parity of officers which if it could once be effected it would save a great deal of that unnecessary expence which is now thrown away as it should seem to no purpose upon the great field-officers and the commanders in chief whether of whole Regiments or greater parties To carry this comparison a little farther because the power of the Presbyters in our times is pretended to be swallowed up in that of the Bishop like the rods of the Magicians by the rod of Moses contrary as it seems to the practice of the primitive times we may observe that in the affairs of a private company it is but reasonable that the captain should advise with the rest of the commission-officers and not manage all things wholly by himself but yet the power of summoning and dissolving the assembly is still entirely in him and he hath a negative at least entirely to himself so that without his consent and concurrence nothing can be done as to all those things that are within the cognisance and sphere of his authority but if the commander in chief of the whole regiment were to consult with his officers for their common interest and safety it is most likely that he would advise onely with the captains of the respective companies and in a great council of war where so great a multitude would breed confusion there the private captains are not regarded neither but onely the â—hief officers and principal commanders of the greater parties in all which assemblies for discipline and good order sake the general must be supposed to have his negative and as the assembly is called by his authority so to have a power likewise of dissolving it as he pleases And this hath always been the custome in the Ecclesiastical model a Bishop in the ancient practice of the Church was used almost in all matters to advise and deliberate concerning the affairs of his diocese with his Presbyters about him and from thence it came to pass that the whole assembly or the place where they met is sometimes by the ancientest of the Greek fathers termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop being indeed if without using words which we do not understand we will frame to our selves an intelligible notion of the thing it self onely the chief or superintendent of the Presbyters having an inspection over them and over the whole diocese as they had over their particular charges but still the Bishop had his negative and consequently almost the whole power of administration in his own hands for otherwise than this I can by no means understand the language of St. Jerome who though in this he be so widely mistaken that he will not have this government to have been ordained in the church by Christ himself yet he confesses that it was as old as the contentions between Paul and Apollos and Cephas and that it was made use of as an expedient to restore the churches peace which I think to be a very apt translation of those words ut schismatum semina tollerentur but now what peace there could be or how this was a possible expedient of procuring it where the Bishop had not a negative voice in the assembly I confess I do not understand Again as no laws could be made without the episcopal Le veult and on the contrary all proceedings were stopt in every particular diocesan assembly by the negative saviseroit of the Bishop so as to those canons and constitutions that were enacted the Bishop was the person who was chiefly concerned to look after their performance and to punish their neglect and as no ecclesiastical sanction could be made without him so the executive power was in a manner entirely his he was to see that every pastour did his duty he was to censure and punish the delinquents against it and in a controversie arising whether this or that particular pastour had broken his canonical obedience or no or done any thing which was disagreeable to his function or his obligation the last diocesan appeal was to the Bishop and without granting him as much power as this comes to it is utterly impossible to make sense of the words of St Jerome in toto orbe decretum est ut unus de presbyteris electus superponeretur caeteris ad quem omnis Ecclesiae cura pertineret ut schismatum semina tollerentur for how the bishop could be said in every diocese to be set over the Presbyters how the care of the whole church or diocese could be said to be committed to him and that for this end to preserve the peace of the church or how that peace could be preserved without all this power which I have allotted to him fateor me scire juxta cum ignarissimis and if there be any man else that can explain it to me let him pass from hence forward for the Delian Diver or for the Delphick Apollo But though in this or that particular diocese the power of the Presbyters seems to have been somewhat greater than it is now-a-days and yet as I have proved it was not so considerable neither yet as the Bishop did advise with his Presbyters as to the affairs of his own diocese and perhaps did scarce doe any thing of moment without their concurrence and direction in it so in the Provincial Synods which were convened together for the more regular and uniform administration of several such diocesses together both as to matters of discipline and belief and much more in the general councils or oecumenical dyets of the whole Christian Church the whole affair was transacted by the Bishops and yet the canons and constitutions that were then agreed upon were obligatory to all the Presbyters within the jurisdiction of those Bishops of which the assembly consisted and these constitutions did without question determine the most important cases they applied a remedy to all the greater evils of the church and laid down all the most general and most concerning rules of discipline and obedience so that the conferences of the respective Bishops with their particular clergy so far as any thing new was established or enacted by them were onely about particular cases which could not be sufficiently foreseen or provided for by the larger assemblies and for the most part about matters of lesser moment But the Presbyters as small a share as they had in the government of the church for it appears upon more accounts than one to have been but very small yet being used upon so frequent occasions to advise with their Bishop and the Bishop not being used to determine any new matter or issue out any new order without their consent this was in process of time an occasion of the Presbyters aspiring after more power of their confronting and opposing their Bishop and taking upon them more than became them or than was for the peace of the Church which seems to have given occasion in part to Clemens his epistle to the Corinthians and to Ignatius his so frequent and
