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
who are all consenting to the Law and concerned that justice be duely executed on some evil Members for the good of the whole So that the several degrees and subordinations in the ancient Church of Christ even long before the first Nicene Council as there is expressed among Churchmen and Bishops against which some have made so loud and ridiculous clamors were chiefly for this end as Mr. Calvin and others have as ingenuously as truely observed that the holy correspondency of all Christians and all Churches in one Faith and Truth in one Spirit and Power might not onely be most evident to the world but most aptly carried on and preserved against all Factions Variations and Divisions that they might by these means be known to be of one heart and mind in the Lord that they might all speak the same things and walk in the same steps that what one condemned all might in the same spirit condemn what one forgave all might forgive that none might upon any private passions either excommunicate others by injurious abscission or themselves by voluntary separation or make new confederacies and associations with those who are either deserters of the Catholick Communion or justly excommunicated from it which distempers of Ignorance and Impatience and Imprudence among Christians have brought as we see this great power of the Keyes and this exercise of Christian Discipline so far into contempt that no man almost regards it from any hand every one daring to make what retortions they please and to excommunicate any one or more yea and whole Churches that do excommunicate them for any the most notorious errors and insolencies Thus as the Popes of Rome heretofore so the people now in many places challenge to themselves this power against their Neighbours and Brethren yea against their Preachers and Bishops against the Fathers that begat them and the Mother Church which did bear them So that I confesse there is not so much cause of terror as of pitty in most Excommunications as they are now managed by private and unauthoritative spirits O what sorrow what shame is it to see so Sacred so Solemn so Divine so Dreadfull an Institution vilified and nullified which was designed for the health and welfare of the Church of Christ by just and necessary severiâ—ies when it was as it ought to be soberly applyed by wise holy and impartiall Governours of the Church in the name of Christ in the Catholick Spirit or consent of all Orthodox Bishops Presbyters and people which was able to shake Heaven and Hel to open and shut the Everlasting doores of Salvation or Damnation according as the penitency or impenitency of offenders did appeare To see this flaming sword which was put by Christ into the Cherubims hand those that were the Angels of his Church to keep the way of the tree of life to see this made the scare-crow and scorne of vile men the sport of petulant and peevish Spirits who neither fear to inflict Excommunication upon whom they list as much as lies in their impotent malice nor yet to suffer it from the most Just Impartiall and Authoritative hands in the world from whom being once proudly separated they fancy they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the reach and danger of this just terror and the others true Authority as lawfull Bishops or Governours of the Church whose heavy sentence if I should incurre so far that any one true Bishop with his Clergy should passe it against me upon just grounds of my scandalous and obstinate sinning against God and his Church according to the ancient rightfull and lawfull way of such proceedings in the Name and Spirit of Jesus Christ to which all true Christians in this Church and in all the world do submit and assent I confess I should much more fear living and dying to lye under such a censure and sentence than to be condemned in my Estate Liberty or Life by any Court of humane Justice which reacheth not to the Souls eternal estate as Excommunication rightly managed doth it being a most undoubted Oracle of our Lord Jesus Christ that whose sins the Apostles and their lawful successors as Rulers of the Church do bind on Earth they are bound in Heaven Who their lawful and authoritative successors have been are and ought to be in all Ages and places of the Church is evident to all that have any fear of God or reverence of his Catholick Churches Testimony This is certain as Excommunication carries with it the joynt spirit and suffrage of the whole Church and every true Member of it either explicitly or implicitly so the regular and authoritative managing of it was ever from the respective Bishops Authority and Order as chief Pastors in every Church to whose fatherly care and Inspection with the counsel of their Presbyters the Flock of Christ is committed especially as to the discreet use of such Discipline as highly concerns the salvation or damnation the hopes or despair the binding or loosing the abscission or restauration of any part which ought not to be judged determined and executed by every private spirit of Minister or people but by such venerable Bishops and their Presbyters as have the authentick transmission of the Apostles ordinary governing power delivered to them as from Christ being in this like the Judges in commission for Life and Death though the Sentence be the Laws and the power the chief Magistrates and the transaction or publication in the Face of the County to which all the Bench of Justices the Jury and other honest Men do tacitly give their votes and assent yet is the Cognizance and Examination of the merits of the Cause and the judicial solemn Declaration of the Sentence committed specially to the Judge both in respect of his learned Abilities and known Integrity also for the Honor and Order which are necessary to be observed in proceedings of so great concernment to Mankind as are matters of Life and Death Such is the power such ought to be the procedure of all due Excommunication such they were in the purest and primitive times when all Christians all Congregations all Presbyters all Bishops all particular Churches were so united that as many Spokes make but one Wheel and many Stones one Building and many Members one Body so these made but one Church in the same Faith the same Baptism the same Ministry the same Spirit the same Order the same Power the same Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ From which Blessed Harmony and Spirituall Communion if any Christian or any particular Congregation or any part of the Church as those of the Donatistick party and the Novatians in Africa with others either proudly passionately and peevishly did separate themselves or were deservedly separated by the just censure of any part of the true Church and thenceforth falling to mangling of all by mutuall Excommunications so as to fly in the faces of their lawfull Bishops and Pastors or else turne their backs on them
by learned and godly men Bishops and other Ministers were notably discovered and by some Christian Princes or States happily amended with great order and by due authority as in other places so no where with more Wisdom Justice and Moderation than in England Where as in most of the Churches protesting against the Roman deformities especially those of the Lutheran denomination the ancient Orders and Authority both of Bishops and Presbyters were preserved as is evident in the Augustane confession which finds no fault with but highly approves the Government of the Church by Bishops under Episcopacy provided Bishops would joyn in a just Reformation of those gross abuses which were the Churches intolerable grievances as well as the dishonour of Christian Religion and Christian Bishops whose deserved Honours Estates and Eminencies in Authority they saw no cause to envie grudge or diminish So far were these first Reformers from hewing down Episcopacy as if it cumbred the ground that they onely digged about it and mended it that it might bring forth good fruit as it did in England and elsewhere While the Western Churches Reformation was yet but crude and in motion by Luthers means there arose Mr. John Calvin about the Year 1541. a man of good Learning acute Wit copious Eloquence great Industry quick Passions sharp Pen of reputed Piety and of no less Policy Him the people of Geneva thought the fittest man in the world to settle their distracted Church and State after they had with the wonted arts of tumultuating and discontented people forced Eustace their Bishop and Prince to flye from his Palace and City his Bishoprick and his Seigniorie because he would not presently gratifie them with such a Reformation as they imperiously demanded rather than modestly desired Mr. Calvin as Mr. R. Hooker hath excellently set it forth undertook with much difficulty and after many indignities worthy of popular levity fury and petulancy put upon him to settle their Church-affairs together with the civil State in such order as he thought not most Scriptural primitive and Catholick but most prudential plausible and probable in humane reason and honest policy to take and hold the tumultuating inconstancy of that people so to bring them to something of civil and religious order acting herein not upon any Wiclefian or the after Presbyterian and Antiepiscopal Principles as imagining either Episcopacy to be unlawful or sole Presbytery to be necessary as of Divine Institution neither of which were his judgement as is sufficiently and vehemently declared by his passionate approbation of reformed Bishops and his esteeming so honourably of regular Episcopacy that he passeth all Anathemas or curses on those that are against them so far was Calvin from laying the Axe to the root of this Tree which with Christianity had ever as he confessed born Episcopacy But he rather went upon Erastian principles and politick grounds looking it seems upon the Government of the Church as he did upon the Lords-day which is not elder nor more authentick or Catholick as to the Churches use and observation than Episcopacy to be in their nature mutable as of Ecclesiastick yet Divine prescription according as Times Occasions and Minds of men might fall out He well knew being a learned man and oft confesseth in his Writings the primitive blessing and universal authority of presidential Episcopacy in all Churches yet he neither thought it nor any forme of Government any more than clothes to be essential to the substance and body or any Church or of the Christian Religion but variable to several forms and polities as prudence might invite or necessity require so that he never set up any soveraign and unepiscopal Presbytery as an Idol or Moloch to which not onely the children but the Fathers of the Churches even very godly and reformed Bishops were all sacrificed He thought it did not misbecome his policy and prudence to serve the times and humors of the Citizens so far as to seem to vary the outward mode of their and all other Churches ancient government provided he served the Lord and that people in setling such a government as might preserve the Christian Reformed Religion among them in true Doctrine and good Manners which was the main work which Calvin seemed to mind most To have reconciled the City and their former Bishop was a matter impossible unless he or they had changed their minds in Religion to have perswaded them to elect a new Prince and Bishop of their own profession and opinion had been very imprudent considering either the fair offers they made to himself of being not titularly indeed but virtually and really both the Prince and Prelate or remembring that strong fancy of Liberty which had now so filled and intoxicated all sorts of Citizens In the last place to have set up himself in the pomp and formalities of a Bishop and a Prince had been an act of too much Impudence and Envy for a person of his Ingenuity Policy and Dexterity in publick managements it sufficed his design so far to gratifie both the Populacy with seeming Liberty and the Optimacy with some civil and Magistratick Authority all of them with such reformed purity in Religion as most pleased them and yet to keep up himself and his collegues of the Ministry to such an height of Ecclesiastical Influence and Church-power as made them far from being either slaves to the Vulgar or cyphers to the Government for all cases civil and criminal as well as religious were one way or other reducible and so responsible either by way of comprimising or upon scandal or repentance or satisfaction to the cognizance and consistory of him and his collegues himself being as the Caesar they as his Bibuli In effect his Wisdom Reputation Eloquence and Courage set him up in Geneva and other places to so high an eminency of respect and authority as he equalled yea exceeded most Bishops however his pomp train and pension were but small after the usual bounty expectable from any State or City that list to make their Reformations of Religion compleat by robbing the Church and Clergy of their ancient Lands and Revenues which doubtless in that City had been so great and princely as upon the confiscation of them to their Town-box or Exchequer they might well have allowed Mr. Calvin their great Reformer and chief Pastor and his Associates a Salary much beyond an hundred pounds per ann with a little provision of Corn. But he wisely dissembled this Indignity finding that as Riches Pomp and Luxury had undone former Bishops so a voluntary kind of Poverty and Austerity would now best conciliate to him and his collegues a greater Reverence and Authority nor was it considerable to have a gay or rich scabbard provided they had sharp and well metall'd swords their Ambition was rather to intend Gods work in reforming Religion of its Leprosie with Elisha than in taking mans rewards with Gehazi In this Presbyterian Prelacy or Prelatick Presbytery
