to preserve Episcopacy and Liturgy to the People whom God had committed to his charge How dear and pretious to all sober and pious Protestants is the memory of those Prelates of our Church who first compyled the Liturgy for its use with what high Honour and Renown did we all along till this last wild and sudden Tempest arose amongst us exalt and magnify their names and memories from one age to another since their Martyrdome who willingly and cheerfully laid down their lives in justification of what they had therein done against their Roman Adversaries And in a Fiery Chariot passed from Earth to Heaven to receive the reward and Crown of Martyrdome for such their pious and eminently usefull and truly profitable Labours for the Church of God how greedily did we catch each word they spake and with what care and diligence were they preserv'd in the grand Record of the Acts and Monuments of the Church a Book I hope no way subject to exception from those to whom this is chiefly intended And what Impressions have they alwayes made in the minds of the sober Readers such as must needs keep out all thoughts from Brests not totally poysoned with malicious prejudice and Suspition of any Popish or Superstitious Tyncture to have its Residence in those persons And if so Shall then the words the last words upon this Subject of a Dying King of Martyrs receive any slight or lose their due effect which as written with the Seraphick Quill of one of those Glorious Attendants upon the highest Divine Majesty for such is its Solidity and Elegancy deserves a Registry with reverence be it spoken in the acts and monuments of the Church Triumphant in Heaven where that glorious Royal Martyr enjoys his due place and hath reached and put on that Ilustrious Immortal and Immarcessible Crown prepared for him there having despised and deposited an earthly one here rather than deprive his people of that benefit which he well knew they could not but receive from the divine Order Degree and Function of Episcopacy And the most excellent discipline and devotion of our refined Liturgy and publique service of Almighty God It being notoriously known that if he would have sacrificed the Church he needed not have been The Churches Sacrifice But let a Retreat be made from these crude lines and a Listen given to those Charming drops from a Royal pen Seraphically enabled whilst on earth and now so transcendently qualified as not to be reached so much as in any imagination which frail humanity is in the least sort capable of Concerning Episcopacy his Royal words are these TOuching the Government of the Church by Bishops the common Jealousy hath been that I am earnest and resolute to maintain it not so much out of piety as policy and reason of State Wherein so far indeed reason of State doth induce me to approve that government above any other as I find it impossible for a Pince to preserve the State in quiet unlesse he hath such an influence upon Church-men and they such a dependence on him as may best restrain the seditious exorbitancies of Ministers tongues Who with the Keys of Heaven have so far the Keys of Peoples hearts as they prevail much with their Oratory to let in or shut out both Peace and Loyalty So that I being as King intrusted by God and the Laws with the good both of Church and State I see no reason I should give up or weaken by any change that power and influence which in right and reason I ought to have over both The moving Bishops out of the House of Peers of which I have elsewhere given an account was sufficient to take off any suspition that I encline to them for any use to be made of their Votes in State-affairs Though indeed I never thought any Bishop worthy to sit in that House who would not Vote according to his Conscience I must now in Charity be thought desirous to preserve that Government in its right constitution as a matter of Religion wherein both my judgment is fully satisfied that it hath of all other the fullest Scripture-grounds and also the constant practice of all Christian Churches till of late years the tumultuariness of People or the factiousness and pride of Presbyters or the covetousnes of some States and Princes gave occasion to some mens wâ—ts to invent new models and propose them under the specious titles of Christs Government Scepter and Kingdome the better to serve their turns to whom the change was beneficial They must give Me leave having none of their temptations to invite Me to alter the Government of Bishops that I may have a title to their Estates not to believe their pretended grounds to any new ways contrary to the full and constant testimony of all Histories sufficiently convincing unbyassed men That as the Primitive Churches were undoubtedly governed by the Apostles and their immediate successors the first and best Bishops so it cannot in reason or charity be supposed that all Churches in the world should either be ignorant of the rule by them prescribed or so soon deviate from their divine and holy pattern That since the first age for 1500. years not one example can be produced of any settled Church wherein were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishop