4.1 2. Acts 20.28 31. Col. 1.28 2 Thes 2.11 Gen. 31.40 Act. 15.6 Mat. 18.17 he is personally to instruct and catechise and confer with all of his charge he is to visit the sick he is to admonish reprove comfort counsel warn and charge every one night and day with tears as a Father his Children he is to assist in neighbour-meetings and Church-associations of Pastors and Brethren for concord and communion he is to hear all such Causes as need due and regular discipline And is any one man able to do all this as it should be done to any of those Parishes in City o◠Country which abound with multitudes of Souls that would find work for many Minsters to do it faithfully as it should be done Whereas if there be one in a Parish and in some one with a Reader or Curate that is thought enough I confess at that rate that many do the work of the Ministry it is an easie matter for one man to be a Pastour to a Parish of a dozen Miles compass in the Countrey and St. Giles's in the Fields St. Martins Stepney and Cripple-gate in the City of London But to do the work of a Pastour faithfully and entirely to all the Souls within any one of these and such like Parishes would require a whole Colledg and combination of Ministers We see in a Troop of Horse of but some fourty or fifty men there is a Captain and a Lieutenant besides other Officers In a Regiment of Fifteen hundred much more of fifteen thousand what a vast number of Officers are there Captains over thousands Captains over hundreds Captains over fifties and Captains 〈◊〉 tens Deut. 1. 15. Every tenth man was to have a Captain or Officer But there is many a Parish in England that may have Ten thousand Souls in it and but one or two Pastours appointed to look to all these fouls When King Solomon built his Temple He set threescore and ten thousand to be bearers of burdens and fourscore thousand to be hewers in the mountains and three thousand and six hundred to be overseers to set the people a work 2 Chron. 2.18 But in the building of the Lords spiritual Temple there is not one Pastour to a thousand Souls in many Parishes of England I know many will think there are too many Ministers I think there are to many bad ones but I never read or heard of any Kingdom or place or people to this day that had too many faithful Ministers And I shall think it a holy and happy time when such a thing is but I despair to see it in this world Were it not that there are not Ministers enough to do all the pastoral work of each Congregation I should think most of the godly Ministers in England notoriously guilty before God of gross neglect and unfaithfulness for want of personal and private oversight of all their people though I think a great deal more might be done by many than ordinarily is Well then there being so great a want of Ministers and no want of Magistrates would you have Ministers to turn Magistrates too must those few that are be hindered and distracted by calling them off to worldly and secular businesses Is it not enough that Ministers have more work upon their hands than they can do and would you make them more and that too diverting and alien work extra Episcopal and almost if not altogether pragmatical work What is this but to serve Satan in the name of Christ and under pretence of Order to pull down Order and make the Church more low and weak by much than it is The holy Apostles of our Lord were of another mind when they saw they could not both look to the corporal necessities of the poor and the spiritual necessities of Souls too they contrived an expedient for both They appointed a new office of Deacons in the Church to see to the bodily necessities of the poor but say they We will give our selves continually to prayer and to the ministry of Gods word Act. 6.2 4. Far unlike to those that leave the Word of God and Prayer and give themselves to the doing of worldly matters and secular businesses and teach men so and plead for it as their priviledg and a means of advantaging the Church and of promoting holiness and peace Non tali auxilis nec defensoribus istis tempus eget 15. Arg. 8. Those who maintain it to be good to have Clergy-men armed with secular jurisdiction do urge for reason the practise of the ancient Bishops and Churches for the first three hundred years while the Church was without Christian Princes and Magistrates It was usual in those times for the people to refer their dissentions about worldly things to the decision and arbitration of their Bishops who to prevent going to Law before Heathen Magistrates and to prevent and compose differences and strifes and keep peace among their people would give themselves the trouble to hear and arbitrate Causes and Pleas and worldly differences referred to them And hence it is argued that if it was lawful for Clergy-men to be Arbitrators and elected Judges to decide between brethren it is lawful for Clergy-men to be Judges made and constituted by authority and commission from the higer powers 16. As to this I take it to be true as to matter of fact that it was usual for the Bishops of those times to hear and arbitrate civil Causes and Rights And it grew by occasion I was a saying by a misconstruction of the Apostles words 1 Cor. 6.5 I speak to your shame Is it so that there is not a wise man amongst you