I found as followeth 1. That none are able to do so much hurt as those that have the greatest Parts Power Interest and Trust None kill so many except Souldiers as those Physicians who are entrusted to heal and save them If five hundred neighbours mistake a man's Disease whom he never trusted it hurts him not But an unskilful Nurse or Parent may kill a sick Child and an unskilful or unfaithful Physician may kill multitudes 2. And there goeth so much to make a man a skilful faithful Pastor as that such are rare As a Physician is like to kill his Patient if he mistake but some one thing in his Disease or some Ingredient in his Medicine though he were right in all the rest So if a Guide of Souls were excellent in all other things what work one Opinion yea or unskilful word may make not only the case of the Nestorians Eutychians Monothelites c. tell us but even the strife that arose in the Church about Hypostasis and Persona which had almost hereticated Jerom himself for all his skill in the Languages And the case of the Greeks and Latines about Filioque and abundance such 3. And Pride is the Heart of the Old Man first living and last dying And great Power great Parts and great Esteem do feed it if true Grace do not mortifie it Knowledge puffeth up and especially when men live among the ignorant and unlearned and are but half Learned themselves and are thought by the people and themselves to be much wiser than they are Inter coecos luscus Rex 4. And Selfishness is the very sum of all positive iniquity And Pride and Selfishness make men desirous to be the Idols of the World and to seem as Gods knowing good and evil and to have their will of all that they have to do with 5. And the strongest temptations use to cause the greatest sins § 14. These Generals presupposed it is most clear 1. That the remnant of these sins even in Christ's Apostles set them on striving who should be greatest and made James and John desire preheminence and also to have called for Fire from Heaven and made them after Christ's Resurrection hope that he would have restored the Earthly Kingdom unto Israel And it put Paul to vindicate his Apostleship against many that disparaged him As it made Diotrephes who loved to have the preheminence to cast out the Brethren and speak evil of John It gave Peter occasion to warn the Bishops not to Lord it over God's Heritage but to be Examples to the Flock overseeing them not by constraint but willingly 2. Even in good men this fault though not in a reigning degree did live more in others afterwards that had not that measure of the Spirit as the Apostles had to overcome it And if even in Paul's daies he had none like-minded to Timothy who naturally cared for the good of all for all too much sought their own and not the things that are Jesus Christ's as Demas forsook him for some worldly Interest what wonder is it if afterward Pride and Worldliness grew greater and Heresies and Strifes increased 3. Yet while Christianity was a suffering and laborious State the Pastors of the Churches were commonly the best men that had more Knowledge Holiness and Love than others and the Churches prospered under the Cross They that spared not their labours but imitated the pattern set by Paul Acts 20. did not strive who should have the largest Diocess and undertake that which they could not do but they strove to do as much as they were able and to increase and edifie the Flock 4. But when extraordinary Gifts abated and acquired Ones became more necessary and few Philosophers turned Christians able Taking Preachers or Orators grew fewer and those few that were eminent in Knowledge and Speech were justly preferred before the rest And usually some one man had the chief hand in converting men and gathering a Church in each particular Town and then he rightfully was taken for their Pastor And it being found that the publick and private care of Souls required in each Church where were fit men more than one Pastor It was not meet that more should be brought to â—im that was there before without his approbation and consent but that he were to the Juniors as a Father And because the rest were usualiy below him in Gifts and Worth it was thought but meet that they should do what they did by his consent And also to avoid Divisions to which they were over-prone it was judged fit that one should have the preheminence and a negative and partly ruling Vote 5. The Churches which in the beginning had these Bishops and Fellow-Presbyters were single Congregations And shortly they grew to be more than could meet together in some few great Cities Persecution hindering them from very large Assemblies besides their want of large capacious Temples Dr. Hammond thinks that there is no evidence that in Scripture-time there were any other Presbyters than Bishops and consequently a Bishop had but one Congregation unless he went one hour to one and another to another which was not their use But doubtless in this he is mistaken as the many Speakers as Corinth shew 6. The Greatness of the Roman Empire was prepared by God to be then an exceeding great fortherance of the Gospel For under the same Civil Laws and Powers where one or two Languages were understood by most Christians had the far greater advantage for Communication Want of forreign Languages is now our great hinderance from Preaching the Gospel to other Nations of the World And the Confusion at Babel was an unspeakable Judgment But as Ships yea Navies can sail on the Ocean when small Barks or Boats only can pass on Rivers so the vastness of the Roman Empire was a great help to the Church by Communication Language and Accesses But especially when the Emperour became Christian the advantage was exceeding great Whereas now the Greatness of the Turkish Tartarian Indostan Empire are great Impediments to the Gospel because the Barbarians are more cruel Enemies than the Civil Romans notwithstanding the ten Persecutions were and their opposition is the more extensive by the extent of their Dominions and the Christian Churches having now more scandalized the Infidels by their corruptions While they were not corrupted by worldly power and wealth the great holiness of the Churches convinced the sober part of the Empire Albaspineus shews us clearly that their strictness was so great that they endured no notable scandalous sin among them yea and came very near to the Novatians in their Discipline And that it was not for greater strictness that the Novatians were condemned but for denying the Power of the Church to absolve men penitent that sinned after Baptism And their Canons shew it And it is certain that Christians obeying Paul avoided the Heathen Judicatures as much as might be and censured those that did not and ended their Differences
I was able to know which of these waies was right And I saw that either Popery that is the Popes universal Headship or Government is of Divine Institution or elss it is a heinous Usurpation and formeth a sort of Church which is not on any pretence of Concord to be owned And as to the first I have said before and in many Books what I have to say against it which is all summed up in Doctor Iz. Barrow and Doctor H. Moore and largely told the world by Chamier Sadeel Whitaker Jewel Usher Morton White Chillingworth Crakenthorne and abundance more And I thought it strange if either Papacy or that Tympanite of the Clergy which tended to it were of God that the Persons should be ordinarily so bad and it should introduce so great mischief in doctrine worship and practice over the Christian world and bring the Church into such a divided and polluted state and that as the Clergy swelled the Body should pine away and the Spirit of holiness and Love be turned into the Skelleton of Ceremony and Formality and into hatred cruelty and tearing and tormenting pains § 18. Upon all such thoughts I concluded in these resolutions 1. That I must not accuse any Office made by God for mens abuse of it 2. Nor must I accuse the good for the faults of the bad 3. Nor Confound the Office it self with its disease and the accidental Tympanite 4. Nor aggravate humane infirmities in good men as if they were the crimes of malignant Enemies 5. Much less lay any of the blame on Christianity or Piety when nothing in the world is so much against all these Evils nor would they have been so far limited restrained or resisted had it not been for that Christianity and Piety that was kept up against it nor is there any other cure of it It is not by Religion but for want of more true and serious Religion that all these mischiefs have so lamentably prevailed § 19. I therefore resolving to avoid extreams concluded thus 1. That it is most certain that Christ is the only Head of the Church 2. And that as such he himself did make universal Laws and will be the final universal Judge and there is no other that hath universal Legislative and Judicial Power but he 3. As such he instituted necessary Church-Officers first extraordinary ones to be his Instruments in Legislation as Moses was to the Jews giving them his Spirit extraordinarily for that use to bring all that he taught them to their remembrance and guide them to deliver and record all his Commands And ordinary Ministers as the Priests and Levites to the Jews to teach and apply these Commands or universal Laws to the end of the World but not to add diminish or alter them 4. That the formal Essence of this continued Sacred Ministry consisteth in a derived Power and Obligation in subordination to Christ as Prophet Priest and King to Teach to Guide the Churches in holy Worship and to Rule them by the Pastoral Power which maketh them Ministerial Judges of mens capacity for Church-Communion but they have as such no forcing power of the Sword 5. That there are two sorts of these Ministers accidentally distinguished 1. Such as are only ordained to the Ministry in general and not specially related to any one particular Church more than other whose work is to do their best to Teach Infidels and baptize them and gather Churches and occasionally to Officiate orderly in such Churches where they come as need their help 2. Those that have moreover an additional call to be the stated Pastors Overseers or Guides of particular Churches as fixed Officers of Christ All which have the three foresaid Essentials of the Office to Teach Worship and Rule 6. That the Office of these men is to be performed by themselves and no Lay-man may do any Essential part of them by their deligation and therefore as in Physicians Tutors c. necessary Personal abilities are as essential as the necessary dispositio materiae is ad receptionem alicujus formae And ex quovis ligno non fit mercurius 7. That it is very much and great and most important work which these Ministers have to do To Preach God's Word understandingly faithfully constantly fervently to resolve the doubtful to reprove the scandalous to persuade the obstinate to confute gainsayers to comfort the sad and strengthen the weak particularly as there is occasion To visit the sick Catechize Baptize besides all acts of publick Government Therefore one man cannot possibly do all this for too great a number of souls but great Congregations must have many Ministers And so they had in the Primitive Church where the most able Speakers preacht usually in publick and the rest did more of the personal and more private work 8. And whereas it was very early that most single Churches had one that had a preheminence amongst the rest not as of another Office but as a President in a Colledge of Philosophers Physicians or Divine Students to be a Governour over those of his own profession by moderate Guidance and it is not unmeet that when one worthy Teacher hath gathered a Church and brought up younger Christians to Ministerial abilities that they when they are ordained should take him for their Father I will never gainsay such an Episcopacy in single Churches that is societies of Christians combined for personal Communion in Doctrine Worship and Holy living under such Pastors as aforesaid 9. And because I find that the Apostles and Evangelists had a Ministerial care of many Churches to teach reprove exhort the Pastors and People And though the Apostles extraordinary power and work ceased yet Church-Oversight as well as Preaching being an ordinary continued work and when I find Christ hath instituted some Teachers over many Churches I dare not say that he hath repealed this till I can prove it And the nature of the thing tells us that if some grave holy men have the care of counselling and warning and reproving the Ministers of many Churches who are below them in parts and worth It may do much good and can do no harm to the Churches while they have no power of force or tyranny Therefore I resolved never to speak or do any thing against such Bishops of Bishops though Diocesan § 20. Thus far I have oft declared my self for Episcopacy But finding in all the aforesaid History how the Church came to the woful State that it hath been in these 1200 years and what it suffereth by the Bishops and their Clergy in almost all parts of the Christian World and that even the English Diocesans can endure no more Parochial Pastoral Discipline than they do I mean such as Bucer in Script Anglic. prest so vehemently on King Edw. and the Bishops and that they cannot contentedly hold their Lordships Wealth and Honours without silencing and ruining Two thousand such as I or better and using many thousands of godly Christians as they do
