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
the Churches of Christ both as to good doctrine and orderly conversation First if you consider the Magna Charta grand charter of your souls the holy Scriptures Those lively oracles which were given by inspiration and direction of Gods Spirit which beyond all books in the world have been most desperately persecuted and most divinely preserved having in them the clearest characters of divine Truth love mercy wisdome power majesty and glory the impressions and manifestations of greatest goodness grace both in morals mysteries in the prophecies and their accomplishment in the admirable harmony of prescience performance of Prophets Apostles setting forth the blessed Messias as the prefigured Sacrifice the promised Saviour the desire of the world those Books which have been delivered to us by the most credible testimony in the world the uniform consent of the pillar and ground of Truth the Catholick Church of God which the Apostle S. Paul prefers before that of an Angel from Heaven that divine Record which hath been confirmed to us by so many miracles sealed by the faith and confession the repentance and conversion the doctrine and example the gracious lives and glorious deaths of so many holy Confessors and Martyrs in all ages besides an innumerable company of other humble professors who have been perfected sanctified and saved by that word of life dwelling richly in them in all wisdome Yet even in this grand concernment of Religion the holy Scriptures whose two Testaments are as the two poles on which all morality and Christianity turn the two hinges on which all our piety and felicity depend much negligence indifferency and coldness is of late used by many not onely people but their heaps of Preachers under the notion and imagination of their Christian liberty that is seldome or never seriously to read either privately or publickly any part of the holy Scripture unless it be a short Text or Theame for fashion sake which like a broken morsell they list to chew a while in their mouths but the solemn attentive grave devout and distinct reading of Psalms or Chapters or any other set portion of the holy Scriptures old or new to which S. Chrysostome S. Jerome S. Austin and the other ancient Fathers both Greek and Latin so oft and so earnestly exhorted all Christians this they esteem as a poor and puerile business onely fit for children at school not for Christians at Church unless it be attended with some exposition or gloss upon it though never so superficiall simple and extemporary which is like painting over well-polished marble being more prone to wrest darken and pervert than rightly to explain clear or interpret the Scriptures which of themselves are in most places easie to be understood obscure places are rather more perplexed than expounded when they are undertaken by persons not very learned or not well prepared for that work which was the employment anciently as Justin Martyr tells us chiefly of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop or President then present whose office was far above the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Readers who having done his duty the other as Pastor of the flock either opened or applyed such parts of the Scripture as he thought best to insist upon Yet there are now many such supercilious and nauseous Christians who utterly despise the bare reading or reciting of the Word of God to the Congregation as if no beauty were on it no life or power in it no good or vertue to be gotten by it unlesse the breath of a poore man further inspire it unlesse a poore worm like a snaile flightly passing over it set a slimy varnish upon it as if the saving truth and self-shining light of Gods Word in the precepts examples promises prophecies and histories were not most cleare and easie of it self as to all things necessary to be believed obeyed or hoped as if honest and pure-hearted Christians could not easily perceive the mind of God in the Scriptures unlesse they used alwayes such extemporary spectacles as some men glory to put upon their own or their auditors noses Certainly such new masters in our Israel forget how much they symbolize with the Papists in this fancy while denying or disdaining all reading of Scriptures in publick unless some expound them though never so sorrily slovenly and suddenly they must by consequence highly discourage yea and utterly forbid common people the reading of any portion of them privately in their closets or families where they can have no other expositors but themselves and it may be are not themselves so confident as to undertake the work of expounding the hard and obscurer places as for other places which are more necessary and easie sure they explain themselves sufficiently to every humble diligent and attentive reader or hearer the blessed use and effects of which if these supercilious Rabbies had found in themselves while the Word of God is publickly distinctly and solemnly read in the Church to them doubtlesly they would not have so much disused despised and decried this godly custome in the Church of England of emphatick reading the Word of God in the audience of Christian Congregations O rare and unheard of Christian Liberty which dares to cast so great a slighting and despiciency upon the publick reading of the Scriptures which are the Churches chiefest Jewel so esteemed and used by Jewes and Gentiles full of its own sacred innate and divine lustre then indeed most spendid and illustrious when handsomely set that is when the Priests lips preserve the knowledge of them and duly impart them to Christian people both by discreet reading and preaching that is explaining and applying them CHAP. VI. AFter these vulgar slightings and depreciatings cast upon the publick reading of the Word of God by some novellers I shall in vain set forth to You what is less strange yet very strange and new in the Church of Christ that is the supercilious contempt and total rejection of all those ancient venerable forms of sound words and wholsome doctrine either literally contained and expresly commanded in the Scripture such as are the Ten Commandements and Lords Prayer or evidently grounded and anciently deduced out of the Scriptures such as are the Apostles Creed with other ancient Symbols and Doxologies which were bounds and marks of all Christians unity and soundness in the faith generally used by all pristine and modern Churches of any renown who mixed with their publick Services of God these great pillars and chief foundations of piety these constant rules standards and measures of Religion by which they took the scantlings or proportions of all their duties and devotions of their sins and repentance of their faith and hope hence the humble confession of their sins the sincere agnition of their duties the earnest deprecations of divine vengeance the fervent supplications for mercy and pardon the hearty invocations for grace the solemn consecration of the sacramentall elements
in horrid and desolate plantations I confesse things of this nature which being obsolete are urged afresh upon the publick practise of Christians in Religion ought as I conceive to have their revived and renewed Authority from the joynt Counsell pblick prudence and consent of the Nation else rigorous remedies even of disorders may prove worse than the supposed or reall diseases For many antiquated Ceremonies in Religion though they be not quite worne out yet as garments long agoe made and now out of fashion are rather to be kept as Monuments in the Wardrobe and Records of Religion than to be on the suddaine put upon mens backs and urged to be worne especially when they seem antique to the most and uncomely by their unwontedness to be commonly worne though the stuffe be never so good and the state of them not unhandsome Although all these might not amount to any thing that is properly Popery no more than a thousand shadowes can make one substance or body yet many did judge them as a cumulative kind of Popery which cloyes Religion with such a Masse of needless Ceremonies that it is like a tree too much over-growne with mosse even to a barrenness or like a garment not adorned and set off but wholly hidden incumbred and buried with a superfluity of lace which is either a great Prodigality or as great a Vanity and Affectation especially considering the matronely gravity which best becomes Christian and Reformed Religion as that sancy was of our Henry the Fifth who when he was Prince of Wales came one day to the Court and his Fathers presence with a suite all cut and embroidered with oilet-holes having a needle hanging out of every hole that he looked more like a Porcupine than a Prince But as that Prince afterward proved a very brave King very pious and valiant besides successfull which adds much to any Princes piety in the opinion of common people when he left his needless needles betook him to his Victorious Sword so it is probable this Bishop if he had received so grave an admonition as the wisdome and meekness of a Parlament could have given him and other Bishops of his mind would easily have amended any such luxuriancy of Ceremonious observations which if they would be a meanes to induce any judicious Papists to change their opinion as to these points of Doctrine which most divide us and them truly it were a very great uncharitableness in us not to comply very far with them in whatever the Church commands as innocent and decent ceremonies But sure they must be very silly birds and scarce worth the catching which will be taken onely with the chaffe of ceremonies or pictures in a case of Religion which so highly concernes their consciences and salvation so as to change their side upon these formalities untill their judgement in the maine matters of Doctrine be convinced and satisfied nor do I know how we can well lay such strong lime-twiggs among such chaffe as would hold any Papists firme to our party and perswasion Not that I would have them scared or scandalized the more against us for want of that reverence and decency which becomes us in the worship of God and in holy mysteries by the dictates of Reason as well as the Indulgences of Religion but considering that just and vast distance in some grand points between us and the Papists as to outward worship grounded upon inward perswasion and devotion I think it becomes the wisdome and wariness of Protestants according to the admirable temper and moderation of the Church of England in its Reformation as not to deny themselves the use of any things enjoyned as decent because Papists had abused them so not to affect by any particular modes to symbolize so far with them as may confirme them in any thing that we judge Superstitious or Idolatrous This made many sober men so much strangers to the Policy and Piety of those who so much urged to set the Lords Table Altar-wise to adorne it with the Crucifix and other pictures and to bow with adoration toward it Though these might be lawfull in the abstract yet sure not expedient in that state wherein the Reformed Profession stands opposite to the Papists superstitious veneration of a Creature transubstantiated to a God Though I have no conscience of duty toward an Idol so as to worship it but onely to the true God who is every where yet I think it best for me not to go into an Idols Temple there to worship the true God when I may do it other-where without any such appearance of evill or scandall to those that see me and know my principles against it But as to the true and real discriminations between the Religion of the Church of England and Popery in Doctrine I conceive the best dimensions of this Bishop are to be taken by those that are wholly strangers to him as I am by that notable Book which was lately published and dedicated to his Lordship by Dr. Cosins his well-known friend and successour than whom no man ever fell under greater popular jealousies for Popish yet no man it seems less deservedly as appeared when he came to the Test before the Committee of Lords who then cleered him as to Mr. Smarts accusations for Superstition and since that he hath further cleered himself no man more handsomly before the best Protestants in France where his long exile and sufferings have not so exasperated him as to make him yield any way to the Papists yea no man hath at home or abroad been a more stout Defender of the Protestant Religion as it was established in the Church of Engl. which the testimony of Mr. Daillé one of the Protestant Ministers at Charenton neer Paris fully and freely confirms telling all the world That they are either beasts or fanaticks who count Dr. Cosins a Papist from whom no man is really more removed which his very excellent History touching the Canon of the Scripture fully assures us being a grand and fundamental point in difference between the Papists and us wherein he having so irreparably battered and shaken their Apocryphal Babel by solidly proving the Church of Rome to be erroneous and pertinacious in that point all sober men will soon suspect her honesty fidelity and pretended infallibility in other things which do as little agree with the pristine Practice and judgement of the Catholick Church Truely it is pitty so great and able a vindicator of the Reformed Religion should longer suffer a pilgrimage among Papists being forced to dwell in Mesech and to have his habitation in the Tents of Kedar and not have leave to return in peace to his native Country of which he hath so well deserved in this learned undertaking which piece sure he would not have dedicated being so Antipapistical that it peels the very bark of the Church of Rome round to his friend the Bishop of Ely if he did not intend him a collateral security
ἹεÏá½° ΔάκÏυα Ecclesiae Anglicanae Suspiria THE TEARS SIGHS COMPLAINTS AND PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Setting forth Her former Constitution compared with Her present Condition ALSO The visible Causes and probable Cures of Her Distempers In IV. BOOKS By JOHN GAUDEN D.D. of Bocking in Essex Jer. 8.28 Is there no Balm in Gilead is there no Physician there Why then is not the health of the Daughter of my people recovered DEPRESSA RESVRGO LONDON Printed by J. G. for R. ROYSTON at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1659. ECCLESIA ANGLICANA PROTEGE PASCE DUX MEA IN TENEBRAS ET GAUDIUM IN MEROREM VT PELLICANA IN DESERTO Proprio vos sanguine pasco Nunquam CHRISTO Charior quam sub Cruce gemens Illustrissimis ANGLICANAE GENTIS Nobilibus Omniúmque Ordinum Generosis ingenuis Qui Natales Eruditione Eruditionem Virtute Virtutem Fide Fidem Moribus Verè Christianis Sanctitate Suavitatéque conspicuis Vel exaequarunt vel exuperarunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnibus Religionis Christianae Tam à Romanistarum Faece Scabie Quà m Fanaticorum Spumâ Rabie Reformatae Professoribus Hoc est verbo vitâque vindicibus Haec ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE MATRIS Olim Florentissimae nunc Afflictissimae Lugentis Languentis Suspirantis Et tantum non Expirantis Lacrymas Suspiria Planctus Preces Summa cum Reverentia Debitáque Observantia Pro Charitate Sympathia Quâ decuit Humillimum in Christo Servum D. D. D. J. G. THE CONTENTS The Preface or Address p. 1 BOOK I. Setting forth the present Distresses of the Church of England CHAP. I. THE Name and Thing the Title and Truth of the Church of England asserted p. 23 II. Primitive Piety and Prudence utterly against Schismatick dividing or mincing of Churches into small bodies or parcels p. 35 III. The present afflictions of the Church of England no argument against Her National and well-Reformed Constitution p. 46 IV. The England's Complaint p. 51 V. The cruel and unjust enmity of some against the Church of England p. 60 VI. The causeless malice and ingratitude of the England's enemies p. 64 VII Of the excellent Constitution of the Church of England and her undeserved calamities p. 68 VIII A furtâ—â—â—â— scrutiny and discovery of the England's miseries and enemies p. 73 CHAP. IX A general Vindication of the England's former excellent Constitution although it be now afflicted p. 76 X. Mr. Hooker's Defense of the Church of England unanswered and unanswerable p. 83 XI The excellent Constitution of the Church of England as to its Doctrinals p. 86 XII The Devotionals of the Church of England asserted p. 87 XIII The Ceremonies of the Church of England no meritorious cause of Her miseries p. 96 XIV A second Objection against the Church of England from Church-mens personal failings p. 114 Book II. Searching the Causes and Occasions of the Church of England's Decayes CHAP. I. HOW farre they conveniently may not and how farre they may be searched into p. 137 II. Inordinate Liberty in religious affairs the chief cause of miseries in the Church of England p. 139 CHAP. III. What Christian liberty is desirable and tolerable among people p. 143 IV. Of Plebeian rudeness and licentiousness in Religion if left to themselves p. 150 V. Instances of abused Liberty in the vulgar neglect of reading the Scriptures p. 153 VI. Vulgar neglect and scorn of Ancient Forms of wholsom words in the Decalogue Creed and Lords-Prayer p. 156 VII The Innovations Usurpations and Vastations made by some upon the Order Office and Authority of the Evangelical Ministry p. 159 VIII The pretensions of Intruders to excuse their wants p. 167 IX Of Ministerial sufficiencies real or pretended p. 171 X. What caution Christians ought to use as to those Ministers with whom they intrust the care of their souls p. 175 XI Of late new models for making Ministers of the Gospel p. 181 XII The false and foolish pretensions urged against the Ministry of England p. 188 XIII An impartial balancing of the old and new Ministers p. 190 XIV A charitable plea for the ancient Clergie of the Church of England against the ingratitude and indifferency of some men p. 193 CHAP. XV. The best of the new Teachers compared with the Ministers of England p. 195 XVI A farther sifting of these new Teachers p. 197 XVII The modesty gravity sanctity and solidity of true Ministers c. p. 200 XVIII The designs ends of fanatick Libertines fatal to the Reformed Religion p. 202 XIX An humble and earnest expostulation in the behalf of the people and Church of England p. 204 XX. The rudeness irreverence expressed by some in religious duties as a part of their Liberty p. 211 XXI The sad exchange people make of their old Religion for new Raptures p. 212 XXII The foul mistakes abuses of Christian liberty in vulgar spirits p. 214 XXIII A further discovery of mischiefs from abused liberty in Religion p. 217 XXIV The contagion of abused or mistaken Liberty spread among Ministers to the dividing debasing and destroying of them p. 221 XXV Unavoidable contentions among Ministers of different ordinations p. 224 XXVI The folly and factions of Ministers evidently seen and punished in their common calamities p. 233 CHAP. XXVII The great diminutions of all sorts of Ministers in England as to all civil respects p. 235 XXVIII The sordid envy and grudging against Ministers Tithes and Glebes p. 240 XXIX Ministers condition not to be envied but pitied p. 243 XXX Experimental instances how petulant some people are to their Ministers p. 245 XXXI The personal sufferings of Ministers after all their pains merits and troubles p. 248 XXXII Discouragements to ingenuous men to be made Ministers in England in after-times p. 254 XXXIII A worthy Ministry not expectable unless there be a worthy usage and entertainment p. 257 BOOK III. Setting forth the Evil Consequences felt or feared from the Distractions of Religion in England CHAP. I. DEcays in Godliness as to the former generation of Christians p. 261 II. â— Decayes of godliness as to the new brood and later off-spring of meaner Christians p. 267 III. The evil consequences infesting Christians of better quality p. 270 CHAP. IV. Prophaneness the fruit of unsetledness in Religion p. 273 V. Ministers molested by endless vexatious disputes p. 275 VI. The endless bickerings with Anabaptists c. now in England p. 278 VII The perverse disputings of Anabaptists aganst Infant-baptism p. 281 VIII The weakness of Anabaptists grounds against Infant-Baptism p. 283 IX The Catholick strength for Infant-Baptism p. 286 X. Of right reasoning from Scripture p. 289 XI Of the Churches Catholick custome and testimony p. 291 XII The sin of presumptuous delaying and denying baptism to Infants p. 295 XIII The dangerous effects principles of Anabaptism p. 297 XIV The Romish advantages by the divisions and deformities of the Church of England p. 300 XV. The wide and just distances between the Reformed and Romanists p. 305 XVI
