of Christians assembling in publike and worshipping God by publike Liturgies prayers and praises In somethings we hold nothing common with them either in opinion or practise as in the profitable fancy of purgatory the popular fashion of worshipping Images or adoring God in and by Images of oblations and prayers for the dead of praying to Saints and Angels of Auricular confession of dispensing by Indulgences the merits or supperogating righteousness of some Christians to others Since in these and the like matters which I only touch it being not my work now to handle those controversies which have been so fully discussed by many learned men of this Church of Engand whose works praise them We find no Scripture ground either for precept or permission So likewise in the ambitious claim of the Popes Infallible judgement His universall jurisdiction and Supreme Authority over all Churches and Councils We deny it as un usurpation gotten by indulgences of some times and Princes also by the flatteries frauds cruelties power and policies of severall Popes in their successions but not grounded on any Law or right either humane or divine neither by the Institution of God nor by the consent of all Churches Yet we deny not to the Pope such a primacy of place or priority of order and precedency as is reasonable and just either in the Roman Diocess as a Bishop or in a Councill as Bishop of that famous City In like manner for the sacred order and function of the Ministry we reject what ever imaginary power or will-worship is annexed to the office by humane superstition but we approve the antient form of Commission and Divine Authority derived by them to Presbyters and Bishops for Preaching the word celebrating the Sacraments reconciling penitents use of the Keys in doctrine or jurisdiction and Government In the Roman Pontificall The Bishop to be consecraâ—ed is charged after many Ceremonâ—es and pompous modes with this as his office and duty To judge to interpret to consecrate to confer holy orders to offer to Baptize aâ—d to confirm after that the Consecratorâ— laying the Bible on his shoulder and their hands on his head say these words Receive the holy Spirit i. e. the gifts and power to be a Bishop or chief Pastor to teach and rule in the Church So the Presbyter is by the Bishop ordeyning and otheâ—s with him imposing their hands on the head enjoyned To offer to bless to govern to Preach and to Baptise as becomes his place and Office Mar. 13.25 Also of the continued power of Ordination for a succession of Ministers in the Church In all these and the like what ever we find to be spurious issues of meer humane invention of Scripture-less opinions of groundless traditions obtruded as matters of Religion upon the consciences of Christians we use that just severity which we think the Apostles and Primitive fathers would have done to dash these Babylonish brats against the stones yet still we redeem and preserve alive the legitimate succession the Sons of Sion the Israel of God and justify the Children of true wisdom and of the Heavenly Jerusalem that is the divine and truly religious
are holy Numb 16. though the hand and fire were unholy which were applyed to them Our Ministery then may be and certainly is very good holy 4. Our Ministry not from nor of the Pope and divine as well as the Scriptures and Sacraments or other holy Ministrations and duties are when duly restored to their primitive purity order and authority which go along with their right succession notwithstanding they are derived to us through or by the Romish Church or the Popes dispensation yet do they not therefore descend from them but only from Christ the first institutor of his Church and of this Ministry with a perpetuall power of succession Possunt esse pastores Lupi alio respectu Pastores in veritate quam profitentur in potestate quaÌ„ ritè obtinuerunt Lupi in erroribus quos admiscent in corruptelis morum c. ut Scribae Pharisaei in Cathedra Mosis panem veritatis proponebant sed non sine fâ—â—mento errorum officium distinguendum à persona potestas à moâ—ibus Gerrard de Minist Rev. 2.4 Jer. 3.1 Thou hast played the harlot with thy lovers yet return to me saith the Lord. Rev. 3.2 Our Lord Jesus Christ the gracious Spouse of the Church as of every Soul that truly believes and obeys though with much unbelief and frailty disdains not to own his relation to any Church or Christians though they are not so faithfull to him though they lose their first love yet they may be still his by what still remains of soundness and outward profession Yea and Christ will vouchsafe to admit us again to the communion and covenant of his love even after long wandrings and unkind absences when ever we wash our selves and return to him from our disloyall adulteries and pollutions He doth not utterly divorce any Church when the substance and essentials of Religion which are but in a few things do remain notwithstanding the many meretricious paints and disguisings which the wantoness of humane inventions may have put upon it thereby disfiguring its Primitive beauty and simplicity Mans vanity and arrogancy against God or men doth no whit abrogate either the right which Christ or any Church and Christian posterity hath to the purity and power of his gifts and institutions in the right way of his Mâ—nistry All which may remain with a blessing in the root and Seed though they be much pestered over-dropped choked and almost starved by humane additions which keep them for some time from their full glory vigor and extension Therefore the learned and godly Reformers of this Christian Church in England did not dig any new fountain of Ordination or ministeriall power as some Romanists calumniated at first and were afterward convinced of the contrary by Master Masons learned defence of the Ministry of England as to its right succession but they only cleared that which they saw was divine in the first broaching or Institution by Christ and as in the purest derivation by the Apostles however in time it became foul by humane feculencies and dregs as it passed rightly though not purely through the hands of some Bishops and Presbyters even to their dayes Nor was ever any thing required by the best Reformed Churches further to confirm and validate the Authority or power Ministeriall which any had received when he was first ordeined Presbyter in the Romish Church Contaminarunt non sustulerunt Ministerium Ecclesiae Alsted but only this to renounce not his Baptism but his errâ—rs and former superstitions to profess the Reformed Truths of the Gospell and accordingly to exercise that Ministeriall power which he had received truly as to the substance and duly as to the succession both as to the Office conferred and the persons conferring it Howsoever the sword of the Ministry had through the neglect of those to whom it was committed been suffered to contract the rust of superstitions and to lose much of its beauty and sharpness yet it was still that true and same two-edged sword which came out of the mouth of Jesus Christ Rev. 2.12 the first ordeiner of a peculiar setled Ministry in his Church Nor may it be broken or cast away when it hath been rightly delivered but only cleared whetted and furbished from its rust bluntness and dulness That Pen which now writes blottingly might be well made at first and will write fairâ—y again if once the hairs or blurs which its neb hath contracted be but cleared from it It is still Gods Field and Husbandry with good Wheat in it though the enemy hath while men slept sowen many tares Bishops and Ministers reformed may be Gods true labourers and appointed Husbandmen though they have some time loytered as the Disciples were Christs when their eyes were so heavy to sleep that they could not watch with him that one hour of his most horrid agony Mat. 26.40 It were then but a passionate scuffling with mad men a most impertinent disputing with unreasonable minds further to argue about the Popes usurped or abused Authority in any kind over Churches or Bishops or holy Ordinances and Ministry For which he had as little grounds of Scripture or reason as these Anti-Ministeriall Obâ—ectors have now against this Church of England and the function of the Ministry in it against which these cunning cavillers have not so much pretence to argue from the Popes usurpation that our Ministry and Religion are all Antichristian as they have both Scripture Reason and Experience besides the consent of all Reformed Churches to conclude them to be truly Christian if anger or envie or covetousness had not blinded their blood-shotten eyes they might easily see some of those mighty works Mat. 11.20 which have been wrought on mens Souâ—s by the Ministry of England since the Reformation and without this efficacious Ministry I believe neither these Calumniators had been so much Christian as they pretend nor so able spightfully to contend with shewes of Piety and popular falacies against the true Ministry of this Church and the best Ministers with whose Heifer they have plowed We know well that not only the reformed Churches 5. Of the Popes pretended Supremacy in England but even the Gallican and Venetian which keep communion with the Romish Church and Papall party besides the Greek Asian and African Churches do generally oppose and vehemently deny the Popes abusive usurpations both in things Ecclesiasticall and Secular And this upon most pregnant grounds not only from Scripture whence nothing was ever fairly and pertinently urged as some places are fouly wrested and yet but little to the Popes advantage but also from * Caeteri Apostoli par consortium honoris potestatis acceperunt qui in toto orbe dispersi Evangelium praedicaverunt quibusque decedentibus successerunt Episcopi Is Hisp l. 2. off Eccl. c. 5. Qui sunt constituti in toto mundo in sedibus Apostolorum non ex genere carnis ut filii Aron sed pro unius cujusque
vita merito iis c. Id. Ubicunque fuerit Episcopus sive Romae sive Eugubii c. ejusdem est merâ—ti qusdem est sacerdotii Jeron ad Evagr. Celebri urbi frigidum oppidulum opponit Eras verba Jeron Omnes Apostolorum successores sunt Id. Concil Nicaen 1. Gregory the Great oft protests against any Bishops or Patriarchs usurping and chalenging the title ofVniversalis Episcopus aut Pastor as a token of Antichristian pride Concil Hipponensc Anno 393. de primae sedis Episcopo i. e. Romano 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concil Af. pag. 119. pag. 318. can 123. They Excommunicated all that appealed beyond the Sea to other Province and Bishop Concil Chalced. anno 451. Can. 9.11.17 Nec quisquam nostrum Episcopum se Episcoporum constituat c. Quando omnis habeat Episcopus pro licentia libertatis potestatis suae arbitrium proprium ut nec judicari ab altero nec judicare possit Cyp. tom 2. in fine Hoc erant utique coeteri Apostoli quod fuit Petrus pari consortio praediti honoris potestatis Sed exordium ab unitate proficiscitur pâ—imatus Petro datur ut una ChristiÌ„ Ecclesia una Cathedra monstretur Cyp. Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis Episcopis in solidum pars tenetur Cypr. de uni Eccl. ep 27. all Antiquity after that Churches were increased and setled where the Fathers and first famous generall Councills make clearly to the Popes disadvantage as to any power or jurisdiction in point of divine authority which he claims beyond or above other Bishops and Presbyters further than the Roman Diocess first and the Patriarchate afterward extended which division and power for order sake was agreed unto by some generall Councils where other four Patriarchs of Jerusalem Antioch Constantinople and Alexandâ—ia had also a limited yet equall power in their respective Dioceses and Provinces with the Bishop of Rome Galf. monum l. 11. c. 12. See Bishop Godwin SuccessioÌ„ of English Bishops Lucius rex in Anglia conversus ad fidem Christi anno Christi 164. Thâ—ee Bishops out of England Eborius of York Restitutus of London Adolphias of Colchester were of the Councill of Arles in France eleven years before the Nicane which was anno 330. See the Letter to Austin the Monk cited before sent from the Clergy and Monk of Bangor Sir Hen. Spelman Concil Brit. pag. 108. ad an 590. Omnium provinciarum primae Britania publicitus Christi nomen recepit Sabel Enn. 7 l 5. Beda l. 2. c. 2. Nor had the Pope then for the first six hundred years after Christ any authority scarce any name in these British Churches which were undoubtedly converted by some Apostles or Apostolicall men who left after King Lucius his time a famous and flourishing succession of Bishops Presbyters and Christians long before any pretensions of the Pope over these British Churches To which the British Bishops in Wales were strangers nor would they own at that time when Austin the Monk came from Gregory the Great who sent hither more out of Christian charity than any Authority to convert the Saxons who had by war and barbarity quite extinguished Christianity with all Bishops and Ministers out of England and had forced the former holy Bishops and Ministers to fly into Wales Ireland and Scotland from whence afterwards in a gratefull vicissitude the English replanted Churches received for the most part both their Conversion and establishment by a Succession of rightly Ordeined Bishops and Presbyters for Austin the Monks Plantation and preaching extended not beyond Kent Surrey and the adjacent places as Venerable Bede tells us and our learned Country-man Sir Henry Spelman The ambitious Usurpation and Antichristian Tyranny then of the Papall power and supremacy afterward over Bishops and Ministers here in England to which the title of Christ St. Peter or the Catholick Churches establishment is poorly begged and falsly pretended we the Ministers of the Church of England ever did and do as much abhor as any of these men can who are so against the now Reformed and established Ministry which we have vindicated from Papal and superstitious additaments and asserted or restored to it Primitive and Scripturall dignity and divine authority which it never lost but only not so clearly discovered during the times of darkness and oppression Our jealousie now is lest the malice and activity of those that now dispute and act against our thus reformed and prospered Ministry should prove ere long the Popes best Engines and factors that ever he had in this Church since the Reformation if they can as they have begun and go on apace but so far prepare the way for the reintroduction of the Papall power and Romish party as to cashier all the learned reformed and duly Ordeined Ministers in England both as to their order authority and government will not this Church in a few more years of confusion and neglect become as a fallow and unfenced field fit for the Papal subtilty and Romish activity which he will plow with an Ox and an Asse together the learned Jesuit joyned to the fanatick Donatist The Seminary Priests with the gifted brethren Friers predicant with Prophets mendicant So that no wise man that loves the Reformed religion and the Church can think others than that the hand of Joab is in this matter Achitophel is in Counsell with Absalom The Conclave of Rome is wanting to its interest if it conspires strongly with this Antiministeriall faction I should be glad to be as Hushai the Archite a means to discover bâ—ast and bring to nought all those desperat counsells and machinations which are layd by any against this reformed Church and its true Ministry The happy and seasonable defeat of which by Gods blessing to this Church and Nation I do yet hope may be such In vitium ducit cuâ—pae fuga fi caret arte Hor. as shall make all Apostatising and ungratefull Politicians rather repent of their Apostacies and see their folly than follow the fate of that disloyall renegado a traitor at once to his friend and sovereign I confess I am not for such Reformations 6. Reformation ought to reverence Antiquity Maltem cum sanctis errare quà m cum sacâ—ilegis rectè sentire as too much suspect the prudence or vilifie the piety of our forefathers therby to extoll some mens after zeal and skill The errors and defects of the Antients joyned with their charity and sincerity I believe were far more pardonable with God than the late furies and cruelties of some men pretending to mend those errors and supply those defects Not that it is safe for us to return to what we now see by the word of God to be an error But we may in charity excuse their ignorance in some things of old while yet we commend and imitate that wisdom honesty order and gravity of religious profession which was in them far beyond the Modern transports of some mens
