to be cloathed So our Saviour breathed on the Apostles Ioh. 20.21 22. when he said Receive the Holy Ghost So the Apostles used imposition of hands to denote their ordained Successors 1 Tim. 5.22 and 4.14 Heb. 6.6 which ceremony the Church of Christ in all ages hath observed in the successive Ordinations of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons as one of the fundamentals of the Churches polity order and power Not that these outward Rites and Ceremonies are of the essence of the duty of the divine power but for the evidence of that order and authority which is necessary that there may be nothing dubious or doubtful or confused or upon bare presumptions and conjectures in the Churches sacred Ministry but such an authority as is both powerful in its efficacy and pregnant and signal in its derivation and execution that none might undertake the work who is not constituted to be a Workman nor any withdraw from it who is rightly furnished for so worthy a Work as the Apostle calls the work of a Bishop either the minores Episcopi which are orderly Presbyters or the majores Presbyteri which are the paternal Bishops We see Eliahs spirit falls on none but his annointed Successor The spirit and power follows the lawful succession nor was any so fit for the appointment and succession as Elisha a man indeed of plain breeding of a country yet honest way of living which is no prejudice or impediment when God intended to furnish him with Eliahs spirit 1 Kings 19.19 with extraordinary gifts and endowments with the power from on high as Christ did his fishermen when he made them fishers of men Luk. 5.10 This was in one hour more to their improvement than all Schools and Vniversities all literature and education all languages arts sciences and Scriptures But when these special gifts which were miraculous are not given nor needful in the ordinary ministration propagation and preservation of Religion there reading and study and diligence and education and Schools of the Prophets are the conduits of Gods good and perfect gifts conveyed by holy industry and prayer to those that study to shew themselves workmen that need not to be ashamed 2 Tim 2 15. when once they are sanctified or set apart by God and the Church as here Elisha was In whom doubtless God and Eliah had seen something that expressed a very gracious and sincere heart by an humble holy Elisha's fitness to succeed Eliah and unblameable life We never finde that men of leud or scandalous lives are called to be Prophets of God or allowed to be made Preachers and Bishops of the Church wherein the antient Canons of the Affrican and other Churches were very strict and circumspect whom when and how they were ordained Bishops Presbyters or Deacons St. Paul requires that they should be not only unblameable but of good report even among the Heathens and unbeleivers as to matters of Justice Morality and common honesty as well as sound and orthodox in the Christian faith § Elisha discovers an excellent spirit and fit for a Prophet of God 2 Kings 2.2 4 6 not only by his individual adherency to Eliah three times piously disobeying his commands when he bade him leave him As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth I will not leave thee The love of good company is a good sign of a good conscience a very good way to a good life and a ready means to make us partakers of spiritual gifts but further Elisha shews a most devout and divine soul in him fit to make a Prophet to succeed Eliah when first he doth not preposterously and presumptuously obtrude himself upon the holy Office and Succession but attends Gods call and the Prophets appointment of him Secondly When he sees it is the will of God and his father Eliah he doth not morosely refuse or deprecate and wave the imployment as some had done Moses and Jeremiah after though he knew it would be heavy and hot service in so bad times but submits to that onus no less than honos burthen as well as honor God imposeth on him Thirdly In order to his support and encouragement in the work he doth not covetously or ambitiously look to the preferment or honor or profit which might easily follow such an imployment especially if merchandise might be made of miracles as Gehazi designed and of the Gospel if Ministers turned Sucklers and Hucksters of the word of God as the Apostle taxeth some who were greedy of filthy lucre no but his earnest and only desire is for a double portion of Eliahs spirit to be upon him not that he might have more glory but be able to do more good 1 Kings 9. â—4 Iames 17 with more courage and constancy with less dejection and melancholy despondency than Eliah who was a man subject to like human passions and sometimes prone to fall not only into despiciencies and weariness of life but even to despair as to the cause of God and true Religion It is as Chrysologus calls it a commendable emulation to imitate the best men and a pious ambition to desire to excel them in spiritual gifts and graces which the Apostle St. Paul excites all to covet in their places which the more bright and excelling they are like the light of the sun the more they dispel all the vapors mists and fogs of humane passions or pride which by fits darken the souls of holy men I cannot here but own my desires The defective and dubious succession of Evangelical Ministers very deplorable and deplore the state of our times which forbids me almost to hope their accomplishment as to any orderly and meet succession of Evangelical Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Presbyters in this Church our Eliah's dayly drop away I do not see any care taken for Elisha's to suceed them in such compleat clear and indisputable ways of holy Ordination and Succession as may most avoid any shew of faction novelty and schism and be most uniform to the Antient Catholick primitive Apostolick and uniform pattern which never wanted in any setled Church either Presbyters to chuse and assist the Bishops or Bishops after the Apostles to try ordain oversee and govern with the Counsel of Presbyters and all other degrees and orders in the Church Darkness disputes divisions distractions dissatisfactions and confusions must needs follow that Army or City that knows not who are its Commission officers or lawful and authorised Magistrates so must it needs be in the Church when Christians know not who are their Fathers their Stewards their Shepherds their Bishops or their Presbyters There is nothing next the fundamentals of faith in which the Church should be more clear and confidently ascertained than in this the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 10.15 Ordination and succession of their Evangelical Prophets for how shall they preach or rule unless they be lawfully sent and set over the houshold of faith Christs
any Parents It was stoning to death Deut. 21.20 by which God would have the honor of the meanest Parents though poor and old weak and simple asserted against their sturdy and proud children while yet under their roof and discipline § Next these Princes and Magistrates have the name as of Gods and Lords so of Fathers Patres Patriae and of nursing Mothers after these the Priests and Prophets of old were called Fathers So the King of Israel returns the very same compellation to Elisha dying which he gives here to Eliah thus in the Gospel St. 1 Cor 4.15 Paul owns his merit so far though you have had many teachers or instructers yet not many Fathers for he had first begotten them to the faith by his preaching the Gospel to them so in the antient Christian-Churches though they had many Presbyters as Instructers or Consecrators yet the Bishops were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a special honor as Successors to the Apostles in paternal inspection and authority as begetting Sons to the Church by instruction and patres minores lesser Fathers or Presbyters by Ordination called Patres then also Patriarchs were Patres patrum which by way of gemination brought in the two first syllables Pa Pa not from the Syriack Abba transposed but from the first syllables of Pater and Patriarcha or Pater Patrum into the Church as before into the Imperial State from Pater Patriae to make up Papa which title the Bishop of Rome hath monopolized when of old it was given to other Patriarchs and Bishops § This is certain The duty as well as dâ—gnity implyed in the name Father God that communicates the name of Father to Magistrates in State or Pastors or Bishops in the Church doth withal teach and exact the duties imported in the name Father First Father in Magâ—stracy Both Governors in Church and State should delight rather in that exercise which is Paternal than despotical fatherly than imperious or Lordly much less tyrannick to remember they govern sons not slaves and for Gods glory not for their own profit pomp and pleasure their design and work must be to glorifie God and by doing good with a fatherly freedom and indulgence to deserve the love of others Although they cannot have it from ingrate and ungracious children yet they shall finde God a Father to them when they have carried themselves as Fathers to others Specially Church Governors which were of old in England Fathers in the ministry of the Church and in all Christian Churches Bishops as chief Fathers chosen by the Presbyters approved by the people and endowed with estate and civil honor by Christian Princes these as such must not in their greatest eminency