Irreconcilable differences between Reformed Truths and Romish Errors which are manifest and obstinate p. 308 CHAP. XVII Necessary separation and distance from Rome without uncharitableness p. 313 XVIII Two grand Obstructions of all Christian accommodation in these Western Churches p. 317 XIX The equity and charity of severe and sacrilegious Reformings p. 322 XX. The excuses and pleas for sacrilegious excesses answered p. 325 XXI Sacrilege a great pest to Religion and stop to Reformation p. 327 XXII The insatiableness of sacrilegious spirits unrepressed p. 335 XXIII Pleas for sacrilege answered p. 338 XXIV The Romanists discouragements as to the Reformed Religion by Sacrilege p. 343 XXV A plea for Paul's and other Churches in England p. 348 XXVI Of pious munificence becoming Christians p. 353 XXVII The main hinderances and unlikelihood of a conjunction between Protestants and Romanists p. 355 XXVIII Roman interests advanced by the petty factions of super-Reformers of Religion p. 362 XXIX The danger of divided parties in Religion as to the civil interests of England p. 370 BOOK IV. Setting forth the Sighs Prayers of the Church of England in order to its Healing and Recovery CHAP. I. THE design method of this fourth Book p. 389 II. The difficultie of repairing a decayed Church p. 393 III. Grand motives to a publick restitution and fixation of the Reformed Religion p. 400 IV. Sense of true Honour calls for the establishment of Religion p. 411 V. The hopeful possibility of restoring true Religion to unity and setledness in England p. 422 VI. Of means to recompose the differences of Religion in England p. 427 VII Of the late Associations projected by some Ministers p. 436 VIII Of civil Assistance from Lay-men to restore this Church Religion p. 442 IX A scrutiny of what is good or bad in all parties p. 447 X. The reconciling of the real interests of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency p. 452 XI True Episcopacy stated and represented to its Antagonists p. 458 CHAP. XII Objections against Episcopacy discussed p. 468 XIII Earnestly exhorting Ministers of all sides to an happy composure and union p. 479. XIV Humbly exhorting Magistrates to assist in so good a work p. 485 XV. Councils or Synods the proper means to restore lapsed Religion p. 492 XVI The method of restoring a setled Church and united Ministry p. 502 XVII Of the well-being of the Clergy or Ministry 1. In point of maintenance and support p. 518 XVIII Of meet order Government and subordination among the Clergy p. 527 XIX Several Pleas in behalf of Episcopacy p. 539 A first Plea from the Catholick Antiquity of Episcopacy p. 540 XX. A second Plea for Episcopacy from its Evangelical temper as to civil subjection p. 556 CHAP. XXI A third Episcopacy most suitable to the genius temper of the English p. 581 XXII A fourth plea for Episcopacy from their true piety and orderly policy p. 600 XXIII A Review of our late English Bishops p. 616 XXIV Bishop Usher Primate of Armagh an unanswerable vindication of Prelacy not Popish but pious p. 639 XXV Commending this Church of England with the Reformed Religion to the piety and wisdome of all persons of honour and honesty p. 651 XXVI A further Caution against Sacrilege upon the occasion of D. B his case lately published about purchasing of Bishops lands p. 665 XXVII Further commending the unity honor and support of the Religion and Ministry of this Church p. 685 The Catalogue of the Bishops in England and Wales 693 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 p. 22. Revel 3.2 Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain which are ready to die Lam. 1.22 My sighs are many and my heart is faint Synes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ferreus est non fidelis non Christianus sed crudelis quem MATRIS Lacrymae non molliunt Suspiria non movent Planctus non mordent Preces non vincunt Vulnera non cruciant J. G. Ecclesiae Anglicanae Suspiria THE SIGHS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Humbly presented to my Honoured and Beloved Countrymen Persons of true Honour Piety and Prudence Who have a just Gratitude Love and Pity for HER. I Am not so ignorant of YOU Honoured and worthy Gentlemen or of my Selfe as to think That you need be put in mind by Me or any private Monitor of that Justice Moderation and Prudence which you owe to your Countrey in reference to those Civill Interests of Peace Plenty Safety Honour Liberty Settlement and the like Which I know doe usually fall under the first cares and counsels of men Momentary concernments giving us poore Mortals quicker summons and resentments than those that are eternall These being the objects of our Faith afar off Those of our senses neerer hand For the just establishing and prudent managing of which if Gods Providence either hath or ever shall give YOU any opportunity worthy of YOUR abilities and integrity I have no more to doe or say as to any of these secular accounts save onely to crave in all humility of the Supreme Wisdome and Mighty Counsellour That he would make you Repairers of those Breaches relievers of those burdens and dispellers of those feares which we owe not so much to the impotence or violence of other mens passions as each of us to our own sins and personall impieties Those importune soliciters of Gods Judgments which by a strange vicissitude and unexpected retaliation of vengeance doe testifie to our faces against the crying iniquities of all estates in these British Nations Which have provoked the just Judge of Heaven and Earth to punish some of us by sore adversities others by severe impunities justly letting us alone and smiting us no more Our Sins then becoming Gods greatest grievances when they are lesse ours as to Contrition Confession and Reformation than they should be And possibly would be if we felt their burdens in our afflictions Hence they also grow at last our greatest penalties and infelicities even then when Prosperity betrayes us most to Impenitency setting us farthest from Amendment and Remorse our earthy hearts usually most hardning when we enjoy the warmest beams of that Sun which Providence makes to shine upon good and bad the just and unjust As for those pecuniary and politick pressures which most men fancy to be their greatest grievances having a quicker sense of what pincheth their purses than what wounds or pierceth their consciences I have learned aâ—ter twice seven yeares experience to be a Christian Stoick Not utterly stupid and improvident but yet not so impertinent as to complain of any common charge or burthen which seems necessary to the present Polity under which I may have leave to live a godly and peaceable life much lesse so discontent as not to be thankfull to God and man for any moderate
bestowed on his Church in all the world who never till of later yeares knew any thing of other Church-governments besides that of Episcopacy any more than they saw new Suns or new Moons in the Heavens It may be these Parelii or Paraselenes these Meteors Comets and blazing Stars that now appear in despite of primitive Episcopacy will not be so long lasting nor so benign to this or any Church as that was though they seem to emulate yea and strive to eclipse nay quite to extinguish the shining of those ancient lights to which they owe their best light of sound Knowledge and Religion Episcopacy joyned with an orderly Presbytery Mean time what Inconveniencies yea Mischiefs and Miseries have or may attend these Fractions Diversities Divisions and Confusions upon the account of religious forms and Church-ambitions in this and other Churches between both Ministers and other sorts of Christians what spoyle and havock they may be tempted in time to make upon one another while they seek either to overdrop or to destroy each other as they have done beyond all moderation and mercy upon Episcopacy how little hopes there is that any or many or all of them can ever thrive and ascend to any height not of secular glory but of Christian proficiency in Truth and Love comparable to the pristine or modern Beauty Fruitfulnesse Usefulnesse and Goodlinesse of a right Episcopacy in England or any other Church is left to the sober judgement and prudent presages of all wise and worthy Christians that list to be spectators and Readers before whose eyes this Scheme is with Truth and Love plainly and impartially set forth as to the historick and politick Description of these several and unproportionable Figures which are lively Emblemes of the Catholick and ancient Unity and Uniformity under Episcopacy compared to moderne Diminutions Divisions and Deformities as to Ecclesiastical Polity Order and Government since Presbytery was planted in blood and Independency self-sown of late years in England whose Honor as a Church Christian and Reformed will then be most advanced together with its civil Peace when both Presbytery and Independency as to the just Interests of godly Ministers and people are re-ingrafted or re-incorporated with those of primitive Episcopacy which is beyond all dispute and ever was in the best and worst times the best Conservator as of Bishops Apostolick Authority and Succession so of Presbyters worthy priviledges and of all faithful peoples comely advantages so far as they are joyntly concerned in Ordination or Approbation of Ministers in Consecration and Communication in holy Mysteries in mutual Counsels Supports and Assistances both private and publick The just ballancing or even twisting of which three together makes Christian Churches and States at once ample honourable and happy both in Order and Unity in Strength and Beauty in Unanimity and Uniformity which are the best constitution and complexion of any Church that desires to thrive in Piety and Charity in Truth and Love which the wise and blessed God in mercy restore to us BOOK I. SETTING FORTH THE Present DISTRESSES OF THE CHURCH of ENGLAND CHAP. I. LEst any one should stumble at the very threshold of my Discourse and by their too much prejudice coynesse and easiness to take offence from Names should frustrate my whole design of doing them good by forbearing to read what I write upon such a subject I am at first as briefly and plainly as I can to assert the Name of the Church of Engl. Which Title is certainly the crown of our Country the honour of our Nation the highest holiest and happiest band of our society the surest foundation of our peace with God and men which under this name and in this relation becomes sacred as well as civil religious as wel as rational It was a very sad and bad exchange if this Nation then began to be no Ch. of Christ when it began to be a Common-wealth if it ceased at once to be an earthly heavenly kingdome which last as the Emperour Theodosius said was the greater honour of the two We eate and drink and sleep we beget our like we die or kill and devour one another as beasts we build and plant we buy and sell we rule and obey as meer men But we believe and worship the true God we professe the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ we are partakers of the gifts and graces of the blessed spirit we have an holy communion with that adorable Trinity and with one another in love and charity as Christians that is visible members of Christ our Head and of his Church which is his mysticall body our noblest life sweetest society and divinest fraternity is as we are Christians that is Emulators of the holy Angels Imitators of God children and servants in the family of Christ candidates of heaven expectants of happinesse partakers of grace and daily preparing for eternall glory All which are the dispensations capacities and priviledges of that nation and people onely which are and own themselves the Church of Christ A title of so much honour and reall advantages that in earnest no Nation or people once called and converted to be Christians and by publick vote or profession owning themselves to be such should ever be patient to be robbed or under any specious pretences and novel fallacies deprived of it since the Empire of the whole world and the riches of both Indies are not equivalent to this honour for a people to be called Gods people which were not his and for a Nation which sate in darknesse and in the shadow of death to be professedly and really the houshold of faith the Church of Christ as this of Engl. was heretofore owned to be by the solemn and publick profession of its Kings and Princes its Nobles and Peers its Parlaments and Synods its Magistrates and Ministers by the consent suffrages and submissions of all estates and degrees of people ever since its first conversion who never thought it any impropriety or barbarity of speech much lesse any disgrace to call themselves according to their joynt and declared profession of the name and faith of Christ The church of England Which Title I use according to the good old style and generall phrase of all learned godly and wise men both at home and abroad Ancient and Modern With which Inscription that excellent Bishop Jewell set forth his just and accurate Apologie ful of honest learning potent reasonings and unfeigned Antiquity besides Scripture-demonstrations which got It and this Church so great an applause both at home and abroad that all Reformed Churches and Divines admired it both this Church and that Book The more learned and modest Romanists either found they had not abilities to confute it or not confidence enough to despise it nor did any Non-conformists then boggle at this Title of The Church of England when they found it convenient to enjoy the benefit of Her shadow and protection however in some things they
of the Temple and city of God were wont to do to the joy or amazement of all Spectators so grand so stately so august so amiable so venerable so formidable that no man could with any modesty despise them or with any ingenuity refuse their sense and sentence Whereas Schismaticall scraps and scambling separations of Christians either in their persons or parties as disjoyned and Independent from these Primitive polities and Catholick integrations of Churches make their scattered fractions unsociable societies appear not onely to the scornfull world and to perverse minds but to all sober Christians and rationall men like so many poor Cottages or like the late ruined pieces of our Cathedralls like a flock of Sheep or Pigeons scattered by Wolves or Kites or like the parts of a Lamb or Kid which a Lion or Bear hath torn without that Grandeur Majesty Authority and Efficacy which ought to accompany Ecclesiasticall judicatures and Christian Churches In which pitiful posture so feeble so desolate so despicable if the wisdom of our blessed God and Saviour had intended to have alwayes kept his multiplied Church and numerous people which were to beas the Stars of the Firmament that they should ever be like the small parties of wild Arabs and wandering Scythians certainly those Primitive and purest Churches nominally distinguished and locally defined by the Word of God the Spirit of Christ and the Pens of the Apostles would never have grown by an happy diffusion and holy coalescency to such great and goodly combinations such vast yet comely statures and extensions to so large combinations and harmonious subordinations as contained great Cities Provinces and whole Countreys For such Churches those are which are signally described and punctually circumscribed in the New Testament as well as in all other records of the Primitive Churches Which fair and firm models of Churches comprehending many Christian people Deacons Presbyters and Congregations under one chief Pastor Bishop Angel or Apostolick â—resident who was as the nave of the wheel the centre of Union the anchor of Fixation I make no doubt but the Spirit of Christ in the Apostles which so framed and setled them did intend to have them so preserved as much as morally prudentially and providentially they could be yea rather to have them ampliated and enlarged as time use and the Churches occasions required than curtailed like the garments of Davids messengers or pared and divided into small shreds and shavings The reason is evident because the life and spirit the truth and charity the honour and vigour of Christian Religion and Church-polity like Wine are better preserved in great quantities than in small parcels in Tuns than in Terces Christian people Presbyters Congregations and Bishops like live-coals united glow to a more generous fervour scattered they cool and extinguish themselves unlesse in cases of persecuted Churches where Martyrly fervencies are kept high and intense by the Antiperistasis of persecution the most heroick love and ambition of suffering and dying for Christ and his Church then uniting Christians spirits most when their persons are most scattered BOOK I. CHAP. II. THe Primitive Piety and Charity so perfectly abhorred all fractures and crumblings of Churches that we see they kept for many hundred of years as Ignatius Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Cyprian Eusebius and all Ancient both Fathers and Historians tell us their respective Combinations Fraternities and Subordinations to their Bishops Patriarchs and mother-Churches according to those Sedes principales Cathedrae Apostolicae or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 limits or boundaries which were laid out and distinguished either by the Apostles first lots and Episcopall portions or by their chief residencies and setled inspections governed either by themselves or their Vicegerents and Successors most of them Primitive Martyrs and Confessors which was done even till the famous Council of Nice which in the point of distinguishing Churches and keeping their severall Dioceses or bounds took care to preserve to after-ages and successions of the Church those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ancient customes measures or dimensions some of which begun by the Apostles and carried on by their Successors had passed through and endured the hottest persecutions without ever being so melted and dissolved as to run into any such new moulds and fashions as this last Century in these Western Churches and these last seventeen yeares in the Church of England have produced to such frustula fragments chips and fractions as look more like factious confederacies and furtive subductions of yesterday than like those Primitive combinations and that ancient and ample Communion of Christians and Churches The endeavour of many People and Preachers too being now like that of Plagiaries to entice and steal children from the care of their mothers and the custody of their fathers to ruine as Tertullian speaks rather than to edifie themselves or the Churches of Christ to that full measure and complete stature which the love of Christ and the wisdome of his Apostles first designed and assigned to the Church of Christ in its severall limits and distributions In order to preserve which Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace not onely as to private veracity and charity but as to publick polity and harmony for strength and safety we find the Primitive Bishops and Presbyters forewarned by S. Paul of grievous Wolves who first divide then devour such as should be authors and fautors of Hereresies and Schismes too affecting to lead Disciples after them apart from the Churches setled order and communion The Roman Christians are commanded to mark with the black brand of schismatick pride those that caused divisions among them not onely as to private differences in judgement opinion and affection which are of lesse danger and easily healed among Christians where the health and soundnesse of the whole as to publick order and entireness is preserved which as the native Balsam easily heals green wounds in any part of the body But the Apostles caution as to the Corinthians seems chiefly against those that divided the publick polity and unity of the Church of Corinth which having many Christians many Congregations and many Preachers in the city and countrey adjacent was united by one Church-communion under some one Apostle or such a Vicegerent as in the Apostles absence was over them in the Lord To break which holy Subordination Harmony and Integrality the simplicity or subtilty of some factious spirits made use of those Names which were most eminent in that Church as Planters Waterers or Weeders of it such as Paul Apollos Cephas were seeking by factious sidings and adherings to those principall Teachers to withdraw themselves into severall Churches or Bodies from that grand Communion and Subordination which they received first from the Apostle converting them next from that chief Pastor or Bishop which had the rule inspection and authority over them by his appointment Which practises in the Churches
home and to all the Christian world abroad as a Church in folio as a fair Book of royall paper written with the finger of God and Apostolick characters well bound up and nobly adorned as an holy Nation a royal Priesthood publickly owning it self to be Gods people taught by the Word of God sprinkled with the blood of the Son of God that immaculate Lamb slain for us and partaker of that holy Passeover which gives us of Christs flesh to eat his blood to drink All which Christian profession priviledges practise of this Nation are I conceive sufficient without vanity or falsity to denominate and distinguish it with the glorious Title of the Church of England which was the thing I had to prove against the peevish Schismaticks envious Scepticks and rude Separatists of these times CHAP. III. NOr may the Church of Englands present afflictions eclipse or diminish its true glory in this point any more than Jobs misery did lessen his innocency nor may they abate your value love and honour to Her who are her loyal children because she needs your pity 'T is true it hath sadly suffered the late dreadful tempest which came from the North which hath ever been as the magazine of men so the fatall scourge of the Southern parts of the world hoping to mend their condition by changing their climate they never wanted occasions to quarrel and invade Thence the Assyrians invaded Syria Palestina and Egypt the Goths and Vandals swarmed into Italy and Africk the Gaules into Greece the Normans into France the Picts Saxons and Danes into England the barbarous Scythians and Tartars into Asia This Hyperborean impression hath indeed beyond any Civil War that ever was in this nation grievously peeled barked shattered and defaced the Church of England as to its pristine strength peace unity order beauty riches sanctity and glory when Kings were its nursing Fathers and Queens its nursing Mothers yet is its condition such as makes it not so much the object of your despiciency or despair as of your all good mens compassion prayers and real endeavours for Her relief Her calamitous state is not like that of the object of Davids pity the sick servant of the Amalekite from innate distempers but as his whom the good Samaritan found stripped wounded and half dead an object capable to stir up the bowels of any good Christian while her enemies who have sought to cast her down to the ground who sometime roar in her Sanctuaries and hope to set up their banners for ensigns of an absolute victory do contemn her as a dead carkasse and have long ago cast her off as an unclean thing fit to be abhorred of God and man Yet this is the Church most worthy Gentlemen which hath been and is the mother of us all To this you and your forefathers for many ages have owed under God your Baptisme your Christian institution your holy communion with Christ and his Catholick Church to this you owe your vertues your graces your faith your charity your hopes your evidences and preparations for Heaven your Christian priviledges characters and seals by which you are distinguished from Heathens and Aliens as much as their naturall reason morality and humanity distinguisheth them from Beasts This is the Church this the Mother which some children of Belial would teach you by most preposterous wayes of piety and rude reformation to divide to debase to despise to destroy this now craves your compassion Nor do I doubt but you are infinitely sensible how much it hath deserved as it extremely wants your filial gratitude relief comfort and countenance as testimonies of your love and duty better becoming you than anything you can do under heaven most worthy of your most generous piety Nor may your Christian charity holy courage and ingenuity be discouraged because you every where find so many of your and mine unhappy countrey-men rejoycing to see the Church of England brought to so broken and infirm so poor and despicable so mean and miserable a condition as she now appears and deplores her self in I know there are on every side of her busie mockers who gnash upon her with their teeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 evil-speakers false accusers bold calumniators delighters in her destruction These have helped forward her affliction when the hand of God was against her as Edom did against Judah in the day of Sions calamity these cry down with her down with her even to the ground now she is faln let her rise up no more raze the very foundations of her let not one stone be left upon another no Bishops no Presbyters no Catholick Succession no right Ordination no true Ministers no Baptisme no Confirmation no Consecration no Liturgie no Polity no Church let her destruction be like that of Sodom and her desolation like that of Gomorrah that there may be room enough for Ijim and Ohjim for Owles and Dragons for rough and deformed Satyrs to dwell in the ruines of her palaces and Sanctuaries her Pulpits and Temples There are I know too many such proud scorners who laugh and triumph at what your and all sober minds deplore both at home and abroad with infinite grief and astonishment through whose pious hearts a very sword daily pierceth when they behold how the Church of England is faln from being the beauty of the Western world and chief among all both Christian and Reformed Churches to be like Babylon full of licentiousnesse divisions confusions and many abominations both as to mens practises and opinions some of which are so petulant so fanatick so putid so impudent so blasphemous so inordinate so unbeseeming the gravity of men or sanctity of Christians that the ancient Hereticks and Schismaticks of all ages sorts and sizes would be ashamed if they could revive to see themselves so outvyed in ignorance despight malice monstrosity impiety impudence The Gnosticks Valentinians Cataphrygians Marcionites Montanists Manichees Novatians Arians Aerians Circumcelians were tender-foreheaded and simple-spirited people compared to those high-crested and Scraphick Sophisters who study to shake and subvert to defile and destroy all that was sacred or setled in the Church of England At whose sad aspect proud and mercilesse men who as one said sharply of them have guts but no bowels mingle their scornfull smiles with your mine and other mens unfeigned tears they triumph in her rubbish and dance in her dust they count her ashes their beauty her waters of Meribah and Marah strife and bitternesse to be their wine and refreshing they cry up their rendings of her to be rare Reformations their rags and patches to be new Robes for Christs Spouse which they pretend to have been dead and stark naked till the rough touches of some later Prophets happily revived her and till their cruel charities revested her they call the dissolutions of all Ecclesiastick orders of Primitive Government of