it was the greater temptation to me to send it to the Press as I did and have added so much to what I had written at the College that it requires but very little to put a conclusion to it In this Discourse as I have considered all the cases and circumstances of that Law with much more exactness than any have done before me so I have particularly levell'd a considerable part of it against one Chapter of Mr. Selden in his Book De Successionibus and have very largely exposed the vanity of the Rabbinical Learning and the manifest unskilfulness of that sort of men in the Antiquities of their own Nation and if I have not found out a new Key to open and interpret the Mosaick Law yet thus much at least I have done I have applied it to several Laws to which it hath not been applied before and have abundantly discovered the extreme impudence as well as ignorance of the Aegyptian Moses and other celebrated Masters of the Jewish Learning I have likewise in an occasional Essay upon that subject demonstrated the Antiquity of Episcopal and Diocesan government in the Jewish Church the dependence of the inferiour Clergy upon the Bishop of the Diocess and the subjection of all the Bishops of the Province of Judaea to the Arch-Bishop or High-Priest at Jerusalem I have shewn that this was the Government to which our Saviour and his Apostles being members of the Jewish Church submitted and not onely so but that the Jews had among them a Patriarchal dignity likewise that is such Bishops as having their usual residence in Jerusalem or in Judaea had the care and inspection of the Churches in the dispersion which was likewise imitated by our Saviour in his modell of the Christian Church and certainly if their be no such harm in a Patriarch that is a foreign visitour or inspectour if this were imitated and approved by our Saviour himself then much â—â—ss can there lie any exception against a domestick and residing Bishop to whose authority likewise our Saviour submitted and consequently approved of that sort of Government which I will grant in its first original to have been of humane institution if that will please our Dissenters for all they will get by it will be this that our Saviour himself did allow of humane institutions in the Christian Church and did submit to them and that this not being a part of the Mosaick Law so far as that Law consisted of types and shadows which were to be done away as being fulfilled and answered by their antitype in the person and dispensation and sacrifice of Christ the reasons of convenience upon which this government was founded remain still the same and therefore that there is no reason why it should be altered though it had not been recommended to us by our Saviour's example which may justly be thought to give it a jus divinum though it had none before for he was by no means a Presbyterian and much less an Independent And yet if this business be examined into the bottom though the granting it to be of humane institution will doe the Separatists no manner of service it will be found that this government was instituted by Moses and establish'd by Joshua both of which acted by divine appointment and by consequence it having nothing which was properly Judaical that is which was of a Typical or Symbolical nature nothing that had any necessary dependence upon or conexion with their Sacrifices and lustrations and other Ceremonies of that Vmbratick dispensation there is the same reason why it should last after those shadows were done away as well as when they were lookt upon to be in full force and were esteemed the most indispensably sacred I have also in the same treatise demonstrated the antiquity and the reason of the Priestly maintenance by tithes and I have shewn upon what account it was that the tenth of all the fruits of the Earth and the encrease of Cattel was offered to God and that the reason holds every whit as good to this day as it was either in the Levitical times or in those that went before them And upon this occasion I have considered very briefly the question so much controverted concerning usury I have demonstrated its lawfulness to all but the ancient Jews and by the same clue I have opened a way to a better understanding of the Chronology of the times before the Floud and so long after it as the age of man was reckoned to be an hundred and twenty years and have besides made it evidently appear what was the true meaning of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the computation of the ancient Chaldeans and what it was that gave both name and notion to the Kalendae and the Idus among the Romans things that are as yet a secret to the World But it being so ordered by divine providence that while I was employed in this kind of meditations there fell a living void in this City in the gift of the worshipfull Company of Salters I laid my antiquities aside to try what interest I could make among them for the obtaining their favour in the disposal of it and I was so successfull thanks to my good friends who appeared very zealous and very numerous for me that had the business poceeded to a Poll when the first Court was called which was a common hall consisting of the whole freedom I have reason to believe my circumstances at that time would have carried it against any of my Competitours although my merit were very short of some And now having laid aside my new designs compell'd by a welcome necessity of my affairs as I had done my old ones for another reason I began as I had leisure from that continual hurry in which my competition had engaged me to sit down and consider seriously with my self which I could not doe without a mixture of pleasure and melancholy together in what a labyrinth of different and disagreeing undertakings I had entangled my self and being returned again from a remote corner of the Town into the neighbourhood of Decency and Order I had as it is usual with old friends a very great desire notwithstanding the late unkindness that had past between us to see them once more and renew our our old acquaintance and try if it were possible in the midst of such confusion to reduce them to a better agreement with themselves as well as with me and make them answer to their own names instead of those of Chaos Rhapsodie and Cento by which they now began to be much better known And the best expedient I could think of to save my self harmless from the censures of men with as little injury to the Book-seller as might be for I would have no man suffer upon my account if I could help it was after a retrenchment of several sheets which are now wholly lost and indeed were
so passionate exhortations to the Presbyters to pay that duty and obedience which they owed to their Bishop as the messenger of God and the vicegerent of Christ in that particular diocese wherein he was placed but when all these endeavours of good and holy men proved ineffectual as all exhortation is ineffectual with the generality of mankind where there is not a power sufficient to force obedience it seemed good at last to the wisedom of the Church to remove the occasions of such evils for the future by enlarging the power of the Bishop and to curb the insolence of the Presbytery by removing its cause which was their meeting together with him in the diocesan convocation upon any occasional emergence that might happen but yet the Bishop was not by this means rendred absolute neither but there lay an appeal from him to the Metropolitan or Patriarch to a provincial or oecumenical dyet and to the standing canons and constitutions of the church which it was not in his power to violate or alter and in which all the great lines of obedience were contained And this alteration in the government of the church depended upon the same reason with the disanulling popular elections either of Bishops or particular pastours which being found by long and wofull experience to be the occasion of perpetual tumult and disorder in the church the fruitfull parent of everlasting feuds animosities and factions to the unspeakable detriment both of church and state was in process of time partly disused of it self by the peoples being weary of so troublesome a right and partly by the interposition of imperial rescripts and by the authority of the civil laws of our own and other nations It was very