above them under whose jurisdiction and Government they were Whose constant and universal practice agreeing with so large and evident Scripture-directions and examples are set down in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus for the settling of that Government not in the persons only of Timothy and Titus but in the succession The want of Government being that which the Church can no more dispence with in point of well-being than the want of the Word and Sacraments in point of being I wonder how men came to look with so envious an eye upon Bishops power and authority as to over-see both the Ecclesiastical use of them and Apostolical constitution which to me seems no lesse evidently set forth as to the main scope and design of those Epistles for the settling of a peculiar Office Power and Authority in them as President Bishops above others in point of Ordination Censures and other acts of Ecclesiastical Discipline than those shorter Characters of the qualities and duties of Presbyter-Bishops and Deacons are described in some parts of the same Epistles who in the latitude and community of the name were then and may now not improperly be called Bishops as to the over-sight and care of single Congregations committed to them by the Apostles or those Apostolical Bishops who as Timothy and Titus succeeded them in that ordinary power there assigned overlarger divisions in which were many Presbyters The humility of those first Bishops avoyding the eminent title of Apostles as a name in the Churches stile appropriated from its common notion of a Messenger or one sent to that special dignity which had extraordinary call mission gifts and power immediately from
Christ they contented themselves with the ordinary titles of Bishops and Presbyters untill use the great arbitrator of words and master of language finding reason to distinguish by a peculiar name those persons whose power and office were indeed distinct from and above all other in the Church as succeeding the Apostles in the ordinary and constant power of governing the Churches the honour of whose name they moderately yet commendably declined all Christian Churches submitting to that special authority appropriated also the name of Bishop without any suspition or reproach of arrogancy to those who were by Apostolical propagation rightly descended and invested into that highest and largest power of governing even the most pure and Primitive Churches which without all doubt had many such holy Bishops after the pattern of Timothy and Titus whose special power is not more cleerly set down in those Epistles the chief grounds and limits of all Episcopal claim as from divine right than are the Characters of those perilous times and those men that make them such who not enduring sound Doctrine and clear testimonies of all Churches practice are most perverse Disputers and proud Usurpers against true Episcopacy Who if they be not Traytors and Boasters yet they seem to be very covetous heady high-minded inordinate and fierce lovers of themselves having much of the form little of the power of godlinesse Who by popular heaps of weak light and unlearned Teachers seek to over-lay and smoother the pregnancy and authority of that power of Episcopal Government which beyond all equivocation and vulgar fallacy of names is most convincingly set forth both by Scripture and all after Histories of the Church This I write rather like a Divine than a Prince that posterity may see if ever these papers be publick that I had fair grounds both from Scripture-Canons and Ecclesiastical examples whereon my judgment was stated for Episcopal Government Nor was it any policy of State or obstinacy of Will or partiality of Affection either to the Men or their Function which fixed Me who cannot in point of worldly respects be so considerable to Me as to recompence the injuries and losses I and My dearest relations with My Kingdoms have sustained and hazarded chiefly at first upon this quarrell And not only in Religion of which Scripture is the est rule and the Churches Universal practice the best commentary but also in right reason and the true nature of Government it cannot be thought that an orderly Subordination among Prebyters or Ministers should be any more against Christianity than it is in all secular and Civil Governments where parity breeds Confusion and Faction I can no more believe that such order is intonsistent with true Religion than good features are with beauty or numbers with harmony Nor is it likely that God who appointed several orders and a Prelacy in the Government of his Church among the Jewish Priests should abhor or forbid them among Christian Ministers who have as much of the principles of schism and division as other men for preventing and suppressing of which the Apostolical wisdom which was divine after that Christians were multiplyed so many Congregations and Presbyters with them appointed this way of Government which might best preserve order and union with Authority So that I conceive it was not the favor of Princes or ambition of Presbyters but the wisdom and piety of