it hath been delivered to me by the most credible testimony of the Catholick Church in the books of Canonicall Scripture truly so called Nor did I ever teach for Doctrines the Traditions of men which some have blasphemed As for the circumstantial and ceremonial parts of Religion I used in Them modestly cautiously and charitably that liberty and power for order and decency which I conceive Gods indulgence who is not the author of confusion but of peace allowed me no lesse than any of those Primitive or later Churches whose best examples I sought to follow If any of my children had discovered something in me lesse agreeable to that beauty order and gravity which had been desirable by them in a Christian and Reformed Church if any matter of reall uncomelinesse had been espied in me as what Church is there upon earth so fair but as the Moon it may have some spots wainings and eclipses what state of Christians so complete that God may not have a few things against them yet it had been their duty with the veile of Christian love and pity modestly to have covered silently concealed and dutifully reformed what was indeed amisse and not like so many Chams to have exposed such a parent such a mother to the petulancy and derision both of her enemies abroad and the plebs at home who are as prone as ever the Jews were to worship any new Calves they fancy to set up and to cast off Moses and Aaron that God and those Governours who had done such wonders among them If while men slept the enemy sowed some tares there where my Saviour had plentifully sowed good seed was I presently to be trampled under the feet of the beasts of the people or quite to be rooted up burnt and consumed because some tares appeared if my garments were in time a little spotted and sullied yet was my honour still unblemished and the sanctity of my profession as Christian and Reformed unviolated nor did my garments deserve thus to be rinced in the blood of my Children if the ceremonious lace and fringe of my coat were a little unript or torn with time yet there was no cause to rend it quite off or tear my coat in pieces if my garb and fashion seemed somewhat more grave Catholick and ancient than agreed with some mens singular and novellizing fancies yet did I not deserve to be stripp'd and stigmatiz'd to be thus exposed to shame and nakednesse much lesse to have my Flesh thus torn my Eyes pull'd out my Throat cut and my Skin to be flayed off which are the merciful endeavours of some of my reforming that is ruining enemies If some weak or unwise servants whom I trusted with the management of my affaires discharged their duties less piously or prudently than I expected or exacted of them as Church-Governours Ministers if the licentiousnesse of others was impatient to be governed so strictly as they should have been most men abhorring true Christian Discipline even then when they most clamoured for it intending extravagancies when they pretended severities yet was I not on the sudden to have been wholly deprived of all Church-government and order once duly established untill such time as my new Discipliners and wise Masters had found out some fitter way for me than that Catholick fabrick form and fashion which all Churches ever had and enjoyed from the Apostles times and constitutions Certainly the failings of Church-Governours ought not to have been so severely avenged upon the Church-government it self nor are any mens male-administrations to be laid to the charge of those good lawes and constitutions which are setled in either Church or State The very Apostolick Churches are oft blamed yea and threatened for their early degenerations without any reproch to their first institution which certainly was holy and good It savours too much of humane passion to pervert divine order under pretence of Reforming humane disorders Which in me were never so predominant as to remove me from that posture of Christian piety honour order and integrity wherein I stood firm and conspicuous in all the world as a Christian and well-Reformed Church hated indeed and many times opposed by my forraign adversaries of the Papall interest and perswasion but they despaired ever to prevail against me unlesse they first divided my children within me and armed my own bowels by home-bred and strange animosities against me These by infinite artifices and undiscerned stratagems have by them been heightened of late to such factious petulancies and furies as to adde scorns to the others thornes contempt to the others crosses gall to my vinegar scurrility to my agonies As if I could not be miserable enough to satisfie the malice of my enemies abroad unlesse I were made a scorn to my children and a shame to my friends both at home and abroad leaving me few that dare pity me fewer that can plead for me and fewest that are able and willing to relieve me My spitefull persecutors are so cruell that they are impatient to see any sympathize with me threatning those my children that dare yet own me for a true Church or their Mother the very name of which they seek to deprive me of hoping to make me quite forgotten who was sometime so renowned among the most celebrated Churches of the world Alas among some Furies it is not safe for sober Christians to speake one good word of me or for me they cannot endure any should pray for me no nor weep for me Teares are offensive and Charity it self is scandalous to my implacable enemies who labour to be my cruell and totall oppressors To this dreadfull height hath the Lord been pleased to afflict me with my children in the day of his fierce wrath in which He hath given me ashes for bread and mingled my drink with weeping filling me with blacknesse instead of beauty with war for peace with faction for union with confusion for order with impudent patricides and ungratefull matricides instead of modest thankfull and tender-hearted children Behold He hath smitten me into the place of Dragons and given me a cup of deadly wine to drink But it is the Lord let him do as seemeth good in his sight If my prayers and sighs and teares cannot yet possibly the exorbitant and implacable malice of my enemies who in the end will not appear Gods friends may provoke him to remember his tender mercies which have been ever of old and to repent him as a Father of the evil he hath suffered to be brought upon me by those that delight not in His justice but in their own sacrilegious advantages It may be he will return to be gracious as in former times and not shut up his loving kindnesse wholly from me since his oft-repeated mercy endureth for ever yea it is because his compassions fail not that I am not utterly consumed Though thou kill me yet will I trust in thee O Lord who hast wounded
Trinity for the justification sanctification and salvation of Sinners in all these I never found by my reading and experience nor do I know where to seek for any thing beyond or every way equall to what was graciously dispensed in the Church of England Upon which grounds appearing to me and all the unpassionate Christian World most certain no man can wonder if I so much magnifie and prefer the Church of England that in the communion of its Doctrine Worship Ministry and Order I chuse to live in the communion of its Faith Hope and Charity I desire to die Let my soul be numbred among those Martyrs and Confessors those renowned Bishops and orderly Presbyters those holy Preachers and humble Professors whose labours lives and deaths whose words works and sufferings helped to plant and propagate to reform settle and preserve to so great a conspicuity of piety grace and glory the Catholick Church of Christ in all ages and places and particularly this part of it which we call the Church of England I am so far from envying or admiring any novel pretenders who boast of their folly and glory in their shame in their endeavours to destroy and devour this Church that I rather pity their childish fondnesses their plebeian petulancies their insolent activities their unlearned levities their ingratefull vanities who have demolished much and edified nothing either better or any way so good as what they have sought to pull down as to the order honour tranquillity beauty and integrality of a Christian Church So little am I shaken or removed from my esteem love and honour to the Church of England that I am mightily confirmed in them by all the poor objections made against it by the unreasonable indignities cast upon it which are as dirt to a Diamond but the further test and triall of its reall worth and splendor nor do I conceive that by those afflictions which are come upon us God pleads against the Church of Engl. but rather for Her against the lewd manners of her ungracious and ungratefull children for whose wickednesse He makes so fruitfull a Mother to grow barren so fair an House to become desolate so flourishing a Church to decay and wither It is no news where the lives and manners of Christians are much depraved from the holy rule of Christ evidently set forth among them to see famous Churches like the Moon in the wane or eclipse clothed with sackcloth and turned into blood to see Order subverted Unity dissolved Peace perverted Beauty deformed Holy things profaned It is no news to read of holy Prophets blessed Apostles orthodox Bishops and godly Presbyters ill treated and despitefully used by Heathens Hereticks Schismaticks No men but ignorant and unlettered can wonder at Bibles and other holy Books burned at Church-lands alienated the houses demolished and the Preachers silenced banished destroyed All Church-histories tell us it was many times so even among the Primitive Churches even then when their pious and Apostolick constitution was no doubt at best it was most violently and desperately so just before the Churches enjoyed the greatest prosperity longest tranquillity the blackest darkness usually going immediately before the welcomest break of day as was remarkable in the serenity of Constantine the Great 's time succeeding the dreadfull storm of Diocletians persecution which was looked upon and intended as an utter extirpation of Christian Religion Which distressed estate of the Primitive Churches of Christ in all the Roman world Eusebius Bishop of Caesaria who lived in those worst dayes describes with so much pious oratory and so parallel in many things to the temper of our times that I cannot but present you my honoured countrey-men with the prospect of them because the fury and darknesse of that tempest reached even to the then British Churches in England under which many Bishops and Presbyters Noblemen and Gentlemen perished and among others that famous Martyr S. Alban who as Bede tells us in his History l. 1. rather then he would deliver or discover a pious Presbyter whom he had hid in his house by whom he was either converted or much confirmed in the Christian Faith chose to offer himself in the Priests habit to the Inquisitors and owning himself for a Christian though yet unbaptized he died for that profession Hereby the world may see how much poor mortalls are prone to mistake in their calculations of Gods judgements upon any Church both as to their own sins and other mens sufferings where the greatest sufferers are commonly the least sinners and the greatest inflicters are the least Saints Having in the former seven Books sayes Eusebius set forth that holy succession of Bishops which followed the Apostles in all the famous Primitive Churches in their several limits and proportions under the various seasons and storms of times the Churches had now in the Roman Empire so great liberty serenity and quiet that Bishops in many places were much honoured even by the civil Magistrates the Temples and Oratories of Christians were every where full and frequented new Churches were every day erected more goodly costly and capacious nor could the malice of men or Devils hinder the growing prosperity of the Churches every where while God was pleased to shine upon them with his favour Afterward too great liberty and ease degenerated to luxury and idlenesse these betrayed Christian Bishops Presbyters and people to mutuall emulations and contentions these sowred to hatred and malice these brake out to fury and faction Christians persecuting each other with words and reproches as with armes and weapons murmurings and seditions of governed and governours justling against each other grew frequent arising from desperate hypocrisies and dissemblings At last being generally less sensible of their sins than their sides and factions and less intent to the honour of the Church and its holy Canons than to their private passions and ambitions the wrath of God overtook them all Then saith that Historian as Jeremy complains did the Lord bring darknesse upon the beauty of the daughter of Sion then did He cast down to the ground the glory of Israel He remembred no more the place of his footstool in the day of his wrath then did he profane the habitation of his honour in the dust and made Her a reproch to all her enemies c. then were Churches commanded to be pull'd down to the ground holy Books and Bibles to be burnt the Bishops and Pastors some banished others imprisoned tortured and killed all silenced impoverished disgraced abhorred by the Emperour with his followers and flatterers Christians were forbidden all holy meetings and duties commanded and forced to sacrifice to popular Idols and plebeian Gods upon pain of death and torture seventeen thousand Christians slain in one month an utter extirpation of Bishops Presbyters Professors Churches and Christianity it self designed enjoyned and publickly solemnized by a triumphant pillar erected in Spain with this Inscription An Imperial monument of
honour merited by the Emperours Diocletian Galerius for their extirpating Christian superstition restoring the worship of the Gods No pen saith Eusebius could equall the atrocity of those times against the Church of Christ Yet even then the gracious spirit of sincere Christians as the Ark in the deluge rose highest toward heaven then godly Bishops and Presbyters were as another Historian writes more ambitious of Martyrdome than now Presbyters are of being all made Bishops then were Christians more then conquerours and true Christianity most triumphant when it seemed most depressed despised and almost destroyed as Sulpitius Severus writes of the same times in his short but elegant History Thus Eusebius and others describe that horrid storm and black night which was relieved by the blessed day-star of Constantine the Great appearing In which dismall times learned men do not quarrell at the profession and state of Religion but at the irreligion and scandall of Christians lives the fault and provocation was not from the Faith Doctrine Liturgy Order and Government then established in the Churches of Christ but from the degenerous depraved and ungoverned passions of men as they all blamed these last whenever they appeared so they constantly asserted the other as was evident in the Synod of Antioch in which a little before Diocletians time the heresie of Paulus Samâ—satenus denying the Divinity of Christ was condemned by all being confuted by Malchion a learned man an accurate Disputant The Author or Heresiarch was excommunicated not onely from the Church of Antioch but also from the Catholick Church and separated from all Christian communion throughout the world by a just and unanimous severity Holy men then rightly judged that the meritorious cause of all those sore calamities arose not from the frame of Christian Churches which was holy uniform and Apostolick as yet but from the wantonness and wickedness of Christian professors neglecting so great means of salvation and abusing such Halcyon dayes as had been sometime afforded them Which censure I may without rashnesse or uncharitablenesse pass as to the present distresses incumbent upon the Church of England whose holy wise honourable and happy Reformation must ever be vindicated as much as in me lies against all such gain-sayers as make no scruple to condemne as all the generations of Gods children in former ages so those especially who worthily setled and valiantly maintained the Christian reformed Religion in the Church of England as against all Heathenish and Hereticall profaneness so against the more puissant and superstitious Papists also against the more peevish but then more feeble Schismaticks CHAP. X. IT were as impertinent a work for me in these times to insist upon every particular in the frame of the Church of England or to cry up every small lineament in Her for most rare and incomparable as it is unreasonable and spitefull in those that deny Her to have had any one handsome feature in Her or any thing grave comely Christian-like or Church-like in her main constitution and complexion Mr. Richard Hooker one of the ablest Pens and best Spirits that ever England employed or enjoyed hath besides many other worthy men abundantly examined every feature and dress of the Church of England asserting it by calm clear and unanswerable demonstrations of Reason and Scripture to have been very far from having any thing unchristian or uncomely deformed or intolerable which her then enemies declaimed and now have proclaimed whose wrathfull menaces the meekness and wisdome of that good man foresaw and in his Epistle foretold would be very fierce and cruell if once they got power answerable to their prejudices superstitions and passions against the Church of England which he fully proved to differ no more from the Primitive temper and prudence than was either lawfull convenient or necessary in the variation of times and occasions The excellent endeavours of that rarely-learned and godly Divine so full of the spirit and wisdome of Christ one would have thought might have been sufficient for ever to have kept up the peace order and honour of the Church of England also to have silenced the pratings and petulancies of her adversaries But alas few of those plebeian spirits and weaker capacities to whose errour anger and activity the Church of England now chiefly owes her miseries tears and fears were ever able to understand or bear away the weight strength and profoundnesse of that most ample mans reasonings and his eloquent writings Others of them that were more able were so cunning and partiall for the interest of their cause and faction as commonly to decry for obscure or to suspect as dangerous because prejudiciall to their interest or to bury in silence as their enemy that rare piece of Mr. Hookers Ecclesiasticall Polity which many of them had seldome either the courage or the honesty to read none of them the power ever to reply or the hardiness so much as to endeavour a just confutation of his mighty demonstrations Yea I have been credibly informed that some of the then-dissenters from the Church of England had the good or rather evil fortune utterly to suppress those now defective but by him promised and performed books touching the vindication of the Church of England in its Ordination Jurisdiction and Government by the way of Ancient Catholick Primitive and Apostolick Episcopacy Which one word Episcopacy hath of late years cost more blood and treasure in Scotland and England than all the enemies of Bishops and of this Church had in their veins or were worth 20. years ago whose importune clamours of old and endeavours of late to extirpate Primitive Catholick and Apostolicall Episcopacy out of this Church and to introduce by head and shoulders the exotick novelties and vanities of humane invention have brought themselves and this whole Church to so various and divided a posture as makes no setled or uniform Church-government at all by a popular precipitancy ruining an ancient and goodly Fabrick whose temporary decayes or defects might easily and wisely have been amended before they had agreed of a new model or seriously considered either their skill or their authority to erect a new one if they could find out a better which hitherto they have not done nor will they I believe ever be able to do as destitute in this point of any just commission direction power or precedent either from God or man I am sure the Supreme power of regulating all Ecclesiasticall affairs was under God by the laws of England invested in the Chief Magistrate and Governours of this Church without and against whose judgements consents and consciences no innovations were to be carried on nor indeed begun in this Church whose events or successes hitherto have been only worthy of such tumultuary beginnings the effects of them being full of dissolution confusion to all of injurious afflictions to many worthy men besides penall and perpetuall divisions among the Innovators themselves who
