you lay aside by himself and reserve according to that which God hath blessed him with that when I come collections be not then to make and that when I am come whom you shall chuse them I may forthwith send away by Letters to carry your beneficence unto Jerusalem Out of which words to conclude the duty of Uniformity throughout all Churches in all manner of indifferent Ceremonies will be very hard and therefore best to give it over But perhaps they are by so much the more loth to forsake this Argument for that it hath though nothing else yet the name of Scripture to give it some kinde of countenance more then the pretext of Livery-coats affordeth them For neither is it any mans duty to cloath all his children or all his servants with one weed nor theirs to cloath themselves so if it were left to their own judgments as these Ceremonies are left of God to the judgment of the Church And seeing Churches are rather in this case like divers Families then like divers servants of one Family because every Church the state whereof is independent upon any other hath authority to appoint orders for it self in things indifferent therefore of the two we may rather infer That as one Family is not abridged of liberty to be cloathed in Friers Gray for that another doth wear Clay colour so neither are all Churches bound to the self-same indifferent Ceremonies which it liketh sundry to use As for that Canon in the Council of Nice let them but read it and weigh it well The ancient use of the Church throughout all Christendom was for fifty days after Easter which fifty days were called Pentecost though most commonly the last day of them which is Whitsunday he so called in like sort on all Sundays throughout the whole year their manner was to stand at Prayer Whereupon their meetings unto that purpose on those days had the name of Stations given them Of which Custom Tertullian speaketh in this wise It is not with us thought sit either to fast on the Lords day or to pray kneeling The same immunity from Fasting and Kneeling we keep all the time which is between the Feasts of Easter and Pentecost This being therefore an order generally received in the Church when some began to be singular and different from all others and that in a Ceremony which was then judged very convenient for the whole Church even by the whole those few excepted which break out of the common Pale the Council of Nice thought good to enclose them again with the rest by a Law made in this sort Because there are certain which will needs kneel at the time of Prayer on the Lords day and in the fifty days after Easter the holy Synod judging it meet that a convenient custom be observed throughout all Churches hath decreed That Standing we make our Prayers to the Lord. Whereby it plainly appeareth that in things indifferent what the whole Church doth think convenient for the whole the same if any part do wilfully violate it may be reformed and inraised again by that general authority whereunto each particular is subject and that the Spirit of singularity in a few ought to give place unto publick judgment this doth clearly enough appear but not that all Christian Churches are bound in every indifferent Ceremony to be uniform because where the whole Church hath not tyed the parts unto one and the same thing they being therein left each to their own choice may either do as others do or else otherwise without any breach of duty at all Concerning those indifferent things wherein it hath been heretofore thought good that all Christian Churches should be uniform the way which they now conceive to bring this to pass was then never thought on For till now it hath been judged that seeing the Law of God doth not prescribe all particular Ceremonies which the Church of Christ may use and in so great variety of them as may be found out it is not possible That the Law of Nature and Reason should direct all Churches unto the same things each deliberating by it self what is most convenient The way to establish the same things indifferent throughout them all must needs be the judgment of some Judicial authority drawn into one onely sentence which may be a rule for every particular to follow And because such authority over all Churches is too much to be granted unto any one mortal man there yet remaineth that which hath been always followed as the best the safest the most sincere and reasonable way namely the Verdict of the whole Church orderly taken and set down in the Assembly of some General Council But to maintain That all Christian Churches ought for Unities sake to be uniform in all Ceremonies and then to teach that the way of bringing this to pass must be by mutual imitation so that where we have better Ceremonies then others they shall be bound to follow us and we them where theirs are better How should we think it agreeable and consonant unto reason For sith in things of this nature there is such variety of particular inducements whereby one Church may be led to think that better which another Church led by other inducements judgeth to be worse For example the East Church did think it better to keep Easter day after the manner of the Jews the West Church better to do otherwise the Greek Church judgeth it worse to use Unleavened Bread in the Eucharist the Latine Church leavened One Church esteemeth it not so good to receive the Eucharist sitting as standing another Church not so good standing as sitting there being on the one side probable Motives as well as on the other unless they add somewhat else to define more certainly what Ceremonies shall stand for best in such sort That all Churches in the World shall know them to be the best and so know them that there may not remain any question about this point we are not a whit the nearer for that they have hitherto said They themselves although resolved in their own judgments what Ceremonies are best foreseeing that such as they are addicted unto be not all so clearly and so incomparably best but others there are or may be at leastwise when all things are well considered as good knew not which way smoothly to rid their hands of this matter without providing some more certain rule to be followed for establishment of Uniformity in Ceremonies when there are divers kindes of equal goodness And therefore in this case they say That the latter Churches and the fewer should conform themselves unto the elder and the moe Hereupon they conclude that for as much as all the Reformed Churches so far as they know which are of our Confession in Doctrine have agreed already in the Abrogation of divers things which we retain Our Church ought either to shew that they have done evil or else she is found to be in fault
Stupidity the highest top of Wisdom and Commiseration the deadlyest sin became by Institution and Study the very same which the other had been before through a secret natural Distemper upon his Conversion to the Christian Faith and recovery from Sickness which moved him to receive the Sacrament of Baptisme in his Bed The Bishops contrary to the Canons of the Church would needs in special love towards him ordain him Presbyter which favour satisfied not him who thought himself worthy of greater Place and Dignity He closed therefore with a number of well-minded men and not suspicious what his secret purposes were and having made them sure unto him by fraud procureth his own Consecration to be their Bishop His Prelacy now was able as he thought to countenance what he intended to publish and therefore his Letters went presently abroad to sundry Churches advising them never to admit to the Fellowship of Holy Mysteryes such as had after Baptisme offered Sacrifice to Idols There was present at the Council of Nice together with other Bishops one Acesius a Novatianist touching whose diversity in opinion from the Church the Emperour desirous to hear some reason asked of him certain Questions for Answer whereunto Acesius weaveth out a long History of things that hapned in the Persecution under Decius And of men which to savelife forsook Faith But in the end was a certain bitter Canon framed in their own School That men which fall into deadly sin after holy Baptism ought never to be again admitted to the Communion of Divine Mysteries That they are to be exhorted unto Repentance howbeit not to be put in hope that Pardon can be bad at the Priest's hands but with God which hath Soveraign Power and Authority in himself to remit sins it may be in the end they shall finde Mercy These Followers of Novatian which gave themselves the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clean pure and unspotted men had one point of Montanism more than their Master did professe for amongst Sinnes unpardonable they reckoned second Marriages of which opinion Tertullian making as his usual manner was a salt Apology Such is saith he our stony hardness that defaming our Comforter with a kinde of enormity in Discipline we dam up the doors of the Church no less against twice-married men then against Adulterers and Fornicators Of this sort therefore it was ordained by the Nycene Synod that if any such did return to the Catholick and Apostolick unity they should in Writing binde themselves to observe the Orders of the Church and Communicate as well with them which had been often married or had fallen in time of Persecution as with other sort of Christian people But further to relate or at all to refel the errour of mis-believing men concerning this point is not now to our present purpose greatly necessary The Church may receive no small detriment by corrupt practice even there where Doctrine concerning the substance of things practised is free from any great or dangerous corruption If therefore that which the Papacy doth in matter of Confessions and Absolution be offensive if it palpably serve in the use of the Keyes howsoever that which it teacheth in general concerning the Churches power to retain and forgive sinnes be admitted true have they not on the one side as much whereat to be abasht as on the other wherein to rejoyce They binde all men upon pain of everlasting condemnation and death to make Confessions to their Ghostly Fathers of every great offence they know and can remember that they have committed against God Hath Christ in his Gospel so delivered the Doctrine of Repentance unto the World Did his Apostles so preach it to Nations Have the Fathers so believed or so taught Surely Novatian was not so merciless in depriving the Church of power to Absolve some certain Offenders as they in imposing upon all a necessity thus to confess Novatian would not deny but God might remit that which the Church could not whereas in the Papacy it is maintained that what we conceal from men God himself shall never pardon By which over-sight as they have here surcharged the World with multitude but much abated the weight of Confessions so the careless manner of their Absolution hath made Discipline for the most part amongst them a bare Formality Yea rather a mean of emboldening unto vicious and wicked life then either any help to prevent future or medicine to remedy present evils in the Soul of man The Fathers were slow and alwayes fearful to absolve any before very manifest tokens given of a true Penitent and Contrite spirit It was not their custom to remit sin first and then to impose works of satisfaction as the fashion of Rome is now in so much that this their preposterous course and mis-ordered practises hath bred also in them an errour concerning the end and purpose of these works For against the guiltiness