the Apostles that first setled Bishops in the Church which Authority they constantly used and enjoyed in those times which were purest for Religion though sharpest for Persecution Nor that I am against the managing of this Presidency and Authority in one man by the joynt Counsel and consent of many Presbyters I have offered to restore that as a fit means to avoid those Errors Corruptions and Partialities which were incident to any one man Also to avoid Tyranny which becomes no Christians least of all Church-men besides it will be a means to take away that burthen and odium of affairs which may lye too heavy on one mans Shoulders as indeed I think it formerly did on the Bishops here Nor can I see what can be more agreeable both to Reason and Religion than such a frame of Government which is Paternal not Magisterial and wherein not only the necessity of avoiding Faction and Confusion Emulations and Contempts which are prone to arise among equals in power and function but also the differences of some Ministers gifts and aptitudes for government above others doth invite to imploy them in referernce to those abilities wherein they are eminent Neither is this judgement of mine touching Episcopacy any preoccupation of opinion which will not admit any oppositions against it It is well known I have endeavoured to satisfie My self in what the chief patrons for other ways can say against this or for theirs And I find they have as far less of Scripture grounds and of reason so for examples and practice of the Church or testimonies of Histories they are wholly destitute wherein the whole stream runs so for Episcopacy that there is not the least rivulet for any others As for those obtruded examples of some late reformed Churches for many retain Bishops still whom necessity of times and affairs rather excuseth than commendeth for their inconformity to all Antiquity I could never see any reason why Churches orderly reformed and governed by Bishops should be forced to conform to those few rather than to the Catholike example of all Antient Churches which needed no Reformation And to those Churches at this day who governed by Bishops in all the Christian world are many more than Presbyterians or Independents can pretend to be All whom the Churches in my three Kingdoms lately governed by Bishops would equalize I think if not exceed Nor is it any point of wisdom or charity where Christians differ as many do in some points there to widen the differences and at once to give all the Christian world except a handfull of some Protestants so great a scandal in point of Church-Government Whom though you may convince of their errours in some point of Doctrine yet you shall never perswade them that to compleat their Reformation they must necessarily desert and wholly cast off that Government which they and all before them have ever owned as Catholick Primitive and Apostolical So far as never Schismaticks nor Hereticks except those Arrians have strayed from Unity and Conformity of the Church in that point ever having Bishops above Presbyters Besides the late general approbation and submission to this Government of Bishops by the Clergy as well as the Laity of these Kingdoms is a great confirmation of My Judgment and their inconstancy is a great prejudice against their Novelty I cannot in charity so far doubt of their learning or integrity as if they understood not what heretofore they did or that they did conform contrary to their Consciences So that their facility and levity is never to be excused who before ever the point of
THE ENGLISH EPISCOPACY AND LITURGY Asserted by the Great Reformers abroad AND The most Glorious and ROYAL MARTYR The Late KING His Opinion and Suffrage for them Published by a Private Gentleman for the Publique good LONDON Printed by Tho. Leach for Henry Seile over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet 1660. The English EPISCOPACY AND LITURGY ASSERTED THat Government is as necessary to the preservation of the Church as preaching the Gospel was to the plantation of it is apparent by the Apostles practice who no sooner had converted a Province City or any considerable number of Persons but presently left it in the hands of some faithful overseers to dresse tend and water till it grew up to such a perfection as became the Spouse of Christ And in all such perfect and setled Churches That there ought to be three distinct Orders and Degrees in the pastoral charge thereof viz. Bishop Priest or Presbyter and Deacon is so fully and abundantly Asserted and Proved by so many able Pens upon occasion of the late differences in point of Church Discipline and the same is thereby become so known and manifest a Truth especially to the Learned Solid and Iudicious that it cannot but be believed that those of any considerable Abilities and Ingenuitie who chiefly opposed it Remain now very well satisfied in that particular it being indeed very cleer and apparent to knowing and impartial Iudgements That Government by Bishops superior to Presbyters is of Apostolical institution and this as fully to be made good by Ecclesiastical Records as it is possible for