extemporary prayer which to the hearers hath the same aspect of a crutch or staff no less than that set form which by many is composed and proposed to the congregation As for the humours of common people they are an ill compass to steer by in concernments of Church or State It is no wonder to see wontedness breed weariness and weariness wantonness wantonness loathing of the most holy duties and heavenly dainties as of Manna to the Jews unless the hearts of men be alwaies humbly devout and sincerely fervent and such can I am sure daily follow wonted wholsome forms with new fervours and give a fresh Amen to known oft-repeated petitions as well as a fiduciary assent to such precepts and promises as they have heard or read from Gods Word a thousand times Without which sacred flames of constant zeal and successive devotion upon mens hearts as the holy fire which was never to go out upon Gods altar not onely the extemporary varieties of mens own inventions will prove perfunctory and superficiall but even Scripture it self and the Oracles of God will grow to be meer Crambe yea the repeated Celebration of the most divine and adorable mysteries of the blessed Sacraments which Christ instituted as constant solemn Services in his Church will prove nauseous burdens and hypocriticall loades to the dull and indevout spirits of men whom if they be such in their hearts and tempers no variety or novelty will quicken ther niauseous and lazy hypocrisy if they be not such no constancy or wontedness will dull their sincere fervency and holy fragrancy of their affections The late ramblings barrenness and confusion of some mens sad and extemporary rhapsodies their rude and rusticall devotions are especially in solemn and Sacramentall Celebrations observed by many wise Christians to be such since the Cadet or younger Brother of the Directory if it deserves the honour of that name which to many seems but as a by-blow the illegitimate issue of partiall spirits Apostatizing from their former conformity to the Church of England in that point of its Liturgy since I say it crowded or as Jacob supplanted its elder brother out of the house of God though it self be now little used and less regarded even by its first patrons and sticklers that it makes them and me highly admire and more magnifie the wisdome of the Church of England in first composing after perfecting and prescribing that excellent Liturgie to common people which contained the very quintessence of all that we find used by the ancient piety and charity of Churches agreeable to Gods Word which is the onely pattern pillar and support for Christians prayers both publick and private Nor did the Church of England ever intend as I conceive by Her Liturgie so to stint and confine any discreet and able Minister or private Christian but they might further pour out their souls to God in prayers and praises publickly and privately so as occasion required and good order permitted onely it judged as I doe with pious Antiquity and all the most learned Reformers particularly Mr. Calvin that it is a great and reall concernment in every true and Orthodox Church that care be taken to settle and preserve wholsome forms and solemn Devotionalls for the publick celebrating of Prayers Praises holy Duties Christian Mysteries Sacraments and Ordinations next to the care of propounding and establishing sound Doctrine or true Confessions and Articles of Faith Which care of all Christians good in that behalf first induced the Ancient and Primitive Churches as S. Austin and others tell us next to their laying of Scripture-grounds in their Creeds and Confessions to enlarge and fix their Liturgies and Devotions finding that fanatick Errour and Levity would seem an Euchite as well as an Eristick Prâ—yant as well as Predicant a Devotionist as well as a Disputant insinuating it self with no less cunning under a Votary's Cowle than in a Doctors Chair in Prayers Sacraments and Euchologies as well as in Preachings Disputations and Writings This I am sure The Liturgie of the Church of England was so usefull so well advised so savoury so complete so suitable so solemn and so significant a form of publick Worshipping God so highly approved by wise and worthy men at home and abroad as composed by the speciall assistance of the holy Spirit of God in the judgement of the first Heroes and Martyrs of this Reformed Church so reverently used by many even lesse conformable in some things ceremoniall to the Church of England that beyond all question it deserved a longer question a more calm debate a more serene serious and impartiall triall before it should have been so utterly abdicated or expulsed out of the Church as Hagar was out of Abrahams family I humbly conceive that neither Recusants should have had so great a gratification to their refractoriness nor this so famous flourishing and wel Reformed Church should have had so great a slurr aspersion cast upon its Princes its Parlaments its Bishops its Presbyters all its faithfull people as if they had hitherto served God so far superstitiously irreligiously and unworthily that the very Book it self containing the method form matter and words of their publick service of God must be first vilified and scorned by the vulgar insolency next utterly abrogated and quite ejected out of this Church by such as passionately undertook to abett and patronize the present humours and distempered fits of popular surfeitings and inconstancy lately risen up not onely against their own former approbation and practise but against the piety wisdome and gravity of this Nation and all other setled Churches in the world Yea further the partiality and immoderation of some men seems in this most excessive that to shew their implacable despite against the Liturgie of the Church of England they cannot endure nor would if they had power permit any Christians to use it though they find it as our Marian Martyrs did very beneficiall to their souls comfort and therefore earnestly desire highly value and duly use it So imperious Dictators would some men be over other mens liberties and consciences even in Religion who are rigid asserters of their own impatient to be imposed upon by others and yet most insolently ambitious to impose upon other men how far they may or may not serve God in a religious way and manner fancying that nothing can please God which doth not please them What some men have preached and printed against the English Liturgie and all set forms of Prayers never so good and fit as if they were stintings and dampings of Gods Spirit c. I must confess I understand rather the jeer and contemptuousness of their words than the wit reason or Religion of them for certainly the same may be said against all Scriptures Psalms Sermons preached or printed against Ministers own Prayers and any other proposed helps for the advancing of knowledge or devotion in mens hearts And however some
of these despisers of the day of small things may say with the Pharisee God I thank thee that I am not as other men who need take to themselves the help of their own or other mens prepared meditations and words to pray or praise God yet no Charity will permit that all others should be deprived of such publick helps as they find best for them yea and necessary if we duly regard not the pretended or reall strength of some but the generall weaknesse in which the plebs or common sort of Christians are and ever will be as to matter of true devotion whose infirmity may not only well endure a well-composed Liturgie as one said he could do good musick but in earnest they extremely want it and it may prove I fear not onely a great uncharitableness but a cruelty besides imprudence utterly to deprive the most of Christians of so meet and necessary an help since nothing yet is found among them or offered to them that can or doth any way recompence the want of such forms of serving God which were at least as good and most-what far better than any private abilities can afford them Hence it is that poor countrey-people are grown of late years more loose and unsetled so ignorant and idle so rambling and irreligious beyond what formerly they were when at least they were enjoyned to attend the wholsome Liturgie of the Church of England which offered plainly to them as I conceive all things necessary to entertain any humble charitable and devout Christians in their publick services of God nor could it but be very helpfull to them in their private devotions For my own particular it may be by Gods assistance I may as little need this Liturgie or any other prescribed form as any of those Ministers or other Christians that are most contemners and deserters of the Church of England in that point and most gloriers in their own rare gift or fluency in prayer yet I must profess that as I ever highly valued the Liturgie of the Church of England and most since it came most to be despised by some neglected by others considered by my self so I cannot but unfeignedly justifie the England's great piety prudence and charity in that particular looking upon such well-composed forms in publick solemn and constant Ministrations of the Church to be in many regards before those of any private mans either serious composing or suddain invention not onely as to the majesty solemnity exactness unanimity and fulness of them also as to the suitableness of them both to all holy publick occasions and to the common peoples necessities as well as capacities but even in regard of that which is most spirituall in prayer judicious fervour and fiduciary assent where the understanding rightly moves the will and the will readily follows the understanding the devout soul well knowing what it should desire of God and earnestly desiring in faith what it knows God allows It cannot be thought that the Spirit of the most wise God is seen in the unpremeditated rashness of mens praying or such preaching more than in what is well advised and deliberately prepared Which in Liturgies was and is in my judgement an excellent means and so the charitable wisdome of the Church of England judged it as to settle people in the true faith so to keep them in it with peace and unity by a uniform Way of instruction and devotion too which was easie to be understood by the simplest people and unanimously both composed and approved by the wisest and best in this Church Nor could it but be in that as in all other respects well pleasing to God who certainly doth not change with every new opinion fancy and humour of men be they never so zealous and seemingly devout So that to conclude as to this particular the Liturgie of the Church of England I freely profess that I do in no sort believe that either God hath afflicted Her for composing enjoyning and using It or that she hath hereby deserved any of those rude indignities reproches and injuries cast upon Her and It. The greatest fault and onely blame as I conceive in this part lies upon mens own hearts which were grown so squeamish so cold so coy so formall so indevout in the use of the Liturgie as a part of Gods service which faults and defects in themselves ought not to have been by them imputed to or revenged so severely upon the book and composure it self or upon the Church composing and commending it to its Children But the insolencies of some rude Reformers contemning tearing burning and abolishing the Liturgie of this Church must be veniall since there are those that use the very book of God or holy Bible no better calling it an Idol and condemning it to be destroyed possibly more because it is in English than because it is Gods Book which if lock'd up in an unknown tongue would less discover and brand with sin their wicked practises and policies than now it doth The same grand interest that is most against the English Liturgie is also against our English Bibles both of them were great eye-sores to the Papists and are now no less to many factious Separatists who are the Jackals or Providores for those Lions CHAP. XIII THere are yet two grand Objections which stick in some mens stomacks never they say to be digested by them which have driven them utterly to cast off and shamefully to spue out of their mouths the Church of England abhorring the whole frame and constitution of it both name and thing The first is the enjoyning and using of some Ceremonies in Religion which some esteem as so many Magick Spells or Charms superstitious Observations humane Inventions raggs of Rome will-worship vain Oblations brats of Babylon marks of the Beast brands of Antichrist fitter for Heathenish Idolatries or Jewish Superstitions than for the simplicity of the Gospel where the service of God must be in Spirit and in Truth not in fleshly shadowes in power not in form c. These and the like Rhetoricall flowers are oft used to gratifie mens wits and passions rather than their reason and conscience in the point of Ceremonies when they are resolved not to poise in their hands but to trample under their feet every thing they list to dislike notwithstanding all the counterpoise and weight which they could not but see was laid upon them by the choice wisdome and approbation of this whole Church and Nation in which we may without vanity presume there were many men as godly and judicious as any of their opposers I will not descend to the particular nature and use of each of them This work hath been sufficiently done by many of my predecessors I confesse I am not so zealous for those or any other Ceremonies which may be spared without diminishing the substance of Christian Religion as to forget that forbearance and charity which I owe to Christians who may be weak
so eloquent no pen so pathetick as to be able sufficiently to express eye no so melting as to weep enough no heart so soft and diffusive of its sorrows as worthily to lament when they consider that wantonness of wickedness that petulant importunity that superfluity of malice that unsatisfied cruelty of some men who have endeavoured to cast whole cart-loads of injust reproches vulgar injuries and shameful indignities upon the whole Church of England seeking to bury with the burial of an Asse either in the dunghill of Papall pride and tyranny or popular contempt and Anarchy all its former renown and glory its very name and being together with the office order authority distinction and succession of its Ancient Apostolick and Evangelical ministery which hath been the savour of life unto life the mighty power of God to the conversion and salvation of many thousand souls in the Church of England Whose sore Calamities and just Complaints having thus far presented to Your consideration and compassion it is now time for me to enquire after the causes and occasions of its troubles miseries confusions and feared vastations in order to find out the best methods and medicines for Her timely cure and happy recovery if God and man have yet any favour or compassion for Her The end of the first Book BOOK II. SEARCHING THE CAUSES AND OCCASIONS OF THE Church of England's decayes CHAP. I. BUt it is now time most honoured and worthy Countrey-men after so large and just so sore and true a complaint in behalf of the Church of England and the Reformed Religion heretofore wisely established unanimously professed in this Nation to look after the rise and originall the Causes and Occasions of our Decayes and Distempers of our Maladies and Miseries which by way of prevention or negation I have in the former Book demonstrated to be no way imputable to the former frame state or constitution of the Church of England but they must receive their source from some other fountain The search and discovery of which is necessary in order to a serious cure for rash and conjecturall applications to sick patients are prone as learned Physitians observe to commute their maladies or to run them out of one disease into another but not to cure any turning Dropsies into Jaundise and Feavers into Consumptions The greatest commendation of Physitians next their skill to discerne is to use such freedome in their discoveries and such fidelity in their applyings as may least flatter or conceal the disease In this disquisition or inquiry after the Causes and Occasions of our Ecclesiastick distempers I will not by an unwelcome scrutiny or uncharitable curiosity search into those more secret springs and hidden impulsives which proceed as our Blessed Saviour tells us out of mens hearts into their lives and actions such as are wrathfull revenges unchristian envies sacrilegious covetings impotent ambitions hypocriticall policies censorious vanities pragmatick impatiencies an itch after novelties mens over-valuing of themselves and undervaluing of others a secret delight in mean and vulgar spirits to see their betters levelled exauctorated impoverished abased contemned a general want of wisdome meekness humility and charity a plebeian petulancy and wanton satiety even as to holy things arising from peace plenty and constancy of enjoying them These spiritual wickednesses which are usually predominant in the high places of mens souls being Arcana Diaboli the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stratagemata Satanae the secret engines depths and stratagems used by the Devil to undermine the hearts of Christians to loosen the foundations of Churches and to overthrow the best setled Religion being least visible and discoverable for they are commonly covered as mines with the smooth surfaces and turfs of zeale sanctity reformation scrupulosity conscience c. these I must leave to that great day which will try mens works and hearts too when men shall be approved and rewarded not according to their Pharisaick boastings popular complyings and specious pretensions but according to their righteous actions and honest intentions Onely this I may without presumption or uncharitableness judge as to the distempers of our times and the ruinous state of the Church of England that many men who have been very busie in new brewing and embroyling all things of Religion would never have so bestirred themselves to divide dissipate and destroy the peace and polity of this Church if they had not been formerly offended and exasperated either by want of their desired preferment which S. Austin observes of Aerius the great and onely stickler of old against Bishops or by some Animadversion which they called persecution although it were no more than an exacting of legal conformity and either sworn or promised subjection as to Canonicall obedience Many men would have been quiet if they had not hoped to gain by rifling their Mother and robbing their Fathers Some at the first motions might perhaps have good meanings and desires as Eve had to grow wiser but they were soon corrupted by eating the forbidden fruit by the unlawfulness of those means and extravagancy of those methods they used to accomplish them But God and mens own consciences will in due time judge between these men and the Church of England whether they did either intend or act wisely or worthily justly or charitably gratefully or ingenuously This I am sure if they have the comfort of sincerity as to their intent they have the horrour of unsuccessfulness to humble them as to the sad events which have followed preposterous piety CHAP. II. THe chiefest apparent cause and most pregnant outward occasion of our Ecclesiastick mischiefs and miseries as I humbly conceive ariseth from that inordinate liberty and immodest freedome which of later years all sorts of people have challenged to themselves in matters of Religion presuming on such a Toleration and Indulgence as incourageth them to chuse and adhere to what doctrine opinion party perswasion fancy or faction they list under the name of their Religion their Church fellowship and communion nor are people to be blanked or scared from any thing which they list to call their Religion unless it have upon it the mark of Popery Prelacy or Blasphemy of which terrible names I think the common people are very incompetent judges nor do they well know what is meant by them as the onely forbidden fruit every party in England being prone to charge each other with something which they call Blasphemy and to suspect mutually either the affecting of Prelacy or the inclining to Popery in wayes that seem arrogant and imperious in themselves also insolent and injurious to others each aspiring so to set up their particular way as to give law to others not onely proposing but prescribing such Doctrine Discipline Worship Government and Ministry as they list to set up according to what they gather or guess out of Scripture whereof every private man and woman too as S. Jerom tells of the