natural in the beginnings of the church to allow some what more to the Presbyters in consultation with their Bishop and to the people in the choice of both than was consistent with the policy of after-times because Pueris dant crustula blandi Doctores elementa velint ut discere prima when churches and ecclesiastical societies were first to be gathered men were to be allured by privileges and to be enticed by power a thing of which all mankind are naturally very fond as well as to be convinced by arguments to espouse the cause and interest of Christianity but when the religion of Christ had taken deep root in the world when the temptations of honour and preferment and the dangers of persecution from the Pagan powers were now utterly removed and extinguished and when at the same time the world being turned Christian the dangers and inconveniences of popular elections increased with the number of the electours and the Presbytery by reason of their number began to be formidable to the Bishop as well as troublesome and tumultuous among one another which must of necessity have been the occasion of very great calamities and very sad as well as frequent revolutions if a timely stop were not put this made it necessary upon the same principle of convenience to abrogate this power upon which it seems first to have been introduced if indeed it were introduced upon any reason at all but onely a gradual and insensible encroachment in both cases and upon the supinity in or neglect of the governours of the church who did not possibly foresee those horrid inconveniences with which this way of management would afterwards be attended For my part I am so firmly of opinion that the great design of religion is charity good-will and peace that I take it to be a certain argument of an institution or custome essentially bad when it is directly calculated for the disturbance of the world and whatever becomes of the antiquity of the business which is used to afford matter of specious discourse on both sides of the question in several important cases and particularly in these which I have so lately mentioned yet if it could be proved that antiquity and interest were fallen out with one another it is in this case but reasonable to consider that the longer we and our fore-fathers have laboured under the painfull and prejudicial consequences of errour the more it would behove us to think of a reformation which if it be not allowed to be a good argument in behalf of truth the Protestant Religion will be utterly unable to defend it self and we should consider likewise that even in point of antiquity nature and the standing interest of the world are much ancienter things than any the oldest custome can pretend to be and therefore if antiquity be the measure by which we are resolved to proceed it will follow that nature and interest must prescribe to custome and not custome to them Nay if it could be never so demonstrably proved that our Saviour did by his example or by his institution recommend to posterity the presbyterian modell or the congregational way though it can hardly be supposed that he who was God as well as man could be guilty of so great a mistake in the true art and mystery of government yet these being found afterwards by experience to be very inconsistent with the great end of the Gospel which is charity and peace it is manifest that the means having onely a relative or conditional nature and being to be either used or rejected in proportion to their fitness or unsuitableness to their end the end of the Gospel which is peace would have obliged posterity to alter that institution though of Christ himself which was found by experience to be inconsistent with it or rather since the declared design of our Saviour's coming into the world was to reconcile God to men and men to one another and since the causeless feuds and animosities of men do set them at enmity with God as well as among themselves since they extinguish that calm serene and charitable spirit without which neither our persons nor our sacrifices can be accepted since it is impossible in the language of St. John to love God whom we have not seen unless we can also love our brother whom we have seen this would have been a plain argument when he preached peace and yet established such a form of government as had a direct or a comparative tendency to confusion one of which is the case of the Independent churches and the other of the Presbyterian form with relation to the more perfect and compleat establishment of the Episcopal subordination I say it would have been a plain argument either that he had war in his heart notwithstanding that his words were smoother than oyle and that though he talked of peace yet he designed contention or else if he were sincere in what he did that he did not understand the message he came about and in either of those cases he must be acknowledged to be a gross impostour when he pretended to be sent from God for God sends no man to disturb the world unless it be for our sins as other great plagues and calamities are inflicted but
to whom they are prescribed they look upon as yokes that are not to be born and will be sure to break them as if they were so To which it is to be added that where so many are concerned in the dispatch of an affair besides the feuds and contentions which different humours interests and designs would create it would occasion infinite delays and difficulties in their proceedings which would often times prove fatal to their designs and utterly disappoint the end of their coming together And what hath been said of the whole Clergy's meeting in one or in the two several and distinct convocations of Canterbury and York the same inconveniences would in proportion attend the diocesan assemblies if any such were practised wherein the Bishop had no greater power than onely to be as it were the Chairman or Prolocutour of the Synod but could not move one foot himself without the consent of a majority of the members of which it was composed especially in so populous a diocese as Your Lordship's is where the power and interest of a factious Clergy-man may be of such dismal consequence to the peace of the church but such is Your Lordship's paternal condescention mixt with an exact judgment and profound wisedom that You have found out an happy temperament betwixt the authority of the Bishop on the one hand and the dangerous power of the Presbyters on the other by admitting your Clergy to so frequent conferences and familiar debates concerning the common interest of the church and the respective good and advantage of their particular charges yet so as not to admit them to a liberty of controlling their Bishop or invest them with a power which may be employed to bad purposes as well as be made usefull and serviceable to good ones of which though at present there can be no danger in a diocese so well stored with men equally conspicuous for integrity prudence and learning for loyalty to the King and obedience to their Bishop and love to one another and care of their particular charges and flocks yet that may be pernicious and destructive in its example which is not so in it self and power when it is once given to the best of men is not so easily taken away from worse that may happen to succeed them as it may be employed to purposes very contrary and opposite to those for which it was intended otherwise there is no question but it is the indispensible duty of every Bishop to maintain a constant intercourse and correspondence