any Truth to be that way demonstrated Nor doth the Canon of the Sacred Scripture it self depend upon more undoubted and unquestionable verity and demonstration And although the absolute and distinct precept of Christ himself for it is not so cleerly to be Asserted Yet his own superiority to the twelve Apostles and Theirs to the seventy Disciples is such an exemplary Copy of Bishop Priest or Presbyter and Deacon in the Government and Discipline of the Church as that it was Transcribed in the very next Age witness Ignatius St. Johns Contemporary and allowed to receive Esteem and Honour the Bishops as Christ the Presbyters as the Apostles and Deacons as the Seventy Nor is superiority in Order lesse cleerly Apostolical by the example and practice of themselves who when Judas had fell from the orb and dignity he first moved in They by the direction of the Sacred Spirit assumed Matthias from an inferior to a superior Order amongst them The Hierarchy of the Church in Government being derivative as it were from God himself and the same in Character and Representation which he is pleased to exercise amongst the Blessed in Heaven That therefore which some of a more unsatisfiable nature and disposition though beaten out of all holds for the Divine right of their Geneva Platform yet loath to depart with that Classical nay Parochial supremacy and more than Lordship which they Phansied themselves so near the absolute possession of make now the matter of their frequent converse in all companies and upon all occasions is to extoll and magnifie the order and manner of the Discipline of the reformed Churches abroad and to allure and captivate vulgar apprehensions very much advance and preferre the same before that which hath been so long and legally established here in the Church of England under Bishops and which hath rendred us so famous and flourishing a people and Nation throughout the world Howbeit if you demand now of such an extoller of Forein order what Church abroad it is not governed by Bishops which he so much magnifies for its Discipline And wherein the excellency of it's beauty lyes He knows not where to fix but is at a kind of losse presently and after a small while the paradox doth so puzzle him in its maintenance and hunt him from one absurdity to another that in conclusion he is fain to sit down wildred and benighted in the fogs and darknesse of his own brain and Intellect The difference of Discipline amongst the reformed Churches abroad is very well known how those of the French differ from the Scotish the Scotish from the Flemings or Dutch those from the Switzers and so others in like manner and the necessity of some Churches to fit their Tapestry to their Rooms viz. their Discipline to the state and condition they live in is as notorious And certainly the modesty of that grave and excellent Prelate is much to be commended who having fully proved the imposition or laying on of hands by the Bishop to be of most antient institution in the Christian Church useth these words I write not here saith he to prejudice our neighbour Churches I dare not limit the extraordinaray operation of the holy Spirit where the ordinary means is wanting without the fault of the persons God fed his people with Manna so long as they were in the Wildernesse Necessity is a strong pleader Many reformed Churches live under Kings and Bishops of another Communion Others have particular necessitating reasons why they could not continue nor introduce Bishops But it is not so with us c. The exigence of time place and persons may possibly be with Divine pity beheld in all their prejudicial hindrances provided that divine order and institution be duely observed Another reverend Bishop hath likewise as charitable an expression Bishop Hall in his treatise of Episcopacy I must cordially respect saith he those forein Churches who have chosen and followed an outward form which in every respect is most expedient and suitable to their condition And again another speaks thus Some plants thrive best in the shadow where the form of Government without Bishops agrees best with the constitution of some Common-wealth we pray to God to give them joy in it and pray them to say as much for us Damus petimusque vicissim These very charitable and moderate passages of the Church Prelates and Bishops are the rather hinted and very many more might be to manifest the difference there is between the spirits and dispositions of such and those of some other persons who condemn all as Heretical and Antichristian and to be extirpated Root and Branch which complies not in Omni modo to their judgement or rather Phansy and that by an Oath or Covenant imposed not only upon siterate persons but upon such also who were so far from understanding the depth of what they sware as that they were utterly ignorant whether the words Hierarchy and Liturgy which they covenant to extirpate be Hebrew Greek Latin French Italian c. or what other language and yet cry down those Prelates for Lordly Imperious and Tyrannical We have it as a common rumor amongst us Gentlemen and it is supposed it will not be denyed that a Declaration or Letters missive were by some grave persons in Assembly addressed to the reformed Churches of France the Low-Countries and Switzerland with diverse other Churches and States inviting