no not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren Thinking none more wise and consequently more fit to arbitrate and decide their Causes than their Bishops And this continuing to the time of Constantine and he finding them in possession thereof continued it to them and confirmed it in their hands by Law which was the beginning of Clergy-mens lordliness and domination the fruits and consequents whereof have been very calamitous to the Church ever since 17. I have many things to say as to this As 1. That it is very likely the ancient Bishops who took upon them this trouble of hearing and arbitrating the civil Rights and Causes of their people did it with no joy they were not fond of it they thought it a burden and if they might have had their choice would rather have been free from all such trouble So much is intimated in a passage which Davenant in his Determ quest 11. aforenamed quoteth out of Augustine They did not esteem them priviledges or easements but molestias for so are Augustines words as cited molestations and troubles But the Bishops and Clergy of our times seek them contend for them and are tenacious of such things as priviledges 2. Either the Bishops imployed in the hearing and arbitrating those Causes were the same with our Diocesan Bishop or they were
not If they were then what discretion could there be in the people to refer all the Causes within the Bishops Diocess supposing it to be of the same extent and bigness with the Diocesses of Bishops in England to one man their Bishop And what discretion could it be in such a Bishop as among us the Bishop of Norwich the Bishop of London the Bishop of Lincoln c. to take upon him the trouble of hearing and arbitrating all Civil causes controversies and differences of the people inhabiting so vast a compass as his Diocess He must do nothing else but meerly hear civil Causes He must be but a Bishop in name How expensive and very inconvenient would it be for all the Christians in any the least Diocess in England much more in the greatest to travel with their Law-Suits to the Bishop of the Diocess His House then must be a meer Westminster hall and all the days in the year scarce the Lords-day excepted must be term-time with him To think that the Apostle ever meant any such thing when he counsels them to refer their matters to a wise Arbitrator is a gross wresting of his words For he wrote to the Church of Corinth which was but one particular Church Is there not a wise man among you He must be a wise man among them one near at hand easie to be resorted to to whom they might refer their Causes And therefore it could not be that the Christians then referred their Causes to a Diocesan Bishop such as ours And if not then the Cause of our Diocesan Bishops will receive a deep wound and it will make way for an unwelcome truth That the Bishops to whom the people referred their Causes were the Pastors of every Parish the very same with our Parish-Ministers and the Rectors of Parsonages These of the Clergy were the fittest to arbitrate the Causes of all the people within their Parish A Parish-Bishop or Minister may with far more ease arbitrate and compose the dissentions and suits of all in his Parish than the Diocesan Bishop can do of all the Pastors and people in his Diocess 3. It is not the intent and meaning of the foresaid words of the Apostle that Pastors should be imployed in hearing and arbitrating the secular Causes of their own people or of the people of other Parishes I will not say it is absolutely and universally unlawful nor will I say it is expedient in no case at all There may be Cases rarely here and there in Parishes so circumstanced both under Christian and Pagan Magistrates in which it may be both lawful and expedient for the Pastors to arbitrate and compose suits and differences among the people But generally and for the most part it is inexpedient For either he will do right or do wrong If he do right it is well if one side be not displeased and fall out with him and take a grudge against him and either turn from him and not hear him or hear him with prejudice and so by this means the Pastor may be an occasion of much sin and damage and damnation to his Soul which prudence and piety and compassion in a Minister doth forbid and will make him watch against If he do wrong then it is hurtful to his own Soul it is a wronging of the Innocent and a perverting of Justice and a scandal to his Ministry Besides He can scarce do it but with distraction If he do it but a little it will be a hindrance to his other work and distract him much more will it hinder and distract him if he should use it and do it frequently And the words of Christ are considerable and worthy to be thought or Luke 12.14 Man who made me a judge or a divider an Arbitrator between you 4. The words of the Apostle may be well understood in this sense either there is besides your Pastor a wise man among you and one that is able to judge between brethren or there is not If there be refer your contentions and civil causes to him Neither go to Law before the unbelievers nor do you trouble your Pastors and Bishops but single out a wise man among you one that is able to hear and decide your Causes and make him Judge and Arbitrator between you If there be not one