a steddy judgement and unpopular spirit who pressed upon his Unepiscopal much more against his Antiepiscopal Presbytery so strongly that he forced his Antagonist to stoop and subscribe to Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy yea and to acknowledge Bishops even from the Apostles dayes to have been the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ◠Presidents or chief Rulers among Presbyters in all Churches Mr. Beza's Essayes not so much to have undermined Episcopacy as to have fixed or earthed his Presbytery better being thus notably countermined yet upon his very breaking the earth and promising at least pretending to spring some rich Mine of Scripture and Antiquity to prove if not the sole yet at least the concurrent Divine right of Presbytery on both sides of it both as to its preaching ruling Elders as stamped with the mark of Christ and his Apostles besides his and others terrifying the world as if Popery had begun with Prelacy and Antichrist had sucked the breasts of Episcopacy it is not imaginable what industrious Pioneers and Souldiers followed these charms this alarme for Presbytery against Episcopacy who sifting every name of Bishop Presbyter Elder Evangelist Messenger Apostle Prophet Pastor Teacher Ruler Governments Helps c. in Scripture and Antiquity found or fancied upon all of them something that made very much if not onely for Presbytery and very much if not wholly against Episcopacy so far that they would not allow so much as the twelve or thirteen prime Apostles any Episcopal Presidency Eminency or Authority above the seventy Disciples or any Presbyters whom they ordained much less any Bishop after them above the youngest meanest and pettiest Presbyter rather suspecting yea aspersing all Antiquity even in the primitive and purest times for Ignorance and Error or Falsity and Ambition in following the Catholick custom of Episcopacy after the great Apostolical pattern which was in them given to all Churches by the Spirit of Christ and after continued by the Apostles own appointment than any way admitting any Innovation Flaw or Defect to be in their new-formed Presbytery Heats unhappily growing great and Eruptions many from the Etna or Vesuvius of mens passions the sulphur and ashes at last came from Geneva Franckfort and Edenborough over to England where at first they onley fell upon the square Caps and Rochets of our excellent reformed and reforming Bishops but at last they flew in their very Faces and Eyes without any respect to their Age Learning Piety Sanctity and Martyrly Constancy besides the honourable places they still held both in Church and State according to our Laws For the Undertakers for the Cause as they called it of Jesus Christ first picking at the outworks of Ceremonies next at the spiriritual Courts or Jurisdictions of Bishops after that at the excellent Liturgy at last they laid amain at the whole Body as well as the Branches of Episcopacy going much further than ever their first Founders of Presbytery abroad or the modester Non-conformists at home ever designed or desired Thus a bolder Generation of men stopping their ears against all the charms of Scripture Antiquity Universality Prudence personal Merits publick Blessings and all proportions of Government and Polity only urging a peremptory necessity and a self-inforcing novelty perfected that in a dreadful War which was neither begun nor promoted nor desired by the chief Magistrate nor by his chief Council in its pristine fulness and freedom nor ever before was acted in any reformed Church whatsoever against their reformed Bishops After much bustling and blood-shed in perilous times this crooked and low shrub of Presbytery which having never much thriven or grown handsomly in Scotland or in any other Kingdom where it had been happily and handsomly grafted by King James with a renewed and well-reformed Episcopacy this bitten mangled and mis-shapen was brought over on the swords point and wrapped up in the cover of a Covenant as Plants in Mats to be set in this good soyl of England after sweating Smectymnuus and the industrious Assembly with many Heads Hands Tongues and Pens had digged and prepared the ground for it by gaining the minds of some wel-affected Members in the two Houses and others in other places About the Year 1649. the Fasces Imperiales and the Sacrae Secures the Holy Rods and Imperial Axes of Presbytery were displayed to England in their Ruling and Teaching Elders in their High and Mighty Consistories Parochial Classical Provincial National Oecumenical for the Presbyterian power was in all the world to prevail against Episcopacy as Daniels He-goat did against the Ram casting him to the ground and stamping upon him Every Presbyter young and old ripe and raw was to have not onely a sword in his mouth but a switch of correption in his hand which lest he should use too rashly and sharply he was to be pinioned and surrounded with certain Lay-Elders each of them furnished also with a Rod of Disciplinarian or ruling power equal to the Minister All this dreadful dispensation of Presbyterian discipline was pontifically and punctually set out by many discourses to the no small wonder of all wise men who knew the disproportions to all Government generally which were both in younger Ministers and in most Lay-men of plain parts and plebeian breeding such as in most places these herds of ruling Elders must be into whom the spirit of Government must presently enter And no less terrible was this paradox and parado of Presbyterian Discipline and Severity even to Common-people yea and to the most of the ablest Gentry and Nobility except some few whose itch and ambition of a Lay-elderships place had possibly biassed them to smile upon their persons and their now Presbytery to which they were invited solemnly to be Gossips Thus armed and marshalled in its Ranks and Regiments Presbytery began to hasten its March in its might furiously enough setting up its Conventions Ordinations Jurisdictions trying the metal and temper of its Censures by Ebaptizations Correptions Abstentions Excommunications and new Examinations even of ancient Christians old and eminent Disciples to whom they had formerly given the Sacrament twenty times some of which they sought to win by fair speeches some people they perswaded others they menaced and scared to submit to their new Scepter Daily Intelligences and brotherly Correspondencies were zealously kept every where very quick and warm among the Presbyterian Fraternity Bishops never so aged learned unblameable venerable and meritorious for their Labours and good Examples were as Underlings and conquered Vassals not so much as pittied but despised and trampled under foot exautorated and vilified by every young stripling that had got the switch of Presbytery in his hand which he saw now was beyond the Bishops Keyes or Crosier Presbytery thus driving at Jehu's rate for some time some of its wheels or pins like Pharaohs began to drop off which forced it to drive more heavily than its natural genius can well bear being spirited like Ezekiel's wheels with so
enemies rivals and extirpaters of the ancient Clergie and Ecclesiastick order in England can pretend the true Ministers Bishops and Presbyters of this Christian and Reformed Church doe challenge use and maintaine no other power priviledge or authority Ecclesiasticall than what they have duly and constantly received in the way of holy orders from their predecessors hands who have descended from the very Apostles dayes Nor are they such Monopolizers or appropriators of this power and office ministeriall to their own persons or to such onely as are formall Academicks professed Scholars and University Graduates as not willingly to admit into that holy Order and Fraternity by the right and Catholick way of due ordination not onely any worthy Gentlemen of competent parts pious affections and orderly lives whose hearts God shall move to so holy an ambition to desire so good a work but even those that are of plebeian proportions of meaner parts and less improved erudition provided they be found upon due trial to have acquired such competent abilities by Gods blessing upon their private industry and studious piety as may render them meet for any place or work in Christs husbandry where one may sow another may water a third may weed a fourth may fense the Church and Vineyard according to the severall gifts and dispensations ministred by the same Spirit and power of Christ which ought to be dispensed and carried on not in an arbitrary rude and precarious usurpation and intrusion but in an authoritative orderly and decent derivation succession for the honor profit peace of the Church of Christ Certainly no worthy Minister or sober Christian can so undervalue and debase those Evangelicall offices of Christ which are exercised by his ordained Ministers as to think that every self-flatterer and obtruder is presently to officiate without any due examination approbation and ordination from those with whom that commission and power hath been ever deposited in a regular and visible succession from Christ the great exemplar or Original which visible order mission and delegation is as necessary for the outward unity authority solemnity and majesty of Christs militant Church and Ministry upon earth as the workings of his blessed Spirit are for the inward operation and efficacie of true grace in mens hearts So that as no private and good Christian hath any cause to complain in this part of the Bishops and Ministers of the Church of England who in dispensing of holy orders or ministeriall power acted after the Catholick pattern of Primitive Churches no less than the particular constitutions of this Church allowed by all estates and degrees of men no more have any secular Powers or civil Magisrates who are or shall be professors of true Christian Religion any cause to be jealous of the ancient Bishops and Ministers of the Church nor shall they need either out of conscience or reasons of state to pervert and innovate that pristine course and regular succession of ministeriall authority yea as worthy Christians and wise Governours they ought both in piety and policy in honour and conscience to be no less exact in preserving this sacred order and divine authority from alteration invasion and usurpation than they are for their own civil power and secular jurisdiction which the renowned patterns of Christian Potentates Constantine Theodosius and other great and godly Princes were so far from arrogating to their imperiall power that they humbly submitted themselves to the order and power Ecclesiasticall in the things of Christ highly esteeming and venerating that Apostolick race of Bishops and Presbyters in the Church as the great Luminaries of the world the constant witnesses of Christs life and death the celebraters of his mysterious sufferings grace and glory the ministerial Fathers and confirmers of Christians faith as terrestiall Angels as Gods gracious Ambassadors for pardon and peace as Christs speciall commissioners appointed for to carry on the great work of saving mens souls Just and generous Princes if they be truly Christian cannot be so partial as to forbid any man under the highâ—st pain and penalty of high treason and death it self to challenge to himself any part of their civil or military power without a due commission derived either from themselves immediately or from those to whom they have deputed power for such ends and purposes which order they permit no man to violate or usurp however conceitedly or really able he may seem to be to himself or others for the managing of such power and yet permit such persons as are for the most part heady and high-minded insolent and disorderly to intrude themselves by a meer usurpation upon that sacred office authority and Ministry which is Christs without any due and solemn derivation of this power in such a way as hath ever been Apostolick Primitive Catholick and onely authentick in the Churches of Christ Certainly the rude innovation and usurpation upon this office and honour merits above any boldness as Nilus in Balsamon expresseth it that black brand of the last and perillous times when men shall be emphatically Traytors not onely to men but to Christ not onely to Common-weals but to Churches disobedient to parents not onely naturall and politick but also spirituall and ecclesiastick violating and betraying not onely the visible peace order uniformity and successive authority of the Church but the invisible comforts quiet and grace of poor peoples souls who must needs be at a great loss in a very sad and shamefull case as to their Religion where their spirituall leaders and shepherds are usurpers intruders clamberers not coming into the sheep-fold by the door of right ordination but climbing some other way as thieves and robbers when their titular and intruding Pastors prove either grievous wolves or miserable asses as they commonly are found to be who are not admitted by due ordination but crowd into the Ministry by rude and novell obtrusions so domineering over the flock of Christ over whom not the holy Ghost by an ordinary derived power and authority but their own unruly spirits have made them not so much over-seers of others as either stark blind or grosly over-seen in themselves CHAP. X. THe sense of this High Treason against Christ and of those sinfull disorders which men bring on themselves the Church of Christ by their intrusion usurpation upon this ministeriall power and office makes me here seriously suggest to You my honoured and beloved Country-men this religious caution That it very much concerns you for your own and your posterities souls good to be very wary not to be imposed upon and abused by vulgar pretensions of zeal and Christian liberty in this point of the Ministry but to be vigilant with whom you intrust as Ministers your own your childrens or any other peoples souls where you are Patrons of Livings And since your own prudent abilities for learning piety and experience are so modest as not rashly to adventure upon this