unnecessary rigors and severities may not make the Mass or lump of religion more sowr and heavy than God in his Word hath required who cannot be an enemy to the right and sanctified use of melody or Musick Psal 33.2 2 Cor. 9.7 since he commands singing to his praises and loves a cheerfull temper in his service Certainly Musick is of all sensible humane beauty the most harmless and divine Nor did I ever see any reason why it should be thought to deform us Christians or be wholly excluded from making a part in the beauty of holiness No time or abuse doth prejudice Gods or the Churches rights Quamvis ritus ordinationis in Eccles pontificia multis superstitionibus inutilibus ceremoniis fit vitiatus ex eo tamen ipsius ordinationis essentiae nihil decedit Distinguenda ordinantis infirmitas ab ordinatione quae sit totius Ecclesiae nomine distinguendum divinum ab humano essentiale ab accidentali pium Christianum ab Antichristiano sermentum a doctrina Pharisaeorum Gerard. de Minist pag. 147. Moderatia non tam virtus quam doctrix imperatrix omnium virtutum Auriga ordinâ—trix affectuum Ber. Cant. Tolle hanc virtus vitium erit Nec abligurienda sunt mala cum bonis nec eructanda bona cum malis Vetul Pravi effectus falsi sunt rerum â—stimatores All wise and excellent Christians know this for certain That mans usurpation is no prejudice to Gods dominion nor do humane traditions vacate divine Commands nor Antichrists superstitions cancell Christs Institutions Vain superstructures of mans addition neither demolish nor rase Gods foundations men do not quit their rights to estates for anothers unjust in trusion The heady invasions of one or few or many upon the Churches rights and liberties are no cause to make Christians remove the antient Land-marks and boundaries of true Ministry due order and prudent government which we find fixed by Christ continued by the Apostles and observed by the Churches obedience in all ages although not without tinctures and blemishes of humane Infirmities They are sad Physicians and of no valew who know not how to let their Patients blood unless they stab them to the heart Such are those unhappy leeches who in stead of eating off with fit Corosives the dead flesh of any part do lop off whole arms and legs Some men are too heavy for themselves and while they aim to go down the Hill of reformation they suddenly conceive such an impetuous motion as cannot stop it self till it hath carried all before it and at length dasheth it self in pieces Much more folly it is quite to abolish the use of holy things than to tollerate some abuses with it True reforming is not a starting quite out of the way as shy and skittish horses are wont to do when they boggle at what scares them more than it can hurt them with danger to themselves and their riders too not a flying to new modes and exotick fashions of religion and Churches and Ministers but it is a sober and stayd restauration of those antient and venerable forms which pious Antiquity in the Church of Christ and the antient of dayes in his more sure Word hath expressed to us 'T is easie to pare off what one great Antichrist or the many less have added and to supply what they have by force or fraud detracted from that only complete figure of Extern professional religion which Christ and his Apostles by him so have fashioned and delivered which is never well handled no not by Reformers unless Christians have honest hearts good heads clear eyes and pure hands when all these meet in any undertakers to reform the Church I shall then hope they will seriously sincerely and successfully do Christs and the Churches work as generally men are prone and intent to do their own This then I may conclude against all precipitant and blind zeal which by popular arts seeks to bring an odium on all Ministers and the Ministry of this Church meerly by using the Name of the Pope without giving any account to reason or religion of their Calumny That there is no cause in reason or religion for any Christians to cast off the Ministry of England as it stands Reformed and so restored to its primitive Power and Authority because of any Succession from relation to or communion with the Order and Clergy of the Roman Church and Bishop no more cause I say than for these Anti-ministeriall Cavillers to pull out their eyes because Papists do see with theirs or to destroy themselves because naturally descended from such parents as were in subjection to the Bishop of Rome and in communion with that Church we may as well refuse all leagues and treaties of humanity in common with Papists as all Christianity and all Christianity as all antient lawfull Ministry an holy Succession may descend and Gods elect be derived from such as were true men how ever vitious CAVIL Or CALUMNY V. Against Ministers as Ordeined by Bishops in England I Have done with the first part of this Cavill or Calumny which seeks to bandy the Ministry of the Church of England against the Papall and Romish wall that they may make it either rebound to a popular and Independent side or else fall into the hazard of having no true Christian Ministry at all from both which I shall in like fort endevour to rescue this our holy Function and Succession A second stroak therefore which I am to take is made with great Artifice and popular cunning against the Ministry of this Church as it was derived and continued by the hands of Bishops who were as Presidents or chief Fathers in the work of Ordination among their Brethren and Sons the Presbyters or Ministers within their severall Diocesses These Prelates or Bishops the Objectors protest highly against as being not Plants of Christs planting whose Authority being lately pulled up by power so that they seem to have no more place or influence in this Church or Nation the Presbyterie also and whole order of the former Ministry they say must necessarily also fail and wither which were but branches and slips derived from the stem or root of Episcopall Ordination Thus we see in a few years the Anti-ministeriall fury is cudgelling even Presbyters themselves with that staff which some of them put into vulgar hands purposely to beat their Fathers the grave and antient Bishops and utterly to banish that Venerable and Catholick Order or Eminent Authority of Episcopacy out of the Church what the Dove-like innocency of those fierce and rigid Ministers hearts might be as to their godly intentions I know not but I am sure they wanted that wisdome of the Serpent which seeks above all to preserve its head whence life health motion and orderly direction descending to other parts do easily repair and heal what ever lesser hurt or bruise may befall them It must needs be confessed that as the Events have been very
sad so the advantages have been great which the Anti-ministeriall party have gained by the preposterous zeal of some Anti-Episcopall spirits which transported them not only beyond and against all bounds or rules of Reason Order Scripture Ecclesiasticall Custome and Laws here in England but even contrary to their own former and some of their present judgements touching Episcopall Presidency which they never did nor do yet hold to be unlawfull in the Church how ever it might be attended with some inconveniencies and mischiefs too not arising from the nature of that Order and power which is good but from the corruption of those men that might manage it amiss This makes many of these Ministers have now so much work to take off that leprosie from their own heads which they told the people had so much infected the Bishops hands by the Imposition of which they yet own their Ministeriall power and holy Orders to have been rightly derived to them in that Ordination by Bishops which was used here in the Church of England as in all antient Churches It is never too late to rectifie and repent of any mistakes and miscarriages incident to us as poor sinfull mortals Although Primitive Episcopacy which ever was as a grand pillar of the Churches Ministry Order and Government hath been much shaken and thrust aside by mans power or passion to the great weakning and indangering of the whole Fabrick and Function of the Ministry together with the peace and polity of this Church yet wise men may possible see after these thick clouds and dust of dispute what is of God in true Episcopacy yea and they may be perswaded to preserve and restore what is necessary and comly in it however they pare off what is deformed superfluous and Combersome in the behalf of which I am neither a pleader nor an approver It is now no time in England either to flatter or fear the face of Episcopacy or sinisterly to accept the persons of Bishops There is nothing now can be suspected to move me to touch with respect those goodly ruines from which the glory of riches and honour are now so far removed but only matter of conscience and the integrity of my judgement And therefore I here crave leave without offence to any that are truly godly either Ministers or others who may differ from me in this point freely yet as briefly as I can to discover my judgement touching this so controverted point of Episcopacy in which from words men have faln to blows and from wasting of ink to the shedding of blood I see that other men of different sense daily take their freedom to vent themselves against all Bishops and all Episcopacy some of them so rudely and unsavorily as if they hoped by their evill breath to render that venerable name and order ever abhorred and execrable to Christian minds which to learned and sober Christians ever was and still is as a sweet Oyntment poured forth nor doth it lose of its divine and antient fragrancy by the fractures of these times which have broken it may be not with devotion and love so much as with hatred and passion that Alabaster-box of civill protection and Sanction in which it was here for many hundreds of years happily preserved from vulgar insolency and Schismaticall contempt Why may not I presume to enjoy my freedome too yet bounded with all modesty and sobriety without any prejudice or reproach reflecting upon the Counsels or actions of any men my Superiours whose power and practise as to secular mutations neither can nor ought to have any influence on mens opinions and consciences further than way is made for them by the Haâ—bingâ—rs of Reason and Religion which are best set forth and disce ned in innate principles of Order and Polity also in Scripture precepts and precedents and lastly by the Catholick Custome and practise of the Church of Christ. Ans In my answer therefore to this Cavill or Calumny touching Bishops which many Ministers are as afraid to name or own with honour as they are to call any holy man either Apostle Evangelist Father or Martyr by the title of Saints my intent is not largely to handle that late severe and unkind Dispute in England about Episcopacy or Prelacie for this having been learnedly and fully done by others would be as superfluous so extremely tedious both to the Reader and my self Nor is it my purpose to justifie all that might be done or omitted by some Bishops in their government But my design chiefly is 1. to remove that popular odium to allay that Plebeian passion to rectifie those unlearned prejudices and to take away those unjust â—ealousies which are by some weak and possibly well-meaning Christians taken up and daily urged against all Bishops in a Presidentiall eminencie among Presbyters or above other Ministers 2. My next is to justifie that holy Ordination and Ministeriall authority which by the imposition of their hands chiefly was with probation prayer and meet Consecration duly conferred upon the Ministers of this Church according to Scripture rule and Ecclesiasticall custome in all setled Churches But before I handle the first thing proposed I must seek to remove that prejudice which sticks deep in some ordinary minds against Bishops and their Authority meerly arising from the darkness and sufferings of late so plentifully cast upon them if arguments and words could not yet Arms and Swords have they say convinced Bishops and subdued them notwithstanding all their learning Sed quid berba Remi sequitur fortunam ut semper edit â—â—mnatos Juv. their gravity their piety their protection which they pleaded from the Churches Catholick custome and the Lawes of this Church The vulgar are prone to think those wicked who are unprosperous and accursed who are punished Yet in true judgement of things those great and many impressions of worldly diminution and supposed Miseries made upon Bishops are more just arguments against the innocency of their persons place Job 1. and lawfull power than Jobs afflictions were which the Devil never urged against his integrity but sought thereby to overthrow it as God did prove and exercise it I believe there are too many that would be content there should be neither Bishops nor Presbyters but such as are great sufferers Nor yet any Word or Sacrament or holy Ministrations nor any marks of Christianity in this or any other Reformed Church But the measures of religious matters are never to be taken from the passions or prevalencies of men nor from any secular decrees or human acts and civill sanctions Godly and famous Bishops in eminency among and above the e Presbyters were many ages before any civill power protected them and so they may continue if God will in his true Church even then when as of old most persecuted and sought to be destroyed Worldly Counsells and forces which commonly are levelled to mens secular ends and civill interests signifie little or nothing indeed to a true