Church-Government had any free and impartial debate contrary to their former oathes and practice against their obedience to the Laws in force and against My consent have not only quite cryed down the Government by Bishops but have approved and incouraged the violent and most illegal stripping all the Bishops and many other Church-men of all their due Authority and Revenues even to the selling away and utter alienation of those Church-lands from any Ecclesiastical uses So great a power hath the stream of times and the prevalency of parties over some mens judgments of whose so sudden and so total change little reason can be given besides the Scots Army comming into England But the folly of these men will at lâ—st punish it self and the Desertors of Episcopacy will appear the greatest enemies to and betrayers of their own interest For Presbytery is never so considerable or effectual as when it is joyned to and crowned with Episcopacy All Ministers will find as great a difference in point of thriving between the favour of the People and of Princes as plants do between being watered by hand or by the sweet and liberal dews of Heaven The tenuity and contempt of Clergy-men will soon let them see what a poor carcase they are when parted from the influence of that head to whose supremacy they have been sworn A little moderation might have prevented great mischiefs I am firm to Primitive Episcopacy not to have it extirpated if I can hinder it Discretion without Passion might easily reform whatever the rust of Times or indulgence of Laws or corruption of Manners have brought upon it It being a grosse vulgar errour to impute to or revenge upon the function the faults of times or persons which seditious and popular principle and practice all wise men abhor For those secular additaments and ornaments of Authority Civil honour and Estate which my Predecessors and Christian Princes in all Countries have annexed to Bishops and Church-men I look upon them but as just rewards of their learning and piety whâ— are fit to be in any degree of Church-Government also enablements to works of Charity and Hospitality meet strengthenings of their Authority in point of respect and observance which in peaceful times is hardly payed to any Governours by the measure of their Vertues so much as by that of their Estates Poverty and Meanesse exposing them and their Authority to the contempt of licentious minds and manners which persecuting times much restrained I would have such men Bishops as are most worthy of those incouragements and best able to use them if at any time My Judgement of men failed My good intention made my error venial And some Bishops I am sure I had whose learning gravity and piety no men of any worth or forehead can deny But of all men I would have Church-men especially the Governors to be redeemed from that vulgar neglect which besides an innate principle of vitious opposition which is in all men against those that seem to reprove or restrain them will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian parity which makes all Ministers equal and the Independent inferiority which sets their Pastors below the People This for my judgement touching Episcopacy wherein God knows I do not gratify any design or passion with the least parverting of truth And now I appeal to God above and all the Christian world whether it be just for Subjects or pious for Christians by violence and infinite indignities with servile restraints to seek to force Me their King and Soveraign as some men have indeavoured to do against all these grounds of my Judgement to consent to their weak and divided novelties The greatest Pretender of them desires not more than I do That the Church should be governed as Christ hath appointed in true Reason and in Scripture of which I could never see any probable shew for any other ways who either content themseves with the examples of some Churches in their infancy and solitude when one Presbyter might serve one Congregation in a City or Country or else they deny these most evident Truths that the Apostles were Bishops over those Presbyters they ordained as well as over the Churches they planted and that Government being necessary for the Churches well-being when multiplyed and sociated must also necessarily descend from the Apostles to others after the example of that power and superiority they had above others which could not end with their persons since the use and ends of such Government still continue It is most sure that the purest Primitive and best Churches flourished under Episcopacy and may so still if ignorance superstition avarice revenge and other disorderly and disloyal passions had not so blown up some mens minds against it that what they want of Reasons or Primitive Paterns they supply with violence and oppression wherein some mens zeal for Bishops Lands Houses and Revenues hath set them on work to eat up Episcopacy which however other men esteem to Me