such wise and able man among you then it is a shame and reproach to you all What Do you call your selves Saints Do you not know that the Saints shall judge the world even Angels themselves Are they no then fit to judge on earth small matters and to decide a petty controversie about mine and thine between Brethren but Brother goeth to Law with Brother and that before the unbelievers This is to your shame 5. When Constantine came to the Crown and Magistrates became Christians the most expedient way had been to have eased Pastors of all those molestations and avocations and lest the Pastor nothing to do but his own part and the Magistrate his part To make the Clergy worldly Judges and Magistrates is no benefit but a burden it is nothing that a wise man should rejoice in but rather groan under as a pressure and hindrance and pray to God to be eased of it and rejoyce in being free from it and at liberty to imploy all the time which was wont to be spent in such Secular affairs in Religious and Sacred exercises which have a more special tendency to Souls good and are most becoming a Pastor 18. Lastly I will set the worthy Davenant against himself who going about to prove that the Bishop of Rome hath no temporal power over Kings lays down this position Bonum spirituale non postulat ut ulla temporalis potestas a Romano pontifice exerceatur And if not by him then by no other Bishop or Pastor whatsoever Non est enim in ordine ad hunc finem aut necessarium medium aut accommodatum aut licitum aut denique cum spirituali censura excommunicationis ullo jure connexum Spiritual good doth not require that any temporal power be exercised by the Bishop of Rome for it is not in order to this end either a necessary mean or fit or lawful or lastly by any right knit with the spiritual censure of excommunication Determ quest 4. And he gives very substantial proofs I am at a loss how to reconcile him to himself But whether he be consistent to himself or not I lay not my cause upon that the other proofs and evidences do overpower my understanding 19 Now if it be manifestly inexpedient to make Clergy-men Magistrates and grant them civil jurisdiction then it must needs be manifestly inexpedient to make them supream Magistrates and to confer upon them the highest jurisdiction which Subjects be capable of as to be Lords in Parliament and to have equal votes with the Peers and Nobility of the Realm and sit as Princes there to be many days and weeks and months from their Flock and to be
must and will stand with the order and quality and greatness of their work 32. Do you think in good earnest that Church and State will all go to rack and ruine if our two Arch-bishops and the Diocesan Bishops be not present in Parliament and sit as Lords and Princes there must they have the hearing of every Cause and be supream Judges and Magistrates and political Officers under the King were it not more becoming you to be among your people Preaching and Praying and visiting the Souls and Families under your charge in imitation of the Apostles Act. 20. Act. 6.2 3 4 21 28 31. than striving for worldly greatness and secular precedency Is not the way to Heaven strait enough to you but you will make it more strait cannot Traytors and Murderers be tried without you would it be any disparagement to the best of you all to be as Peter and Paâ—l yea as Jesus Christ himself rather than like the Pope do you stand for these worldly honours and preeminencies out of pure zeal for Gods Glory and the Churches good Why then do you heat your fellow-servants and use them more unchristianly than Pagans have used Christians Act. 38.20 21. and give your Votes that all the Pastors in the Land be silenced and put down for not assenting and consenting to many things which you your selves confess to be in their own nature indifferent all moderate and sound conforming Ministers confess to be burdensom and inconvenient and multitudes of conscientious and learned and peaceable dissenting Divines and Protestants do say are flatly unlawful 33. It is an errour to think that Episcopacy and Arch-episcopacy cannot stand unless Bishops and Arch bishops be made Lords and Legislators and Princes in Parliament and have worldly grandeur authority and greatness to support the simple office of Prelacy and Episcopacy in Gods Church These worldly additions and cumulations of secular office and honour are things extrinsical to right and simple Prelacy and Episcopacy Right and simple Prelacy and Episcopacy do not stand by the will and donation of Princes but by a superior Law even by Divine and unchangeable Right by the Word of God and by the Law and light of nature and the intrinsical goodness and expediency of the thing For if there were no Christian Magistracy or Parliament yet would there be Prelacy and Episcopacy in Gods Church It is of the law of Nature that the best be best esteemed and that vulgar Pastors and Divines that have but one or two talents of Ministerial and Episcopal learning holinesâ— wisdom and usefulness give place to those who are more eminent and whose graces and vertues do render them singularly excellent above their Brethren though they have but one and the same commission and authority Authority is one thing spiritual and mental qualifications and endowments