Luciferian hereticks flatter themselves that they are meet and competent judges since they find themselves no way directed by any Catholick interpretation nor limited and circumscribed by any joynt wisdome and publick profession of this Church and Nation which heretofore was established and set forth in such a publick confession of their faith such Articles and Canons rules and boundaries of Religion as served for the orderly and unanimous carrying on and preserving Christian Doctrine Discipline Worship Ministry or Government This wide doore once opened and still kept open by the crowding and impetuosity of a people so full of fancy and fury spirit and animosity so wilfull and surly as the English generally are besides that they are naturally lovers and extremely fond as children of new fashions as in all things so in Religion it self it is not I say imaginable as at the pulling up of a great sluce or opening of a flood-gate what vortices voragines opinionum floods and torrents of opinions what precipitant rushings and impetuous whirlings both in mind and manners have every where carried a heady and head-strong people quite headlong in Religion not onely to veniall novelties softer whimsies and lesser extravagances in Religion which are very uncomely though not very pernicious but also to rank blasphemies to gross immoralities to rude licentiousnesse to insolent scandals to endless janglings to proud usurpations to an utter irreligion to a totall distracting confounding and subverting of the Church of Engl. All this under the notion of enjoying whatever liberty they list to take to themselves under the name and colour of Religion which anciently imported an holy Obligation of Christians to God and to each other carried on by a Catholick confession an unanimous profession an uniform tradition an holy ordination and orderly subjection but now they say it is to be learned and reformed not by the old wayes of pious education and Ecclesiastick instruction not from the Bishops or Ministers of this or any nationall Church but either by the new wayes of every private spirit's interpreting of Scriptures or by those new lights of some speciall inspirations which they say are daily held forth by themselves and others of their severall factions or according to the various policies of Lay-men and those pragmatick sanctions which serve the prevalent interests of parties This this is the project so cried up by some men for propagating the Gospel and advancing the Kingdome of Jesus Christ so rare so new so untried so unheard-of in any Christian Church ancient or later that it is no wonder if neither the Church of England nor its learned Clergy nor its dutifull children can either approve admire or follow such dubious and dangerous methods or labyrinths rather of Religion any more than they can canonize for Saints those vagrants and fanaticks of old who were justly stigmatized for damnable hereticks or desperate schismaticks for their deserting that Catholick faith tradition order and communion of the Churches of Christ which were clearly expressed in their Creeds and Canons founded upon Scripture and conform to Apostolick example The Gnosticks Cerinthians Valentinians Carpocratians Circumcellians Montanists Manichees Novatians Donatists Arians and others were esteemed by the Primitive Churches as Foxes and Wolves creatures of a wild and ferine nature impatient of the kindest restraints not induring to be kept in any folds or bounds of Christs flock which ever had an holy authentick and authoritative succession of ordained Bishops and Presbyters as its Pastors and Teachers also it had its safe and known limits for Religion in faith and manners Doctrine and Discipline for order and government both in lesser Congregations and larger Combinations The true Christian liberty anciently enjoyed by Primitive Christians and Churches was fullest of verity charity unity modesty humility sanctity sobriety harmonious subordination and holy subjection according to the stations in which God had placed every part or member in those bodies they were the farthest that could be from Schism Separation mutiny novelty ambition rebellion while every one kept the true temper order and decorum of a Christian Certainly if either particular Congregations or private Christians liberty had consisted in being exposed or betrayed as Sheep without their Shepherds to all manner of extravagancies incident to vulgar petulancy and humane infirmity those Primitive Churches and ancient Fathers those godly Bishops and blessed Martyrs those pious Emperours and Christian Princes of old might have spared a great deal of care cost pains and time which were spent in their severall Councils and Synods Parlaments Diets and Conventions whose design was not to make new but to renew those Scripture-Canons and Apostolicall constitutions which were necessary to preserve the faith once delivered to the Saints and to assert not onely the common salvation but also that Catholick succession communion and order of Churches transmitted from the Apostles in which endeavour the piety and wisdome the care and charity of ancient Councils expressed in their many Canons made for the keeping of the unity of the Spirits truth in the bond of peace among Christians were so far in my judgement from being meer heaps of hay straw and stubble burying and over-laying the foundations of Christian soundnesse and simplicity which seems to be the late censure of one whom I am as sorry to see in a posture of difference from the Church of England as any person of these times because I esteem his learning and abilities above most that have appeared adversaries to or dissenters from Her that I rather judge with Mr. Calvin a person far more learned judicious and impartiall in this case They were for the most part very sober wise and suitable superstructures little deviating from no way demolishing any of those grand foundations of Faith Holiness or Charity which were laid by Christ and his blessed Apostles which ever continued the same and were so owned by their pious successors however they used that liberty and authority in lesser matters which was given them by the Scriptures and derived to them by their Apostlick mission or succession for the prudent accommodating of such things as concerned the outward polity uniformity order and peace of the Church or for those decent celebrations and solemnities of Religioâ— which were most agreeable to the severall geniu'ses and civil rites of people and the mutable temper of times all which who so neglects to consider will never rightly judge of the severall counsels customes and constitutions of either ancient or later Churches The best of whose piety and prudence the Reformed Church of England chose to follow as exactly as it could first in Her decerning declaring determining translating and communicating to her children those Canonicall Books of holy Scripture also in the owning professing and propounding to them those Ancient Catholick and received Creeds which are as the summaries and boundaries of Christian Faith containing those articles which are necessary to be believed by all after this it used those
piety than in the barren heights of uselesse sublimities Then was it that the sweet and fruitfull dews of heaven crowned those true Ministers labours with all spiritual proficiencies and heavenly blessings then was the Church of England and thousands of pious souls in it like Gideons fleece full of holy distillations or like the garden of Eden liberally watered with the rivers of God I mean the faithful endeavours of able honest and Orthodox Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters duly ordained and divinely authorized for that service then was the time common people had less of curiosity and liberty but more of piety and charity they were more kept to their bounds and inclosures but enjoyed far better pastures than they now find in the ramblings and extravagances of those commons where they have chosen to enjoy their Pastors and Preachers after their own heart Nor is this insolency of people any wonder though it be a great grief to sober Christians when they consider how far this gangrene of abused liberty hath spread among men and women too the meanest and most mechanick He or She as Tertullian observes of some bolder Hereticks and Schismaticks in his dayes dare contrary to all Primitive pattern and Scriptural precept to preach to baptize to consecrate to censure to excommunicate scorning and opposing all things that are not branded with their schismaticall marks their novell badges and factious discriminations Wherewith so soon as any silly men or women come once to be dubbed and signalized their first vow and adventure is against the whole frame and constitution of the Church of England but specially against the orderly ancient and Catholick Ministry of it which is the rind or bark of Religion by which the sap life and nourishment of it is preserved and conveyed from the root Christ Jesus to the severall branches of his Church in every place This this must by all means be peeled round stripped off and cast away under pretence of Christian liberty and a better because freer course of deriving Chirstian Religion to peoples eares and hearts by another Ministry than that Ancient Apostolick Catholick and Primitive way of an orderly ordained Ministry which consisted of Bishops Presbyters Deacons be brought in Against the constitution succession of all these as corrupt adulterous Popish Babylonish spurious and superstitious in England whole troops of plebeian spirits have been and still are engaged whose fierce onsets and encounters were at first begun and are still carried on with as great resolution and errour as his that assaulted a Windmill instead of a Giant The great alarm given by their chief leaders is First to rail bitterly against the whole Clergie and all sacred orders used in the Church of England thence they proceed to wipe off their Baptisme as vain and invalid to vomit up their Lords Supper as nauseous and superstitious to read their Creeds backward to an unbelief of all things have been preached next they cancell the Decalogue as a Judaick phylactery a legall prescription lastly they learn to account and call the Lords Prayer a kind of spell and conjuration being perfect enemies to any thing that looks like a Liturgy or set form of prayer and devotion After this with stiff necks and haughty looks they scornfully defie all ancient ordination all Catholick succession all Apostolick commission derived to any Bishops and Presbyters as Ministers of Christ altering and annulling as much as in them lies all the order descent and power of the Evangelicall Ministry both in this and all other Christian Churches since the Apostles dayes the right of resumption and redemption of which they challenge to themselves according as their severall fancies list to make themselves or others Ministers or to have none at all which is the highest pitch of their Christian liberty counting all Ministers to be but their curbs and manacles Having thus commenced Masters of mis-rule their next work is to tuâ—n the garden of God any setled Church as this of Engl. was into ruinous heaps or a very dunghil to expel the Priests of the Lord out of his Temple to make Churches of Stables and Stables of Churches to bring in the lips of bleating calves there where the calves of learned devout and eloquent lips were wont to be offered It is not liberty enough for them to separate from the Church of England and apostatize from those Ministers that baptized them unless they utterly destroy them both setting up instead of one National and renowned one uniform and flourishing Church in which were truth and order unity and beauty strength and safety all Christian gifts and graces every good word and work to admiration innumerable little swarms in severall Conventicles with Ministers strangely multiform mutable and mis-shapen in which novell confederacies both Preachers and people rather catch and hang together by chance like burres in confused knots than grow like Olive-branches or the kernels of Pomgranates with order and comeliness from the same root Christ Jesus after the methods of those ancient Churches which were the prime and exemplary branches whereto after-successions should conform themselves As these factious people are so must their new Priests and Ministers be Grave and godly Bishops with their learned Presbyters must be set aside as broken vessels that they may set up by popular and plebeian suffrages some miserable mechanicks some antick engines some pittifull praters and parasites of the vulgar who have had no higher breeding or degree in Church or State than that of poore tradesmen for the better bred and more ingenuous sort of men abhor such impudence and usurpation their shop hath been their school their hammers or shuttles or needles have been their books At last coachmen footmen ostlers and grooms despair not to become Preachers by a rare and sudden metamorphosis coming from the office of rubbing horses heeles to take care of mens souls as some Farriers in time turn Physicians It matters not how sordid how silly how slovenly how mercenary how illiterate they are provided they have cunning enough to pretend a call impudence enough to display their ignorance and hypocrisie enough by much talk of Gods grace in them to supply the reall wants of all competent ability as well as authority to be Ministers of the Gospel Yet these these O my noble Countrey-men are in many places rude intruders insolent usurpers doughty undertakers to discharge the duty of Evangelicall Ministers in any one of these you must seek and may find as they pretend a Bishop a Presbyter and a Deacon all Evangelicall power Ecclesiasticall offices and Ministeriall authority these are the new-invented Machines or Engines which the Church of England and all others since the Apostles times were not so happy as to know or use which must set up the decayed Kingdome of Jesus Christ these must propagate the glorious Gospel these must exalt Christ crucified these must consecrate for you holy Elements these must administer to you the blessed Sacraments
Ravens must not be hoped for to feed us where Providence gives us opportunity to get our bread by honest industry Where then there are so many intruders and deceivers gone out as Ministers of the Gospel it is a matter of conscience as well as necessary prudence in all good Christians to be cautious and inquisitive whom they allow and follow as Ministers to be first satisfied in that question which the Jews rationally asked of Christ By what power or authority dost thou these things No discreet person in civil affairs will obey any warrant or order which hath no other authority than a private and pragmatick activity and can it be piety or prudence in Christians to be deluded by any pretenders in the great concernments of their souls to have no more of Sacraments or any other holy duties than the meer sensible shell and husk of them for the spiritual life and power of them is no where to be had but from such dispensers of them as have the authority and power the mission and commission of Christ rightly derived to them which was evident first in Christ after in his holy Apostles and their lawfull successors Certainly the cheat and falsity of such mock-Ministers and Pseudo-pastors is of far greater danger and detriment than those of spurious and supposititious children or of embased coin and counterfeit money Some people have been so wicked as to change their own children steal others from their parents but it was never heard that children of any discretion were so foolish and unnaturall as to abdicate their true Fathers and genuine mothers that they might adopt false parents and superinduce upon themselves the Empire of bastardly progenitors The mischief abuse is not less in Churches than in Common-weales in Christian Congregations than in families Due respect of paternall care and filiall love such as ought to be between Pastor and People can never be mutually expected where the relation is either supposititious or presumptuous or meerly imaginary or at best but arbitrary which is inconsistent with humane much more with divine Authority the measure of which is not the pleasure of man but the will of God whose will is asserted by his power For my part I firmly conclude that as no true Christians may admit of any Gospel or Sacraments or holy Institutions other than such as have been already once delivered to the Catholick Church and preserved by her fidelity against which the preaching of an Angel from heaven is not to be received or believed but accursed so nor may any Church or good Christians either broach invent or admit any new ministeriall power order mission or authority beside or beyond that which the Church of England and the Catholick Church of Christ hath received and transmitted in a constant succession That sacred ordination which began in Christ and flowed from him as the effect of his Melchisedechian Evangelicall and eternall Priesthood must never be interrupted innovated or essentially altered no not under any pretense or removing or reforming what corrupions may possibly be contracted by time and humane infirmities which are but accidentall as diseases to the body to Catholick prescriptions founded upon divine institutions Fields once sown with good corn must not be rooted up or fired because tares may be sown by the enemy while men slept Trees that are full of moss missletow through age yet bearing good fruit ought not to be cut down but pruned and cleared The decayes or dilapidations of the Temple before Hezekiah and Josiah repaired it were no excuse for peoples neglect to frequent it much less were they justified and to sacrifice other where than there onely as the place which the Lord had chosen to put his name there nor did those pious Princes set that house of God on fire because it was decayed but duly repaired it with great cost and care And such indeed was the excellent piety and prudence of the Church of England such wisdome and moderation it observed as in all other things so in this of the ministeriall order and office What injuries it as other holy things had suffered in the darkness of times by the dulness of Presbyters the negligence of Bishops or insolence of Popes it wisely reformed not abrogating the authority or breaking the Catholick succession of Bishops and Presbyters in this as in all Churches not broaching a new fountain not obstructing as Philistins the wells their fathers had digged not diverting the ancient course and conduits of the waters of life but cleansing the fountains and continuing the streams of primitive holy orders in the constant descents degrees and offices of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons They did not raise up new Ministers like Mushromes out of every mole-hill noâ— force them like Musk-melons out of the hot beds of popular zeal and novellizing faction without any regard to the ancient stock and root of Ecclesiasticall power and Ministeriall authority from which as Irenaeus Tertullian S. Cyprian and all the ancients clearly tell us Bishops and Presbyters were ever derived as slips and off-sets of the twelve Apostles and seventy Disciples No time ever did or ever shall render that Primitive plant and root of Evangelicall Ministry so dry dead and barren that they may or ought to be quite stubbed up or new ones set in their room No they are only to be pruned and trimmed that so they may be worthy of that honor which indeed they have to be by an uninterrupted succession derived and descended from the blessed Apostles whom Christ first planted by his own hands nor may any mans presumption undertake to pul up that holy plantation as those design to do who endeavour to destroy the derivation and succession of the power Ministeriall The truth sanctity and validity of which as to the Ministry of the Church of England by its Bishops and Presbyters hath been fully and clearly asserted by able pens against both Papists on the one side and Novellists on the other The one confining all Episcopal and Ministeriall power to one head and origin the Bishop of Rome as if there had not been twelve fountains and foundations of prime Apostles but onely one S. Peter appointed by our Lord Jesus Christ the other lewdly scattering that sacred office and divine authority even among vulgar and plebeian hands that every man may scramble for it as he list according as he fancies that his abilities and liberty in these times may extend The putid and pernicious effects of which in their present usurpations divisions confusions debasements discouragements upon the Clergie and Church of England as I shall afterward in the third Book more fully set them forth so I cannot here but justly condemn those partiall unreasonable and irreligious principles from whence so pragmatick an itch or thirst of novelty in so grand a concernment of Religion must needs arise that fond men should be so eager to stop up the ancient fountains
