man in comparison seeketh after her bruise is almost incurable and her wound is very grievous There are few to plead her cause she hath no healing medicines her lovers have forgotten her since God hath wounded her with the wounds of enemies and with the chastisements of cruell ones who in her dust and captivity require of her to sing the songs of Sion commanding her to call her ruines Reformations and to account their persecutions her perfections It is time then for all that have any regard to the Church of England to cry mightily both to God and man to give them no rest till they return to be gracious to this much afflicted impoverished despised divided disordered Church It is high time for all honest English Christians to pitty her ruines to favour her dust to speak comfortably to her to put an end to her warfare to bind up her wounds to make up her breaches to repaire her losses as Jobs friends did his with their kind and munificent compassions that Posterity may not read in the sad ruines divisions and desolations of this famous and reformed Church of England pristine liberality and modern sordidnesse the bounty beauty and order of former times the deformity sacriledge and confusion of these later Who can consider without shame and regret how much more generous and large-hearted even those Ages were which had some rust and dimnesse of superstition growing upon their Religion then these are in which the English world is filled and confounded with the noise and shews of brightnings and reformations in which by new most preposterous methods some of our late unlucky Architects or Antivitruvian Builders have endeavoured with their axes and hammers to break down more good Church-vvork in twice seven years than the best master-builders can hope to repair in seventy seven I doe not mean onely as to the materiall and mechanick fabricks of goodly Churches which in many places lie sordidly wasted shamefully desolated but as to that which was the rationall politicall morall the prudentiall and truly pious structure of this well-reformed Church of England of whose ruines I shall give you afterward a more particular account But it is now time for me in order to work upon your affections to give over such tedious Prefacings and to present You with as true and lively a prospect as I can of Her sad posture There being more pathetick power in your hearing or seeing one of her own sighs and tears O what is there in her wounds than in the greatest seas of any mans oratory to stir up in You those filiall compassions which most become You to so deserving and now so distressed a Mother as is this Church of England The goodly CEDAR of Apostolick Catholick EPISCOPACY coâ—â—… with the moderne Shoots Slips of divided NOVELTIES in the Church ΔΕÎΔΡΟΛΟΓΙΑ The Embleme of the Trees explained In which is briefly set forth the History and Chronology of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency as pretenders to Church-government their first planting growing and spreading in the Christian World THe design of this Figure or Embleme is to instruct Christians of the meanest capacities who have less abilities or leisure to read large Discourses touching the due Order Way and Method of Church-union and Communion which Subject is now multiplyed to so many parties and opinions that ordinary people as in a Wood or Maze and Labyrinth are unable to disentangle themselves of those perplexed contentions and confusions which have of late so miserably divided and almost destroyed the Harmony and Happiness of the Church of England upon the disputes not so much about saving Faith and holy Life as those of a Churches right constitution in its Divine Original Apostolick Derivation Catholick Succession Regular Subordination and Brotherly Communion First most people learned and unlearned were heretofore prepossessed with the Catholick use and approbation of Episcopacy as ubique semper ab omnibus ever and onely used in this and all other Churches from the first planting of Christianity After this many weaker Christians came to be dispossessed of their former perswasions by the violent obtrusions of such a Presbytery as challengeth Church-government not in common with Bishops but wholy without them This forreign plant not taking any deep root in this English soyle was soon starved and much supplanted by the Insinuations of a newer way called Independency At last many heretofore well-meaning Christians finding such great Authorities even from Christ pretended on all sides for these diversities of Bishops Presbyters and People each challenging the right of Church-government Rule and Jurisdiction as principally due to them and from Christ immediately committed to them have by long perplexed and sharp disputes been brought to such doubtings as have betrayed them to strange indifferencies as to all Ecclesiastical Society and Order which is the very band of Christian Religion so far that they care for no Church no Christian Communion no setled Government no sober Religion By this Figure Type or Scheme every one may easily see in one view their rise growth and proportions what in the beginning was what ever since for above 1500. years hath been and what in right reason ought to be the authoritative and constant Order Polity and Government of every particular Church as a part of the universal if we regard either Scripture-direction or Christs institution or Apostolical prescription or universal practise of all Churches in all Ages and places till of later dayes wherein the factious Ambitions of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abortive and divided Novelties have either in too indulgent or in troublesome times strangely warped from or contested against uniform Antiquity either usurping upon or denying those just Interests which ought to be preserved joyntly in every well-ordered Church to Bishops to Presbyters and to faithful people who as Members of one Body and Branches of one Tree or Root ought to be but one in an Ecclesiastical harmony though they