Death I confess I understand not Latine I thought the Council meant Death by Lex perimi jubet but they would be more merciful which I blamed them not for but noted here what many other Canons instance where they also punish murder but with keeping men from Communion that this agreeth with some Sectaries Opinion I leave Mr. M's great skill in expounding Councils here to any equal Judge But if I ignorantly mistake in all this and neither Capitis sententia feriantur nor Vivas in terra desossas signifie Death but Excommunication yet many other Canons after cited fully tell us of the Bishops Clemency CHAP. VII Mr M's Exposition of Church History tryed by his Exposition of my own words And 1. Of his false supposition that I am only for a Church of one Congregation meeting in one place § 1. IF so many repetitions of my Opinion cannot save Mr M. from so untrue a supposition of my self I must not too far trust him of the sence of those that he is as distant from as I. Yet this supposition running through all his book shews that he wrote it against he knew not whom nor what His foundation is because I define a single Church by Personal present Communion § 2. I do so And 1. Doth he think there is no such thing as Christians conjoyned for assembling in Gods ordinary worship under the Conduct of their Proper Pastors I will not censure him so hardly as to think he will deny it 2. Are these Churches or not I suppose he will say Yea. 3. But is there no Personal Presâ—nt Communion but in publick worship Yes sure Neighbours who worship God in divers places may yet live in the Knowledge and conversation of each other and may meet for Election of Officers and other Church businesses and may frequently exhort reprove and admonish each other and relieve each other in daily wants and many meet sometimes by turns in the same place where they all cannot meet at once We have great Towns like Ipswich Plymouth Shrewsbury c. which have many Parishes and yet Neighbourhood maketh them capable of Personal Communion in Presence as distinct from Communion by Letters or Delegats with those that we neither see nor know And we have many great Parishes which have several Chappels where the People ordinarily meet yet per vices some one time and some another come to the Parish Churches Have these no Parochial Personal Communion To the well-being of a Church I confess I would not have a single Church of the lowest species have too many nor too few No more than whose Personal Communion should be frequent in Gods publick worship Nor so few as should not fully employ more Ministers of Christ than one But to the Being of a Church I only require that the End of their Association be Personal Communion as distinct from distant Communion by Letters and delegates And by Communion I mean not only the Sacrament § 2. It is in vain therefore to answer a book that goeth on such false suppositions and a man that will face down the world that I plead for that which I never owned and so frequently disclaim CHAP. VIII Of his false supposition that I am against Diocesan Bishops because I am against that species of them which puts down all the Bishops of single Churches and those Churches themselves § 1. THis supposition goeth through almost all the book In his preface he saith The superiority of Bishops over Presbyters is acknowledged by Catholicks and Schismaticks Hereticks c. and yet this Church history would have us believe the Contrary And so throughout § 2. And yet to shew that he knew the Contrary in one place he confesseth it and described part of my judgment and saith that none will be of my mind in it but it is singular to my self Yea I had in my Disput of Church Government which he taketh on him in part to answer and in my Treat of Episcopacy which he also pretends to answer in part told them of more sorts of Bishops than one that I oppose not no not A. Bishops themselves And one of them hereupon notes it as if I differed but about the name submitting to Diocesans so they may but be called A. Bishops To whom I answered that A. Bishops have Bishops under them so that though I over and over even to tediousness tell them it is the dâ—posing of all the first or lowest Species of Bishops and Churches and Consequently all Possibility of true Disâ—ipline that I opposâ— and submit to any that oversee many such Churches without destroying them and their priviledges instituted by Christ I speak â—ill in vain to them These true Historians face down the world that I write whole books to the clean contrary CHAP. IX Of his supposition that I am an Independent and yet that I plead for the cause of the Presbyterians § 1. THis is also a supposition that is part of the Stamina of his Book and how far he is to be believed herein judge by the evidence following 1. He knew what I said before for three sorts of Bishops 1. Episcopi Gregis Overseers of single lowest Churches as of Divine Institution 2. For Episcopi Episcoporum or Presidents-Bishops ejusdem Ordinis non ejusdem Gradus in the same Churches as of early Humane Institution which I resist not 3. Episcopi Episcoporum Overseers of many Churches which I suspect to be Successors of the Apostles and of such as Timothy Titus c. in the continued ordinary part of their work exercising no other Power than they did Insomuch that Dr. Sherlock would be thought so much less Episcopal than I as that he saith It is Antichristian to assert Episcopos Episcoporum § 2. And Dr. Parker hath newly written a Book for Episcopacy which I hear many despise but for my part I take to be the strongest that I have seen written for it these twenty years but to no purpose against me for it is but for Episcopacy in general which I oppose not It excellent well improveth the Arguments of the K. and Bishops at the Isle of Wight even that one Argument that a Superiority of some over others being settled by Christ and his Apostles that Form must be supposed to continue unless we have clear proof of the Repeal or Cessation I have ost said the same I could never answer that Argument But this will not justifie the deposing of thousands of Bishops and Churches and of their Discipline to turn them all into two or three Diocesans § 3. Also he knoweth that I have written these 35 years against Lay. Elders believing that the Colledge of Elders which of old assisted the Bishops were none of them Lay-men nor unordained but of the same Order though not Degree with the Bishop himself § 4. And I have also written that Synods of Bishops or Presbyters are but for Concord and have not as such by a major Vote a proper Government of the minor part
once they perswade me to Reviews and Retractions Partly heaping up abundance of down right Falshoods Partly clipping Sentences and leaving out the part that should make them understood and turning true Words by perversion into Falshoods And partly by mixing this known Truth That I was on the Parliaments side and openly declared it But when at the new Model I saw that they changed their Cause I changed my Practice was from the Day that I went into the Army a resolved Opposer of all that they did to the Changing of the Government their Usurpation was sent among them to that end which was immediately after Naseby Fight And continued openly disowning the Usurpation and the Means that set it up And though I was Preaching and Writing against the said Usurpers when an Army was Fighting for them against the King and the King knew how to forgive and Honour them that did so much to his Restoration yet are the Accusers so far from forgiving those that never personally hurt a Man that they forbear not multiplying false Accusations yea and accusing those Ministers and private Men that never had to do with Wars Yea the same Men that then wrote against me for the Changers and Usurpers have since been the fierce Accusers of us that opposed them And if these Men be unsatisfyed of my present Judgment I have no hope of giving them Satisfaction if all will not do it which I have largely written in my Second Plea for Peace for Loyalty and against Rebellion and all my Confutation of Hooker's Politicks in the Last Part of my Christian Directory with much more But this Book must have if any a Peculiar Answer V. Lately when I taught my Hearers That we must not make the World believe that we are under greater Sufferings than we are nor be unthankful for our Peace and that we must when any hurt us love and forgive them and see that we fail not of our Duty to them but not forsake the owning and just defending by Scripture-Evidence the Truth opposed They Printed that I Bid the People Resist and not stand still and dye like Dogs And I was put the next Day to appeal to many Hundred Hearers who all knew that the Accusation was most impudent Lies This is our present Case VI. The Players I hope expect no Answer to their Part. London Printed for R. Janeway in Queens-Head-Alley in Pater-Noster-Row 1682. The General Part containing the Design and Sum of this and the former Book that it may be understood what it is that Mr. Morrice defendeth and opposeth and what it is that I maintain or blame and by what Evidence § 1. I Have been these forty years much troubled with the temptation to wonder why God suffers most of the World to lie drown'd in Ignorance Infidelity and Sensuality and the Church of Professed Christians to live in so great Scandal Contention Division and for the greater number in a Militant Enmity against the Word Will Way and Servants of Christ while in Baptism they are Listed under him But of late since Experience tells me of the marvelous Diversity of Humane Interests and Apprehensions and the deep Enmity of the Fleshly Mind to Spiritual things I admire the Wisdom and Providence of God that there is so much Order and Peace and Love in the World of Mankind as there is And that all men live not as in a continual War And I perceive that if God had not preserved by Common Grace some remnants of Moral Honesty in the World and had not also sanctified a peculiar People whose New Nature is LOVE the Sons of Men would have been far worse than Bears and Wolves to one another and a man would have fled with greater fear from the sight of another man than from a Snake or Tyger But God hath not left himself without witness in his Works and daily Providences and in the Consciences of those who have not sinned themselves into Brutes or Devils And hence it is that there is some Government and Order in the World and that sin is ashamed of its proper name and even they that live in Pride Covetousness Ambition Lying Persecution c. cannot endure to hear the name of that which they can endure to keep and practise and cannot endure to forsake § 2. And indeed it is a great Credit to Honesty and Piety to Truth and Love and Peace and Justice that the deadliest Enemies of them are ambitious of their Names and though they will damn their Souls rather than be such they will challenge and draw upon any man that denieth them to be such And I must profess that I fetch hence a great confirmation of the Immortality of Souls and a Future Life of Retribution For if there were not a very great difference between Moral Good and Evil what should make all the world even the worst of men be so desirous to be accounted Good and so impatient of being thought and called naught and as they deserve And if the difference be so vast here must there not needs be a Governour of the World that hath made such a difference by his Laws and Providence and who will make a greater difference hereafter when the End and Judgment cometh § 3. Among other Causes of Humane Pravity and Confusion one is the exceeding difficulty that young men meet with in the communication of so much Knowledge as they must necessarily receive from others Knowledge is not born with them It is but the power and capacity of it and not the act in which an Infant excels a Dog And how shall they have it but by Objects and Communication And Objects tell them not things past the Knowledge of which is necessary to make them understand things present and to come and without which it is not possible to be wise And God teacheth not Men now by Angels sent from Heaven but by Men that were taught themselves before and by his Spirit blessing mens endeavours And when I have said by Man how bad how sad a creature have I named Alas David's haste Psal 116. was not erroneous passion nor Paul's words Rom. 3. a slander when they called all men Lyers that is untrusty and so little do men know that must teach others and so much doth all corruption incline them to love flattering Lies and to take fleshly Interest the World and the Devil for their Teachers and to hate the Light because it disgraceth their hearts and deeds and so much goeth to make a man wise that it must be a wonder of merciful Providence that shall help young men to Teachers that shall not be their Deceivers There were ever comparatively few that were truly wise and trusty and these usually despised in the World § 4. And how should young men know who these are This is the grand difficulty that maketh the Errour of the World so uncurable It requireth much wisdom to know who is wise and to be trusted who can well
discern and value that Knowledge in another which he is a stranger to himself Experience tells us that young unexperienced men do commonly receive that man's Opinions 1. Who hath by nearness or some accident the greatest advantage in their esteem and love 2. Or his that speaks most for their fleshly Interest and for that which they would have to be true 3. Or his that hath the last word It cannot be expected that they judge of any thing beyond the advantage of their senses and the Notitiae communes according to Evidence of Truth which must be received by long and serious study and by willing honest minds and by the help of antecedent Verities § 5. In this therefore Divine free Election is very manifest As in giving the Gospel to some Nations in the World when most others never have it so in giving some young persons the blessing of good Education and Teachers and chusing for them that were unable to chuse well for themselves as also in blessing the same helps to one which are despised by another And verily when I have been long stalled with the difficulties about Election and Differencing Grace undeniable Experience hath been my chief Conviction If the Gospel be true the common worldly fleshly sort that are for Christ but by Tradition Law and Custom and are religious for worldly ends and no farther than the Interest of the Flesh and World will give them leave have no true Saving Grace at all And the rest that seriously believe and seek a better Life and live above fleshly worldly Interests are in most places few and made the scorn and hatred of the rest And if de facto God do sanctifie only a peculiar People who can deny his differencing Will and Grace § 6. I was my self in my Childhood ignorant what Teachers among such diversity I should prefer And first God had such a witness in my Conscience that Virtue and Holiness were better than Vice and Sin that it made me think that the sort of Teachers who Traded meerly for the World and never spake a serious word of Heaven nor differed from sober Heathens but in Opinion yea that endeavoured to make serious Godliness to seem but Hypocrisie were not like to be the wisest and most trusty men And yet how to judge among the serious which were right was long too hard for me § 7. When I came to consider of the Divisions of the Christian World and â—eard the Papists pretend to Catholicism and call all others Schismaricks or Hereticks it sometime seemed a plausible Opinion that the greatest Power and Dignity of the Clergy was the Interest of Christianity By Riches Honour and Power they may protect the Godly and keep Religion from Contempt among the worldly sort of men or from oppression at the least 2. And I saw that in all Ages and Countries of the World Historians tell us how rare a thing a wise and holy Prince hath been and how commonly by Wealth and Greatness they have been bred up in that Sensuality and Pride which hath made them the Capital Enemies to serious Piety if not the Persecutors of it 3. I thought with myself if such godly Christians as much value the Interest of Religion had lived in such times and places where Rulers were Persecutors of the Truth how glad would they have been to have had the Power of Church-matters put into the hands of their Chosen Pastors what would they have desired more 4. And I read that till Riches and honours were annexed to the Office the People had still the Choice of their own Pastors and therefore could not chuse but wish their Estates and Lives and all as well as their Religion to be as much as might be in their hands And so no doubt when the Bishops were advanced to great Diocesses and Power it was by the desire of the most Religious Christians who valued most the Interest of the Church 5. And I could not but observe that though Christ gave his Apostles no Power of the Sword he set them above other Ministers not only in Miraculous Gifts and Infallible testifying and recording his Commands and works but in some sort of oversight which seemeth a thing appointed for Continuance as well as preaching 6. And I thought that if Church-Grandure were the Interest of Religion and Unity the strength of the Church it lookt very plausibly to reason that as Bishops were over Presbyters so there should be some over Bishops and that National Churches should by such Government be hindered from Schism and Heresie as well as Parochial And that Diocesans and Metropolitans Power should be derived from a Superiour as well as Presbyters And that when poor Subjects dare not reprove a Prince some that are above fearing his Power may 7. And when I read the Popes Claim I thought it seemed not improbable that Petrus primus and pasce oves meas and super hanc Petram were not spoken in vain And these thoughts pleaded thus for Church-Grandeur in Prelates and Popes § 8. On the other side I saw 1. That Christ said His Kingdom was not of this world and comes not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with observable Pomp. And that when they strove who should be greatest he reproved them and Concluded with you it shall not be so and that the most serviceable is to be accounted the greatest that Peter himself accordingly describeth their office 1 Pet. 5. 2. I find that Christ appointed them another sort of work to do even to Preach the Gospel to all Nations through all streights difficulties and sufferings and to baptize and teach Christians to observe the Laws of Christ And that as he never put the Sword into their hand so an official declaring and applying his Word to voluntary Disciples was all their Office as ordinary Pastors to be continued 3. I find that Christ sent them out by two and two as if it had been done on foresight that men would erect a Church-Monarchy And that no Scripture tells us of any division of the Church into Diocesses where ore Apostle was a Monarch or had Power above the rest or was his Peculiar Province Nor that the twelve settled twelve such or any as the seats of their Successors 4. I find not that ever any one Apostle exercised Government over the rest Nor that ever Christ gave the rest any Command or Direction to obey any one Nor that ever the Contending or Schismatical sort of Christians were directed to end their strise by taking any one for the Head who must determine all their Controversies And that they that said I am of Cephas are reproved with the rest And that all are called Members of the Body and only Christ the Head And if it had been his will that One Universal Head or Power should have been set up as the Principium or Center of Unity it is a matter of so great consequence that it is not to be believed that Christ would not have plainly
