great bond of Christian communion and subordination into which by the wisdome of the Apostles the providence of God did at first and ever after cast his Church in its severall parts throughout all the world for their greater safety strength comfort counsell honour peace and stability which are then most like to be enjoyed when Religious power and the Churches authority run not in small and shallow rivulets which are contemptible and soon exhausted but in great rivers with faire and goodly streams in the united counsels and combined strength of many learned wise grave and godly men Nor may it be thought in any probability of reason that when the Spirit of Christ wrote by Saint John to the seven Churches in the lesser Asia which was about ninety years after the birth of Christ and above fifty after his Ascension or when the Apostle Saint Paul wrote to the Churches eminent in other great Cities that there were then no Christians or no congregations and assemblies of them in the other cities towns or villages of those large countries and spacious territories or that those Christians were not at all considered by the Spirit of Christ or the Apostle as to their further confirmation instruction regulation order and government No but all those Christians and congregations in those respective limits territories or towns belonging to such a principall city or renowned Metropolis were comprehended and included in the dedication or direction given to the Angel or Bishop and chief overseer under or after the Apostle of that whole Church which was contained in that Precinct or Province Which method and form of uniting constituting and governing such ampliated and completed Churches was Primitive and Apostolical whence it also grew Catholick in all Nations and Churches without exception no Christians or Congregations till these last and worst times ever seeing any cause to think themselves wiser than the Apostles or the Spirit of Christ nor ever either finding or feigning or forcing any necessity to alter that constitution order and subordination by any unwarrantable breakings Schismes Separations which are the ready way to weaken and waste the Churches of Christ in their order safety and majesty by unbinding and dissolving what was once and ever well combined breaking the staff of Beauty and Bands of Unity Defence and Stability Certainly as no Reason so much less Religion doth perswade any men to shrink themselves from their manly stature and full growth to become dwarfs and children again who but children mad-men or fools would rend a goodly and fair garment into many beggarly shreds and tatters which are good for nothing but to trim up Babies How savage a cruelty is it in any as Medea did her children to cut a fair strong and well-compacted body into severall limbs bits and mammocks which thus divided are both deformed and dead It argues no lesse a fierce and ferine nature in any men to ravell and scatter themselves from all civil fraternities and sociall combinations which strongly twist the joynt interest of mankind together meerly out of a lust to return to their dens and acorns or out of a fancy to enjoy such liberty as exposeth men by their own infirmities and others malice both to necessities wants and injuries Who but mutinous and mischievous mariners will cast their wise Pilots and skilfull Masters over-boord or shipwreck and cut in pieces a fair and goodly Ship in which many men being sociably strongly embarqued they were able to encounter with and overcome the roughest seas and storms meerly out of a cruell wantonnesse and dangerous singularity which covets to have each man a rafter or plank by themselves or out of a vain hope to make many little skiffs and cock-boats in which to expose themselves first to be ludibrium ventorum the scorn of every blast tossed to and fro with every wind next after a little dalliance with death and dancing over the mouth of destruction to be overwhelmed and quite sunk by such decumane billowes as those small vessels have no proportion to resist Alike madnesse and folly would it be in the Souldiers of an Army to scatter themselves into severall troops and companies of fifties and hundreds that should be absolute of themselves under no Generall or Commander in chief as to joynt discipline united they may be strong and invincible divided they will be weak and despicable The Polity Wisdome Stability Authority and Majesty of those ancient ample and Apostolick Churches was such of old that all good Christians had infinite comfort relief safety and support in their communion with them if any injury were done by any private Minister or particular Bishop to one or many Christians remedy was to be had by appeale to such whose judgement was most impartiall and whose authority as well as wisdome was least to be doubted or disputed by any sober Christian Such as were imprudently erroneous or impudently turbulent Innovators of true doctrine forsakers of Christian Communion disturbers of Peace or despisers of Discipline either they were soon cured and recovered by wholsome applications from the authoritative hands and charitable hearts of many not onely Christians but Congregations and their united Presbyters with the joynt consent of their respective Bishops so far as the evil and contagion had spread in particular persons Congregations or Churches or in case of obstinacy they were not onely silenced and infinitely discountenanced by the notable censures and just reproches of many but they were at last as it it were with the thunderbolts of heaven so smitten bruised astonished and disanimated by the dreadfull Anathema's which from the concurrent spirit of those great Churches and Synods were solemnly denounced in the name of Christ by the chief Pastors or Bishops succeeding in the authority and place of the Apostles that every good Christian feared and trembled they wept and prayed for such sinners repentance and in case of desperate contumacy or incorrigiblenesse they gave them over to the Devil as certainly as if the sentence of Gods eternall doom had passed upon them This this was the pristine polity unity beauty majesty and terrour of the Churches of Christ in their ample and Apostolical combinations when each of those Churches were as sometimes in England faire as the Moon bright as the Sun beautifull as the tower of Tirzah comely as Jerusalem a city of God at unity in it self also terrible as an army with Banners for so they are prophecied of and described under the name of the Spouse of Christ Can any Christian that is not utterly fanatick and wild with his Enthusiastick fancies ever expect such harmony weight lustre authority and efficacy from any of those petty Conventicles and pigmy Churches into which some men seek first by Independent principles and practises to mince all Episcopall and National Churches next by Presbyterian policies to mould and soulder them up again as Medea did Jasons-limbs either to partiall Associations or to parochial Consistories or little
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