have different uses and offices for the common good The Catholick Church of Christ which all true Christians believe to be Sponsa unica dilecta the Spouse and Body of Christ one and intire as united to him the Head of all by one Faith so to one another as Members by one Spirit one Baptism one Bread and one Cup which are visible symbols or signs of that invisible Communion in Truth in Love Charity which every true Christian hath with Jesus Christ and all true Believers in all the world This Catholick one and uniform Ch. is here set forth under the similitude of one fair straight well-grown fruitful flourishing uniform Tree as the Cedar of the Lord full of sap rooted in Christ from whom it derives the spirit life and radical moisture of Grace by such outward means and Ministers as the Lord hath appointed to be workers together with him as some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for planting propagating watering
lesse safe in some respects for the Lay-people to receive the Cup or Wine and Blood of Christ apart as he instituted and the Church of old even the Roman constantly practised as do the Greeks at this day according to what Christ commanded and in what sense he gave it and called it reall Bread and Wine for such he took such he brake such he blessed such he gave to the Disciples when he said that is this Bread is my Body this cup is my Blood such S. Paul understood them to be and so declares this the mind of Christ as he had received it immediately from Christ The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ For we are all partakers of that one Bread So whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup unworthily Let a man examine himself before he eat of that bread Certainly either the Apostles expressions must be affectedly very dark and his meaning different from his words or he was quite of another mind than the Papists are at this day who durst in the all-daring Council of Trent damn all those who follow Christs example use his words and are of the Apostles judgement expressing their sense of the blessed Sacrament in his words which we think much safer to follow both in the use of Sacramentall Bread and Wine communicated to all Receivers and in the perswasion we have of our receiving true Bread and Wine yet duly consecrated and so Sacramentally united to the reall Body and Blood of Christ which we faithfully behold thankfully receive and reverently adore in that blessed Mysterie according to the ancient Faith Judgement Reverence and Devotion of the Church of Christ void of sacrilegious novelties and incredible superstitious vanities If we Christians of the reformed Church of England had no other wall of separation to keep us from the Papall communion than these two so palpable and gross opinions with their consequences so rigidly enjoyned upon all Christians under pain of Gods eternall curse yet both so dissonant from and opposite to the example of Christ and the words of the Apostle these were sufficient to keep sober Christians at an eternall distance from them lest knowingly partaking of their sins and abetting their wilfull and obstinate sacriledge we also partake of their punishment who in vain serve God after the commandments and traditions of men contrary to the Divine Word and Prescription Nor will the silly shifts and pitifull salvoes serve here which are used by some Romanists whose Learning Wit and Sophistry are all set on work to take off the aspersion odium and envy of these grosse and rude Innovations How childish ridiculous is it to talk of the Popes imaginary infallibility or the Roman Churches usurped Supreme Authority in cases expresly contrary to the Institution of Christ and the Apostles explication from whom the Church of Rome professe to derive their Religion Nor may they with any foreheads or modesty becoming good Christians so rudely vary from them if they desire to have the name and merit of faithfull and good Christians whose greatest Liberty Duty and Honour is if they love Christ to keep his commandements and neither for pride nor policy to warp from them and after clear remonstrances to refuse to return in case of straying to a conformity with them which obstinacy makes little for the Pope's infallibility or Rome's supreme Authority never challenged by Popes or owned by any other Bishops in the Church for 600 yeares after Christ nor by Pope Gregory the Great who as an holy and humble Bishop abhorred the title and pride of that name Universal Bishop as appears in his works and others of the Ancients of whom I gave a particular account in my Hieraspistes p. 249. Yet these two are the main hinges on which the unhappy disputes of Christendome do turn and the chief anvils on which the animosities between Protestants and Papists are now hammered as otherwhere so here in England The ruine of which famous Church is the greatest prize which the Romish party hath gotten since Luther's dayes who began not without his passions and infirmities that pious Apostasie which being found just and holy moved as other Churches so this of England not to forsake the communion of the Church of Rome so far as it was or is a Church of Christ but onely so far as it seemed to have been oppressed with a Synagogue of Satan deformed with such sinfull deformities and sottish fedities besides their Court-tyrannies as became no Christians to endure who were either not in the dark and so could see the need they had to get out of such a dungeon full of mire and darknesse or were at their own dispose as was the state of the Nation and Church of England depending on none nor subject to any but God alone These so oft recocted Crambes of Popish controversies as I delight not to aggravate so I am forced here to touch some of them to shew you my honoured Countrey-men as what cause the Church of England had to reform her self with what prudence she did it so how inconsistent it must be with good conscience for us in Engl. to revert to the Popish Communion being of so different perswasions from them