commanded it 5. I find that Christ hath himself done the work for which the necessity of Universal Humane Government by Pope or Councils is pretended viz. He hath made and caused his Apostles peculiarly qualified for it to record Universal Church-Laws even as many as are Universally necessary And if so I cannot but think 1. That he hath done it better than Man can do 2. And that to add more unnecessarily must needs be a snare and burden to the Church 3. And that it must be an usurping the Power of Christ For if there be no other Universal Governour there is no other that hath Authority to make Universal Laws Therefore this is Treason against Christ and a making Man a Vice-Christ 6. I found that there is not so much as a Natural Capacity in any one or many for an Universal Government Church-Government being of such a nature as maketh it far more impossible than for one Monarch or Aristocracy to Govern all the Earth And to do it by a truly General Council or by the Diffused Bishops of all the World is further from possibility than to do it by a Pope 7. I searcht the Councils pretended to be General to see whether they had made any better Laws than Christ's or made any desirable addition And I found 1. That while they were not wholly Papists they never pretended to make Canons for any Christians but only those in the Roman Empire 2. And that it had been much happier for the Churches if they had made no more Laws than Christ had made them for holy Doctrine Worship and Church-Discipline and had only as Teachers expounded and applied the Laws of Christ 8. I considered the Present State of the Church Universal and I find it such as no Party of Christians in the World doth own The Pope pleadeth for an Universal Soveraignty and all his Clergy do the same some saying it is in Councils some in the Pope and most in both together or Councils approved by the Pope And Protestants Greeks Nestorians Jacobites and almost all other Christians in the World accuse this Roman Church and Claim The Papists condemn the rest The Greeks Arminians and almost all the rest accuse each other 9. I considered what Popery is that is Clergy-Power in its height and what it hath done in the World And I found 1. A woful description of the lives of multitudes of Popes recorded by their own most credited Historians And 2. I found multitudes of vicious Canons obtruded by them as Laws on the Universal Church 3. I found most doleful Histories of the Wars and Rebellions that they have caused from Age to Age. 4. I found that they have corrupted the Doctrine of Christ in abundance of particulars 5. And that they have lockt up the Sacred Scriptures from the Vulgar as they have not done their Canons 6. And that they have turned God's Spiritual Worship into a multitude of Superstitious Rites and scenical Ceremonies and Shews 7. And that they have turned Spiritual Church-Discipline into a secular sort of Tyranny 8. And that they have most schismatically unchurched the rest of the Churches because they are not Subjects of the Pope 9. And that they have branded the soundest Churches with the name of Hereticks while they are the grand Heresie of the World 10. And that they have been and are the greatest Silencers of sound Preachers and hinderers of true Piety and Reformation in the Church 11. And that they have wofully vitiated the People that are their Subjects so that odious wickedness fed by Ignorance abounds among them and it is their Votaries that are called Religious and a few Canonized persons Saints as if Religion and Sanctity were rarities or any could be saved without them 12. Lastly I find that they have lived upon Blood like Leeches and have been the cruellest Persecutors of holy men on pretence of killing Hereticks And that it is this to which they trust 10. I took not this notice of them upon meer prejudice but have read I think as many Papists Books as Protestants or any other against them Nor have I taken it upon dark Scripture Prophecies suspecting my understanding of them But 1. The matter of fact from themselves 2. Against their Papal Supremacy from such Arguments as are fully collected by Dr. Barrow 3. Against their heinous Church-corruptions from such Moral Evidence as Dr. H. Moore hath fully gathered in his Mystery of Iniquity 4. Against their pretences of Tradition and Antiquity I fetcht my Arguments from the Histories and Authors which they themselves alledge and especially their Councils with the Fathers Writings § 9. Seeing the Church in this sad Condition and the Papal part so greatly vitiated I considered how long it had so been And I found that the Pope and his Bishops grew not up like a Mushroom in a day but had been long in thriving to maturity And I met with no man that could just tell what Year or what Age the disease or tumor did begin Bishop Bromhall thinks if they will abate their last 400 years Innovations we may have hope of agreeing with them Bishop Gunning will own no General Councils but the first six some will receive eight some but four Mr. Morrice here goeth no further in his defence of them whatever he think Some begin Popery with Leo the great some with Gregory's Successour But it is most certain that it was first an Embrio and next an Infant and so grew up from Childhood to maturity by degrees And the first Church-corruption was not that which we now call Popery And it is as certain that the tumor did neither begin nor grow up in the Bishop of Rome alone but in other Bishops who grew up with him were his strength and Councils and he their Head § 10. It is known when the Greeks and Romans began most notably to strive which should be greatest and how the division increased and when and how it came to an anathematizing or excommunicating each other § 11. It 's notorious that it was from the Councils of Calcedon and Ephesus that the great separated bodies of Nestorians and Eutychians now called Jacobites that possess the East and South were broken off with Nestorius and Dioscorus and so continue to this day § 12. I considered who were the Chief Authors of all these lamentable Schisms and Church-corruptions in the several Ages when they rose and who continue them to this day And I found that many Princes were much to be blamed and the People not Innocent no not the Religious Monks But the Bishops that had the main Church-power by abusing it were with their Clergy the principal Causes and so are to this day The breaches might yet be healed in East West and South were it not for them § 13. Finding this in History of undoubted Truth I next considered what was the Cause that the Bishops and their Clergy should become such Church-corrupters and Dividers and still continue the Churches miseries And
by the way of Arbitration and took the Bishop with the Consent of his Clergy to be an Authorized Arbitrator and thus the affairs of all the Christians being cast upon him and he having no power to force any but only to govern Volunteers the Bishops were constrained to make their Rules of Discipline so much the stricter that all that would not renounce Christianity and Church-Communion might be brought to Obedience to escape Excommunication 7. God having made the Great Power and Extent of the Roman Empire so great a means for the propagation of Christianity the Christians thought that the Greater they grew themselves the more it would tend to the Churches deliverance from contempt and persecution And their advancement lay in that advancement of the Bishops which private men could not expect save only by subsequent participation Hereupon the Bishops by the Peoples consent endeavoured to form the Government of the Church within the Empire into a conformity to the Government of the Empire And they contrived that those Cities whose Governours had the chief Civil Power their Bishops should have answerable Church-Power the Glory of the Empire drawing them for seeming Interest into imitation 8. From the like Principles they desired greatly the enlargement of the Churches of which they were Overseers And whereas Christ had made single Churches like Schools and every stated Worshipping Church was also a Governed Church as every School hath its School-Masters one or moâ—â— by degrees these Churches were by degeneration quite altered 〈…〉 o other things First They were like a Parochial Church 〈◊〉 addeth Chappels They thought not so contemptibly of the Pâ—â—â—â—ral work as we do but found enough as is said for many me 〈…〉 a Church of a few hundred or thousand souls And when by Persecution or Numbers or Distance they could not all meet ordinarily in one place they appointed them to meet under several Presbyters in several places but without appropriating a particular Presbyter to each Assembly 2. After they appropriated them to their distinct charges and distinguished a stated Worshipping company from a Governed Church the Bishop and his Consistory ruling all in common and the People tyed to communicate only at the Bishops Altar and elsewhere to be but Hearers and Worshippers 3. After that they set up Altars up and down for Monuments and Memorials of Martyrs and then in the Presbyters Chappels yet so that the People were at Easter Whitsuntide and the Nativity to communicate with the Bishop in the Mother Church or Cathedral 4. Then when Country-Villages distant had a great increase of Christians they allowed Country-Bishops Chorepiscopos proved by Petavius to be true Bishops if they were not Presbyters ordained But they must be subject to the City Bishop 5. After this they decreed that very little Cities should have no Bishops ne vilescat nomen Episcopi whenas before that every City had a Bishop and Elders that had Christians enow And every Town like our Corporations or Market-Towns were called Cities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did not signifie only such as we now call Cities distinct from such Towns were they no bigger than Cenchrea Majuma and such others close to greater Cities they had Bishops Yea every Church was to have their Elders and consequently Bishops saith Dr. Hammond where ever it was by the Rule of the Holy Ghost Acts 14. 23. And God never said Let there be no Churches but in Cities Else when an Emperour would put down all the Cities or many he should put down as many Churches 6. After this they set up Patriarks as before they had done Metropolitans And it was three that they first set up but no where out of the Empire And the Papists find in the Institution the mystery of Trinity in Unity For they could not find any where Twelve Seats Successors to the Twelve Apostles and so they feigned that Peter being the Center of Unity The Trinity flowed from him 1. He as Bishop erected the Antiochian Patriarchate 2. By St. Mark his Disciple the Alexandriau And 3. By his final Episcopacy the Roman saith Joh. Dartis de statu Eccles tempore Apostoli pag. 23 24. Imitatur Ecclesia Deum ut trinum in Personis unum in essentia quatenus scilicet una eadem Ecclesia est multiplex ratione locorum nam distributio prima generalis omnium Ecclesiarum fuit in tres Patriarchatus Romanum Alexandrinum Antiochenum ut unum esset per tres Antistites Sacerdotium ad Trinitatis instar cui una est atque individua potestas ut recte interpretatur Symmachus Pap. ad Eonium Dicendum est quod sicut in Trinitate una existente essentia tamen personae differentes existunt it a Ecclesia una est essentia licet plures particulares existant Et sicut omnes Trinitatis personae originem sumunt à Patre qui est origo Filii uterque Sp. Sancti ita Ecclesia origo est Romana aliarum 7. At the same time they began to describe Churches or Bishops Provinces by the Measures of Land which before were described by the Persons of Volunteers inhabiting near each other saith the aforesaid Dartis p. 128. Et sane diu duravit ille mos tanquam Apostolicus in Ecclesiis ut non essent alii termini Episcopatus quam multitudo eorum quos ad fidem convertissent baptizassent which he proveth out of the Canons 8. Rome being the imperial Seat the Bishop of Rome was nearest the Emperour and subordinate Rulers and so most capable to make Friends for Christians under any Accusations and Persecutions by which advantage all Christians through the Empire needing and being glad of such help did willingly give the Primacy to the Romane Patriark 9. The Emperor Constantine turning Christian and taking them for his surest Souldiers resolved to raise them as high as he well could for the interest of Christianity and his own and thereby to work down the Heathens by degrees and accordingly gave them chief Countenance and chief Power and their Bishops being their chief men it must be done by exalting them He made them the authorized Judges of all Christians that desired it even in criminal cases He yet gave not the Bishops the power of the Sword but if any Christians had committed Fornication Adultery Perjury yea Murder the Bishop was to punish them by Pennance and Suspension from the Sacrament Besides which Christians had the chief Preferments as they were capable of in the Armies and Civil Government So that they triumphed over their late Persecutors And now Honour Power and Wealth were most on the Christians side but especially the Bishops 10. Worldly Interest being now on the Churches side much of the World by such Motives crowded into the Church and no man can imagine that it could be otherwise who considers which way the Vulgar go and how apt to be of the Prince's mind and how much nature inclineth to fleshly Interest Who had not rather be