affect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 5.3 to exercise dominion after the way of the secular sword and severity over Ministers or people but only as Fathers and Spiritual Lords for edification not destruction with gravity not austerity with meekness of wisdom not rigidness of passion yea and as to that civil Dominion which is consistent with spiritual jurisdiction when any are both Bishops and Soveraign Princes which may very well meet in one man for what hinders a Prince as George of Anhalt to be a Bishop or Preacher of his Gospel who is Prince and Priest of his Church here they must the more make the world to see they bear the double name of Father to their people such paternal Bishops we had heretofore in England and such indeed was this worthy Prelate and such Fathers we might have had still if that had not been fulfilled among us Filius ante diem c. some Sons are impatient not to antidate their Fathers death and destinies or longer to expect the reversion of their estates § It is true that double honor which the piety and munificence of Christian Princes and States had bestowed on Bishops as Fathers in chief and other Ministers of the same relation though a lower station in the Church both as to ample revenues and some secular jurisdiction or dignity to give them greater advantages to improve their spiritual and paternal authority more to the glory of God and the good of Christian people as to instruction protection and relief these ought not in any sort to leaven or overlay those condescending Graces and paternal tendernessse which are the greatest eminencies of any Church-man and which may with all pious industry humility charity and hospitality be maintained and exercised by them without any diminution of their civil dignity or ecclesiastical authority as was frequently evidenced by our learned religious hospitable charitable and honorable Bishops in England when they lived both as Lords and as Fathers governing and doing good § Of civil honour added the Fathers the Church So that it cannot be other than a most partial and sinister perverseness in men of evil eyes and envious hearts to fancy that no learning study devotion diligence and prudence in any Minister or Clergyman is capable to merit or enjoy either such honorable estates and salaries or such eminent places and dignities as Counsellors and Senators as Lords and Peers in Parliament to which we see many mens meer riches and worthless money or their lower abilities and industries in legal and civil affairs or their military hardiness and prowess may actually advance them yea and this in a civil intestine War where victory it self is sad and untriumphant yet we have lived to see many short-lived Gourd-Lords created in a chaos of times from very small principles or preexistency of birth estates breeding or worth and this in one day by a kinde of superfetation of honor and these to sit as right honorable ones in another House and to supply the vacant Seats of the antient Barons of England which were Peers in Parliament and consisted of Lords Spiritual and Temporal who had not either forfeited their honor or deserted their places and duties but were driven out by such power as they could not withstand § But not to touch that harsh string too hard we see the Bishops of England have had no great cause to envy those that cast them out as to that honor of having a place in Parliaments since from that time the Nation hath scarce enjoyed one good day nor themselves that fulness and freedom that honor and happiness which of old belonged to the majesty of English Parliaments § This is certain that the name of Lord did not as it ought not to make a venerable Bishop of the Church forget his former name and softer relation of a Father the first is now confined much to denote civil order and secular dignity but the second implies not only natural temporal and humane but spiritual divine and eternal endearments importing that plentitude of paternal love and goodness as is never to be exhausted scarce obstructed for what such unworthiness was ever in children which the benignity and bowels of a Father is not ready to forgive and
false in their lives love not to be brought to the touchstone at their deaths Indeed some mens lives actions and memories are like their carkasses best when least stirred and most hidden from the sight of others Psal 112.6 But the just shall be had in everlasting remembrance and enjoy this reward even among men to have their name as a precious ointment poured out Eccles 7.1 Cant. 1.3 Mat. 26.12 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not preparatory to but contemporary with their interment or burial that so the sweet odor of it may not only accompany as the spices which Mary bought for Christ their coffin and corps but fill the whole house the place the Parish the Church or the Temple where they either lived or are buried FINIS MEMORIALS OF THE Life and Death OF BP. Brounrig I Have done right honorable and worthy with the Text read unto you I know your piety and civility now expect that I should if not largely comment yet fairly paraphrase or gloss upon that Text which lies dead before you the corps or earthly remains of that reverend Father in God Dr. Ralph Brounrig late Lord Bishop of Excester It were too great an injury to you at once to lose the honor of his presence and the happiness of his example § Of the honour of Bishops as Fathers and Lords I call him stilo veteri a Bishop a Father and a Lord without offence I hope to those old and new Lords Temporal who less able to endure the honor and society of Bishops as Lords Spiritual have by depluming these very much moulted their own feathers nor do I use these Titles by an arrogancy but a justice being due to him by the Laws of England as well as by ancient Ecclesiastick customs nor any way that I know forfeited by him or by other worthy Bishops who however hated and despised by the supercilious and popular spirits of some men whose neither mind nor manners exceeded such Bishops in any point of true nobleness and worth yet God forbid that one hair of their venerable heads should fall to the ground by my neglect of paying that filial love respect and honor which I have learned from the Apostles canon and pious antiquity as due to the Fathers of my Ministerial power and Ordination who have ruled well and labored too in the Word and Doctrine § Which tribute of double honor hath ever been willingly paid to learned grave and venerable Bishops of the Church not only by all humble and orderly Presbyters but by all sorts of Christian people great and small and most by the best even by Gentlemen Noblemen Princes Kings and Emperors who so soon as the Church had rest not only endowed many Bishops with ample revenues but added to them those civil honors which made them Peers to the Senatorian order or Patrician dignity ever since Constantine the great 's time which is now one thousand three hundred years A very long prescription and valid prejudice against modern levellings of the Clergie and Episcopacy § Not that I think it the part of a grave Divine or a reverend Bishop to affect secular honors and civil titles but rather to deserve them and to live above them as the primitive persecuted Bishops did who wanted not real honors among good Christians when they had no favour from Civil Laws and Secular Powers § But in a Nation professing to honor the Lord Jesus Christ I see no cause they should deny that double honor to the chiefest of his Servants Stewards Messengers Ministers and Embassadors which by the rule of Christ is due to them as in his stead Nor is it a great matter if those partake of mens civil and temporary honors who impart to them the way of true and eternal honor especially in a land of plenty and so of vulgar petulancy where no Authority in Church or State is to be preserved unless it be adorned with such ensigns of visible honor and estate as may not only keep off contempt and insolency but conciliate respect and reverence § I confess I cannot to this day understand by what partial policy and unreasonable reason of State in a Christian and civilised Nation the gate of Honor should be open to Gentlemen to Lawyers to Soldiers to Merchants to meer Mecanicks who by valour or industry or money or meer favour without any signal merit may ascend to the honor of Lords and of sitting in Parliament as Counsellors of publick and grand affairs of whom one day adventured to bring forth a whole house full and yet this gate of honor must be shut against all Divines and Church men only even then when they were worthy to be made Pastors and Bishops of the Church whose learning vertue wisdom and every way useful merit is no less contributive to the publick happiness than any other order of men yea perhaps more on which merit that Apostolical Canon for double honor is undoubtedly grounded which includes such Estates as may make them hospitable and such respect as owns them venerable as persons that are stiled Angels by the Spirit of God Rev. 2 and 3. being in a degree of heavenly service and holy office above ordinary mortals § But I shall not need further to assert the honor of this and such like Bishops against the vapor and vanity of some men who seeing Bishops lightned of their estates will it may be with more patience endure the empty title of Lords to be given them Certainly all just and ingenuous persons will abhor injurious indignities offered to deserving Bishops as a most undutiful sacriledge when they are satisfied of the many meritorious claims which they had to true honor by that eminency of worth which is in them whereof I could not have had in any age a more convincing and notable instance capable to to split in sunder as Daniel did Bel and the Dragon of Antiepiscopal envy than this excellent Bishop whose Funerals we this day celebrate § His publique conspicuiâ—ie and eminency A person of those ample and cubical dimensions for height of learning and Understanding for depth of Humility and Devotion for length of all Morality and Vertue and for breadth of all Humanity and Charity that it is hard for me to contract or epitomize him One cannot tell as Nazianzen speaks of Cyprian Or. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether the variety in allor the excellency in every vertue was most to be admired in him He is like an excellent Book full of remarkable sentences that hath nothing in it which is not worth noting He is as a fair large and fruitful field affording both freedom to expatiate and plenty to gather He is as a solid mass of gold pure precious and ponderous malleable also to a great extent as well as of great weight and worth Being always as Chrysostom speaks Innocentia infans virtute juvenis obedientia filius charitate frater gravitate pater
