no where doth to the Priests or Deacons but more clearely by the ancient Canons and writings of the Fathers in the primitive B. Andrewes Resp ad Epist Moâ—inaei 1. 3. Tortur Terti p. 151. Church That which results from all this is That to affirme the Episcopall order or authority as it is meerely spirituall to bee received not from the King but from God and Christ and derived by continuall succession from the Apostles is no false or arrogant assertion nor prejudicall to the Kings prerogative royall and so not dangerous to those that shall so affirme or that challenge and exercise their jurisdiction in that name For the further demonstration hereof I will also briefly set downe what power in causes Ecclesiasticall is due and challenged by the King and other Soveraigne Civill Magistrates what Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction is annexed to the Crowne of this Realme which the Bishops must acknowledg thence to be received and exercised in that right My first conclusion shall be in the words of Conclu 1 our thirty seventh Article where the power of Artic. 37. Kings in causes Ecclesiasticall is described to bee only That they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiasticall or Temporall and restraine with the Civill Sword the stubborne and evill doers other authority than this as Queene Elizabeth in her Injunctions His Majesty neither doth ne ever will Qu. Eliz. Injunct challenge nor indeed is due to the Imperiall Crowne either of this or any other Realme Where I observe two things wherein the Soveraigne authority of Princes in causes Ecclesiasticall doth consist First in ruling Ecclesiasticall persons under which are comprised 1 their power to command and provide that spirituall persons do rightly and duly execute the spirituall duties belonging to their functions 2 to make and ordaine Lawes to that end and for the advancement and establishing of piety and true Religion and the due and decent performance of Divine worship and for the hinderance and extirpation of all things contrary thereunto Secondly in punishing them as well as others when they offend with the Civill Sword Spirituall or Ecclesiasticall persons being offenders are not exempt from the coercive power of the King but that he may punish them as well as others but it is with the Gladium spiritualem stringere est Episcoporum non Regum quan quam hic licet Episcoporum manu piorum tamen Regum sancto monitu et evaginari in vaginam recondi solet Mason de Minist Ang. l. 4. c. 1. Civill Sword as that only which he beareth not with the Ecclesiasticall or by the sentence of Excommunication It belongs to Bishops and not to Kings to draw the Spirituall Sword yet that is also wont to be unsheathed and sheathed at the godly command and motion of religious Kings And they may as pious Princes use second yea and prevent the spirituall Sword and with the Civill as namely with bodily and pecuniary punishment compell his subjects as well Ecclesiasticall as Temporall to the performance of the duties of both Tables My second conclusion or as I may rather Conclu 2 terme it my inference upon the former is That the Bishops having any civill power annexed to their places and exercising the same either in judging any civill causes or inflicting temporall punishments whether bodily or pecuniary have and use that power wholly from the King and by his grace and favour in his right That the Episcopall jurisdiction even as it is Conclu 3 truly Episcopall and meerely spirituall though in it selfe it be received only from God yet in asmuch it is exercised in his Majesties Dominions and upon his subjects by his Majesties consent command and royall Protection according to the Canons and Statutes confirmed by his Authority nothing hinders but that thus-farre all Ecclesiasticall Authority and jurisdiction may bee truly said to be annexed to the Crowne and derived from thence And this onely is the intent of those Statutes which annex the Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction to the Crowne Which notwithstanding it may truly bee affirmed that the Bishops have their function and jurisdiction for the substance of it as it is meerely spirituall and so properly Ecclesiasticall by Divine right and only from Christ and that it is derived by a continuall and uninterrupted succession from the Apostles But if Master Burton conceive that the Bishops affirme that they have power to exercise this their spirituall jurisdiction within His Majesties Dominions and over His Subjects of themselves and without licence and authoritie from His Majestie Or that their temporalities their revenewes their Dignities to bee Barons of the Parliament c. or the authority that they have and use either to judge in Causes temporall or to inflict temporall punishments belong to them by Divine right or otherwise than by the favour of his Majesty and his predecessors hee makes them as absurdly ignorant and