not but be an excellent meanes to advance the Majesty Purity Power and Profession of Christian and Reformed Religion as otherwhere so chiefly in England whose happinesse and honor in this point might as I humbly conceive be easily recovered by some such expediency in Church-Government whose excellent temper should answer all the honest desires and reall interests of all Godly people of modest Presbyters of wise Bishops and of just Princes whose wisdom and authority might easily by the advise of all Estates both Civill and Ecclesiastick so restore Unity Tranquillity and Authority to the Church of England that no worthy Christians of any perswasion Episcopall Presbyterian or Independent should have any cause to complain of either neglect or oppression which cannot befall any party in respect of their just pretensions and equable desires if regard be had to the Primitive pattern of Episcopacy which included the priviledges and satisfactions of all degrees both of Ministers and people The complaints of oppression arise from the later innovations or invasions made by one party against the reall or pretended rights and immunities of the other which my designe is on all hands to unite and mutually preserve by a regular prudent complete moderate and yet authoritative way of Church-Government which is no where to be found but in a well-constituted Episcopacy In a designe wholly for reconciliation and atonement between moderate and pious men of all sides I know the way is not partially to over-value or passionately to undervalue any thing that is alledged by sober men on any side conducing to the common good Therefore I do not I cannot in prudence or conscience so prefer the eminency of Episcopacy as to neglect or oppresse the just rights of worthy Presbyters or the ingenuous satisfactions of Christian people neither of which are to be despised or rejected but cherished and preserved no lesse than the Authority of Bishops which at the highest must be as of one that serveth the Lord Christ and the Church not insulteth against either the Grave and Elder sort of Ministers ought to be treated by the Bishop as brethren the younger sort as Sons The reall interests of all are in my judgement best preserved when they are least scattered or divided but bound up in the same peaceable Polity or holy Harmony which I call the Primitive and complete Episcopacy ever esteemed by the Catholick Church for its excellent wisdom order and usefulness to have been at least of Apostolicall Edition both preceptive and exemplary in its Primitive impression the errata's which by long decurrence of time through many mens hands have befaln it are easily corrected and amended by men of Apostolick Spirits and Primitive tempers For my part I heartily desire humby endeavour and unfeinedly advise for such a blessed accommodation as may satisfie the just designes and honest interests of all good men I am infinitely grieved to see them threaten one another with eternall distances and this Church with everlasting differences and distractions of which I am the more jealous and sensible by what I observe either of rigor or reservednesse in some men of Episcopall Presbyterian and Independent principles who had rather lose the whole game of the Reformed Religion and this Churches Recovery than abate one ace of their high fancies and demands Where Episcopall Divines do remit much of modern advantages and condescend to the most innocent models of Primitive Episcopacy yet still they find many Presbyterians and Independents so died in graine as to their particular parties principles and adherencies that they will not yet endure any thing that hath the least colour or tincture name or title of Episcopacy Some viler sort of men study nothing more than to render the venerable Names of Bishops and Episcopacy odious and the more there is pleaded for their innocency or excellency as Pilate did for Jesus when he found no fault in him the more they clamor with the Jewes Crucifie crucifie And all this lest forsooth some Godly Ministers of the new stamps and models should lose any thing of that popular glosse and lustre whereby they fancy themselves to shine and glister like money new-minted among some people in their private spheares hence some of them grow so cruelly cunning that neither in Charity nor Policy they will endure any closure or treaty with Episcopacy under any notion notwithstanding that they pretend to twist their Associations with the three-fold cords of all moderate men differing still in some principles yet concurring in one grand end for the publick peace as they tell us when yet nothing can intreate them to wish to speak or think well of Episcopacy in any state or constitution Some fervent or fierce men profess such a jealousy of Antichrist in Episcopasy that they cast away all that is of Christ in it They fear an Apostacy if they should returne to the Apostolick Polity which is Episcopacy There are that urge it best for the Piety Peace and Honor of this Nation to have no united Church no Ecclesiasticall Unity which should be Nationall no uniforme or setled Religion but to let every one invent adhere to and advance that party and opinion which they like best so immoveable are they by any experiences of our mischiefes or any remonstrances of Piety Prudence and Charity for a publick composure in Religion From the restive temper of these men I can expect nothing more than that equanimity which will bear at least with Episcopacy in such as can bear with Presbytery or Independency in them If they find it so blessed a Liberty to serve the Lord as they list in those new Church-waies whereof they so much boast and glory why should they envy or how can they in conscience grudge to allow the Godly and honest Episcopall Clergy and other Christians who are in no virtue grace or gift inferior to them to partake of and use the like freedom as is either granted to or used and presumed by Presbytery and Independency Why should they so spitefully obstruct and hinder that concession to Episcopacy which is indulged or challenged to all sorts of novelties and varieties Possibly God in time would decide which is the best way if Episcopacy as Eliah might bring its offering to the Altar as well as others do It may be in a few yeares Providence would shew which way pleaseth him most by his enclining the hearts of good Christians to embrace and follow what hath most of Gods Order and Wisdome of Christs Institution of Apostolick imitation of Catholick Tradition or Custome and of the Churches union all which meet onely in Primitive Episcopacy But this way as it may be dilatory and tedious so it may be dangerous and pernicious as to the welfare of both Church and State for there can be no division in Religion without emulation no emulation without opposition no opposition without ambition no ambition without animosity no animosity without offence no offence without anger and studies
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
Directory of Ecclesiasticall prudence and practise 8. What if the Great God of order peace and truth as well as so many learned and godly men so many famous and flourishing Churches in all Ages should by beating or scaring men from their popular prejudices pitiful subterfuges and sinister designes thus mightily plead the cause of true Episcopacy against all those who have spoken and done so many perverse things against that excellent government What if he should by some powerful means rebuke their confidences as he did Job's justly demanding of these Destroyers Where is that Wisdom that Modesty that Gentleness that Charity that Moderation that Humility that Gravity and Christian Caution which became godly men to their betters to such a Church and to such worthy Bishops as were the Governours of it under God and the King Could you be ignorant of the learning graces virtues merits and worth which were in Bishops suitable to their lawful Autority Did you not know and with some repining see how justly they were preferred before Presbyters and People as every way fittest to be over and above them Are these immoderations and injuries the wayes of true Religion and Reformation Can there be true piety without charity yea without equity or pitty If evil men are not to be injured much less good men good Ministers and least of all good Bishops which were not wanting among you May not thus the lightnings of Gods rebukes be clearly seen and the terrors of his thunders be justly heard and the blastings of his displeasure be felt by all the unjust tumultuary malicious and implacable enemies of venerable Episcopacy Methinks I hear the Divine Majesty thus uttering his glorious voice against them O foolish People O unthankful Nation O degenerous Christians or deformed Church not worthy to be beloved of God or happily governed by wise men Do you thus requite the Lord and thus despise all the ancient Churches of Christ by forsaking yea rejecting your own mercies and happiness Is it a small thing that you have broken through all Laws and the arm of mans civil authority but will you also contend against the power of God and the wisdom of Christ whose out-stretched arm in the way of Episcopacy hath been in all Ages a defence and refuge to his Church Should you beyond the boldnesse of Balaam dare to curse what God hath not cursed or to defie what God hath not defied but signally owned with his blessing in all Ages and Churches In seeing do you not see and in reading do you not understand the constant methods of Gods guiding and governing both this and all other Christian Churches How hath a novel zeal but not according to knowledge blinded your minds Who called the first Apostles to be chief Bishops over all Churches Who supplied the Apostasie of Judas by the Election of Matthias to his Episcopacy Upon whom did the power of the Holy Ghost first come Who placed Bishops immediately after them in all completed Churches through the world What planted preserved united and reformed them but that Apostolical that is the Episcopal autority assisted by such Presbyters whom they ordained to part of the Office Labour Honour and Ministry Who were the chief Champions of the Gospel but the venerable Bishops in all Ages Who were the most resolute Confessors holy Bishops Who the most glorious Martyrs excellent Bishops Who were the most Learned and Valiant Asserters of the Orthodox faith Primitive purity sanctity order and harmony becoming Christian Churches but admirable Bishops Who were counted the prime Starres in the hand of Christ Who were called by way of eminency Angels by him but the chief Presidents and Bishops of the seven Churches To whom was Divine Power first given and after derived not onely to teach and feed but to ordain Presbyters and Deacons also to rebuke rule and govern both Presbyters Deacons and People as St. Paul enjoynes but to holy Bishops in the persons and patterns of Timothy and Titus Archippus and others whose Authority as such no man ought to despise Who were they that wounded and destroyed the Great Behemoth and Leviathans of prodigious errors and spreading heresies in the four first Centuries but incomparable Bishops such as were Irenaeus Athanasius Epiphanius Augustine Ambrose Hilary Prosper both the Cyrils the Basils the Gregories and others Who quenched the wild-fires of Schisme and faction among Christian people and Ministers but excellent Bishops such as Clemens Ignatius Cyprian both the Dionysiu's Austin Optatus Fulgentius and others By whose sweat and blood next after the Apostles were the plantations and necessary Reformations of Churches watered and weeded but by the vigilancy and industry of worthy Bishops both in their single capacity and in their joynt Synods or Councills wherein Bishops as the Representatives or chief Fathers of all Churches as the families of Christ might orderly meet duly deliberate and autoritatively determine what seemed good to the Spirit of God and to them for the Churches Purity and Peace according to the Scriptures precept and Catholick practise Who were those renowned Pastors and Preachers of old that mitigated the Spirits of great Princes that converted many Nations that baptized mighty Kings and Emperours that advanced the Gospel beyond their Empires and set up the Crosse of Christ above their Crownes not in soveraignty or civill power but in the Divine Empire of Verity Sanctity and Charity Who moderated the Spirits and passions of persecutors Who convinced them of their errors resolved their scruples who condemned their sins who terrified their consciences and who either raised or restored them through repentance to the peace of Christ and his Church but heroick wise and invincible Bishops Who have been the chief Luminaries in all Churches in all Ages the Chariots and Horsemen of Israel the prime Pillars of Piety and Peace of Hospitality and Honour of Order and good Government but wise and renowned Bishops Who furnished all Churches with fervent Prayers devout Liturgies convenient Catechises learned Homilies practical Sermons accurate Commentaries and excellent Epistles with sound Decisions of Controversies and Cases arising in the Church or any private Conscience Who made up with charitable Composures all uncomfortable breaches and unkind differences among Christians but pious and prudent Bishops whose autority was ever esteemed as sacred being experienced in all Ages to be sanative and soveraign to Religion and the Church where they had freedom and encouragements to act as became the chief Pastors Counsellors and Governours of the Church in all Ecclesiastick concernments Sure if God would have them utterly destroyed he would not so long have accepted such sacrifices from the hands of Bishops both ancient and modern nor thus mightily have pleaded the cause of Episcopacy in all Ages and in this both as to Gods wisdom in and his blessing upon that way of Church-government and Governours But possibly our later Bishops especially in England whose cause is here chiefly pleaded were such
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