were not likely to have made a Liturgy of straw and stubble 2. For its excellent matter which is divine sound and holy besides its method which is prudent and good 3. For the very great good he saw it did as to all sober Christians so to the common sort of plain people who what ever other provision they had of their Ministers private abilities yet they were sure every Lords Day at least to have a wholesom and compleat form not only of Prayers but of all other necessaries to salvavation set before them for faith holy life and devotion in the Creeds Commandments Lords Prayer with Confessions and Supplications admirably linked together and fitted to the meanest capacities the want of which he saw was not supplied by any Ministers private way of praying or preaching which in very deed are but small pittances of piety or fragments compared to the latitude of religious fundamentals and varieties contained in the Liturgie the want of which he judged would induce a great ignorance as he saw and said to me a little before his death it had done already among the ordinary sort of people in Countrey and City whose souls are as precious to God as others of greater parts and capacities whose appetites were not to be flattered and deceived with novelties but fitted and fed with wonted solidities by which they would thrive look better as by the use of plain and repeated food which is as their daily bread than those that delight in greater varieties and dainties which may seem more toothsom to wanton palates but are not more wholesom or nourishing to honest hearts who are commonly less licorous in Religion and best content with what is best for them § Not that he was such a Formalist Verbalist and Sententiolist as could not endure any alteration of words or phrases or method or manner of expressions in the Liturgie to which either change of times or of language or things may invite he well knew there had been variety of Liturgies in Churches and variations in the same Church he made very much but not too much of the English Liturgie not as the Scriptures unalterable but yet he judged that all alterations in such publick and settled concerns of Religion ought to be done by the publick spirit counsel and consent of the Prophets Prince and People However this was a concluded Maxim with him That the solemnity and sacredness of consecrating those Christian mysteries of the blessed Sacraments were not to be adventured upon Ministers private abilities tenuities or distempers but by a publick and uniform spirit among Preachers and people all should say Amen to the same Prayers and receive the same mysteries under one form of consecration in which nothing should be defective or superfluous § His personal and occasional abilities for prayer were answerable to his other gifts and graces both for matter method utterance discretion and devotion full fervent and pathetick upon his own and others spirits not coldly formal and stark nor yet wildly rambling loose and broken but judicious apt grave and of so moderate an extent as suited the weight of the occasion the capacity of the auditors and the intensiveness of his own heart his prayers were not the labor and product only of lips lungs and tongue but of his spirit and understanding he minded not the glory but grace of prayer As to the Government of the Church by Episcopal Presidency His judgment of Church government by Episcopacy to which Prince and Presbyters agree he was too learned a man to doubt and too honest to deny the universal custom and practice of the Church of Christ in all ages and places for Fifteen hundred years according to the pattern at least received from the Apostles who without doubt followed as they best knew the mind of Christ This Catholick prescription he he thought so sacred that as it did sufficiently prejudge all novel presumptions so nothing but importune and grand necessities put upon any Church could excuse much less justifie the cutting off those pipes or the turning of that primitive and perpetual course of Ecclesiastical Ordination subordination and Government into another channel Nor did he understand the method of those new Vitruviusses who would seem Master-builders though they are yet but destroyers when they affect to have all timber and stones in the Churches building of the same shape size and bigness when the Church of Christ is compared to a body which hath members of different forms use and honor 1 Cor. 12. § Yet this worthy man had nothing of secular pomp or vain ambition in his thoughts meerly to bear up or bolster out a formal and titular Episcopacy with Goats hair like Michols image No he exacted worth and work And where true Bishops did the duties and good works belonging to the principal Pastors of the flock he thought they deserved double honor as Fathers and Governors among good Christians both of revenue and reverence § Yet he did not judge the principal dignity or authority of Episcopacy to depend upon its Secular advantages but on its Ecclesiastical custom and Apostolick institution and however no man was more ready to condescend to any external diminutions and comely moderations that might stand with a good conscience and prudence as tending to the peace and unity of the Church yet no man was more firm resolute and immovable from gratifying any Sacrilegious Projectors or proud Factionists or peevish Novellers to the reproach of the Church of England yea and of the Catholick Church in all the world which had its Bishops every where before it had its Bible or its Scriptures compleated In the matter of Episcopacy he differed little from Bishop Vshers moddel of the ancient Synodical Government only he thought the petulancy of mens spirit in these times beyond the primitive simplicity did require all prudent advantages of Order and authority which might consist with piety and true policy as antidotes ought to be heightned to the measure of the poison they are to encounter § He approved not a leveling party among Ministers Only he could never be induced so far to forsake the principle of all Reason Order and Government in humane societies or to disown the remarkable differences which God and Nature age and education experience and studies industry and grace did make between Ministers no less than other men as to think that neither work nor rewards of honor and estate may be proportioned to their different worths but that the youngest Schollar yea the meanest Schoolmaster if they can but now and then appear in a Pulpit and take Orders as they best fancy shall presently in all things of publick honor and Ecclesiastick authority run parallel to the greatest Schollars and gravest Divines so that either a beardless and juvenile petulancy or more aged but empty gravity shall in all points be level and justle with the most venerable worth and accomplished learning of those that are capable to
