is no Sacrilege nor Sin to buy such Lands still lies unanswered and yet men go on with their clamours and railings as if nothing had been offered to stop their mouths who can swallow Church Lands formerly alienated without the least regret But whereas he saith pag. 24. This Age is the first Parent of that Prodigie wherein Orthodox and reformed Christians either Presbyters or People did persecute godly Bishops of the same Faith and Profession yea and Episcopacy it self though never so regular and reformed I must crave leave to say That however Godly Bishops have heretofore been persecuted unto death in divers former ages of the Church yet neither were they persecuted by Orthodox and reformed Christians but by enemies to the Truth and Godliness Nor did any Orthodox and reformed Christians either Presbyters or People persecute any godly Bishops of this age This therefore is a mere calumny and slander It is true that some Orthodox and reformed Christians did exhibit and prosecute Archbishop Laud Bishop Wren and Bishop Peirce two if not all of them being charged with no less than High Treason the first whereof being found guilty was executed Jan. 10. 1644. The other two never answered the Articles exhibited against them unto this day nor vindicated themselves of those Aspersions cast upon them for being the prime and most active and officious Instruments of Laud to set the Church on fire by means whereof all the rest of the Bishops sped the worse How godly these were I know not but this Doctor hath been the Proctor and Advocate of Laud k Sighs c. pag. 628. and Doctor Wren l pag. 634. highly applauding them in opposition to the charge of the House of Commons against them and that he might lick clean him that was a known Papist his hand being in he bestows a Vindication or Apologie even for the late Bishop of Glocester Doctor Goodman m pag. 637 also only he could find nothing to say for Bishop Peirce though he so devoutly thanked God that he had put down all the Lectures in his Diocess There were no doubt some of those Bishops which he also commendeth that were learned and pious But let him name one of those unless such as were trapann'd by Williams and other Capritious Pragmaticks to have their hands in that high and unparliamentary Petition and Protestation to the late King and House of Peers in Dec. 1641. that were ever in the least persecuted and not rather honoured if learned and indeed godly by Orthodox and reformed Christians whether Presbyters or People If any of them suffered with the rest in the abolishing of such Prelacy they may thank those other ruffling Ceremonious violent Ringleaders before named and not blame others who could not help it nor longer endure the slavery and persecution which those Amaziah-like Priests n Amos. and Tyrants had exercised over them I now proceed to my last Proposition which is this IIII. PROPOSITION That maugre all this mans calumnies and malicious aspersions the Covenant even as to the point of that Hierarchical Episcopacy lately laid aside is to be constantly and conscienciously observed and kept in the right sense thereof by all that have taken it as they will avoid destruction here and damnation hereafter DVrus sermo you will say this is an hard saying But not more hard then true I shall make it out thus 1. If it were a Covenant made between man and man God will require performance or severely punish the breach of it We see this in the breach of the Covenant made by Joshua and the Princes of Israel Josh 9.15 Although they obtained it by a wile and by a lye By a wile in coming in old shooes and clouted and old garments upon them and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy ver 5. By a lye several times repeated in saying they came from a far yea a very far country vers 6. c. whereas after the Covenant made their lying appeared and they were discovered at the end of three days to be their neighbours and that they dwelt among them All the Congregation of Israel would hereupon have smitten and destroyed them they being such as by Gods command were to have been destroyed by Joshua o Vers 24. and had now so basely cheated Joshua and all Israel This the Princes would not suffer whereupon all the Congregation murmured against the Princes But all the Princes said to all the Congregation We have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel now therefore we may not touch them ver 18 19. This quieted the people for the present and for a long time after Howbeit Saul in an humor of envy or malice many hundred years after slew the Gibeonites which then he found in Israel But Gods anger was so kindled at this that he smote all the Land with a famine for three years together even towards the latter end of Davids reign And when David enquired of the Lord the cause of this sore Plague The Lord answered It is for Saul and his bloudy house because he slew the Gibeonites 2 Sam. 21.1 To appease this wrath seven of Sauls sons were demanded and hanged before the Lord ver 9. And after that the Lord was entreated for the Land ver 14. Now if God were so severe for the breach of such a deceitfully obtained Covenant between man and man when they that procured it were so base and false as our Doctor would make the late Covenant contrivers and destined to destruction by