upon this Church for want of that vigor and authority of Episcopacy which had been the great defense under God the King and the Laws against those foul and filthy inundations A state of Church-religion and Reformation which his Majesty saw was at present and was ever likely to be far distant from that which was enjoyed in England under his Princely Predecessors and in some part of his own reign when England was filled and overflowed with good Christians good Scholars good Presbyters and good Bishops of which order England ever afforded and specially since the Reformation so many learned and commendable yea some rare and admirable instances Insomuch that this Church had cause to envie none in the World ancient or modern as for other things so for this the blessing of excellent Bishops as well as orderly Presbyters and sincere Christians Indeed no Nation for many Ages if we may feel the temper of any people by the pulse of their Parlaments either had more cause or seemed to have more disposition to value and actually did venerate its excellent Bishops than England did yea I have known those Noblemen Gentlemen Ministers and other people who were as to some Ceremonies less satisfied or more scrupulous than the Church and State was yet these men how have they commended how courted how almost adored such Bishops as they thought godly and grave good Preachers and good Livers as well as good Governours But as to the general sense and vote of the Nation which was audible and legible in its Laws and Constitutions for above a thousand years it ever did it self this honour and its Clergy this justice that no where in any Christian or Reformed Church Bishops were more ample more remarkable more reverenced more honoured even to the highest honour of Peerage yea the Archbishop of Canterbury had place next the Royal Blood never diminished or degraded by any Prince or by any Parlament in any Age. Nor is it the least of the Riddles of Providence how Bishops and Episcopacy having so resolute a Prince and so great a King to be their patron and protector should now in England fall under so great diminution dejection yea utter destruction considering that there never had been worthier Bishops in any time of the Church than have been in England this last Century nor in any part of that Century were there more excellent Bishops than were to be found among them at that very time when all their Palaces with Episcopacy were pull'd down about their ears and the best of them buried in the dust and rubbidge by which some men hope that the Names Merits and Memories of all Bishops and the ancient honour of Episcopacy shall be for ever smothered in obscurity or obloquie in scorn or oblivion whose Resurrection Reputation and Eternity as to their deserved honour and to the publick honour of this Church and Nation ever since it was Christian and ceased to be either barbarous or unbelieving I do here endeavour which if I cannot recover to life â—et I have brought these pounds of Spice and sweet Odours for the Enterrement and leave a fair Inscription or Epitaph upon the Grave-stone or Monument of Episcopacy if it must be ever buried in England an Office of Piety in a Son to his Fathers being my self a Person every way as free from suspicion of flattery or partiality as can well be found never either injured or obliged by any Bishop as to any publick advantages further than my Ordination as a Minister which I count a great and holy Obligation because by no other hands I conceive I could have lawfully received Holy Orders in the Church of England Free therefore from all biassings either for against the Episcopal Order which hath now no sinister temptations attending it I do affirm that Episcopacy could never have fallen into its terrible Fits and Convulsions into such excessive and mortal Agonies in a worse time as to the undeserved ruine of so many worthy men nor yet in a better time as to the eminent worth of those Bishops and other Church-men of their subordination who might well have born up the Cause and Honour as well as the weight of the Contest and Ruine of Episcopacy A wise man would wonder how in a full free and fair hearing before competent complete and impartial Judges it was possible for Episcopacy which was founded and supported by so strong foundations and supports to which all Churches all People all Presbyters all Princes all right Reason all due Order all politick Honour all Scriptural Patterns and Divine Precedents gave concurrent ayds besides the Laws and ancient Customs of this Church and State how it should suffer such a rout and reprobation instead of due Reformation where ought was amiss when it was able to bring forth such Armies at that time in England of learned grave godly venerable and incomparable Clergy-men Bishops and others of their perswasion which like so many Heroes and Atlasses were capable to have born up the falling Skie if it had not been over-charged with the Sins of the Nation Doubtless the whole world did not afford in any National Church more excellent Bishops or more able Divines for any Ecclesiastical Convocation Synod or Council singly they were mighty men both of Stature Vertue and Valour higher by head and shoulders than most of the Presbyterian Champions but socially they had been invincible if they had not been encountred with the sword which regarded not the greatness of their Learning or the soundness of their Judgements or the gravity of their Ages or the sanctity of their Lives but jealous of their firmness to Episcopacy presently set up a new Assembly no way representing because not chosen by the Clergy of England according to the wonted custom in which the Clergy of England had their priviledges as well as the Commons of England to chuse their Deputies according to Law and the Kings Commission yet these were to do the Journey-work of Presbytery as well as they could in broken times undertaking to Directorize to Unliturgize to Catechize and to Disciplinize their Brethren their Fathers their Countrymen and their Soveraign without any contradiction there being none among them that either would or could or dared to plead the cause of primitive Episcopacy which had so resolute a patron and so many able defenders at that time in England as among the inferiour Clergy so among those of the Episcopal Degree Among whom we have onely to excuse the indiscretions frailties defects or excesses of two or three later Bishops who possibly forgat the Counsel of Phoebus to use lesse stimulations and more restrictions Do but consider with compassion the great temptations of these Bishops by that favour place and power they had besides their native tempers which might be too quick and passionate also the Scholastick privacy and bluntness of their education not having taught them so well to dissemble at least not to moderate their passions take all together
same Faith Spirit Power and Authority was it that made the just and valid sentence of Excommunication in Primitive times so terrible and that of absolution so comfortable to all good Christians even as the sentence of Jesus Christ at the last day which Tertullian Cyprian the first Council of Nice and others tel us of Because it was no private spirit of any Christian or Congregation or Church or Presbyter or Bishop or Metropolitane or Patriarch that properly did excommunicate but it was the Spirit Power and Authority of Jesus Christ given to diffused among and shed abroad in his whole body of the Catholick Church and in that name dispensed by the particular Bishops and Pastors of it in their severall Stations or Places as the visuall and audible powers or faculties which are in the soul are exerted and exercised onely by the Eyes and Eares Hence was it that whoever was by any one Catholick Bishop with his Presbyters and his people excommunicated was thereby cast out of that and all other Churches Communion in all the world nor was it lawfull as the Nicene Councill and African Canons tell us for any Bishop Presbyter or Christian people to receive into Church-fellowship or to the holy Communion of the Eucharist any one that was thus secluded Then did this great and weighty Thunderbolt of Excommunication seemingly lose its Primitive virtue and value not really for it holds good still according to the Originall Commission when lawfully executed in binding or loosing in opening or shutting as Christ deposited it with his Apostles and their successors when Factions or Schismes being risen in the Church contrary sentences of Excommunication were on all sides passionately bandied against each other not from that unity of the Spirit which kept the bond of Truth and Love but from the private Passions Presumptions Prejudices and Opinions of such as either openly deserted or occasionally declined from that Catholick Community and Unity of one Faith one Lord one Baptisme one Spirit for gifts and graces for the Authority and Efficacy of Christs holy Ministry After these preposterous and partiall methods not onely many particular Christians but some Presbyters and Bishops yea whole Synods and Councils have sometimes passed the sentences of Excommunication both as to declaring the guilt and merit of it also to the act and execution of it very precipitantly partially passionately and uncharitably even against such Doctrines Practises and Persons as were orthodox and peaceable really in Communion with Christ and with the Catholick Church of which one early great and sad instance was that in the second Century of Victor Bishop of Rome who in the case of Easter grew so zealously exasperated against the Greek and Eastern Churches as Quartadecimans that he thought them worthy to be excommunicated in the name of all the Latine Churches notwithstanding that many grave and Learned Bishops with their Churches testified that in observing the fourteenth day of the month they followed the Primitive Custome and pattern delivered by the Apostles to them wherein St. Irenaeus according to his name with greater Moderation and Charity sought not onely to appease but to represse the inordinate heats of that Pope and his adherents who had a zeal but not according to Charity breaking Christian Communion while he urged too much conformity in all outward things beyond the liberty which was granted and had been long used in the Church concluding that difference of times or daies not divinely determined in the observation of the same duty ought not to make any breach of Catholick Unity Christian Charity but rather assert exercise that Christian Liberty which may in Circumstantialls as to outward Rites be in the severall parts of Christs Church untill all think fit to agree in that Circumstance of time as well as they did in the substance of the duty which was the Eucharisticall Celebration of Christs Blessed Resurrections which was the reviving of the Christian faith and hope After this example did St. Cyprian in Africa excommunicate those that would not rebaptize or did communicate with such as Hereticks and Schismaticks baptized herein being contrary to the sense of the Catholick Church At length these and the like passions or surprises even of some Orthodox Bishops were made patterns and encouragements to any pragmatick Hereticks and arrogant Schismaticks These as they grew to any bulk and number like Snow-balls by rouling ventured to handle this hot Thunderbolt of Excommunication when they had most cause to fear it because their Petulancy Obstinacy and Contumacy against the true and Catholick Churches Judgement and Communion most deserved it if their first error did not Hence Excommunication was at last every where reduced and debased to private spirits full of pride revenge and partiality the Catharists or Novatians the Donatists and Arrians feared not by their Pseudoepiscopal Conventicles and Schismatical Assemblies to denounce these Terrors and Anathema's and to use the sharp sword of spiritual curses against the soundest parts of the Church as some dared to do against Athanasius and all the Orthodox both Bishops Presbyters and People This made in after-times all Excommunication very much slighted and despised while it either served to little other use than to execute the Popes wrath for many hundred years of great Darkness and blind Devotion or afterward in times of more Light and Heat it was uâ—ed as Squibbs are rather to scare and smut than much to burn or blast those who either used it or abused it rather to gratifie their own private spirits than to execute that publick power and Authority which Jesus Christ hath committed with his Spirit and Word to his Church and the Rulers of it by which who so was justly cut off cast out and given over to Satan was looked upon as separate from the comfort of Communion with Jesus Christ and the true God as well as the true Church in all the World Nor was this onely a declarative act as to the merit of that fearfull doome and state confirmed by the consonant suffrage of all the Church as damnablâ— without Repentance and Reconciliation of which every private Christian might easily make a verbal report and oral denunciation but it was an authoritative and effectual act executive of the just and deserved judgement of God so as to be ratified in Heaven according to the original tenor and validity of Christs Word and Commission without Repentance just as what is by virtue of their Office done by any publick Judge Notarie or Herald is not onely declarative but also executive of the Will and command of the Prince specified in the authentick Commission or mandate under the Broad seal which is not onely the voice of the King and his Councel but of the Law and publick Justice it self yea of the whole Republick or Community as every man lawfully condemned by any Judge or cast by any Jury is virtually cast and condemned by the Will suffrage and consent of the Body politick
part of the whole body so it exerciseth this authority with such confusion and passion with so much Childishnesse and petulancy that there is little or nothing of due subordination feare reverence and submission as to any Divine Authority as of Conscience of or for Christs sake but every one takes offence when he listeth growes froward and insolent divides and so destroyes as much as in him lyes and at as easie a rate as one doth crush a worme those petty bodies and puny Churches which are indeed but Infants Embryo's and Pygmies compared to that stature and strength that procerity and puissance which of old was preserved and ever ought to be in the Church of Christ when it hath its peace and growth not shred into poor patches and pittifull parcels but united maintained and managed in conspicuous combinations in ample and august proportions in which may well be contained many thousands of Christian people some hundreds of worthy Presbyters and Deacons under some one or more venerable Bishops in so holy so happy and so handsome a subordination or dependency as was of old that whatever was done by the Authority of those that ruled or the Humility of those that obeyed all was done with Charity and Unanimity while excellent Bishops knew how to keep the true temper of Christian Government and both Presbyters and people concurred with them in filial obedience and fraternall love CHAP. X. THus we see every party or side however it justifie or magnifie it selfe yet it falls under either the blame or jealousie of its rivals as defective or excessive yet not so much in the fundamentals of Religion or main points either for Doctrine Worship Duty or Manners as chiefly in matters of Ordination Discipline and Government Nor is the difference here so broad that any side denies them as necessary both in the parts and whole in greater and lesser proportions for the Church of Christ but the reall dispute is who shall mannage and execute them in whom the chief power and Authority shall reside whether eminently in Bishops or solely in Presbyters or supremely in the people as the Alpha and Omega the first recipient and the last result of Church-power All sides except Fanaticks Seekers and Enthusiasts seem to agree as in the Canon of the Scripture so in the soundnesse of the faith in the sanctity of divine mysteries in the celebration of them by such as are some way ordained and authorised for that holy service also in the participation of them by such onely as are in the judgement of Charity worthy or meet to be partakers of them All agree in the main Christian graces virtues and morals required in a good Christians practise yet still each party is suspected and reproched by others the brisk Independent