reputation He was beyond any new feculent and intoxicating Must of yesterdays tunning like an excellent piece of sound good old wine always ripe and ready for all commers and tasters fully prepared for all essays and to all business of import § If he had once had any moderamen guidance of the chariots and horsemen of Israel the Clergy and Ministers of England it is not imaginable what his gravity goodness sincerity moderation oratory and piety would have done He would have been far enough from Phaethons fact and fate to have overthrown or set all on a light fire but this was a blessing that this Nation was not worthy of being ripe for wrath fitter for Soldiers to mow down than Schollars to plant or water it Other mens judgment of Bishop Brounrig before they plaid a new Presbyterian game § As to the esteem he had on all hands I my self have oft heard as others so Mr. John Pint who was of some kindred to this Bishop not only highly commend him but even glory and boast of him so did M. Marshal and those of his Juncto while conformity kept them warm till growing wanton planetary and excentrick from their former judgement and practice for many years they turned the Tables and withdrew their stakes these indeed for reasons of State playing against Bishops and Episcopacy while the other always like himself and as became Bp Brounrig for conscience sake stood constant to assert it as I know this reverend Prelate did ever to his last nor from any vain glory pertinacy pride or humor of revenge he was far remote from any such poisons but from eternal and immutable principles of Reason and Religion of order polity and peace in Church and State also from experience of the blessings by and under Episcopacy which this and other Churches had enjoyed and the either defects or miseries for want of it He hath sometime said to me That he held other reformed Churches which had not Bishops to have verum esse a true being of Ministers and other Christians but it was esse defectivum They had as wandering people esse naturale but not esse civile they might be Christs sheep but not so folded and under such shepherds as the Church had ever used from the Apostles days much insisting on that due veneration which posterity and particular Churches owe to the piety prudence and fidelity of the Catholick Church in Primitive times where Churches no more thrived or lived without Bishops as Presidents authoritative among and above Presbyters than Christians lived without their heads or hearts Yet was he out of love to his native Country His moderation in the matter of Episcapacy and pity for the Church of England passionately inclined to any fair and fraternal accommodations that humble orderly and worthy Presbyters whom he loved and treated as brethren might have all their due and Bishops no more than was their due by Scripture by primitive customs by the Laws of the land and by principles of order and true polity among all fraternities of men He had so great regard to the judgment Catholick custom of this and all Churches of Christ in all ages that he did not like some modern Sampsons think fit to break those cords or bands asunder at the pleasure of any men whatsoever meerly upon secular and civil designs for however he well knew that the Church depends on the Civil State for its secular peace and support yet he thought it but meet that a Christian State should in things Ecclesiastical conform to the primitive and Catholick customs of the Church Certainly he had been an admirable center for union His desire of an happy union between Bishops and Presbyters having a strong majestick attractiveness to win even adversaries to the love or reverence of him his demonstrations were so potent his perswasions so pathetick his designs so upright and just his deportment so fatherly and friendly that he was capable to rectifie even crooked pieces and to mollifie even stubborn perverss and peevish tempers if they did not with an high hand run quite counter and cross-grained to antiquity and reason either toward Rome or Amsterdam or Geneva to superstition to confusion or to popular and prevalent factions which he thought no less pernicious than novel to England by which some men not only seek to dictate very magisterially to this and all present Churches and States Christian but they dare to despise and condemn all antiquity even to the Primitive and Apostolical times as if no Christian Churches were ever well and rightly governed till after fifteen hundred years in all which times either long Anarchy it seems or sore Tyranny prevailed until the people of Geneva listing to reject their Prince and Bishop could not be composed to any order or polity Ecclesiastick but by the prudence of Mr. Calvin who t is evident did not constitute what Ecclesiastical polity he best liked but what the temper of the giddy people and distractions of times would bear for Mr. Calvin was known sufficientiy to be no enemy to Episcopal Presidency where Bishops would conform to the Doctrine and life of Christ § His great accomplishment for great affaires This reverend Bishop was indeed every way a most apt ample and accomplished person for great and publick affairs nor was he ever cut out for small work having so great and good a soul he was an excellent Schollar an admirahle Orator an acute Disputant a pathetick Preacher an unspotted Liver a prudent Governour full of judgment courage constancy and impartiality an useful good man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a grave and great Divine a gracious and sincere Christian as well as venerable Bishop consciencious in all he did and humble with all his indowments not less full of eminent graces than excellent gifts indeed every way such a man and such a Bishop as no Christian Church in any age but ours nor ours in any age but this would have laid aside being a Preacher and Professor of the same reformed Faith and Confession of Doctrine nor would any times but ours have forced by popular storms and tempests a goodly ship fraught with such rich treasures of worth and wisdom which are seldom embarked or laden in one bottom to come aground and to lie still in some obscure yet scarce safe corners and creeks either for fear of Plebean and Military Hericano's or for want of fit sails and fair winds or tides to bring it forth to the commerce and enriching of the world in Learning Religion and a most imitable example Not that this grave and grand Personage His usefulness in his retirement and private life when thus forced to retire was useless to those that were worthy of him and knew how to value and use him either as a Bishop or as a Divine or a counsellor or a comforter or a Friend nor were any people more to be envied in my judgement than those that were happy as Solomons
off his earthly Tabernacle those exuviae mortalitatis which are due to the grave It was inter novissima vota one of his last desires that as this mantle of Eliah's soul was likely to fall among you so it might be deposited in your Temple or Sanctuary as an expectant of a blessed Resurrection § This request you not onely ambitiously entertained but honorable accomplished being loth that so great a Prophet should be buried among the graves of the meaner people though living he was almost levelled to them by some men I fear of more preposterous than pious spirits who seemed most impatient to own the vast differences which God and nature education and grace age and experience learning and industry besides our Lawes and the universal custome of the Churches of Christ had made among the Ministers of Christ for the good order and welfare both of Presbyters and people grudging that any civil respect or reward should be proportioned to their worth and usefulness in the Church § It became your learning Justice and wisdom to descern and own the advantages and discriminations that were so evident in this excellent Bishop who are not only Trustees and Guardians of his Urne and ashes but Conservators of his better self living Monuments of his excellent soul Admirers of his rare endowments Imitators of his worthy example All which were by him and now by me devoted to you above all men among whom he had his last hospitable and honorable reception You by a generous civility in an age pittifully and plebeianly Antiepiscopal durst invite own and entertain with publique respect such a Bishop whose eminent and unspotted worth every way made him so much more the object of some mens envy and despite as the highest Towers and trees are of the rage of tempests § For many have more patience towards Bishops and Ministers of his degree and perswasion who are less commendable or more culpable than to those whose eminency in goodness becoming Bishops and Divines makes their injurious malice wholy inexcusable Some spirits are most eager to cast that Episcopal salt on the ground which hath best savour in it and least of popish or popular fatuity that greater esteem may be had of their inspired arrogancy which by parity tends to Ataxy division and confusion as it is at this day Sunt tempora inquibus maximis virtutibus certissimum est exitium Tacitus observes that the worst times can least bear the best laws and worthiest persons whose exemplary vertues are the daily Satyrs and Sarcasmes of unreasonable men and manners § Some School-men think that the presence of a good Angel is an augment to the torture of Divels exasperating the regret and sense of their hell deformity and misery by the others beauty glory and felicity it is certaine Mat. 8.29 that the evil and unclean spirits could not smother the great terror even to torment which they had seising on them when the holy Majesty of the Messias though vailed under the cloud of humane nature and infirmities gave check to their Demoniac malice and mischeif Thus are the best ministers either Bishops or Presbyters men of the greatest learning piety and constancy most unwelcome as Micaiah to Ahab to men of high minds of heady passions of giddy spirits of impotent prejudices of popular principles and of licencious Practises who affect things of vulgar ambition and plebeian arbitrariness being unpatient of any thing authoritative and setled either by civil or ecclesiastick constitutions and customes in Church or State § Hence then is the Crown of your Honour more ponderous and illustrious That you so far owned and expressed your esteem of this learned and religious Bishop who as much deserved and enjoyed the applause of all good men as he patiently endured the envy and injuries of others Him you kindly invited Him you civilly received Him you highly honoured Him you greatly endeared to you notwithstanding the long and many diminutions yea disgraces he had suffered as a Bishop more to the detriment and