with his Clergy that he may the better understand as well them as the diocese which he is to govern and may be the better enabled to make a judgment of both and accordingly to proportion the expedients of publick peace and safety with a wise and skilfull hand and that he may conciliate that love and reverence to his person by the affability and obliging sweetness of his conversation without which all power is tyranny and force and will not onely be resisted but overcome Wherefore I pray God that the church may always be blest as long as time shall endure with such faithfull vigilant and prudent Bishops as Your Lordship and with so pious learned and obedient a Clergy as that in which this diocese in particular and the whole nation in general is at present happy But what it is that they mean who would extend the power of the Presbyters with relation to their Bishop any farther than this or who declaim so loudly for the peoples right in the election of their pastours I cannot possibly conceive unless it be that they do seriously design and purposely intend to bring us all into confusion which it is not much to be doubted but there are some that do or that being engaged in an interest they are ashamed to retract their errour and therefore grasp at all arguments how weak soever to defend it which it is very natural for mankind to doe or lastly that they are not so wise men as they would be thought to be and that they do not see into the pernicious consequences of so mischievous a doctrine which stands condemned by the unalterable decrees of nature and by the fundamental maximes upon which cities are built and by which humane society is supported I should be sorry to perceive my self thus insensibly engaged in so long a disquisition concerning the natural grounds upon which the episcopal government relies very much contrary to my first intention which was far from any thought of treating so distinctly and as it were ex professo at this time upon this subject did I not hope to doe some service to the church by giving an account of my sentiments upon it and were I not possessed with a very great inward assurance that this way of procedure in the matter under debate that is by an appeal to the Principles of nature and to the fundamental maximes of society whether it be civil or ecclesiastical or of what kind soever is that which is liable to the least exception and is by consequence the most certain and infallible expedient of bringing those with whom we have to doe to a sense of their duty and an acknowledgment of their mistake which if it could be done it would be happy for us all and therefore with Your Lordship's good leave I will proceed to what remains referring my self humbly to the things that have been or shall be spoken upon a question of so great importance to intercede with Your Lordship and all that shall reade this Preface in my behalf if by my too great length I have offended Wherefore to improve the comparison of an army that is an armed city or society yet a little farther for it is not yet stretched out to its full length since it appears so plainly by the consent of all ages and by the constant practice of the world that such a body of men cannot be managed by a parity of officers the next thing to be considered is whether the imparity or superiority of one officer over another be consistent with an equality of salary or revenue and for this we have the same universal experience and consent that the pay of the greater officers is proportionably larger according to their respective dignity and place and the same is to be seen in civil as well as military employments that the great officers of state the Judges of the law and ministers of publick justice according to their respective dignity and superiority over one another so are the pensions and advantages annext to their employments for the most part proportionably greater and if the church so far as concerns the general nature of a society be the same and do as naturally require an imparity of officers as either the civil or military subordination so do the several imparities of dignity and power as unavoidably call for an inequality of revenue the reason of which in all the three cases is this that mankind are used
therefore it is highly just and reasonable to suppose that God generally proceeds with men by other measures and to be sure to sin on upon that supposition that God will pardon us at the last cast is in it self so bold a sin so intolerable a presumption so great a provocation that setting aside those sins which are consequent upon it this alone would be enough to sink us into the bottomless pit from whence there is no possible redemption to be expected It being therefore so clear of what importance and usefulness the Clergy or Priesthood in all nations is to the creating in men a peaceable disposition a vertuous and obedient temper of mind for the happiness of all and of every particular person it must be granted likewise that it is moreover necessary that all humane care and provision should be made that they may not fall out or squabble among themselves either about matters of discipline or doctrine because this will lessen their authority and consequently their use and service among the people the question therefore is to whom it is best that the exercise of this discipline should be committed whether to a Lay Judge or an Ecclesiastical and I answer as I have answered already that it is best this jurisdiction be intrusted with the latter of these because men do more easily obey their superiours in their own order besides that the jurisdiction being placed in Lay hands the Clergy have no prospect but of perpetual subjection without ever hoping to be governours themselves and this damps their spirits and diminishes their authority and chokes that honest and laudable ambition which is at once a cause of wisdom and vertue in themselves and of obedience to those that are in authority over them But then secondly a second reason why it is undoubtedly best for the Clergy to be governed by Superiours of their own Order is that as the persons to be governed do more easily obey them so those that are to govern when they are of the same order and have lived formerly in the same condition and circumstances of life with those that are to obey have the greater sense of what is reasonable and just to be expected from them they will not in probability behave themselves like rigid taskmasters but equitable supervisours and are the more likely in all their constitutions and in all their censures to put themselves into the place of their dependents and to consider that as being their own case again which hath been so once already they have something in them which is very like that which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or natural affection to the persons of those over whom they are placed and for the honour and credit of the profession and the others in requital do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they express their resentment of this Paternal tenderness and love by such an obedience reverence and profound respect as becomes those who have the relation of Sons in that which the Canon Law calls though in another sense the Spiritual cognation and certainly so much care on both sides on the one not to enjoyn any thing but what is reasonable and fit to be done what is for the interest of the obeisant parties and of that of the profession and on the other not to disobey any thing that is so must