God himself by that very hand which made that League with them How sinful and dangerous must it needs be for men upon any pretence whatsoever to depart from or wilfully to break any Covenant made with God himself Here was no prescribing of the League by God nor force upon Joshua or Israel Yet God would not put up the breach of it even upon the posterity of a treacherous Crew that had meerly cheated all his people at once 2. There is no Covenant made between man and man but it is the Oath of God and his Covenant So that Oath and Covenant made between the King and his Subjects is called The Oath of God Eccles 8.2 thus the Oath and Covenant of Zedekiah made with the King of Babylon an Idolater and an enemy of God and all his people is by God himself called Mine Oath and my Covenant Ezek. 17.19 And upon this account it was that Joshua and the Princes of Israel swearing by the Name of the Lord God they durst not to touch the Gibeonites Therefore all such Covenants are irrevocable and indispensable If any man shall break them he is sure to be ruined Witness Zedekiah though a King and though forced by the King of Babylon who had conquered Judah laid aside the rightful King thereof Jehojakim and set up Mattaniah Uncle to Jehojahim whom he called Zedekiah q 2 Kin. 2â— 27 and made him swear by God to be a
Jayl birds who had been cast in before namely Thieves and perhaps Murderers and other Rogues and Malefactors for they are the usual Guests in such places Now if any such have taken the Solemn League and Covenant and are thereupon troubled in Conscience so as not to dare to set up the old Hierarchy again with some small refining let them repair to Dr. John to loose them of that band and he will do it But for the greater encouragement of such men and others that are for that Lordly Episcopacy and would gladly read his Book to be satisfied in Conscience therein I could wish the Title might be altered and put into the words of Martin Mar-prelate in answer to Dr. J. Bridges that had pleaded for such Bishops and their Trinkets onely changeing the Name that the Title of the Book might run thus O read Dr. John Gauden for it is a worthy Work Which how worthy it is we shall now further enquire by looking into the Book it self In prosecution whereof I shall industriously avoid the waste of so much time and paper as would be taken only up in pursuing all his out-leaps and extravagancies and use all possible brevity in opening some of the principal onely for the undeceiving of such as dote upon this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 8.10 or great one as if he were the great power of God The main scope of my present endeavour is this namely to make it manifest that this Doctor under pretence of giving that sober sense of the Covenant whereof he believeth it to be capable before God before all good Christians and in a mans own well-informed Conscience which he promiseth pag. 3 4. and to do it with freedom from passion and prejudice pag. 5. he directly laboureth to decry vilifie and blaspheme the Covenant it self and to make it odious as that which was sinfully taken at first and of necessity to be cast off and abhorred by all that have entred into it For more distinct proceeding therein I shall endeavour to make out these four Propositions 1. That he himself doth admit the Covenant to be in some sense lawful and good 2. That therein all sober Christians who understand themselves agree with him 3. That all this notwithstanding he endeavours to vilifie make odious and to destroy the Covenant it self 4. That maugre all his calumnies and malicious aspersions the Covenant even as to the point of extirpating that hierarchical Prelacy lately laid aside is to be constantly and conscienciously observed and kept in the right sense thereof by all that have taken it as they will avoid destruction here and damnation hereafter I. PROPOSITION That the Doctor himself doth admit the Covenant to be in some sense lawful and good 1. HIs own words before alledged where he saith he hath endeavoured to give that sober sense of the Covenant whereof he believeth it to be only capable before God before all good Christians and in a mans own well-informed Conscience is evidence enough against him at least that the Covenant is lawful and good How else could he give a sober sense of it which he believes would hold water before God all good men and a well informed Conscience 2. He tells us pag. 14. that he will look upon the Covenant with the best aspect considered in Conscience in the softest sense that can be made of it namely as a voluntary Vow or Religious Bond by some spontaneously taken in order to declare their sense of duty to God the King the Church their Country and the reformed Religion to make themselves more strictly sensible of the sacred and civil obligations respectively due to them that so they might be more ready to discharge them in their places and callings c. And is not this lawful and good He after addeth that he believeth that very few took it in any sense against Primitive Reformed and Regular Episcopacy so reduced to an efficacious conjunction with Presbytery as the most reverend Primate of Armagh proposed in his Reduction of Episcopacy Now if such a Reduction be necessary the Covenant in this sense cannot be