kept from the Sacrament and Communion for a crime till he profess Repentance than to be hanged or banished or ruined for it But especially the Temptation was strongest to the Bishops whose baits were the most alluring And ever since then they that most loved Wealth Power and Honour that is the worst most worldly men have been the most eager desirers and seekers of Bishopricks And while humble holy men must rather be sought to such earnest seekers are like to be the ordinary finders and possessors 11. But yet three things kept up for some time a considerable number of godly Bishops in the Churches which with the humble Presbyters kept up the Interest of sound and practical Religion 1. Those that had been tryed worthy men before Constantines conversion and the Bishop's exaltation kept their Integrity in the main though in the Nicene Council their contentious Libels shewed that we are more beholden to Constantine than to them that they fell not into such strife as their Successors did Good men may be carryed too far in Pride and Strife but they will not be mastered by them and turn against the Power of Godliness 2. The People and Inferiour Clergy had the choice of their Bishops And so though they oft had tumults as in popular Elections it will be yet the worst ambitious men were long kept out and the best oft chosen till the People and Presbyters themselves were corrupted 3. And divers good Emperours arose that took some care to promote the best But alas this had sad and frequent interruptions 12. For the Arians possest Constantine himself with hard thoughts of Athanasius and his Adherents And it could not be expected that Julian should countenance the best when Constantius and Valeus had done so much against them and got most of all the Churches headed by Arian Bishops to say nothing yet of after times 13. But now two things became matter of Contention among the Bishops and their Clergy and increased the strife from time to time The first and chief was the Old Cause greatly strengthened viz. Who should be greatest Who should have the largest fattest and most Ruling Diocess and Seat The other was Who should be taken for the most Orthodox and whose Explications of the Faith should be taken for the soundest especially about the description of the Person and immanent acts of Christ Or briefly 1. Jurisdiction and Greatness 2. Wisdom and hard words 14. Now also Constantinople contended with Rome and being the Seat of the Empire which they judged to be the true Reason of Church-preheminence they at first modestly took the second place And now the Trinity of Patriarchs was turned to five Jerusalem being made the fifth At all this Rome grudged 15. All this while the old Discipline of the Church was tolerably kept up 1. Because though much of the world had got into the Church yet a very great part were tenacious of their Heathenish Customs and prejudiced against Christians by their Contentions odiously described by Am. Marcellinus and many others and prejudiced against Constantine for his Son Crispus and Sopaters death c. and against Constantius for the Murder of Julian's Relations and being taken with the plausible parts of Julian and with the great Learning and highly extolled Lives of Plotinus Porphyrius Jamblichus Aedesius Maximus Proeresius Libanius Chrysanthius and such others described by Eunapius c. so that except Rome and Alexandria for 200 years and some few of the very great Churches for 400 the Churches were no greater than one Bishop and his Consessus might tolerably govern by the Keys 2. And all this while all the Presbyters were Church-Governours as well as the Bishop though he was their Chief and all Excommunications were to be done by joint consent And so many Church-Governours may do more than one 16. Then Councils called General having by the Emperours Grant and the Clergies Desire and Consent the Supreme Church-Power it was in these Councils that the Pride Ambition and Domination of all the worldly Prelates that were too soon got in did exercise it self as the valour and wit of Souldiers in a field of War And as 1. The good men yet among them 2. And the Articles of Faith yet retained by them did cause them to do much good against some Heresies and Disorders so the Pride and Turbulency yea ignorance of the rest caused them to become the occasions of the doleful Schisms and Heresies and Enmity of Christians against each other which continue to this day unhealed 17. These hurtful Contentions in Councils at first prevailed but little and that at Nice did much more good I think than harm And after at Constant a little more hurt was done and much good And those that followed did worse and worse till the proud worldly Spirit contracted Malignity and so much prevailed that for a thousand years at least the Bishops with their Prelatical Clergy and their Councils have been the grand Corruption and Plague of the Church which many of the most Learned Expositors of the Revelation take to be the Image of the Beast and Dr. H. Moore calls it a Heathenish Christianity which they have made their Religion 18. In their progress to all this as the Diocesses first grew up from our Parochial Magnitude towards that of the present Diocesan so the very Pastoral Power of all the rest of the Presbyters was by degrees taken away so far as that they had no consenting power in Ordinations or Excommunications unless the Bishop would chuse a few for his Council so that the proper power of the King 's was confined to one Bishop over many hundred Parishes and so Discipline became an impossible thing save as it served the Bishops against some that they disliked And so the Church which was as the Garden of Christ became like the Commons and good and bad were little differenced in Communion 19. Yet because the Power must still be useful to the Bishops ends as he sees cause some shadow of the old exercise must be kept up But the Bishop having not leisure for the tenth part of the labour which this very shadow required Lay-men are made his Chancellours to decree Excommunications and Absolutions and to Govern by the Church Keys like a secular Court And Commissaries Officials Surrogates and other hard names and things are set up instead of the Presbyters and their Antient Office 20. By this time the Antient Species of the Churches was altered and whereas it was long held that a Church and Bishop were Correlates and there were no more Churches than Bishops now many hundred or a thousand Parishes are become no Churches but parts of one Diocesan Church which is the lowest and many score or hundred of the old sort of Bishops all cast out and swallowed up by one Just as if a thousand or some hundred Schools should have but one Governing Schoolmaster and be but one School but each part have an Usher to read to the Boyes
verbo discedimus omnia limatius subtilius scrutamur quam ipse vult nos scrutari Whether you reverence Luther any more than Calvin I know not 11. To conclude this matter two things I desire you or at least the Reader to consider 1. Whether it be not a dreadful thing for a man to make the Church corrupting dividing and confounding sin◠to be all his own by defending or excusing them on a false pretence of Vindicating the Primitive Church Government which was contrary to them 2. Whether you trust to Truth and Evidence or to Interest and depraved Judgments if you think men shall believe that you have confuted all this undoubted History and the present experience of all the woful Christian World by a general Cry that I write falsly and maliciously or by saying that I am unlearned or that I trusted to a Translation or Binnius or that Binnius mistook the year things that I will not turn over my Books to try or that I misplaced or misunderstood a word of Theodorite or mistranslated Calami or such like Such Believers of you are guilty of their own deceit § 22. There is lately published by a nameless Prelatist to shew the World what Spirit he is of a Book pretending by the description of my Life from 1640. till 1681. to prove me one of the worst men alive To that I will now say but these few words 1. That let them take me to be as bad as they will so they would have some mercy on their own and others Souls and the Church of God 2. That it 's no wonder that we differ about Antient Times and History and present Impositions when the main difference in our Times is who are godly yea tolerable Christians and who are intollerable Rogues and those that as before God by long and intimate acquaintance I judge to be the most serious conscionable humble holy Ministers and People that were ever known to me are the Persons that the Prelatists prosecute silence and cry out against as the most intollerable wicked Enemies of Piety Truth and Peace What is it that is the root of this 3. That this foresaid Book is one continued Calumny unworthy of an Answer partly making my duty my sin as that I disliked the many drunken Readers that were the Teachers of my Youth c. and partly perverting scraps of sentences and partly reciting one revoked Book and a few retracted sentences of another when Augustin is commended for retracting far more and filling it with a multitude of most gross untruths of his own fiction 4. That as to his and Mr. Morrice and others talk of the Wars I say 1. That I never thought the Parliament blameles◠2. That yet on Bilson's grounds I was in my Judgment and Speech and Action comparatively for them while they made their Commissions to Essex for King and Parliament 3. That from Naseby Fight I wholly laboured to have drawn off their Souldiers from Errour and Rebellion and Usurpation in which I did and suffered more than multitudes of my Accusers 4. That I never went so far against the Power of the King as R. Hooker whom I have long ago confuted 5. That I never struck or hurt man in the wars 6. That I will consent to be silenced and imprisoned if they will but give those Ministers leave to preach Christs Gospel that never had to do with wars unless for the King 7. That when our beginning Concord had restored the King the Scots though unsuccessfully fought for him Monk his Army that had bloodily at Dundee c. fought against him had with the Concurrence of Sir Tho. Allen the Londoners and Presbyterians restored him when the King by them came in Triumph Honoured Monk and others of them confest them the Cause of his Restoration past an Act of Oblivion that we might all live in future Peace I say If after all this it be Prelacy and Clergy Interest and Spirit that will rub over all the healed wounds and strive again what ever it cost us to ulcerate the peoples minds and resolve that the Land and Church shall have no Peace but by the destruction of such as restored the King I shall think never the better of Prelacy for this But ask them why did you not Speak it out in 1660 to Monk and his Army or till now § 23. And whereas that Advocate described Job 8. and you are still deceiving the ignorant by facing men down with Confidence that I lie in saying that Two Episcopal Parties began the War in England and the Papists and Presbyterians came in but as Auxiliaries I again say 1. Allow me but reasonable leave and I will prove it to the shame of you if you deny it 2. At present I will but recite one clause in Whitlocks Memorials pag. 45. even after they thought themselves under a necessity to please the Scots as far as they could Anno 1640. The Commons had debate about a new Form of Ecclesiastical Government and July 17. agreed That every Shire shall be a several Diocess a Presbytery of Twelve Divines in each Shire and a President as a Bishop over them and he with the assistance of some of the Presbytery to ordain suspend deprive degrade and excommunicate To have a Diocesan Synod once a year and every third year a National Synod and they to make Canons but none to be binding till confirmed by Parliament The Primate of Armagh offered an expedient for conjunction in point of Discipline that Episcopal and Presbyterian Government might not be at a far distance but reducing Episcopacy to the Form of Synodical Government in the Primitive Church Were not these men Episcopal It 's much like Mr. Thorndike's own motions saving his Opinion for Forein Jurisdiction § 24. As to your first and last Chapters and about the Antient Extent of Churches while my Treatise of Episcopacy which fully confuteth you is unanswered if I repeat it again it will not be read by weary men And another hath answered those parts of your Book which is ready for the Press I after tell you where Chrysostom even in his time numbers the Christians in that great Imperial City to be an hundred thousand that is as many as in Martins and Stepney Parishes and perhaps in Giles Cripplegate too § 25. To conclude whereas Mr. M. in general chargeth me as falsifying History I still call my self a HATER of FALSE HISTORY and loath Mr. Morrice's History because it is false But if he will instead of falsifying and trifling shew me any false History that I have owned I will thank him unfeignedly and retract it But factious reproaching of good men and painting the deformed face of Vice go not with me for convincing proof If I am not near of kin to Erasmus I am a stranger to my self even as Merula and M. Adamus describe him Ingenio erat simplex adeo abhorrens a mendacio ut puellus etiam odisset pueros mentientes
or absent Much less that Classes and other Assemblies are the stated Church-Government which all must obey And are the Presbyterians of any of the three forementioned Opinions § 5. I ever held a necessity of manifold dependance of all Christians and Churches As all depend on Christ as their Head so do all the People on the Pastors as their authorized Guides whom they must not Rule but be Ruled by 1 Thes 5. 12 13. Heb. 13. 