Christians judgement or conscience in the things of Christ and true Religion which must never be either refused or accepted according as they may be ushered in or crowded out by Civil Authority Christ doth not steer his Church by that Compass Things the more divine and excellent the more probable to be rejected by men of this world At the same rate of worldly frowns and disfavours Christians long ere this time should have had nothing left them of Scriptures Sacraments sound doctrine or holy Ministrations All had been turned into Heathenish barbarity Hereticall errors or Schismatical confusions if conscience to God and love to Christ and his Church had not preserved by the constancy and patience of Christian Bishops and Ministers those holy things which the wicked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 iâ—qâ—it Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. wanton and vain world was never well pleased withall and often persecuted seeking to destroy both root and branch of Christianity Weare to regard not what is done by the few or the many the great or the small but what in right reason and due order after the precepts and patterns of true Religion ought to be done in the Church As for the Government of Bishops Episcopal power not Antichristian so far as it referred to the chief power and office of Ordeining Ministers in a right succession for due supplies to this Church of England Truly I am so far from condemning that Episcopall authority and practise as unlawfull and Antichristian after the rate of popular clamor ignorance passion and prejudice That contrarily very learned wise and godly men have taught me to think and declare That as the faults and presumptions of any Bishops through any pride ambition and tyranny or other personall immoralities are very Antichristian because most Diametrally contrary to the Precept and patern of our holy and humble Saviour Jesus Christ whose place Bishops have alwayes as chief Pastors and Fathers among the Presbyters since the Apostles times eminently supplyed in the extern order and Polity of the Church So that above all men they ought to be most exactly conform to the holy rule and example of Jesus Christ Episcipale â—ffiâ—â— a maximè oâ—nanâ— nobilitant gravitas moâ—um inâ—turitas Consiliorum actuum honest as Bern. Ep. 28. Câ—in honoâ—is p aeâ—ogativa etiam congrue â—â—â—iâ—a requirimus Amb. de dig Sa. Ne sit honor sublimis vita deformis Id. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 19. Cogito me jam Episcopum principi pastoâ—um de commissi ovibus rationem redditurum Non Ecclesiasticis honoribus tempora ventosa transigeâ—e debere Aust Ep. 203. both in doctrine and manners So withall they have taught me to esteem the Antient and Catholick government of godly Bishops as moderators and Presidents among the Presbyters in any Diocess or Precincts in its just measure and constitution for power Paternall duty exercised such as was in the persecuting purest and Primitive times to be as much if not more Christian than any other form and fashion of government can be yea far beyond any that hath not the charity to endure Catholick primitive and right Episcopacy which truly I think to be most agreeable to right reason and those principles of due order and polity among men also no less suitable to the Scripture wisdome both in its rules and paterns to which was conform the Catholick and Primitive way of all Christian Churches throughout all ages and in all places of the world Blondel Apol. pag. 177. 179. Et in praefatio ne Absit à me ut siniâ—trum de piâ—ssiâ—ae illius antiquiâ—atis consilio consensu quae Episcopalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 primum in Ecclesiam invexit mentâ— quippiam suspicer So Ego Episcopos quodam modo Apostolorum locum in Ecclesia tenere largior non munere divinitus instituto sed lâ—beâ—è ab Ecclesia collata illa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blondel test Jeron pag. 306. Which things very learned men and friends to Presbytery joyned with Episcopacy have confessed both lately as Salmatius Bochartus and Blondellus and also formerly as Calvin Beza Moulin with many others so far was ever any learned and unpassionate man from thinking Episcopacy unlawfull in the Church Indeed after all the hot Canvasings and bloody contentions which have wearied and almost quite wasted the Estates spirits and lives of many learned men in this Church of England as to the point of true Epiâ—copacy I freely profess that I cannot yet see but that that antient and universall form of government in due conjunction with Presbytery and with due regard to the faithfull people is as much beyond all other new invented fashions as the Suns light glory and influence is beyond that of the mutable and many-faced Moon or any other Junctos of Stars and Planets however cast into strange figurations or new Schemes and Conjunctions by the various fancies of some Diviners and Astrologers D. Bâ—chartus Eâ—ist ad D. Moâ—leium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat â—â—â—n in Epist Which free owning of my judgement in this point may serve to blot out that Character etiam ipse Presbyterianus added to my name by the learned Pen of Bochartus For although I own with all honour and love orderly Presbytery and humble Presbyters in the sense of the Scriptures and in the use of all pious Antiquity for sacred and divine in their office and function as the lesser Episcopacy or inspectors over lesser flocks in the Church yet not so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Ep. 62. Eccles Neocaes The holy consistory of Presbyters desires their chief or President to be among them as abhorring and extirpating all order and presidency of Bishops among them as if it were Antichristian wicked and intollerable Nor do I think that an headless or many headed Presbytery ought to be set up in the Church as of necessity and divine right in this sense that learned writer himself is no Presbyterian nor ever had cause to judge me to be of that mind I confess after the example of the best times 2. Reasons for Episcopacy rather than other Government and judgement of the most learned in all Churches I alwayes wished such moderation on all sides that a Primitive Episcopacy which imported the Authority of one grave and worthy person chosen by the consent and assisted by the presence counsell and suffrages of many Presbyters might have been restored or preserved in this Church and this not out of any factious design but for these weighty reasons Ignat. ad Antiochenos Bids the Presbyterâ— feed the flock till God shews who shall be their Bishop or Ruler He salutes Onesimus the Bishop of Ephesus Ep. ad Ephes cited by Euseb l. 3. c. 35. Hist is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. Chil. which prevail with me 1. For the Reverence due from posterity Ab Apostolis in Episcopatum constituti Apostolici seminis
traduces Episcopi Tert. de Praes c. 32. anno 300. Cornelius Bishop of Rome sayes the Church committed to his charge had 46 Preâ—byters and â—ught to have but one Bishop Euseb hist l. 6. c. 22. Vidimus nos Policarpum in prima nostra aetate qui ab Apostolis non solum edoctus sed ab Apostolis in Asia in ea quae est Smyrnis Ecclesis institutus est Episcopus Irenaeus l. 3. c. 3. So in many places he testifies Lib. 4. ca. 43. 45. Omnes haeretici posteriores sunt Episcopis quibus Apostoli tradiderunt Ecclesias l. 5. c. 20. Cyprian Ep. 67. Adulteram Cathedram collocare aut alium Episcopum facire contra Apostolicae institutionis â—â—tatem necfas est nec licet The Generall Council of Chalcedon reckons 27. Bishops in Ephesus from Timothy Can. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Con Cholced Diotrephes a factious Presbyter is branded by Saint John for not enduring the preheminence of that Apostle 3 Joh. 9. Quod universalis tenuit Eccleâ—â— nec Conciliis institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi Autoritate Apostolica traditum Rectissimè crediâ—â—r Aust de Baptis l. 4. c. 24. None among the Antients was against the Order and Presidency of Bishops but Aerius who was wholly an Arian and upon envy and hatred against Euâ—athius who was preferred before him in the Episcopall place which he sought he urged Parity against Prelacy contrary to the good order and peace of the Chu ch See St. Austin Haeres c. 59. Epist hae 69 to the Venerable piety and wisdome of all Antiquity which alwayes had President Bishops in all setled and compleated Churches together with the Colleges or Fraternities of Presbyters yea 't is very likely that before there were many Presbyters in one City so as to make up a Presbytery the Bishop and Deacons were all that officiated among those few Christians which the Apostles left in that City who afterward increasing to many Congregations had so many Presbyters Ordeined placed and governed by the Eminency of his vertue and authority who was Bishop there or Pastor before them as in time so some in speciall Authority and Office by Apostolicall appointment And certainly in things that are not so clearly and punctually set down in express commands of Scripture a sober and modest regard ought to be had in matters of externall polity and Church society to the patern of Primitive times Agnitio vera est Apâ—stolâ—rum dâ—ctâ—ina â—t antiquiâ—s Ecclesiae status in uâ—iverso mundo secundum successiones Episcoporum quibus illi eam quae in unoquâ—que loco est Ecclesiâ—m tradiderunt Iren. l. 4. c. 63. Cyprâ—an l 4. â— p. 9. Omnes praeposiâ—i Apostolis vicaria ordinatione succedunt Edant origines Ecclesia um suarum evelvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum ita per successiones ab initio decurrentium ut primus ille Episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis vel Apostolicis viris habuerit autorem antecessorem Tertul. de prae ad Hae. c. 32. So contra Marcion l. 4. Ordo Episcoporum ad originem recensus in Johannem stabit autorem Con. Nic. calls the precedency of the Bishop of Jerusalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An antient custom and tradition Can. 7. It is not to be beleived that in Tertul. times any mistake in the Church could be Catholick living 200. after Christ When he tels us Cathed ae Apostol rum adhuc suis locis praesidentur apud quas ipsae authentica eorum liâ—eâ—ae recitantur ibid. c. 34. Epiphan Haer. 75. Sayes its next to Haeresy to abâ—ogate the holy order instituted by the Apostles and used by all the Churches it brings â—n Schism scandalls and conâ—usions Toto oâ—be decretum Jero à Marco Evangelista Presbyteri unum ex se electum in excisâ—â—ri gâ—adu collocatum Episcopum nominabant Id. Ep. ad Evag. Theod. in 1 Tim. 3. Eosdem olim vocabâ—nt Presâ—â—teros et Episcopos eos autem qui nunc vocantur Episcopi nominabant Apostolos ut Epaphrum Titum Timotheum prâ—cedente autem tempore Apostolatus nomen reliquerunt iis qui proprie erant Apostoli Dâ—mâ—n Episcopatus vero nomen imposuerunt iis qui olim asâ—labantur Apostoli Ecclesia non potest esse sâ—nâ— Episcopis nec esse possunt Ministri nec fideles Bellar. de Eccles which could not follow so soon and so universaâ—ly any way but from Apostolicall precept or direction from which the Catholick Church could not suddainly erre in all places being so far in those times from any passion or temptation either of covetousness or ambition which had then no fewell from the savour of Princes and as little sparks of ambition in the hearts of those holy men who were in all the great and Mother Churches both ever owned and reverenced in antiquity as Bishops in a priority of place and presidency of authority both by the humble Presbyters and all the rest of the faithfull people It is not among the things comely or praise worthy Phil. 4.8 Either in charity modesty humility or equity for us in after and worse times to cast upon all those holy Primitive Christians and famous Churches either the suspition of a generall Apostacy by a wilfull neglect or universally falling away from that Apostolicall way or a running cross to it Neither may we think that all Churches did lightly and imprudently abuse that occasionall liberty which might be left them in prudence whereby further to establish what might seem the best for order and peace as to the matter of Government wherein if the Churches were free to choose it is strange they all agreed in this one way of Episcopall Government All over the Christian world till these later times It becomes us rather to be jealous of our own weak and wanton passions and to return rather from our later transports popular wandrings to the neerest conformities with those first and best times who universally had Bishops either because they were so divinely commanded or in holy wisdom they chose that way as best so far as there was left a Christian liberty of prudence to those who were by the Apostles set as Pastors and Rulers over the severall Churches and however the name at first was common to all Church Ministers Apostles and Presbyters to be called Bishops yet afterward when the Apostles were deceased their successors in the eminency of place among the Presbyters were called peculiarly Bishops Secondly So the Augustane CoÌ„fession So Luther oft Camerarius in vitaâ— Philippi Maximè optandum est t EpiscoporuÌ„ magna sit autoritas Melancton Epist 〈◊〉 Lutherum ad Bellaium Ep. Par. Bucer de animarum cura A temporibus ApostoloruÌ„ Episcopus à Presbyteris electus iisque impositus quemadmodum Jacobus Hierosolymitanus Et de disciplina clericali Episcopalem potestatem restituendam optat Calvin Inst l. 4. c. 4. S. 2. Calvin Epist ad Sadoletum Instit l. 14. c. 4. S. 2. Calv. de neces ref Ecc. Nullo