of sin and the danger of everlasting condemnation thereby incurâ—ed Confession and Absolution succeeding the same are as they take it a remedy sufficient and therefore what their Penitentiaries do think to enjoyn farther whether it be a number of Ave-Maries dayly to be scored up a Journey of Pilgrimage to be undertaken some few Dishes of ordinary Diet to be exchanged Offerings to be made at the shrines of Saints or a little to be scraped off from Mens superfluities for relief of poor People all is in lieu or exchange with God whose Justice notwithstanding our Pardon yet oweth us still some Temporal punishment either in this or in the life to come except we quit it our selves here with works of the former kinde and continued till the ballance of God's most strict severity shall finde the pains we have taken equivalent with the plagues which we should endure or else the mercy of the Pope relieve us And at this Postern-gate cometh in the whole Mart of Papal Indulgences so infinitely strewed that the pardon of Sinne which heretofore was obtained hardly and by much suit is with them become now almost impossible to be escaped To set down then the force of this Sentence in Absolving Penitents There are in Sinne these three things The Act which passeth away and vanisheth The Pollution wherewith it leaveth the Soul defiled And the Punishment whereunto they are made subject that have committed it The act of Sin is every deed word and thought against the Law of God For Sinne is the transgression of the Law and although the deed it self do not continue yet is that bad quality permanent whereby it maketh the Soul unrighteous and deformed in God's sight From the Heart come evil Cogitations Murthers Adulteries Fornications Thefts false Testimonies Slanders These are things which defile a man They do not only as effects of impurity argue the Nest no be unclean out of which they came but as causes they strengthen that disposition unto Wickedness which brought them forth They are both fruits and seeds
the Council of Carthage where it was decreed That the Bishop of the Chief See should not be entituled the Exarch of Priests or the highest Priest or any other thing of like sense but onely the Bishop of the chiefest See whereby are shut out the name of Archbishop and all other such haughty titles In these Allegations it fareth as in broken reports snatched out of the Author's mouth and broached before they be half either told on the one part or on the other understood The matter which Cyprian complaineth of in Florentinus was thus Novatus misliking the easiness of Cyprian to admit men into the fellowship of Believers after they had fallen away from the bold and constant Confession of Christian Faith took thereby occasion to separate himself from the Church and being united with certain excommunicate Persons they joyned their wits together and drew out against Cyprian their lawful Bishop sundry grievous accusations the crimes such as being true had made him uncapable of that Office whereof he was six years as then possessed they went to Rome and to other places accusing him every where as guilty of those faults of which themselves had lewdly condemned him pretending that twenty five African Bishops a thing most false had heard and examined his Cause in a Solemn Assembly and that they all had given their Sentence against him holding his Election by the Canons of the Church void The same factious and seditious Persons coming also unto Florentinus who was at that time a man imprisoned for the testimony of Jesus Christ but yet a favourer of the error of Novatus their malicious accusations he over-willingly hearkned unto gave them credit concurred with them and unto Cyprian in fine wrote his Letters against Cyprian Which Letters he justly taketh in marvellous evil part and therefore severely controuleth his so great presumption in making himself a Judge of a Judge and as it were a Bishop's Bishop to receive accusations against him as one that had been his Ordinary What heigth of pride is this saith Cyprian what arrogancy of spirit what a puffing up of minde to call Guides and Priests to be examined and sifted before him So that unless we shall be cleared in your Courts and absolved by your sentence behold for these six years space neither shall the Brotherhood have had a Bishop nor the People a Guide nor the Flock a Shepherd nor the Church a Governor nor Christ a Prelate nor God a Priest This is the pride which Cyprian condemneth in Florentinus and not the title or name of Archbishop about which matter there was not at that time so much as the dream of any controversie at all between them A silly collection it is that because Cyprian reproveth Florentinus for lightness of belief and presumptuous rashness of judgement therefore he held the title of Archbishop to be a vain and a proud name Archbishops were chief amongst Bishops yet Archbishops had not over Bishops that full Authority which every Bishop had over his own particular Clergy Bishops were not subject unto their Archbishop as an Ordinary by whom at all times they were to be judged according to the manner of inferiour Pastors within the compass of each Diocess A Bishop might suspend excommunicate depose such as were of his own Clergy without any other Bishops Assistants not so an Archbishop the Bishops that were in his own Province above whom divers Prerogatives were given him howbeit no such Authority and Power as alone to be Judge over them For as a Bishop could not be ordained so neither might he be judged by any one only Bishop albeit that Bishop were his Metropolitan Wherefore Cyprian concerning the liberty and freedom which every Bishop had spake in the Council of Carthage whereat fourscore and seven Bishops were present saying It resteth that every of us declare what we think of this matter neither judging nor severing from the right of Communion any that shall think otherwise For of us there is not any which maketh himself a Bishop of Bishops or with Tyrannical fear constraineth his Collegues unto the necessity of obedience inasmuch as every Bishop according to the reach of his liberty and power hath his own free judgement and can have no more another his Iudge than himself be Iudge to another Whereby it appeareth that amongst the African Bishops none did use such Authority over any as the Bishop of Rome did afterwards claim over all forcing upon them opinions by main and absolute power Wherefore unto the Bishop of Rome the same Cyprian also writeth concerning his Opinion about Baptism These things we present unto your Conscience most dear Brother as well for common honours sake as of single and sincere love trusting that as you are truly your self Religious and Faithful so those things which agree with Religions and Faith will be acceptable unto you Howbeit we know that what some have over-drunk in they will not let go neither easily change their minde but with care of preserving whole amongst their Brethren the bond of Peace and concord retaining still to themselves certain their own Opinions wherewith they have been inuired Wherein we neither use force nor prescribe a Law unto any knowing that in the Government of the Church every Ruler hath his own voluntary free judgment and of that which he doth shall render unto the Lord himself an account As for the Council of Carthage Doth not the very first Canon thereof establish with most effectual terms all things which were before agreed on in the Council of Nice And that the Council of Nice did ratifie the preheminence of Metropolitan Bishops who is ignorant The name of an Archbishop importeth only a Bishop having chiefty of certain Prerogatives above his Brethren of the same Order Which thing since the Council of Nice doth allow it cannot be that the other of Carthage should condemn it inasmuch as this doth yield unto that a Christian unrestrained approbation The thing provided for by the Synod of Carthage can be no other therefore than only that the chiefest Metropolitan where many Archbishops were within any greater Province should not be termed by those names as to import the power of an ordinary Jurisdiction belonging in such degree and manner unto him over the rest of the Bishops and Archbishops as did belong unto every Bishop over other Pastors under him But much more absurd it is to affirm that both Cyprian and the Council of Carthage condemn even such Superiority also of Bishops themselves over Pastors their Inferiours as the words of Ignatius imply in terming the Bishop A Prince of Priests Bishops to be termed Arch-Priests in regard of their Superiority over Priests is in the Writings of the Antient Fathers a thing so usual and familiar as almost no one thing more At the Council of Nice saith Theodores three hundred and eighteen Arch-Priests were present Were it the meaning of the Council of Carthage that the Title of
or offensive unto any especially unto the Church of God All things in order and with seemliness All unto edification finally All to the glory of God Of which kinde how many might be gathered out of the Scripture if it were necessary to take so much pains Which Rules they that urge minding thereby to prove that nothing may be done in the Church but what Scripture commandeth must needs hold that they tie the Church of Christ no otherwise then onely because we finde them there set down by the Finger of the Holy Ghost So that unless the Apostle by writing had delivered those Rules to the Church we should by observing them have sinned as now by not observing them In the Church of the Jews is it not granted That the appointment of the hour for daily Sacrifices the building of Synagogues throughout the Land to hear the Word of God and to pray in when they came not up to Ierusalem the erecting of Pulpits and Chairs to teach in the order of Burial the Rites of Marriage with such like being matters appertaining to the Church yet are not any where prescribed in the Law but were by the Churches discretion instituted What then shall we think Did they hereby add to the Law and so displease God by that which they did None so hardly perswaded of them Doth their Law deliver unto them the self-same general Rules of the Apostle that framing thereby their Orders they might in that respect clear themselves from doing amiss St. Paul would then of likelihood have cited them out of the Law which we see he doth not The truth is they are Rules and Canons of that Law which is written in all mens hearts the Church had for ever no less then now stood bound to observe them whether the Apostle had mentioned them or no. Seeing therefore those Canons do binde as they are Edicts of Nature which the Jews observing as yet unwritten and thereby framing such Church Orders as in their Law were not prescribed are notwithstanding in that respect unculpable It followeth that sundry things may be lawfully done in the Church so as they be not done against the Scripture although no Scripture do command them but the Church onely following the Light of Reason judge them to be in discretion meet Secondly unto our purpose and for the question in hand Whether the Commandments of God in Scripture be general or special it skilleth not For if being particularly applied they have in regard of such particulars a force constraining us to take some one certain thing of many and to leave the rest whereby it would come to pass that any other particular but that one being established the general Rules themselves in that case would be broken then is it utterly impossible that God should