presumptuous as himselfe The other thing which I cannot let passe is that which he here cites out of the Iesuites pamphlet intituled A direction to be observed by N. N. c. wherein the Iesuit it seemes applauds the present state of our Church as comming on towards Vnion with Rome The temper and moderation of the Arch Bishop and some other learned prelates and the allowance of some things in these dayes which in former times were counted superstitious as the names of Priests and altars and the acknowledging the visible beeing of the Protestant Church for many ages to have beene in the Church of Rome c. My purpose is not here to enter the lists with the Iesuite who I doubt not ere long will bee more sufficiently answered than I have either leisure or ability to doe All that I shall say for the present is First that Master B. is willing it seemes to take dirt from any Dunghill to cast in the face of his Mother the Church of England and that though hee professe such mortall hate to Rome that the last affinity with her though many times but imaginary makes him breake forth into strange expressions of his abomination Yet hee can bee content to joyne hands with the worst of the Romanists the Iesuites and use their aide to slander and make odious the Church in which hee was bred But it is no Innovation this it hath beene a long practise of the Faction whereof he is now ambitious to become a captaine both to joyne with them in their principles and to make use of their weapons to fight against the Church wherein they live Secondly It is manifest from hence that the Iesuite and he are confederates in detraction and ignorance of the Doctrine of our Church which both of them judge of not by the authorised Doctrine publikely subscribed or the regular steps of those that have continued in the use of her ancient and laudable customes rites and ceremonies but by their owne humours and uncertaine reports of some
Burtons endeavour to excuse Ap-Evans Mr. Burtons opposites not censorious What they thinke of those whom he calls Professors and the profession it selfe True Piety approved and honoured in all professions The answere to this crimination summed up The censured partiall Iudges of their own censures How offences are to be rated in their censures THe next is Innovation in Discipline which saith he in a word is this That whereas of old the censures of the Church were to be inflicted upon disordered and vitious persons notorious livers as drunkards adulterers c. Now the sharpe edge thereof is mainly turned against Gods people and Ministers even for their vertue pag. 127. and piety c. A man that reads this charge and were ignorant of the language that is spoken among those of M. Burtons tribe would verily beleeve if it were but halfe true that the State of our Church were metamorphosed into a very Babel of disorder and confusion and sinck of profanenesse and iniquity But the comfort still is we may fitly answere him as Nehemiah did Sanballat There are Nehem. 6. 8. no such things done as thou sayest but thou fainest them out of thine owne heart For first let the records of Ecclesiasticall Courts and as that hee most aimes at of the High Commission bee searched and compared with the now highlymagnified times of the raigne of Queene Elizabeth of famous memory and it will appeare that there is not now the least Innovation either in the manner of their proceedings or in the crimes and persons censured but that it continues in the old and troden steps of religious justice and useth the same severity against vitious persons and inordinate livers in all kindes as ever it was wont to doe And that if there bee any change at all it is that the edge of their censures is not now so sharp or so mainly turned against Gods people and Ministers for their vertue and piety as it was in those happy times For had it beene now as it was then perhaps Mr. Burton had beene prevented for ever comming to this height and his vertue and Piety had beene nipt in the bud which now hath enlarged her branches loaden with goodly fruits suitable to the stocke on which they grow And many of his vertuous friends and Candidates of Martyrdom in the Sabbatarian cause would not have thus long have waited for their sentence of condemnation for their godly and right Christian resistance of his Majesties unquoth commands But I must not goe farther with this vizor and therefore before I proceed I le pull it off and expound the termes and then reade this part of his charge in plaine English Here then by Gods people and Ministers understand People and Ministers of Mr. Burtons party Their vertue and piety their disobedience to their Soveraigne their repining and murmuring at his government their inconformity to the Orders of the Church their contempt of Ecclesiasticall power and authority and other strange insolencies whereof M. Burton hath given us a full patterne in this booke and his long practices The summe