are managed by men This government then by a fatherly president or chief Bishop among Presbyters seeming to have not equall 4. The advantages of Episcopacy against any other but far superiour grounds from Scripture both as to the Divine wisdome so ordering the form of his antient Church among the Jews also by the example precept and direction evident from Christ Jesus and the holy Apostles in the New Testament No wonder that many yea far the most of godly and learned upright men do rather approve a Primitive and right Episcopacy than any other new fashion which is rather conform to secular interest than to any thing of the Churches or true religions advantages especially when 't is evident that Episcopacie hath the great and preponderating addition of the Antient sole and Vniversall government approved and used by all the Churches of Christ in the purest and most impartiall times To which neither of the other can with any face pretend for themselves nor with any truth contradict it being averred by all Antiquity in the behalf of right and regular Episcopacy which never failed to succeed the Apostles authority and eminency either by their own immediate appointment in many places even while they yet lived or by the election and Votes of the Colleges and Fraternities of Presbyters after the Apostles decease who still chose one man eminent for his faith piety zeal and holy gravity to be duly consecrated in power and place above them as a Father among sons Aust Ep. 148. ad Valeriâ—â— Jerom. ad Nepotianum Ad Evagriuâ—â— Crysost hom 3 in Act. Apost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crysost Hom. 3. in Acta or an elder Brother among brethren or as a Master or Provost in a College or as a Generall in an Army as St. Jerom himself tells us If any man ask me then what kind of Bishop I would have Vid. Synes l. 3. Ep. 21◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Epist c. Vid. Bern. ad Eug. l. 4. Opâ—rtet te esse formam justiâ—ia sanctimoâ—a speculum pietatis exemplat veriâ—atiâ— assertoâ—em fidei defensorem Christianorum ducem amicum sponsae c. I answer Such an one for Age as may be a Father for wisdome a Senator for gravity a Stoick for light an Angel for innocency a Saint for industry a Labourer for constancy a Confessor for zeal a Martyr for charity a Brother for humility a Servant to all the faithfull Ministers and other Christians under his charge I would have him venerable for those severall excellencies which are most remarkable in the antient and most imitable Bishops The devotion of St. Gregory the indefatigableness of St. Austin the courage of St. Ambrose the learning of Nazianzen the generosity of Basil the Eloquence of Chrysostom the gentleness of Cyprian the holy flames of Ignatius the invincible constancy of Polycarp That so be may come neerest to the Apostolicall pattern and resemble the most of any Christian or Minister the grace and Glory of our Lord Jesus Christ Quod in aliis sacerdotibus deest per Antistitem surpleri debet Elotus ad Aug. cp August ad extremam senectutem impraetermissè praedicavit Possid vita Aug. Et successores incitatores Apostolorum Et zelum ac locum sortiti tam igitur ad curam quam alacres ad cathedram Bern. ser 77. Cant. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pet. l. 2. Jerom ad Heliadorum Naz. orat lat tom a. Grandis dignitaes sed grandis ruina si peccent Ieron Vt nihil Episcopo excellentius sic nihil miserabilius si in crimine teneatur Amb. de dig Sa. I would have him yet not I but the vote of all pious Antiquity requires a Bishop to be among men the most morall among Christians the most faithful among Preachers the most painful among Orators the most perswasive among Governours the most moderate among Devotionaries the most fervent among Professors the most forward among Practisers the most exact among sufferers the most patient among perseverants the most constant He should be as the Holy of holyes was both to the inward court of those that are truly sanctified and converted and to the outward court of those that are called Christians only in visible profession I would have nothing in Him that is justly to be blamed or sinisterly suspected And all things that are most deservedly commended by wise and sober Christians I would have a Bishop of all men the most compleat as having on him the greatest care namely that of the Church and of souls And this in a more publike and eminent inspection as one daily remembring the strictness of Gods account and expecting either a most glorious Crown or a most grievous Curse to all Eternity I would have him most deserve and most able to use well but yet least esteeming Vid. Bern. Ep. 42. Vid. Amb. tom 3. ep 82. Qualis eligendus sit Epis Quis ferat Eligi divitem ad sedem honoris Ecclesiastici contempto paupere instructiore sanctiore Aust ep 29Vt Episcopus non sit quod Libanius dixit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Res unde â—grè aliquid emolumenti eâ—â—ngatur Basil in ep 154. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Carm. 4. de Epis coveting or ambitionating the riches pomp glory and honour of the world One that knows how to own himself in Persecution as well as in Prosperity and dares to do his duty as a Bishop in both estates I do not much consider the secular Parade and Equipage further than as publike incouragements of Merit as excitations to excell as noble rewards of Learning and as catern decencies or solemnities which do much set off and Embroider Authority in the sight of the vulgar I wish him duly chosen with judgement accepting with modesty esteemed with honour reverenced with love Overseeing with vigilance ruling with joynt-Counsel not levelled with younger Preachers and novices nor too much exalted above the graver and elder Presbyters neither despised of the one nor despising of the other I wish him an honourable competency if it may be had with his eminency that he may have wherewith to exercise a large heart and a liberall hand which every where carry respect and conciliate love If this cannot be had yet I wish him that in true worth which is denyed him in wealth That his vertue and piety may still preserve the authority of his place and this in the Order Peace and Dignity of the Church That he may be the Touchstone of Truth the Loadstone of Love the Standard of Faith the Patern of holiness the Pillar of stability and the Center of Unity in the Church Nor are these to be esteemed as Characters of an Eutopian Prelate only to be had in the abstract of fancy and speculation Many such Bishops have been antiently in the Church and not a few here in England some still are such in their merits a midst their ruines and obscurings and more might constantly and easily be
vindicator defended not more to the honour of Ignatius than of himself whom providence hath chosen and so enabled to be a Patron to so glorious a Martyr and in so just a cause as to redeem one of the first Fathers from that Presbyterian Limbo How uncomly and petulant some other mens carriages have been and are daily toward the antient Fathers of the Church I need not tell when 't is too evident how they put them oft on the rack to make them speak somthing in favour for either an Headlesse Presbyterie or a confused Independency Indeed it is a shame to see young men and novices so to make those antient holy and learned Writers to scratch or blot their own faces with their own Pens and to put out their Eyes with their own stiles wringing as it were their noses till they bleed a drop or two for those new Modes and exotick formes of Church-government which neither they nor their forefathers even up to the Apostles times ever saw or knew And this tyrannie of quotations must be exercised upon the works of the Fathers though never so much against the clear judgement and practise of those holy men who were themselves either eminent Bishops as most of the Antients were whose Works are extant or humble and peaceable Presbyters who universally owned and submitted to the authority of their Bishops yea some men have the forehead to urge a few obscurer passages in a few them against clear places which are a hundred to one wherein they express their own judgements or the whole Churches practise in their times to be without any dispute for Episcopacy and Bishops with Presbyters as succeeding the Apostolicall eminencie in the ordinary power of Ordination and Church-government Indeed I have oft wondred how men of learning and piety had the confidence to cite testimonies even out of Ignatius Tertullian Irenaeus Origen Cyprian Clemens of Alexandria Ambrose Austin and others in favour of a Presbytery without and against a Bishop or President when all of them as all others of the Fathers are most clear both in their own judgements and as to the Churches Catholick practise yea and so is St. Jerom too for the right use of regular Episcopacy 5. Regulation of Episcopacy Omni actu ad me perlato placuit contrahi presbyterium Cornel. ep Rom. ad Cyp. Epist 46. In the absence sickness or death of the Bishop the Preâ—byters some me govâ—rnâ—d the Church So in Cyprians absence Epist 26.30.31 So Theod. l. 4. c. 22. when the Orthodox Bishop banished the Presbyters Flavianus and Dioderus c. guided the Church o â—nno 1194. hen the â—rks prevaiâ—d over the Greek Churches Balsamon tels they had no Bishops in many places a long time De Petro Apost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crysost hom 3. in Act. Apost Florentissimo illic clero tecum praesidents ad Cornel. Episcopus nullius causam audiat absque praesentia Clericorum suorum alioquin irrita eâ—â— sententia Episcopi nisi clericorum praesentia confirmetur Con. Carth. 4. can 23. such as all sober men plead for and approve What ever the Fathers are brought in as speaking for the Ministers rights in a joynt Presbyterie or the people 's as for Independency amount to no more but either to repress the arrogancy ambition and tyranny of some Bishops who in more favourable times usurped or used their power against or with neglect of the Counsell and assistance of Presbyters which in all reason ought and in Antiquity were ever joyned with the Bishop in weighty matters or else when the insolence and scorn of some Ecclesiastick governours arose to the oppression of the faithfull people To whom in Primitive times great regard was had both by Bishops and Presbyters in all publick transactions which concerned their and the Churches good government that so all things might be done with charity good liking and approbation of all Christians This was not only very comly and convenient but almost necessary in point of Christian prudence in those times when Christians of all degrees were full of humility and Charity kept short and low by persecution and much depended upon the love and union between Pastor and people Afterward indeed in times of peace and plenty there oft appeared so much of levity fury and faction in the common people that it was the wisdom of Governours to withdraw much of that liberty and indulgence which formerly people enjoyed but afterward abused to Sedition Fury and Murthers in their tumultuary motions and clamorous Elections This is all that ever I observed from the Antients in favour of the Presbyters power in common with Bishops or of the faithfull people Namely that they would have after the pattern of the Apostolike love wisdome and humility all things of publike concernment in the Church to be so managed by the chief Governour or Bishop as neither Presbyters nor People should think themselves neglected wherein their suffrage consent or approbation was fit to be had but the one should be used as brethren the other as sons which temperance I greatly approve It were endless and needless to answer or excuse personall Errors in Bishops Bishops personal errors no argument but of envy and malice against the office or those common inconveniences which are prone to attend all Power and superiority among men For those are the fruits of Power perverted of Authority degenerating of Governors ill governing themselves through personall errors and passions or the corruptions and indulgencies of times but they are not by any wise and impartiall man to be reckoned as the genuine and proper effects of that order government and proportion which is in right Episcopacy and which all reason as well as Religion allows to all sorts of men and Christians no more than sickness is to be imputed as a fault to health or deformity to comliness since both are incident in humane nature to the greatest strength or beauty Yea 't is most certain that there is nothing usefull or commendable in any other way of governing the Church in small parcells or in greater bodies which is not inclusively eminently and consummatively in a well-ordered Episcopacy such as was not only in primitive times but in our dayes As all Oeconomick vertues are in a good Father or Master and all politick excellencies are in an excellent Prince or Magistrate which cannot be found in any other short of and inferiour to those eminent relations All other lower and incompleater forms are as defective in point of advancing a common and publike good as they come short of that main end for with Episcopacy as the Crown and perfectest degree of order was by Apostolicall and primitive wisdome and piety setled in the Church which was to avoid Schisms to preserve the Unity of the faith and peace of the Churches to keep good correspondencies by Synods and Councills which could not be done by multitudinous meetings which no place could hold nor wise men manage to any order