leave any thing great or small free for the Church to establish or not Thirdly if so be they shall grant as they cannot otherwise do that these Rules are no such Laws as require any one particular thing to be done but serve rather to direct the Church in all things which she doth so that free and lawful it is to devise any Ceremony to receive any Order and to authorise any kinde of Regiment no special Commandment being thereby violated and the same being thought such by them to whom the judgment thereof appertaineth as that it is not scandalous but decent tending unto edification and setting forth the glory of God that is to say agreeable unto the general Rules of holy Scripture this doth them no good in the World for the furtherance of their purpose That which should make for them must prove that men ought not to make Laws for Church Regiment but onely keep those Laws which in Scripture they finde made The plain intent of the Books of Ecclesiastical Discipline is to shew that men may not devise Laws of Church Government but are bound for ever to use and to execute onely those which God himself hath already devised and delivered in the Scripture The self-same drift the Admonitioners also had in urging that nothing ought to be done in the Church according unto any Law of Mans devising but all according to that which God in his Word hath commanded Which not remembring they gather out of Scripture General Rules to be followed in making Laws and so in effect they plainly grant that we our selves may lawfully make Laws for the Church and are not bound out of Scripture onely to take Laws already made as they meant who first alledged that principle whereof we speak One particular Plat-form it is which they respected and which they labored thereby to force upon all Churches whereas these general Rules do not let but that there may well enough be sundry It is the particular Order established in the Church of England which thereby they did intend to alter as being not commanded of God whereas unto those general Rules they know we do not defend that we may hold any thing unconformable Obscure it is not what meaning they had who first gave out that grand Axiom and according unto that meaning it doth prevail far and wide with the Favorers of that part Demand of them wherefore they conform not themselves unto the Order of our Church and in every particular their answer for the most part is We finde no such thing commanded in the Word Whereby they plainly require some special Commandment for that which is exacted at their hands neither are they content to have matters of the Church examined by general Rules and Canons As therefore in controversies between us and the Church of Rome that which they practise is many times even according to the very grossness of that which the vulgar sort conceiveth when that which they teach to maintain it is so nice and subtil that hold can very hardly be taken thereupon In which cases we should do the Church of God small benefit by disputing with them according unto the finest points of their dark conveyances and suffering that sense of their Doctrine to go uncontrouled wherein by the common sort it is ordinarily received and practised So considering what disturbance hath grown in the Church amongst our selves and how the Authors thereof do commonly build altogether on this as a sure Foundation Nothing ought to be established in the Church which in the Word of God is not commanded Were it reason that we should suffer the same to pass without controulment in that current meaning whereby every where it prevaileth and stay till some strange construction were made thereof which no man would lightly have thought on but being driven thereunto for a shift 8. The last refuge in maintaining this Position is thus to construe it Nothing ought to be established in the Church but that which is commanded in the Word of God that is to say All Church Orders must be grounded upon the Word of God in such sort grounded upon the Word not that being sound out by some Star
the impotent and not please ourselves It was a weakness in the Christian Jews and a maim of judgment in them that they thought the Gentiles polluted by the eating of those meats which themselves were afraid to touch for fear of transgressing the Law of Moses yea hereat their hearts did so much rise that the Apostle had just cause to fear lest they would rather forsake Christianity then endure any fellowship with such as made no conscience of that which was unto them abominable And for this cause mention is made of destroying the weak by meats and of dissolving the work of God which was his Church a part of the Living Stones whereof were believing Jews Now those weak Brethren before mentioned are said to be as the Jews were and our Ceremonies which have been abused in the Church of Rome to be as the scandalous Meats from which the Gentiles are exhorted to abstain in the presence of Jews for fear of averting them from Christian Faith Therefore as Charity did binde them to refrain from that for their Brethrens sake which otherwise was lawful enough for them so it bindeth us for our Brethrens sake likewise to abolish such Ceremonies although we might lawfully else retain them But between these two cases there are great odds For neither are our weak Brethren as the Jews nor the Ceremonies which we use as the meats which the Gentiles used The Jews were known to be generally weak in that respect whereas contrariwise the imbecillity of ours is not common unto so many that we can take any such certain notice of them It is a chance if here and there some one be found and therefore seeing we may presume men commonly otherwise there is no necessity that our practice should frame it self by that which the Apostle doth prescribe to the Gentiles Again their use of meats was not like unto our Ceremonies that being a matter of private action in common life where every man was free to order that which himself did but this a publick constitution for the ordering of the Church And we are not to look that the Church should change her publick Laws and Ordinances made according to that which is judged ordinarily and commonly fittest for the whole although it chance that for some particular men the same be found inconvenient especially when there may be other remedy also against the sores of particular incoveniences In this case therefore where any private harm doth grow we are not to reject instruction as being an unmeet plaister to apply unto it neither can we say that he which appointeth Teachers for Physicians in this kinde of evil is As if a man would set one to watch a childe all day long lest he should hurt himself with a Knife whereas by taking away the Knife from him the danger is avoided and the service of the man better employed For a Knife may be taken from a childe without depriving them of the benefit thereof which have years and discretion to use it But the Ceremonies which Children do abuse if we remove quite and clean as it is by some required that we should then are they not taken from Children onely but from others also which is as though because Children may perhaps hurt themselves with Knives we should conclude that therefore the use of Knives is to be taken quite and clean even from men also Those particular Ceremonies which they pretend to be so scandalous we shall in the next Book have occasion more throughly to sift where other things also traduced in the publick duties of the Church whereunto each of these appertaineth are together with these to be touched and such Reasons to be examined as have at any time been brought either against the one or the other In the mean while against the conveniency of curing such evils by instruction strange it is that they should object the multitude of other necessary Matters wherein Preachers may better bestow their time then in giving men warning not to abuse Ceremonies A wonder it is that they should object this which have so many years together troubled the Church with quarrels concerning these things and are even to this very hour so earnest in them That if they write or speak publickly but five words one of them is lightly about the dangerous estate of the Church of England in respect of abused Ceremonies How much happier had it been for this whole Church if they which have raised contention therein about the abuse of Rites and Ceremonies had considered in due time that there is indeed store of Matters fitter and better a great deal for Teachers to spend time and labor in It is through their importunate and vehement Asteveâ—ations more then through any such experience which we have had of our own that we are enforced to think it possible for one or other now and then at leastwise in the prime of the Reformation of our Church to have stumbled at some kinde of Ceremonies Wherein for as much as we are contented to take this upon their credit and to think it may be sith also they further pretend the same to be so dangerous a Snare to their Souls that are at any time taken therein they must give our Teachers leave for the saving of those Souls be they never so few to intermingle sometime with other more necessary things Admonition concerning these not unnecessary Wherein they should in reason more easily yield this leave considering that hereunto we shall not need to use the hundredth part of that time which themselves think very needful to bestow in making most bitter Invectives against the Ceremonies of the Church 13. But to come to the last point of all The Church of England is grievously charged with forgetfulness of her duty which duty had been to traine her self unto the Pattern of their Example that went before her in the Work of Reformation For as the Churches of Christ ought to be most unlike the Synagogue of Antichrist in their indifferent Ceremonies so they ought to be most like one unto another and for preservation of Unity to have as much as possible may be all the same Ceremonies And therefore St. Paul to establish this order in the Church of Corinth that they should make their gatherings for the Poor upon the first day of the Sabbath which is our Sunday alledgeth this for a Reason That he had so ordained in other Churches Again As children of one Father and Servants of one Family so all Churches should not onely have one Diet in that they have one Word but also wear as it were one Livery in using the same Ceremonies Thirdly This Rule did the Great Council of Nice follow when it ordained That where certain at the Feast of Pentecost did pray Kneeling they should pray Standing The reason whereof is added which is That one Custom ought to be kept throughout all Churches It is true That the diversity of Ceremonies