unlawful but good 3. In pag. the 20. he saith The most strict and severe Covenanter cannot but be satisfied and absolved in point of Conscience if first he hath and still doth in his place and calling seasonably advise humbly petition and lawfully endeavour to reform what is truely amiss in the Church Government by Bishops Secondly If he use the like means to restore and preserve what he finds good and useful in Episcopacy They then that do not thus cannot be satisfied or absolved in point of Conscience therefore to do this by vertue of the Covenant is lawful and good 4. In his voluminous Book of Tears and Sighs c. pag. 448. he reckons up sundry evils defects and dangers incident to Episcopacy as namely pride ambition secular height and idle pomp a supercilious despiciency and Lordly Tyrannizing over other Ministers and the flocks of Christ under their inspection arrogating a power to do all things imperiously and alone without any regard either to that charitable satisfaction which was antiently given to Christian people or to that fraternal Counsel and concurrence which might and ought in reason to be had from learned and grave Presbyters c. Is not all this enough to prove from his own Pen That such a Covenant for extirpating such an Episcopacy is lawfully and good Indeed he would in the same breath fain extenuate this his unripping of the late Hierarchy by saying that this ariseth not from the function or imployment but from the persons of Bishops which he brings in by a parenthesis but when he had undertaken to enumerate the evils defects and dangers incident to Episcopacy it self of late in use How can these be separated from that Function And if they arise from the persons of Bishops do they not arise from the imployment of Episcopacy for how else could they be incident to Episcopacy That parenthesis then is but a piece of contradictory non-sense which can no way infringe the inference I have here made of it to confirm from the Author himself the first point here undertaken II. PROPSITION Herein all sober Christians who understand themselves agree with him HE is pleased indeed pag. 6. from Sir L.B. at whose motion * Pag. 3. he wrote and published that pamphlet to say that Sir L. B. a fit Patron for such a Proctor told him that many sober and honest men are by their once taking the Covenant so scared from all complyings with any Church-government under any name of Bishops or notion of Episcopacy never so reformed and regulated that they fear by looking back to the Primitive Catholique and Vniversal Government of this and all other antient Churches to be turned into pillars of Apostacy as Lots wife was into a pillar of Salt If the Knight told him so in these words we must needs admire the metamorphosis of a Cutler turned
Knight that hath arrived already at such heards of good words and flocks of figures and that he who heretofore took the Covenant and pretended to be a zealous propugner of it and of all that had taken it should now in hope to get into some place to help maintain his Knighthood leave all those of his former party and run over to such a flashy Advocate for Episcopacy and a mortal enemy to all Covenanters to assoyle the doubts of sober honest men that had entred into that Covenant But if that Knight did so inform him it is be doubted whether he did it for want of ignorance or of stedfastness in that Covenant of God and out of a desire of procuring by that his story to the Doctor and his motion for his resolution of this business in point of Conscience some plausible Apology for his own intended Apostacy However he did it let that K. take this to him as the forerunner of that reward which he must exspect from that God whose Covenant he hath thus occasioned to be despised That all the reproaches and blasphemies that are or shall be belched out against the Covenant occasioned by reading that scurrilous Satyre of Dr. John Gauden will one day be put to the account of Sir L. B. as the principal occasion of it and instigator to it if God give him not timely repentance and stop the current of those railing Shimei's who are glad of this opportunity to set their mouths against heaven and to let their tongues walk through the earth b Psa 73.9 But to leave this digression I come to make good the second point which I enlarge thus That the admitting of some Church-governours under the name of Bishops reformed and regulated according to the Primitive Catholicue and Apostolique Institution for the Government of this Church is not against but very consistent with and agreeable to the late Solemn League and Covenant and the true intention of it allowable by God and all good men that rightly understand themselves and the Covenant And thus far they concur with the Doctor To make this out briefly take notice 1. That the Covenant Art 2. as to this point runs thus That we shall sincerely really and constantly through the grace of God endeavour the extirpation of Popery and Prelacy that is Church government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Prophaness and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of godliness lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues and that the Lord may be one and his name one in the three Kingdoms This expresly relates to the Prelacy or Episcopacy