which wretched Apostasie being the grand design and agitation of Roman Counsels will in time draw this Nation away from Gods rectitudes to mans obliquities if the Roman furnace and bellows be so plied and advanced for them by these operators of severall sects and factions whose end will be whatever their aime is quite to melt down the former fashion of the Church of England and its well-reformed state of Religion that it may by degrees run into the Roman mould and form CHAP. XVII NOt that I repeat these differences in order to encrease or continue uncharitable bitternesses among any good Christians whose hearts are honest though their judgements may be erroneous the blessed God who is both light and love knoweth that I have not any design to widen the sad breaches of Christendom or to hinder the charitable closings of them so far as may stand with good conscience and Catholick truth whose rule and ground ought to be the Word of God rightly understood which is its own best interpreter and plain in those things of Duty and Perswasion of Faith and Devotion which are most necessary to salvation I confesse I cannot but vehemently approve being now past juvenile heats and popular fervours in Religion the pious and learned endeavours of those excellent men who after Melanchthon Cassander Saravia Wicelius Thuanus Grotius Casaubon and others have not onely seriously deplored the sad rents and wounds of Christian Churches but sought to pour in Wine and Oyle of wholsome and unpassionate counsels not palliating apparent errours yet not aggravating needlesse jealousies nor inflaming mutuall angers in order to gratifie either the sacrilegious policies of Princes or the pride of Popes or the
share proportion and capacity hath now if not altogether almost quite driven themselves and all others of that calling name and profession out of that paradise of peace plenty and respect which they did heretofore as Ministers enjoy in England and still might have done if they had used such modesty prudence and piety as best became wise and worthy men who had been masters of any prudence and providence But now alas who ever professeth to be a Minister of the Gospel in England not as an interloper or mungrel who ekes out his other mechanick trade by putting the new patch of a plebeian Preacher to that old garment for these wretches are deservedly despicable to all consciencious sober and ingenuous men but even those who have destinated and confined themselves wholly to the Ministeriall work and function whatever account they go upon for the derivation of their mission ordination and authority whether Episcopall Presbyterian Independent or Plebeian yet if they make their Ministry their work and businesse and not their wantonness and sport if they give themselves to that painful plough and sacred husbandry which tills rocky hearts and sowes in hopes of an eternall harvest they shall be sure to find work enough both to do and to suffer enemies enough to encounter with indignities more than enough to digest necessities enough to contend withall at their very best estate they are altogether vanity accounted as the scorn and out-casts of the people the filth and off-scouring of all things by some party or other Even those Ministers that fancy themselves most favoured by the potent or impotent by Prince or people yet still they are attended with many evil eyes bitter speeches contemptuous reproches spitefull affronts from some side or other This this is the portion of Ministers of all sorts to drink this is the cup which vulgar liberty and their own dissentions have mingled for them as to all civil respects and worldly enjoyments CHAP. XXVII TRuly they had need make much of good consciences for little comfort else is left to most of them as to any civil splendour competency or certainty in this world Look but to the point of estate and that moderate subsistence which all ingenuous industrious men may justly expect and aim at for themselves and their relations in the way of honest labour no mens salary subsistence or maintenance is generally so dubious and uncertain so arbitrary and hazardous so burdened and exhausted so thin driven and as it were wire-drawn both by their own necessities and other mens injurious sharkings insomuch that many Ministers very well-deserving are reduced not onely to tenuities but to difficulties necessities extremities they are forced to live by faith and some of them have as I have heard even died with famine others had so perished if charity had not interposed wanting those necessary supports which their aged and languishing condition did require The truth is not one of ten I might say of an hundred of any sort of common people make it a matter of conscience to pay them their dues if they can hold their livings few do pay them without delayings defalkings and defraudings many people make it a great point of conscience to pay them nothing either by the Laws of Justice or Gratitude Ministers must in most places onely learn how to want for in few they shall ever learn how to abound Many of them have been a long time quite turned out of Gods Husbandry from their Livings and Labours many such as have leave to labour have most-what their labour for their paines forced to study how to live when they should live to study such as should dispense the bread of eternall life and consecrate the Sacramentall bread which is the Communion of Christs blessed Body to his Body the Church these are solicitous for that perishing bread which is the staffe of this momentary life Many Angels of Christs Church and Stewards of his houshold are exposed many wayes and many times to sordid necessities and scurrilous indignities The chief Pastors and ablest Shepherds are very much levelled to the meanest of the flock while yet the weakest and most scabbed sheep affect to be shepherds the very abjects of the people every where dare if they list contemne their Ministers to their faces they make no scruple yea they take pleasure to be petulant peevish refractory