needs make very much for the Honour and Reputation of the Clergy and if such an Order of men be of any use for the service of the world To which two considerations there is likewise a third to be added which though in it self very obvious I did not think of before and that is that Clergy men that is men that both by their Education and Profession have devoted themselves to the service of the Church are certainly the best and the most proper Judges of Ecclesiastical whether things or persons and by the same reason that all the civil Guilds or Fraternities in a Corporation have Masters and Assistants out of their own number to whom the chief conduct and administration of the affairs of such a Society does belong by the same reason that in a Parliament a Committee for Trade shall call in Tradesmen and Artificers to their assistance to take their opinions in the matters under debate of which they are naturally supposed to be the most competent Judges by the same reason that a Lawyer invested with the power and Character of a Judge sits to hear and determine controversies upon the Bench not a Musician an Astronomer a Grammarian a Chymist an Architect a Divine or at least not because of any of these endowments or qualifications with which he may be over and above adorned but because of his skill and ability in the profession of the Law by the same reason certainly and upon the same Maxim because credendum est artifici in sua arte a Clergy man must needs be the most proper Judge in matters that are of Ecclesiastical cognizance and concern if we will but grant this easie supposition that Divinity is more than an empty name and that it does require a proportion of pains and study as well as other professions do There are three Powers or Offices in every Ecclesiastical Society the full exercise and administration of which does without all question naturally and rightfully devolve upon the Clergy and not upon all the Clergy neither but onely upon the Governours or Bishops of it The first is the power of Ordination The second of Visitation or inspection from whence they have the name of Bishops or Overseers And the third of Excommunication For the first it would be impossible to prevent innumerable Heresies and Schisms in the Church if every Presbyter had the full power of Ordination in his hands but it ought to satisfie the Presbyter in this case that he is not totally excluded but that he is called in as an assistant to the Bishop and that the Ordination is performed according to the genuine practice of antiquity by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery as well as by that of the Ordaining Bishop himself For the third if every passionate Clergy man out of private ends or out of a rash and ungovernable temper might Excommunicate and devote upon every light occasion it would at once bring the Ecclesiastical censures to contempt and be a means of infinite mischiefs and confusions in the Church And for the second it depends upon the first for as they say in Law ejusdem est condere interpretari so by the same reason the power of Visitation or inspection must be seated in the same hands in which the Ordination is placed the design and intent of it being onely this to examine whether every respective Curate or Incumbent do answer the end and meaning of his Ordination And for the more authoritative and effectual administration of so great a charge it is requisite that the Port and Dignity of the Bishop above the inferiour Clergy may hold
a proportion to his rank and station and it is in vain in this case to urge the poverty of the first Apostles and Preachers of Christianity who supplied by Miracles and supernatural inflictions what they wanted of the natural causes of Authority and greatness among men not that I would be thought to plead for such an excessive Pomp as hath more of pride and vanity than real use but as it is ne-necessary to the ends of every well regulated Clergy that their condition in the general should be according to the admirable Mr. Cowley's wish Too low for Envy for Contempt too high So to answer the meaning of his institution it is necessary there should be a proportion of grandeur in the Bishop suitable to the weight and dignity of his charge and to the eminence of his place and order in the Church I shall conclude this matter with observing that Princes in all ages who certainly may be thought to understand Government as well as ever a busie Lay-elder of them all have always thought it safest for the quiet of their Dominions to govern by Bishops and I appeal to any one of common understanding supposing the Roman Empire to be still as great and flourishing as it was of old whether the unity of so great a Body would be more likely to be preserved by the government of Presbyteries pecking at one another and every moment in danger of crumbling into pieces or by the Episcopal subordination which makes the Church of God like a fair firm and well compacted building whose parts do all give beauty and strength to one another and I do farther put the case if we suppose all Christendom at this day to be governed by Presbyteries after the new-fangled Republican Model and having so potent a Monarch as the Turkish Sultan for their neighbour whether its strength however broken and disunited would be so firm and so well united as it is at this day to make head against him or so likely to hold out against the terrours or temptations of the Asiatick steel or gold These things are easie to be considered and computed by any man of sense and experience in the world and are if I am not very much mistaken a plain and unanswerable demonstration on the Episcopal side for certainly that Government which is the best calculated for the peace of the World is also the most agreeable to the Gospel of Christ that Government which is the most likely and proper to defend Christendom does best answer the ends of Christianity Not but that in the Episcopacy as in all Governments there may be inconveniences too because men are men and always will be men as long as the world endures but it is sufficient if it labour under fewer disadvantages than the Presbytery does or if it be the best Government that can be thought of to prevent the passions and designs of men from putting the world in a perpetual flame There have been feuds and animosities in ancient time among the Bishops but that is not the question but onely whether they would not have been greater and more frequent in proportion to their number in a National or Provincial Synod of the Presbyters as there are disturbances sometimes in a Parliament house but does it follow therefore that to prevent those inconveniences the whole Kingdom should meet together in a general Assembly to make Laws or would not the dangers and inconveniences be incomparably greater on this side than on the other Or may I not now fairly sum up the evidence in the words of that great Presbyterian St. Jerome in his Dialogue ad Luciferianos Ecclesiae salus in summi Sacerdotis dignitate pendet cui si non exors ab omnibus eminens detur potestas tot in Ecclesiis efficientur schismata quot Sacerdotes It remains still that as I promised I should give some account why I have appeared so zealous for the execution of the Laws against Dissenters but the reasonableness of that is now sufficiently seen by the happy success it hath had upon the affairs of a distracted Kingdom so that my answer is already made to my hands and I have nothing to add but my Prayers to God that the same Justice and Vigour may continue and my most humble Petition to your Lordship that you would pardon the presumption of this long address for the sake of its honest and well-meant intention from My Lord Your Lordships most humble dutifull and obliged Servant John Turner Advertisement to the Reader BEcause the Reader may be apt to be inquisitive how far the Sermon it self as it was Preached went therefore for his satisfaction it is thought fit to let him know that it reach'd as far as p. 23. at these words the wise provision which the Church hath made There were two or three particulars added which are not inserted being very brief and in a concluding form and therefore inconsistent with the additions that have been made Farewell 1. COR. 14. 