finde by daily experience that those calamities may be nearest at hand readiest to break in suddenly upon us which we in regard of times or circumstances may imagine to be farthest off Or if they do not indeed approach yet such miseries as being present all men are apt to bewail with tears the wise by their Prayers should rather prevent Finally if we for our selves had a priviledge of immunity doth not true Christian Charity require that whatsoever any part of the World yea any one of all our Brethren elswhere doth either suffer or fear the same we account as our own burthen What one Petition is there found in the whole Litany whereof we shall ever be able at any time to say That no man living needeth the grace or benefit therein craved at Gods hands I am not able to express how much it doth grieve me that things of Principal Excellency should be thus bitten at by men whom God hath endued with graces both of Wit and Learning for better purposes We have from the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ received that brief Confession of Faith which hath been always a badge of the Church a mark whereby to discern Christian men from Infidels and Jews This Faith received from the Apostles and their Disciples saith Ireneus the Church though dispersed throughout the World doth notwithstanding keep as safe as if it dwels within the Walls of some one house and as uniformly hold as if it had but one onely heart and soul this as consonantly it Preacheth teacheth and delivereth as if but one tongue did speak for all At one Sun shineth to the whole World so there is no Faith but this one published the brightness whereof must enlighten all that come to the knowledge of the Truth This rule saith Tertullian Christ did institute the stream and current of this rule hath gone as far it hath continued as long as the very promulgation of the Gospel Under Constantine the Emperor about Three hundred years and upward after Christ Arius a Priest in the Church of Alexandria a suttle-witted and a marvellous fair-spoken man but discontented that one should be placed before him in honor whose superior he thought himself in desert became through envy and stomack prone unto contradiction and hold to broach at the length that Heresie wherein the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ contained but not opened in the former Creed the coequality and coeternity of the Son with the Father was denied Being for this impiety deprived of his place by the Bishop of the same Church the punishment which should have reformed him did but increase his obstinacy and give him occasion of laboring with greater earnestness elswhere to intangle unwary mindes with the snares of his damnable opinion Arius in short time had won to himself a number both of Followers and of great Defenders whereupon much disquietness on all sides ensued The Emperor to reduce the Church of Christ unto the Unity of sound Belief when other means whereof tryal was first made took no effect gathered that famous Assembly of Three hundred and eighteen Bishops in the Council of Nice where besides order taken for many things which seemed to need redress there was with common consent for the setling of all mens mindes that other Confession of Faith set down which we call the Nicene Creed whereunto the Arians themselves which were present subscribed also not that they meant sincerely and indeed to forsake their error but onely to escape deprivation and exile which they saw they could not avoid openly persisting in their former opinions when the greater part had concluded against them and that with the Emperors Royal Assent Reserving therefore themselves unto future opportunities and knowing that it would not boot them to stir again in a matter so composed unless they could draw the Emperor first and by his means the chiefest Bishops unto their part till Constantines death and somewhat after they always professed love and zeal to the Nicene Faith yet ceased not in the mean while to strengthen that part which in heart they favored and to infest by all means under colour of other quarrels their greatest Adversaries in this cause Amongst them Athanasius especially whom by the space of Forty six years from the time of his Consecration to succeed Alexander Archbishop in the Church of Alexandria till the last hour of his life in this World they never suffered to enjoy the comfort of a peaceable day The heart of Constantine stoln from him Constantius Constantines Successor his scourge and torment by all the ways that malice armed with Soveraign Authority could devise and use Under Iulian no rest given him and in the days of Valentinian as little Crimes there were laid to his charge many the least whereof being just had bereaved him of estimation and credit with men while the World standeth His Judges evermore the self-same men by whom his accusers were suborned Yet the issue always on their part shame on his triumph Those Bishops and Prelates who should have accounted his cause theirs and could not many of them but with bleeding hearts and with watred checks behold a person of so great place and worth constrained to endure so soul indignities were sure by bewraying their affection towards him to bring upon themselves those molestations whereby if they would not be drawn to seem his Adversaries yet others should be taught how unsafe it was to continue his friends Whereupon it came to pass in the end that very few excepted all became subject to the sway of time other odds there was none amongst them saving onely that some fell sooner away some latter from the soundness of Belief some were Leaders in the Host of Impiety and the rest as common Soldiers either yielding through fear or brought under with penury or by flattery ensnared or else beguiled through simplicity which is the fairest excuse that well may be made for them Yes that which all men did wonder at Osius the ancientest Bishop that Christendom then had the most forward in defence of the Catholick cause and of the contrary part most feared that very Osius with whose hand the Nicene Creed it self was set down and framed for the whole Christian World to subscribe unto so far yielded in the end as even with the same hand to ratifie the Arians Confession a thing which they neither hoped to see nor the other part ever feared till with amazement they saw it done Both were perswaded that although there had been for Osius no way but either presently subscribe or die his answer and choice would have been the same that Eleazars was It doth not become our age to dissemble whereby many young persons might think that Osius in hundred years old and upward were now gone to another Religion and so through mine hypocrisie for a little time of transitory life they might be deceived by me and I procure malediction and reproach to my old
and meer Human invention a thing which was never drawn our of Scripture where all Pastors are found they say to have one and the same power both of Order and Jurisdiction Secondly by gathering together the differences between that power which we give to Bishops and that which was given them of old in the Church So that albeit even the antient took more than was warrantable yet so farr they swerved not as ours have done Thirdly by endeavouring to prove that the Scripture directly forbiddeth and that the judgement of the wisest the holyest the best in all Ages condemneth utterly the inequality which we allow XI That inequality of Pastors is a meer Humane invention a thing not found in the Word of God they prove thus 1. All the places of Scripture where the word Bishop is used or any other derived of that name signifie an Oversight in respect of some particular Congregation only and never in regard of Pastors committed unto his Oversight For which cause the names of Bishops and Presbyters or Pastoral Elders are used indifferently to signifie one and the self-same thing Which so indifferent and common use of these words for one and the self-same office so constantly and perpetually in all places declareth that the word Bishop in the Apostles Writing importeth not a Pastor of higher Power and Authoritie over other Pastors 2. All Pastors are called to their Office by the same means of proceeding the Scripture maketh no difference in the manner of their Tryal Election Ordination which proveth their Office and Power to be by Scripture all one 3. The Apostles were all of equal power and all Pastors do alike succeed the Apostles in their Ministery and Power the Commission and Authority whereby they succeed bring in Scripture but one and the same that was committed to the Apostles without any difference of committing to one Pastor more or to another less 4. The power of the Censures and Keyes of the Church and of Ordaining and ordering Ministers in which two points especially this Superiority is challenged is not committed to any one Pastor of the Church more than to another but the same is committed as a thing to be carried equally in the guidance of the Church Whereby it appeareth that Scripture maketh all Pastors not only in the Ministery of the Word and Sacraments but also in all Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction and Authority equal 5. The Council of Nice doth attribute this difference not unto any Ordination of God but to an antient Custom used in former times which judgement is also followed afterward by other Councils Concil Antioch cap. 9. 6. Upon these Premises their summary collection and conclusion is That the Ministery of the Gospel and the Functions thereof ought to be from Heaven and of God Joh. I. 23. that if they be of God and from Heaven then are they set down in the Word of God that if they be not in the Word of God as by the premises it doth appear they say that our kinds of Bishops are not it followeth they are invented by the brain of men and are of the Earth and that consequently they can do no good in the Church of Christ but harm Our Answer hereunto is first that their proofs are unavailable to shew that Scripture affordeth no evidence for the inequality of Pastors Secondly That albeit the Scripture did no way insinuate the same to be God's Ordinance and the Apostles to have brought it in albeit the Church were acknowledged by all men to have been the first beginner thereof a long time after the Apostles were gone yet is not the Authority of Bishops hereby disannulled it is not hereby proved unfit or unprofitable for the Church 1. That the Word of God doth acknowledge no inequality of power amongst Pastors of the Church neither doth it appear by the signification of this word Bishop nor by the indifferent use thereof For concerning signification first it is clearly untrue that no other thing is thereby signified but only an oversight in respect of a particular Church and Congregation For I beseech you of what Parish or particular Congregation was Matthias Bishop His Office Scripture doth term Episcopal which being no other than was common unto all the Apostles of Christ forasmuch as in that number there is not any to whom the oversight of many Pastors did not belong by force and vertue of that Office it followeth that the very Word doth sometimes even in Scripture signifie oversight such as includeth charge over Pastors themselves And if we look to the use of the Word being applyed with reference unto some one Church as Ephesus Philippi and such like albeit the Guides of those Churches be interchangeably in Scripture termed sometime Bishops sometime Presbyters to signifie men having oversight and charge without relation at all unto other than the Christian Laity alone yet this doth not hinder but that Scripture may in some place have other names whereby certain of those Presbyters or Bishops are noted to have the oversight and charge of Pastors as out of all peradventure they had whom St. Iohn doth intitle Angels 2. As for those things which the Apostle hath set down concerning Tryal Election and Ordination of Pastors that he maketh no difference in the manner of their Calling this also is but a silly Argument to prove their Office and their Power equal by the Scripture The form of admitting each sort unto their Offices needed no particular Instruction There was no fear but that such matters of course would easily enough be observed The Apostle therefore toucheth those things wherein Judgement Wisdom and Conscience is required he carefully admonisheth of what quality Ecclesiastical Persons should be that their dealing might not be scandalous in the Church And forasmuch as those things are general we see that of Deacons there are delivered in a manner the self-same Precepts which are given concerning Pastors so farr as concerneth their Tryal Election and Ordination Yet who doth hereby collect that Scripture maketh Deacons and Pastors equal If notwithstanding it be yet demanded Wherefore he which teatcheth what kinde of Persons Deacons and Presbyters should be hath nothing in particular about the quality of chief Presbyters whom we call Bishops I answer briefly that there it was no fit place for any such discourse to be made inasmuch as the Apostle wrote unto Timothy and Titus who having by Commission Episcopal Authority were to exercise the same in ordaining not Bishops the Apostles themselves yet living and retaining that power in their own hands but Presbyters such as the Apostles at the first did create throughout all Churches Bishops by restraint only Iames at Ierusalem excepted were not yet in being 3. About equality amongst the Apostles there is by us no Controversie moved If in the rooms of the Apostles which were of equal Authority all Pastors do by Scripture succeed alike where shall we finde a Commission in Scripture which they speak