and insolent even in publique The ayme of many is to have such Preachers as shall be not Fathers Rulers and Heads in the Church but either as sequacious and flexible tayles following the frowns and flatteries of the people on whose good will they must depend if they will eate or as firebrands of unquenchable factions engaging the populacy to infinite parties and sects under the notion of new Ministers and new Religion These these are the treatments these the methods used by some to bury not the dead carkases of Ministers in the graves of common people which fact is branded in King Jehoiakim as a token of great irreligion to God and irreverence to the Prophet Uriah but they seek to cast them yet alive into a most plebeian state the graves of ignominie poverty contempt and shame yea many hope at length to make the Reformed Clergie or Ministery of England as odious as those Heathen Priests became when as the Church-Historians tell us their Temples were rifled when their despicable Deities their deformed Idols and worm-eaten gods were discovered Nor is this deplorable estate befaln those incruders onely who from the basest of the people have of late consecrated themselves to serve those calves that list to set them up or follow them but many great Prophets like Jeremy stick to this day in the mire and dirt of those dungeons into which they are cast others are become miserable as Eli's posterity crouching for a morsell of bread even to their enemies I mean those factious and sacrilegious spirits who would be glad to see the most learned Ministers in England advanced to no higher preferment than Musculus was in Germany who though an excellent Preacher and Writer yet was forced for his livelyhood sometime to help a Weaver at his Loome otherwhile to work as a Scavenger in purging the Towne-ditch Nâ—r is this a Parable of Misery or an artificiall and Theatrick Tragedie made by me No I solemnly protest to you my honoured Countrymen the World affords not greater more numerous or more calamitous objects of Christian pity and humane charity than are many Ministers at present in England if you consider their calling their abilities their education and their sad condition Many of them are already implunged into the horrible pit of darknesse others are upon the very brink and precipice of extreme poverty meannesse and contempt through the trialls or displeasures of God executed by the restlesse malice and immoderate revenge of some men against this Church its Ministry and the Reformed Religion whose spite and passion
was heretofore rather invaded and challenged by them and connived or winked at by others than ever given or granted to them by any power of lawfull donation or concession yet this cannot hold good by any former subtilty on their part or simplicity on the part of this or any Nation and Church to the prejudice of that fundamental Liberty and Honour which are inseparable from the free people of this Nation and Church as men and as Christians untill the Roman power hath made them Vassals again as a conquered Nation and dependent Church upon that Scepter and Mitre too which thing as yet was never done since Rome was Christian and I hope never will be How much more worthy of the Learning Prudence Antiquity Gravity seeming Piety and affected Majesty of that Roman Church were it for them to glory in nothing so much as in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and him crucified in conforming all things of Religion to his Word and example which hath the truest Antiquity onely Infallibility and eminency upon it yea and where they see as by the light of the Sun at noon-day there hath been either aberration from or addition to the rule and pattern of Christ through the ignorance or errour or policy of former Ages and Persons there to return with such holy and handsome Reformations to a conformity with Christ and the ancient Roman purity as will make no lesse for the glory of the present Church of Rome than it was some eclipse and diminution to their predecessors to suffer so much tares to be scattered among Christ's good wheat which by Apostolick hands was first sown and watered to mighty increases for many hundreds of year The misery is when knowing and learned men grow wilfull and serve their own and other mens secular interests more than that of Christ and mens souls they chuse rather to over-load the foundation of Religion than to lighten it of needlesse superstructures How little could it hurt them honestly to restore the cup to the people as was sometimes done to the Bohemians at the importunity of the Nobility and Clergy and offered to Queen Elizabeth as Sir Roger Twisden proves provided she would acknowledge the Popes Supremacy where as Luther urged against Eccius if the Blood of Christ as is pretended by Papists be given Lay-men by concomitancy with the Bread or Body sure they are as capable of the Cup in Christs method as in mans novelty and variation What could it lessen the Romanists if Christians being on all sides taught the reall presence of Christs Body and Blood with the benefits of them in the Sacrament truly offered and reverently received by every worthy Communicant the modus of the Presence were left undefined uninforced upon any Christians belief after the primitive freedome which rather admired and adored that Mystery than disputed it or determined precisely of it So in other things as praying to Angels and Saints worshipping before Images praying and offering for the dead in order to mend their condition how would it no way abate Christian verity or comfort or charity to lay these Superstructures of straw and stubble aside when we all believe that we have by Faith in Christ accesse to the Throne of Grace besides men would more take care to live and die holily when they lesse expect other mens devotions to relieve them after death These and many other humane and impertinent because unprofitable additionals to Sacraments and holy Duties how easily might they be spared without any losse to Religion as with