40. Let all things be done decently and in order THE unhappy breaches and differences among us in matters of Religion are at present the subject of universal Complaint and though nothing be more talked of than an Union among Protestants against the common Enemies of our Liberties as we are English men and of our Faith as we are Christians yet if we will believe mens Actions rather than their Words there is nothing that seems less heartily to be desired or if you will give me leave to speak a little plainer for it is not now a time to mince the matter with more solicitous Care and Industry to be avoided For my part I am not come hither to enflame those differences and if I were 't is twenty to one but I should lose my Errant for they are so great already that perhaps they are incapable of being encreased But if you will allow me that liberty which every man now pretends to as his birthright that is to spend my private opinion about the publick Concerns I will put you in a way by which this blessed Union can onely be effected and that is by keeping up strictly to the Discipline of the Church and by doing all things decently and in order We have almost every day many excellent Discourses delivered in the Pulpit to persuade us to mutual Charity and Forbearance with one another and indeed this is in a manner the whole design of Christianity to produce in us those calm and peaceable dispositions of mind which are best fitted to make us happy in this life and to prepare us for the blessedness of that other state whose very nature consists in perfect Charity and perfect Peace Wherefore Saint Paul tells us plainly that without charity which is the very bond of Peace and of all vertues all our pretences to Religion and all our attainments in it our proficiencie in spiritual knowledge and our super-errogation if that were possible in good works will signifie just nothing
adding Humility to Obedience and by submitting to every ordinance of man so far as we may without any violation of the Laws of God or right reason All our publique feuds and animosities are comprehended in our Religious Disputes and if they were but once composed we should be an happy Nation The King would be glorious and his People secure We should be safe at home and formidable abroad We should be in a condition to succor our Allyes to relieve the distressed Protestants to keep the ballance even betwixt our neighbour Princes and to stop the progress of the Arms of France which threaten to involve all Europe in Slavery and Superstition together Whereas now all we are able to do is to give protection for a while to persecuted Religion when it flies hither for shelter But what will become of us when the same torrent of Ambition having overslown what ever stood in its way shall at length beat upon the Brittish Shore Shall we suffer our selves to be devoured by our own intestine Divisions when the Enemy from without is battering our Walls and throwing in his Bombes among us or shall we not rather unite together for our common safety and shall we not severely repent that we did not sooner do it before it was too late that we did not take sweet counsell together and go into the house of God as friends Certainly this one consideration if it were but powerfully and frequently impress'd upon our minds must needs have a wonderfull influence upon us and must even fright men and compell them by arguments both of fear and love into a thorough Reconcilement with the best of Churches before it be too late as well out of a principle of Interest as Duty for besides the considerations of this World it ought to afford matter of very sad reflexion to us or at least to so many of us as have been active either in causing or â—omenting the Differences that are among us that we must one day give a dreadfull account before the Judgment-seat of God for a great part of that Bloud which has been spilt and of those Spoiles Rapines and Depredations which have been made by the ambition or injustice of our Neighbours We must be accountable for the oppression of our persecuted Brethren beyond the Seas and for ought we know if these destructive Animosities be not soon composed for the removall of the Candlestick from among our selves and for the finall extirpation of the Protestant Religion The Jewes had their Ritual and the Christians their Liturgies or set forms of Divine Service the one before Christianity and the other long before Popery were known in the World And first As to the Jewish Ritual which cannot be deny'd to have been a thing of humane Institution it was so little disapproved by our Saviour or rather so highly approved that he has been observed by Scaliger and Buxtorf and Camero and Hugo Grotius and other learned men to have borrow'd most of those expressions which he makes use of in the Institution of the blessed Sacrament of his Body and Bloud from thence and that Hymn which after the Celebration of that blessed Feast he and his Disciples went out to sing together on the Mount of Olives was by Paulus Burgensis a Converted Jew and a learned Bishop of the Christian Church and out of him by Buxtorf Drusius and others conjectured to be the same which the Jews are used to call the Hallel hagadol being a Song of Praise and Thanksgiving consisting of several Psalms and used to be sung in consort at the Feast of the Passover and other solemn occasions And that God Almighty has actually approved those indifferent circumstances in Divine Worship which have not been of his own appointment being either not contained in the Law of Moses or no where commanded in Scripture and in use long before the Law was delivered I will here prove by two other Instances which I the rather mention because they are omitted by the learned and judicious Writer of the Libertas Ecclesiastica and because they are no where that I know of taken notice of to this purpose The first shall be taken from that passage in the Psalms Early in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up in which words the Psalmist addressing himself immediately to God Almighty expresses the Posture in which he would poure out his Prayers before him by looking up towards Heaven now because we cannot imagine he would have made this Vow of looking up to God in Prayer if he thought it would have been displeasing to him and if on the other hand it can be proved that this was the general custom of that Countrey in all their Prayers and Supplications then we have here an Instance of an indifferent Posture in Prayer which the general custom of Judaea had by degrees brought into the authority and reputation of a Law which yet was no where instituted by any Divine Command but that this was the general practice is plain from the Roman Authors who tax them upon this account with worshipping the Clouds and the Host of Heaven So Juvenal Quidam sortiti metuentem sabbata patrem Nil proeter nubes coeli numen adorant And in the Catalecta of Petronius Judoeus licet Porcinum Numen adoret Et coeli summas advocet auriculas Which places though they be otherwise interpreted by Mr. Selden and other Learned men and the reading of the latter of them questioned by Doctor Isaac Vossius in his Notes upon Pomponius Mela yet I conceive the first place dos sufficiently vindicate the reading of the latter and the Interpretation of Mr. Selden instead of destroying will rather help and encourage that which I have given for the reason why the ancient Jews called God by the name of Shamajim or Heaven was the same with that for which they looked heaven-wards when ever they pray'd unto him namely because they thought the more peculiar and beatisick presence of the Divinity to be there and this is the first Instance The second shall be taken from those words of God to Moses Exod. 3. 