dishonour of the publique than of his private comforts For it is certaine that every Christian Church and State in all ages hath wanted and ever will such excellent Bishops as wise and exemplary Goverours more than they can want publique rewards and incouragements but as it was said of Paulinus Bishop of Nola in Italy Aequiori animo sua pertulit damna quam alii sua lucra No man deplored the publique distractions more and his own depressions less than this wise and worthy Bishop he still enjoyed himself in an holy and happy tranquility as much nay much more than any of his destroyers whom he lived to see driven as chaffe too and fro with every wind till they were hurried to Democracy to Stratocracy to Anarchy both in Church and State § After many Tragedies which he had seen and suffered it was a great reviving to his age to find the noble respects of your honourable Society shining upon him and in him upon all worthy Bishops and Episcopal Divines You were desirous to be his Diocess to own him as a Father in God And as you deserved so I know he intended you the best recompences he was able to give you out of the rich treasury of his learned and pious soul if God had spared him life and health As you have the honour to be the eminent orbe and publique Sphear in which this great Star of learning and religion of Episcopal desert and dignity last moved both in and out of this world The Mount Nebo to which this Moses was to ascend and there to dye So it is but just you should have this Monument of singular honour and renown so long as the name and memory of Bishop Brounrig survives which I presume will be very long For he had omnia victura et sempiterna praeter corpusculum all things living and lasting to eternity except his body especially if I have in this work which is thus Dedicated to you done him and you the present and after age that right which I intended and of which I have thus given the world some account as to your particular merit towards him which was my second undertaking § My last work in this Epistle is to crave your patrociny for my vindication both against Romish partiality whose designe and interest is to decry and destroy all Reformed Bishops and also against those immoderate Antypathies which others have taken up against all presidential Episcopacy and Diocesan Bishops though never so reformed in Doctrine and Manners Yea and circumscribed by good Laws of Church and State Not that I fear the wit which is not overgreat or the spite which is not very small of those unreasonable Episcopomastix whose malice is as blind as it is bold against all Bishops good and bad precious and vile Popish and Primitive Episcopacy They shall do well to try their Teeth on this file to confute any one particular which I have averred of this excellent
Bishop who together with many others his reverend Brethren of the last edition and perdition now with God as Usher Hall Morton Davenant Prideaux Winniffe Westfeild Potter and others were as far from being drones and idle bellys Tyrants and oppressors Popish or antichristian as those are who are the most unjust calumniators of them and their Episcopal dignity which hath been so antient and universal in the Church of Christ and is so necessary for the polity and well being of any Church and was by themselves so abundantly deserved yea and worthily managed § I well know how provoking a thing it is to some mens eyes and eares to read or hear the praise of any man who is not of their party and faction There are many who have no patience to behold a Bishop carried to his grave in peace and laid in the bed of honour It is their Hell to see a pious Prelate conveyed to Heaven as it was Dives his regret to behold Lazarus in Abrahams bosom Some have sought to make the very name of Bishop a crime and to render the order degree and honor of it odious when the first is Scriptural and given to Christ first next to the Apostles and their cheif Successors the second is Ecclesiastical of Primitive Catholick and Apostolick use § There are that wish all Bishops out of the world with all their hearts but withal they would have them buried in silence and obscurity For they are scared to see them walk after they are dead as much as Herod was least John Baptist whom he had beheaded in a most wanton and frolick cruelty had been revived in Christ Some are afraid least while the names and merits of our excellent English Bishops remaine they might recover damages for all the losses they have sustained but in this I can secure their Excexcutors and Administrators that if they can give God and their own consciences a good account none of these good Bishops who are now departed in peace and have seen the Salvation of God will ever trouble them being got above the affronts injuries indignities and indigencies of this world § I know the formation of such a Statue as must resemble Bishop Brounrig so burning and shining a light must needs dash the unwelcome sparks and strictures of his well known worth in all Antiepiscopal faces just as an iron flaming from the forge doth when wrought on a firme anvel by a strong arm It is the miserie of many virtutem videant intabita bescantque relicta first to want worth in themselves next not to be able to bear it in another If envie against worthy Bishops is to be burst in pieces this piece will do it if sober moderate minds are reconcilable to venerable Episcopacy as I believe many nay most ministers and people now are this will further invite and confirm them to study the Churches peace and the honor of the Reformed Religion no less than the comfort of their own calling by returning to such temperament and patterns of Episcopal presidency as were to be seen in Bishop Brounrig and in many others of his order in England in which were as worthy Presbyters and as excellent Bishops as ever blest any Church since the Apostles daies for whom we have cause ever to bless the Divine benignity and mercy to this unworthy Nation § I have otherwhere erected Trophies and inscribed them to several Bishops of holy honorable and happy memory in England yea and I have demonstrated by a familiar and plain emblem the vast disproportions that are in all histories and successions of the Church to be seen between the goodly floridness and fruitful procerity of Christianity in all times when it was preserved protected and prospered by Episcopal eminency authority and unity which kept Bishops Presbyters and people in a blessed harmony compared to the modern shrubs of novelty variety discord which later ages have produced § Nor could I forbear upon this occasion to set forth the industry learning eloquence gravitie wisdom moderation patience unspottedness and holy perseverance of this excellent Bishop by way of pleniary opposition and full confutation of that Idleness illiterateness barrenness levity imprudence riggidness passionateness deformity and inconstancy with which some men have been overgrown as with a Manage or Leprosie in this age by their too great itching and scratching against all Episcopacy even till they fetched blood and brought such a festring tetter and sore upon us as is not easily healed § Wherein I have come short of Bishop Brounrigs worth your unanimous pleadings and potent eloquence full of reason and justice of learning and religion of order and policy may best supply my many defects indeed there was need of another Brounrig to have described him § Wherefore knowing my own disproportions I thought it the best way I could take to releive them first by seriously studying of this great pattern next by flying to your protection whose honor is now inseparable from this worthy Bishops no less than his ashes are from your antient Temple which since its first consecrating by Heraclius Patriarch of Jerusalem Anno Christ 1185. in the 31. of Hen. the 2. to this day had never any deposite of greater learning then your famous Selden or of greater piety and veneration than your and our reverend Brounrig who as little needs any Apology to be made for him as the age greatly needs repentance for treating him so much below his worth and myself a great Apology for my adventuring on so great a work § If it be necessary for me further to disarm or lessen that envy which possibly may befall me for the honour of this service which I have done to the name memory and merit of this worthy Bishop and in him to all good Bishops I am willing to conclude as St. Bernard doth in his modest and humble oratory upon a like occasion Dignus sane ille qui laudaretur sed indignus ego qui laudem if the fire of Antiepiscopal anger must still be fed with some fewel Parcite defunctis in me convertite ferrum let them spare the dead and fix their talons or teeth on me who am yet living who am content not to be commended by them or any malevolent Reader yet I am sure this reverend Bishop was most worthy to be commended by me and all good men which is then most effectually done by your selves O worthy Gentlemen and all equanimous Readers when his piety prudence zeal courage humility charity and judicious constancy in Church and State are most exactly imitated by your selves and others which is the just and serious ambition of Your very humble servant in Christ IOHN GAUDEN Ian. 1. 1659. ERRATA PAge 5. Line 8. read are for is p. 8 l.13.r audible p. 33. l. 12. add when yet p. 24. l. 4. by for lie p. 45. l. 1. r. Moenis p. 56. l. 20. Oracles for creeds p. 58. l. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p.