That the Parliament being a mere Temporal Court can neither by the law of Nature nor of God have competent power to define of such matters That Supremacy in this kinde cannot belong unto Kings as Kings because Pagan Emperours whose Princely power was true Soveraignty never challenged so much over the Church That Power in this kinde cannot be the right of any Earthly Crown Prince or State in that they be Christians forasmuch as if they be Christians they all owe subjection to the Pastors of their Souls That the Prince therefore not having it himself cannot communicate it to the Parliament and consequently cannot make Laws here or determine of the Churches Regiment by himself Parliament or any other Court subjected unto him The Parliament of England together with the Convocation annexed thereunto is that whereupon the very essence of all Government within this Kingdom doth depend it is even the body of the whole Realm it consisteth of the King and of all that within the Land are subject unto him The Parliament is a Court not so merely Temporal as if it might meddle with nothing but onely Leather and Wool Those dayes of Queen Mary are not yet forgotten wherein the Realm did submit it self unto the Legate of Pope Iulius at which time had they been perswaded as this man seemeth now to be had they thought that there is no more force in Laws made by Parliament concerning Church-Affairs then if men should take upon them to make Orders for the Hierarchies of Angels in Heaven they might have taken all former Statutes of that kinde as cancelled and by reason of nullity abrogated What need was there that they should bargain with the Cardinal and purchase their Pardon by promise made before-hand that what Laws they had made assented unto or executed against the Bishop of Rome's Supremacy the same they would in that present Parliament effectually abrogate and repeal Had they power to repeal Laws made and none to make Laws concerning the Regiment of the Church Again when they had by suit obtained his confirmation for such Foundations of Bishopricks Cathedral Churches Hospitals Colledges and Schools for such Marriages before made for such Institutions into Livings Ecclesiastical and for all such Judicial Processes as having been ordered according to the Laws before in force but contrary unto the Canons and Orders of the Church of Rome were in that respect thought defective although the Cardinal in his Letters of Dispensation did give validity unto those Acts even Apostolicae firmitatis robur the very strength of Apostolical solidity what had all these been without those grave authentical words Be it enacted by the Authority of this present Parliament that all and singular Articles and Clauses contained in the said Dispensation shall remain and be reputed and taken to all intents and constructions in the Laws of this Realm lawful good and effectual to be alledged and pleaded in all Courts Ecclesiastical and Temporal for good and sufficient matter either for the Plaintiff or Defendant without any Allegation or Objection to be made against the validity of them by pretence of any General Councel Canon or Decree to the contrary Somewhat belike they thought there was in this mere Temporal Court without which the Popes own mere Ecclesiastical Legate's Dispensation had taken small effect in the Church of England neither did they or the Cardinal imagine any thing committed against the Law of Nature or of God because they took order for the Churches Affairs and that even in the Court of Parliament The most natural and Religious course in making Laws is that the matter of them be taken from the judgement of the wisest in those things which they are to concern In matters of God to set down a form of Prayer a solemn confession of the Articles of the Christian Faith and Ceremonies meet for the exercise of Religion It were unnatural not to think the Pastors and Bishops of our Souls a great deal more fit than men of Secular Trades and Callings Howbeit when all which the wisdome of all sorts can do is done for the devising of Laws in the Church it is the general consent of all that giveth them the form and vigour of Laws without which they could be no more unto us than the Councel of Physitians to the sick Well might they seem as wholesom admonitions and instructions but Laws could they never be without consent of the whole Church to be guided by them whereunto both Nature and the practise of the Church of God set down in Scripture is found every way so fully consonant that God himself would not impose no not his own Laws upon his People by the hand of Moses without their free and open consent Wherefore to define and determine even of the Churches Affairs by way of assent and approbation as Laws are defined in that Right of Power which doth give them the force of Laws thus to define of our own Churches Regiment the Parliament of England hath competent Authority Touching that Supremacy of Power which our Kings have in this case of making Laws it resteth principally in the strength of a negative voice which not to give them were to deny them that without which they were Kings but by mere title and not in exercise of Dominion Be it in Regiment Popular Aristocratical or Regal Principality resteth in that Person or those Persons unto whom is given right of excluding any kinde of Law whatsoever it be before establishment This doth belong unto Kings as Kings Pagan Emperors even Nero himself had no less but much more than this in the Laws of his own Empire That he challenged not any interest of giving voice in the laws of the Church I hope no man will so construe as if the cause were conscience and fear to encroach upon the Apostles right If then it be demanded By what right from Constantine downward the Christian Emperors did so far intermeddle with the Churches affairs either we must herein condemn them as being over presumptuously bold or else judge that by a Law which is termed Regia that is to say Regal the People having derived unto their Emperors their whole power for making of Laws and by that means his Edicts being made Laws what matter soever they did concern as Imperial dignity endowed them with competent Authority and power to make Laws for Religion so they were thought by Christianity to use their Power being Christians unto the benefit of the Church of Christ was there any Christian Bishop in the world which did then judge this repugnant unto the dutiful subjection which Christians do ow to the Pastors of their Souls to whom in respect of their Sacred Order it is not by us neither may be denied that Kings and Princes are as much as the very meanest that liveth under them bound in conscience to shew themselves gladly and willingly obedient receiving the Seals of Salvation the blessed Sacraments at their hands as at the
were afterwards published and imposed upon the Churches of the Gentiles abroad as Laws the Records thereof remaining still the Book of God for a testimony that the power of making Ecclesiastical Laws belongeth to the Successors of the Apostles the Bishops and Prelates of the Church of God To this we answer That the Councel of Ierusalem is no Argument for the power of the Clergy to make Laws For first there hath not been sithence any Councel of like authority to that in Ierusalem Secondly The cause why that was of such authority came by a special accident Thirdly The reason why other Councels being not like unto that in nature the Clergy in them should have no power to make Laws by themselves alone is in truth so forcible that except some Commandment of God to the contrary can be shewed it ought notwithstanding the foresaid example to prevail The Decrees of the Councel of Ierusalem were not as the Canons of other Ecclesiastical Assemblies Human but very Divine Ordinances for which cause the Churches were farr and wide commanded every where to see them kept no otherwise than if Christ himself had personally on Earth been the Author of them The cause why that Council was of so great Authority and credit above all others which have been sithence is expressed in those words of principal observation Unto the Holy Ghost and to us it hath seemed good which form of speech though other Councels have likewise used yet neither could they themselves mean nor may we so understand them as if both were in equal sort assisted with the power of the Holy Ghost but the latter had the favour of that general assistance and presence which Christ doth promise unto all his according to the quality of their several Estates and Callings the former the grace of special miraculous rare and extraordinary illumination in relation whereunto the Apostle comparing the Old Testament and the New together termeth the one a Testament of the Letter for that God delivered it written in stone the other a Testament of the Spirit because God imprinted it in the hearts and declared it by the tongues of his chosen Apostles through the power of the Holy Ghost feigning both their conceits and speeches in most Divine and incomprehensible manner Wherefore in as much as the Council of Ierusalem did chance to consist of men so enlightened it had authority greater than were meet for any other Council besides to challenge wherein such kinde of Persons are as now the state of the Church doth stand Kings being not then that which now they are and the Clergy not now that which then they were Till it be proved that some special Law of Christ hath for ever annexed unto the Clergy alone the power to make Ecclesiastical laws we are to hold it a thing most consonant with equity and reason that no Ecclesiastical laws be made in a Christian Common-wealth without consent as well of the Laity as of the Clergy but least of all without consent of the highest Power For of this thing no man doubteth namely that in all Societies Companies and Corporations what severally each shall be bound unto it must be with all their assents ratified Against all equity it were that a man should suffer detriment at the hands of men for not observing that which he never did either by himself or by others mediately or immediately agree unto Much more than a King should constrain all others no the strict