5. Draw not nigh hither put off thy shoes from off thy feet for which he subjoins this reason for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground now though it is true that Moses was bound upon the least signification of the Divine Pleasure to obey it yet this would have been no reason of his Obedience had there not been such a custome in the World before that time which not having the least foot-step of a Divine Command was probably owing meerly to humane institution but yet we see was approved by God himself This Custome prevailed also under the Law though in the Law it self it be no where enjoyned in all their solemn Feasts as appears from this that the Jews are commanded to eat the Passover with their shoes on which would have been a needless Command if in their other Festivals
biat to the insatiable avarice of successfull treason yet the courage constancy and integrity of the one will even by the greatest adversaries themselves be remembred with honour and spoken of with signs of inward veneration when the pusillanimity and faintness of the other who can be friends to no body but themselves shall bring an unavoidable contempt upon their persons and make them reflect upon themselves with shame as well as be slighted and disesteem'd by others But of all men in the world a Clergy-man that is of so cold a composition is certainly the least excusable because he is under the greatest obligation to confess God and his truth openly before men he is not to gratifie any party by a tame compliance to the prejudice of the publick nor to purchase his own peace with the loss of that of the Church which can onely be maintained by wholesom discipline and an establisht order and therefore of such an one it is still more true what follows immediately of the unsavory salt that he is the most contemptible and whatever high opinion he may have of his own wisedom and prudence the most really despicable creature in the world he is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out with disgrace and to be trodden under foot of men And therefore whatever becomes of my pretensions concerning which I am not immoderately solicitous but refer my self wholly to the wise disposal and goodness of almighty God I shall be very glad if those Gentlemen in whom the Title shall appear to be shall pitch upon one that is at least no M tonian that is no Deserter for it would be very incongruous in those of this fraternity especially to chuse an insipid Priest when God himself would not accept of a Sacrifice that was not salted And let the result of that assair be as it will yet I shall always be very proud as I am very thankfull for it of the great favour and kindness Your Lordship hath been pleased to doe me by appointing me to officiate at that Parish during the sequestration of the living and allowing me so fair a competence out of the profits of it May it please Your Lordship I am not insensible how much I trespass upon your great affairs by so prolix an address but yet I am humbly of opinion that I have said nothing which the necessity of this occasion and of my circumstances did not almost indispensably oblige me to doe and now having given Your Lordship an account of my self as Cato was used to say Etiam otii rationem reddendam esse and to whom am I more accountable than to Your Lordship my Diocesan a Person to whom I am so very much obliged and one that hath the most undoubted right to exact an account of me having acquainted Your Lordship as faithfully as I can with the true reasons that moved me to defer the edition of this busie trifle that hath made so great a noise so long as well as to defer it no longer but to publish it at this juncture of time there are two things still remaining for which I do humbly beg a little more of Your Lordship's patience while I insist with all imaginable brevity upon them the one concerns chiefly an objection which the friends of the present establishment may raise and the other is an exception which I know for certain its enemies will make The friends of the Church perhaps will object against me that my discourse being chiefly levelled as it is all along against the Independency whose name is Legion being a thousand different Heresies and Sects under one title and denomination this may be interpreted as a supposed allowance of the Presbyterian model but as for that I think I have already satisfied the world what my opinion is at the latter end of my discourse concerning the Laws of Nature and if I were to give a definition or rather a description of Presbytery it should be this that it is a device of ambitious and unruly Presbyters broken loose from the government of their Bishop and which though it be not indepency it self yet it is certainly the mother of it for the same restless and unquiet humour which could not submit it self to the Episcopal constitution will incline them in their Synods and Ecclesiastical assemblies to contend for superiority over one another for where all are equal and there is no tye of obedience from the one to the other nor any common visitour or inspectour indued with a power of discipline over them all there it is natural for men that have passions and designs about them to squabble there it will unavoidably come to pass that many will take it ill if they be not chiefly regarded and if their opinion or determination be not the law and rule of the assembly every man will be forward to speak and desirous to govern but loath to hear and unwilling to obey The consequence of which will be that it will occasion parties and factions while some take part with one and some with another and this cuts the reins of discipline in sunder and does as naturally terminate in Schism and Separation as the day is concluded by the night or as fair and foul weather succeed one another besides that when men have once tasted the forbidden fruit of disobedience which it is so natural for all mankind to hanker after they seldom or never end where they begin but go on farther and farther in pernicious attempts upon the good order and government of the world till they have brought all things into absolute confusion A subordination and dependence of one part upon another is as necessary in one sort of government as another for though the Ecclesiastical and civil Society be in some sense distinct from one another yet in a Christian Commonwealth they consist both of them of the same persons and the nature of a society is in both cases the same wherefore because the State and the Church the body politick and the body ecclesiastick are both of them made up of the same members because every man hath both a civil and an ecclesiastical capacity it is impossible there should be any disorder in the Church which will not sensibly affect the state and the division of a Commonwealth or Kingdom into infinite sects and parties is a dissolution of the civil body as well as of the sacred and every thing that hath a tendency to such a dissolution is in its proportion pernicious and consequently unlawfull So that if there were nothing more in the Episcopal government than what St. Jerome the great but very much mistaken patron of the Presbytery hath allowed namely that the ancient government of the Church was by a parity of Presbyters though no body knows when or where nor is it possible to assign any age or place when and where it was not govern'd by Bishops but that in process of time this parity proving inconvenient by being the