ownes as the badg or bond of his admission into Communion with Christ and his Church both Catholick and congregationall generall and particular This it seemes must now not at all be owned or slighted nulled and forgotten by the superfetation of a new form of Christian confederation more solemn sacred and obliging as they fancy to Christian duties than that was which was solemnly made in the presence of the congregation ratified in the blood of Jesus Christ and testified in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost yea and after this the poor Episcopall Divines if they will gently comply and for feare Associate must quietly permit either the community of the people or the parity of the Presbyters in their severall lesser bodies and congregations or in their greater classes and conventions to challenge to themselves the plenary sole absolute perfect and unappealable power of not onely ordination which of old they never had as St. Jerom confesseth but of all Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and Discipline and this under the conduct and auspicious management of onely some Diurnall Dictator some temporary prolocutor or extemporary moderator who is forsooth to have the Image of a superficiall Bishop and the shadow of a short-liv'd superintendent a thing meerly occasional and unauthoritative as to any office or power inherent in him or of right to be challenged or exercised by him enjoying onely an horary arbitrary and humane presidency for fashion and civility sake without any Ecclesiasticall eminent or constant Authority residing in him as derived from Christ the Apostles or their successors or any Churches custome designation and consent in former times Such as was ever committed to owned in and used by the Bishops of the Church as regularly succeeding to the Apostles in that ordinary eminency of power which was necessary to keep both Presbyters and all Christian people and Churches good Order Peace and Unity which blessings they never more enjoyed or more happily than under a right Episcopacy Whose cause however of later yeares it hath been run down and trampled in a hurry under foot by some men in England Scotland and Ireland yet hath it suffered no reall diminution as to the true Honor of its Apostolick Authority its Primitive Antiquity its Catholick succession its high descent and its holy Originall which was never denyed or much disputed by any men of any considerable Learning and Piety till these later Dog-dayes in which not onely some single Stars of nebulous and dubious light but whole Constellations of them like Sirius or the Canicular Juncto erected under the new name and figuration of Smectymnuus to calculate the Nativity of a new Reformation became Lords of the Ascendent being filled contrary to their former Conformity and declared submission with a very unbenigne that I say not malignant influence not only against Episcopacy but in effect against the whole visible Constitution of this Church in which as Goods in a sunk ship all things are much wasted and abased by the ruine of Episcopacy Their destructive fires kindled from the colder parts of this Island first flamed into strange Logomachies thredbare cavillings and triviall strifes about Words and Names as if after sixteen hundred years all the Christians and Ministers of England its Princes and Parliaments its Synods and Councels yea all the Christian world elsewhere were to be Catechized by a few petty Presbyters in comparison and their Scot-English Assembly what the names of Bishop and Presbyter of Pastor and Teacher of Elder and Ruler of Helps and Governments of Apostle and Evangelist of Ecclesiastical Stars and Angels did mean which not onely all Writers but all times and practises of all Churches had sufficiently interpreted and cleared from the first promiscuous use of some general names which called the chief Apostles Prophets Evangelists Bishops Presbyters Elders Ministers and Deacons too in whose offices authorities and duties there were real and great differences to more proper and peculiar distinctions according to the several ranks degrees orders offices and powers then established in the Church After the Squibbs and Crackers of paper had been lighted and cast in the face of venerable Episcopacy at last as the manner is things came to dreadful Chiromachies such scufflings and fightings with hands and arms of flesh against that Government which is as the Ancient of dayes that they looked more like that Gigantomachy the Giants assaulting Heaven and the Gods than that Good fight of faith which ought to contend earnestly onely for that which was once uniformly delivered to all true Saints and received by all true Churches of Christ in doctrine order and government among whom all lesser disputations and differences circumstantial rising among good Christians were wont to be fairly debated and determined in lawful Assemblies in Ecclesiastical Synods and National or general Councils from which Christian and Orthodox Bishops were never either terrified or excluded but principally called and admitted as the chief Fathers of those holy Oeconomies or Christian Polities Nor was Episcopacy ever condemned by any of those Councils Synods or Assemblies in any Age of the Church much less was it ejected and extirpated as uselesse unlawful and abominable no not by any Synods and confessions of any Protestant and reformed Churches of note notwithstanding they could not conveniently enioy the blessing of it for so they accounted it either by reason of the petulancy of people or the impatience of civil Magistrates or the Sacrilegious humours and designes of all against the Clergy After all these prepossessions and just presumptions thus challenged to the cause and state of Episcopacy in point of its venerable and undeniable Antiquity I cannot but offer to its still scrupulous or implacable Adversaries these following Quaeres 1. How sad I beseech you and wretched how confounded and astonished must the awakened Consciences of those men be who have been the chief Authors and Fautors of our late troubles variations and miseries chiefly upon the account of their Antiepiscopal Antipathies if after all these combustions perturbations and plunderings of Religion which have rather pleased mens private passions and opinions than any way profited the publick welfare of this Church or State if I say these great sticklers against Episcopacy should be either grosly mistaken or malitiously perverted from the right path that good old way of which former Ages can better inform us then those that are but of yesterday and can know nothing but by their light 2. What if it should be as true as it is most probable because generally so believed in all Ages parts and places of the Church that the cause of Primitive Episcopacy is indeed the cause of God of Christ and of the whole Church the cause of all the Apostles of all Primitive Bishops their immediate successors yea the cause of all true Presbyters and all true Christians a cause in which the glory of God the wisdome of Christ the honor of the Apostles the fidelity of their successors the
degenerous persons as deserved not to bear the name or knew not how to use the Office of a Bishop Doubtless their Enemies being Judges no place no Age no one Nation or Church in the world since the Apostles ever exceeded the Bishops of England for piety and learning for useful and exemplary vertues of which I shall afterward give more exact account no Church ever more happy flourishing or prosperous then the reformed Church of England was under such worthy Bishops as some men so despitefully used Could Bishops in this and all Churches be so blessed of God and yet Episcopacy deserve to be so abhorred of men Were the Evangelical labours of godly Bishops so plentifully watered with the Dew of Heaven and yet doth their function deserve to be rooted out of the Earth If Episcopacy in its secular riches and honours must needs be destroyed in order to confiscate the Churches Lands yet at least primitive though poor Episcopacy might have been preserved whose ancient eminency would have been both authoritative and conspicuous among good Christians through the Clouds of such undeserved poverty Though some men might presume to deprive Bishops of their deserved and lawful Estates yet sure they were too bold to rob the Church of all excellent and deserving Bishops such as England ever afforded both before and since the Reformation which the Romish and Jesuitick policies never hoped more effectually to deforme and destroy than by helping