observation of any such Human Ordinance as passeth without his own approbation In this Case therefore especially that vulgar Axiom is of force Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari approbari debet Whereupon Pope Nicolas although otherwise not admitting Lay-persons no not Emperors themselves to be present as Synods doth notwithstanding seem to allow of their presence when matters of Faith are determined whereunto all men must stand bound Ubinam legistis Imperatores Antecessores vestros Synodalibus Conventibus interfuisse nisi forsitan in quibus de Fide tractatum est quae non solum ad Clericos verum etiam ad Laicos omnes pertinet Christianos A Law be it Civil or Ecclesiastical is a Publick Obligation wherein seeing that the whole standeth charged no reason it should pass without his privity and will whom principally the whole doth depend upon Sicut Laici jurisdictionem Clericorum perturbare ita Clerici jurisdictionem Laicorum non debent minuere saith Innocentius Extra de judic novit As the Laity should not hinder the Clergy's jurisdiction so neither is it reason that the Laity's right should be abridged by the Clergy saith Pope Innocent But were it so that the Clergy alone might give Laws unto all the rest forasmuch as every Estate doth desire to inlarge the bounds of their own Liberties is it not easie to see how injurious this might prove to men of other conditions Peace and Justice are maintained by preserving unto every Order their Rights and by keeping all Estates as it were in an even ballance which thing is no way better done than if the King their common Parent whose care is presumed to extend most indifferently over all do bear the chiefest sway in the making Laws which All must be ordered by Wherefore of them which in this point attribute most to the Clergy I would demand What evidence there is whereby it may clearly be shewed that in antient Kingdoms Christian any Canon devised by the Clergy alone in their Synods whether Provincial National or General hath by mere force of their Agreement taken place as a Law making all men constrainable to be obedient thereunto without any other approbation from the King before or afterwards required in that behalf But what speak we of antient Kingdoms when at this day even the Papacy it self the very Tridentine Council hath not every where as yet obtained to have in all points the strength of Ecclesiastical Laws did not Philip King of Spain publishing that Council in the Low Countries adde thereunto an express clause of special provision that the same should in no wise prejudice hurt or diminish any kinde of Priviledge which the King or his Vassals a fore-time had enjoyed touching either possessory Judgements of Ecclesiastical Livings or concerning nominations thereunto or belonging to whatsoever right they had else in such Affairs If therefore the Kings exception taken against some part of the Canons contained in that Council were a sufficient barr to make them of none effect within his Territories it followeth that the like exception against any other part had been also of like efficacy and so consequently that no part therof had obtained the strength of a Law if he which excepted against a part had so done against the whole as what reason was there but that the same Authority which limited might quite and clean have refused that Council who so alloweth the said Act of the Catholick Kings for good and
sequehaneur usque to nequaquam dissenseruat quoud Victor Episcopus Romanus supra modum iracundiâ— inflamnaths omâ—cs in AsiaÌ„ quetant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellaâ—i excommunicaverit Ob quod â—ictum Ireâ—â—no Episcopus Lugdunt in Victorem per Epelosem graviter invectus est Euseb. de vira Constant. lib. 3. cap. 19. Quid preslabilias quidve augustius esse poterat quam uâ— hoc sestum per quod shem immortalicatis noble essentarâ—m hâ—bemuâ— uno moilo ratione apud omnes integre slaceâ—eque observaretur Ac primum omnium indignum plane videbettir ut ritum conâ—erudinem imicantes Iurizoruin qui quoniam suâ—s ipsorum manus imâ—â—al scelete pollueruaâ—r meâ—iro ut seeleÌ„stos â—ecet caeco animorum errore tenentâ—r irretiti islud sâ—slum sanctissimum ageremus In nostra enim situtâ— est poteflare ut illorum more rejecâ—o verioâ—e ac mâ—giâ—â—â—ncero institute quod quidem usque à passionis die hactenus recoluimus hujus festi celebrationem ad posterorum seculorum memoriam propagemus Nistil igitur siâ— nobis cum Judeorum turba omneâ—â—â— odlusa maxime Their Exception against such Ceremonies as have been abused by the Church of Rome and are said in that respect to be scandalous Matth. 18. 6. 1 Pet. 2. 8. 2 Sam. 12. 13. Rom. 2. 14. Ezek. 36. 20. Tertul. lib. de Virgin Veland Epist. aâ— Leâ—ndrum Hisp. Hon. 11. de Pasch. Idolatriae consuetudo in rantum hominiâ— occoecâ—verat ut Solis Lunae Martis atque Mercurii Jovis Veneris Saturni diversâ—s Elementorum ac Daemonum appellationibus dies vociâ—aâ—ent luci tenebrarum nomen impâ—nerent â—â—da de ratione temp cap. 4. Octavus dits Idem primus est ad quem reditur indeque rutius Hehdemada inchoâ—tur His nomina â— planetis Gentilitas indidiâ— ha bere se credentes à Sole Spiritum à Luna corpus à Marte sangulnem à Mercurlo ingenium linguam à â—oâ—e temperanuam à Venere voluptatem à Saturno â—arditaâ—em Isid. Hisp. lib. 5. Reymol cap. 32. Dies dicti à Diis quorum nomina Romani quibuscam syderibus sactaveâ—uni 1 Cor. 6. 12. Rom. 14. 19. â— Vile Harme nop lib. 1. cit 1. sect 28. T. C. lib. 3. p. 178. * T. C. lib. 3. p. 177. It is not so convenient that the Minister having so many necessary points to bestow his time in should be driven to spend it in giving warning of not abusing them of which although they were used to the best there is no probe Our Ceremonies excepted against for that some Churches Reformed before ours have cast cut those things which we notwithstanding their example to the contrary do retain still a T. C. lib 1. p. 133. b 1 Cor. 16. 1. c Can. â—â— The Canon of that Council which is here cicâ—â— doth provide against â—neeling as Prayer on Sundays or for fifty days after Easter on any day and not at the Feast of Pentecost onely d T. C. lib 1. â—â— 182. 183. e Rom. 15.5.7 f 1 Cor. 14. 37. Respon ad Med. a T. C. lib. 1. p. 133. And therefore St. Paul to establish this order in the Church of Corinth that they should make their Gatherings for the Poor upon the first day of the Sabbath which is our Sunday alledgeth this for a Reason that he had so ordained in other Churches b 1 Cor. 16. 1. T. C. lib. 3. p. 133. So that as children of one Father and servants of one Master he will have all the Churches not onely have one â—ict In that they have one word but also wear as it were one Livery in using the same Ceremonies T. C. lib. 1. p. 133. This Rule did the Great Council of Nice fâ—llow c. Die Domini â— per omnem Pentecestem nec de genien be adorare jejunium solvere c. De Cirâ— Miluâ—s T. C. lib. 3. p. 133. If the Ceremonies be alike commodious the latter Churches shou'd conform themselves to the first c. And again The fewer ought to conform themselves unto the more Rom. 16 5. 1 Cor. 14 35. T. C. lib. 3. p. 183. Our Church ought either to shew that they have done evil or else she is sound to be insault that doth not conform her self in that which she cannot deny to be well abrogated A Declaration of the proceedings of the Church of England for establishment of things as they are T. C. lib. 2. p. 29. It may well be their purpose was by that temper of Popish Ceremonies with the Gospel partly the easilier to drew the Papists to the Gospel c partly to redeem Peace thereby T.C. lib. 3. p. 33. T.C. lib. 3. p. 33. August Epist. 118. T. C. lib. 3. p. 131. For indeed it were more sase for us to conform our indifferent Ceremonies to the Turks which are far off then to the Papish which are so near True Religion is the Root of all true Vertues and the stay of all wel-ordered Commonwealâ— a Psal. 144. 1. C. Th. lib. 16. lit 2 Gaudere c gioriare eâ— fide semper volumus scient â— magio relâ—gionibus quaim officiio is labore corporis â—el sudore sosâ—ram rempublicam concineri b Est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Magâ— Moral lib. 1. cap. 1. c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo de Dec. Precept d 2 Chro. 1â— 6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Ethic. lib. 1. cap. 2. Eccles. 12. 10. Wisd. 17.13 Psal. 1. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Ethic. lib. 1. cap. 10. Cas. de Bell. Gâ—â— lib. 6. 2. Wisd. 14.13 1 Chro. 19. 17. The most extream opposite to true Religion is affected Atheism Wisd. 3.21 Such things they imagine and go astray because their own wickedness hath blinded them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Ethic. lib. 6. cap. 3. Susâ—n vers 9. They turned away their minde and cast down their eyes that they might not see Heaven nor remember iust Iudgments Hat est summa delicti nolle agnoscere quim ignorare non possiâ— Cyâ—â— de Idol Vanit 2 Pet. 3.8 Jude vers 38. â—â—â— 3. 29. Vos â—relera â—â—m sli puustis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nos c cogitare pâ—ecorâ— est â— vos conscios rimetis nos etiam coâ—â—cientiam solâ—m sine qua esse non possumus Minu. Fel. in Orâ—av Summum presidium regni est justiâ—io ob apertos tumaltus religio oâ— occultos Carda de Sapien. lib. 3. Of Superstition and the Rooâ— thereof either misguided Zeal or ignorant Feat of Divine glory 2 Chron. 20. 7. Abraham thy friend Wisd. 19. 11. Mark 7.5 Of the Redress of Superstition in Gods Church and concerning the question of this Book a Rom. 12. 1 b Luke 1. 23. Four general Propositions demanding what which may reasonaâ—ly be granted concerning matters of Outward form in the exercise of true Religion And fiftly of a Rule not use nor reasonable in those cases The First Proposition touching Judgment what things are convenient in the outward publick ordering