is no lesse Sin than Sacrilege or a Robbery of God the giver of all we have of that portion which devout minds have thankfully given again to him in giving it to his Church and Prophets through whose hands be graciously accepts even a cup of cold water as a libation offered to himself Furthermore as to My particular engagement above other men by an Oath agreeable to My Judgement I am solemnly obliged to preserve that Government and the Rights of the Church Were I convinced of the unlawfulnesse of the Function as Antichristian which some men boldly but weakly calumniaâ—e I could soon with Judgement break that Oath which erroniously was taken by Me. But being dayly by the best disquisition of truth more confirmed in the Reason and Religion of that to which I am sworn How can any man that wisheth not My Damnation perswade Me at once to so notorious and combined Sins of Sacrilege and Perjury besides the many personal Injustices I must do to many worthy men who are as legally invested in their estates as any who seek to deprive them and they have by no Law been convicted of those crimes which might forfeit their Estates and Livelyhoods I have often wondred how men pretending to tenderness of Conscience Reformation can at once tell Me that my Coronation-Oath binds Me to consent to whatsoever they shall propound to Me which they urge with such violence though contrary to all that Rational and Religious freedom which every man ought to preserve and of which they seem so tender in their own Votes Yet at the same time these men will needs perswade Me That I must and ought to dispense with and roundly break that part of my Oath which binds me agreeable to the best light of Reason and Religion I have to maintain the Government and legal Rights of the Church 'T is strange My lot should be valid in that part which both My self and all men in their own case esteem injurious unreasonable as being against
being most commodious for their present State and hardly could there be found a more proper and fitting for a Church that lives under Magistrates of a contrary Religion and in such expectation of those who injoy the Ecclesiastical degrees to come in likewise into the Reformation They by their humble and equal order keep themselves in a State of obedience proper and ready to submit themselves to their Diocesans when it shall please God to convert them And that their Fathers chose this equality not as in opposition to the degrees of the Clergy but as a way to dispose them and as a Plank ready to invite their Bishops to passe over to the Reformation and so receive them into their charge We are not offended at the Degrees of the Clergy nor their Revenues c. This paper is intended to be very brief therefore these great lights of the reformed Churches are only now mentioned there being many others produceable to the same purpose who very highly magnifie and extoll both our Government by Bishops and also the Liturgical order and manner of our Divine worship to Almighty God Concerning which last particular I shall likewise present the opinions of some of those worthies of the Reformation who upon occasion have so declared their judgments thereupon that the Framers of the Directory had surely very little cause to make the Nation believe That by a long and sad experience as is expressed in the Preface to that Directory they find that the English Liturgy is offensive to the Foreign reformed Churches And that it is to answer the expectation of those Churches that they reject it Calvin himself shall again lead the Van upon this sally likewise for presently after the compyling of our Liturgy by those great Champions of the English Reformation men of signal eminency and renown for wisdom piety and learning and some of them upon that very score and account glorious for Martyrdome also The same was sent to Mr. Calvin who wrote thus back to the then Protector of England his Majesty Edw. the 6th being then in minority As for the form of Prayers and Ecclesiastical Ceremonies I much approve That they should be established as a certain form from which it shall not be lawfull for the Pastors to go in the execution of their charge that so there may be provision made for simplicity and the consent of the Churches themselves may more certainly appear the extravagant levity of the affecters of novelty may be prevented Here we see Calvin the great Zam Zummim as to some particulars of the Framers of the Directory cleerly asserting both that there should be a certain form from which it should not be lawful to digresse And also approving the book of the Common Prayer sent to him and the Ecclesiastical Orders and Ceremonies of the English Church The same Calvin in his notes upon the 20th Psalm affords us a further and ample testimony of his approbation of set forms of Prayer and Liturgy And in the Confession presented in the name of the Churches of France to the Emperour and Princes of Germany he affirmeth thus That every Church hath right to make Laws Statutes or Canons and to establish a common Policy or Discipline And that obedience is owing to them and those that refuse this are to be accompted