17 24. And all these Churches depend on each other for Communion and Mutual Help as many Corporations in one Kingdom And frequent Synods well used are greatly helpful to these ends And the Command of doing as much as we can in Love and Concord doth bind all the particular persons to concur with the Synods in all things that tend to the Peace and Edification of the Church or are not against it And more than so if the general Visitors or Bishops that take care of many Churches do by God's Word direct instruct reprove admonish the particular Bishops and Churches they ought with reverence to hear them and obey them And if Independents really are for all this why do these Accusers represent them odiously as if it were no such matter but they were meerly for Church-Democracy Either you are not to believed in what you say of them or of me § 6. I know we have men that say that on pretence of acknowledging all this Episcopacy I put down all because I take from them the power of the Sword and leave all to despise them if they please Ans This indeed is the power that under the name of Episcopacy now too many mean Bishop Bilson knew no Power but Magistrates by the Sword and Ministers by the Word But why name I one man It is the common Opinion of Protestants and most sober Papists that Bishops as such have no power of force on Body or Purse But we deny not the forcing Power of the Magistrate 3. But we heartily wish that they would keep it in their own hands and never use it to force unwilling men into the Church or to Church-Communion high Priviledges which no unwilling person hath any right to This is my Independency CHAP. X. Of his Accusation That I make the Bishops the Authors of all Heresies and Schisms as distinct from Presbyters Monks and People § 1. THis also runs throughout his Book and must such Books be answered or believed I never denyed the guilt and concurrence of others with them I only say That as Bishops were the Chief so they had the chief hand as far as I can yet learn in Heresies and Schisms since they came to their height of Power and specially in those grand Heresies and Schisms which have broken and keep the Churches in those great Sects and Parties which in East and West it consisteth of to this day I never doubted or denyed but that 1. The Heresies that were raised before the Church had any Patriarchs or the turgent sort of Bishops were certainly raised without them 2. And afterward sometime a Presbyter began a Heresie 3. And the Bishops were but as the Generals of the Army in all the Church Civil Wars But I never denyed but the Prelatical Priests Monks and multitude were their obsequiâ—us Army § 2. Mr. M. saith That those Bishops that were Hereticks were mostly such or inclined to it before Answ 1. Was there then a good Succession of Ordination when the World groaned to find it self Arian Were all these Arians before their Consecration Answ 2. Were they not all Prelatical Presbyters that aspired to be Bishops and so as they say had a Pope or Bishop in their bellies I never thought that Prelatical Priests that studied Preserment and longed to be Bishops had no hand in Heresies nor Schisms no more than that the Roman Clergy are innocent herein and the fault is in the Pope alone What a deal then of this man's Book is lost and worse on such suppositions CHAP. XI Of his confident Accusation that I mention all the faults of the Bishops and none of their Goodness or Good Deeds § 1. THis also is a chief part of the Warp or Stamen of his Book In his Preface he saith This History of Bishops is nothing else but an Account of all the faults that Bishops have committed in the several Ages of the Church without Any Mention of their Good Actions of their Piety and Severity of their Lives of their Zeal for the Faith c. Answ 1. Whether this Fundamental Accusation be true or false let the Reader who loveth Truth see 1. In the very first Chapt. from § 41. to the end 2. Through all the Book where I oft praise good Bishops good Councels and good Canons and good Books and Deeds 3. In the two last Chapters of the Book written purposely to hinder an ill use of the Bishops faults In the first Chapter Very many of the Bishops themselves were humble holâ— faithful men that grieved for the miscarriages of the rest Though such excellent persons as Gregory of Neocaesarea Greg. Nazianz. Greg. Nyssen Basil Chrysostom Augustine Hillary Prosper Fulgentius c. were not very common no doubt but there were many that wrote not Books nor came so much into the notice of the World but avoided contentions and factious stirs that quietly and honestly conducted the Flocks in the waies of Piety Love and Justice And some of them as St. Martin separated from the Councils and Communion of the prevailing turbulent sort of the Prelates to signifie the disowning of their sins Of the Antients before the world crowded into the Church I never made question Such as Clemens Polycarp Ignatius Irenaeus and the rest How oft I have praised holy Cyprian and the African Bishops and Councils he sometime confesseth What I say of Atticus Proclus and other peaceable Bishops you may see p. 17. and very oft Yea of the Bishops of many Sects much of the Albigenses c. p. 17 18. Yea of the good that was done by the very worldly sort p. 18 19 20. Yea of the Papists Bishops that were pious p. 20. § 46. And § 47. I vindicate the excellency of the Sacred Office And § 53 58 59 60. I plead for Episcopacy it self in the justifiable species of it § 2. But perhaps he will say that at least I say more of their faults than their 〈◊〉 I answer of such good Bishops as Cyprian Basil Greg. Nazianzen Chrysostom Augustin Hillary Martin c. I speak of their virtues and nothing at all that I remember of their faults Of such as Theophilus and Cyril Alexandri and Epiphanius c. I speak of their virtues and some of their faults as the scripture doth of many good mens Of the more ambitious turbulent sort I speak only or mostly of their faults For I profess not to write a History of their lives but to inform the ignorant what Spirit it is that brought in Church tyranny and divisions I denyed
Have not whole Kingdoms been forbidden all Gods Publick worship by such even France and England among the rest Is it railing to tell for what little things they not only Silenced men but burned and murdered many thousands Were they not proud ambitious Prelates that deposed and abused Lud. Pius and those that in Council decreed the digging all the dead Bishops out of their graves to be burâ—t as Hereticks who were for the Emperours power of Investitures Do I rail if I say that Greg. 7. was Proud and ambitious when he threatened the Prince of Calaris with the loss of his dominions unless he made his Bishop shave his beard Do not Jewel and all Protestant writers say worse than this of Papist Bishops Is there any such thing as pride silencing burning c. If yea must it never be known reproved repented of and so forgiven to the penitent And if yea than how shall it be known without proper names By what name should I have called Silencing but its own and so of the rest Gods power over Conscience is marvellous that sin cannot endure its own name The next railing is the word Hereticating And how could I have known if he had not told me that this word is railing Did not the Bishops take it for a great service of God and is it railing to name it It 's true I used one word instead of a Sentence for brevity to signifie the Bishops culpable over doing in proclaiming men Hereticks He that doth not believe that they did not well nor do not to this day in Cutting off from the Church of Christ all those whole Countreys of Christians called Nestorians Jacobites Melchites and the Monothelites and many such I cannot save him from himself who will own all such sin and contract the guilt of it Hath not Bishop Epiphanius made us more Hereticks than he needed Hath not Bishop Philastrius made many more than the Devil himself made Lest this pass for railing once more I will name some of them 1. His 11th sort of Hereticks are those that kept Easter-day at a wrong time as our Brittains and Scots did 2. The Millenaries are the 12th such as many of the antient fathers and our Mr. Mede Dr. Twiss c. 3. The 27th Offered Bread and Cheese at the oblation 4. The 28th put New Wine in New Vessels in the Church 5. The 29th Put their fingers on their mouths for Silence 6. The 30th thought that all Prophets ended not with Christ 7. The 33d went without shooes 8. The Novatians are the 34th 9. The 41th thought the Epistle to the Hebrews was not written by Paul but by Barnabas or Clemens and the Epistle to Laodicea by Luke 10. The 42th are the Orthodox Miletians that Communicated with the Orthodox and some Arians too 11. The 46th doubted of the diversity of Heavens 12. The 47th being ignorant that there is another Common Earth invisible which is the Matrix of all things do think that there is no Earth but this one 13. The 48th thought that water was the common matter and was alwaies and not made with the Earth 14. The 49th Heresie denyed that the soul was made before the body and the body after joyned to it and believed that Gods making them Male and Female first was to be understood of the bodily Sexes Whereas saith he it was the Soul that was made Male and Female And the Soul was made the Sixth day and the body the 7th 15. The 50th Heresie thought that not only Grace but also the Soul itself was by God breathed into man 6. The 51st is Origens that thought our Souls were first celestical Intellects before incorporate as Mr. Glanvile and many now 17. The 52d thought that brutes had some reason as Mr. Chambre 18. The 54th thought that Earthquakes have a natural Cause 19. The 55th Heresie learned of Trismegistus to call the Stars by the names of Living Creatures as all Astronomers do 20. The 56th thought that there were not many languages before the confusion of Babel 21. The 57th Heresie thought that the name of a Tongue proceeded first of the Jews or of the Pagans 22. The 58th Heresie doubted of the years and time of Christ 23. The 59th thought as many Fathers that Angels begat Giants of women before the flood 24. The 61st was that Christians were after Jews and Pagans 25. The 62d Heresie saith that Pagans are born naturally but not Christians that is that the Soul and body of men are not daily Created by Christ but by Nature 26. The 63d saith that the number of years from the Creation was uncertain and unknown 27. The 64 thought that the names of the daies of the week Sunday Monday c. were made by God first and not by Pagans and were named from the Planets 28. The 66th was that Adam and Eve were blind till God opened their Eyes to see their nakedness 29. The 67th Heresie imputeth the Sins of Parents to their Children 30. The 68 Heresie was of some troubled about the Book called Deuteronomy 31. The 69 thought that those sanctified in the Womb wore yet conceived in sin 32. The 70th Heresie thought that the World had been first divided by the Greeks Egyptians and Persians 33. The 71 thought there was a former Flood under Deucalion and Pyrrha 34. The 72 saith that men are according to or under the 12 signs of the Zodiack not knowing that those 12 signs are divers Climates and habitable Regions of the Earth 35 The 74 Heresie is that Christ descended into Hell to offer Repentance there to sinners 36. The 75 doubted of the nature of the Soul thinking it was made of Fire c. as many Greek Fathers did 37. The 77 is of Gods hardening Pharaoh c. where he describeth the Dominicans 38. The 79 is that the Psalms were not all made by David and it denieth the equality of the Psalms as if they were not all written and placed in the order that the things were done 39. The 80 Heresie thought that Gods words to Cain Thou shalt rule over him were properly to be understood whereas the meaning was Thou shalt rule over thy own evil Thoughts that are in thy own free Will 40. The 81 Heresie did not well understand the reason of Gods Words to Cain giving him Life 41. The 82 Heresie thought that the Stars had their fixed place in Heaven and their course not understanding that the Stars are every night brought out of some secret place and set up for use and at morning return to their secret place again Angels being Presidents and Disposers of them that is as servants bring Candles into the room at night and take them out again 42. The 83 doubted as some Episcopal Commentators of the Book of Caâ—ticles lest it had a carnal Sense 43. The 85 Heresie thought that the Soul of man was naturally Gâ—ds Image â—efore Grace 44. The 87 Heresie thought that really four living Creatures mentioned in the Pâ—â—pheâ—s
take all you have do not say you hâ—rt us much less you wrong us take not on you to know or feel when you are hurt else we will have an Action of railing against you § 8. That wâ—iâ—h followeth I answered before But after he finds a notable piece of my ignorance The Pope inviting the King of Denmark to conquer a Province of Hereticks I know not who they were unless they were the Waldenses Well guest saith Mr. M. Waldo was in 1160 80 Years after Ans This will serve for men willing to be deceived It was the Persons and Religion and not the name that I spoke of Doth not he know that Rainerius himself saith that those Persons called Albigenses Waldenses and other such names professed that their way of Religion was Apostolical and they derived it down from Silvesters that is Constantines time If I did not guess well I wrong no Bishops by iâ— and I confessed my Ignorance that I knew not whom the Pope meant And why did not this callent Historian tell us who they were § 9. Next he hath met with my Ignorance for saying Vienna near France which is in the Borders of France Aâ—s 1. Is that any slander of Bishops or Councils 2 Truly I had many a time read in Councils that Vienna was in France and had not forgot it if Ferrarius and Chenu had not also told it me And whether it was the fault of the Printer or of my Hand or my Memory that put near for in I leave it freely to his Judgment for I remember it not And if the manner of Binnius naming it made me call Ordo Prophetarum in Gelasius a Book it 's no wrong to Episcopacy CHAP. XVII His Censure of my Design and Church-Principles considered § 1. AS to this his first Chapter I have before shewed how falsly he reporteth my design He saith he never saw any thing which more reflecteth on Religion Lucian and Julian have left nothing haâ—f so scandalous in all their Libels against Christians as this Church-History has raked up Here is nothing to be seen in his Book but the Avarice Ignorance Mistakes and furious Contentions of the Governours of the Church Ans How false that is the Reader may see in all the beginning the two Chapters in the end and much in the midst which are written contrarily to obviate such false thoughts 2. Is the ascendent sort of Prelates that were growing up to maturity till Gregory the Seventh's daies the whole Church of God Are there no other Christians Is all that is written against the Pope and such Ascendents written against Christianity Did Christ speak against Christianity when he reproved them for striving who should be greatest or Peter when he counselled them as 1 Pet. 5. And Paul when he said I have no man like minded for they all seek their own things and not the things that are Jesus Christ's Or when he said Demas hath forsaken me c Or John when he said Diotrephes loved to have the preheminence Or all those Councils of Bishops which condemned each other far deeplier than I judge any of them What have I said of Fact or Canons which Binnius and their other Flatterers say not Was it not there extant to the sight of all And that I Recorded not all their Virtues 1. The History of Councils saith little of them 2. Must no man shew the hurt of Drunkenness Gluttony c. and so of Ambition and Church-corruption unless he will write so Voluminous a History as to contain also all the good done by all the persons whom he blameth I have oft said that I wondered that instead of so greedy gathering up all the scraps of Councils the Papists did not burn them all as they have done many better Books which made against them § 2. I was about to answer all his first Chapter but I find it so useless a work that I shall ease my self and the Reader of that labour 1. He takes on him to answer a Piece of a Disputation written about 23 years ago whereas I have lately written a Treatise of Episcopacy with fuller proof of the same things which he nameth and takes on him to answer some part of it and answers not Till he or some other shew me the mistakes of that let them talk on for me in their little Velitations 2. Most that is considerable which he saith is answered already in that Book As his fiction that Unum Alt are in Ignatius signifieth not an ordinary Communion Table c. And much more out of Ignatius and many more is added which he saith nothing to 3. I have before shewed that he goeth on false Suppositions that I am only for a Bishop of a single Congregation or against all and many such when yet he himself confesseth the contrary yea derideth me for making Twelve sorts of Bishops and being for such as no Party is like to be pleased with 4 The contradictions and mistakes are so many as would tire the Reader to peruse an answer to them And when he hath all done with the numbring of Churches over-passing the full proof of the Primitive Form of them which I gave as before he confesseth that even his great esteemed Jesuite Valesius believes that the City Church was but One even in Alexandria and in Dionysius ' s time p. 64. And while p. 65. he makes Petavius and Valesius so much to differ as to gather their contrary Opinions from the same words and consequently one of them at least understood them not I that profess my self not comparable to either of them specially Petavius in such things am taken for a falsifier if I misunderstand a word that concerneth not the matter of the History This therefore being not about Church-History so much as against my Opinion of the Antient Government when he hath answered the foresaid Treatise of Episcopacy if I live not some one may reply if he deal no better than in this CHAP. XVIII Of his Second Chapter § 1. PAg. 78. He would have men believe that it is Discipline against real Heresie that I find so much fault with and ascribe all mischief to Answ Utterly contrary to my most open Profession It is only making those things to seem Heresie that are none either Truth or meer difference of words or small mistakes or curing Heresies by rash Anathema's without necessary precedent means of Conviction or by Banishment or Blood § 2. Is this it that you defend the Church for and we oppose it for When we would have none in our Churches whom we know not and that have not personally if at Age profest understandingly their Faith And what is the Discipline that you exercise on Hereticks It 's enough that you know them not and so never trouble them Your Talk and Pamphlets truly complain what swarms of Hobbists Sadduces Infidels Atheists are among us Do they not all live in the Parishes and Diocesses Doth the Bishop know them Are any of