and plaine truth is That some people and Ministers that have a better conceit of themselves than they have cause for have beene lately censured for their not conforming to his Majesties commands and the Churches orders This is all and when was it otherwise in this Church nay in any Church since the beginning of Christianity was it ever knowne that any Church or any civill government did or could subsist without inflicting censures upon the wilfull violators of their orders and constitutions Hath not ever the edge of discipline been justly sharpned against those that shall to their disobedience adde contempt of the authority and that with contumelious reproaches and slanders against the persons invested with it If men for the maintenance of their selfe will'd humours and for exalting of their private fancies against the publick Orders of the Church and the authority Ecclesiasticall shall presume so farre Sipro errore homines tanta prasumunt quanto magis aequ◠est et oportet eos qui pacis et unitatis Christianae asserunt veritatem omnibus etiā dissimulantibus et cobibentibus manifestam satagere instanter atque impigrè non solùm pro eorum munimine qui jam Catholici sunt verū etiam pro corum correctione qui nondū sunt Nam si pertina cia insuperabilis vires habere conatur quantas debet habere constātia quae in eo bono quod perseveranter atque infatigabiliter agit et Deo placere se novit et proculdubio non potest hominibus prudentibus displicere Aug. Ep. 167. How much more is it fit and behoves those who stand for the truth of peace and Christian unity which is manifest even to those that dissemble and oppose it to endevour with all earnestnesse and diligence not onely for the securing of those which are Catholicks but also for the correction of those that are not For if stubbornnesse seeke to get such strength what ought constancy to have which in that good which uncessantly and unweariedly it doth both knowes that it pleaseth God and without doubt cannot displease wise men So Saint Augustine once Apologized for the Church in his dayes proceeding against the Donatists and a fitter I cannot use for our Church at this day nor need I adde more in this case But this will not haply be contradicted by any that thus viewes things in their true notions and if any should be so void of reason and grace as to declaime against it every man would cry shame of him But the cunning maske that is put upon it makes it passe current and to be entertained as a just and a great grievance when it shal be presented under the names of persecution and unjust censures inflicted upon Gods people and Ministers and that for their vertue and piety who then can but pitty and commiserate the sufferers and condemne their persecutors of notorious injustice and horrible impiety It is an old and a cunning stratagem used by some expert Captaines to march disguised and to beare the Colours of those against whom they fight that they may finde the more easie passage And this practice hath beene long in use with the disturbers of the Churches peace to usurp the name and priviledges of the true Church and to appropriate that to themselves which of right belongs to those whom they oppugne But never any Vos enim dicitis remansisse Ecclesiam Christi in sola Africa partis Donati Aug. Ep. 166. were better Artists in this kinde than the Donatists in S. Augustines time who were wont to circumscribe the Church within the bounds of their party and to account all other Christians as Pagan and to call the repression of their turbulencies persecution and boast of Martyrdome as appeares out of S. Augustine and Optatus Milevitanus Optat. Milevit l. 3. prope finem And these Donatists were never better parallel'd than in these
approbation of many more than of their owne straine till at length their purposes were unvailed and their aime discovered which was the erecting of a seminary at Saint Antholins subordinated to a Classis or Clerolaicall Consistory who had power at least in their intentions to plant there such hopefull imps as should bee fit upon the falling of any of their purchased Impropriations to be removed transplanted into great populous places in this Kingdom in which they endeavoured so to fasten and fence these transplanted choice ones that no Ecclesiasticall censure should touch or deprive them of their maintenance by that meanes hoping in such places to use the words of a prime agent in that cause to establish the Gospel by a perpetuall decree to this end also they had sundry attempts of which these two were famous First the striving by money to purchase the place of an Head of an house in Oxford for one of their owne party for the first trayning up of their novices in their misteries And the other was in the like way their attempt for the getting of a Commissaries place there where they intended to make a speciall plantation who being after their own hearts might winke at their irregularities