then in being and use in England which was far from Apostolique and Primitive as this Doctor in his words before cited out of his Book of Tears c. hath clearely confessed and to the extirpating of whatsoever in it savoured of Superstition Tyranny Schism Prophaness Sinfulness or was otherwise contrary to sound Doctrine or the power of godliness If there be any other Episcopacy truly Apostolique and Primitive free from all these evils and agreeable to sound Doctrine and the power of godliness It is so far from the sense and intention of this Covenant to extirpate it that it plainly includes rather a binding of all Covenanters to endeavour by all lawful and fit ways and means to procure it 2. That herein by the Doctors own allegations all sober honest men that rightly understand themselves and the true meaning of the Covenant concur with him Himself saith pag. 22. that the Covenant is no way in Conscience to be stretched against a right and regular Episcopacy no more than Physique given to cure a disease should like unmortified Quick silver be applyed to kill the man And this he knows was the sense of the most learned men in the Assembly And this he saith pag. 23. He hath often heard Mr. Marshal * This may put him in mind that hereupon himself took the Covenant which he now so much vilisieth and others affirm who had a great hand in penning and promoting the Covenant and they owned it to some Foraign Divines That the Covenant was levelled at the Despoticum Tyrannicum regimen mis-government not the Government by Episcopacy To which he addes This is at present the sense and hopes of the most learned and godly Presbyterians whom I have lately spoken with in London and elsewhere c. And a little after he beseecheth God that by his Majesties piety and wisdom all those materials which were good in that antient noble and venerable fabrick of Episcopacy may be speedily and resolutely setled in its best constitution wherein to take counsel is Kingly and Christian But whereas he there pag. 23. saith that this was also the sense of those who with himself had as much right to sit among them that is in the Assembly as any others but were not permitted either by popular faction and tumult or by other shufflings and reasons of State which took care to exclude or deter all the excellent Bishops of the Church and the most able of Episcopal Divines for fear there should have been any just plea for moderate Episcopacy against the then Magistry of Presbytery To this I must give this Answer 1. That I willingly accept of that part of this speech that this to wit what was before by him spoken and by me alleged touching the right Episcopacy was the sense of himself and of those that by his telling had right to fit in the Assembly to make out my present assertion of the concurrence of able men herein 2. That which he here affirmeth either of himself or any others having right to sit in the Assembly of Divines called by Ordinance of both Houses of Parliament dated June 12. 1643. that they were not permitted either by popular faction and tumult or by other shufflings c. to fit c. is a very great slander For 1. Touching himself who not now only but heretofore hath complained that he having as much right to sit among the Divines in the Assembly as any others was not permitted to sit there If he mean that he had as much right as any others who were not at all chosen to sit there I admit what he saith to be true But if he intend to insinuate that he was chosen and yet not permitted to sit this is a loud untruth for he being then as I remember Parson of the Deanry of Bocking in Essex which albeit it be reputed to be worth 4 or 500 l. per an yet he to his shame and the little honour of those that imploy him is non-resident from it and preacheth at the Temple was not chosen to be one of the Assembly For in Essex were chosen Mr. Stephen Marshal of Finchingfield Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick then of
is limited by our Statute Laws none of which do appoint or approve any such Oath Nor can it be expected that if Episcopacy should be reduced to the Primitive Institution such tyranny will ever be again endured And as for that Oath what doth it require but obedience in omnibus licitis honestis which our late Episcopacy least cared for The Laws tye all men to things lawful and honest And if so then the same Doctor hath furnished me with an Argument strong enough to retort upon the Author of it against that Canonical Oath which himself urgeth against the Covenant pag. 15. inverting onely the name of the Covenant into that of this Oath They are not the bare words of the Oath of Canonical Obedience which as Charms can bind any mans Conscience to or against any thing but it is the force of Truth Reason Justice Religion and Duty to God and man our selves or others which morally and really obligeth men either by Gods general or particular Precepts which are as Iron and Adamantine Bands on every mans soul to chuse good and do it to hate evil and eschew it long before any of these withes or cords of mans combining or tying are put upon them By which he argues the needlesness of the Covenant and so do I of the unwarranted Oath of Canonical Obedience And if this Oath should be extended to obey such Bishops as Wren Peirce and