them Excommunicated I could never learn yet how to know who are Members of your Churches Is it all that dwell in the Parishes Then all these aforesaid with Jews and Papists are in it And then why are ten parts of some Parishes suffered without Discipline to shun the Parish Church-Communion Is it all that hear you Then 1. Ten parts in some Parishes and two or three or half in others are not of your Church and hear you not and many Nonconformists hear you 2. And any Infidel may hear Bare hearing was never made a sufficient note of a Church-Member 3. And how can you tell who all be that hear you in an uncertain crowd 4. And why doth not your Discipline meddle with constant Non-Communicants 3. Is it only all that Communicate with you 1. These are yet fewer and so the far greatest part of many or most Parishes here are let alone to be no Church members at all when they have been long Baptized and no censure by discipline past on them 2. How know you your stated Communicants when any stranger may come unquestioned The truth is it is Parish discipline which you will not endure No wonder if you named it Issachars burden Bucer in scrip Anglic. and all the Nonconformists after him long strove for it in vain It is the hated thing Were it possible to prevail with you for this we should have little disagreement about Church Government But the Popes that have been the greatest enemies of it have yet gloried in a Discipline to set up their power over Princes and Peoples and to have their own wills and tread down all that are against them § 2. To extenuate Anathematizing so very Common with Councils he tells us P. 81. that Let him be Anathema imports no more than that we declare our abhorrence of such doctrines and will have nothing Common with those that profess them Ans 1. We may declare our abhorrence of every known sin and Errour in such as must not be anathematized 2. By nothing I suppose you mean not not the same King Countrey Earth Air c. but not the same Church the same Christian Communion familiarity love c Whether you mean not the same God Christ c. I know not But do you think the Anathematizing Bishops so unreasonable as to renounce all Christian Communion with men and not tell why Or to give no better Reason than We abhor their doctrine How few Churches or men have nothing worthy to be abhorred that is No Errour or sin And must we renounce Communion with all the Christian world No they were not so bad You use them hardlier than I. They took them to be no true Christians as wanting somewhat of that faith which is necessary to Salvation and Essential to a Christian and so to have made themselves no Church-Members and therefore are to be sentenced avoided accordingly And how ordinarily do they expound Let him be Anathema that is Cut off from Christ Not only Hildebrand so expounds it often but many before him Whereupon they commonly agree that an Anathematized Heretick is none of the Church nor can be saved without repentance And indeed to renounce all Communion with Christs true members not Cut off from the Church is a greater sin than I charge on them Though familiarity and specially Communion may be suspended while delay of repentance makes the Case of a sinner doubtful § 3. Pag. 82 He begins himself with blaming Bishop Victor for Endangering the Peace of the whole Church upon so light occasion Valesius is of opinion that it was but by letters of accusation Answ I think it could be but by Letters of Accusation Renunciation and persuading others to renounce them For Bishops were not then come up to their Commanding Power over one another But doth not Mr. M's here rail upon a Bishop in saying the same of him that I did if my words were Railing Thus you shall have him all along confessing much of that faultiness by them which he takes the mention of by me to be so bad § 4. He nameth many Councils which he saith I pass lightly over then sure I say no harm of them He thinks it is because I could not as if he knew it were my will And so I am never blameless § 5. But he hath a notable Controversie against Baronius who thought Novatus had been a Bishop such Errours as Baronius was guilty of by Ignorance are excusable in one so far below him in History as I am But I congratulate Mr. M's discovery that he was but a Presbyter But all confess that he Ordained Felicissimus Deacon And here is a Presbyter Ordaining But it was irregularly Let it be so He saith that he ought not to have Ordained but with Cyprian or by his permission I grant it But 1. If Cyprian's permission would serve then it was not a work alien to a Presbyter If a permitted Presbyter may Ordain a Bishop's Ordination is not necessary ad esse Officii and so that which is a disorder is no Nullity 2. And it seems by Novatus's Act that the Necessity of Episcopal Ordination was not universally received And I have not yet met with any that make it more necessary ad esse Presbyteratus quam Diaconatus § 6. Next he mentions another Carthage Council where one Victor dead is condemned for making a Priest Guardian of his Child and so entangling him in worldly Affairs And he tells you that all that I can say against this is the rigour of the Sentence but he dissembleth and takes no notice that I mention it in praise of the Bishops of those Times who were so much against Clergy-mens medling with Secular Affairs What odious Puritanism would this have been with us What I cite in praise our Historian cannot understand § 7. And that you may need no Confuter of much of his Accusation of me but himself who so oft saith I say nothing of Bishops and Councils but of their faults c. he here saith as followeth After this he gives a short Account of Councils called on the Subject of Rebaptization of Hereticks And here to do him right he is just enough in his Remarks The generality of the World was for Rebaptizing Hereticks And considering what manner of men the first Hereticks were it is probable they had Tradition as well as Reason on their side However Mr. Baxter endeavours fairly to excuse these Differences and speaks of the Bishops with honour and respect allowing them to be men of eminent Piety and Worth Had he used the same Candour towards others c. Answ 1. If this be true a great deal contradictory is untrue 2. He greatly misreporteth the Controversie It was not whether Hereticks should be Rebaptized but those that were Baptized by Hereticks and taken into their Churches If a Heretick had been Baptized when found by a sound Minister and after turned to Heresie he was to be restored by Repentance without Rebaptizing and I
just year little care I. § 16. I praised a Donatist's Council of 270 Bishops at Carthage for Moderation agreeing to communicate with penitent Traditors without Rebaptizing them and so doing for 40 years Q. What was these mens Heresie He saith This looks liker a piece of Policy than Moderation for it had no tendency to peace but to strengthen the Schism Ans Who knows how to please men When they exclaim against Separation if men Communicate with them they judge it but Policy that hath no tendency to peace 2. And who is it now that most raileth at Bishops I am confuted for praising the moderation of 270 of them and he is their censurer even when they do well and their moderation with him is but Policy Even as they say of me that I constantly Communicate with their Parish Churches to undermine them Near or far off all 's one with this sort of men if you stick at any thing that they bid you say or do But he will not believe that this Council of Orthodox moderate Donatists were so many as 270. Because 1. we have only the Authority for it of Tychonius a Donatist 2. It 's improbable after Constantine's suppression of them that Schism should so suddenly spread 3. Lest it should prove the Churches to be too Small Yet he saith These Schismaticks set up Churches in every City and Village Ans 1. It 's said Tychonius confesseth this Council because the later Donatists would fain have buryed the memory of it But that it depends only on the Credit of Tychonius I think depends only on your Credit 2. Augustine that reports it honoureth this Tychonius and reciteth an Exposition of his of the Angels of the Churches Rev. 2. and 3. which I suppose displeaseth you more than his Donatism 3. It seems you would have believed some stranger that knew it not rather than a Donatist that speaketh against the will and interest of his party 4. It rather seems that the Donatists were the greater number of Christians there before Constantine's time and like the Papists therefore counted themselves the Catholicks and the others the Schismaticks Constantines Prohibition did not suppress them 5. Therefore the numerousness of their Bishops and smallness of Churches rather sheweth what was the state of the Churches before worldly greatness swelled them to that disease which was the Embrio or infancy of Popery § 17. Whether the Donatists be like the Papists or the Separatists much less to the Nonconformists if the Reader will but peruse what I have said and what Mr. M. hath said I am content that he judge without more words § 18. He passeth by divers Councils because he could not say that I blame them And he passeth by Constantine's Epistle to Alexander and Arius which raileth at them more than I do in his sence As to the Council of Laodicea it is not two or three such words as his that will make an impartial man believe that the Churches were like our Diocesses when every Convert before baptism was to say his Catechism to the Bishops or his Presbyters Or that the Command that Presbyters go still with the Bishop into the Church and not before him do not both imply that they were both together in every Church But he will have it confined to the Cathedral And when I say There were long no Churches but Cathedrals he saith he will not differ with me whether they shall be called Churches or Chappels But the difference is de re They say themselves that A Bishop and a Church were then Relatives And when they have put down many hundred Churches under the Diocesan forsooth they will gratifie us by giving us leave to call them Churches As if they put down an hundred to one of the Cities and Corporations and then give us leave to call them Corporations when they are none Yet blush they not to make the world believe that they are that Episcopal party who put down a thousand Churches and Bishops in some one Diocess and I am against Bishops Yea when they have not the front to deny but that every City then had a Bishop that had Christians and that our Corporations are such as they called Cities Yet when we plead but at least if they will have no Chorepiscopi they will restore a Church and Bishop with his Presbyters to every such City with its adjacent Villages hatred scorn and derision goeth for a Confutation of us Though we do it but to make true discipline a possible thing Which they call Issachar's burden and abhor it and then say It is possible and practised § 19. As to the Roman Council which he believeth not he might perceive that I believed at least their antiquity as little as he But the Canons are so like those of following Councils that such it 's like were sometime made And whereas I noted that their condemning them that wrong timed Easter would fall on the Subscribers to our English Liturgy where 2000 are Silenced for not Subscribing the man had no better answers to give than these 1. That I should have said the Almanack-Makers As if he would have had men believe that Falshood that it was the Almanack Makers and not our Liturgy changers that were deceived 2. Alas one year they mistook As if he would Perswade men that their rule faileth but one year which faileth oft 3. The Silenced Ministers have little Reason to thank him or any body else that giveth this Reason of their Separation It 's strange this should trouble their Consciences that Care no more for Easter than for Christmas but only that it Falls upon a Sunday Here see his Historical Credibility 1. Would he perswade men that we give this Reason alone Or why may it not be one with twenty more 2. He intimateth that I give them as reasons of Separation As if to be Silenced were to separate and to be passive were to be active 3. He intimateth that as Nonsubscribers I and such other are Separatists which is false While we live in their Communion 4. He taketh on him to know our judgment as against Easter but for Sunday when we never told him any such thing 5. He intimateth that it 's no credit to us that we make Conscience of deliberate professing Assent to a known untruth in open matter of fact And if the Contrary be their Credit I wish they may never be Witnesses against us 6. He intimateth that a man that is not for keeping Easter is the less excusable if he will not Profess a known Falshood about the time of Easter If Conscience stood a man in no stead for greater Ends than worldly wealth and ease and honour who would not be a Latitudinarian Conformist § 20. Next when I deny belief to these Councils he blames me for making advantage of the History of them As if he saw not that I do it but ad hominem to the Papists who record them as if they were really true For it