pride covetousness and other discontented lusts and partly by Jesuitick arts and Papall policies whose joynt aims are at this day to extirpate the whole race root and branch of the Reformed Catholick Christian Church and Ministry in England They conspire nothing more than that they may serve both the Bishops and Presbyters of England as Elias and Jehu did Baals Priests for this is the sense some men have of us and this is the sentence they have passed and seek to execute upon us as upon so many Cretians not Christians as if we were onely liars evil beasts and slow-bellies either imperious masters or unprofitable servants to the Church that so these new Masters may on all sides freely enjoy those superstitious and fanatick liberties which they have designed for their divided parties who despaired to prevail in England untill they had brought the English Clergie to undergo all manner of indignities and injuries CHAP. XII ALl which Tragedies that the people of England might behold and bear with the greater patience and stupidity they must by popular orators be perswaded 1. That all Bishops or presidentiall Fathers and Over-seers among the Clergie such as the Apostles and their immediate Successors first were are Antichristian truly so are Fathers in families Magistrates in cities and Chieftains in armies 2. That the ordaining of Presbyters by Bishops is meerly Popish so is the celebrating of Baptisme or the Lords Supper or the Lords day 3. That Christs Ministry appropriated to one order of men is a monopoly or a taking too much upon mens selves when others of the congregation may be as holy and able so is all order office and authority civil and military a meer monopoly when others may be as able and wise as the best Magistrates and Commanders 4. That all humane Learning is not onely superfluous but pernicious in the Ministers of the Gospel so is all skill industry and ability in all other workmen 5. That Ministers maintenance by Tithes Glebe-lands and other oblations is Jewish so is all justice and gratitude in paying labourers their wages 6. That the distinction of Clergie and Laity is arrogant and supercilious so are the titles of Master and Scholar Teacher and Disciple Priest and People Minister and ministred 7. That it was proud and insolent for any Clergie-men to be invested with honour to be stiled and respected as Lords Truly if it be no dishonour to any temporall Lord to become a Minister or Christs glorious Gospel nor doth he thereby lose his civil Lordship and dignity no more is it misbecoming learned grave and venerable Ministers of the Gospel the chief Fathers and governours of the Church to be adorned with honours and to enjoy as the favours of Christian Princes and States both the Titles and Revenues of their temporall Baronies and Lordships which they might for ought I could ever see as well deserve and use as any other Lords who had their Lordships by birth by purchase or by favour nor did Honour less become Ecclesiastick Rulers than it doth those military Commanders who I see can endure themselves to be called treated as Lords I confess under favour I do not understand how Church-government should be less capable of degrees and distinction in Governours than those which are civil or military since order and subordination must be in them all nor do I more understand how such chief Governours of the Church-militant as Bishops were and ought to be might not as well both merit and manage such honours and estates as any men who by far less abilities or pains do get to be Major-generals or Colonels and chief Commanders in an Army over poor Souldiers Sure the saving of souls is every way as hard and honourable a work as the killing of mens bodies which is the worst of a souldiers work or as the saving of mens temporall lives and estates which is the best of that employment nor is it less of true valour vigilance and resolution in learned and good Scholars to fight with and overcome the ignorance errours and barbarity of mankind than it is fortitude in good souldiers to suppress the rapines and injustice of mens extravagant actions But these and such like are the envious cobwebs the thin and ridiculous sophistries formerly used by some men of evil eyes and worse hearts out of principles full of ignorance or envy or covetousness or licentiousness or Atheism whereby to perswade silly people to follow these novell easie and more thrifty methods of saving souls which some swelling Libertines propound who have the confidence earnestly to invite this noble Nation to commit the whole managery of Christian Religion and of their souls eternall salvation to such new cheap and bold undertakers who adventure to minister in Christs name without any such character commission or conscience of divine authority which as Irenaeus and all the Ancients tell us were ever in a solemn visible and orderly manner derived by the hands of Bishops to the Presbyters or lawful Ministers of the Church as from Christ and the Apostles in an undoubted and uninterrupted succession of which Tertullian gives so excellent an account in his Book of prescription against Hereticks Their ostentations of naturall liberty of civil indulgence of rationall abilities of speciall gifts and undiscernable graces or which is most incredible of extraordinary calls from God All or any of these if they were really true yet will not be allowed as a justifiable ground for any mans usurpation or intrusion into any office military or civil without a visible commission derived from the supreme power in both much less are they sufficient pleas for any man to officiate in the Ministry Ecclesiasticall whose Supreme Authority is confessedly in Christ and the derivation or deduction of it in all ages is so visible constant and uniform that no man honestly learned can be ignorant where it resided or how it was derived Certainly it never was dispensed by the hands or power of Emperours Kings Protectors Princes or any civil Magistrates whose duty I conceive if they will act as Christians is not to alter or innovate this sacred authority and method used by Christ the Apostles and the Catholick Church but to preserve it as sacred and inviolable much less was it left to the spontaneous confidence the passionate suffrages and confused petulancies of common people who are the great and infallible prostrators of all Religion vertue honour order peace civility and humanity if left to themselves but it was divinely setled by Christ in the Apostles and by the Apostles in their successors the ordained Bishops and Presbyters of the Catholick Church in its severall branches and combinations who ever have been and ought to be under Christ the great Conservators the onely complete and regular Distributers of this holy ministeriall power as they have been to this day in this and all other orderly Churches of Christ without any controversie or contradiction without dispute or doubt
son Henry the eighth into Gods vineyard for the work office and honour of a Church-man Now a Gentleman of the first head disdaines it a Yeoman disputes it If the Fathers piety can digest to make the meanest of his sons a Minister the Mothers tenderness dreads it if the good Mothers zeal devotes the poor youth to that perpetuall servitude yet the Fathers prudence and policy rather chuseth for him a life of more activity ease peace pleasure and honour if it be but to make him as the last refuge a common trouper or a foot-souldier who may in time over-awe the best Bishop and Minister in a County yea a whole Diocese and association of them if Ministers shrink the next ten years as they have done of late Nor may any wise men that wish well to their Countrey and the Church of England ever flatter themselves that one man of a thousand who hath good abilities of mind or any competent estate sufficient to redeem himself from the servilities of poverty and popularity will ever condemne himself in a monastick or melancholy humour to be a Minister The old stocks already are dwarft in great part or hewn down and generally they will be but shrubs on which the Ministry hereafter will be grafted in a foile and age that growes so barren stingy ungenerous unbenigne to them Possibly there may be now and then an heroick resolution in a Gentleman of worth for family parts and estate to assert the honour of his Saviour and the declining dignity of his blessed Ministry by undertaking holy orders but these are rare birds and will be Phoenixes in after-ages not more admirable than commendable indeed when they come in at the right doore of Catholick ordination and Apostolick succession which are the visible seales of Divine Authority and Commission conferred of old even from the first age by none that ever I read without Episcopall power and precedency which immediately succeeded the Apostles in that ordinative and gubernative eminency which I believe was to be ordinary and constant in the Churches Oeconomy both to preserve an orderly polity and to confer holy orders with due that is Divine authority in an uninterrupted succession But where a childs portion must be wholly raised by a mans own industry and Gods blessing upon his employment in the Ministry O how cruell will those parents seem to their sons at years of discretion when once they come to tast and drink deep of that cup of gall and vinegar tenuity and contempt which some mens charity designes to mix for Ministers How will such poor and despised Preachers all their tedious and necessitous lives condemn and in the bitterness of their souls sometime be ready to curse as Job and Jeremiah did the dayes of their birth that preposterous zeal and pitiless piety which bred them up with no small care cost and pains onely to condemn them to the pulpits as to the gallies of plebeian slavery and necessity when they shall by wofull experience find that all their costly learning and education their ingenious parts and excellent abilities have made them like the sacrifices of old adorned with ribbands and garlands that they may with the greater pomp and solemnity be slain by popular insolency when parents devoting their hopefull sons to the service of the Church is to prefer them to labour and sorrow to pains and poverty to scorn and shame to vulgar contempt and contradiction Which very unpleasing and horrid apparitions of all manner of discouragements have of later years so evidently damped and discouraged many worthy men that not onely very hopefull scholars have diverted their studies to any other design than that of Divinity and the Ministry but few parents who can find any other way to dispose of their sons are so unnaturall as to expose them to that sad fate which they see attends every Minister that dares own the right way of acquiring and exercising the sacred authority of that function Certainly Origens juvenile impatience not to be a Martyr was not many degrees above the resolution of those young men who will now adventure to be Ministers in England upon a good and Catholick account which equally abhors plebeian petulancy popular dependency and uncatholick novelty And to hope that common people will in time grow better-natur'd toward Ministers by enjoying whatever liberties they list to arrogate or indulge to themselves in Religion is so high a presumption as is next door to despair unless it can be imagined that mankind naturally enemies to God and all grace will of themselves learn to value their souls and their eternall interests which are so remote from their senses as much as they do their bodies and estates or that they will look upon Divines and Ministers as no less necessary for their good than Lawyers and Physicians are whose fees and entertainments tell the world that men willingly or necessarily bestow many pounds in order to secure their bodily health and wealth when they miserably and basely grudge at three half-pence spent upon their Ministers and their souls on which to bring men to set a due value hath been in all ages the chief end of true Religion the great work of all the Prophets Apostles holy Bishops and godly Ministers yea the main design next the divine glory of God himself and our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ. Men are miserably betrayed to themselves when they are suffered to live at that liberty or looseness which will certainly debase despise and damn their souls Which sad events being chiefly imputable to common peoples own folly and madness yet will those men be highly responsible for them in whose power it was either to teach them better or to restrain them from those profligate humours by which prodigal and poor wretches are prone to destroy as well as to despise both their Ministers and themselves whom to perswade to a true value and reverence of themselves is an high point of Philanthropy and Theologie of charity and piety of humanity and Divinity which foundation once well laid would soon recover the decayed and desolating condition of Ministers who will never be valued loved or rewarded proportionably to their worth labours and dignity untill men think they have infinite need of them yea more need than of the most learned and honest Lawyers or the most faithfull Physicians who have so great an influence yea empire upon mankind because men sensibly feel and find the want of them which they do not of their able Ministers every prating intruder being enough to serve their turn But I have done with the causes and occasions the instances and evidences of the decayes and deformities of Religion in the Church of England which chiefly rising from the licentiousness of people and the inordinateness of Ministers have been the main subject of this second Book BOOK III. SETTING FORTH THE EVIL CONSEQUENCES Felt or feared from the Distractions of RELIGION in ENGLAND CHAP. I. HAving in the FIRST BOOK
without which the welfare of this polity and intire Nation both in secular and religious regards could not be preserved by honest Magistrates conscientious Ministers or wise and valiant Princes Yet as our wise godly and sober Reformers first and last did worthy of the Honour and Piety of this Church and Nation vindicate the civil and religious Rights of both in all necessary points and interests of Doctrine and Government so their charity was no less cautious and commendable than their courage in this that as they did duly reforme what they thought amisse and establish what they judged in Piety and Prudence best so they did not by any heat and fury of popular transport either unnecessarily or uncharitably affect to give any offence to the Romanists by such distances as needlesse and groundlesse Innovations must needs occasion either to that or any other Christian Church in the world with all whom they ever aimed by their moderation to preserve merit a Christian communion correspondency not intending to schismatize or separate from them or their Christian Predecessors as to any Christian band and tie of Christian Verity or Charity not as to any point of Faith Morality or Sanctity not as to any right Order and Catholick succession of the Evangelicall Ministry not as to that Apostolick Government Inspection and Authority which either was of old or still is preserved in the Roman Church or any other nor last of all did they intend to vary from them in those things of honest policy and decent ceremony which were most commended by the Prudence and Piety of Antiquity onely they retained and rejected as they thought most became this Church in the use of its Liberty in matters Ceremonial wherein the Roman as all Churches have like freedome left them to be used with that Modesty Conscience and Charity which becomes all Christian Churches without giving or receiving any offence as St. Ambrose long ago expressed his sense to S. Austin But the aim of our wise Reformers who rather chose to be Martyrs Confessors for the Truth than popular Praters or Compliers with State-policies and private interests was onely this to purge away that drosse and dust which Christs floor had contracted by slovenly labourers in his husbandry They cast away the chaff but retained the wheat well winnowed they reformed those grosse Superstitions in Prayer Sacriledges in Sacraments Superfluities in Ceremonies Usurpations as to this Churches liberty and authority with all blind Innovations of later date compared to true primitive Antiquity all which were as evidently discernable by the reformed or restored light of Learning and Religion which God then brought into the Christian world to be upon the face of the then Roman Church as the leprosie of Naaman was upon Gehazi's forehead if neither they nor we may be judges but the pregnant testimonies of holy Scriptures evidently setting forth the institutions of Christ the Doctrine and Practises of the Apostles and the primitive constitutions of Churches All these further cleared to us if any thing be dark or dubious by the joynt and concurrent suffrages of the first Councils the ancient Fathers and all Ecclesiastical Historians which together ought to be valued far beyond the sense or example of the Roman or any one particular Church as the immovable bounds and unalterable measures of true Religion as to the substance and essentialls of it Nor doth any particular Church though heretofore never so justly famous as that of Rome was merit the honourable name and title of Christs Church or Catholick but rather of so far Apostatick and Antichristian when the Pastors and People of it do not by insensible degrees unawares slide into venial errours and small abuses but after so clear a light and conviction as the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regeneration of Learning and Religion hath afforded these parts of the world they yet wilfully and obstinately persist to corrupt no lesse than pervert the Doctrine and Institutions of Christ Jesus who is the great Pastor of his Church and chief Bishop of our Souls whose voice all parts of it ought readily to heare and humbly to obey at all times without regard to the antiquity or prevalency of any errours or abuses in former times to which no time or use can give authority or validity against the first appointments of Christ which are every way as the ancientest so the best for Truth Comfort and Safety to any Church and to every Christians Soul CHAP. XVI I Shall not need here to enumerate at large and in particular points those many and great differences in Religion which make your and your posterities return to the Roman compliance and communion impossible if you have judgements to understand or consciences to act according to their dictates out of the Word of God understood in the sense of the Catholick Doctors and Councils of the first 600 years after Christ The work is already done by so many able Writers in this Church that it is needlesse to repeat and scarce possible to adde more weight to what hath been by them alledged to justifie their protestation against and reformation of the errours abuses and corruptions of the Church of Rome He that seriously considers the Fraud Falsity and Pertinacy of the Romanists in that one grand point the Canon of the Scripture which is and must be when all is done that Policy and Art can invent the main pillar and standard of true Religion cannot but grow very jealous of their honesty in particular points of lesser concernments when he shall see beyond all reply or forehead that they have in the Council of Trent under the highest Anathema's or Curses of all that differ from them assumed into the Canon of Scriptures divinely inspired written and delivered to the Church as the Word of God those Apocryphal Books which however we with the Ancient Churches value according to their Worth Truth Credit and use yet we receive them not into the canon or rule of Faith because we find for certain that neither the Greek nor Latin Churches of old neither Jews nor Christians Councils nor Fathers for 1400 years did ever so own or receive them Which Truth after many others and beyond any other if I may say it without envy is exactly and fully cleared of late by a person whose reputation formerly clouded by some popular jealousies as to his Sincerity and Constancy in the Reformed Religion of the Church of England deserves to have its true lustre for Love and Honour with every true Protestant at home as he hath abroad for that learned Industry Courage and Honesty which he hath shewed in that particular to assert the main hinge of Religion the Canon of the Scriptures against the Papists effrontery in that particular which hath engaged them in such a Dilemma as is hard to be avoyded by the greatest sophisters of the Roman party For if the Canon of the Scriptures be such as
as much away from the Charity and Unity of Religion That Passion commonly darkens and sullies more than their pretensions of Piety do polish or brighten Religion That preposterous Reformers instead of snuffing the lamps of the Temple are prone to put them quite out especially when the ignorance and insolence of Lay-men undertake to set the Ark of God upon their Cart to draw it with Beasts and drive it with their whips and whistlings though they whistle to the tune of a Psalm yet Religion alwayes totters is oft overthrown by them being never safe but when it is as the Ark ought to have been carried upon the shoulders of able Priests and Levites such Bishops and Presbyters as ought to bear it up and to whose care that sacred depositum is chiefly committed by Christ and the Apostles Nor hath the learned and godly Clergy in England ever been so weak and unworthy as to want either ability or will Sufficiency or Authority to do this service to God and his Church however now they are so debased discouraged and almost beaten out of the Sanctuary Reformations of Religion ever prove either abortive or misshapen when they are either begotten or brought forth by Ministers factiousnesse or peoples fury tumultuating and irregular wayes of reforming any Church do but cut up and so kill the mother in hope to save that Bastard-child which having neither due form nor legitimation deserves no long life We see by too wofull experiences and infinite expences of blood that Churches when in some things decayed are easier mended in Fancy than in effect in the project than performance That this Church-work requires not onely proper workmen and skilfull Artists but tender hands and cautious fingers That where the Essentialls Vitals and Fundamentalls of Religion in any Church are good as to true doctrine saving faith holy institutions and honest moralls the prudentialls and ornamentalls cannot but be commendable if they be tolerable That the peace and safety of a setled Church ought not to be indangered for circumstances That it is a dangerous practice of Empiricks to give able and otherwise healthfull bodies uncorrected Quick-silver which shall kill them outright in order to kill some little itch or tetter upon them whose breaking forth to the circumference or outward habit of the body is a good effect of an ill cause a sign of firmer health in the nobler and more retired parts I must ever conclude with S. Austin and Dionysius Bishop of Athens it is better for the Churches peace and Christian charity sake to tolerate some inconveniences for some there will ever be or at least to some men seem to be in the best constituted Churches than to admit of such hazardous wayes and means of reforming as will endanger the ruine of Religion and totall routing of a well-setled Church that it is better in all respects to acquiesce in or submit to publick determinations and tried appointments of true Religion than to be still tampering with untried experiments and essayes of Novelty to the wast of that Order Peace and Unity which ought to be preferred before any such Truths as are but probable or so disputable that good men on either side have do and may hold them in some opposition without danger of their salvation It is but a delusion and device of the Devil which prompts men to wind up the strings of Religion to so high a note of Reformation as breaks both the strings themselves and the very ribs of that Instrument which they pretend to set to such a pitch An immoderation which hath as I have endeavoured to set forth by many sad instances in this third Book of the Church of Englands Sighs and Teares so defaced deformed shaken disunited weakned and endangered the state and honour of Religion as Christian and Reformed in this Church and Nation that it threatens like a Fistula Gangrene or Cancer a totall though it may be a lingring fatality both to Church and State unlesse by some wise hearts and worthy hands the Lord of Heaven vouchsafe to apply such Cures as may stop the prevailings of such sad Effects and remove the Causes which began or promoted them so far as to give occasion to this famous Church and her Children thus sadly to bemone themselves BOOK IV. SETTING FORTH THE SIGHS and PRAYERS of the CHURCH of ENGLAND In order to its Healing and Recovery CHAP. I. HAving set before you Honored and beloved Countrymen in the three former Bookes first the well-formed and sometime flourishing constitution of the Church of England Lib. 1. secondly its present decayes or destitutions both in the causes Lib. 2. and consequences Lib. 3. relating to Ministers and people in sacred and civill regards to the great diminution detriment and danger of the Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation It is now time to apply my thoughts and yours in this fourth Book to the Restitution or recovery of that which is the honour and happinesse of this as all Nations which undoubtedly consists in the Purity Unity Stability Sanctity Solemnity Autority and Efficacy of True Religion Hitherto I have powred Wine into the wounds of this Church not so much suppling as searching them by an honest severity The bruises and putrified sores which are all over the body of our reformed Religion were not capable of Oyles and Balsames of softer and sweeter applications till the putid and painfull ulcerations were first opened the cores of them discovered and the pus or sanies of them let out which to conceal and smother by gentle but unsincere salves by civil but cruel plaisters rather palliating our miseries than healing our maladies were a method of so great basenesse and unworthinesse in me as might for ever justly deprive me of the honour of faithfulnesse to God to this Church to true Religion to my Country to my own and to your soules I know the freedom of my pen hitherto like the sharpnesse of a Lancet or probe may be prone to offend on all sides few men are so humble as not to find fault with those that tell them of their faults those are commonly least patient of Phisitians or Chirurgeons hands who need them most crying out of other mens severities which are occasioned yea necessitated by their own debauchnesse and distempers Yet since my aymes are in this writing upon or rather ripping up the bilious inflammations of Religion not to spare my own disorders or theirs with whom I may seem most to symbolize in my opinion and practice I hope no good man great or small will be causelesly offended with the just incisions or scarrifyings I have made which as the gangrenous necessity of our maladies otherwise desperate and incurable have compelled me to so the pious peaceable and charitable intentions of my soul inorder to a common and publick good will then best excuse them when my Readers shall perceive with how liberall an hand and free an heart I do in this fourth Book