to carry on the routing of Episcopacy Certainly the excellent Bishops of England were the greatest Eye-sore of the Pope and his Conclave nor did they care to fight by their secret and open Engines against small or great Presbyters so much as against these Prelates who had so long stood in their way They knew when these chief Shepherds were smitten the Sheep would soon be scattered nor were Papists ever more gratified than when Episcopacy was extirpated out of England What if the God the Lord of his Church the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath laid the Government of it on the Shoulders of Christ Jesus and he derived the external administration or dispensation of it to the Apostles and they to succeeding Bishops as spiritual Pastors and venerable Fathers of his Church what if he should thus plead the cause of Episcopacy in the eminency of its Apostolical order and primitive authority against all those that have spoken acted and written so many peevish spiteful popular partial and perverse things against it What if he should lay to their Consciences what is visible to their and all mens eyes the sad divisions miserable confusions and horrid vastations of this Church and the Reformed Religion which have followed the destroying of harmlesse honourable ancient venerable useful and necessary Episcopacy Would they not be infinitely ashamed and mightily confounded for the new Modes which they have taken up for the Oakes which they have chosen to over-shadow themselves yea for the Briars and Brambles which they fancy as fittest to rule themselves and the Church of Christ in this Land either by way of parity or popularity which are not fit methods to rule their own families withall Will a few arbitrary precarious Presbyters and unautoritative Preachers or their new Associations serve their turn Or will a few petty Congregations or Schismatizing Conventicles here and there scattered and scrambled together in Cities and Countries be able to countervail the damage or to recompence the unspeakable defects and detriments which this Church and Nation which all estates and degrees of Christian people have sustained by the totall loss and overthrow of primitive Episcopacy which was as it were smothered to death in a crowd and huddle never legally examined or fairly condemned by the free and full suffrages of all estates so as its Antiquity worth and honour did deserve What learned prudent and conscientious Ministers or other Christians can be fully satisfied with those new-fashioned ordinations and ministrations of holy things which neither they nor their Fore-fathers nor any ancient Churches ever knew and wherein that Divine Authority which they challenge is so justly doubted or disputed as by no Catholick hand or regular course committed to them If that Ministeriall power which is challenged and exercised upon such new accounts of humane policies and later inventions if it should really be none at all or as weak and defective as it is dubious for Ordination as it is for Jurisdiction which is very much feared and suspected by very wise and good men especially where not want and necessity deny but wantonnesse and wilfulnesse seek to deprive Christians of their true Bishop O how vain how invalid how arrogant how insignificant must those Ministers and all their holy Ministrations appear to many Christians who have of later years set themselves up by a Presbyterian Commission or Popular Election not onely without but against their lawful Superiours who were every way so able so worthy and so lawfully authorized for that office and eminency not onely as they were ordained Presbyters but as they were further consecrated Bishops that is placed by Christ and appointed by the Church in an higher degree capacity use and exercise of Ecclesiastical power and jurisdiction then ever was in any Presbyters Of which eminency Episcopal as that famous Council of Nice took such care to have it continued after the cient mode and patern of publick Election and solemn Consecration or the Churches Benediction so all this formality must have been very superstitious and ridiculous if it added nothing of authority and power peculiar to them as Bishops but onely what they formerly had received in common as Presbyters Doubtless reordination as rebaptization to the same office and degree in the Church was ever condemned in the Church of Christ as impious because superfluous a meer mockery of Religion a taking the name of God in vaine forbidden by the African Canons and many Councils never practised by any but such as St. Basil the Great reports one Eustathius of Sebastia to have been whom he calls an infamous Heretick a notorious deserter of the Churches Catholick Communion If St. Chrysostome in the fourth Century had judged it enough to complete him in his Episcopall power and Authority to have been once ordained a Presbyter as he was in Antioch where he so lived twelve yeares sure he would not have troubled himself to have been after ordained or consecrated a Bishop by Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria and others of that order when he was chosen to be Bishop of Constantinople Nor would St. Austin a person no lesse pious and learned who had been ordained Presbyter by Valerius Bishop of Hippo been ordained anew by Megalius Patriarch of Numidia when he was chosen to be Bishop of Hippo. In like sort was one Alexander a Presbyter ordained by St. Chrysostome to be Bishop of Bassinopolis according to the uniforme method of Antiquity which judged that the Presbyters chusing the peoples approving and the
in any posture of Stability Unity Beauty and Honor untill Episcopacy be beheld and embraced in its native lustre and Primitive posture First as designed by the Orderly Power and Wisdome of God Secondly as instituted and actuated by the Spirit of Christ and his Apostles Thirdly as received and used without any scruple in all Primitive Churches when once they were fully planted and established in Ecclesiasticall Polities or Spirituall Corporations not one Church in all Ages either denying or doubting or disputing the Catholick Authority of Bishops Fourthly which they saw every way most agreeable as to the nature of mankind so to the different stations of Christians and to that necessary order which ought to be among Ministers as well as other people Fifthly and to none more than to the English Nation where the blessings by Episcopacy are now the more remembred and remarkable by the Miseries Disorders Divisions Insolencies Horrors and Confusions which have befaln us since we took away the chief buttresses and pillars of the Church as if they were burthensome and superfluous when indeed they were not lesse ornamentall than usefull and necessary to the well-being of it at least if not to the very being of it in us integrality and completeness I am sure the ejection of Episcopacy like the banishment of St. Chrysostom out of Constantinople hath hitherto been attended and followed in England with great Earthquakes and terrible shakings of other mens Palaces and Houses as well as those of Bishops whose turning out of the House of Lords by the Vote of about twenty Lords made so wide a doore and breach to that House that none of those Peeres who were more impatient to sit with such Learned and grave men under the same roof than St. John was to be in the same bath with Cerinthus could long stay within those walls the justice of Heaven as some conjecture so far retaliating mens passions with speed upon their own heads the Divine wisdome I doubt not seeing and approving as much of Beauty Order Prudence Unity and Stability in true Episcopacy as he sees and abhors much of Novelty Weaknesse Fatuity Partiality Deformity and Confusion in any other waies of Church-Government which cannot but be as defective and