boasts of the Liberty simplicity and purity of his way yet is blamed for Novelty Subtilty Vulgarity Anarchy the rigid Presbyterian glories in his Aristocratick Parity and levelling community which makes every petty Presbyter a Pope and a Prince though he disdain to be a Priest yet is taxed for petulancy popularity arrogancy and novelty casting off that Catholick and ancient order which God and Nature Reason and Religion all civill and military policy both require and observe among all societies Episcopacy justly challengeth the advantages right and honor of Apostolick and Primitive Antiquity of universality and unity beyond any pretenders yet is this condemned by some for undue incrochments and oppressions upon both Ministers and peoples ingenuous Liberty and Christian priviledge by a kind of secular height and arbitrary soveraignty to which many Bishops in after-ages have been betrayed as by their own pride and ambition so by the indulgence of times the munificence of Christian Princes and sometimes by the flatteries of people Take away the popular principle of the first which prostrates Government to the vulgar Take away the levelling ambition of the second which degrades Government to a very preposterous and unproportionate parity Take away the monopoly of the third which seems to ingrosse to one man more than is meet for the whole each of them will be sufficiently purged as I conceive of what is most dangerous or noxious in them for which they are most jealous of and divided from each other Restore to people their Liberty in some such way of choosing or at least approving their Ministers and assenting to Church-censures as may become them in reason and conscience restore to Presbyters their priviledges in such publick counsel and concurrence with their Bishops as may become them lastly restore to Bishops that Primitive precedency and Catholick presidency which they ever had among and above Presbyters both for that chief Authority or Eminency which they ever had in ordaining of Presbyters and Deacons also in exercising such Ecclesiasticall Discipline and Censures that nothing be done without them I see no cause why any sober Ministers and wise men should be unsatisfied nor why they should longer stand at such distances and defiances as if the Liberties of Christian people the Privileges of Christian Presbyters and the Dignity of Christian Bishops were wholly inconsistent whereas they are easily reconciled and as a threefold cord may be so handsomely twisted together that none should have cause to complaine or be jealous all should have cause to joy in and enjoy each other Bishops should deserve their eminency with the assistance counsel and respect of their Presbyters Bishops and Presbyters might enjoy the love reverence and submission of Christian people both people and Presbyters might be blessed with the orderly direction and fatherly protection of the Bishops all should have the blessings of that sweet subordination harmony and unity which best becomes the Church of Jesus Christ both in the Governors and Governed in Ministers and People wherein we see the most Antiepiscopall Presbyters and refractory people cannot but be so sensible by their own sufferings of the want of some principle of order some band of unity and some ground of due Authority among them that they are forced to make use of some Moderator Chaire-man or Prolocutor as a kind of temporary Pilot and arbitrary Bishop there being no regular moving of popular bodies in Church or State without such an head or President as the rudder of a ship whose order as it is usefull so then most when it is fixed and confirmed with a valid power and venerable authority which are the maine wheeles of all Government As for the Sacramentall scrutinies and other holy severities to be used in any part of Christian Discipline with charity and discretion however the Presbyterian and Independent preachers have very much sought in this point to captate popular applause and exalt themselves above measure as if they exacted farre greater rigors of preparatory sufficiency and sanctity than the Episcopall Clergy ever did or do either require or practise Yet is this but either a vapour or a fallacy or a calumny in respect of the
of revenge whence arise publick seditions therefore I rather chuse a speedy and safe accommodation than any dilatory and dangerous Toleration which will but increase disputes and distances animosities and asperities among good men And because I find it is not any thing really burdensome noxious or offensive in Primitive Episcopacy which makes many so shy and jealous of it but onely the ignorance errors and prejudices of some men who have sought to make It of later yeares especially obnoxious to all manner of popular jealousies calumnies and reproches which have endeavoured so to hide all the pristine beauty and true excellency of it that many look upon Prelacy that is Episcopacy as if it were in the same Form with Popery and think most sillily that they may no more in conscience comply with any regular Episcopacy than with the Popes irregular Primacy in that arrogant and imperious sense which he now challengeth beyond the modesty and humility of his Primitive Predecessors who were then greatest Bishops when least in their ambitions It will be therefore as I suppose not an act of partiality as to any one side but of justice and charity to all sorts of Christians for me a little further to sweeten the name and cleare the cause of Primitive Episcopacy such as I have stated it and as all Antiquity ever esteemed it to be the chiefest support of Religious safety honor and order the Center Crown and Consummation of the Churches peace authority unity and prosperity It is pitty so Primitive so Apostolick so Venerable an Order so universally used in this as all Churches heretofore should any further lye under the dirt and disguises of vulgar prejudices popular reproches or any mens personall faults and infirmities especially when all wise men know that the usuall distasts which have vitiated most mens palates do arise rather from their own or other mens cholerick and revengefull distempers and the diffusions of their redundant galls than from any reall defect or demerit of true Episcopacy or from any just blame imputable to worthy men either of that place and office or of that perswasion and Communion in the Church of England CHAP. XIX THere are severall grand pleas in behalf of Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which I here crave leave to produce and urge in a way different from other mens pens before all Learned Godly and Consciencious Christians Ministers and others not onely in order to relieve oppressed Episcopacy but also to reduce them to an happy reconciliation and this Church to the state of a setled and uniform Reformation or Religion which will hardly ever be obtained in England by the violent and partiall exclusion of the ancient Rights pristine Power and evident priviledges of Episcopacy unlesse the Antiepiscopall parties can take care to burn or smother all Monuments of true Antiquity or to banish all excellent books ancient and modern which have asserted it or at least forbid their new seminaries and all Scholars the reading of them If they cannot rid the world of these bookes then they must make some sharp Index expurgatorius which shall blot out the words of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Episcopus Antistes Praepositus summus Sacerdos Pastor Pater with those of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—aternitas Eminentia Dignitas Sanctitas Authoritas and other like expressions setting forth the eminent dignity and ancient authority of Episcopacy in all Churches which expressions are so frequent and conspicuous in all Ecclesiastick writers Greek and Latin that the starres in the firmament are not more numerous or more illustrious in a clear night or the Sun-beames shining at bright noon The Native Primitive Apostolick Catholick and Divine splendor of Episcopacy cannot be eclipsed without darkning the faces of all Churches and all Christians Nor in effect will it ever be done unlesse its implacable enemies can take care by their cunning activity that none shall be Students or Preachers or Professors of Christianity or of true Divinity in England but such as will be content first to be blinded and hoodwinckt as to all knowledge of Antiquity next that their Disciples shall take the measures of their Religion Ordination Church-order Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and Christian Communion not from Jerusalem or Antioch or Ephesus or old Rome or any other famous Catholick Primitive Churches which were all under Episcopall inspection and in its Communion but from Geneva Francfort Amsterdam Arnheim or Edenbrough and this since they have pretended of later yeares to be wiser than their Teachers and first Founders in Christianity grown more Eagle-ey'd in Church-affaires than all Antiquity and all Churches in the world whose constant consent and Catholick Testimony in the point of Episcopacy as an Apostolick institution custome and succession is I conceive as much to be credited for the certainty and fidelity of it as it is for the Scripture-Canon received preserved and delivered to us or for the two Sacraments to be used or for the Lords day to be observed or for Presbytery it self or for any ordained Ministry distinct and authoritative for none of these as to the Historick and Catholick attestation of them is more ancient or more evident than Episcopacy Sure if the ancient Church were faithfull in all other things of universal use and reception it is not to be suspected as to this great depositum of Ecclesiastick Order for gubernative Power Authority and Jurisdiction in what hands it was setled and deposited for the Churches future peace and constant good Government to all posterity it being equally impertinent to affirm first that Church-Government and Governours were needlesse for the Church or that it was not ordered by the Apostles that is by the Spirit and wisdome of Christ or that it is arbitrary and mutable every year as men have a mind to novelty and sedition or lastly that those holy men who immediately succeeded the Apostles did vary from their rule and prescription changing Presbytery or Independency into a Presidentiall or Episcopall primacy which is a thing incredible considering the purity exactness and holy pertinacy of Primitive Churches as to what was of Apostolicall Tradition as Tertullian rarely expresseth it in his book of Prescription against Heresies So that my first pregnant consideration perswading you O worthy Gentlemen with my brethren of the Ministry and all my religious Countrymen to look upon right Episcopacy with a more propitious and favourable eye is taken from the great credit and just veneration which is due to Antiquity there where we find a Primitive practise and Catholick consent and this not onely no way contrary to or diverse from but most consonant and every way agreeable to the mind of Christ and the wisdome of God which the Church hath delivered to us in the holy Scriptures It is not to be doubted but the streame of Christianity ran clearest the neerer it was to the Apostolick fountaines as in purity of Doctrine and simplicity of Devotion so in the Discipline Order
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
can be proper to usher in true Christian Religion and Reformation these methods have made them so stunted and ricketly that they are come to a stop-game so that in these last and worst Ages of the world there hath been little or no progresse made to the true propagating of the Gospel among any heathen Nations or of any Reformation among the decayed Christians because Religion is every where even among many Christians and Reformers too much managed as the Spaniards did among the West-Indies with force and fraud with covetousnesse and cruelty with faction and ambition with regard to worldly interests of men more than to the true precepts and holy concernments of Christ and his Church Who is there that will entertaine Christianity or any Reformation when it comes in like Turcisme and Barbarisme with fire and brimstone with swords and canons pretending to convert and save soules but to be sure it will first pervert the Lawes ravine mens Estates and destroy at last mens lives if they do not submit even against their consciences as well as the Lawes to strange Innovations Truly these are engines onely fit to be used by such spirits as are Antichristian who know not of what Spirit Christ and his Apostles with their successors the Primitive Bishops and Presbyters were Nor did the Popes of Rome ever more staine the honor of that Apostolick See and the glorious name of Catholick Episcopacy than when they forgot to follow their pious predecessors holy and humble Bishops of that famous Church for 600. yeares who were Martyrs or Confessors or true Professors of the Gospel and betook themselves to such arts of secular policy and power of sedition and ambition as made some after-Bishops of Rome seem rather Monsters of men as their own writers confesse than Ministers of Jesus Christ imitators of Sylla Marius and Caesar more than of St. Peter or St. Paul or St. Clemens when they sought by Hildebrandine arts to exalt themselves above all that is called God in civil Magistracy which justly claimes under God and from him as did the Kings of Judah that supreme visible power which within their respective dominions doth orderly and duly manage all ministrations Ecclesiasticall as well as Civil for the publick peace and welfare Certainly since Christianity it self in its grand Articles Ministry and Mysteries must not thus be brought in by head and shoulders by force and affronts upon any Prince or State whatsoever much lesse may any Reformation never so desirable and just As for some little defects or veniall deformities they ought not in any sort to be so urged as should carrie Religion beyond good manners or Reformation to rudenesse Not persecuting but persecuted Bishops and Presbyters are the ablest preachers and aptest propagators of the Gospel such as while they lift up their voyce like a trumpet not to give the alarmes of war but to tell Judah of their sins and Israel of their transgressions do also lift up holy hands and pure hearts to God in prayer for all men but chiefly for Kings and all in Authority In the greatest depressions of Christianity and Episcopacy for they ever went together as Truth and Order Ministry and Authority both of them being necessary for the being or well-being of any Church never any godly Bishop or orderly