would be established and the tranquillity of the Nation highly setled and confirmed upon the best foundation of peace that can be among mankind In all which things we have and do on all sides so far extremely suffer as we differ by such unreasonable distances and uncharitable defiances first among Ministers which are presently followed with all disorder lukewarmenesse irreligion profaneness arrogancy Atheism Affectation and Faction among the people in England chiefly as I conceive upon this account The needlesse variating shifting and changing of that Primitive plat-forme that Apostolick and Catholick order and succession of Ecclesiasticall Authority and Ministeriall power in this Church which hath ever been owned with religious reverence and conscience in Engl. ever since it was Christian preserved as sacred by the most pious Princes honored as Divine by the most Religious and reformed Parlaments prospered by the speciall benignity and grace of God peaceably enjoyed by all devout judicious and humble Christians to the unspeakable comfort of their souls living and dying when they knew who were their Bishops Pastors and spirituall Fathers owning them with all due respect and love as in Christs stead submitting to them for conscience sake as to the Lord and receiving from them good instructions just reproofes holy comforts and heavenly Mysteries not as from man but God after the rule of the Scriptures and the example of the best Christians in all ages who looked upon Episcopacy or the Government of the Church as fixed completed and exercised chiefly by Bishops assisted with worthy Presbyters not onely as a book of a larger volume greater print and fairer binding than Presbytery or Independency that is the sole power of Presbyters or people by themselves but they looked upon the Episcopall eminency as having more in it of Apostolick power and Ecclesiasticall Authority both in point of ordination and jurisdiction than is either in Presbyters or people by themselves Bishops and Presbyters being as the eyes and hands which are not more members of the body than the leggs and feet yet they are the more noble parts and have more of publick use and virtue as to inspection direction and operation for the common good of all parts in the body No wonder then if the honor of all Religion be much abated if the renown of this Reformed Church be thus abased no wonder that Presbytery it self is so baffled and Independency despised no wonder that all the Office Power and Authority of Ministers together with their persons be reduced to such a low ebb and almost quite exhausted when Bishops the grand Cisternes and chief Conduites of all Ecclesiasticall Orders and Ministeriall Authority as derived from Christ and his Apostles are not onely bruised and crackt but utterly broken cut off and cast away whom yet no Presbyter or Independent of any learning or forehead can deny actually to have been in all ages used and esteemed as the constant successors and immediate substitutes of the Apostles first invested with that power by the Apostles themselves after their decease chosen by the Presbyters and after consecrated by other Bishops to be as the prime receptacles conservators and conveyers of all Ecclesiasticall Power and Ministeriall Authority not onely as Teachers of Divine truths preachers of the Gospell and dispensers of holy Mysteries in common with Presbyters but as chief Fathers Pastors and Rulers of those larger flocks which constituted those famous ancient Churches which were not limited to the bounds of one family or one congregation or one little parish in which one Preacher or Presbyter may in ordinary duties suffice but they extended to such ample combinations as contained large Cities and their Territories in which were many thousands of Christians many congregations and many Presbyters who all made but one Church or polity Ecclesiasticall under one chief Pastor or Bishop residing with the Presbyters at first in the chief City afterward these were fixed to particular parishes or villages by the care of the Bishops Without whose authority and consent nothing of consequence was done by any in the publick managing of Religion without the just brand and censure of Schismaticall arrogancy it being ever judged that Bishops had derived to them an higher degree of Apostolick power and Church jurisdiction than ever was or could be in any one or many Presbyters or people without them who could not regularly nor never did unblamably ordaine of themselves or by their own sole Authority any Ministers or exercise the censures of the Church in a plenary and absolute jurisdiction without deriving their power from their respective Bishops without whom and against whom few ever acted in any age of the Church and never any good Christian refused subjection to and communion with their lawfull and orthodox Bishops no nor did ever any Hereticks or Schismaticks proceed to such extravagancy as to reject and disclaime all Episcopall order till of later yeares whose example hath little in it to make it compared with much lesse preferred before Catholick customes and Primitive patternes of all ancient Churches what ever glosses the wit of men or their craft or their successes or their Godly and necessary pretences may put upon their variations and schismes CHAP. XII IT is not now my design either to spin out or to wind and summe up that long and tedious thread of dispute which hath been so much snarled and entangled of late yeares in England by popular pens or cleared and unfolded by more able learned and impartiall Writers Who is not weary now and ashamed of those thread-bare allegations drawn from the samenesse or promiscuous use of Names which we know vary with time and must yield to use and custome as if Apostle Evangelist Bishop Presbyter Pastor Preacher Teacher and Ruler they may adde Deacon and Servant and Minister were all one in the equivalency of their power order and authority in the Church For any one nay all these names are in the latitude of their sense given to some one man or officer in the Church yet in the more strict precise and Emphatick sense they denote different gifts orders authorities dispensations and functions as well as degrees in the Church of Christ which did never confound Deacons with Presbyters nor Presbyters with Bishops nor all with the Apostles because the chief Apostles who contained in their ample authority and commission all Ecclesiasticall powers eminently under Christ are sometimes called Presbyters Compresbyters and also Deacons or Ministers of Jesus Christ and servants of the Church deriving all these powers in their severall degrees and orders to Bishops Presbyters and Deacons after them To the first as to a lesser sort of Apostles but chief Rulers or Overseers in the Church they gave the eminent and peculiar power of ordaining Presbyters and exercising spirituall jurisdiction over them as is evident in the power that Timothy and Titus had given them by Commission from the great Apostle St. Paul who certainly in this was conforme to
of revenge whence arise publick seditions therefore I rather chuse a speedy and safe accommodation than any dilatory and dangerous Toleration which will but increase disputes and distances animosities and asperities among good men And because I find it is not any thing really burdensome noxious or offensive in Primitive Episcopacy which makes many so shy and jealous of it but onely the ignorance errors and prejudices of some men who have sought to make It of later yeares especially obnoxious to all manner of popular jealousies calumnies and reproches which have endeavoured so to hide all the pristine beauty and true excellency of it that many look upon Prelacy that is Episcopacy as if it were in the same Form with Popery and think most sillily that they may no more in conscience comply with any regular Episcopacy than with the Popes irregular Primacy in that arrogant and imperious sense which he now challengeth beyond the modesty and humility of his Primitive Predecessors who were then greatest Bishops when least in their ambitions It will be therefore as I suppose not an act of partiality as to any one side but of justice and charity to all sorts of Christians for me a little further to sweeten the name and cleare the cause of Primitive Episcopacy such as I have stated it and as all Antiquity ever esteemed it to be the chiefest support of Religious safety honor and order the Center Crown and Consummation of the Churches peace authority unity and prosperity It is pitty so Primitive so Apostolick so Venerable an Order so universally used in this as all Churches heretofore should any further lye under the dirt and disguises of vulgar prejudices popular reproches or any mens personall faults and infirmities especially when all wise men know that the usuall distasts which have vitiated most mens palates do arise rather from their own or other mens cholerick and revengefull distempers and the diffusions of their redundant galls than from any reall defect or demerit of true Episcopacy or from any just blame imputable to worthy men either of that place and office or of that perswasion and Communion in the Church of England CHAP. XIX THere are severall grand pleas in behalf of Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which I here crave leave to produce and urge in a way different from other mens pens before all Learned Godly and Consciencious Christians Ministers and others not onely in order to relieve oppressed Episcopacy but also to reduce them to an happy reconciliation and this Church to the state of a setled and uniform Reformation or Religion which will hardly ever be obtained in England by the violent and partiall exclusion of the ancient Rights pristine Power and evident priviledges of Episcopacy unlesse the Antiepiscopall parties can take care to burn or smother all Monuments of true Antiquity or to banish all excellent books ancient and modern which have asserted it or at least forbid their new seminaries and all Scholars the reading of them If they cannot rid the world of these bookes then they must make some sharp Index expurgatorius which shall blot out the words of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Episcopus Antistes Praepositus summus Sacerdos Pastor Pater with those of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—aternitas Eminentia Dignitas Sanctitas Authoritas and other like expressions setting forth the eminent dignity and ancient authority of Episcopacy in all Churches which expressions are so frequent and conspicuous in all Ecclesiastick writers Greek and Latin that the starres in the firmament are not more numerous or more illustrious in a clear night or the Sun-beames shining at bright noon The Native Primitive Apostolick Catholick and Divine splendor of Episcopacy cannot be eclipsed without darkning the faces of all Churches and all Christians Nor in effect will it ever be done unlesse its implacable enemies can take care by their cunning activity that none shall be Students or Preachers or Professors of Christianity or of true Divinity in England but such as will be content first to be blinded and hoodwinckt as to all knowledge of Antiquity next that their Disciples shall take the measures of their Religion Ordination Church-order Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and Christian Communion not from Jerusalem or Antioch or Ephesus or old Rome or any other famous Catholick Primitive Churches which were all under Episcopall inspection and in its Communion but from Geneva Francfort Amsterdam Arnheim or Edenbrough and this since they have pretended of later yeares to be wiser than their Teachers and first Founders in Christianity grown more Eagle-ey'd in Church-affaires than all Antiquity and all Churches in the world whose constant consent and Catholick Testimony in the point of Episcopacy as an Apostolick institution custome and succession is I conceive as much to be credited for the certainty and fidelity of it as it is for the Scripture-Canon received preserved and delivered to us or for the two Sacraments to be used or for the Lords day to be observed or for Presbytery it self or for any ordained Ministry distinct and authoritative for none of these as to the Historick and Catholick attestation of them is more ancient or more evident than Episcopacy Sure if the ancient Church were faithfull in all other things of universal use and reception it is not to be suspected as to this great depositum of Ecclesiastick Order for gubernative Power Authority and Jurisdiction in what hands it was setled and deposited for the Churches future peace and constant good Government to all posterity it being equally impertinent to affirm first that Church-Government and Governours were needlesse for the Church or that it was not ordered by the Apostles that is by the Spirit and wisdome of Christ or that it is arbitrary and mutable every year as men have a mind to novelty and sedition or lastly that those holy men who immediately succeeded the Apostles did vary from their rule and prescription changing Presbytery or Independency into a Presidentiall or Episcopall primacy which is a thing incredible considering the purity exactness and holy pertinacy of Primitive Churches as to what was of Apostolicall Tradition as Tertullian rarely expresseth it in his book of Prescription against Heresies So that my first pregnant consideration perswading you O worthy Gentlemen with my brethren of the Ministry and all my religious Countrymen to look upon right Episcopacy with a more propitious and favourable eye is taken from the great credit and just veneration which is due to Antiquity there where we find a Primitive practise and Catholick consent and this not onely no way contrary to or diverse from but most consonant and every way agreeable to the mind of Christ and the wisdome of God which the Church hath delivered to us in the holy Scriptures It is not to be doubted but the streame of Christianity ran clearest the neerer it was to the Apostolick fountaines as in purity of Doctrine and simplicity of Devotion so in the Discipline Order
preferring such men to be Bishops as were worthiest of her favour fittest for Gods the Churches and her Majesties service Did this wise Princesse ever listen to the insinuations pretentions petitions and charmes of those men in her daies who so much importuned and molested the publick peace and patience by their despite against Episcopacy and their scurrility against Bishops Some of them possibly might be well-meaning men but I take the best of them to have been popular and superstitious in this point others very pragmatick and juvenile none of them were any great Polititians while they would either have no Church-Government with any Eminency or wholly reduce it to such a parity as they designed for their ambitions which would have made themselves and all the Clergy as at this day more divided and despicable than ever they could have been under Bishops though Bishops had had no more power than an High-Constable or a Country-Justice Besides this the simplicity of those zealous men in those daies who most maligned Episcopacy and disparaged the Church of England having been terribly scared by some Popish Bishops in Queen Maries daies whose sad pictures still frighted them in the Book of Martyrs did then by their needless Divisions Distractions Oppositions and Separations greatly advance the Papall interests as learned Mr. Cambden wisely observes writing of the contests between Archbishop Whitgift and Mr. Cartwright with his Associates whose unhappy Successors could we see never carry on their designes now at last but with the infinite troubles miseries of this Church and State by which they have advanced their Presbytery in England so little so not at all that never any men got so little or lost so much by so dear a bargaine which cost not onely much money but much blood many lives many soules and many sins After this renowned Queen had left Episcopacy not onely standing but fixed and flourishing in England to the content and happiness of the most and best of her Subjects in Court and Country in Parlaments and out of them King James succeeded as supreme Governour in Church and State What Christian King was ever crowned with more learning and a larger heart in all Knowledge Divine and Humane Ecclesiastical and Civil This Prince had been nursed with the milk of Presbytery he had been long dipped and dyed in Presbytery if any sure this King might have seen at least fancied the beauty that Presbytery added either to the Reformed Religion or the Imperial purple His education by Buchanan and his castigations by Mr. Knox and others might in all probability have much devoted him to Presbytery and prejudiced him against Episcopacy of which I believe he seldomer heard one good word than he did Faction Treason and Rebellion from those warmer Presbyters who as his swadling-clouts so straitly wrapped him up in his minority that he could hardly fetch his breath with freedom yea and in his majority too when they made themselves as his chains and fetters to bind Princes as all men to their good behaviour Yet notwithstanding these Presbyterian Prepossessions for so many years did not this great Monarch heartily rejoyce when he came to a Church handsomly and honourably governed by learned grave orderly and venerable Bishops the onely Catholick Government of all Churches of which he had read so much and so much good in the Ecclesiastical Histories and nothing of any other Was it not an infinite content to him to see himself freed from the vexatious Thistles and provoking Thornes of some Presbyterians in Scotland for others were grave and modest men that he might enjoy the fair and sweet Roses of Sharon such Bishops as had ever been the chiefest flowers in the Garden of Christs Church Was he ever satisfied untill he had reduced the Kirk of Scotland from some Presbyterian extravagancies to such Episcopal Order and Constancy as was indeed very excellent and neerest to the primitive pattern of paternall Presidency fraternal Assistance and filial Submission But few people are ever so happy as to know and value their own happiness When this great work was done of restoring Episcopacy to so ancient a Church as Scotland was and confirming it in England contrary to the vain hopes childish presumptions and self flatteries of some popular men who could never with reason expect that so learned and wise a Prince as K. James would exchange the Ark of God for Dagon Episcopacy for Presbytery did he not as seriously triumph in the blessed alteration of his Ecclesiastical Station as he did to remove his habitation from and extend his dominion beyond that Hyperborean horrour of Scotland to this Southern sweetnesse and amaenity of England These things thus well setled as to the Order and Honour of the Church of Christ in his Dominions although this King were a Prince of most profuse and indeed prodigious munificence thinking no Epithet became a King lesse as Tully sayes of Deiotarus than that of homo frugi thrifty or illiberall yet did he never incline to devour the Churches patrimony to keep the Episcopall Seates vacant that he might enjoy the Revenues He once refused the offer of Cathedral Lands which some had projected as very feisable because as a grave Bishop then suggested to him God was twice every day publickly and solemnly worshipped in every Cathedrall and his Majesty there publickly prayed for in his greatest necessities whatever hunger seised his royall appetite in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sharpest famine of his Exchequer yet he never waking or sleeping thought of Confiscating Church-Lands or making Bishops to be superstitious or superfluous in the Church because his condition was necessitious No whatever failings as a man that Prince had yet as a King and a Christian he had this justice and generosity to preserve the honor of Bishops and the Rights of the Clergy Indeed as he was the greatest Scholar of a King in all the world so he was as great a patron of good Scholars as the world had Nor will those that have most quarrelled the Memory and Reigne of King James easily mend the condition of Church or State which he left in Peace Plenty and Safety Nor was it so much policy or reason of State as strength of true Reason and the prevalencies of true Religion which so counterbiassed that Kings judgement against Presbytery as a partial popular novelty or confirmed him in Episcopacy as an Apostolick and Catholick Antiquity between which he thought there was no more compare as to Church-Government than there is between the Majesty of goodly Lions and the subtilty of little Foxes After this great pattern of King James whose learned arguments were more prevalent than his arms in Religion followed his unfortunate Son the last King who amidst all his reproches and improsperities cannot be denyed this Honour than he seemed not inferiour to any King that ever lived in his regard to the Churches ancient Order Estate and Honour although few Princes ever sustained