dubious as they are novel and partiall no way conform to the Catholick Custome of the Churches of Christ nor any way either invented approved or authorized by the sociall wisdome and joynt consent of all those in this Church and State who were concerned as highly in all changings of Government as any of those men are who have been most forward to make strange alterations and to remove the ancient Land-marks CHAP. XXV BUt it is high time to take my last Farewel of this long and oft-debated Cause of Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which truely I think in my Conscience to be the Cause First of God as he is the God of Order and Wisdom and not of Folly or Confusion Secondly the Cause of Jesus Christ our blessed Saviour whose Spirit constituted guided the Apostles with all their holy Successors in this Method of Ecclesiastical Communion and Subordination Thirdly the Cause of Christs Catholick Church which we ought not in modesty or charity so highly to reproch as to impute ignorance or perversness to it that either it knew not the way of Christ at first or it wilfully and presently forsook it by an universal Apostasie to gratifie some few mens ambition Fourthly I esteem it the special Cause of this Church and Nation first because it was never blessed with any Church-government but that by Bishops secondly it hath been and is miserably shattered and abased by the casting off and want of Episcopacy and thirdly for the native temper of the people who are not apt to be governed by any men not duely invested with the Majesty of some eminent Worth adorned with special Power Honor and Estates which together give Authority Fifthly I think it the Cause of all good Ministers that desire to keep themselves in a true Church-Order and Catholick Communion who will find themselves and leave their Posterity at a great losse as to the Honor Setledness and Safety of the Christian and Reformed Religion unless they be restored to some such uniform way of publick Subordination and Unity as hath most safety consistency and authority in it self also most satisfaction to all learned wise and honest men All which things are no where that I see to be found but in a regular and primitive Episcopacy which ows its late total ruine and shipwreck in England not to its own age and leakinesse as if it sunk of it self nor to the general dislike and weariness of it as if the wisdom and power of the Nation Prince and People of all estates had upon serious free and impartial advice concluded to sink it having provided a better Vessel but its ruine is the effect of a terrible and fatal storm which came first out of the North upon us this ran Episcopacy so aground that many despairing of her ever coming off with any intireness betook themselves to the Cock-bote of Presbytery and the Skiff of Independency when yet I conceive it were no hard matter to recover Episcopacy as to the primitive structure of it although much of its Ornaments and Gallantry be lost Certainly the Restitution of primitive Episcopacy for the Unity Honor and Happiness of the Nation as well as of all the Clergy seemeth a Work as of far more prudence justice and piety so of much less charge and trouble than the Ruine of it hath cost us all nor can it be strange to see some men change their minds in religious concernments who we see have soon done it in our civil settlements This and other Blessings of Church-order and Unity will easily flow in upon us by a kind of Tide or Reciprocation of providence beyond expectation when once the God and Saviour the King and Bishop the great Protector and President of his Church shall please to breath a spirit truely Evangelical and Christian upon this Nation when all of us accepting of our punishment and repenting of our sinful follies and presumptions the Lord will also repent of the evil which he hath brought upon us all and think thoughts of Mercy toward this languishing afflicted divided and deformed Church whose Order Peace Honor Unity and Happiness some of us weakly others wantonly and not a few of us wickedly have sinned away to a state in point of Ecclesiastical Government deplorable enough and almost irreparable For it is not new Associations or Confessions of Faith or pretty Paraphrases on the Heads of Religion which do salve our sore blessed be God the Church of England needed not these Crambes It is onely the God of Love and Father of Mercies who can allay the spirits of Men and bring them out of those contentious and câ—uel dispositions which are divisive and so destructive to each other True we have been three dayes
or might have been well acquainted they might even in these so much nauseated and despised means sufficient I fear to damn those who despised Salvation by them have found as plain and easie as sure and compendious a way to heaven through Faith Repentance Humility Charity holy Obedience to God and Man as they are likely now to do after they have stirred up so great a dust and smoke as hath put out poore peoples eyes leading them into endlesse mazes and confusions under the name and noise of a better Reformation and safer Religions In this posture of peace and plenty of piety and prosperity as to Christian and Reformed Religion had the God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ the Founder of his Church once setled me out of his abundant mercy to the people of England by the patience and prayers by the preaching and writing of godly Bishops and other Ministers who were not onely Gods painfull Labourers but his faithfull Martyrs and Confessors some of them whose great worth drew the favour of pious Princes to me who were my nursing fathers and the love of peaceable Parliaments who were my faithfull friends insomuch that for one hundred years next preceding my miseries I had no cause to envy any Christian or Reformed Church that ever was or is in all the world nor had any sober Christian just cause to complain of me much lesse thus to murmur mutiny and fight against me for no other cause but this That I would not suffer them rudely to bite off those full and fair breasts which they had so long sucked ingratefully deforming those conduits of plenty order and peace which they had so long enjoyed both in Word and Sacraments in Ministrations and Ministers Yet behold how I am faln suddenly shamefully ingratefully indignly and almost desperately my doctrine not duly examined but rashly condemned my Tenets not confuted but blasphemed by my various adversaries my publick service and solemn worship of God sharply indeed corrected even to blood but no whit improved or amended yea infinitely impaired and neglected my holy Sacraments those two great Seals of a Christians Charter and Gods Covenant those fair marks and badges of Christian profession the two poles and pillars on which all mysterious and spirituall comforts temporall and eternall joyes do constantly turn these are most what rarely used in many places either totally disused or grosly abused by the execrable consecrations of unwashed unholy unordained hands Many of my Oratories Temples and Churches Houses so called because dedicated to the service of the Lord and his Church are by some men first profaned with all the sordidnesse of men and beasts next they are suffered to ruine of themselves while they are robbed of what should repaire them and at last that Sacriledge may be the better husband they are threatned to be sold and utterly demolished The Sanctity of Christian marriages which were wont to be solemnized by prayers instructions benedictions by mutuall solemn and sacred stipulations according to the Word of God and Ecclesiastick practise is sought to be reduced by some to new wayes either very brutall and meerly naturall or at best but civil and politick The infants of Christians who were ever esteemed as the