seditious and wilfull Thus Calvin Martin Bucer speaking of the form of our divine service or Liturgy saith thus Script Anglican p. 445 I thank God who hath given you grace to reform those ceremonies in such a purity For I have found nothing in it which is not taken out of the word of God or at least is not contrary to it being rightly interpreted Gualter and Bullinger men who cannot be denyed their rank and due place of eminency amongst those of the Reformation in a joynt Epistle of theirs wrote to some discontented Brethren here in England concerning the Discipline and Ceremonies of this our Church say thus That if any of the People perswade themselves that those things smell of Popery Let them learn to know the contrary and let them be perfectly instructed and that if the clamors of any raise up trouble among the multitude let them beware lest in so doing and provoking Authority they draw not upon their necks a more heavy yoke Beza likewise in his Epistle Ad quosdam Anglicarum Ecclesiarum fratres Speaking of the same subject matter expresses himself fully to the same purpose and tells them withall That the Surplisse is not of such importance to raise scruples in any against the wearing of it And so likewise for kneeling at the Sacrament Musick in Churches things of like nature That they are matters of such indifferency Lib. precum f. 202. 112. that they should no ways be troubled at them Gilbertus a German in a book of his long since written propounds the English Liturgy for a sample of the antient forms used in the Church of God Isaac Causabon that man of so great fame and learning admires the care of our English Church for Antiquity and Purity and generally proclaims it in all his Epistles That there was not any where else the like to be found nor that he ever hoped to see it in any place till himself came hither into England What the Church of Zeland especially the Wallachrian Classis returned in answer to some persons who addressed to them is manifest enough they not only approving of set prescribed forms of publique Prayer as tending much to edification but give reasons of such their approbation from Scripture and the practice of reformed Churches and conclude it to be a precise singularity in those who reject it It would be endlesse to relate the particular assertions of Foreign persons of choice sincerity and great learning mayn Opposers likewise of the Roman rubbish and superstition approving and applauding Liturgy and set forms of Prayer for publique use in the service of God the whole Christian World indeed in all ages including Christ himself and his Apostles and in all places asserting approving and advancing the same And surely had some persons but called to mind for it is not possible to be imagined they should be ignorant of it what general approbation the English Liturgy and Ceremonies of this our Church received at Dort by the Divines of Germany France Denmark Swedeland and Switzerland which appears in the Acts of that Synode many of which Divines as also some of our own then and there present 't is probable may either yet be living at this day or very lately Dead I say had they been mindful of this they would certainly have forborn to say there where it is publique legible enough That by long and sad experience they found that the English Liturgy was offensive to the foreign reformed Churches for certainly that is a very great error and mistake It being most manifest and notorious that we are so far from giving them offence in that particular that it
the very natural essential liberty of our Souls Yet it should be invalid to be broken in another clause wherein I think My self justly obliged both to God and Man Yet upon this Rack chiefly have I been held so long by some mens ambitious Covetousness and sacrilegious Cruelty torturing with Me both Church and State in Civil dissentions till I shall be forced to consent and declare that I do approve what God knows I utterly dislike and in My Soul abhor as many wayes highly against Reason Justice and Religion and whereto if I should shamefully and dishonourably give My consent yet should I not by so doing satisfie the divided Interests and Opinions of those Parties which contend with each other as well as both against Me and Episcopacy Nor can My late condescending to the Scots in point of Church-government be rightly objected against Me as an inducement for Me to consent to the like in my other Kingdoms For it should be considered that Episcopacy was not so rooted and setled there as 't is here nor I in that respect so strictly bound to continue it in that Kingdom as in this For what I think in My Judgement best I may not think so absolutely necessary for all places and at all times If any shall impute My yielding to them as My failing and Sin I can easily acknowledge it but that is no Argument to do so again or much worse I being now more convinced in that point Nor indeed hath My yielding to them been so happy and successeful as to incourage Me to grant the like to others Did I see any thing more of Christ as to Meekness Justice Order Charity and Loyalty in those that pretend to