great advantages to Christian and Catholick Communion Nor should these just Reformations prove any diminution to the estates or honours of the Roman Church-men if I might have any vote or influence in so happy an agreement which last jealousies and feares in matter of Honour and Estate are I believe the great wall of partition and terrour that keeps off and scares the wary Romanists from any thought of Reformation since they see the Deformities Uncertainties Beggeries Ruines and Vastations which at last follow some mens Reformations of Religion of Churches and Church-men if they be suffered to run on as far as popular humours have a mind to gratifie their passions with the Spoyls and Scorns of Religion and Church-men This indeed is in my judgement the second great bar the unmovable obstruction and unexcusable scandall which lies in the way of any Reconciliation faire Accommodation and Christian Communion among these Western Churches which in all probability might by Gods blessing have much advanced ere this time not onely just Reformations of what was really amisse but happy Unions in stead of those Rents and Separations which are now every where predominant if those of the Roman party had seen those sober bounds that Christian moderation and those uniform fixations among Reformers in their Doctrine and Manners which did become so good a work as Reformation is Nor were the most sober learned grave and impartiall of the Romanists so much against such a discreet and setled Reformation as they saw flourished in England beyond any Church in all the world in which due regard was had to Primitive Order and Catholick Antiquity to the just rewards and dignities of Church-men together with the sanctity solemnity of true Religion until they discovered that immoderation violence unsatisfiedness tumultuariness giddiness and transport which long ago even here in Engl. murmured and mutinied against the Happinesse and Honour of this flourishing Church and State mens Prejudices Passions and private Interests tyrannizing over their Reason Religion Charity Obedience and Consciences still clamouring for further Reformation and threatening violence if they might not every one set up their fancies in Religion under the name of through-Reformation and bring in intolerable licentiousnesse under the colour of Christian Liberty talking so much of the pattern in the mount till they have laid this Church and its Religion in the valley of death and shadow of darknesse so eager not to have an hoof left in Egypt that they have engaged themselves and this whole Church into a red sea and brought it to an howling wildernesse nor is it easie to be seen without multiplied miracles how they will ever bring Christian Religion to any land of Canaan a state of rest or due Reformation either here in England or other-where Which we must ever despair hereafter to see make any progresse among the Romanists either as to private mens perswasions or whole Churches Reformations especially since the late terrours of some English Super-reformers have given so loud an alarm to all wise Princes and sober People especially to all prudent Church-men assuring them that there is neither bottome nor bounds of some mens preposterous reformations their spirits are the black Abyssus of immodesty injustice disloyalty cruelty sacriledge inhumanity barbarity their teeming fancies are everlastingly spawning with new inventions their restlesse humours are alwayes like a Sea ebbing and flowing casting up mire and dirt their
and Reformation Notwithstanding the shew of all these I abhorred Her as a Synagogue of Satan a den of Thieves a cage of unclean birds a very Babylon worse than that Church was from which Peter wrote his first Epistle I called Her sacred things execrable I counted her Ministers no better than the Magicians of Egypt and Baals Priests Her ministrations as Magick enchantments Her Sacraments insignificant neither sanctified nor sanctifying So far am I from being a poor and sneaking Schismatick which like a viper secretly gnawes the bowels where it is bred and lodged That out of an higher spirit of Zeal and Reformation I have like Saturn or Time quite devoured the old and wholly begat a new Church notwithstanding that I saw heretofore many seeming notes of a true and reformed Church in England many specious fruits of Christs holy Spirit in many formall good words and works of his seemingly gracious servants in Doctrine Faith and Manners by which temptations I sometimes had been a great Zelot and eager Professor having an high esteem both of the Ministers and Ministrations of the Church of England But afterward a new light breaking in upon me I first began to scruple some things in the Church of England after to suspect more at last I was jealous of all things but my own heart From jealousie I soon fell to enmity from enmity to a divorce from being divorced to prostitute the name honour peace and patrimony of that Church to the most insolent spoilers profaners and persecutors from cavilling I fell to calumniating then to condemning at last to contemning all its professed Christianity and noised Reformation as meer nullities uncapable to invest any man in the priviledges honour and happinesse of a true Christian Church or holy Society Thus bogling cruelly at the too great authority and revenues of Bishops scared also with some ceremoniall shadows and no lesse frighted with the late Presbyterian rigour and severity I was so driven by I know not what impulse but I am prone to believe well of it because I have got well by it that I at last fled from the very substance shew and name of the Church of England chusing rather to be a rank Separate a meer Quaker an arrant Seeker or nothing at all of an old-fashioned Christian than to continue in any visible communion with so corrupt so false so lewd so no Church by which high-flown resolution all this while I thank God I am become no Schismatick because neither being nor owning and therefore not being because not owning my self as any