lambs of Christs flock are partially carelesly disorderly many of them dubiously yea not at all baptized neither sprinkled nor washed nor marked with any note of Christs blood to distinguish them from the herd of Heathens the brats of Aliens Jews Pagans Mahometans The sacred dreadfull and venerable Symbols of the Lords Supper which I had happily purged from all rust and rubbish of Superstition in many places have been supinely neglected for many years in others strangely consecrated irreverently celebrated partially distributed denied to many worthy and desirous Christians as if those were not Catholick signes and seals of the truth of the Gospel the Covenant of Grace those common rights or priviledges which belong to every one that professeth to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and keeps communion with his Church but onely marks to discriminate sides and parties in Religion to divide Christians into uncharitable factions As for my Dead for they are still mine as they sleep in Jesus and are Gods deposita these are in many places put into their grave with no other solemnity than a silent procession and a demure perambulation as if all that attended were as dumb as the corps and the dead buried the dead without any difference expressed between those bodies that are charitably presumed to have been Temples of the holy Ghost that are candidates of Heaven and expectants of a blessed Resurrection and the bodies of meer infidells or miscreants being now treated in many places like the carkases of beasts or the burial of an Asse for whom men do usually as much as this comes to namely the covering their corps with earth to avoid the noysomness and offence of them without any further hopes of them And all this late supercilious novelty and neglect of dead Christians is grounded upon a strange scrupulosity of some either silly or superstitious men who pretend to boggle at my office which was more for the living than the dead not meerly humane and naturall but Christian and spirituall which they count as a kind of Necromancy or strange superstition to the dead while I onely made the dead an occasion of godly instruction and Christian hope of comfort warning and lawfull devotion to the living which how they should offend any sober Christian I could never yet be convinced and I am sure came farre short of those commemorations yea comprecations for the dead which were anciently used without offence in the Primitive Churches All other offices of piety and charity for the sick and well the young and old the penitent or impenitent prescribed by me are now either wholly laid aside or performed in so various and exotick forms as common people cannot easily understand them their very novelty obscurity and affected variety makes some Ministers prayers a kind of Latin Service to the simple common people Lastly my whole frame and polity Ecclesiastical all my ancient constitution order and communion as a Nationall Church of Christ in which brethren did happily dwell together in unity all is by some men not onely quite forsaken and abandoned on their parts but they seek utterly to rout and destroy me by defaming and discouraging those that most love approve and obey me as if there had nothing been setled in me with any piety or prudence reason or discretion by the wisdome of their fore-fathers who were sometimes esteemed blest Reformers by most of these modern Renegers Separates and Apostates How justly they have done me this despite I appeal to the just and impartiall Judge before whom I can thus far with truth and comfort assert my innocency that as to the foundations of Faith and rule of Holinesse I have onely adhered to his blessed Word as
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
in them that is their pitties and compassions which make them prone to sympathize with any persons or opinions never so bad and base when once they see them violently oppressed and as they suppose persecuted for that which they professe as their Religion which they are ready to judge lesse confutable by Scripture and right reason when they see it set upon by Swords and Pistols by Fire and Faggot by Prisons and Confiscations People are ready to oppose all force with pitty to adopt any opinion that they see rather punished than convinced whom they cannot help with their hands they relieve with their hearts their prayers and tears which by softning mens minds make an easie way for any error or heresie to insinuate into their consciences though recommended by nothing but the patience or pertinacy of the sufferers for it Hence some wise and calmer States-men as well as Church-men blamed the severity of burning used in Q. Eliz. dayes against some Anabaptists and once in King James his reign against an impudent Arian for which Mr. Calvin and the Geneva Consistory had given him an example in Servetus In whose ashes as King James said while men rake to find a Martyrly patience they oft find an hereticall pravity and such damnable yet desperate errors as he after thought were better smothered by prisons or banishment than exposed to light by those horrid fires which burn men alive or subject them to such remarkable sufferings as stigmatize their errors on the hearts of many their pittifull spectators How have we found even the dry trees of Pillories in the last Kings dayes so fruitfull in popular compassions that the supposed petulant and intemperate spirits of some men who suffered on them made thousands adhere to them who otherwayes would in calmer proceedings have utterly abhorred their folly and faction their popularity and arrogancy Hence many wretched men that despaire by other means to be remarkable or infamously famous affect to be sufferers ambitious by their seeming Martyrdoms to gain reputation to their rotten erroneous and seditious opinions Down-right force is indeed very effectuall to doe not onely great executions upon the outward man but to make strong confutations and seeming conversions upon mens opinions and perswasions in respect of civill right and justice For vulgar minds are loth to look beyond outward events and willingly resolve their Consciences into Providences prone to conclude that all is just and righteous that is potent and prosperous They easily fancy with themselves and flatter others that those have the better cause who have the better end of the staffe True Religion indeed exactly regards the Word of God and the intrinsick measures even in Civil affairs of Truth and Justice But easier Superstition dotes on the Superficies or Idol of Successe counting all is well when the event is not ill willingly suffering themselves to be carryed down that stream where prevalent power carries dominion with it and commands subjection to it which prudent complyance with the outward man seems not onely veniall and tolerable in common people but commendable even in all sober men as to civill and secular affairs while nothing interferes with those inward moralls nor contradicts those necessary Articles of Christian faith which are indispensible at all times and on all occasions to be believed asserted and obeyed But in matters of Religion common people are not generally so tame nor so soon cowed or over-awed by meer force and club-law by which methods the Duke D' Alva lost his Master the King of Spain those fair Provinces of the Low-countries For besides their naturall restivenesse stubbornnesse and doggednesse they are mightily heightned in these tempers and humours by the imagination of zeal and resolutions of necessary perseverance in any way that they have chosen for their Religion though it be never so extravagant yea ridiculous especially if bare force be applyed to remove them then they are as ponderous as the congealed Mountains or Northern heaps of Ice which no Engines can remove but