fair pots then was God their more immediate Prophet and Instructer The Patriarchal succession in families in dreams and night-visions in ocular and sensible apparitions by day in audable and articular expressions or in mental illuminations So to Enoch and Noah and Abraham Isaac and Jacob yet so as the holy Fathers of those families were at once as successive Princes Priests and Prophets to their families taking care to teach their posterity children and servants the true fear and worship of God Gen. 18.19 which the Lord promiseth himself from Abraham Iosh 24.15 and Joshua promiseth to God for himself and his house Afterward After successioning eater Polities when the Church of God multiplied from a family to a grand Polity or community which required those Laws and constitutions both Civil and Ecclesiastical together with the execution of them by Princes Priests and prophets which might best preserve humane society within those bounds of honesty and holiness and within the enjoyment of those blessings which might answer all just and good desires either as to the enjoyment of their lives estates and liberties in peace or as to the serving of God and keeping communion with him in those holy ways of his worship and service which he required of them for their good as well as his own glory then was it that the Lord either by special designation or by setled succession furnished his Church with such Princes Judges Priests and Prophets as he saw necessary for them Yea Ecclesiastical order and succeâ—â—â—on most necessary whatever scambling and confusion in Civil and Regular Magistracy mens ambition brought on the state of the Jews yet the Church order and polity of Religion was so fixed in Aarons family as to the constant Primacy of the Priesthood and in the Tribe of Levi as to the inferior offices and services that it continued many hundred of years after their Kings and after their Captivity inviolated among the Jews nor was that sacred Order and Succession quite depraved in Israel till a most unreasonable and detestable reason of state policy laying aside all true sense and conscience of piety 1 King 12.31 set up golden calves for gods to the silly people and consecrated the meanest of the people to serve them Meet Priests indeed for such bruitish gods When the great Prophet Moses was to leave the world Moses his care for succession yet he leaves the Church this legacy of comfort as to the divine care and providence for a succession The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me unto him you shall hearken which as it was most eminently and consummatively fulfilled in our blessed Saviour as Philip tells Nathanael Iohn 1.45 Acts 3.22 Acts 7.37 and as St. Peter with St. Stephen convince the Jewes who was the great inspirer and compleater of the Prophets and their Prophesies so it was also fulfilled in those intermediate Prophets which followed Moses even to John Baptist whom God sent successively to preserve reform and restore true Religion in the Church The Priestly Prophetick Ministerial successive authority as necessary as magistratick and Ministerial Office is not less necessary in the Church than the Princely and Magistratick power is in the State unless men judge their souls eternal interests less precious than those of their bodies and estates Yea for the most part Gods Providence hath so distinguished them that when there were the best Princes yet there were added to them eminent Prophets besides the constant Priests as in Davids time where Samuel Gad and Nathan were imployed And here in the great revolt and sad Apostacy of Israel from Gods and Davids house yet the Lord is not wanting to send an Eliah and when he is to be gone order is taken for the appointing Elisha to succeed him the Ordinances of heaven 1 Kings 16 1â—.1â— of night and day summer and winter of Spring and Harvest Gen. 8 22. are not more necessary by the successive motions of Sun and Moon and Stars than those Ministers and Ministrations are by which true Religion and an autoritative order in the Church are maintained in present and duly derived to posterity Hence our blessed Saviour Our blessed Saviours care of succession in the Church Iohn 20.20 the great Minister and Fulfiller of all righteousness before his ascention took care for the Apostolick confirmation Consecration Mission and Commission as Stewards and Ambassadors in his stead to be sent by him as he was by his Father The Apostles also before their departure had the like care as is evident in the history of the Acts and in the charge that St. Paul gives to Timothy and Titus within their respective Provinces and Diocesses to commit the Evangelical spiritual power and Ministry as a sacred depositum to faithful and able men that may as Bishops and Pastors 2 Tim. 2.2 as Presbyters and Teachers both instruct and rule the Church or flock of Christ committed to their charge according to the several proportions and combinations of those Ecclesiastical Societies over which not only many Teachers were ordained but also some one Father or Angel was constituted and owned by the Spirit of Christ as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rev. 2 3 chap. chief President over them the head or centre of order and union the principal Conservator and Dispenser of all Ecclesiastical power and authority which Irenaeus Tertullian St. Cyprian Origen and all the Antients counted Successiones successores Apostolorum having the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gift and character in ordinary which the Apostles had either as Presbyters or Presidents in the Church § Succession signalised by some visible ceremony That this might be done the more signally and conspicuously so as all might take notice of the solemn trausaction in a business of so sacred and great importance to the Church there was not onely due trial to be made of mens abilities inward and outward for such undertakings but they were to be invested with the Ecclesiastical power and admitted to the exercise of those sacred Ministrations by some evident ceremonies as tokens of Gods Ordination the Clergies approbation and the peoples acceptance of them So little is God an enemy as some have strongly fancied to all decent ceremonies in Religion which are shadows indeed of good things with whose substance they well agree We see that not only Sacramental mysteries even in the Gospel as well as under the Law are set forth by them and cloathed all over with them as to the outside or sign but also the Ordination of Priests Prophets and all Church Ministers ordinary and extraordinary have been adorned by them Elisha is first annointed by Eliah â— Kings 19.19 after this Eliah casts his mantle upon him even that mantle which afterward fell from Eliah ascending and was as an emblem of his spirit with which Elisha was
but commendable and imitable in parallel occasions when they are real unwonted and wonderful in whch Good men do not deserve blame if they seem to forget themselves while they remember God a great and terrible Majesty it is meet for us to hear the voyce or rod of God and who hath appointed it Secondly 2 The matter or words of Elisha But passions alone and their expressions by crying out or any outward emotion disorder which signifie no more than interjections or broken and inarticulate sounds but as the leaves of the barren figtree without fruit Of rational and religious exstasies or as clouds without water these are neither the intents nor usual effects of divine manifestations and extraordinary impressions for however they may give some exstatick terror and amazement at first by the newness suddenness and wonder of them so as to discompose a while both Reason and Religions clearness yet they are not considerable further than God is discernable in them and glorified by them as that vision of Moses and Elias on the mount with Christ at his transfiguration Luke 9.8 9 10 which gave St. Peter such a present shake and astonishment that though he spake of making three Tabernacles and staying there yet he knew not what he said that is he did not well consider the unseasonableness and unreasonableness of his proposals yet afterward upon composed reflections and calmer thoughts 2 Pet. 1.17 he makes a very holy and excellent use of that vision to confirm the faith of Christians in Christ as in the beloved Son of God which voyce we heard saith he in the holy mount coming from the excellent glory of God the Father § Why Elisha thus cryed after Eliab Elisha's cry is not vox praeterea nihil a bare clamor insignificant as one scared and forehared but his wisdom remained with him he cries out as still importune and eager for the blessing of the doubled spirit that Eliah might see he saw him crying now at the instant of his departing which was the compact and agreement and he now laid claim to the accomplishment using this potent Charm of My Father my Father as begging his last blessing that he might be heir of his spirit Here we may observe Observ That divine manifestations or