other modes of Government I might suspect My Judgement to be biassed or forestalled with some prejudice and wontednesse of opinion But I have hitherto so much cause to suspect the contrary in the manners of many of those men that I cannot from them gain the least Reputation for their new wayes of Government Nor can I find that in any Reformed Churches whose patterns are so cryed up and obtruded upon the Churches under My Dominion that either Learning or Religion Works of Piety or Charity have so flourished beyond what they have done in my Kingdoms by Gods blessing which might make Me believe either Presbytery or Independency have a more benign influence upon the Church and mens hearts and lives than Episcopacy in its right constitution The abuses of which deserve to be extirpated as much as the use retained for I think it far better to hold to Primitive and uniform Antiquity than to comply with divided Novelty A right Episcopacy would at once satisfie all just desires and interests of good Bishops humble Presbyters and sober People so as Church-affairs should be managed neither with tyranny parity nor popularity neither Bishops ejected nor Presbyters despised nor People oppressed And in this integrity both of My Judgement and Conscience I hope God will preserve me MEDITATION FOr thou O LORD knowest my uprightnesse and tendernesse as thou hast set Me to be a Defender of the Faith and a Protector of thy Church so suffer Me not by any violence to be over-born against my Conscience Arise O LORD maintain thine own Cause let not thy Church be deformed as to that Government which derived from thy Apostles hath been retained in purest and primitive times till the Revenues of the Church became the object of secular envy which seeks to rob it of all the encouragements of Learning and Religion Make Me as the good Samaritan compassionate and helpful to thy afflicted Church which some men have wounded and robbed others passe by without regard either to pity or relieve As my power is from thee so give Me grace to use it for thee And though I am not suffered to be Master of my other Rights as a King yet preserve Me in that liberty of Reason love of Religion and thy Churches welfare which are fixed in my Conscience as a Christian Preserve from Sacrilegious Invasions those temporal blessings which thy providence hath bestowed on thy Church for thy glory Forgive their sins and errors who have deserved thy just permission thus to let in the wilde Boar and subtile Foxes to waste and deform thy Vineard which thy right hand hath planted and the dew of Heaven so long watered to a happy and flourishing estate O let me not bear the inâ—amous brand to all Posterity of being the first Christian King in this Kingdom who should consent to the oppression of thy Church and the Fathers of it whose errours I would rather with Constantine cover with silence and reform with meeknesse than expose their persons and sacred Functions to vulgar contempt Thou O LORD seest how much I have suffered with and for thy Church make no long tarrying O my God to deliver both me and it from unreasonable men whose counsels have brought forth and continue such violent confusions by a precipitant destroying the antient boundaries of thy Churches peace thereby letting in all manner of errours schisms and disorders O thou God of order and of truth in thy good time abate the malice asswage the rage and confound all the mischievous devices of thine mine and thy Churches enemies That I and all that love thy Church may sing praises to thee and ever magnifie thy salvation even before the sons of men Concerning the Liturgy his Royal words are these IT is no news to have all Innovations ushered in with the name of Reformations in Church and State by those who seeking to gain reputation with the Vulgar for their extraordinary parts and piety must needs undo whatever was formerly settled never so well and wisely So hardly can the pride of those that study Novelties allow former times any share or degree of wisdom or godliness And because matter of Prayer and Devotion to God justly bears a great part in Religion being the Souls more immediate converse with the Divine Majesty nothing could be more plausible to the People than to tell them they served God amisse in that point Hence our publick Liturgy or Forms of constant Prayers must be not amended in what upon free and publick advise might seem to sober men inconvenient for matter or manner to which I should easily consent but wholly cashiered and abolished and after many popular contempts offered to the Book and those that used it according to their Consciences and the Laws in force it must be crucified by an Ordinance the better to please either those men who gloried in their extemporary vein and fluency or others who conscious to their own formality in the use of it thought they fully expiated their sin of not using it aright by laying all the blame upon it and a total reâ—ection of it as a dead letter thereby to excuse the deadnesse of their hearts As for the matter contained in the Book sober and learned men have sufficiently vindicated it against the cavils