the warmer Sun will secretly thaw and easily melt them so that they shall of themselves dissolve and fall asunder It is obvious to all men to hold and grasp that fastest which any seeks to wrest or extort from them and all spectators of such contests are ready to judge that that side either wants or distrusts its rationall and perswasive power which is most proper to be applyed to the minds and consciences of men in matters of Religion when they see much use is made of persecutive and compelling power which is rather brutish than humane such as Balaams passion used towards his Asse but it was not used by the Angel toward Balaam who being the more perverse and refractory beast of the two yet the Angel by Gods commission onely reasons argues and perswades with him while he with fury smites his Asse once and again Not onely Piety and Christian Charity but common Reason and Humanity teach all good-natur'd people to frown upon force and look sadly upon sufferers upon any Religious account unlesse as Hacket and his complices where mens blasphemous opinions and riotous actions like mad-mens are such that they break all those bounds which Morality Modesty Civil Justice Publique Peace the honour of established Religion and the Reverence of the Dive in Majesty do prescribe to all men no lesse than to all Christians State breaches or Civill fractures like flesh-wounds will in time be healed by a kind of weapon-salve I mean that Soveraign power of the Sword which prevails wil in time either depresse or extirpate contrary factions either so over-awing them by fears or winning them by rewards that they will with patience and prudence rather embrace a safe and quiet subjection than adventure upon dangerous and improbable commotions But the violent strokes made against mens Religion reach even their very hearts n defence of which all their spirits gather together resolving if they have any courage or sincerity rather to die than deny or desert what they at present count their Religion The casting of good store of water or bloud upon civill conflagrations will at last quench them and prevalent power will make a shift to build it self new mansions or palaces out of those ruinous materials which were much burnt and wasted but not quite consumed by those fires But religious burnings like the flames of jealousie are contumacious rising like wild-fire most violently against all means that are used suddenly and forcibly to smother and extinguish them Many of all sorts of Religions have chosen rather to be burnt themselves than to have their opinions quenched and their Religion suppressed especially if they can have the glory to be Champions for a side or Patrons of a party and have many spectators or sectators to be their applauders Putid humors and noxious ulcers once broken out and far spread in any Nation as now in England upon the account of Religion like Saint Anthonies fire or sharp Erisipylas
all others to prefer it and so the Bishops of all other Cities made no scruple to yield the precedency of honor and order to the Bishops of Rome which was as lawfull as it was orderly But when the Papall arrogancy lifted up it self above its brethren by a Luciferian height through the subtilty and importunity of Pope Boniface as Platina in his life tels us he afterward sought to exalt himself above all that is called God the Papall ambition very cunningly invading not onely the Rights of Kings and civill powers but of the Ecclesiastick Rulers also for the Roman policy saw that unlesse it got above all Bishops it could not easily get above all Christian Princes and Magistrates which supported the honor and freedome of each other Then Monastick and Jesuitick flattery following pride the Bishops of Rome must be not onely the chief Bishop but the Father the Fountaine the Lord the Prince of all Bishops and all Episcopacy indeed the onely Bishop of Divine and Apostolick Authority all other Bishops must be as his off-sets his Suffragans or his Chaplaines nothing without him and able to do nothing as Bishops but by a power derived from the Pope forgetting the Primitive equality of all Bishops as to their Episcopall Rights Power and Office which followed the parity of the Apostles as to their Apostleship which all Antiquity with St. Cyprian St. Jerom Gregory the Great and others owned as Unicus in solidum Episcopatus but one Tree or source of Ecclesiasticall Authority first rooted in Christ afterward derived to the chief Apostles and from each of them to their successors in all the Christian world This once laid aside and buried in the darknesse and insolency of warlike and superstitious times the degenerated Bishops of Rome by degrees gained their processe and designe which was to have no civill or Ecclesistick power in the world but such as might derive from and depend upon them all Princes and Prelates must be his vassalls or they must have no Principality no Episcopacy This axe was the first and a very heavy sharp one that was laid to the root of Episcopacy by the Papall arrogancy after whose copy all those may be suspected to write who first blot out Episcopacy that they may blot and out-bolt set up and pull down Magistracy upon such principles and pretentions of Religion as they list to set up and fancy for the advancing of Christs cause the Gospel Religion and Reformation words never more used by any than the Popes of Rome since they used the style of Holinesse and Servant of Servants but intended Highnesse and exercised Soveraignty over all according to that Mystery of Iniquity which was by some of them carried on and is not to this day laid aside though more tenderly and warily managed being on all hands either despised or disliked by all Christian Princes that are not forced by dependance or fear to be parasites to the Pope I know in this point other novel Antiepiscopal parties on all hands have sought with all artifices to captate Magistratick favour as well as plebeian applauses representing themselves so submissive and complyant to Princes and Parlaments to all States and civill Polities that they fancy to favour their side as if they onely studied to bear the crosse of Christ and not to weare any Crown of soveraignty But how modest some of them have been in seeking to set up Jesus Christ and themselves not onely without but against the expresse will and consent of the lawfull Princes and chief Magistrates no lesse than against the Lawes in force yea and against the far major part of the community of all sorts I leave it to others yea to themselves to judge who have any just ingenuous or blushing principle in them I am sure the Anabaptists at Munster first pretended to abhor all wars and weapons of blood while their party was small weake and frozen but afterward they could find hands as well as feet As for Presbytery and Independency truly they have given not only terrible alarmes and assaults to both Monarchy and Episcopacy which were both of them their lawfull superiours but they have even now sharpe rigours and ambitious rivalries against each other which of them shall have most power and most hands as well as most favour or indulgence Neither of them are looked upon as making any great scruple to bring in the prevalency of their parties by force of armes when once they presume of numbers sufficient neither of them seem to make any great conscience to set up their new Scepters by absolute power where petition and agitation will not serve their turne because both of them pretend to have Jesus Christ sure on their side who is indeed King of Kings and Lord of Lords yet I do not find that he hath any where made them his Lieutenants to Rule for him upon the score and Title of any Church-power notwithstanding that they intitle their designes with his cause and inscribe their banners with his name as Pontius