might rule and reign in Christs stead It is upon other accounts than this of being a Bishop or Prelate in a part of the Church that the Pope is by many charged with the odious character of Antichristian namely in reference to that ambition pride and usurpation which by fraud and force the Bishops of Rome have obtained and chalenge or exercise over all the world and specially over these Western Bishops and Churches in later times Greg. in Epist. 32. Mauritio 600. years after Christ namely since Gregory the greats dayes who was an humble devout and holy Bishop and had many pious martyrs his Predecessors as Popes or Fathers in that See of Rome who abhorred the name of Universall Bishops affirming they were Antichrist who ever arrogated that name of Universall Bishop Also for those gross abuses errors tyrannies superstitions and persecutions which many Popes have made in the Churches of Christ contrary to the word and example of Christ and the Canons of generall Councils From all which we had a Church and Ministry happily reformed even by the care and constancy of many holy and learned men who were Bishops and Martyrs in this Church of England As then we do not abhor to be men or Christians because the Pope is a man and professeth to be a Christian So neither may we dislike Bishops because the Pope is one nor Presbyters and Deacons because there be many of that title and office in the Church of Rome True Epispacy may consist without secular and civil advantages But in the last place if primitive Episcopacy and Apostolicall Bishops now poor and devested of all secular power and ornaments of honour and estate and in this conform to their Predecessors in primitive and persecuting times may not in reason of state with publick honour be restored and established in this Church of England yet it may be hoped that the Indulgence and liberty of times will give so much tolleration That those whose judgements and consciences bind them either to be so ordeined Ministers or to receive the comfort of divine Ministrations only from such as are in holy orders by the safe and antient way of Episcopall Ordination may have and enjoy that liberty without perturbing the publick peace which both Presbyterians and Independents doe enjoy in their new wayes For nothing will savour more of an imperious and impotent spirit whose faith and charity are slaves to secular advantages and interests than for those who have obtained liberty for their novelties to deny the like freedom to other mens Antiquity which hath the Ecclesiasticall practise and precedency of 1600. years besides the preponderancy of much reason Scripture and holy examples All which to force godly grave and learned men Ministers or people to renounce or to comply with other wayes against their judgements or else to deprive them of all holy orders employments and ministrations in the Church as Christians cannot but be a most crying and self-condemning sin in those men who lately approved that antient and Catholick way and after dissenting at first desired but a modâ—st tolleration Since then the Pope as a Bishop is not Antichristian as I have proved neither can it be affirmed with any sense or truth that either Episcopacy it self or Bishops Pastors and Governours in the Church are Antichristian It will easily appear to sober Christians how poor popular and passionate a calumny that is which some weak minds please themselves to object against the Ministry of the Church of England as if it were Antichristian because the Ministers received their Ordination and Induction both to the office and exercise of their Ministry by the hands and authority of Bishops with those Presbyters assistant who were present which was the Universall practise of all Churches antiently in Ordeining Presbyters and is at this day of most This false and odious reproach of Antichristian Ministry many Presbyters preposterously seek to wipe off from the face of their Ministry as they are Presbyters while yet with the same hand they make no scruple to besmear the faces of Bishops and Episcopacy Not considering that while they poorly gratifie the vulgar malice of some men against all Bishops they still sharpen their spitefull objections against themselves as Presbyters As then this solemn and holy Ordination of Ministers by Bishops herein England by prayer fasting and imposition of hands 7. Bishops in England ordeining Presbyters did but their duty according to law was Antient and Catholick no way against Reason or Scripture yea most conform to both in order to Gods glory and the Churches welfare which I have already demonstrated So I am sure in so doing Bishops did no more than what their place office and duty required of them here in England according to the Laws established both in Church and State which had the consent of the whole Church and Nation both Presbyters and people as well as Prince and Peers No wise man may blame that act Aequum est 〈◊〉 quâ—m feceris susserisve legem feras Reg. Jur. or exercise of government and authority in an other which he was invested with did enjoy and acted in by publick consent declared in the Laws wherein each mans particular will is comprehended nor may that be sayd to be a private fault which is done in obedience to a publick Law Bishops then duly ordeyning Ministers in the Church of England had the approbation of this Church and State no less than of all Antiquity and of all the Modern forein Churches even those that have not Bishops who yet ever commended and applauded that Venerable Order here in England As for Scripture which some pretend against Bishops and for other wayes I never read any place commanding any one or two or more Presbyters to ordein or govern in any Church without a Bishop Nor do I find any place forbidding a Bishop to ordein and rule among and with the Presbyters According to that appointment of Timothy and Titus which is of all most clear for investing both Ordination and Church jurisdiction at that time eminently though perhaps not solely in one man and if that Constitution in the Churches of Ephesus and Crete carry not a Precept or binding exemplariness with it to after-times which Antiquity judged and followed Universally yet sure it redeems true Episcopacy sufficiently and all good Bishops in their right and moderate government of the Church especially in this point of Ordeining Ministers from being any way Antichristian to which we may be sure the blessed Apostle Paul would never have given any such countenance or patern as that Jurisdiction and power given to Timothy and Titus must needs be Nor are indeed the reproaches of popish and Antichristian added by vulgar ignorance or envy to Episcopacy any other than devillish false and detestable Calumnies invented by wicked men to the reproach and blasphemy not only of so many holy and worthy Bishops in all ages and Churches as well as in England but
also of that holy Spirit of truth and Ministeriall power which Christ gave to the Apostles and they to their chief successors the Bishops by whose learned piety and industry such mighty works have been done in all ages and in all parts of the Church and in none more I think than in this Church of England chiefly since the Reformation of Religion whereto godly and learned Bishops contributed the greatest humane assistance by their preaching writing living and dying as became holy Martyrs Can. 6. Concil Nicaeni I am vehemently for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 antient and holy customs of the Catholick Church 8. Primitive Customs how far alterable in the Churches Polity Consuetudo major non est veritate aut tatione Cyp. Ep. 73. Valeat consuetudo ubi non praevalet Scriptura aut ratio Reg. Jur. Praesracti est ingenii contra omnem consuetudinem disputare morosi nimis pertinaciter adhaerere so far as they may be fitted to the state and stature of any Christian societies Not that I think all things of external Polity discipline and government by which Christians stand tyed in relations publique to one another were at first so at once prescribed or perfected by Christ or the B. Apostles as might not admit after addition variations or completions in any Church or Congregation Christian according to those dictates of reason and generall rules of Prudence which are left to the liberty of Churches by which so to preserve particular Churches as not to offend the generall rules of order and charity which bind them by conformity in the main to take care of the Catholick Communion We are not I think tyed so strictly to all the precise paterns of primitive and Apostolicall practise which might well vary in the severall states conditions and dimensions of the Church I read no command for Presbyters to choose a Bishop or President among them and in so not doing they are defective not as to the Precepts of Scripture 1 Cor. 11.16 If any man lâ—st to be contentious we have no such Custom nor the Churches of Christ In his rebus de quibus nihil certi statuit Scriptura mos populi dei vel instituta majorum pro lege tenenda sunt Aug. Ep. 89. ad Cal. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 34. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 37. but to the rules of right reason and the imitation of usefull example in primitive times Nor do I find any Precept to one or more Presbyters to ordein others after them who yet ought to take care both of their own being rightly Ordeined and of after succession according to that patern Analogy and proportion of holy order and government which was at first wisely observed by the Apostles and the after Ministers of the Church either as Bishops or Presbyters The same Coat would not serve Christ a man grown which did fit him a Child or Youth Only it is neither safe comely nor comfortable for any Christians wantonly and without great and urging reasons next dore to necessity to recede from or to cast off the antient and most imitable Catholick customs of the Church which truly is seldom done upon conscientious and reall necessities pressing but most what upon factious humours and for secular designs carried on under the colour of Church alterations For how ever the alteration may at present please some mens activity and humour whose turn it serves yet it cannot but infinitely scandalise grieve and oppress far more and better Christians who are of the old yet good way Hence many wee see are at a loss now in England how to justifie their past religion shaken by changes as if they had had no true Ministry nor holy Ministrations and Sacraments hitherto while some mens zeal without knowledge cries down Bishops and that whole government with the Ministry for Antichristian others are extremely unsatisfied and solicitous for the future succession Not seeing any ground for any Presbyters in this Church so to challenge to themselves a sole divine power of Ordination and Jurisdiction without any President Bishops which was the antient way in England ever since we were Christians as in all other Churches And it is most sure that neither power of Ordination nor Jurisdiction was ever conferred by Bishops on any Presbyters here either verbally or intentionally as without and against Bishops Nor did the Laws or Canons ever so mean or speak Nor was it I believe in any of the Presbyters own thoughts that they received any such power to Ordein other Presbyters without a Bishop when they were Ordeined Ministers And sure though acts of state and civil Magistracy may regulate the exercise yet they cannot confer the holy power and order of a Presbyter or Bishop on any man which flows from a spiritual head even Jesus Christ as I have proved and not from any temporall Authority Ordinances of Parliament can hardly with justice or honour batter or dismount the Canons of generall Councils the Catholick laws or constant Customes of the Church If it be supposed that the two Houses of Parliament lately did but restore and the Presbyters resume that power of Ordination which was only due to them as such and deteined by Bishops usurpation from them Boâ—a consuetudo velut vinum generosum vetustate valescit Tert. It is very strange they should never here nor elsewhere have made claim to it for 1600. years in no ages past till these last broken factious tumultuary and military times If it were their right only in common with and subordinate to Bishops they needed not then to complain for they did or might have enjoyed as much joynt power as was for their conveniency and the Churches peace The eminent power at least for Order sake was even by their consents lawfully placed in and exercised by the Bishops The levity and ambition of ingrossing all to themselves without and against Bishops hath almost lost all power both of Bishops and Presbyters too since Presbytery alone is but as Pipe-staves full of cracks warpings and unevenness which will not easily hold the strong liquor of power and government unless they be well hooped about and handsomly kept in order by venerable and fatherly Episcopacy which carried a greater face of majesty and had those ampler and more august proportions which ought to be in government beyond what can be hoped for or in reason expected from the parity and puerility of Presbyters in common many of whom have more need to be governed than they are any way fit to bear any great weight of government on their shoulders however they may discharge some works of the Ministry very well 9. Calm mediations between Episcopacy and Presbytery As it hath never yet been shewen any where so it is least to be hoped for now in England that any better fruits should arise from Presbyterie thus beheaded cropped and curtayled of its crown Episcopacy which it might not stil have as formerly it
hath brought forth If the honour and order of the highest branch the Episcopall eminency had been preserved with it Not so as to over-drop and oppress all other boughs and branches which are of the same root but so as to adorn them all and to be most eminent in Christian graces and Ministeriall gifts no less than in priority of place superiority of power and amplitude of honour and estate As many Excellent Bishops both antient and modern were against whose incomparable worth while some young and petty Presbyters do scornfully declame and disgracefully insult they appear like so many Jackdaws perking on the top of Pauls steeple or like living Dogs snarling at and trampling upon dead Lions Petulantissima est insaniae paucorum malorum odio in bonos omnes dehacâ—hari Nor do indeed such impotent tongues and miserable partialities of some men tuned to the most vulgar ears and humours against all even good Bishops and against a right or regulated Episcopacy such as was for the main and substance here in England they do not in any sort become men that pretend to any true piety learning gravity or civility I neither approve nor excuse the personall faults of any particular Bishops as to the exercise of their power and authority which ought not in weighty matters to be managed without the presence counsell and suffrages of Presbyters such as are fit for that assistance The neglect of this St. Ambrose and St. Jerom and all sober men justly reprove as unsafe for the Bishops the Presbyters and the whole Church For in multitude of counsell is safety and honour too Rom. 11.14 I am sure much good they might all have done as many of them did whom these touchy times were not worthy of No wonder if the very best of them displeased some mens humours who were impatient to be kept any longer in order but like waters Hieron Communi concilio Praesbyterorum Ecclesiae regebantur Concilio Carthag 4. c. 3. Nil faciat Episcopus c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not other Concil Ancyran assisted the Bishop in government long pent up they sweld to such discontents as disdaining to pass the allowed bounds and floudgates of publick Lawes they resolved to blow up and bear away the whole head and sluce of Government Bishops had three Enemies to contend with some Presbyters ambition some Laymens covetousness and their own Infirmities And it may be Bishops faults had been less in some mens eyes if their estates and honours had not been so great I write not thus to reproach any of my Fathers or Brethren the Ministers who begin many of them no doubt to be of my mind for moderate Episcopacy if they have not alwayes been so finding that the fruit of the Summer doth not alwayes answer the blossoms of the Spring cruell frosts may nip and blast those pregnant hopes of bettering which men are prone secretly to nourish whereby to excuse or justifie their desires of change and novely In which truly I never saw any thing of right reason or religion produced for the extirpation of primitive Episcopacy The main things that pressed upon it were Forein power domestick pride the failings of some Bishops the envious angers of some Presbyters and the wonted inconstancy of the