extasies in whatever way they are applied to our discomposure Oâ— holy transports and impressions still preserve the good man as to grace and the man as to right reason they do not speak either evilly or uncivilly or senselesly or unadvisedly with their lips whilst heart and senses divine Creeds or impulses do affect either they pray or praise God either they fear or rejoyce before him either they admire or adore and set forth the glory of God as Balaam himself did when he was in his Prophetick trances and was over-byassed by Gods Spirit against his own covetousness and ambition So the poor Shepherds at the Angelick Quire and Hymn Luke 2.9 10 11 12. visibly appearing and speaking audibly to them of Christs birth went away believing and rejoycing wondering and reporting the truth they first heard of and then found true in the birth of Christ It is an opinion worthy of the Mahometan blindness to fancy that mad men are inspired and see Angels when they rave and talk wildely Insani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes They are the madder of the two that do think these harsh strings to be touched with Gods holy Spirit § Of fanatick and frantick deliâ—ancies Certainly all extasies of delirancy and dotage that bring men first to strange fancies or to fits of quaking and convulsion then to vent either nonsense or blasphemous and scurrillous extravagancies these must be imputed as learned Dr. Merick Causabon observes either to natural distempers of disease and melancholy or to jugling affectations or to Diabolical delusions and possessions to which some of the Montanists Maniches Circumcellians and others of the Energumeni of old and of late have pretended who made first popular ostentations of special inspirations and correptions or raptures of the Spirit of God but afterwards the leaves and trash the toys and impertinencies they vented by words together with the pernicious extravagancies of their actions proclaimed as loud as the Devil of Mascon to all hearers and spectators that their troubles or tempests with the following dirt and mud arose not from the flowings or emanations of the pure spring of Gods Spirit but either from the Devils filthy injections or from the foul puddle of their own perturbed fancy and corrupt hearts or over-heated brains possibly intoxicated with the fumes of some new opinions and the gallant advantages they fancy to make by them § Of demoniac correptions It is an observation which St. Chrysostom makes that Demoniac correptions as those of the Sybils and other Oracles of old were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with such shakings and transports as dispossessed the possessed for a time of themselves both as to their reason and senses but divine Oracles and inspirations greater or lesse like loud or still musick preserve the harmony of the soul though they make for a time quick and smart strokes upon the strings of holy mens constitutions understandings passions and affections The words of Eliah are as St. Godâ— Spirit suggests and utters only words of soberness and truth Acts 26.24 Acts 2.4 Paul refuted Festus his supposal of his madness words of soberness and truth they that should then have heard them as now we read them must confess that God was in him of a truth 1 Pet. 1.2 he spake which St. Peter gives as the character of a true Prophet and Apostle as the Spirit gave him utterance and guidance as intentive to the last object the fatal signal token of his obtaining the desired Spirit and blessing This affected him so highly as the ingemination imports twice crying out My Father My Father § Expressing first a genuine and great sense of his private love respect duty and honor to Eliah whose relation and merit was to him as a father so he had found him so he valued him so he shall misse him remaining without him as an Orphan in minority desolate and exposed to injuries as well as indiscretions We may observe the great ingenuity and humility of Elisha Observ 1 The filial respects of Elisha to Eliah as his Father though anointed a Prophet and thought meet to succeed Eliah though now of the same order yet he doth not disdain to count and call Eliah his father because first his elder secondly his better and ordainer thirdly his superiour in merits graces no less than in degree and authority in his power or place in the Church Thus the antient Christian people yea and the antient Christian Presbyters owned their Bishops as Fathers The father of the Christian Churches in a precedency and presidency of place degree dignity and authority Ecclesiastical Thus did St. Jerom write with
it That nothing is more true than that Maxime both of piety and true policy Plus debet ecclesia Respublica Christiana ministris Ecclesiasticis quam militibus secularibus Soldiers may and oft do the work of Mahomet and Antichrist but good Preachers do always the work of Christ and of mens souls as to their inward and eternal interest yea as to outward and secular things of peace safety prosperity and victory over enemies Plus profuit Moses orans quam Josua pugnans Exod. 17.20 Moses did avail more by his praying than Joshua by his fighting Yea when the wrath of God is kindled and the fire of famine plague or war is broken out against any people these chariots and horsemen of Israel such as are powerful in prayer sober in their counsel exemplary in their lives are beyond imagination effectual to moderate remedy and remove divine vengeance When Noah Daniel and Job stand in the gap when Jacob wrestles with God Ezek. 14.14 when Moses holds his hands when Aaron and Phineas intervene between the living and the dead exciting the spirits of people to repentance and amendment to fasting and prayer when the Priests and Ministers of the Lord cry mightily to heaven Ioel. 2.17 and give the Lord no rest then is it that God spares and heals and returns to be gracious to the land § If men thought this they could not easily be so partial and unjust as to turn Tythes into Taxes to grudge the first as the Ministers portion and augment the second as the Souldiers pay good Ministers make a Nation need no Soldiery they are the murus aheneus brasen wall the fortification and ammunition that destroys sin the great enemy and traytor to all our happiness It is as true in the body Politique Qui militariter vivit misere vivit as that qui medice vivit misere vivit It is a sad life to live always medicinally and so to live always in a military necessity and danger besides the vaste charge that this Physick and these legions of Chyrurgeons stand any Nation in but grave godly peaceable and able Ministers are so far from being the lancets and leeches or the phlebotomists the exhausting pills and dispiriting purges that they are indeed the best cordials and restorative of the safety honors beauty strength peace health and happiness of any Church and State these help to put things into that posture of charity and peace that men may beat their swords into pruning-hooks Isai 2.4 Math. 4.3 and their armour into plowshears Once destroy or disband your able and orderly your learned and wel-armed Ministers Bishops and Presbyters or take away their order and good Government as such in united Councils and Synods withdraw their maintenance and support you will soon want their help and shall never want wars and enemies in Church and State as our own sad experience tells us both the Wars of disputation and of digladiation Nor are the Peditatus The Infantry or foot forces of the Church the Infantry or foot-soldiery of this spiritual Militia to be despised as useless I mean the meanest of the people that truly fear God and humbly keep their ranks and orders both in Church and State these also do stand in the gap these as Tertullian speaks quasi agmine facto ambiunt gratam Deo vim inferunt these besiege God as it were with great squadrons or companies offering an acceptable force to the Divine majesty both to disarm his Justice and to obtain his Mercy Ministers Magistrates and godly people together of one heart and of one mind in the Lord do make a royal and heavenly host a compleat Army both of horse and foot being under the same Generalissimo the Lord Jesus Christ who loves to see his Soldiers not stragling and freebooting in broken parties and scattered Conventicles but united and combined in great Congregations as the Assemblies of his Saints and Soldiers not of Sectaries and Schismaticks under such Commanders both greater and less as he hath ordained and commissioned § If these be the merits use and publick influence both as to Church and State of Gods Prophets and Christs Ministers in their several degrees and stations I wonder whence those principles of State policy arose and prevailed so far in this Nation as for some men with equal ignorance and injustice to endeavor to rout and cashier all these settled and reformed forces of the Ministry of England either stoping their pay or taking away the Antisignani principal Rulers and Leaders the Ecclesiastical colours and Commanders with the cheif Standerd-bearers of the Church for learning and prudence which practices and attempts have already put all the regiments of horse and foot to very great routs and disorders irrecoverable without a miracle of mercy Yea some by a strange kinde of fatuity and cruelty strive to gratifie the Papists Jesuits and others our enemies on all sides 2 Sam. 8.4 1 Chron. 