member of that Church from which I rather chose boldly to separate than poorly to schismatise in it Having a while wandered alone as Lot when he fled out of Sodom and standing by my self as holier than others finding none meet to joyn with me in Church-fellowship but growing weary and a little ashamed of my solitude neither hearing nor praying nor receiving with any Christians for many moneths nay yeares at last I had an impulse to preach and prophecy that so I might erect and create a pure and perfect Church after my own heart and call it after my own name In which though I began but with a little handful whom I gleaned most-what out of the Presbyterian late harvest which proved too big for their barns and so was never yet well inned yet we two or three met together in Christs name though upon our own heads and by our own authority expecting yea challenging his promise to be in the midst of us with all that plenitude of his spirit with those clear illuminations and assurances with that divine power and supreme Church-authority which next and immediately under Christ we judge to be in and among us as the first subject capable of it and is by us to be dispensed to what Pastors Members and Officers we list to chuse Being thus happily agreed as men we further covenanted as Saints to live together in this Church-fellowship we organized our body with all Church-Officers some of us ordained our selves to be Ministers of the Gospel others of us begat our Fathers and formed our Pastors we equally exercised Church-discipline upon one another so long as we could hold together some indeed went out from us because they were not of us the remaining faithfull Members of Christs little flock still cemented themselves and kept together as a Church where was prophecying and dipping and breaking of bread and excommunicating and all manner of censuring and discipline to far better uses and effects than ever were in that spurious as well as spacious and over-grown Church of England All this I have ordered and done by a power of Christian liberty with my Church or Body without any check or controll from any above us in a way indeed new and strange to the world but more pure free and perfect than ever was used or known in this of England or any other pretended Reformed Church which were all grosly deformed yea we are gone beyond any of those famous Primitive Churches which were by some called pure but I find them leavened with the mysterie of iniquity universally governed by Bishops our bitter enemies and Presbyters our not very fast friends The Lands of Bishops are now happily sold and some of us have bought a good part of them the Livings Tithes and Places of Presbyters we now gape for and crowd into yet are we neither guilty of sacriledge nor schisme the two Prelatick scare-crows or Episcopall bug-beares because nothing could be sacred which was never consecrated or devoted to the true God in a right way as nothing could be which was given to maintain Episcopacy with and Presbytery a meer Idol which we and so God no doubt perfectly abhors however it got footing so early in all Churches and immediately perked up in the place of the Apostles This seems to be the summarie sense of that pious Apology lately offered in behalf of all through-pac'd Separates and perfect Apostates from the order and constitution of the Church of England where either these men extremely dissemble or they first learned Christ and became Christians at least in profession many yeares being baptized and instructed confirmed and communicated in this Church from which being now totally divided they thus most ingeniously seek to wipe off the shame ingratitude levity sin suspicion of Schism by their owning no true Church at all in England and declaring plenary Separation or Independency fancying that he is lesse blameable who quite burns up his neighbours coat than he that onely singeth it and he that flayeth off ones skin is lesse insolent and injurious than he that onely scratcheth it as if every Schisme were not a partiall Separation and every Separation a plenary Schisme How justifiable the ground of such a plea is I leave to wiser men to their own more coole and impartiall spirits and to the great judge of all hearts whose Word hath much deceived his Church in
these now desire to appear as Goliah in their compleat Armour boldly braving the whole Church of England and this not onely as great Scripturists but great Artists too yea they would seem great Statists Pragmaticks and Politicians They pretend to be curious inspectors beyond all men into all religious mysteries yea rigid and exact Anatomizers of all both Modern and Ancient Churches subtile Insinuators into all Interests and grand Modellers of all Polities both Civil and Ecclesiasticall aiming no doubt in time to erect some Saintly soverainty for their party in England though their former ambitious attempts have every where miscarried as in severall parts of Germany so of late in Ireland These Anti-paedo-baptists who are such hard-hearted Fathers such unkind and unchristian Parents to their Children as to deny them those distinctions and indulgences of divine grace and favour which God of old granted to the Jewish infants and which the Catholick Christian Churches in all ages have thankfully accepted and faithfully applied to the Children of professed believers as a priviledge and donation renewed to them by Christ and confirmed by the Apostles these Birds glorying like Ostriches in their negligence toward their young ones are risen up to be not onely nimble Disputants against children but valiant combatants against men For they find after the way of the world more is got in one year by the terrour of armes than in ten yeares by the shew of arguments And although the pretended principle at first of that party was to go with soft feet as Lions and Cats do hiding and preserving their Clawes till there is use of them crying up Peace and crying down all Warre and sword-work upon Christs or the Gospels score yet the latter