and secure them from the danger of that Court The scanning of which and other their attempts I leave to the indifferent and intelligent In the meane time I shall ever blesse God that put it into the heart of His sacred Majesty and the State timely to discover and prevent this their purpose before it had undermined the present government of the Church as no question it would have given a good say to it if it had without controule proceeded as it began And for this that learned and famous man in his profession Master William Noy at that time His Majesties Attorney generall deserves an honorable memory among those that are true well-willers to the Church and State whose industrie and zealous paines in this cause was a chiefe meanes of it's discovery and overthrow And that the rather because for that one peece of service sake he fell totally and finally from the grace and favour of that faction and Master B. or the Author who ever he was of that libell annexed to his Divine Tragedy as if he were some fury whose hate death could not pacifie for that and his service against Prynne tramples upon his memory and pisses as it were upon the ashes of him and his unfortunate eldest sonne whom he reserves for the last scene of that his late audaciously vented fable as if hee had beene the most remarkable prodigie of impiety by him brought upon the State But I leave him his presumptuous censurers to the judgement of God which whatsoever theirs be I am sure is according unto truth Neither will it boote Rom. 2. 2. them that which they now so much boast of their persons are accepted for there is no respect of persons with God in the day wherein hee shall judge the secrets of men by Iesus Christ But I finde my selfe digressed to returne therfore and to conclude that which I intended by this briefe relation of the Doctrine and practices of these men it may manifestly appeare who they are that may rightly bee termed Innovators and broachers of novell opinions and practises in this Church and how easie it were by way of recrimination to cry quittance with Master B. and for his eight to charge him and his party with five times that number not such as his fond surmises ignorantly and falsely accused of novelty and superstition but really and truly such having neither Canon nor Article of the Church for them nor any solid foundation in the Word of God and which are some of them at least as dangerous to the soules of men and as great enemies to the power of godlinesse as any of those which hee taketh for such as are by him pretended to be If any man complaine of brevity or of confusion and want of order in the relation let him know I intended it rather for a taste and to shew what might be done in that way than for any full discourse which would have required more than my present leisure and have swoln my booke too much beyond its intended proportion If they judge it defective as wanting proofe and because I have not produced the Authors of those opinions which I mention I answer to the same purpose that it did not stand with my present intentions which was only to point out the things in a cursory way in which I conceive the producing of proofes and Authors might well be spared But for further answer I say that I did it for two other reasons First because the things are so well knowne yea and acknowledged by those from whom if from any contradiction was to bee expected that I could not thinke it necessary Secondly because I could not doe it without bringing some mens names and writings upon the Stage which if I had done Master B. in his next treatise would have stiled me as bad as hee hath done my betters but that did not so much diswade me as the respect I beare to many of their persons from whom though for the truths sake I must testifie my dissent yet I shall never by Gods grace expresse any disaffection to their persons or procure them any blame or blemish so long as they as I verily beleeve many of them heartily doe remain studious of true piety and of the Churches peace What I have written in this kinde God himselfe knowes whom I have served in it I have written out of love to truth and peace and of them who are mis led by these errors and therefore I say to them as Saint Augustine concluding an Epistle of his to some of Donatus partly * Erit autem vobis bic sermo quem de munere Dei novit ipse quanta pacis vestra dilectione de prompsimus correctio si velitis testis verò et si nolitis August Epist 162. in fine That this that I have done shall bee if they please a correction of their errors but if not a witnesse against them FINIS Errata PAge 40. line 18. dele wise p. 53. l. 3. dele to p. 58. l. 16. for callenge r. challenge p. 61. l 13 for thoses r. those p. 71. l. 15. for displease r. displeaseth p. 86. l. 25. for doth best r. doth least p. 149. l. 4. for fire r. five p. 153. l. 3. for that they r. they that p. 159. l. 8. for Majesties r. Majesty item l. 14.