Presbyter who were still the foremost and stoutest Champions for Religion did make any seditious appeales scurrilous libels or declamatory invectives against the powers that were by whatever meanes they either obtained or held or exercised their soveraignty They never thought it their duty as Christians or Ministers to stir up the spirits of any men great or small many or few to any unlawfull commotions and so they esteemed all to be which had not the consent and Commission of those in civil dominion who were supreme and the present Powers ordained of God When any of those holy Bishops and Presbyters were necessitated not out of revenge or anger but out of charity and pitty to their persecutors to bring forth their strong reasons by way of Learned Grave and unanswerable Apologies for their Religion as many of them did hoping thereby to buoy up the cause of Christianity not onely from unjust persecutions but from false prejudices they did write them indeed with an heroick kind of freedom yet with all due respect dedicating their writings by way of humble supplications or cleare yet comely Remonstrances to the Emperours or Senates to the Princes and supreme Magistrates themselves so did Justine Martyr his first Apology to the Senate of Rome his second to the Emperour Antoninus Pius so Tertullian his to the Emperour Severus and his Son so Quadratus Bishop of Athens to Adrian the Emperour and in like manner did others But never any Primitive Bishop or Presbyter did use any Satanick Stratagems or such seditious practises as were to advance Religion by any thing that tended to or intended popular tumults and rebellion no impudent libellings and scurrilous pamphletings to make either the persons of Princes odious or their Government infamous Episcopacy never used any such conjurations as would either bring down fire from heaven or stir up Earth-quakes neither exciting the Optimacy and Nobility nor the Populacy and Communalty against any either supreme or subordinate powers they never made the waters above the firmament and those under it so to meet by breaking up the great deeps of subjection or by opening the fountains of plebeian Liberties as to bring in terrible inundations upon Kingdomes or Common-wealths No they alwaies by the word and Spirit of Christ which were their onely swords and these two as Christ said to St. Peter were enough for that work set bounds to the proud waves of that raging Sea the tumultuating people and rather repaired the banks and breaches that others rashnesse as the Circumcellions and Euchites somtime made than either assisted or countenanced those horrid deluges of sedition They never wrested the Revelation or any other places of Scripture so as to animate the earth that is the common and meanest people to help the Woman that is whatever some list to call their Church and Religion in its agonies that by their unlawfull motions they might bring forth something that faction lists to call Reformation a word that is never out of the mouths of John of Leiden and his complices though far from their hearts Godly Bishops and Presbyters never either taught or thought those practises to be any helping of the Lord against the mighty No they ever judged and preached after St. Pauls St. Peters and our Blessed Saviours Doctrine and example that such inordinate motions upon pretexts of Religion are cursed and damnable resistings of those powers which God hath ordained by the civil Lawes and customes of any Church or State The Lord and true Religion are onely to be helped by laudable and lawfull actions the measures of which are not to be sought in every mans private breast and
shining Truly I find the calmeness and gravity of sober mens judgements is prone to improve much by Age Experience Reading of the Ancients hereby working out that juvenile leaven and lee which is prone to puffe up and work over younger spirits and lesse decocted tempers in their first fervors and agitations Possibly the Archbishop and some other Bishops of his mind did rightly judge that the giving an enemy faire play by just safe and honorable concessions was not to yield the cause or conquest to him but the more to convince him of his weakness when no honest yieldings could help him any more than they did indamage the true cause or courage of his Antagonist For my part I think the Archbishop of Canterbury was neither Calvinist nor Lutheran nor Papist as to any side and partie but all so far as he saw they agreed with the Reformed Church of England either in fundamentalls or innocent and decent superstructures yet I believe he was so far a Protestant and of the Reformed Religion as he saw the Church of England did protest against the Errors Corruptions Usurpations and Superstitions of the Church of Rome or against the novel opinions and practises of any party whatsoever And certainly he did with as much Honor as Justice so far own the Authentick Authority Liberty and Majesty of the Church of England in its Reforming and Setling of its Religion that he did not think fit any private new Masters whatever should obtrude any Forraine or Domestick Dictates to her or force her to take her Copy of Religion from so petty a place as Geneva was or Francfort or Amsterdam or Wittenberg or Edenborough no nor from Augsburg or Arnheim nor any Forraine City or Town any more than from Trent or Rome none of which had any Dictatorian Authority over this great and famous Nation or Church of England further than they offered sober Counsels or suggested good Reasons or cleared true Religion by Scripture and confirmed it by good Antiquity as the best interpreter and decider of obscure places and dubious cases Nor did his Lordship esteem any thing as the voice of the Church of England which was not publickly agreed to and declared by King and Parlament according to the advice and determinate judgement of a Nationall Synod and lawfull Convocation convened and approved by the chief Magistrate which together made up the complete Representative the full sense and suffrage of the Church of England His Lordship no doubt thought it as indeed it is a most pedling partiall and mechanick way of Religion for any Church or Nation once well setled to be swayed and tossed to and fro by the private opinions of any men whatsoever never so godly contrary to Publick Nationall and Ecclesiasticall Constitutions which carried with them as infinitely more Authority so far more maturity prudence and impartiality of Counsel than was to be found or expected by any wise men in any single person or in any little juncto's of Assemblies or select Committees of Lay-men whatsoever And truly in this I am so wholly of his Lordships opinion that I think we haâ—e in nothing weakned and disparaged more our Religion as Reformed in England than by listning too much to and crying up beyond measure private Preachers or Professors be they what they will for their grace gifts or zeal who by popular insinuations here and there aime to set up with great confidence their own or other mens pious it may be I am sure presumptuous novelties against the solemn and publick Constitutions or determinations of such a Church as England was These these agitations and adherencies have undermined our Firmeness and Unity by insensible degrees What was Luther or Calvin or Zuinglius or Knox or Beza or Cartwright or Baines or Sparkes or Brightman not to disparage the worth which I believe was really in any of them or their Disciples to be put into the balance against the whole Church of England when it had once Reformed and setled it self to its content by joynt Counsel publick consent and supreme Authority Which hath had in all Ages and eminently since the Reformation both Bishops and other Ministers of its Communion no way singly inferiour to the best of those men and joyntly far beyond them all whose concurrent judgment and determination I would an hundred times sooner follow than all much more any one of those men yea possibly I could name some one man whom I might without injury prefer to any one of those fore-named persons such was Melanchthon abroad and such was our Bishop Jewel at home And indeed the Church of England had blessed be God so many such Jewels of her own that she needed not to borrow any little gems from any forreigners nor might any of them without very great Arrogancy Vanity and Imodesty as I conceive seek to strip her of her own Ornaments and impose theirs upon her or her Clergy Which high value it is probable as to his Mother the Church of England and her Constitutions was so potent in the Archbishop of Canterbury that as he thought it not fit to subject her to the insolency of the Church of Rome so nor to the impertinencies of any other Church or Doctor of far less name and repute in the Christian world No doubt his Lordship thought it not handsome in Mr. Calvin to be so far 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 censorious of the Church of England as to brand its devotion or Liturgy with his tolerabiles ineptiae who knew not the temper of the Nation requiring then not what was absolutely best but most conveniently good and such not onely the Liturgy was but those things which he calls tolerable toyes This charitable sense I suppose I may justly have of this very active and very unfortunate Prelate as he stood at a great distance from me and eminence above me against whom I confess I was prone in my greener years to receive many popular prejudices upon the common report and interpretation of his publick actions In one of which I was never satisfied as to the Piety or Policy of it that when his Lordship endeavoured to commend the Liturgy of England to the Church of Scotland which was a worthy design as to the uniformity of Devotion yet he should affect some such alterations as he might be sure like Coloquintida would make all distastful Such was that in the Prayer of Consecration and Distribution at the Lords Supper which was after the old form of Sarum and expunged by our Reformers as too much favouring Transubstantiation besides some other changes in that and other things of which possibly his Lordship could give a better reason than I can imagine or have yet heard Toward his decline I had occasion to come a little neerer to his Lordship where I wel remember that a few daies after his first confinement when he seemed not at all to despaire of his innocency or safety having
Scotland and Ireland who is so blind as not to see this one illustrious Bishop the Primate of Armagh capble as to the true cause of Episcopacy to have over-shined both as to his Learning Judgement and Life as the Sun in the firmament all those Comets and Meteors those blazing and falling Stars which either then did or since have appeared eccentrick or opposite to Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy Take them in their stragling novelties or in their associating confederacies or in their congregational conventicles however they may seem by false glasses or grosser mediums to be magnified in some mens imaginations and so set off to vulgar admiration among weak and womanly apprehensions yet neither for Scripture-proportions nor for Catholick practise nor for right reason nor for true prudence and Christian polity are they any way to be compared either to the Antiquity or Majesty of true Episcopacy For which the Judgement Humility Moderation and Integrity of this excellent Bishop is so clearly set forth both by his constant practise and all his writings wherein for peace sake he willingly joyned an orderly Presbytery with a Venerable Episcopacy that neither grave Counsell nor comely Order nor just Authority nor Christian Unity should be wanting in the Churches Government that it is an error worse than the first for men not yet to returne from their Paroxysmes and Transports against all Presidentiall Episcopacy or not to close with so great a judgement so grave an Oracle as this holy Bishop was Who however he held a Fraternall Correspondency and Actuall Communion as occasion offered with those Reformed Churches and those Ministers who approved yea desired Episcopacy though they could not enjoy any Bishops properly so called after the custome of all ancient Churches yet with St. Cyprian he flatly condemned and branded with the sin and Scandal of Schisme all those who wilfully cast off and injustly separated from their lawfull Bishops who professed the same Orthodox Faith and Reformed Religion affirming as I have been further most credibly informed that he would not because with comfort and good conscience he could not receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper from such Ministers hands whose Odination he esteemed irregular and incomplete or for their consecration inauthoritative because partiall and schismaticall against that Episcopall power which ever was and still might be had in this Church Nor was this his censure heightned or sharpned by any anger or vindicative passion though he was unhandsomely used by some men who heretofore much applauded him from such distempers his Mosaick meeknesse was most remote especially in cases of Religion and the Churches publick concernments for the advance of which he could have cheerfully sacrificed all his private interest of honor or profit and have been reduced to teach School in a belfry as his phrase was But he ever held to his pristine and constant judgement in the most prosperous times which enjoyed him the same as did his adversities no losses and distresses to which the Fatality Fury Folly or Ingratitude of this Age reduced him being able to cloud his judgement or discompose his tranquillity in any other or in this sharp controversie touching Episcopacy And indeed to adde to the further weight and crown of this excellent Bishop who deserved to be esteemed one of the Primates of all Learning Piety and Vertue in the Christian world he was by Gods wonderfull dispensations to be made a Primate in sufferings and to be more illustrious by those darknings which on all hands were cast upon his person and profession as a Preacher and as a Prelate He lived to see yea to feel his Venerable person by some men shamefully slighted who saw more brightness in a sharp sword than in all Learned vertues his function as a Bishop exautorated decryed depressed despised his Revenues first stopped then alienated and confiscated his moderate stock of moveables all except his excellent Librarie and at last a reserve of some monies about 2000. pound seized and swept away by the Irish The newes of which last as I was witnesse at the first coming of it he received with so no trouble or emotion that it made me see in this holy man that the patience