sort of their Disciples being in hopes to become more regnant and triumphant have interpreted the meaning of their Grandsires to be onely in prudence and caution not in piety and conscience that fighting was onely forbidden them when they had cause to despair of getting the better or just fear to be worsted but if Providence gives them honest hopes and advantages by the arm of flesh and the sword of Steel to set up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and his spirit they are ready with S. Peter not onely to fight for Christ but to cut off Malchus his eare yea and his head too if they find any Christian Prince or Prelate Magistrate or Minister stand in their way or if he seemeth to fight against that Anti-infantall Christ which they say is so predominant in them that he ought by their assistance to reform and rule all the Christian world first beginning to destroy the Baptismall rights of Christians Infants and then to go on to invade the rights of their parents both Civil and Ecclesiasticall The ancient Church as in England so every where adored a Saviour who invited infants to him and blessed them These men set up a Christ who will not endure the Infants of his Church and people to come neer him or have any relation to him as Lambs of the flock to that great Shepherd Thus the Papists on the one side agitate an endlesse controversie with this Church of England and all Reformed Churches touching the Lords Supper First in not restoring the Cup to Lay-men agreeable to Christs institution and intention which was best declared by the practise of the Apostles and the Catholick Church after them for a thousand years next in their stating precisely and explicitely as matter of faith under a grievous curse and Anathema the manner of Christs presence in that Sacrament which as we confesse to be very mysterious adorable and ineffable yet most reall true and effectuall to a worthy Receiver according to the proper capacity of Faith receiving its object so we conclude that it is not in that grosse and contradictive manner which they have lately invented and imposed upon the Churches credulity by way of Transubstantiatings which is a strange nulling of the substance nature of the signes Bread and Wine owned as such by the Apostle after consecration and inducing the intire substance of Christs Body and Blood under every crum and drop of those accidents or shadows which seem still to be Bread and Wine to the four Senses And this must be first done even then when Christ was yet at table with the Disciples and had not yet suffered so that they corporally eat of Christs Body made of the Bread when he gave them the Bread and was at once in their eyes and between their teeth Which strange and unheard-of manner of super-omnipotent transmuting or transposing or annihilating of Substances the Papists owe more to the wit and subtilties of some Schoolmen of later ages who scorned to seem ignorant of any thing or to be posed in any Christian mystery than either to the verdict of their senses to the principles of true Philosophy to the grounds of sound Reason to the Analogy or tenour of Scriptures in parallel Mysteries or Sacraments or last of all to the Testimony of the Primitive Fathers and ancient Churches as hath been amply and unanswerably proved by many Reformed Divines at home and abroad Who though they spake very high things of this blessed Sacrament as to its holy use end and relation to the Lord Jesus yet they thought it enough for Christians to believe adore and admire the invisible mysticall and spirituall yet reall presence of Christ in it for truly and fully present they ever believed him to be though they confessed themselves ignorant how and so were both humbly and modestly silent of the manner of his presence In which bounds if the later Church of Rome could have contained it self I believe much trouble and misery much blood-shed and persecution had been saved in these Western Churches which are now divided and destroyed upon no point more than this of the Lords Supper which was the greatest Symbol of Christians communion with Christ and one another till the Papall arts and policies did so maim and mishape that blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper as to make it a ground of everlasting contention On the other side the peevish and petulant Anabaptists who for many years past almost since the first day-spring of the Reformation visited these Western Churches have by the pens and tongues the writings and preachings of many learned and godly men been brayed in the mortar of Scripture-testimonies Ecclesiastick practise Catholick custome and tradition yet wil not their folly depart from them These I say have heretofore in Transilvania Westphalia and many parts of Germany and the adjacent Countreys and of late in England since it became Africa Septentrionalis the Northern Africa full of Serpents and fruitfull in Monsters with greater boldnesse and freedome than they ever enjoyed under any Christian Magistrate or in any Reformed Church sharply contested against the other great Sacrament of Baptisme so far as it was in the Church of England and ever hath been in all ages and