vulgar If any men Ministers or others are as loth to see and recant their excesses and errors as they were forward to run into them but still resolve to keep that partiall bias on their judgement which shall sway all their learning and other excellent Ministeriall gifts against their own true interests and this Church with all reformed Religion which consisted in due moderation and peace I shall yet with my pity of their wilfulness or weakness alwayes love and reverence what I see in them of Christ and only wish that temper and moderation from them which may most contribute in common to the vindication of the Order and Function of learned grave and peaceable ministers This they may at last easily see That every soft gratification of vulgar ignorance envy and inconstancy set forth with the forms of zeal and reformation is usually returned with vilifyings and diminutions of their betters who did vouchsafe to flatter them as if they indeed feared them I heartily wish a greater harmony a sweet moderation and Fraternal accord among all true and godly Ministers who dare to own and do still adorn their office and calling I should be glad to see the counsell and assistance of well setled Presbyters crowned with the order and lustre of Episcopall presidency which was antiently as the Jewel wel set in a ring of Gold or as a fair guard and handle to a good Sword adding to its compleatness comliness and usefulness Alas the ordinary Ministers seem now like younger brethren who sometimes lived handsomly under their Fathers or elder Brothers care and inspection so scattered and divided that they are extremely weakned and exposed to all injuries Pro. 16.18 Pride goes before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall yea many of them like Prodigall sons having riotously wasted their own and their Fathers portion begin to consider what husks of popular favour they may feed on So is Insolency the high way to indigence and arrogancy soon knocks at the dore of contempt Ministers must not wonder or repine at the measure they measured to others when offered to themselves Secundas habeat poenitentiae tabulas qui non habuit primas impeccantiae Amb. I am far from reproaching any mens defeats or Calamities wherein the Justice of divine vengeance is seen retaliating I am glad if the occasioners of our common shipwrack may have any fair planks or rafters to save themselves and the honour of their Ministry either by recanting the errors of their judgements or repenting the transports of their manners If they retein their Antiepiscopall opinion with modesty and charity yet I am not disposed to fly in any godly mans face because he is not exactly like me or to pull out his eyes Multa tolleramus quae non probamus Aust because they are not just of the colour of mine I pray to be of that Christian temper for moderation and charity which can allow many latitudes of Prudence in extern things of religion where no evident sins for their immoralities nor evident errors against the fundamentals of Christianity nor evident confusions against charity and order which is necessary for the Churches peace do appear I wish that while Ministers or other Christians differ in things of extern mode and order they may all find and walk in that holy way by which we may with one shoulder of truth and charity carry on that great work of saving Souls both our own and those that hear us that while we dispense saving truths to others we may not for want of humility and charity be cast-aways our selves More of those calming and moderating graces on all sides had no doubt preserved both Bishops and
Presbyters in their due place regard and honour so that they should not have been put thus to plead for their Ordination and Ministry or to play this after game much to the hazard of their very Function and succession of Ministeriall authority The despising or abolishing of which threatens the annihilating of the very being of this reformed Church in which the right Ministry is as the Ark in Israel 1 Sam. 4. a visible token of Gods presence among Christians And though the Philistins may for the sins of this Church take it captive and detein it for a while yet I believe 1 Sam 6. the Lord will bring it back again with shame to his enemies and joy to all true Israelites In the mean time this trouble and terror may be a means to a mend the personall faults both of Bishops and Presbyters which formerly might viciate but they could not totally vacate the Religion reverence and conâ—cience which is to be had of Christs institution as to the Ministry Personall faults of Bishops or Presbyters may viciate but not vacate divine duties 1 Sam. 2.12 nor yet could they make voyd the honour of Religion nor the authority vertue and efficacy of hoâ—y Ministrations Where the persons duâ—â— ordeined did administer and the holy things themselves were according to Scripture right y administred which alwaies remain holy whatever is objected against mens persons administring as sickness lameness or deformity deprive no man of the privileges of humane nature nor his actions of rea on nor his civill interest of the benefit of the Laws Ely's scandalous sons unworthy indeed of but yet rightly invested into the Priests office did not take away the necessity and sanctity of the services and sacrifices much less of the Priestly function which depended not on the morality of the persons administring but on the authority of the Lord commanding and the right investiture into the office The miscarriages of Bishops or Ministers may take away the beauty but not the being of Religious duties or of that holy power which they duly received no more than lapses after Baptism do unbaptise any Christian No Christian thinks the series of Christs genealogy broken or blemished corrupted or interrupted stayned or maymed by the names of Tamar Rahab and Bathsheba which are links in that h ly chain which hath its verity in the history but its sanctity from Christ to whom it relates as to the holy seed So in the succession of Ministeriall order and authority we dispute not by what personall vertues it was continued but we are sure it hath been continued successively from Christ and tends to him as to the compleating of his second incarnation in his body the Catholick visible Church In which Christ is daily begotten and formed by the means of a right Ministry and duly ordeined Ministers 10. Of Ordination of Ministers Where Bishops are Orthodox and may be had Ordination cannot regularly be had without them Vbi Episcopi desunt nec haberi possent Orthodoxi Preâ—byteri in necessitate ordinare possunt Sarav de grad Mi. So Bishop Dâ—wnham Con. in Apocal. Or by the Bishops authority delegated as to the Chorepiscopi who were but Presbyters Isid Hippa de Eccl. off Whether Bishops ordeined Presbyters as Prelates in a superiority of divine power and peculiar order as succeeding the Apostolicall eminency which antiquity for the most part thought looking on Episcopacy in ordination confirmation and jurisdiction not as the only but as the highest branches of Church power lineally descended from the Apostolicall ordinary power of ruling and governing the Church or whether they did those acts of power and authority only as chief by Ecclesiasticall right in degree and order of place among the Presbyters as chosen or approved by them and placed in a precedency of place and presidency of action and inspection but still of the same intrinsecall power and order Ministeriall as to the first act or originall I need not further gratify any mans curiosity in setting down my opinion Ego vero à Presbyteris solis administrata 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regularem ad EcclesiasticaruÌ„ regularuÌ„ amussim factam non dixerim Aut in ea institutum ab Ecclesia post Apostolorum transitum ordinem per omnia servare Blondel test Hierom pag. 255. St. Pauls Epistle to Tim. and Tit. This I am sure What ever dirt and mire the restless hearts of wicked men cast up against the calling of the Ministry in England The Gospell and the holy Institutions of it appointed by Christ to be dispensed to all the world have never in any other way been derived to this long succession save only by the power of ordination which never was in ordinary cases believed or owned in the Church to be valid and effectuall in any men or from any hands but those who were formerly consecrated Bishops or ordeined Ministers Nor was this custom ever esteemed as the act of any generall Councill or Ecclesiasticall Canon but it had both example and precept and constant succession from Christ to the Apostles and from them to others with a command of continuation which was necessary for the Church and ever most conscienciously observed in the Church which never flourished better than when the modesty humility and wisdom of Presbyters joyning with and submitting to their Bishop as fellows to the Master of a College carried on that order peace and comly proportion in the Church before all the world that they were in the first century compared by Ignatius for their harmony to the strings well set and tuned on the Harp Ignat. Ep. ad Ephes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist ad Smyrn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea in an higher strain he compares them to the blessed accord between the Father and the Son Christ as man mediator and God where in the sameness of the divine nature yet there is the order and priority of relation These were the antient pipes and conduicts of Ministeriall Ecclesiasticall power which were first layd in the head and fountain Christ Jesus after branched to all places by a continuall order and derivation of Ministeriall authority Where the pipe is once broken there the stream of living waters must needs fail If any foulness flows or obstructions have befaln these pipes of due ordination as all that passeth through earthen vessels is prone to do in time which Christ and his Apostles have layd to serve his Church with the living waters of grace and truth and which have flowed these sixteen hundred years to the refreshing of infinite souls yet we must not cut them off nor quite stop them or turn the waters another way as choosing rather Independent wells and broken Buckets but we ought to cleanse those pipes and repayr those conduicts which only can hold and convey that holy water as the vessels of the Temple restoring them to their Primitive use and integrity Which by Gods help is easily done where pride passion
policy and worldly interests are really separated from those of Christ his Church and mens souls Nothing were more happy than to see this sincerely done so that Christians would rather deny themselves in profit and worldly advantages than any way benefit or gain by Church Reformations than which nothing is more sordid and more to be abhorred contrary to the holy liberality of all good Christians in all times If Ananias and Saphira were smitten for dissembling how much more accursed are they who act all with a sacrilegious Spirit and hand stripping and robbing the Church instead of Reforming I shall ever pray for just and liberall Reformations while I live mean time I rest satisfied in my conscience That the ordination of Ministers as it was in England by a Bishop and Presbyters as it hath the greatest regularity so it hath the greatest validity and admits the least dispute as to the right order and succession of Ministeriall power As for the Presbytery and Presbyters I think their Ministry very valid and their authority very venerable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. ad Ep. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. ad Smyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. ad Ep. to all true Christians especially in conjunction with their Bishop Like Tortesses they were safest while they keep under that shell which some Presbyters having scornfully cast off as a burthen striped themselves of their shield and defence so that they are become very naked feeble and contemned creatures whom the foot of pride and rusticity is prone to crush and trample upon on every side That they have now no refuge or protection left but God and a good conscience which are enough if they do indeed enjoy them though with poverty and contempt from men Thus I have as well as I had leasure vindicated the Ordination of Ministers and that power which they have to administer holy things in Christs name to this Church to be no way blameable but right and commendable as derived by and with the hands of Bishops and Presbyters which is the holy and Catholick way wherein only it is ordinarily to be obteined 1 Cor. 11.16 Aust cont Don. l. 4. if any men list to be contentious for other ways my answer with St. Paul is again and again neither we nor the Churches of Christ ever had any other custom and with St. Austin so Catholick a custom 11. Of the peoples power in Ordination of Ministers so agreeable to reason and Scripture could have no beginning but Christ and his holy Apostles There is yet one Calumny more against the Ordination of our Ministers in the Church of England which pretends the neglect among us of what is by some thought most essentiall in making a Minister that is of the peoples right both in choosing and ordeining men to that office the want of which they say makes our Ministry invalid Answ For this pretended right of the people no argument is alleged so strong as that of liberty which some have taken in these times to separate themselves from the ordinary Ministry of this Church and by a mutuall call of one an other to jugg themselves like Partridges into small coveys which they call bodies or Churches even before they have any Minister which they resolve not to have but of their own choosing and ordeining that they may be sure being a creature of their own to have him after their own humour flattering themselves that they have a plenary Church power to all Offices and ends whatsoever Although I have formerly given some generall account of the folly of this imagination in the vulgar yet because it is a Gangrene not easily cured without oft lancing and opening and hath far prevailed upon some peoples minds who feed this opinion with the venemous and vulgar humours of pride self-loving self-seeking self-pleasing self-flattering and self-admiring It is not a miss to give another stroak at this high imagination which exalts itself against Christ and the holy order of his Church that the obstinacy of its arrogance and folly being pulld down it may be levelled to that obedience which becomes all Christian people People have no power Ministerial First then I must profess that I never saw or heard any thing by any man with any shew of Scripture or reason urged to proove this power of conferring the holy order and authority of a Minister of Christ to be in the people Either eminently as an executioners power is in the supreme Judge or virtually as life is in the Suns beams or formally and causally as heat is in the fire or ordinatively preceptively and derivatively as the supreme Magistrates power is to some ends Numb 16. The Preface to Korahs rebellion and confusion is the peoples sanctity v. 3. and actions in the meanest Constable or publike Officer So that it can be in them no other way than as power may be in rebels hands or as Korah and his complices if they had not been by God repressed would have had liberty and authory from their own usurpation to make Priests and Rulers instead of Moses and Aaron whom the Lord had appointed Not by Scripture For Scripture First it is evident in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divine patern of polity and extern order of Religion in the Church of the Jews we find that the wisdom of God leaves nothing of holy concernments for Priests or Ministry no nor the least sacrifice offering or ceremony to the peoples either ordering or choosing Nor is it likely or any where appears that the unchangeable wisdom of God in Christ altering only the manner externall and not the order beauty holyness Phil. 4.