are another thing Now we see how that God himself doth difference among the Pastors by conferring on some extraordinary abilities and qualifications and thereby notifying to all the Churches the singular reverence and esteem which he would have such eximious persons to have from all the Churches as Daniel was preferred above the Presidents Dan. 6.3 and Esther and her Maids above the Women Esther 2.9 34. Every man naturally hath a Pope in his belly is the common saying Pride is an inborn sin It is excessive pride in the Pope to think himself more than a man and it is excessive pride in an Infant to think himself a grown man and in Pastors that be but of infant-understandings to think themselves equal with such as be of grown and large and singularly eminent understandings Simple Prelacy among Divines is a Divine thing Every eminent holy and wise Presbyter is a real Arch-bishop in Gods Church This he would be were there no Christian Magistracy to uphold him There is a subjection due from one Pastor to another as from one man to another 1 Pet. 5.5 As it will not stand with true Christian humility self-denyal and subjection to Christ in all things that Pastors do dominate over Pastors and Lord it over their Brethren 1 Pet. 5.3 So it will not stand with the same Christian graces and duties for one Minister of inferior and smaller parts gifts and graces not to acknowledg the greater gifts and graces of others whom God hath made more eminent There is as great variety of Pastors as there is of Men and of Saints some are as eyes some as hands some as feet in Gods Church The weakest sincere Christian Pastor is a Pastor as truly as the highest and most excellent Pastor and is of use in his place In this there is no difference between the most eminent Arch-bishop Vsher and the meanest honest Parish-Minister But then as to wisdom and holiness and usefulness there is great difference and inequality and out of this ariseth natural simple divine and unchangeable Prelacy Episcopacy and Arch-episcopacy which is not a thing pleasing to flesh and blood and it doth neither favour nor make against any of the three forms of Church-government called Prelacy Presbytery and Independency further than they do favour or be against true impartial godliness of which this divine and simple Prelacy among Divines is one essential branch I do not say it is an appendant or appurtenant of Godliness and Religion but is an essential branch It is of the essence of my Religion that I put a difference as between a godly and ungodly Pastor so also between a godly Pastor that is almost ungodly and hath but one talent of godliness and a godly Pastor who is of the highest rank of godly Pastors and is full of the wisdom and grace and joy of the Holy Ghost and is of extraordinary usefulness and eminency in Gods Church We must not for fear of inclining to the Popes lordliness and supremacy run into another dangerous extream and tempt Infants to think they are Men and Scholars to think that they are fit to be Teachers and Learning Disciples Novices and Children that they are equal in wisdom and knowledg to their Parents Masters and Tutors between whom there is no compare 35. I make no doubt but there have been holy and eminent men Lord-bishops and Arch-bishops Peers in Parliament God forbid that I should think or say otherwise But either they were no more but meer and simple Bishops and Arch-bishops chosen and singled forth from among their Brethren to be consulted with in matters and cases ecclesiastical and proper for Divines and Bishops or they were more If the former and they kept in the rank and station of Bishops and Divines for my part I am not he that shall oppose it And if there be any word in all this disputation against such use of Bishops and Divines indictum volo I wish it unsaid But if they were more and took themselves to be more than simple Bishops and Pastors in Gods Church and to be superior to their brethren in power and authority if they took themselves
Under the Law all their Ministers were chosen out of one tribe the Tribe of Levi It is not so under the Gospel The Jews Commonwealth was a Theocricy it was Divine and from God not only their Church-laws and institutions but even their political judicial and civil statutes and sanctions were from God And it was the same thing or office among them to be a Divine and a Lawyer to declare what was Religion and Divinity and what was law and right between party and party And thence it was that the High Priest and other inferior Priests and Levites were made not coercive and revenging Judges and Magistrates Deut. 16.18 Ezra 7.25 but a sort of spiritual Lawyers and Casuits to teach the people what was Law right and wrong and to decide in cases and questions concerning matters Ecclesiastical and Civil right as seems evident from Deut. 17.8 9 10 11 12. 2 Chron. 