Pilate did that Crosse whereon he Crucified Jesus Christ. Many of them I find do hold all Men all Christians all Ministers all Magistrates all Princes Kings and Emperours enemies to Jesus Christ that are not declaredly for them and will not be subject to their Discipline or Government Many Grave and Learned men heretofore and of later times have set them forth not onely in their occasional zelotries and transports but in their meditated principles and declared designes to be such strikers and sticklers that they seem to be born with hornes and hoofes at least with teeth and swords in their mouths preaching as in Gods and Christs Name that if Christian Princes will not Peers and inferiour Magistrates may if these will not the common people may and ought to Reforme any Church or Religion after such a Form as their leaders list to fancy and prescribe Nor is this to be done with gloves and mittens with petitions and prayers but with gantlets and speares with clubs and swords if need be and if they can get power into their hands which they say is to be counted Gods power or a providentiall dispensation to his people thus to carry on his glory his word and his cause as to Religion though against his expresse Word against all Rules of justice against all Lawes and bounds of civill order and obedience yea against common honesty even to the violating of just oathes and superinducing of perjurious superfetations yea even to excommunication and deprivation of the chief Magistrate or Prince of their place and power in case they be refractory Thus do many men tell us they have found the Disciplinarian pulse of Presbytery at least if not of Independency to beat almost ever since they were born so that they have and ever will give no small terror jealousie and trouble to all soveraigne and Magistratick powers where ever they can by popular arts get footing both of them bearing
and possibly over-aw'd by the civil sword to submit to any such Triers Ordainers Committee-men and Censors yea Tithing-men and Constables as it is pleased to impose on them while it exerciseth both a Civil and Ecclesiasticall Episcopacy over Church and State as supposing it self safest when it hath both swords in its hands that by so eminent power it may both preserve Majesty and exercise Authority which are inseparable It is extreme vanity and folly to imagine that even the lesser flies the rabble and vulgarity of the people in England naturally course and now grown both baser and ruder then ever being insolent as to the presumptions of their liberties both religious and civil that these I say should easily be held by those fine new cobwebs of Church-Government which some men have lately spun out of their own bowels and braines for they are not of the ancient Web or Loome How much lesse can any wise man expect that the greater sort of people in the Nation such as are either purse-proud yet arrant Churles and Clowns will be either catched or held by those imaginary toyles What then shall we think either Presbytery or Independency will do with the higher-spirited Gentry and heretofore Magnanimous Nobility of England Will not these Lords and Ladies think it ridiculously strange to find themselves cited and summoned tried and examined reproved and censured excommunicated yea and reprobated by a few petty-Presbyters whom they look upon commonly as poor Scholars pragmatick and pedantick enough for the most part if they have any power and be under none as to Church-Discipline Or will these Gentlemen submissly venerate the Authority of Good-men Lay-Elders or a cold Vestry of a few honest Gaffers with their Elect Pastor who is as a poor soul set to informe and move that poor Body of Parochial or congregated Christians who are ready to say with the Pharisee to all that are not of their corporation and opinion Stand by we are holier than thou Good God! what stamps of eminency in Reason or Religion in Piety or Policy in Civility or Charity will any persons of Noble Birth Good Breeding and Pregnant Parts see in these Consistorian or Congregationall Conventions to keep up their own Authority and to keep down other mens spirits from despising them Among whom there neither is nor can be generally any such conspicuity or sufficiency for any parts and abilities of mind and body of estate and quality as may redeem them from the very contempt and laughter even of boyes to which many times their pittifull clothes which give either a great glosse or damp with vulgar eyes as they are either rich or mean on the backs of men in Authority besides their simple carriage their senselesse speeches and very silly lookes are prone to expose them Nor have they many times as to the Lay-part of them any thing without or within them to redeem them from this low and loose esteem in all mens both judgements and consciences who are not very silly superstitious or servile Yet of this course bran and barrel for the most part are those men and Ministers who have been most eager to exclude Venerable Episcopacy and to challenge to themselves either as Ministers or Laicks the whole Height Depth Length and Breadth of Ecclesiasticall Government in England not onely for ordaining Ministers but for censuring silencing deposing excommunicating and wholly Anathematizing or abdicating from Christ and his Church all sorts and sizes of men whatever Majesty Soveraignty and Authority they have upon them For these new Masters professe like God to be no respecters of persons all must fall under their lash and stroke who are either in the Parochiall or Congregationall Communion and Jurisdiction Possibly such small Monitors or Triobolary Discipliners who are justly of least esteem in a Nation and Church might for a time and in a humour suite the spirits of some little Colonies or Conventicles in Arnheim or Amsterdam in new England or in old and cold Scotland where common people have much of the easiness or tamenesse of peasants But certainly they are no way suitable to the Haughtiness and Grandeur of England These manacles are so far from shackling the chief of our Tribes and heads of our Families that they are not capable to hamper the feet so far from making good Pillories that they will not serve for good Stocks and whipping-posts for the due repressing and punishing even of vulgar petulancy and insolency which we see prevailes every where inspite both of Presbytery and Independency for want of an Honorable and Venerable Episcopacy justly constituted and honorably countenanced in the Church The temper of the English Nation is not like that of Scotland which with so brotherly and unwelcome a zeal would needs obtrude upon us Presbytery whether we would or no. There every petty Lairde of a Village in his High house hath either a bit and bridle in the mouths or a Cane over the crags of all the poor Cotagers and of the poor Clerick his Minister too who are in a kind of Villanage as underlings to his Seigniorie servilely depending on him the one for his great Salary of an hundred Scotch punds or marks a yeare where every mark is thirteen pence half-penny and every pund is two shillings English the other for their Cotages Copy-Holds Farmes and Tenures So that the common people there being generally over dropped and under-fed low-pursed and low-spirited might easily be ruled as to any religious Government and Church-Concernments by such a Discipline as their gudd Lairdes and Sr. John pleased to put upon them the ambition of Preacher and people being no higher than to eate and drinke and to beget children in their own likenesse to poverty and servility as the Peasants in France and Boores in Germany do But the ruggednesse and fiercenesse of the people of England even of the very Commons and clowns who are higher fed and bred to less slavery then in other countries is such that like our English horses cocks mastives and bores they are no where to be matched for the curstness and animosity of their spirit and mettle How have we seen even mean men bristle against not onely their grave Ministers but their great Benefactors and Masters Tenants have risen against their Landlords and Peasants against the noblest Peers so Presbyters have contested with their Bishops and subjects with their Soveraignes Such tragical rufflings and disdains of their betters are no news in Engl. And shall we think that trades-men peasants and yeomen not to mention gentlemen and noblemen or such as shall govern as supreme will all or any of them now be so tame as to be curbed checked ruled and managed by those minime Ministers and members of Congregations or those petty Presbyters in their Parishes or Associations whom they have no visible cause or motive in the world to look upon or esteem as their equals or betters no way likely to be their benefactors and so