they now obtrude including the Apocryphall books then did their Church erre for so many hundred years before it so owned them for properly Canonicall as Cardinall Cajetan confesseth who saith that all Fathers and Councils in their expressions as to the larger Canon of Scriptures must be reduced ad Hieronymi limam to S. Jeroms file If the Canon be such as we with the Ancient Churches with Josephus S. Jerom Ruffinus the Council of Laodicea Gregory Nazianzen S. Austin in his riper years and others did and do hold as to the Old Testament then is the Church of Rome now in a very great and obstinate errour So that one way or other the Popes Infallibility and his party is shrewdly endangered unless they distinguish to salve their credit the books into Protocanonicos Deuterocanonicos Books of Divine Authority and Ecclesiasticall use as Sixtus Sen. Bibl. l. 1. and Stapleton Fid. doct l. 9. c. 6. do To tell you further how undigestible to sober Christians because Preter-scripturall and Anti-scripturall the Roman practise and opinion is of worshipping and praying to Saints departed and to Angels of worshipping with Divine worship the Images Crosses and Reliques which they so credulously and highly prize their so unprofitable using of a Language in their Divine and publick Services which to common people is not understood so far from Religion and the Apostles Rule that it is against all sense and reason against the end of speech and devotion which is to instruct or edifie the hearers their snares of celibacy and such vowes as many have cause to repent full sore either that they made them or no better kept them Adde to these their profitable and popular imaginations of Purgatory they applying not onely Prayers but Masses and Oblations Pardons and Indulgences yea other mens merits besides Christs to those that are dead as well as to the living and this in so mercenary a way as makes the most ingenuous Papists not a little ashamed to see Piety so much a servant to Policy and Religion a lacquay to Superstition Adde to all these so oft decantated Instances of Papall errours and presumptions which have so little Scripture for them one enormous Errour both in practise and opinion which hath so much Scripture-evidence against it as nothing can be desired more yet in this when we would have healed Babylon she refused to be healed This is their so great rude and sacrilegious maiming of the Lords Supper by their partial communicating of the Bread only to the people without the Cup then their strange racking of Christians Faith against all sense and reason nay beyond all Scripture-phrase and proportion of Sacramentall expressions or mysterious predications to believe they doe not receive so much as Bread but another substance under the accidents and shews of Bread What learned Romanist can deny but that both Clergy and Laity did for above a thousand years receive the Lords Supper in both kinds after the constant use of all Primitive Churches the Apostles Practise and Christs Institution Nor is there any more doubt but that the ancient Churches received those holy Mysteries with an high veneration indeed of that Body and Blood of Christ which was thereby signified conveyed and sealed to them in the truth and merits of his Passion but yet without any Divine Adoration of the Bread and Wine or any imagination that they were transubstantiated from their own seeming Essence and Nature to the very Body and Blood of Christ. Which fancy of Metemsomasis changing the Body and Substance of Sacramental signes into the bodily Substance of the Thing signified and represented by them as the incomparable Primate of Ireland hath observed out of Irenaeus began from the juglings of one Marcus a Greek Impostor or jugling Presbyter who using long Prayers at the Celebration of the Eucharist had some device to make the Cup and Wine appear of a purple or red and bloody colour that the people might think at his invocation the Grace from above did distill Blood into the Cup. After this the imagination spred from Greeks to Latins by popular and credulous fancies promoted much by one Paschasius Radhertus who in a legendary spirit tells us of Flesh and Blood of a Lamb and a little Child of appearing to those Receivers that were doubtfull of Christs corporall presence so he tells of limbs and little fingers found in the hands and mouths of Communicants From hence Damascen among the Greeks and P. Lumbard among the Latins carried on this credulity or vain curiosity using all their wits to make good this strange and impossible transmutation of disparate subjects and substances in which having nothing from Sense or Reason Nature or Philosophy from Scripture-Analogy or Sacramentall and Typicall predications frequent in Scripture as the Lamb is called the Passeover so Christ our Passeover Christ the Rock Vine Door these drie bones are the house of Israel the seven eares of corne are seven years c. the Tree is thou O King to prove the Miracle they flie to absolute omnipotency whether God will or no and shut out all reasoning from Sense Philosophy Scripture Nor do they regard ancient Fathers and Councils all which though highly and justly magnifying the great Mystery yea and the Elements consecrated as related to and united with the Body of Christ as Signs and Seals of its Reality Truth use and merit to a sinner yet generally they held them to be substantially and physically Bread and Wine but Sacramentally relatively or representatively onely the Body and Blood of Christ as the Council of Constantinople anno 754 consisting of 338 Bishops did affirm the Bread to be the Body of Christ not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in substance but in resemblance use and appointment Which Doctrine as Catholick was maintained to the Emperour Carolus Calvus by Bertramus or Patrannus anno 880. which was also maintained in England by Johannes Scotus in King Alfreds time untill Lanfranks days anno 1060. who condemned that Book of Scotus about the Sacrament agreeable to the opinion of Bertram whose Homily expressing his judgement at large against Transubstantiation was formerly read publickly in Churches on Easter day in order to prepare men for the right understanding and due receiving the Lords Supper Nor did the Doctrine of Transubstantiation obtain in the Church untill the year 1225. when Pope Innocent the third in the Council of Lateran published it for an Oracle That the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are truly contained under the forms of Bread and Wine the Bread being transubstantiated into the Body of Christ and the Wine into the Blood of Christ by the power of God Hence followed the invention of Concomitancy which presuming that the Communicant received under the accidents and shew of Bread the whole Body of Christ and so his Blood it was judged rather superfluous than necessary yea and