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 5. A multitudine abhorret maximè vera Philosophia Lact. Inst l. 3. c. 25. è Ciceron Vulgar heads like many circles have so many circumferences that its impossible to draw them to meet in one center Charron Vbi major hominum turba major plerumque est divinitatis injuria Salv. or the main end of the service and Ministry Christian which his glory and his Churches good should so much vary from the former exactness and wariness as to venture the order beauty and honour of Religion upon the rock of vulgar rudeness ignorance rashness headyness stiff-neckednes which formerly he so much avoyded and which not only the tenderness of Christian Religion which having many enemies admits least blemishes and studies most what things are comely as well as holy but even common reason and experience teacheth all wise men to avoyd as much as possible Namely those inconveniences and mischiefs attending the weak heads and strong hands of the vulgar as in all things so chiefly in those which concern Religion Who that is wise can be ignorant that the common people even among believers and professors are seldom or never qualified with those gifts of knowledge wisdom temper and discretion which are necessary for all publike
and most for religious administrations where not only the credit but the conscience of the Church is engaged and ought to be very much considered in order to the honour of Christ and of his Church It were a very blasphemous reproach I think to the wisdom of Christ for any to imagine that he had delegated the highest power of his Church to men incompetent and generally incapable without daily miracles Besides this if they were supposable to have those gifts which were fit to try and judge rightly of a Ministers sufficiency yet they cannot have power to authorise or ordein a Minister of Jesus Christ no more than every judicious man hath power to send an Embassador in his Princes name or to make such arbitrators and Judges as he thinks fit in other mens business This is a power only to be used and enjoyed by those to whom it is given from him who is supreme as in the Church Jesus Christ is in whom the grand power of Ordination which confers on man authority to dispense holy mysteries in Christs name is originally seated and from him derived and granted as a grand Charter or Commission to his Apostles first and by them afterward exemplified and delivered to others who being found fit for it were assumed into and invested with the same delegated authority as from Christ and never given to the community of the people at any time or derivable from him in any degree of power Ministeriall be their gifts and graces never so good Since this is a fruit of Christs wisdom munificence and power toward his Church an appointment full of holy order and divine polity depending on no private mens gifts or graces but upon the good will pleasure and power of Jesus Christ himself as he stands in the relations of King Priest and Prophet to his Church Now to whom Christ committed this great and sacred power of ordeining a constant succession of Ministers in his name and in what manner it was by them derived to others Pag. 143. c. in the answer to the first Objection See Dr. Hammond and Dr. Tailor of Ordination Correxerunt manus psephisma natum est Tull. I have already cleared I hope and other late writers have done it too by Scripture reason and Ecclesiasticall Catholick Custom In all which it is evident That the so much urged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly indeed signifies peoples suffragating by stretching forth of hands in publike and popular elections is not to be urged by a Criticall severity from the Ethnick sense of the word to the Churches injury and confusion Since the same word in sacred and Ecclesiasticall writings as well as in others is oft used in a sense which signifies nothing else but an appointment or designation made by any one or more to some speciall work and service to which God or Christ Jesus Acts 14.22 or the Apostles joyntly or severally or their successors the Bishops and Pastors of the Church in their severall precincts are said to ordein or appoint a part from any such suffrage or autoritative influence of the people Further than their sometimes nominating and recommending fit men to be ordeined as Acts 6.5 or else their comprobation and acceptance of those who were by the Apostles Elders and Rulers of the Church ordeined as Ministers over them and this in Christs name by a divine authority which is for the peoples good but not from them as a fountain nor by them as any fit Pipes or Conduict through which this holy stream of the Ministry Ordinationes eorum quam temerarie tam inconstantes Hodie Episcopus cras alius bodiâ— Presbyter qui cras laicus Nam laicis Sacerdotolia munera injungunt Tertul. ad Haerâ—â— c. 42. Ad hac opera blandi sub missi sunt Caetâ—rum nec suit praesidibus reverentiam exhibere naverunt Id. ubi integra non est veritas me â—â—o tolis est disciplina Tertâ—l or the pure waters of the Sanctuary are to flow So that I cannot look upon this late arrogant claim of the power of ordeining Ministers as primarily belonging to the common people or to other Laymen as other than a fashion or opinion only befitting and extremely resembling those giddy proud and preposteous fancies to which vulgar minds are subject as Tertullian tels us when once the reigns of Church Discipline are let loose or some head-strong Schismaticks get the bridle between their teeth yea and it daily confutes it self while the Authors and followers of it are continually dividing and self confounding So inconsistent is error not only with Truth but with it self easily mouldring with its own weight and weakness And no wonder if the Lord prosper not projects arising from popular pride and presumption and tending to the shame and confusion of true Religion which no right reason or order no Scripture precept or patern no Ecclesiasticall custom or learned and godly mans judgement did ever allow or can with any reason as carrying with it all manner of rusticall unreasonable and irreligious absurdities which are never wanting where vulgar passions dwell as infallibly they do in the meaner sorts of men pretend they to what sanctity they will It will soon appear in how many and great defects they come short of that wisdom gravity unpassionateness and impartiality which is necessary to manage and order publike holy actions 2 Cor. 5.20 and to confer a solemn Religious power to any in Christs name to do Christs work and in some sense to be in Christs stead Wise humble and truly gracious Christians Best Christians are most modest are of all men most remote from such bold and unsuitable undertakings whereto having no call from God or the Church they can never expect blessing on their adventures and rash endeavours It satisfies them that they have as much influence in the ordeining and choosing of Ministers as they are capable of and is best for them and the Church Yet if it will please these Christians to fancy that they have some degree of power even in making their Ministers here in this Church they may consider Ministers in England ordeined with the peoples consent that neither Bishops nor Presbyters in England made any Ministers without the peoples generall consent expressed by those Laws and civill sanctions which confirmed here that divine order and constitution which they saw Christ had setled and the Church alwaies followed in ordeining lawfull Ministers by that wisdom and authority which from the Apostles was derived in a constant succession of Bishops and Presbyters who were for gifts of knowledge and judgement best able and for lawfull power only able by examination benediction and imposition of hands to consecrate any man a Minister and confer the power of Holy Orders on him who yet did and doe this as Delegates for the Church but from Christ If the power of choosing and ordeining Ministers were wholy left in
the substance of them nor any lessening of Christs right to them And for this I have produced not weak opinions not light conjectures not partiall customes not bare prepossession 3. A summary of what makes for the function of the Ministry not uncertain tradition not blind antiquity not meer crowds or numbers of men much lesse do I solemnly alledge my own specious fancies devout dreams uncertain guessings Seraphick dictates and magisteriall Enthusiasms But 1. evident grounds out of the Word of God for a divine Ordination and institution at first 2. Scripture history for succession to four generations actually 3. Promises and precepts for perpetuity of power Ministeriall and assistance which was derived by the solemn ceremony of the imposition of hands by such only as had been ordained and so enabled with successionall power till the coming of Christ 4. This primitive root and divine plantation of the Ministeriall office and power we finde oft confirmed by miraculous gifts besides the innocency humility simplicity piety and charity of those Apostles primitive Bishops and Presbyters set forth in the holinesse of their lives and the glorious successes of their Ministeriall labours converting thousands by preaching the Gospell and by their Ministeriall power and authority planting Churches in all the then known and reputed world oft crowning their doctrines and Ministry with Martyrdome 5. After this I produce what is undenyably alleadged from authours of the best credit learned and godly men famous in the Church through all the first ages shewing the Catholick and uncontradicted consent the constant and uninterrupted succession by Bishops and Presbyters in every City and Countrey which all Christians in every true Church owned received and reverenced as men indued with such order and power Ministeriall as was divine supernaturall and sacred as from Christ and in his Name though by man as the means and conduit of it This is made good to our dayes in the persons and office of those Ministers who were and are duely ordained in this Church 6. Next I plead with the like evident and undenyable demonstrations the great abilities in all sorts of ministeriall gifts the use and advancement of all good learning the vindicating of true Christian and reformed religion the manifold discoveries of sound judgement discreet zeal holy industry blamelesse constancy and all other graces wherein the Ministers of England have not been inferiour to the best and most famous in any reformed Christian Church and incomparably beyond any of their defamatory adversaries 7. I add to these as credentiall Letters the testimonies and seales which God hath given of his grace and holy Spirit accompanying the Ministry in England upon the hearts of many thousands both before and eminently since the Reformation by which men have been converted to and confirmed in Faith Repentance Charity and holy life the tryall of which is most evident in that patience and constancy which many Ministers as other Christians in this Church have oft shewen in the sufferings which they have chosen rather then they would sin agaist their Conscience and that duty which they owed to God and man 8. Last of all if any humane consideration may hope for place in the neglect of so many divine the civill rights and priviledges which the piety of this Nation and the Laws of this Land have alwayes given to Ministers of the Gospell by the fullest and freest consent of all Estates in Parliament that they might never want able Ministers nor these all fitting support and incouragements These I say ought so far to be regarded by men of justice honour and conscience as not suddenly to break all those sacred sanctions and laws asunder by which their forefathers have bound them to God to his Church and Ministers for the perpetuall preservation of the true Christian Religion among them and their posterity Furthermore 4. The fruits of Ministers labours in England if the godly Ministers of this Church of England whom some men destine to as certain destruction and extirpation as ever the Agagite did the Jews if they be the messengers of the most high God the Prophets of the Lord the Evangelicall Priests those by whom Salvation hath been brought and continued to this part of the world If they have like the good Vine and Figtree been serviceable to God and man to Church and State If they have laboured more aboundantly and been blessed more remarkably than any other under heaven If they have preached sound doctrine in season and out of season if they have given full proof of their Ministry not handling the Word of God deceitfully nor defrauding the Church of any Truth of God or divine Ordinance If many of them have fought a good fight and finished their course with joy and great successe against sin errour superstition and profanenesse If they have snatched many firebrands out of hell pulled many souls out of the snares of the divell If they have fasted and mourned and watched and prayed and studyed and taught and lived to the honour of the Gospell and the good of many soules If they have like Davids Worthies stood in the gap against those Anakims and Zanzummins who by lying wonders learned sophistries and accurate policies have to this day from the first reformation and coming out of Egypt sought to bring us thither again or else to destroy the very name of Protestants and reformed Religion from under heaven If almost all good Christians and not a few of these renegadoes their ungratefull enemies doe owe in respect of knowledge or grace to the Ministers of England as Philemon to St. Paul even their very selves If they have oft in secret wept over this sinfull Nation and wantonly wicked people as Christ did over Jerusalem and as Noah Daniel and Job oft stood in the gap to turne away the wrath of God from this self-destroying Nation If now they have no other thoughts or practises but such as become the truth and peace of that Gospell which they preach and that blessed example which Christ hath set them whom in all things they desire to imitate in serving God edifying the Church doing good to all men praying for their enemies and paying all civill respects which they owe to any men If all true and faithfull Ministers have done and designe onely to doe many great and good works in this Church and Nation for which of these is it that some men seek and others with silence suffer them to be stoned as the Jews threatned Christ and the inconstant Lystrians acted on St. Paul who after miracles wrought by him among them and high applauses of him from them was after dragged as a dead dog out of their City by them Act. 14.19 supposing him to be dead If all true and worthy Ministers being conscious to their own Integrity a midst their common infirmities after their escaping the late stormes in which many perished are easily able without any disorder to them to shake off those