Parochialis brings copious Reasons and Orders of Princes Popes and Prelates that all should confess to the Parish-Priest If you had set this up here how many men must have gone to it in the Parishes of St. Martin Giles Cripplegate Stepney c But how much greater work hath Dr. Hammond and Old Councils cut out for him that will be the sole Bishop of many hundred Parishes I have named it elsewhere And if any man of consideration think I have not proved against Mr. Dodwell that Bishops Government is not like a King 's who may make what Officers under him he please but depends more as a Physician 's or School-master's on Personal Ability I will now add but this Question to him Why is it that Monarchy may be hereditary and a Child or Infant may be King but an Infant may not be Bishop nor any one not qualified with Essential Ability I have at large told you how sharply Baronius and Binnius condemn that odious Nullity of making a Child by his Father's Power A. Bishop of Rhemes If I heard twenty men say and swear that one man is sufficient to be the only Master of many hundred Schools or Physician to many hundred Hospitals or that one Carpenter or Mason may alone build and rear all the Houses in the City after the Fire or one man be the sole Master of an hundred thousand Families what can I say to him but that he never tryed or knows the work § 18. When I note that the Donatists took themselves for the Catholicks and the Adversaries for Schismaticks because they were the greater number he very honestly saith that Multitude may render a Sect formidable but it 's no Argument of Right Very true nor Secular Power neither But what better Argument have the Papists and many others that talk against Schism § 19. He thinks the Donatists Bishops Churches were not so small as our Parishes Answ Not as some But if as I said before Constantinople in the height of all it's Glory in Chrysostom's daies had but 100000 Christians as many as three London Parishes have judge then what the Donatists had § 20. His double quarrel with Binnius and Baronius let who will mind What I gathered out of those and other Canons of the smalness of Churches then I have elsewhere made good His Reviling Accusations of Envy to their Wealth deserveth no Answer § 21. He comes to St. Theophilus's Case of which we spake before The Monks that reported evil of him were it may be saith he downright Knaves The Reviling is blameless when applied to such Doubtless they were ignorant rash Zealots But one that reads what the Egyptian Monks were in Anthony's daies and after and what Miracles and Holiness Sulpitius Severus reporteth of them and why Basil retired into his Monastery c. may conjecture that they had much less worldliness than the Bishops and not greater faults § 22. I think it not desirable or pleasant work to vindicate the credit of Socrates and Sozomen accusing Theophilus But if his Conjectures in this case may serve against express History of such men and so near let him leave other Histories as loose to our Conjectures Postâ—umianus Narrative in Sulpitius is but of one piece of the Tragedy He thinks it improbable that Origen should be accused for making God Incorporeal and such Conjectures are his Consutation of History But Origen had two sort of Accusers the Bishops such as Theophilus and Epiphanius had worse charges against him But the Anthropomorphite Monks were they that brought that Charge against him that God had no face hands eyes And Theophilus before them cryed down Origen in general to save his life by deceiving them that they might think he did it on the same account as they did This is Socrates his Report of the Case He saith that the Impudent Mutinous Monks were not ashamed to tell all the world that all that were against them were Anthropophites Answ It was other Monks that I here talk not of that he means It was these Monks that were Anthropomorphites themselves and would have killed Theophilus for not being so till he said to them Methinks I see your faces as the Face of God And the name of the Face of God did quiet them Hierom was a Party against Chrysostom it was for not passing that Sentence on Origen that Epiphanius would by masterly Usurpation have imposed on him that Chrysostom was by him accused § 23. Could any Sobriety excuse that man Epiphanius that would come to the Imperial City and there purposely intrude into the Cathedral of one of the best Bishops in the world for Parts and Piety and there play the Bishop over an A. Bishop in his own Church and seek to set all the Auditory in a flame at the time of Publick Worship and require him to say that of Origen which he there without any Authority imposed on him I know not what is Pride Usurpation Turbulency if not Malignity if this be not But at last he saith I do not intend to excuso Theophilus in this particular Thank Pope Innocent He did certainly prosecute his Resentment too far But he was not the only man Epiphanius a person of great Holiness Hierom and several other persons renowned for their Piety were concerned in the persecution of this Great man as well as he And to say the truth this is their weakness for that Severity which gives men generally a Reputation of Holiness though it mortifie some irregular heats yet is apt to dispose men to pâ—evishness But true Holiness ever sincerely loveth holy men and specially such as are publick Blessings to the Church And though I censure not their main State your Holy Persecutors of the best of Christ's Servants will never by Christ be judged small Offenders Alas it's too true that Theophilus was not alone A Council of Bishops were the Persecutors And it 's hard to think that they loved Chrysostom as themselves When the forementioned Council at Constantinople had turned out Nazianzen even the great magnifiers of General Councils Baronius and Binnius thus reproach them that they drove away a holy excellent man that a man was set up in his stead that was no Christian that it was the Episcopi Nundinarii that did it the Oriental Bishops first leaving them and going away with Gregory And if the Major Vote of that General Council were Episcopi Nundinarii what Châ—ysostom's Persecutors were may be conjectured Do not these Papists here say worse of them than I do § 24. Yet though he confess as much as is aforesaid and bring but his Conjectures mixt with palpable omissions against the express words of Socrates and Sozomen he hath the face to make up his failing with this Calumny I have dwelt so long on this not only to vindicate Theophilus but to shew once for all the manner of our Author's dealing with his Reader in his Church-History Any scandalous Story though it be as false and improbable as
ut videatur recte judicasse Greg. Naz. qui Synodis eruditioribas sedatioribus interfuit scribit Sic affectus sum si dicenda est veritas ut malim omnes Episcoporum conventus vitare quia nullius Synodi finem vidi bonum aut qui magis tolleret mala quam augeret Nam cupiditas contentionis principatus aemulatio vincunt rationem Ut profecto miror quod propter haec verba non dudum eum excommunicaverunt ut atrocissimum haereticum Sed quid sit quod dicit in Synodis Episcopos certasse ambitione superbia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habes in hac Synodo clarissimum exempium Quod autem certum sit quod hic dicit se nullius Synodi vidisse finem bonum docent nos historiae Nam Ariana haeresis jocus fuit ante Nicaenum Concilium prae illa confusione quam ipsi post Concilium excitaverunt that was not long of the Synod Talis etiam suit Macedonici Nestoriani Concilii Nam illa pars quae est condemnat a eo suit conjunctior ut tali specie concordiae unitatis suas praestigias pingerent quasi nulli justa ratione damnari possent Subinde excitarunt major a certamina contra Concilia quae ipsi non recte intelligebant P. 247. Illud possum facillime probare quod miser ille Pastor in Hippone S. Augustinus plus docuit quam omnia Concilia Dicam quiddam amplius Majus Lumen accedit Doctrinae Christianae ex Catechismo puerili quam ex omnibus Conciliis oratio Dominica decem praecepta plus continent doctrinae eruditionis quam omnia Concilia § 2. Because I recite the words of the Bishops crying Peccavimus he exclaimeth against me as making Repentance and Reoantation a derision and this by the Spirit of Schism which is nice in point of honour no Conviction shall be able to reclaim it though in the most indefensible thing in the World Ans Add but with the Inquisitors Therefore burn them as hopeless and you are come to the end of your Lesson The penetrating Wits of some men are admirable This man whose face I never saw knoweth my heart so much better than my self and my acquaintance that he can tell that it is to avoid dishonour that I avoid Repentance when I offer him my Oath that if I have any knowledge of my own desire I would thank him as my dearest Friend who will by Evidence shew me any necessary truth that I deny or Falshood that I hold and will joyfully publish my recantation 2. And he can see Schism in my forbearing known and heinous sin in the satisfaction of my Conscience while I write and preach and practise Communion with their Church and can see none in silencing Thousands and ipso facto excommunicating many more Thousands of godly Christians and denying Baptism and the Lords Supper to such as think it is sinful to do he knows what 3. And he can see those things to be most indefensible which after our best study we take to be clear and can get no rational Reply to our defence 4. And for want of memory or tenderness of his partners veracity when their Advocates have so oft and scornfully charged me with Retractations and also told the World how much my own party as they call them speak against me and my many large and free oppositions to the faults of Nonconformists that run into any extream do all proclaim how little I have set by such honour yea when himself saith that I have fiercely contended against all Sects and Parties and they call me Ishmael whose hand is against every man After all this to proclaim as aforesaid such obstinate Impenitence for the love of Honour I confess doth no more further my conviction than the Oath of an Irish Witness would have done For if he had sworn it I would have shewed my Books and their contrary testimony and have askt him whose honouring of me is it that I buy so dearly It is not the Rulers nor the Prelates nor their Clergy nor their adherents noble or ignoble And if I have willingly and laboriously displeased and lost the Sectaries too whose honour is it that I sell my Soul for § 23. But did the man think that Unconstancy and compliance with powerful Heresie is the same thing with Repentance for it Or is it well done to persuade the Reader that it is Repentance or Retractation of Heresie I write against when I recite the words of the Council and their own Do I say that peccavimus was their sin § 24. And I would humbly desire him in time to consider 1. Whether it was a venial sin not to be named by me when the most zealous Papists and Historians name it for so great a number of Bishops to turn and turn again so often and that with Anathematizing one year of what they voted for before with Anathema to the contrary I crave your impartial consideration but of two Instances How oft did they with Anathema's vote for and against the Council of Calcedon as the Emperours changed Yea in the same Usurpers time Basiliscus when he changed himself 2. In the case of Images How oft did they change in Councils for them and against them as the Princes changed Sir we mind this with lamentation and not insultingly But if you take these for venial little sins and our not swearing and covenanting all that you bid us for a mortal sin are you not partial 2. And I would wish you to think on it again before you make this guilt your own by mincing and excusing it and lest you make all other mens sin your own whom hereby you encourage in the imitation of them These are not things indifferent 3. And do not so dishonour Prelacy and your Church and Discipline as to tell the World that these in Bishops are little things what then is left for you to stick at No man should make light of such Beams in the Eyes of those that should be the most pure while they are pulling the mote of scrupling a Ceremony yea an Oath c. from their Brothers Eye and that by such Iron Instruments as they use § 25. Next comes his Logical terms throwing dirt outragious bitter malicious c. And what 's the matter I give not one loose at Emperours and Courts scorning to change the game charging the Bishops with the faults of the Magistrate and laying all the blame on them In what words I say so far could fierce and factious Prelates prevail with a pious and peaceable Prince by the pretences of opposing Heresie and Schism Ans 1. Was he not a most pious and peaceable Prince Then Socrates that knew him and protesteth against flattery and many others are not to be believed yea if he excelled not the Bishops 2. Do I say that none but the Bishops persuaded him Where do I lay all the fault on them Do I not after name the Emperess Eudocia
in Christian Love and Peace and we offer them as unquestionable security for our Peaceableness Loyalty and Orthodoxness as the said Oaths Promises or Professions can be 6. They tell us Nothing is to be abated us and we must cease preaching the Rule must not be altered we will do more harm in the Church than out Projects for Moderation most distract the Church There is no Concord or Liberty to be expected but by our total obedience to the Bishops It is obeying the Church yea the Universal Church of Bishops that is the only way to Concord 7. To confute this Supposition which is the root of our Calamities I transcribe out of History and the Acts of Councils how great a hand in the Schisms and Heresies and Confusions of Christians those Bishops have had who have swelled up above the primitive species by vast Diocesses Wealth and claim of Government over other Churches and Bishops and that it is notorious that this Grandeur and exorbitant power of Bishops singly or in Councils hath been so far from keeping the Church from Schisms that it hath been one of the greatest causes of the Schisms of most Ages since such a sort of Prelacy sprung up and that Popery came not up in a day but rose from that Juniority to its present Maturity This was my work § 13. He truly tells you that the Original of all mischiefs is the Lusts that war in our Members and not this or that Order of Men. When the World had a good Pope if God would bless that Order of men some think he might do more good than any other man But he hath toucht the Core of the Churches Malady Verily the grand Strife is between the Flesh and Spirit the seed of the Serpent and of the Woman And if Patriarchs and Diocesans were but as much set on the promoting of a holy and heavenly Life as those Ministers are whom they silence and imprison they might do much good though the largeness of their Diocess render them uncapable of performing the 40th part of a true Bishops Work No doubt but Bishop Hall and Potter and Usher c. did much good by such preaching writing and good living as others use that are no Bishops But will fire burn without fewel And will it not burn if combustible fewel be contiguous Do not the Lusts that war in our Members live upon that food which we are forbidden to provide Do you think that the Lust of the Flesh doth not more desire Riches than Poverty Honour than a low Estate Domination over others to have our Will on all than humble Subjection Where the Carkass is there will the Eagles be gathered Do not you your self say that the Bishops and Church grew more corrupt after the third Century Do you believe that when a Bishops Power was made equal to a great Lords or more and all his Pomp and Riches answerable that the Lust of the Flesh would not more greedily desire it than it would desire a meer mediocrity Or that a worldly proud man would not seek more for Lordship and Greatness than a Synesius and such others as you say fled from it If the poor retired Monks were as bad as you make them what wonder if great Lordly Bishops were much worse Will not the fire of Lust grow greater as the fewel is greater I am satisfied that Riches and Power well used may greatly serve the Interest of Religion But two things must be considered 1. That the greatest Power and Wealth being far more desired by carnal Worldlings that is by bad men than by mortified heavenly minded men the more men desire them the more eagerly they will seek them by Friends Flattery or any means and therefore the liker they are to attain them except when the choosers are some resolved godly men And so which way can a Succession of the worst men be avoided But a mediocrity that doth not to the Flesh overweigh the labours and difficulties of the sacred Office will encourage the good and not much tempt