forraine and impertinent to us rather than the publick Authority and wisdome of the Church of England in its religious determinations and injunctions which were not more Moderate than Orthodox Orderly and Comely not partaking of the Romish contagion though it did not abhor the Romane or any Christians Communion so far as Rome kept any Communion with Jerusalem I meane with the Primitive Catholick and true Church of Christ I do not pretend to search the hearts of any Bishops nor it may be should I have approved some things which some of them said or did as to the unseasonablenesse rigor and excesse yet this I affirm that those men must have foreheads of flint hearts of brasse and pens of Iron who dare to charge with Popery any one of those excellent Bishops whom I have mentioned with honor besides many more whom I have omitted who better knew the true Medium of Religion and Measures of Reformation between Superstition and Profanenesse Affectation and Irreverence Indevoutnesse and Rudenesse than any of their fiercest opposers and unjust destroyers And since I have thus far undertaken not the Patrociny which is a work far above me but such a parentation at the Funerall of my Fathers as may I hope not misbecome me I shall further adventure to do so much right to some Bishops to whom I was most a stranger as to this foule suspicion of Popery which being first fixed upon them was easily diffused to all the Bishops of England by the wonted spreading of all envious and evil reports which easier find entertainment in mens hearts and tongues than any that are good For these seem to men to lessen themselves by commending others the others help either to cover or excuse mens own faults or to set off their seeming zeal and vertues The first and greatest was the last Archbishop of Canterbury who was by many suspected and charged not onely as Popishly affected himself but as a poysoner of the whole streame and current of the Reformed Religion in England at last he was treated either as a Heretick or a Traitor or both to Church and State It becomes not me to sentence either the sentenced or sentencers that adjudged him to death his and their judgement is with the Lord onely as to the aspersion of his being Popish in his judgement which reflected in the repute and event upon all the Bishops of England truly his own Book may best of any and sufficiently vindicate him to be a very great Antipapist great I say because it seemes by that Learned dispute that he dissented from Popery not upon popular surmises and easie prejudices but very learned and solid grounds which true Reason and Religion make good agreeable to the judgement of the Catholick Church in the purest and best times And in this the Archbishop doth to my judgement so very impartially weigh the state and weight of all the considerable differences between the Papists and the English Protestants not such as are simple futile and fanatick but learned serious and sober that he neither gratifies the Romanist nor exasperates him beyond what is just neither warping to a novel and needless super-reformation which is a deformity on the right hand nor to a sub-reformation which is a deformity on the left but keeping that golden Meane which was held by the Church of England and the greatest defenders of it As to his secret designe of working up this Church by little and little to a Romish conformity and captivity I do not believe he had any such purpose or approved thought because besides his declared judgement and conscience I find no secular policy or interest which he could thereby gaine either private or publick but rather lose much of the greatnesse and freedome which he and other Bishops with the whole Church had without which temptation no man in charity may be suspected to act contrary to so cleare convictions so deliberate and declared determinations of his conscience and judgement in Religion as the Archbishop expresses in that very excellent Book I am indeed prone to think that possibly He wished there could have been any faire close or accommodation between all Christian Churches the same which many grave and learned men have much desired And it may be his Lordship thought himself no unfit instrument to make way for so great and good a work considering the eminencies of parts power and favour which he had Haply he judged as many learned and moderate men have that in some things between Papists and Protestants differences are made wider and kept more open raw and sore than need be by the private pens and passions of some men and the interests of some little parties whose partial policies really neglect the publick and true interest of the Catholick Church and Christian Religion which consists much in peace as well as in purity in charity as in verity he found that where Papists were silenced and convinced in the more grand and pregnant disputes that they are novel partial and unconforme to the Catholick Church in ancient times as in the Cup withdrawing in the peremptory defining of Transubstantiation in publick Latine prayers such as common people understand not what is prayed or said in praying to Angels and Saints in worshipping Reliques and Images with divine worship in challenging of a Primacy of Divine Power and Jurisdiction to the Bishop of Rome over all in their adding Apocryphall Bookes to the proper and ancient Canon of the Scripture in their forbidding marriage to the Clergy and the like when in these points the Romanists were tired discountenanced and convinced then he found they recovered spirits and contested afresh against the unreasonable transports violences and immoderations of some professing to be Protestants who to avoid Idolatry and Superstition run to sacriledge and rudeness in Religion denying many things that are just honest safe true and reasonable meerly out of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excessive Antipathy to Papists Hence some are run so far that they will have as no materiall Churches built or used or consecrated so no Liturgy never so sound solemn and easie to be understood so as no Bishops never so holy and Orthodox so no Ministers rightly ordained by them no orderly Ceremonies or decent Rites whatsoever used by the Papists though they first had these from those Churches which were yet beautifull and pure in their Primitive health and integrity The truth is it would make a wise man mad to fall under the sinister censures and oppressions of all vulgar opinions who still urge in things indifferent that unsociableness which is between light and darkness truth and error Reformation and Superstition never suspecting themselves for superstitious in being so Anticeremonious Antiliturgicall and Antiepiscopall nor are they jealous lest any thing that hath the heat of their zeal might want the light of true judgement and be like a Taylors goose or pressing iron hot and heavy enough but neither bright nor light neither seeing nor
varying in this as in other things from the whole ancient Churches constitution no less than from this of England are likely to differ among themselves even till Doomesday unless they return under some new name and disguised notion of moderators and superintendents to what they have rashly deserted the true pattern in the Mount that paternall Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which was the centre and crown of the Churches unity peace order and honour which imports no more after all this clamour and terrour than one grave and worthy Presbyter duly chosen in the severall Dioceses limits to be the chief Ecclesiastick Overseer and Governour succeeding in the managing of that Ecclesiasticall power and authority which without an Apostolick President or Bishop properly so called Presbyters alone in parity or equality never did enjoy and so never ought to exercise in the Churches of Christ as to ordination and jurisdiction no more than Bishops regularly may without the counsel and assistance of Presbyters Which ancient Order eminent Authority of Primitive Episcopacy if neither right Reason nor the Word of God either in the Old or New Testament did clearly set forth to us as best if neither Apostles at first nor the Primitive Fathers after them if neither Church-history nor Catholick custome nor Primitive Antiquity nor the approbation of the best Reformed Churches and Divines if all these did not commend it as they evidently do to my best understanding yet the late mad and sad extravagancies in Religion do highly recommend it yea the great want of it in England shews the great use necessity and excellency of it especially if advanced to its greatest improvement of counsel order and authority I may adde the votes of all sober and impartiall Christians even now in England who are grown so wise by their woes as generally to wish for such Episcopacy whose restitution would be more welcome to the wiser and better sort of Christians in this nation than ever the removall of it was or the medlies of Presbytery and Independency is like to be Nor do I believe that the restauration of a right Episcopacy would be unacceptable to many of the soberest men even of those two parties if any expedient could be found to salve and redeem the reputations of some lay-leaders and popular Primates of those sides whose credits lie much at pawn with the people upon this very score as having been by them rashly biassed against all Episcopacy the abusing of which Apostolick order on one side and the abolishing of it on the other side were I think two of the greatest Engines the Devil used to batter the Church of Christ withall pride and parity insolency and Anarchy being equally pernicious to Church-polity and Christian piety The overboylings of some mens passions which the Scotch Thistles being set on fire under them chiefly occasioned having now almost quenched themselves by bringing infinite fedities and deformities upon the whole face of the Christian Reformed Religion in this Church as well as otherwhere these sad events may save me the labour of further asserting in this place the use and honour of Catholick Episcopacy in the Churches of Christ which is already done as by my owne so many abler pens as it was also done by Mr. Hooker sufficiently proving that the Church of England deserved not upon the account of its retaining the Catholick and Apostolick order of Episcopacy to have suffered these many calamities which have ensued since the Schismes and Apostasy of many from this Church and from that Primitive Government other than which was not so much as known or thought of in the Catholick Church of Christ for 1500 years nor then when the Church of England began its wise and happy Reformation which did not indeed abolish but reform and continue as became its wisdom that Ancient and Apostolick government of the Church which was primitively planted in these British Churches as in all others throughout the world long before the Bishop of Rome had any influence or authority among them being highly blessed of God and honoured of all good men nor hath yet any cause appeared why it should be blasted or accursed or scared by Smectymnuan terrors CHAP. XI AS for the Doctrinals of Christian Religion this Church of England ever had so high an approbation from the best Reformed Churches and so harmonious a consent with the most Orthodox and Primitive Churches that it must be extreme ignorance or impudence on this part to esteem the present miseries of this Church as merited by Her wherein it was indeed most exact and compleat as wholly consonant to the Word of God so nothing dissonant from the sense and practise of the ancient and purest Churches Yea I find that the bitterest enemies of the Church of England do in This least shew their teeth or clawes except onely in the point of Infant-Baptism not for want of ill will for nothing more pincheth them then the Doctrine of the Church of England which was according to godliness teaching all men that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts they should live righteously soberly and godlily in this present world but for want as of just cause so of skill and abilitie most of them being such as have no great stock of knowledge learning or judgement nor very capable on this side to assault the Church of England whose strength and shield is the invincible Word of God rightly understood Therefore the cunning Adversaries and Vastators of the Church of England drive a lesser trade of small cavellings and bitings rather as the serpent at the heel than head not much engaging themselves in any grand controversies of Divinity which are generally above the reach of their capacities whose feeble assaults the Church of England hath no cause to fear against the Doctrine set forth in Her 39. Articles Her Catechisme Her Liturgy and Her Homilies since She hath so many years mightily maintained this post of her Doctrine against the Learning Power and Policy of the Roman party who are veterane Souldiers and mighty Troopers weightily armed in comparison of whose puissance these light-armed Schismaticks and small Skirmishers are like Pot-guns to Canons or Pigmies to Giants seeking to deface the Pinnacles and Ornamentalls of Religion but not capable to shake the foundations of it as it was happily established and duly professed in the Church of England CHAP. XII NOr have they had either more cause for or better successe in their disputings against the Devotionals of the Church of England in its publick worshipping of God by Confessions Prayers Praises Psalmodies and other holy Oblations of rationall and Evangelicall Services offered up to God by the joynt devotion of this Church the subject and holy matter of which ever was is too hard for their biting therefore most of them contented themselves to bark at the manner of performing them chiefly quarrelling at that prescript form or Liturgie used in this Church under the title
of the Book of Common-prayer Which very Title though agreeable to the style and mind of Antiquity as Ignatius Justin Martyr and S. Austin use it yet perhaps might in time something abate as to our English Dialect the reverence of common people toward it which probably might have been raised and preserved to an higher veneration if some Title more august solemn and sacred had been affixed to it as The holy Liturgy or The form of Gods publick worship or Divine service c. For ordinary people easily in time undervalue as triviall even in a religious satiety any thing which they are wonted to call and use as common which ought to be kept up by all prudent means to all due majesty sanctity solemnity veneration not onely in the use but in the very name and familiar appellation As to the substance and matter of this Book the wisdome of the Church of Engl. had first exactly adjusted it to the sense of Gods word nothing being there expressed as the mind of the Church which was not thought agreeable to the mind of Gods spirit in the Scriptures nor do I know any part of it to which a judicious Christian might not in faith say Amen taking the expressions of it in that pious and benigne sense which the Church intended and the words may well beare Next all the parts of it were so fitted both as to the language and the things contained in it to ordinary peoples capacities as well as all mens necessities that none had cause to complain of it as hard to be understood nor any to disdain it as too flat and easie Indeed the whole composure of the English Liturgie was in my judgement so holy so wholsome so handsome so complete so discreet so devout that I cannot but esteem it equal at least to yea I am prone with Gilbertus the German much to prefer it before any one Liturgie or publick form of serving God used in any Church ancient or later in Eastern or Western Greek or Latin Romish or Reformed that ever I saw Let any sober Christian that is able compare the Liturgie of England with those now extant as the Armenian the Constantinopolitan ascribed to S. Chrysostome the Greek Euchology used at this day that anciently ascribed to S. James those used by the Syrian and Egyptick Churches under the names of S. Basil or Gregory Nazianz. that of S. Cyril of which he gives a large account in his Catechisme the Gregorian or Roman Liturgie the Musarabick Liturgie of Spain composed by Isidore Hispalensis the Officium Ambrosianum by S. Ambrose that of Alcuinus in England which Bede mentions the Dutch French Suevick Danish any of the Lutheran or Calvinian Liturgies he will find nothing excellent in any of them but is in this of England many things which are less clear or necessary in them are better expressed or wisely omitted here As for the English Liturgies symbolizing with the Popish Missall as some have odiously and falsely calumniated it doth no more than our Communion or Lords Supper celebrated in England doth with the Masse at Rome or our doctrine about the Eucharist doth with theirs about Transubstantiation or our humble veneration of our God and Saviour in that mysterie doth with their strange Gesticulations and Superstitions In all which particulars how much the Church of Enland differed both in Doctrine and Devotion from that of Rome no man that is intelligent and honest can either deny or dissemble I am sure we differ as much as English doth from Latin Truth from Errour true Antiquity from Novelty Completeness from Defect Sanctity from Sacriledge the giving of the Cup to the people from the denying of it as much as the holy use of things doth from the superstitious abuse of them as much as Divine Faith doth from Humane Fancy or Scripture-plainnesse and proportions from Scholastick subtilties and inventions That the Church of England retained many things pious and proper to severall occasions which the Roman Devotionalls had received and retained from the ancient Liturgies is no more blamable than that we use and preserve those Scriptures Sacraments and other holy Services which the Church of Rome doth now profess to celebrate and use The wisdome of the Church of England did freely and justly assert to its use and to Gods glory whatever upon due triall it found to have the stamp of Gods Truth and Grace or the Churches Wisdome and Charity upon it as what it thought most fit for this Churches present benefit finding no cause peevishly to refuse any Good because it had been mixed with some evil but trying all things it held fast that which it judged good as it is commanded never thinking that the usurpations of Errour ought to be made any obstructions to Truth or that Humane inventions are any prejudice to Divine institutions It knew that though the holy vessels of the Temple had been captive at Babylon and there profaned by Belshazzar yet they might well be restored again and consecrated by Ezra to the service of God Some men possibly as conscientious others as curious and captious quarrelled perpetually at the Liturgie of the Church of England some at the whole form as prescribed others at some particular phrases and expressions as less proper and emphatick It is now an hundred years old and able to speak for it self justly alledging first the great joy devotion the piety thanks with which it was first received as an wholsome form of Prayer easie to be understood by English Christians next the great good it at first did ever since hath done for many years to many poor silly souls who otherwaies had been left in great blindness and barrennesse of devotion Further it pleads that it never intended to offend any good Christian since it studied in all things to be consonant to Gods holy will and word that as its order premeditatedness and constancy of devotion was never forbidden or dissallowed by God or any good men Jews of old or Christians of later times but rather approved exemplified and commanded in all their publick services both of prayers praises and benedictions so late experience abundantly teacheth how much the advantages of true Reformed Religion were generally carried on more happily by the publick and private use of that Liturgie than hath been of late years by the rejecting of it as many have done and introducing in its stead nothing but their own crude and extemporary prayers which being much unpremeditated are many times so confused so flat so flashy so affected so preposterous so improper so indiscreet so incomplete that they grow oft-times ridiculous sometimes profane bablings and battologies condemned by our Saviour when those men affect in publick extemporary prayers who have neither invention for the variety nor judgement for the solidity nor discretion for that gravity fitness and decency which are necessary in all our prayers especially when publick and social For some to