of Job might well be a true history and not a Tragick parable After this the profits of the Bishoprick of Carlile then vacant being conferred upon him by the late King for the support of his age and exile even these were taken from him by those that took all Church-revenues from all Bishops yet for shame a Pension of four hundred pounds a year as his Lordship hath told me was promised him when he was forced to yield up his Interest in the Revenues of Carlile which Pension after a year or two was never paid him At last this great Personage the Primate of Armagh whom Cardinal Richelieu with many other great Princes and States had invited with very honorary propositions to make onely his residence with them as an honor to their Country was reduced to a small stipend or salary of about two hundred pounds a year which he was to earn by preaching as long as his sight and strength served him These failing him and in him all the learned and better world he lived upon Gods Providence and the Contributions for the most part of some noble Personages wherein I was happy to do him some service among whom none hath merited and erected a more lasting Monument of Honour than the Countesse of Peterborough under whose grateful and hospitable roof this Mortal Angel this incomparable Bishop left as the English so all the World which was not worthy of him having of later years treated him with so little publick value that while Merchants Military men and mean Mechanicks either get fair Estates or have good pay pensions and gainful imployments while young Presbyterian and Independent Preachers possess themselves some by dispossessing others of the best Livings they can seize this aged Bishop this inestimable Jewel of men this brightest Star of the British Churches and Christian World this Paragon of Prelates this Glory of Episcopacy was suffered to be so eclipsed that with St. Paul he knew what it was to want as well as to abound He had not with our Blessed Saviour any house to rest his head in nor a foot of land which he might call his own He seemed to live as St. Chrysostom sayes of St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only with a naked soul or a sublimated Spirit as much above the glory of the world as he had been stripped of it and by it being carefull in nothing save only to discharge a good conscience to God and men as he did both living and dying esteeming this the greatest Treasure and Honour to those that are daily dying to the world even while they live in it He was equally remote from Lucifer and Mammon from Haughtinesse as from Covetousnesse as he complained not of Tenuity so he owned not that deserved Eminency
well he hath digested these Bishops Lands which now seem as a Lay fee to nourish the Beast and Man not the Presbyter Minister or Bishop as him will give the world cause in after-Ages to look as narrowly to him and his posterity how they thrive as the Roman Souldiers did to the Jews Guts and Excrements when they searched for the Gold which they had swallowed as Josephus tells us Some are so superstitious as to imagine that Bishops and all Church-lands or Revenues properly such as pertaining to the support of that Order Government Authority Ministry Charity and Hospitality which ought to be in Clergy-men are like Irish wood to Spiders and venemous beasts prone to burst them so that vix gaudet tertius haeres nay though they possesse them yet they do not enjoy them for nothing temporal can be enjoyed without a serene Mind an unspotted Fame and an unscrupulous Conscience all which if this gallant purchaser enjoyes together with his Bishops Lands and other fine things which he hath bought truely he is an object of most unfeigned Envy where I leave him and his Vindication This I am sure some men Ministers and others are so scrupulous in such a case that they never think a good penny-worth can be had of Bishops or Church-lands nay they would not have them gratis to stuff their Feather-beds fuller lest they should lye and sleep less at their ease highly magnifying that one thing recorded as commendable among the Jews in their greatest Hard-heartedness Madness and Sedition that during the siege straitness and famine of Jerusalem under Titus-Vespatian yet they were not wanting to furnish the Temple Priests and Altar of God with that juge sacrificium daily sacrifice Morning and Evening which God had once required till the great sacrifice of Messias had finished all by his once Oblation of himself which their blindness and unbelief would not understand Nothing can be too much for his Service who is the Giver of all But I return whence I was forced to digress CHAP. XXVII BEsides the Preservation of the Churches patrimony and Ministers maintenance which needs more an honourable Augmentation than any sordid Diminution there is in the second place great need O my worthy and honoured Countrymen of your redeeming this Church its Reformed Religion and its worthy Ministers from plebeian Arrogancies and Mechanick Insolencies from private Usurpations and popular Intrusions whereto both some Peoples Petulancies and some Preachers Pragmaticalness or Easiness are prone to betray them to the utter dissipation and destruction of that Order Honor Power and Authority of Religion which ought by wise men to be preserved as much as in them lyes It is certain that the Ministers of the Church of Christ which are made up of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons duely ordained and united in an orderly Subordination are as the Arteries of the Body politick in any Nation State or Kingdom which is Christian these carry from the Head which is Jesus Christ the vital and best that is the Religious spirits to all the parts as good Laws do in respect of civil Justice and Commerce like veins convey the animal Spirits with the blood and grosser nourishment from the Heart or Supreme power Once check abate or exhaust those vital Conduits of Piety and true Religion all parts of Church and State both noble and ignoble will soon be enfeebled abased mortified neither Common-people nor Yeomen nor Gentlemen nor Noblemen nor Princes neither Governours nor Governed will ever have either that Esteem Love and Honor for Religion which becomes it and them nor will they receive that Vigour Influence and Efficacy from it which is necessary for them while in the general Levelling Impoverishing Shrinking and Debasing of Scholars and Clergy-men none shall have either discreet Tutors for their Children or learned Chaplains for their Families or able Preachers for their Livings or grave Reprovers for their Faults or prudent Confessors for their Souls relief or reverend Governours to restrain them or spiritual Fathers to comfort them for none of their petty Pastors Preachers or Ministers will appear to them much beyond the proportions of Country-pedants not under any such character of eminent worth either for their personal Abilities or any such beam of publick Dignity and Conspicuity as may either deserve or bear the love respect and value of either Nobility Gentry or Communalty in England which are all high-spirited enough Not onely the civil and visible Complexion but the inward Genius and religious Constitution of this Nation will extremely alter in a few years as it is already much abated and abased by reducing all Scholars that are of the Clergy or Ministry to a kind of publick Servility Tenuity and Obscurity beyond any men of any ingenuous profession none of whom are so excluded but that by their industry and Gods blessing they may attain such eminence and encouragements as may make them most useful both to Church and State both in Policy and Piety neither of which can thrive or flourish to any Respect Power or Splendour of Religion in any Nation where the Clergy are made the onely Underlings and Shrubs condemned everlastingly to the basest kind of Villenage which is a sneaking and flattering Dependence which posture not onely streightens and shrinks but aviles and embaseth the spirits of any men there being nothing left them as to publick Favour Employment or Reward under any notion of hope which might heighten their parts or quicken their spirits to any such generous industry as might at least seek to merit them though they never attained them for still the Publick will hereby have the benefit of Ministers improved abilities however few Ministers obtain the deserved eminency the merit and capacity of which is many times better than the real enjoyment Having thus commended to you the publick interest of Church and State as they are very much depending upon the Honor and Happiness of your Clergy in the last place I beseech all persons of sober sense and judgement not to suffer themselves to be so far scandalized against the true Reformed Religion or this Church of England by its present distempers and sufferings as to abate of you former value and esteem of Her or of your present pitty for Her nor yet of your prayers and endeavours to repair Her O give not such advantages to your own innate corruptions or to other mens fond Innovations or to the Papists Triumphs or every Jesuits Machination or the Devils Temptations as either to discountenance or desert or decry or distrust the former excellent Constitution and Reformation of true Religion in the Church of England in which I am fully perswaded in my conscience there was nothing wanting to the being and well-being of a true Church and true Christians The first your own inordinate Lusts will be well enough content with no Religion or at least such an one as shall most find fault with the Church of England and all its
such Those are of an other sphere and of other principles which I neither censure nor it may be understand I quarrell with no particular mens persons I encounter onely that colluvies of factions parties and novel principles which like the sewers collected from many sinks and kennells have met together to besmeare or over-beare the Church of England I despise no mans Religion so far as it is Religion deserving that holy name in any Catholick and Christian sense But I abhorre an unreasonable immodest unjust and licentious way in any I esteem and embrace with all Charity whatever of Gods Spirit of Christs Truth of Grace and Vertue of Gifts and Parts of Morall Honesty and Humanity I find in any men of any side But I am too old and serious to be abused with vaporings with affectations with popular pretentions with rude and rash Reformations I am for solid sober orderly humble constitutions or restitutions rather of Order Honor and publick encouragement to Religion the Church and Clergy No man hath justled or offended me in all these turbulent times worth owning nor have I an evil eye or an ill will against any man What I write as to my Ecclesiastick Calling Honor and the Church of Englands common concernments may possibly have something of salt but nothing of gall there may be some corrosive to mortifie and meet with the diseased and proud flesh but no venome to poyson or hurt either the diseased or the whole parts It extremely grieves me to see how far the contagion of Ignorance Impudence Profanenesse Irreligion Faction Division Levity Popularity Disorder and Uncharitablenesse hath spread among some of my brethren of the Ministry and many of my Countrymen without any present advance that I can see or future hopes I say not as to their own Honour or Profit but as to Gods glory or the publick interests of the true Christian and Reformed Religion or the good of mens soules or the improvement of any grace and vertue What any side offers as really good or convenient I allow what they partially cry down and causelesly condemn or change that I defend upon the account of this and all Churches Wisdome Honour and Happinesse If what I have written may do any good to the present or after-Ages I have my designe if not I shall by Gods help hereafter redeem this waste of time and labour by applying to studies more suitable to my Genius Spirit and Age which may more improve those graces which are least in dispute among good Christians yet in this I have not wholly lost my labour because I have hereby further discharged my own soul my conscience and reputation from any approbation of what I judge to be either the sins or imprudencies the wickednesse or weaknesse of this Age in which I do not so much live as dye daily weary that my soul finds so little hope of an happy rest or composure unity or harmony in our Church which I had rather see and enjoy before I dye than to have the greatest preferment in the world I envy no men that have wrapped up their worldly interests in their religious policies and daily gaine by the shrines of godlinesse they have made I do indeed boldly rifle their godly principles and pretentions as to their novelties for I see no reason as yet to yield to any of them no not for an hour though they seem never such pillars while they import as if the Church of England had heretofore consisted of a company of silly people and silly Priests whose either ignorance or superstition or sottishnesse or basenesse had hidden the beauties and blessings of true Religion from all peoples eyes so that neither Bishops nor Presbyters nor Princes nor Parlaments nor Convocations ever till now saw what was fit to know and do in Church-matters which are now to be taught and brought to light by the new methods of Presbytery and Independency or by Anabaptism Quakerism and other rarities of Religion untried and untamed Novelties every way as short of the Piety Prudence Unity and Majesty of the Religion and Church of England heretofore as they are wide of or beyond the true ancient bounds and Catholick grounds of Order Government Unity and due Authority I may adde and of the Blessings or Prosperities internal or external spiritual and temporal which attended Episcopal Order and Paternal Presidency which I profess to value as now it is in its rags and ruines far beyond the others in their silks and sprucenesses Episcopacy is now far from being the object of any sober mens Flattery or Ambition yet I cannot but look upon it with such an eye of pitty and reverence as primitive Christians were wont to do upon their Bishops such as Polycarpus Ignatius Irenaeus Cyprian and other Martyrs when they saw them imprisoned beaten tormented destroyed I know yet I plead for those men and for that cause which was once strong but now is weak was honourable and is now despised was favoured but is now frowned upon by many yea I fear most men of ordinary spirits yet I plead for that reverend Order and those reverend persons who have been made a spectacle to Angels and Men such as to this present hour suffer both hunger and thirst are naked and buffeted having no certain dwelling-place which being reviled do blesse being persecuted have suffered with patience being defamed do intreat and being the Glory of all Churches as to Order Unity and Government in all Ages are now looked upon by many as the filth and off scouring of all things yet am I one of those Angels which attend Lazarus on his Dunghil I have chosen to follow the clear though now more exhausted stream of Antiquity rather than the troubled torrents of any Novelties which may be as short-lived as they have been suddenly started I have looked upon all mens principles and pretensions as to Ecclesiastick affairs with what Candor Equanimity and Sincerity I could If in any thing I was inclinable to be partial it was neither for Presbytery nor Independency I confess which I never was catechized in nor accustomed to nor convinced of as to any such Piety or Policy Wisdom or Worth in them which might make me see cause to desire or esteem them but I was swayed against some things not in the constitution so much as some mens administration of Episcopacy I was originally principled to no small jealousies of Bishops actions when they were in their greatest glory and power nor do I yet think but that some Bishops might have been greater Masters of pious Arts than they have proved yet I find now that in many things people were more afraid than hurt For the main I conclude no Ministers or Governours no Superintendencies or Presbyteries in any Reformed way exceeded the Usefulness Merit and Excellency of our English Bishops and Presbyters nor is any thing as to Church-government comparable to a primitive Episcopacy which includes the just Rights Liberties or