occasion of Schism and contention in the Church then in toto orbe decretum est ut unus de Presbyteris electus superponeretur caeteris ad quem omnis Ecclesiae cura pertineret I say if there were nothing more but this in the business yet this is sufficient to assert the necessity and by consequence the jus divinum of Episcopal Superiority in the Church of God for the nature of things is owing to the authour of nature and that which is best fitted to preserve the World must needs be most agreeable to him that made it and this is so true that let this sort of Government be never so ancient as I shall prove to Your Lordship and the World that it was certainly the government of the Jewish Church and the government to which Christ and his Apostles did themselves submit yet its antiquity would be as old things usually are too weak and infirm to be able to defend it did not its usefulness and manifest expedience to the good of society and of humane life give it a perpetual youth and vigour by which it is rendred strong in its own defence and will be too hard for its enemies to the end of the world otherwise if any man can shew me fairly that either the Presbytery or the Independency are more exactly calculated for the quiet of the world notwithstanding that the experience of our late times added to the reason of the thing and the opinion of Saint Jerome which was founded upon it do seem at present to demonstrate the contrary I must beg Your Lordship's pardon if I withdraw my Canonical obedience for I must and will be either Presbyterian or Independent as the nature of things would have me I speak it with all imaginable deference and profound submission to Your Lordship's exact judgment and that of my Superiours I have considered of this matter with all the care and attention I am able and I am certain if I can be certain of any thing that I have discovered the Philosopher's Stone the true Elixir of Government and of humane life which it must be our own fault in rejecting so great a blessing or by our disobedience not answering the design of it if it do not turn all things it touches into Gold and make the whole earth as happy as the Paradise of God The true state of the question is in short this the end of government is obedience and peace and therefore all sorts of government upon supposition that they are equally fitted for the bringing of this end to pass would have an equal Jus divinum an equal Jus naturale an equal right of obtaining and continuing as they are in the several places and territories where they are in use because in this case nothing could make a disturbance but an alteration and therefore it would be with governments as it is with proprietours in the state of nature antecedently to any bargain or compact the undoubted right would be primi occupantis because to deprive him of his possession who was already seized of it might occasion an embroilment might be the cause of bloudshed and of war but if every man would let his neighbour alone then all the world would be happy and upon supposition that every man would be quiet and peaceable without it that men could be so friendly so happy and so secure without government as with it there would be no need of government at all but since man is by nature an ambitious a necessitous and consequently a disobedient turbulent and encroaching creature since he wants many things and expects more than he wants for this reason that form of government is certainly the best which is the best fitted to command and force obedience and this I affirm from the nature of things for men do not willingly obey their equals much less their inferiours this I affirm from the consent of mankind and the experience of all ages to be the Episcopal Government or the Subordinate Politie both in Church and State and if any man will undertake to prove the contrary and will be as good as his word then I shall be for levelling as well as he but till I see this substantially proved which I have a strong fancy I shall never do so long as humane faculties or humane passions continue as they are I desire to continue in my old post and be content to move though in the lowest sphere of this subordinate and comely frame rather than by the perpetual jarring of equal powers and motions against each other to go stooping like a Goose under a barn door and be in perpetual fear nè fractus illabatur orbis It was either the experienced or the foreseen mischiefs of equality and independence that first introduced order and good government into the world and it is the natural desire of power in man who is a needy restless and ambitious creature that endeavours to break this order and dependence for reasons of its own without considering the interest of the publick lastly it is the unspeakable confusion mischief and calamity with which the breach of this order is attended that usually makes all parties weary of those miseries which by strife and disobedience they have brought upon themselves return again into some orderly establishment that may defend and shield them from the same calamities in the time to come but there is no safety no security no quiet enjoyment of a man's self his friend or his possession to be had but under the shade and protection of such a subordinate state of things in which the very life and being of society consists The other exception which I am infallibly certain will be made against me by the dissenting party is this that in the management of the subject I have undertaken I have discovered too much violence and heat of temper and this accusation will consist of two parts the first will concern my style and way of expression the other that I have so openly and so zealously declared for a vigorous execution of the penal statutes upon the dissenting parties With Your Lordship's good leave I will speak a little to each of these particulars And as to the first of them I might here conjure up the Ghost of an old story that hath been so often disturbed by men that first pillage antiquity for a smart repartie and then steal as it were by consent from one another of Croesus and his son the dumb Prince of Lydia whose dutifull apprehension of his Father's danger broke through the obstacles and impediments of nature and taught him to speak as plain at half a minutes warning as if the most ingenious and learned Dr. H. had had him in tuition for seven years together and there is a scrap of Virgil too if the often use of it had not made it so cheap that it will hardly pass so much as in capping of verses where any thing goes as far as from Ennius or Lucilius to