others in all they of late enjoyned there is much more cause to conclude against it then against the Covenant though it should be extended to extirpation of all Episcopacy in the words of this Doctor pag. 8. It is therein of no bond or validity as to any good mans Conscience And so farewel such an Oath And touching the Kings Oath there is nothing obliging him further then to preserve that Government so far as it is agreeable to and warranted by the holy Scripture and Primitive Institution so far he condescended at the Isle of Wight And who requireth more And yet even this also may be changed by his Royal Assent to the Counsel and Desire of the two Houses of Parliament as this Doctor doth more then tacitely admit pag. 18. Cannot the Legislative Power change Government by Bishops as well as abrogate other Laws This is to charge some with perjury which he dareth not to name to fright others with a scare-Crow or man of Clouts and to condemn all the Churches of Christ that have laid Episcopacy aside His next Quarrel at the Covenant if it abjure all Episcopacy is this That it runs us upon a great Rock not onely of Novelty but of Schism and dasheth us both in opinion and practise against the Judgement and Custome of the Catholique Church in all places and ages till of latter years * He means till Calvin See his Dendrology in his sighs tears c from the Apostles days This he often harps upon in a Magisterial Traditionary way But once prove that our abolished Episcopacy was of so antient and universal Observation Et eris mihi Magnus Apollo Whoever will but read the judgement of Doctor John Reynolds concerning Episcopacy expressed in a Letter to Sir Francis Knolls in the year 1598. and Dr. Vshers Tract called The Reduction of Episcopacy proposed in the year 1641. will soon find this mans bold Assertion to dwindle into a vapor In the eighth place Pag. 10. under colour of propounding the Loyal and Religious sense of it he dasheth it with unlawfulness to be taken at all For when he would have men to retire to the sober sense wherein alone it might lawfully be taken he addeth an Alloy If it had been imposed by due Authority This sheweth his denial of the lawfulness of it And so in stead of satisfying a scrupulous Conscience how to take the Covenant a right he cunningly deterreth from the taking of it at all is not this Jugling By due Authority he meaneth Supreme Authority as is clear by his next Answer in examining whereof I shall endeavour to lay open the weakness and falshood of this suggestion Ninthly Pag. 0. he tells you It were easie to level to the ground all those fair but fallacious pretences drawn to fortifie the Covenant from Scripture-examples wherein the Jews sometimes solemnly renewed their Covenant with God But it was that express Covenant which God himself had first made with them in Horeb and Mount Sinai punctually prescribed by God to Moses and by Moses as their Supreme Governour or King imposed upon them This they sometimes renewed after they had broken it by their Apostacy to false and strange gods But this was not the case of the Church or people of England nor was there any need of such covenanting any more then there was any Moses or Hezekiah or Josiah or any chief Governour commanding it As the Hatlot is forward to call her Whore first with whom she unjusty quarrelleth so this Deceiver cries out upon the fallaciousness of the Covenant because he seeks fallaciously to take off all men from it In this reviling of his there are falshoods enow I will instance in some First it is false that there was no Covenant but of Gods own prescribing and secondly that he prescribed but one I shall for brevity discover the falshood of both these together If none but of his prescribing what meaneth that of this Doctors own quoting before Num. 30.2 which was spontaneous What that of Joshua and the Princes of the Congregation with the cheating Gibeonites Josh 9.15 And what that to omit sundry other of the children of Israel and the children of Judah after the Babylonish Captivity who joyned themselves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant never to be forgotten Jer. 50.5 These were all several Covenants of different kinds none of them prescribed yet all of them allowed and the breach of them punished by God To this may be added what the Vniversity of Oxford in their Reasons against the Covenant by general consent in Convocation June 1. 1647. Sect. 2. pag. 2 3. saith for it self that they are unsatisfied because the Covenant is imposed which is repugnant to the nature of a Covenant which being a contract implyeth a voluntary mutual consent of the Contractors It is also false that the Covenant on Mount Sinai was imposed by Moses as the Supreme Governour or King on the people For Moses was no more their Supreme Governour or King then Samuel to whom the people impetuously cryed for a King to judge them like all the Nations i 1 Sam. 8.5 when the Lord himself was their King k 1 Sam. 12 12. Nor did Moses but God himself impose that Covenant in Horeb as their Supreme Governour if Moses may be believed For he tells us that The Lord talked with them face to face in the Mount out of the midst of the fire Moses onely stood between the Lord and them at that time to shew them the word of the Lord. l Deut. 5.4