1247 6 Thomas Vipont A. D. 1255 7 Robert Chanse A. D. 1258 8 Ralph de Ireton A. D. 1280 9 John de Halton A. D. 1288 10 John de Rosse A. D. 1318 11 John de Kirkby A. D. 1332 12 Gilbert de Welton A. D. 1353 13 Tho de Appleby A. D. 1363 14 Robert Reade A. D. 1396 15 Thom Merkes A. D. 1397 16 William Strickland A. D. 1400 17 Rog Whelpdale A. D. 1419 18 Will Barrow A. D. 1423 19 Marmaduke Lumley A. D. 1430 20 Nicholas Close A. D. 1450 21 William Percy A. D. 1452 22 John â—ingscot A. D. 1462 23 Richard Scroop A. D. 1464 24 Edward Storey A. D. 1468 25 Richard Dunelmensis or of Durham A. D. 1478 26 William Sever. A. D. 1496 27 Roger Leibourn A. D. 1503 28 John Penny A. D. 1504 29 John Kite A. D. 1520 30 Rob Aldrich A. D. 1537 31 Owen Oglethorp A. D. 1556 32 John Best A. D. 1561 33 Richard Barnes A. D. 1570 34 John Mey A. D. 1577 35 Hen Robinson A. D. 1598 36 Rob Snowdon A. D. 1616 37 Rich Milborn A. D. 1620 38 Rich Senhouse A. D. 1624 39 Francis White A. D. 1628 40 Barnaby Potter A. D. 1629 CHESTER This is one of the 6. Bishopricks erected by K. Hen. 8. upon the Dissolution of Religious Houses 1 John Bird. A. D. 1541 2 John Cotes A. D. 1556 3 Cuthbert Scot. A. D. 1556 4 Will Downham A. D. 1561 5 Wil Chadderton A. D. 1579 6 Hugh Billett A. D. 1595 7 Rich Vaughan A. D. 1597 8 George LLoyd A. D. 1604 9 Thomas Morton A. D. 1616 10 John Bridgman A. D. 1618 DURHAM This Bishoprick of Durham was erected there by Aldwin Bishop of Lindisfarn or Holy Island A. D. 990. That ancient Bishoprick being destroyed by the Danes about An. Christi 800. and till that year 990. wandring up and down unsetled which Bishop of Lindisfarn was first erected by Oswald King of Northumberland A. Christi 637 Bishops of Lindisfarn or Holy Island 1 St. Aidanus A. D. 637 2 St. Finanus A. D. 651 3 Colmannus A. D. 661 4 Tuda A. D. 664 5 St. Eata A. D. 665 6 St. Cuthbertus A. D. 684 7 St. Eadbertus A. D. 687 8 Egbertus I. A. D. 698 9 Ethelwold A. D. 721 10 Kenulph A. D. 738 11 Higbald A. D. 781 12 Egbert II. A. D. 802 13 Egfrid A. D. 819 14 Eanbert A. D. 845 15 Eardulf A. D. 854 16 Cuthard 17 Tilred A. D. 915 18 Witherd A. D. 927 19 Uhtred A. D. 944 20 Sexhelm 21 Aldred dyed A. D. 968 22 Alfius A. D. 968 23 Aldwin A. D. 990 This Aldwin first setled the See at Durham where it hath ever since continued Bishops of Durham after Aldwin last Bishop of Lindisfarn 1 Eadmund A. D. 1020 2 Eadred A. D. 1048 3 Egelricus A. D. 1049 4 Egelwinus 5 Walcher Earl of Northumberland A. D. 1071 6 William de Carilefe alias Cairliph A. D. 1080 The See void 4. yeares 7 Randall Flambard A. D. 1099 8 Geffrey Rufus A. D. 1128 9 William de S. Barbara A. D. 1143 10 Hugh Pudsey Earl of Northumberland A. D. 1154 11 Philip de Pictavia A. D. 1197 12 Rich de Marisco A. D. 1217 13 Rich the Poor A. D. 1228 14 Nic de Fernham A. D. 1241 15 Walter de Kirkham A. D. 1250 16 Rob Stichell A. D. 1260 17 Rob de Insula A. D. 1274 18 Anthony Beck Patriarch of Jerusalem A. D. 1283 19 Richard Kellow A. D. 1311 20 Ludovicus Beaumont A. D. 1317 21 Rich de Bury A. D. 1333 22 Tho Hatfeild A. D. 1345 23 John Fordham A. D. 1381 24 Walter Skirlaw A. D. 1388 25 Tho Langley Card. A. D. 1406 26 Robert Nevill A. D. 1438 27 Laurence Booth A. D. 1457 28 Willi Dudley A. D. 1476 29 John Sherwood A. D. 1483 30 Richard Fox A. D. 1494 31 VVill Sevier A. D. 1502 32 Christopher Bambridg A. D. 1507 33 Tho Ruthall A. D. 1508 34 Tho Wolsey A. D. 1523 35 Cutbert Tunstall A. D. 1530 36 Ja Pilkington A. D. 1560 37 Rich Barnes A. D. 1577 The See void 2. yeares 38 Matth Hutton A. D. 1587 39 Toby Matthew A. D. 1594 40 Will James A. D. 1606 41 Richard Neile A. D. 1617 42 George Mountain A. D. 1628 43 John Howson A. D. 1628 44 Tho Moorton A. D. 1632 Of the Bishops of the ISLE of MAN This Bishoprick of the Isle of Man was first erected by Pope Gregory 4. The Bishops See is in Russin or Castle-Town and the Bishops are termed in Latine Episcopi Sodorenses The VVestern Islands now belonging to Scotland who have now a Bishop of their own did anciently belong to this Bishoprick The new Bishop upon a vacancy is nominated by the Lords of the Isle who have been the Stanleys Earles of Darby and presented to the King and then consecrated by the Archbishop of York And this seemeth to be the cause why the Bishop of Man is no Lord of the Parlament because it is not at the Kings disposing none having Suffrage in Parlament but those who hold immediately from the King The Names of the Bishops of this See are not exactly known having as yet no meanes to procure a Catalogue thereof such as are extant are these 1 Machilla A. D. 518 2 Michael 3 Nicholas A. D. 1203 4 Reginald A. D. 1217 5 Richard A. D. 1257 6 Robert Walby A. D. 1396 7 Henry A. D. 1556 8 John Merick 9 George LLoyd A. D. 1604 10 Forster 11 Richard Parry A. D. 1641 In the Catalogue of the Bishops of Bristol p. 695. adde 12 Tho Westfield 1642. 13 Tho Howel 1644. ADDENDA In the Marginall Notes PAge 321. Propter Ecclesiae bona ubique bellatur Romanenses ut retineant Reformati ut obtineant Grotius Pacific Pag. 326. Sir H. Spelman values the L. Cromwel's estate in K. Hen. 8s dayes worth 20000 l. sterling MS. of Sacriledge Pag. 329. Piaculum olim nunc lusus Principum profanorum sacra profanare adhuc quaerimus cur bellis tam atrocibus vastamur Christiani Grot. Pacif. Pag. 337. Procopius in vita Justiniani tells of the vessels of the Jews Temple which at last were sent by that Emperour to the Church at Jerusalem ERRATA PAg. 16. l. 4. read growing up p. 92. l. 13. r. flagrancy p. 132. l. 39. r. Proteustant p. 244. in the title for descending r. deserving p. 282. l. 29. for sand r. saw p. 326. l. 20. r. 20000. p. 418. l. 39. r. abated p. 419. l. 4. dele next p. 449. l 17. r. evident by l. 27. r. unsubordinate p. 643. l 25. for them read those p. 682. l. 16. for part r. park p 684. l. 14. for as him r. in him In the Catalogue of Books written by the Author p. 692. adde A Treatise of Christian Marriages to be solemnly blessed by Ministers in Quarto THE END The Preface or Addresse Isa 58.12 Tunc severissimè punit Deus quum poenalis nutritur impunitas Aug. Hos 4.17 Isa 1.5 Mat.
England which pretend to seek a greater light by putting out of Princes Courts and Counsels the chiefest Lamps and Stars of Learning Religion Counsell and Wisdom To returne then to this excellent Bishop and able Counsellour the Primate of Armagh as to his personall policy domestick subtilty or private cautiousness truly he had little enough of the Serpent but as to his harmelesse innocency he had very much of the Dove ever esteeming Piety the best Policy and Sanctity the safest Sanctuary If any thing might seem to have been as a veniall allay in him it was a kind of charitable easieness and credulity which made him prone to hope good of all and loth to believe evil of any especially if they made any Profession or shews of Piety he did not think there could have been so much gall and vinegar mixed with the shewes or realities of some mens graces untill he found by sad experience some Godly people and Presbyters professing much Godliness who formerly were prone to adore him as a God or an Oracle were now ready to stone and destroy him with all his brethren the British Bishops He was most prone to erre on the right hand of charity and to incline to those opinions in things disputable which seemed to set men furthest off from Pride Licenciousness and Profaneness of which he was better able to judge than of Hypocrisie being more jealous of Irreligion than Superstition which is the right hand and more venial extreme of Religion He had not til of late yeares felt the scalding effects of some mens over-boyling zeal or the dreadfull terrors of their righteousness who affected to be over-righteous who despised his Learned Wise and Moderate Counsels touching the setling of Peace Order and Government in the Church The rare endowments of this pattern of a perfect Bishop were both wrapped up and set forth as occasion required with such Tender Piety such Child-like Humility such a Saintly Simplicity such an Harmeless Activity such an Indefatigable Industry such Unfeigned Sanctity such Unaffected Gravity such an Angelick Serenity and such an Heavenly Sweetness as made all his Writings perspicuous though profound his Preaching plaine yet most prevalent He had an Eloquent kind of Thunder of Reason mixed with Scripture-Lightning which together had a pleasing potent terror his praying was fervent and pathetick without affecting either too diffused a variety or too circumscribed an Identity his fervency discretion and sincerity alwaies set his prayers far from any thing either of a verball and vaine repetition or a flat and barren invention he ever highly esteemed and devoutly used the Liturgy of the Church Indeed he Prayed or Preached or Practised continually the Scholar the Christian and the Divine his whole life as to the conversable part of it was so Civil so Sacred so Affable so Amiable so Usefull so Exemplary to all persons of any Worth Ingenuity and Honesty that came to him that in earnest nothing Ancient or Moderne that ever I knew or read of in these British Churches or any forreigne Nation was more August Venerable Imitable and Admirable than this blessed Bishop such Candor yet Power such Largenesse yet singleness of heart such Majesty with meekness appeared in all that he seriously said or did I never saw him either morose or reserved much less sowre or supercilious If he were sad it made him not silent but onely more solemn as night-pieces which have admirable work of perspective in them though not so much light with them if he were chereful he abhorred not such facetious and ingenious elegancies of discourse as shewed that Risiblity was as proper to Religion as Reason that Holiness was no enemy to Cheerfulness but great graces might safely smile and innocent vertues sometimes laugh without offence He was indeed as the Church of Smyrna testifies of holy Polycarp their first Bishop there placed by St. John the Apostle a most Apostolick person a true Divine a most exemplary Christian and a most Venerable Bishop equalizing without doubt if not exceeding any one of the ancient famous Bishops and chief Fathers of the Church not onely in his Primitive Piety but in his great literature for he was joyntly excelling in all those things wherein they were severally most commendable he was as our Saviour saith of John Baptist a Prophet yea greater than an ordinary Prophet for among the children of men or children of God and of the true Church there hath not since the Apostles dayes been born a greater than He. If I or any man were able to reach the Height Length Depth and Breadth of his Gifts and Graces his acquired and infused endowments some taste or essay of which his faithfull friend and servant Dr. Bernard as Timothy to this St. Paul hath given and is daily further imparting to the world yet no Epitomes or little Volumes are able to containe so ample a subject nor give that satisfaction to Learned men at home and abroad as is justly exspectable from so copious and complete a theme Whose humble and holy industry was such that besides his vast designes for Writing and Printing he never failed since he was Presbyter Prelate or Primate to preach once every week if health permitted him besides many times on the week-day upon occasion which was so far from being his reproch as if he made himself too cheap as some men of more pompous than pious spirits have calumniated that like Davids dancing before the Lord it turned not to his diminution but to his great honor among all People Presbyters Prelates Peeres and Princes that had any knowledge what was the true dignity of a Divine and the commendation of a Christian Bishop nor was it any great paines to a person of his fulnesse who did not pump for but poure out his Sermons like a pregnant spring with a strange Plenty Clarity and Vivacity Certainly if all our Bishops had so honored God according to their Places Parts and Strength by imitating the best of their Predecessors yea the Apostles and our Lord Jesus Christ the greatest Bishop and greatest Preacher it is very probable not onely Bishops but Episcopacy had at this day suffered lesse diminution and dishonor if all Bishops hearts and mouths had been as open as his sure they had stopped the mouths and silenced the tongues of all their adversaries But by this and other either real failings or supposed defects of some few Bishops as in Sea-banks where low and weak the horrid inundation hath broke in upon Episcopacy and all Bishops with such a torrent of violence that we see the best of them could not keep out nor stand before the impetuosity of the times which if any Bishops in any Age or Church might have merited and hoped to have done this excellent Primate and other Bishops then in England and Ireland might have done it who were persons of so great Learning Piety Moderation Humility For besides the many other most accomplished Bishops then in England