the bad Or if good men will be never so bountiful to pious uses their bounty and Church-Lands may better maintain Labourers enough for the work than be made a snare to one 2. And that Power which depopulateth and destroys its end is unlawful in its very state as well as in its use The Power of one man to be sole Physician to the City and to have none but Apothecaries under him or of one man to be the only School-Master in the County and have none but Ushers under him is rather to be called Destruction than Power It is Bishops casting out Power that I am against that is the necessary Power of the Keys in the Parish Ministers or putting down necessary Bishops and also a Power to silence Christs faithful Ministers and deprive Souls of the necessary means by imposing things needless in themselves and sinful in the receiver that after his best search believes them such Seeing then that we are agreed that it is the Lust that warreth in men that is the corrupter of the Church let but the face of the whole Romane Clergy these 1000 Years at least tell us whether it be not the swelling of the Power and Wealth of Bishops that hath caused so long a Succession of a worldly lustful tyranical Clergy § 14. And he truly saith p. 306. that the generality of men when they have gained Wealth and Honour are commonly willing to secure the enjoyment of those Possessions by letting things run in their ordinary course The Spanish Proverb is The World is a Carryon and they are Dogs that love it and they will snarle at any that would take it from them and if it lie in the Ditch Dogs rather than Men will gather about it and its pitty such men should by such a Bait be tempted into the sacred Chair And he truly adds that Repulse and Disappointment will end such mens Patience For really as the man is such are his desires It is not only turgent Prelacy but a Prelatical Spirit that troublerh the Church And If Novatianus or Arius would fain be a Prelate it is in his heart and no wonder if he be a Schismatick Trahit sua quemque voluptas Appetite is the Spring of Action All the Popes Clergy are much of his mind for they participate of his worldly Interest and depend on him and therefore participate of the Papal Spirit The Interest of the General and Army are conjunct § 15. And its true that he saith that the Bishops Interest obligeth him to maintain Peace and Unity And so no doubt from that sense of Interest it is endeavoured in Italy Spain France Germany c. when a strong man armed keeps his house the things which he possesseth are in Peace But whether therefore the People did ill that forsook the Bishops and followed Luther or are all bound to cleave to the Bishops Unity is the doubt § 16. Whether it be true p. 310 that
Errours and repent that I used not more forbearance of some of my Accusations of some of them 6. I did think that Richard Cromwell was an Usurper But when we had been twelve Years at least without a rightful Governour I then thought as Thomas White alias Blacklow the moderate Papist wrote that the Land could not subsist in Society without some Government and that No-Government is worse to the People than a Usurped one And that it is somtime lawful to submit and use an Usurper when it is not lawful to approve his Entrance And wherein I was deceived I am willing to be better informed 7. But I do unfeignedly repent that I wrote those two Epistles though it was to put a man on to do good whom I never saw â—or â—â—â—â— had the least to do with 8. And I do more repent of the cause of all viz. that I appointed God a time and limited his Providence and thought that because so many Armies and Endeavours had failed Twelve or Fourteen Years that had attempted the restoring of the King therefore there was no probability of accomplishing it I do not repent that I was not a Prophet to know before what God would do for it was not in my power nor do I repent that I preached Christs Gospel under Usurpers but I repent that I waited not Gods time and did not better consider that want of humane Power is no hinderance to Omnipotency and nothing is difficult to him 9. I was drawn too far by Mr. Harringtons Scorn and the dislike of Sir Henry Vane's Attempts for a Common-Wealth to meddle with matters of Government and to write my Political Aphorisms called A Holy Common-Wealth And I do unfeignedly repent that ever I wrote and published it and had not more confined my self to the matters proper to my Calling and let those meddle with forms of Government who were fitter for it All these besides what 's formerly said to Mr. Bagshaw I declare my unfeigned Repentance of And though it pleaseth you to feign me a Schismatick and hater of Repentance for speaking against the faultâ— that needed it I shall thank you to be a real helper of me in so necessary a work as Repentance is And that I may do the like by you I shall now only requite you with this Advice that before you write next you will set before your Eyes the Ninth Commandment Thou shalt not bear false Witness against thy Neighbour And that when you say your Prayers you would be serious when you say Lord have Mercy upon us and encline our hearts to keep this Law § 25. A Roman Zeal tells us that Faction and Schism when animated by worldly Interest and grown up to a malignant hatred of the things and persons that are averse to it is hardly bounded but is thriving up towards destructive Persecution as swelling Prelacy did towards the Papacy and the Inquisition It is not one or two Fishes that will satisfie the stomach of a Pike Nor is it the slandering or ruining of one or two men or silencing of one or two of the Ministers of Christ that will satisfie a malignant Spirit One Meal will not make a lean Man fat Whether there be a Legion in those that would destroy a Legion of Christs Servants or one have so much Power I know not but the effects tell us what manner of Spirit they are of But let the Papists pass § 26. When I read p. 337 and 358 359. and such passages it makes me think of them that cried His Blood be on us and our Children together with our Judge's words In as much as you did it or did it not to one of the least of these my Brethren you did it or did it not to me P. 337. he saith There is great reason to value the peaceable Resignation of the Nonconformists when we consider by what Usurpation and Violence they were brought in and what a number of worthy learned Ministers were turned out to make vacancies for these men who were to instruct the People in new Mysteries of Religion which their old Pastors had not the Conscience or Ability to teach them that is of the lawfulness of Rebellion And p. 358 c. There were many of those Ministers Usurpers and had intruded into the Churches of other men who had been silenced and cast out There were many others that were intruders into the Ministry and such not a few of them as Mr. B. himself would not have thought fit to have continued All the rest were such as would not submit to the Rule that was then established in the Church but chose rather to leave their Livings and the Bishops could not help it any otherwise than as they were Members of Parliament for it was the Law that tied them to their choice and not the Bishops If Mr. B. means what happened before the last Civil Wars as it 's likely he may then these ancient Teachers were the instruments of an Antimonarchical Antiepiscopal Faction They would preach but they would not conform to the Established Religion Nay many of them would preach against it and against their Governours too These were such Incendâ—â—ries as no Government would endure c. Ans When you have noted this part of his History it will not be hard to judge of his credibility I. The things that he defendeth is the silencing and prosecuting of three sorts of Ministers 1. Many Hundreds of Nonconformists in the days of Qu. Eliz. K. James and some few in the time of K. Charles 1. 2. Many Conformists in the time of K. Charles 1. under Bishop Laud. 3. About 2000 that conform not to the New Laws of Uniformity in the time of K. Ch. 2. What these Ministers were or are and what the fruits of their silencing have been and what it hath done to the Church of England and to many Thousands of Godly Christians I will not be â—udge Nor will I dispute that which all England sees or feels But it seems so well done to our Historian as that he is willing deliberately to justifie or defend it which as I understand is to make it his own and to undertake to be one of those that shall answer for it What if another had done as much against him as he hath done against himself And for how small a prize II. As he before would insinuate that what is said of the great number of Drunkards and ignorant men turned out was false though so judged upon the Oaths of men accounted the greatest lovers of Religion in their Parishes so he seemeth here to intimate that it was only or chiefly into the places of learned worthy men that the silenced Ministers succeeded whereas it was not one of many that came into any such mens places of them that were silenced at the fatal Bartholomew day III. He seemeth to intimate that when the Parliament suppose by wrong put out either such as he or I describe the Land must be under
by the Laws or Canons on Ministers and People here II. Whether it was well done by the Bishops and other Clergy-Men to do what they did to cause those Laws which silenced the whole Ministry of England unless they would conform to all things so imposed in the Act of Uniformity and actually silenced about 2000 and made those other Laws against their Preaching to more than Four and against coming within Five Miles of Corporations and such others as adjudge Nonconformists to Gaols and Ruine and whether the Clergy do well still to urge the Execution of those Laws and are guiltless of the doleful Divisions of this Land and danger of its Relapse to Popery III. Whether it be unpeaceable for a Nonconformist after 17 years silent suffering to tell his Superiors why he dare not conform when he is by them importuned to it And to write a Confutation of a multitude of Volumns of false Accusations brought to justifie the Executions § 4. If you think you have proved all those Impositions sinless which I have mentioned in my first Plea for Peace I think you might as well have shortly said We Bishops are of so much Wisdom and Authority that you must hold them lawful because we say so And must all be ruined that would not be so convinced But if any of those Impositions prove to be sin and so great sin as we cannot chuse but think they are is it a greater fault to name them when importuned than to impose them And a greater fault to feel and say we feel than to strike or wound men If we had taken it to be our Duty to have called those Clergy-Men to Repentance which we think are ignorantly undoing themselves and the Land how should we do it without naming their Sin Yea and the greatness of it And if we think it our Duty to deprecate our Destruction and beg of you to spare our Lives or Consciences how can we do it without telling what we suffer If it be well done of you and be no persecution but your Duty for the Churches good as no doubt the Executioners think the History is your praise and you need not extenuate the Fact Valiant Souldiers glory in the multitudes they kill Had you silenced the other 7000 that conformed when you silenced but 2000 your Victory had been the more famous Some think those that are here against your ways are not half the Land were it murdering of one man that another is judged for it were not unpeaceableness to say that he deserveth to be hanged But the judge deserveth praise if he condemn an hundred such But when those men who should be the tenderest Peace-makers and skilfullest therein shall be the men that bring such a Land as this into the Case that we are in and will not be intreated nor by any Experience be persuaded to consent to its Relief I know not how to shew mercy to the Land or them but by persuading them to repent And if all sin were made a matter of Controversie and many learned men were for it this would not alter the Case with me If I may compare great things with small who sinned more The Irish for murdering 200000 or Sir John Temple Dr. Henry Jones the E. of Orery for recording and reporting what they did Was it the sin of the Savoyards and others to kill and ruine the Protestants in Piedmont Or of Perrin and Sir Sam. Mooreland to write the story Did Thuanus Davilah c. sin in recording the French Massacre Or the French in doing it Is it the French Protestants now that are criminal for describing and complaining of their Sufferings Was John Foxe the Malefactor for writing the Sufferings of the Protestants under a lawful Queen This day came out Mar. 10. a Narrative from Bristol how they are crowded in the Gaol on the cold ground c. Is the Report the Crime Do you find a Justification in humane nature of such terms as these You shall suffer whatever we will inflict on you but shall not tell any that you are hurt or who did it or why § 5. I have told the World so often over and over that it is not all the Conformists no nor all the Bishops that I impute our Sufferings to that I must suppose you to understand it specially when the Prefatory Epistle of the Book which you fall upon tells it you of many Bishops by name Therefore when p. 68. you say I apply to you more than once 1 Thes 2. 15. They please not God c. and add I believe in my Conscience he is mistaken Either by to us you mean all the Conformists or Bishops and that is not true as the words tell you Or you mean Us that procured or own and execute the aforesaid silencing afflicting Acts which your words seem to mean And then I do but say Oh! What may temptation bring even good mens Judgment to Is the silencing of 2000 the afflicting of many times more of the Laity the Jealousies Distractions and Dangers of this Land so small a matter or so good that God is not displeased with it And can you in your Conscience own what the Bishops did towards it No wonder then if Ceremonies be called things Indifferent Certainly this cannot be Indifferent It is a most meritorious or excellent work or else a heinous Crime It is either such a Cure as the cutting off a Cancerous Breast or else if it be a sin it must be as great as contributing to the endangering of as many score Thousand Souls as 2000 Ministers were likely to have helpt to save and to the corrupting of the Church and the Introduction of Popery And few Christians think that Nathan sinned by unpeaceableness more than David by Murder and Adultery though but once or Samuel more than Saul or the Prophet that reproved him more than Jeroboam or Christ Matth. 23. more than the Pharisees yea or than Peter Mat. 16. when he said Get behind me Satan thou savourest not the things that be of God or Paul more than Peter Gal 2. or than the Jewish Teachers whom he called the Concision Dogs or John than Diotrephes c. Guilt is tender and they that think God is of their Mind when he is silent Psal 50. 21. will think men should be so too And man dare not bid defiance to God and openly proclaim a War against him and therefore hath no way to sin in peace but by a conceited bringing the Mind and Law of God to his What sin is there that Learned Men father not on God And then they must be praised and not reproved and then it 's worse than unpeaceable to aggravate that which they say God owneth such men as I would think it scarce credible that the Spanish Inquisition the French Massacre the Powder-Plot the Murder of 200000 in Ireland the Perjuring of a Nation the silencing of Thousands of faithful Ministers should have one word of Justification ever spoken for