observe that Discipline nevertheless the Senate of Geneva having required their judgment concerning these three Questions First After what manner by Gods Commandment according to the Scripture and unspotted Religion Excommunication is to be exercised Secondly Whether it may not be exercised some other way then by the Consistory Thirdly What the use of their Churches was to do in this case Answer was returned from the said Churches That they had heard already of those Consistorial Laws and did acknowledge them to be godly Ordinances drawing towards the prescript of the Word of God for which cause that they did not think it good for the Church of Geneva by innovation to change the same but rather to keep them as they were Which answer although not answering unto the former demands but respecting what Mr. Calvin had judged requisite for them to answer was notwithstanding accepted without any further Reply in as much as they plainly saw that when stomach doth strive with wit the match is not equal and so the heat of their former contentions began to slake The present inhabitants of Geneva I hope will not take it in evil part that the faultiness of their people heretofore is by us so far forth laid open as their own Learned Guides and Pastors have thought necessary to discover it unto the World For out of their Books and Writings it is that I have collected this whole Narration to the end it might thereby appear in what sort amongst them that Discipline was planted for which so much contention is raised amongst our selves The Reasons which moved Calvin herein to be so earnest was as Beza himself testifieth For that he saw how needful these Bridles were to be put in the Jaws of that City That which by Wisdom he saw to be requisite for that people was by as great wisdom compassed But wise men are men and the truth is truth That which Calvin did for establishment of his Discipline seemeth more commendable then that which he taught for the countenancing of it established Nature worketh in us all a love to our own Counsels The contradiction of others is a fan to inflame that love Our love set on fire to maintain that which once we have done sharpneth the wit to dispute to argue and by all means to reason for it Wherfore a marvel it were if a man of so great capacity having such incitements to make him desirous of all kinde of furtherances unto his cause could espie in the whole Scripture of God nothing which might breed at the least a probable opinion of likelihood that Divine Authority it self was the same way somewhat inclinable And all which the wit even of Calvin was able from thence to draw by sifting the very utmost sentence and syllable is no more then that certain speeches there are which to him did seem to intimate that all Christian Churches ought to have their Elderships endued with power of Excommunication and that a part of those Elderships every where should be chosen out from amongst the Laity after that Form which himself had framed Geneva unto But what Argument are ye able to shew whereby it was ever proved by Calvin that any one sentence of Scripture doth necessarily inforce these things or the rest wherein your opinion concurreth with his against the Orders of your own Church We should be injurious unto Vertue it self if we did derogate from them whom their industry hath made great Two things of principal moment there are which have deservedly procured him honor throughout the World The one his exceeding pains in composing the Institution of Christian Religion the other his no less industrious travels for Exposition of holy Scripture according unto the same Institutions In which two things whosoever they were that after him bestowed their labor he gained the advantage of prejudice against them if they gainsaid and of glory above them if they consented His Writings published after the question about that Discipline was once begun omit not any the least occasion of extolling the use and singular necessity thereof Of what account the Master of Sentences was in the Church of Rome the same and more amongst the Preachers of Reformed Churches Calvin had purchased So that the perfectest Divines were judged they which were skilfullest in Calvins Writings His Books almost the very Canon to judge both Doctrine and Discipline by French Churches both under others abroad and at home in their own Countrey all cast according unto that mold which Calvin had made The Church of Scotland in erecting the Fabrick of their Reformation took the self-same pattern till at lenght the Discipline which was at the first so weak that without the staff of their approbation who were not subject unto it themselves it had not brought others under subjection began now to challenge Universal Obedience and to enter into open conflict with those very Churches which in desperate extremity had been relievers of it To one of those Churches which lived in most peaceable sort and abounded as well with men for their learning in other Professions singular as also with Divines whose equals were not elswhere to be found a Church ordered by Gualters Discipline and not by that which Geneva adoreth Unto this Church of Heidelburgh there cometh one who craving leave to dispute publickly defendeth with open disdain of their Government that to a Minister with his Eldership power is given by the Law of God to Excommunicate whomsoever yea even Kings and Princes themselves Here were the seeds sown of that controversie which sprang up between Beza and Erastus about the Matter of Excommunication Whether there ought to be in all Churches an Eldership having power to Excommunicate and a part of that Eldership to be of necessity certain chosen out from amongst the Laity for that purpose In which Disputation they have as to me it seemeth divided very equally the Truth between them Beza most truly maintaining the necessity of Excommunication Erastus as truly the non-necessity of Lay-Elders to be Ministers thereof Amongst our selves there was in King Edwards days some question moved by reason of a few mens scrupulosity touching certain things And beyond Seas of them which fled in the days of Queen Mary some contenting themselves abroad with the use of their own Service Book at home authorized before their departure out of the Realm others liking better the Common Prayer Book of the Church of Geneva translated Those smaller Contentions before begun were by this me an somewhat increased Under the happy Reign of Her Majesty which now is the greatest matter a while contended for was the wearing of the Cap and Surpless till there came Admonitions directed unto the High Court of Parliament by men who concealing their names thought it glory enough to discover their mindes and affections which now were universally bent even against all the Orders and Laws wherein this Church is found uncomformable to the Platform of Geneva Concerning the Defender of
necessary are found to be thence collected onely by poor and marvellous slight conjectures I need not give instance in any one sentence so alledged for that I think the instance in any alledged otherwise a thing not easie to be given A very strange thing sure it were that such a Discipline as ye speak of should be taught by Christ and his Apostles in the Word of God and no Church ever have found it out nor received it till this present time Contrariwise the Government against which ye bend your selves be observed every where throughout all generations and ages of the Christian World no Church ever perceiving the Word of God to be against it We require you to finde out but one Church upon the face of the whole Earth that hath been ordered by your Discipline or hath not been ordered by ours that is to say By Episcopal Regiment sithence the time that the Blessed Apostles were here conversant Many things out of Antiquity ye bring as if the purest times of the Church had observed the self-same Orders which you require and as though your desire were that the Churches of old should be patterns for us to follow and even Glasses wherein we might see the practice of that which by you is gathered out of Scripture But the truth is ye mean nothing less All this is done for fashion sake onely for ye complain of in as of an injury that men should be willed to seek for examples and patterns of Government in any of those times that have been before Ye plainly hold that from the very Apostles times till this present age wherein your selves imagine ye have sound out aright pattern of sound Discipline there never was any time safe to be followed which thing ye thus endeavor to prove Out of Egesippus ye say that Eusebius writeth How although as long as the Apostles lived the Church did remain a pure Virgin yet after the death of the Apostles and after they were once gone whom God vouchsafed to make Hearers of the Divine Wisdom with their own ears the placing of wicked Errors began to come into the Church Clement also in a certain place to confirm That there was corruption of Doctrine immediately after the Apostles times alledgeth the Proverb That there are few Sons like their Fathers Socrates saith of the Church of Rome and Alexandria the most famous Churches in the Apostles times that about the year 430. the Roman and Alexandrian Bishops leaving the Sacred Function were degenerate to a Secular Rule or Dominion Hereupon ye conclude that it is not safe to fetch our Government from any other then the Apostles times Wherein by the way it may be noted that in proposing the Apostles times as a pattern for the Church to follow though the desire of you all be one the drift and purpose of you all is not one The chiefest thing which Lay-Reformers yawn for is that the Clergy may through Conformity in State and Condition be Apostolical poor as the Apostles of Christ were poor In which one circumstance if they imagine so great perfection they must think that Church which hath such store of Mendicant Fryers a Church in that respect most happy Were it for the glory of God and the good of his Church indeed that the Clergy should be left even as bare as the Apostles when they had neither staff nor scrip that God which should lay upon them the condition of his Apostles would I hope endue them with the self-same affection which was in that holy Apostle whose words concerning his own right-vertuous contentment of heart As well how to want as how to abound are a most fit Episcopal emprese The Church of Christ is a Body Mystical A Body cannot stand unless the parts thereof be proportionable Let it therefore be required on both parts at the hands of the Clergy to be in meanness of state like the Apostles at the hands of the Laity to be as they were who lived under the Apostles And in this Reformation there will be though little Wisdom yet some Indifferency But your Reformation which are of the Clergy if yet it displease you not that I should say ye are of the Clergy seemeth to aim at a broader mark Te think that he which will perfectly reform must bring the Form of Church-Discipline unto the State which then it was at A thing neither possible nor certain nor absolutely convenient Concerning the first what was used in the Apostles times the Scripture fully declareth not so that making their times the Rule and Canon of Church Polity ye make a Rule which being not possible to be fully known is as impossible to be kept Again Sith the later even of the Apostles own times had that which in the former was not thought upon in this general proposing of the Apostles times there is no certainty which should be followed especially seeing that ye give us great cause to doubt how far ye allow those times For albeit the lover of Antichristian building were not ye say as then set up yet the Foundations thereof were secretly and under the ground laid in the Apostles times So that all other times ye plainly reject and the Apostles own times ye approve with marvellous great suspition leaving it intricate and doubtful wherein we are to keep our selves unto the pattern of their times Thirdly Whereas it is the error of the common multitude to consider onely what hath been of old and if the same were well to see whether still it continue if not to condemn that presently which is and never to search upon what ground or consideration the Change might grow Such rudeness cannot be in you so well born with whom Learning and Iudgment hath enabled much more soundly to discern how far the times of the Church and the Orders thereof may alter without offence True it is the ancienter the better Ceremonies of Religion are Howbeit not absolutely true and without exception but true onely so far forth as those different ages do agree in the state of those things for which at the first those Rites Orders and Ceremonies were instituted In the Apostlâ—s times that was harmless which being now revived would be scandalous as their Oscula Sancta Those Feasts of Charity which being instituted by the Apostles were retained in the Church long after are not now thought any where needful What man is there of understanding unto whom it is not manifest how the way of providing for the Clergy by Tithes the device of Alms-houses for the Poor the sorting out of the people into their several Parisoâ—s together with sunury other things which the Apostles times could not have being now established are much more convenient and fit for the Church of Christ then if the same should be taken away for Conformities sake with the antientest and first times The Orders therefore which were observed in the Apostles times are not to be urged as a Rule