not worthy to be their Rulers in the least kind This submission cannot be expected unless Englishmen are now to be subdued by fine words and made obedient by the formal and supercilious looks of some men who affect in their Churches and Parishes to govern all and are not fit alone to govern any unless they had been more able and willing to govern themselves and to have kept within that compasse of Ecclesiastical Order and subjection to their Bishops and betters which the example of all Churches and all worthy Presbyters and true Christians in all Ages commended to them besides the particular Laws and constitutions of this Church and State These considerations of the unproportionableness of any other Church-government than a right Episcopacy to the temper of England moved the supercilious yet very learned Salmasius in his advice to the Prince Elector then in England and to some other of the long Parlament and of the Scotized Assembly who desired his judgement upon the then hot and perboyling yea passionate and over-boyling debates touching Episcopacy to tell them That as the Episcopal Government rightly constituted and executed is very agreeable to the Word of God and most conform to all Antiquity so it was of all other most suitable to the English spirit and constitution The want of which he already foresaw was and would ever be the cause of much disorder and distraction of infinite Factions Heresies Schismes and Confusions Thus the great Dictator of Learning as he esteemed himself was pleased in this passage and other-where graciously to express his judgement and pleasure according to the humour he was in or to the Interest which he was pleased to adopt Sometimes he is Walo Messalinus and ashamed to own his Name against Episcopacy he was in that disguise to gratifie the pretentions of Presbytery and the adherence or dependence which he had to the French and Dutch Churches otherwhile he puts off the vizard and with open face owns the eminency authority antiquity and universality of Episcopacy yea the incomparable utility of it when joyned with a grave and orderly Presbytery besides a particular aptitude in it to the English Genius For he well saw that all Government and Church-Government as much as any is a beame of Divine Majesty and requires not onely something of a Diviner sufficiency as to inward abilities and endowments but also of a Diviner conspicuity and lustre for Authority civil eminency and ornament We read that God besides his choice of Aaron and his Sons to be complete persons to make them chief Priests according to his Command and Commission gave also strict order for their garments to have them made with such comelinesse cost and curiosity as should be for glory and beauty even before the eyes of the people over whom they were placed And we further read that God forbad to his people the Jewes all birds that did creep and yet fly they were uncleane and abominable to be eaten An Emblem that nothing is lesse comely in Gods Church than to see those men ambitiously affect to fly high in governing others whose condition is low and creeping on the ground Indeed no Government can be carried on in Church or State especially in Engl. but either by the absolute terror of the sword and secular power commanding or by such legal injunctions and religious perswasions as bind good men in conscience to submit first to God and for his sake to those whom he as Lord of all is pleased to set over us Then is government in Church or State most complete and constant when it hath first that rational Empire and religious prevalency over mens hearts which ariseth from the perswasion that people have of the worth abilities right and authority which Governours have by their laws as from God in the State so from Christ in the Church Which perswasion as it brought all Christian people Presbyters and Bishops to be so wholy subject to their civil Magistrates and Soveraigns so it made all Christian Presbyters and Professors to be filially submiss to their Bishops as to Fathers given them by Christ even then when Bishops were rich in graces and gifts of the Spirit but low as to worldly greatness and under much persecution yet then did the Majesty of Episcopal authority prevail on which the lively Characters and pregnant Memorials of the Apostolical pattern designation and succession were still fresh and most remarkable then did it draw all true Believers and good Christians to venerate their Bishops or chief Pastors for Conscience sake by so much the more by how much Presbyters and People had more of the power of Godlinesse in them whereas now it is made a new mark of Godliness and Saintship with many to cast off to hate abhor despise and destroy all Bishops and all eminent Episcopacy Sure either primitive purity or modern dreggs must be very much out of the right way and which of them erres I leave to all sober men to judge As for other Christians of looser Consciences and Conversation which were prone in all Ages to be as weeds in the garden of the Church especially in times of Peace Plenty and Prosperity the piety and wisdom of Christian Princes and other godly people ever took care to keep them in the more awe and reverence toward their Bishops and Ecclesiastical Governours by investing these in such outward and visible enjoyments for estate and honour which might adde some outward respect and authority to them and that no small one before those that had most need to be so restrained overawed and dazled Hence the piety and policy of Constantine the Great not onely gave liberal supports to the Bishops of the Church but gave them places and honors equal to the Patricii the Senators in order and degree which were the Roman chief Nobility It is not onely an imprudent but an impious presumption and a tempting of God to needless miracles for any people to invest those men in any Government as in State so in Church who are as St. Paul saith little esteemed because deserving little who have neither personal abilities for the Office nor any clear and undoubted commission to authorize them in it from God or Man from Christ and his Church which I conceive can hardly if ever be found in any wayes of Church-government which are suspected for Novelty or tainted with Parity and Popularity contemners of Catholick Custom Primitive Antiquity and Apostolical Succession in an holy Uniformity From all which depravations as venerable Episcopacy is sufficiently known to be farthest removed of any so it cannot but seem to all impartial Christians to be as every way best in it self so fittest for the native temper of England where mens spirits are more accurate and acute more inquisitive and searching into the rights foundations and grounds of all authority over them then in other Countries where meannesse and easinesse servility and credulity of common people makes them venerate