Matth. 20.22 but of bloud Are we ashamed of Christs wounds and thorns and reeds or of Saint Pauls chains or Saint Peters prison Euseb l. 4. c. 15. or Ignatius his beasts or Polycarps torments from whose body in the flames a sweet odour dispersed to the spectators Doe we abhor to live as Cyprian did first banished then martyred Or as great Athanasius sixe years in a well without the light of the Sun forsaken of friends and every where hunted by enemies Or as Chrysostome Ruffin l. 1. Eccles hist c. 14. whose eloquent and learned courage exempted him not from much trouble and banishment Martyres ad Coeli januam poenarum gradibus ascendentes de equule is catastis scalas sibi fecerunt Salv. l. 3. Gub. where he dyed You will want comforts if you want trials and afflictions Saint John had his glorious revelation in his exile Those will be but probations and increases of your graces and gifts too which may be rusty with much ease and warped by the various turnings wherewith many Ministers think to shift off persecution and to grinde with every winde * Theodorus juvenis tristior ab equuleo depositus inter cruciatus cantabat Ruffin hist l. 1. c. 30. If you be indeed conscious to your selves of any fraud and falsity of any sinister and unsincere way by which your predecessours and you after them have either attained or maintained your Ministry and function in this Church if you know any thing unreasonable unscripturall uncomely immorall irreligious or superstitious in the way or work in the means manner or end of your Ministry if you are guilty of any thing different from or contrary to the rule and way of Christ his Churches good his Fathers glory dangerous to your own or others mens soules In Gods name repent of your sin betimes recant your learned folly renounce your ancient standing Doe this as most worthy of you heartily ingenuously publiquely that by the foyle of your shame the lustre of Gods glory may be more set off Gratifie at length not now your enemies but your friends because your Monitors and reformers the Papists Socinians Separatists Brownistâ— Anabaptists c. with what they have so long and so earnestly desired to such an impatience as you see now threatens to cudgell you to a recantation of your Ministry if you will not doe it by fair meanes and plausible allurements O how joyfull and welcome news will it be at home and abroad to hear that you as Ministers of the Church of England have not onely helped to put down Bishops and abolish Episcopacy but you have to perfect your repentance and to cumulate the courtesie abjured your Office renounced your standing abdicated your calling prostrated your Ministry at the feet of any that list to kick at it or tread upon it Calcaâ—e me saelem insipidum Euseb and upon you too as Ecebelians as unsavory salt that is good for nothing unlesse it be new boyled in an Independent Gauldron over a Socinian Furnace with a popular fire O hasten to remove your selves from that rock of ages the Catholick ordination and succession on which the Church and Ministry hath so long stood in all places as a City on a hill both in peace and persecutions and levell your selves to those smoother quick-sands which would fain levell you to themselves You will never be able to suffer what threatens you as Ministers of the old standing and way with chearfulnesse and comfort where your constancy is but pertinacy as it is unlesse you have solid grounds sound mindes and sincere hearts if you have any scruples or thornes in your feet your motions must needs be painfull tedious and uncomely When you are converted help to redeem us the remnant of your poore seduced brethren from our errors and mistakes from our mists of ignorance our chaines of darknesse from our Catholick customes from our Ecclesiasticall Canons from our historicall testimonies from that holy succession that Apostolicall practise that Scripture foundation that divine institution by all which we fancy our selves both solidly built and strongly supported And this we have done in the simplicity of our souls both we and our Forefathers for many generations not onely since the last reformed century but for a thousand and half a thousand yeares before even ever since the Christian Religion hath beene planted propagated and continued by such consecrated Bishops and such ordained Ministers in all the world If you have found nothing of God goe along with your Ministry either in your own breasts or your peoples hearts or your Predecessors labours if you are justly unsatisfied in that Ordination and succession by which not only the Ministeriall authority but all Christian priviledges and rites have been derived to you in this Church if you never found it confirmed to you by Gods blessing on your owne or others Ministry in your way if you doe indeed finde a brighter light a warmer heat and a sweeter influence from those new Parelii which of late have appeared in our sky Parelii are the seeming or mock-sunnes which sometime appear with the true Sun as there did two here in England an 1640. as rivals in brightnesse to our old Sun in number exceeding it yea now threatning to eclipse it and utterly expell it out of its ancient orb and sphear if you really judge that you have cause to * Rom. 3.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. blaspheme or to speak evill of those seemingly holy and reputedly excellent Bishops and Ministers of this Church as if they had hitherto to been lyars for God deceivers for Christ done evill that good might come thereby if you judge that you have cause to reproach traduce and despise all those Christians whose profession full of order humilitie and holinesse hath been the crown and glory of this Church and the Ministrie of it as if they had beene silly soules whom Ministers smooth tongues had onely deceived If you can or dare to reprobate all those both godly Pastors and people to annull their Ministry to overthrow their Faith to wash off their baptism to cast out their Sacraments to despise their Sermons to laugh at their prayers to cancell their writings to detest their examples to vilifie their graces as fancifull hypocriticall spurious supposititious superstitious imaginary unauthoritative antichristian If you finde in your consciences good grounds for this boldnesse of censure and consequently for a separation profanation and abnegation of your former way both as Ministers and as Christians for renounce one and you must needs begin both If you had no true Ministers then you were no true Christians and if no true Christians you could be no true Ministers if so follow by all meanes with speed your later and diviner dictates please your selves in your happy inconstancy hasten to disabuse the people of this Nation whom so many holy seducers the Bishops and Ministers of old have abused O undeceive the miserable
enemies as a matter of pomp and scandall that he rode in the City upon an Asse to ease his age It will be lesse offence when the world shall see holy Bishops and deserving Presbyters go on foot Psal 45.16 Eccles 10.7 and asses riding upon them Princes which Saint Jerome interprets Bishops on foot and servants on horseback Though we be never so low let us doe nothing below the dignity of our Ministry which depends not on externall pomp but inward power the same faith which shewes to a true beleiver the honour and excellency of Christ sets forth also the love and reverence due to his true Ministers of the Gospell who are in Christs stead when they are in Christs work and way and need not doubt of Christs and all good Christians love to them An high point of wisdome For Verity and piety would be in all true Ministers of what degree soever * As Constantine the Great burned all the bils of complaints exhibited by the Bishops and Churchmen one against another Euseb vit Const Privatae simultates publicis utilitatibus condonandae Tac. would be to take the advantage of this Antiperistasis by the snow and salt as it were of papall and popular ambition they should be the more congealed and compacted together into one body and fraternity Having so many unjust enemies on every side against every true Minister of this Church whether Bishop or Presbyter all prudence invites us to compose those unkinde jealousies breaches and disputes which have been among us because we own our selves as brethren among whom some may be elder in nature or superior in authority without the injury of any This subordination if Scripture doe not precisely command yet it exemplarily proposeth Reason adviseth and Religion alloweth and certainly Christ cannot but approve the more because the pride of Papall Antichrists on one side and the unrulinesse of popular Antichrists on the other side studies to overthrow it and are the most impatient of it I know some mens folly will not depart from them though they be brayed in a morter But sober men will think it time to bury as * Salvae fidei Regula de disciplina contendentibus suprema lex est Ecclesiae paex Blondel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 14. Vincamur ut vincamus de dissid Christianorum Constantine the Great burned all unkinde disputes breaches and jealousies which have almost destroyed not onely the Government but the very Ministry it self of this Church No doubt passions have darkened many of our judgements earthly distempers have eclipsed our glory secular and carnall divisions have battered our defenses discovered our weaknesses and invited these violent assaults from enemies round about that none is so weak as to despaire of his malices sufficiency to doe us Clergy men some mischief the most tatling Gossips the sillyest shee s who are ever learning and never come to the knowledge of the truth undertake * Clemens in his Apostolike Epistle advised any one to depart if he findes for his sake the dissension is in the Church Ruffin Eccles hist l. 1. c. 2. Discordiae in unitatem trahant plagae in remedia vertantur unde metuit Ecclesia periculum inde sumat augmentum Amb. voc gen l. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Ipsae mulieres eorum quam procaces quae endeant docere contendere for fitan tinguere Tertul. praef ad Haer. cap. 41. not only to be teachers but to teach their teachers as Tertullian observed yea and to Ordain their Ministers such no doubt as they do deserve having such Preachers for their greatest punishments The kinde closing and Christian composing of passionate and needlesse differences among learned and pious Ministers by mutuall condescending about matters of sociall prudence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 13. order and government to be used in the Church which have chiefly if not onely brought so great misgovernment upon us in Enggland would be a great and effectuall means to recover the happinesse of this Church and the honour of the Ministry which consists in an holy fraternity and godly harmony of love no lesse than in truth of doctrine and holynesse of manners By our own leaks and rents we first let in these waters which have sunk us so low that every wave rakes over us No man that is truly humble wise and holy will be ashamed to retract any errour and transport whereof he hath been guilty and of which he hath cause to be most ashamed Greg. Nazianzem offered himself to be the Jonas to the Church then troubled with sedition in vita Naz. Ingenuous offers of fraternall agreement and mutuall condescendings to each other had beene exceedingly worthy of the best Ministers both of the Episcopall Presbyterian and Independent way whose wisdome and humility might easily have reconciled and united the severall interests which they pretend to support of Bishops Presbyters and Christian people But who sees not that secular designes and civill interests have too much leavened the dissensions of many Ministers though in the conclusion they have not on any side much made up their cake by the match while Church men Bishops and Presbyters had no such worldly concernments to engage them they had no such disputes and mutinies as to the order and government of the Church which no Councell no particular Bishops nor Presbyters no one Church or Congregation of Christians began of themselves but all by Catholick and undisputed consent conformed themselves to that order Irenaeus l. 4. c. 43. c. 45. which the Apostles and Apostolicall men left in common to the Churches in every place most sutable to their either beginning or increasing to their setling or their setlednesse It is easie to see what Christ would have in the Church as to extern order and policy if Christians would look with a single eye at Christs ends You may easily see how the worlds various interests which are as hardly commixt with Christ's and true religion's as oil with water serve themselves with Ministers tongues pens and active spirits who should rather serve the Lord Jesus and his Church in truth simplicity peace and unity without any adherences to secular policies parties and studies of sides by which sudden and inconsiderate rowlings to and fro as foolish and fearefull passengers in a tottering boat some Ministers of England have welnigh overturned the Vessell of this reformed Christian Church which might easily as the most famous and flourishing Churches anciently were have been uprightly ballanced and safely steered by a just fitnesse and proportion of every one in their place either for Ministry or Government and Discipline where of old the paternall presidency of Bishops stood at the helm the grave and industrious Presbyters rowed as it were at the Oares and the faithfull people as the passengers kept all even by keeping themselves in quietnesse order and due subjection Nor was