19.5 6 7 8 9 10 11. In those times it was counted for a hainous crime for any man to invade the Priests Office Vzzah for putting his hand to uphold the Ark when the Oxen shook it was smitten dead And King Vzziah for attempting to burn Incense in the Temple which was not lawful for any but the Priests to do was withstood by fourscore valient men who were Priests and the Lord smote him with Leprosie for his insolency and he continued a Leper to the day of his death living in a several house And I think it cannot be proved that it was ordinary with Gods people then to make Magistrates Ministers and Ministers Magistrates but these Offices were kept distinct and intire and no man ordinarily was entrusted with both I do further add That those Laws and Customs of the Jews they do no further oblige Christian people than they are significative of the Law of Nature and so are Laws universal founded in natural equity and are laws and rules of perpetual order and observance Jew and Gentile by the coming of Christ are made one The Jews Temple Commonwealth Church-rites and Institutions are ceased expired and an end is put to them There is a new ministration come in and substituted in their room more glorious and excellent more proper for and suited to the Church universal consisting of Jew and Gentile of Nations and People and Languages throughout the World There is now but one Law and that is the Law of Nature and Christianity which is not two but one entire Law or way of governing mankind under Jesus Christ supream under God in Heaven and in Earth and who himself also is God By Kings and Princes as supream and subordinate-Rulers and Magistrates under them and by Christian Pastors Guides and Bishops of Souls Magistrates to do what is pertaining to their Office and no more Pastors also to do what pertaineth to their Office and no more Besides the Jews having their judicial and political Laws shortly and compendiously framed into one body by God himself it was no distraction to the Priests and Clergy then to study those Laws as a part of their Divinity and become able to decide in Causes and Questions of civil Right and Judicature But with us of this Nation the study of the Law is become very laborious some are ready to say Frius vitiis laboravimus nunc legibus A man cannot be a good Judge Chancellour nor Justice of Peace nor bear any considerable Office in the Common-wealth without insight into the Law the Statute Law which is a vast body of Laws and every Parliament is adding new ones and the Common-Law and Customs of the Realm and of pâ—rticular Courts and Places the knowledg whereof cannot be attained with little pains and time and study and without some experience We have Inns of Court among us It is made a distinct profession and order of men among us to be men skillâ—â— in the Law The Laws and Customs of England are so intricate and hard to be well known that it would be a great â—istraction to a Divine to give himself to those Studies and when he has done he might perhaps attain to some scraps and pieces to make him a Sciolus a Novice therein so much as might serve him for his own private use but hardly could he attain to so much as to make him ripe and judicious and knowing enough to be a Judg or Magistrate And ignorantia Judicis est calamitas innocentis An ignorant Judge or Magistrate cannot but do much wrong and pervert judgment for want of knowledg A Lawyer may far better be a Divine than a Divine can be a Lawyer Indeed no man can be a good Divine or Lawyer that is not a good Christian and learned in the Laws of God the Law of Nature and Christianity what it is to be under Law to God and live under his Government To be a right Divine is to be a heavenly Lawyer But this a man may be and be ignorant of a thousand quirks and points and matters in the Laws and Customs of England They are so many and so intricate and so uncertain and so out of the road of Divinity and the knowledg and study of universal right that it would be against conscience and faithfulness in a Minister to give himself to the study of them and without giving himself to the study of them he cannot attain to the knowledg of them competent for an English Judg and Political Magistrate 14. Arg. 7. There are able men enough to be Judges and Magistrates but there is a great defect of Ministers and therefore it cannot consist with wisdom and expediency that I say not with conscience and honesty to rob the Church to make the State and Commonwealth luxuriate That there are able men enough to be Judges and Magistrates and to serve in all offices of the Commonwealth is either true or it is some reproach to the Nobles Gentry and Commons of England Cannot you do all the offices of the Common-wealth serve as Magistrates Judges and Rulers and bear the Sword and see to the common peace and quiet of the Nation having the direction advice and endeavours of Pastours both in publick and private as Pastours and no more unless withall Pastours be made Judges and Magiâ—â—rates too and come into your aid Surely then you are a degenerate seed you are not Christian Nobles Gentry and Commons Let us pray for you and pity you If there be able men enough to bear the Sword and serve in all offices of the Common-wealth why should Ministers Bishops and Clergy-men be called from their employments and spiritual function when there is an unobserved want of Ministers throughout all the Nation The work of a Bishop Minister and Pastour of Souls is to do all the ordinary Lords day work in publick which to do well and substantially will take up no small part of his chiefest time thoughts and pains But this is not all nor near all of his work for he is to watch over every Soul 2 Tim.