18.4 by houghing all the best horses and burning or breaking in pieces all the best chariots of our Israel and the nurseries or chief conservatories of them the Universities just as David did those of the Amonites or the chariots and horses of the Sun that in after ages the Reformed Religion in England might have none but pittiful unarmed Pygmies to encounter with armed Goliahs of Rome Of routing and disbanding the Ministry § Many fear we are undermined and betrayed by the secret and sinister plottings of our Romish Adversaries who have so many Pioneers and Ingineers at work and are glad beyond measure to see the havoke made of Protestant Preachers of reformed Bishops and Churches which uniform and united are strong scattered are of no great efficacy though perhaps good Christians as a single Soldier signifies not much though valiant It may be good yarn or thread that is spun but t is not cloth till it be well woven together in one web it is not an Army but a rabble without Officers and Order nor is it a Church once take these Pastoral staves of beauty and bands away or deprive both Pastors and people of due order unity and government or rob the Rulers and Laborers of their setled pay and due enterainment 1 Cor. 9.7 that either they must go to war at their own charge for nought or live by forrage and free-quarter or depend upon the arbitrary contributions of people which is but a kind of gentle plundering or living upon not free-quarter but alms rather in a way very uncomfortable to ingenuous and able men no less than unacceptable to common people who set no great rate on their souls Certainly this new modelling of our spiritual Militia or Ministry being once effected what can be expected but a petty company of mendicant Preachers a black guard and forlorn-hope of ignorant and contemptible Freebooters men of little learning less estate no respect and least worth to deserve it to the great triumph joy and jubilee of all
these Jesuited enemies of the Reformed Religion and the true Interests of this Church and Nation whose work this hath been many years to make that vile saying of Campian good in his Decem Rationes Clero Anglicano nihil putidius Doubtless The necessaâ—y use of able and orderly Ministers a Church may better in the worst of times want any thing than good Bishops and orderly Ministers for these in the midst of persecution made Religion good against all the powers of men and Devils all the Armies of vain Philosophers Atheists Epicures Hereticks and Schismaticks Heathenish Princes and barbarous people when they made no more to baite Christians and their Ministers or Bishops to death than to kill Bears and other beasts in their Theaters yet being killed they conquered because united and orderly Christianity like a wedg the more driven home the more it splits all Idolatry and it self continued entire But when Pastors and people Bishops and Presbyters are divided when the whole order and Militia or Army is once disbanded or abased starved and despised the very soul is gone from the body the Sun from the firmament the maenia propugnacula forces and defences are taken away from the Frontiers and Garisons we may write Ichabod on all foreheads the glory is departed from our Israel for every good Bishop is as the spiritual Colonel of his Diocesan Regiment and every good Presbyter under him is as a Captain of his Parochial Company the first without the second will be weak and without assistance and the second without the first will be unruly for want of government together they are compleat § What wise and sober Christian doth not see by woful experience that since this late rout and disorder hath been made upon the chariots and horsemen of our Israel we have seen and heard and felt nothing but wars and rumors of wars scarce one good day of secure serenity without black and terrible clouds hanging over us as death full of blood faction fury discontent and mutual destruction little of peace nothing of charity as far from unity as uniformity in doctrine discipline and government § Nor have those mens chariots kept their own wheels very well on their axes but either driven very heavily or some of them into the read sea of blood who were most active to destroy or disband or disorder our spiritual Militia or Hierarchy and Ministry which was the most-able compleat well-appointed goodliest and gallantest in the Christian reformed world I might say without vain glory in the whole world Some defects and defaults some halts and extravagancies might be in particular persons but the order and the march and the ammunition and the maintenance were as to the main very worthy of the honor and wisdom and bounty and piety of this Nation and Church having as much of ability and courage and more of publique honor and encouragement than any where § Love must not yet despaire of this Church Nor do I yet despair of the wisdom honor piety and gratitude of this Church and State but they may in time return to see the prejudices mischiefs and miseries either felt or feared by the daily incursions as of all manner of errors and confusions in Religion so in civil and secular concernments which easily drive God knows whither to a thousand shipwracking and desperate dangers when once not only the anchors and cables of Religion are broken but the Pilots and Masters either cast over-board or kept under hatches and lost Nothing holds mens hearts so together even in a National peace and harmony as when they all meet in the same center of Religion and can all say Amen to the same prayers and praises of God Nor will any civil cautions coercions keep the publick peace or patch and soder it up when once the hearts and heads of men are cracked and broken in pieces as earthen pitchers by the mutual dashings against one another in differences of Religion where though men get no conquest or booty yet they are strangely pleased with a liberty and animosity only to contest just as Soldiers do in mutinies when they turn the reverence due to Commanders into impudence and insolency § But I have done with this Consideration of Eliahs publique eminency and influence which made him worthy of these appellations of honor and strength of safety and defence to Church and State The chariots and horsemen of Israel being only sorry that so many of my Countrymen seem also to have done with their spiritual Militia seeking so to reduce it as to make it a kinde of Nehustan to bring all Bishops and Ministers as wounded and maimed antiquated and exautorated Soldiers to their almes-houses and Hospitals of publick charity § Of Voluntiers Preachers and Souldiers that will serve gratis If we could maintain our secular Militia at the same rate as some propound for Ministers that every Soldier and Commander would be content with what men will give them it would very much ease the charge of the Nation But some will say there are that will preach gratis for nothing which is no more credible than that any Soldiers will watch and ward and attend their duty and fight for nothing they may do it for a fit of novelty as Voluntiers of a few days standing but they will not long stay by their colours either as Soldiers or Ministers if they must do it for nothing And if they will needs have the Ministerial order and spiritual Militia quite disbanded as chargeable and superfluous that every one may preach and officiate freely that list let them withal try the experiment in the secular Militia lay down their Arms and let every man fight that lists if they will not hearken in reason of State to this motion nor ought they in Religion to the other since men are naturally more prone to defend their Civil than Religious interests These Projectors know well enough that nothing publique is well done which is done occasionally and arbitrarily not as a duty of necessity and conscience but of variety and essay to which neither Ministers nor Soldiers work must be left unless we list to leave all things to Atheism and confusion The Apostle saith expresly 1 Cor. 9.16 A necessity is laid upon him and wo to him if he preach not the Gospel being appointed thereunto by God Acts 20.28 1 Pet. 1.3 and the order of the Church As Ministers are to take heed to the flock over which the Lord by the Church hath set them so others are to take heed what they do to these men so as to hinder or discourage them in so great a work on which the eternal safety and good of souls depends which none but Satan will hinder none but unbelieving Jews or false brethren deceitful workers and evil doers will oppose and seek to oppress Acts 19.24 by a mechanick kind of malice like that of Demetrius or Alexander 2 Tim 4.14 the one a