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ did not prove it if so be the Prophet David meant them of himself This Exposition therefore they plainly disprove and shew by manifest Reason that of David the words of David could not possibly be meant Exclude the use of Natural reasoning about the sense of holy Scripture concerning the Articles of our Faith and then that the Scripture doth concern the Articles of our Faith who can assure us That which by right Exposition buildeth up Christian Faith being misconstrued breedeth Error between true and false construction the difference Reason must shew Can Christian men perform that which Peter requireth at their hands Is it possible they should both believe and be able without the use of Reason to render a Reason of their belief a Reason sound and sufficient to answer them that demand it be they of the same Faith with us or enemies thereunto May we cause our Faith without Reason to appear reasonable in the eyes of men This being required even of Learners in the School of Christ the duty of their Teachers in bringing them unto such ripeness must needs be somewhat more then onely to read the Sentences of Scripture and then Paraphrastically to scholy them to vary them with sundry Forms of speech without arguing or disputing about any thing which they contain This method of teaching may commend it self unto the World by that easiness and facility which is in it but a Law or a Pattern it is not as some do imagine for all men to follow that will do good in the Church of Christ. Our Lord and Saviour himself did hope by disputation to do some good yea by disputation not onely of but against the truth albeit with purpose for the truth That Christ should be the Son of David was truth yet against this truth our Lord in the Gospel objecteth If Christ be the Son of David how doth David call him Lord There is as yet no way known how to dispute or to determine of things disputed without the use of Natural Reason If we please to adde unto Christ their example who followed him as near in all things as they could the Sermon of Paul and Barnabas set down in the Acts where the people would have offered unto them Sacrifice in that Sermon what is there but onely Natural Reason to disprove their act O men why do ye these things We are men even subject to the self-same Passions with you We Preach unto you to leave these Vanities and to turn to the living God the God that hath not left himself without witness in that he hath done good to the World giving rain and fruitful Seasons filling our hearts with joy and gladness Neither did they onely use Reason in winning such unto a Christian belief as were yet thereto unconverted but with Believers themselves they followed the self-same course In that great and solemn Assembly of Believing Jews how doth Peter prove that the Gentiles were partakers of the Grace of God as well as they but by Reason drawn from those effects which were apparently known amongst them God which knoweth the hearts hath born them witness in giving unto them the Holy Ghost as unto you The light therefore which the Star of Natural Reason and Wisdom casteth is too bright to be obscured by the mist of a word or two uttered to diminish that opinion which justly hath been received concerning the force and vertue thereof even in matters that touch most nearly the principal duties of men and the glory of the Eternal God In all which hitherto hath been spoken touching the force and use of Mans Reason in things Divine I must crave that I be not so understood or construed as if any such thing by vertue thereof could be done without the aid and assistance of Gods most blessed Spirit The thing we have handled according to the question moved about it which question is Whether the Light of Reason be so pernicious that in devising Laws for the Church men ought not by it to search what may be fit and convenient For this cause therefore we have endeavored to make it appear how in the Nature of Reason it self there is no impediment but that the self-same Spirit which revealeth the things that God hath set down in his Law may also be thought to aid and direct men in finding out by the Light of Reason what Laws are expedient to be made for the guiding of his Church over and besides them that are in Scripture Herein therefore we agree with those men by whom Humane Laws are defined to be Ordinances which such as have lawful Authority given them for that purpose do probably draw from the Laws of Nature and God by discourse of Reason aided with the influence of Divine Grace And for that cause it is not said amiss touching Ecclesiastical Canons That by instinct of the Holy Ghost they have been made and consecrated by the reverend acceptation of the World 9. Laws for the Church are not made as they should be unless the Makers follow such direction as they ought to be guided by Wherein that Scripture standeth not the Church of God in any stead or serveth nothing at all to direct but may be let pass as needless to be consulted with we judge it prophane impious and irreligious to think For although it were in vain to make Laws which the Scripture hath already made because what we are already there commanded to do on our parts there resteth nothing but onely that it be executed yet because both in that which we are commanded it concerneth the duty of the Church by Law to provide that the loosness and slackness of men may not cause the Commandments of God to be unexecuted and a number of things there are for which the Scripture hath not provided by any Law but left them unto the careful discretion of the Church we are to search how the Church in these cases may be well directed to make that provision by Laws which is most convenient and fit And what is so in these cases partly Scripture and partly Reason must teach to discern Scripture comprehending Examples and Laws Laws some Natural and some Positive Examples neither are there for all cases which require Laws to be made and when they are they can but direct as Precedents onely Natural Laws direct in such sort that in all things we must for ever do according unto them Positive so that against them in no case we may do any thing as long as the Will of God is that they should remain in force Howbeit when Scripture doth yield us Precedents how far forth they are to be followed when it giveth Natural Laws what particular order is thereunto most agreeable when Positive which way to make Laws unrepugnant unto them yea though all these should want yet what kinde of Ordinances would be most for that good of the Church which is aimed at all this
the one and the other Were Christians here forbidden to communicate in Unleavened Bread because the Jews did so being Enemies of the Church He which attentively shall weigh the words will suspect that they rather forbid communion with Jews then imitation of them much more if with these two Decrees be compared a third in the Council of Constantinople Let no man either of the Clergy or Laity eat the Unleavened of the Iews nor enter into any familiarity with them nor send for them in sickness nor take Physick at their hands nor as much as go into the â—ath with them If any do otherwise being a Clergy-man let him be deposed if being a Lay-person let Excommunication be his punishment If these Canons were any Argument that they which made them did utterly condemn similitude between the Christians and Jews in things indifferent appertaining unto Religion either because the Jews were enemies unto the Church or else for that their Ceremonies were abrogated these Reasons had been as strong and effectual against their keeping the Feast of Easter on the same day the Jews kept theirs and not according to the Custom of the West Church For so they did from the first beginning till Constantine's time For in these two things the East and West Churches did interchangeably both confront the Jews and concur with them the West Church using Unleavened Bread as the Jews in their Passover did but differing from them in the day whereon they kept the Feast of Easter contrariwise the East Church celebrating the Feast of Easter on the same day with the Jews but not using the same kinde of Bread which they did Now â— so be the East Church in using Leavened Bread had done well either for that the Jews were enemies to the Church or because Jewish Ceremonies were abrogated How should we think but that Victor the Bishop of Rome whom all judicious men do in that behalf disallow did well to be so vehement and fierce in drawing them to the like dissimilitude for the Feast of Easter Again If the West Churches had in either of those two respects affected dissimilitude with the Jews in the Feast of Easter What reason had they to draw the Eastern Church herein unto them which reason did not enforce them to frame themselves unto it in the ceremony of Leavened Bread Difference in Rites should breed no controversie between one Church and another but if controversie be once bred it must be ended The Feast of Easter being therefore litigious in the days of Constantine who honored of all other Churches most the Church of Rome which Church was the Mother from whose Brests he had drawn that food which gave him nourishment to eternal life fith Agreement was necessary and yet impossible unless the one part were yielded unto his desire was that of the two the Eastern Church should rather yield And to this end he useth sundry perswasive speeches When Stephen Bishop of Rome going about to shew what the Catholick Church should do had alledged what the Hereticks themselves did namely That they received such as came unto them and offered not to Baptize them anew St. Cyprian being of a contrary minde to him about the matter at that time in question which was Whether Hereticks converted ought to be rebaptized yea or no answered the Allegation of Pope Stephen with exceeding great stomach saying To this degree of wretchedness the Church of God and Spouse of Christ is now come that her ways she frameth to the example of Hereticks that to celebrate the Sacraments which Heavenly Instruction hath delivered light it self doth borrow from darkness and Christians do that which Antichrists do Now albeit Constantine have done that to further a better cause which Cyprian did to countenance a worse namely the Rebaptization of Hereticks and have taken advantage at the odiousness of the Jews as Cyprian of Hereticks because the Eastern Church kept their Feast of Easter always the Fourteenth day of the Moneth as the Jews did what day of the week soever it fell or howsoever Constantine did take occasion in the handling of that cause to say It is unworthy to have any thing common with that spightful Nation of the Iews Shall every Motive Argument used in such kinde of Conferences be made a rule for others still to conclude the like by concerning all things of like nature when as probable enducements may lead them to the contrary Let both this and other Allegations suitable unto it cease to bark any longer idly against that truth the course and passage whereof it is not in them to hinder 12. But the weightiest Exception and of all the most worthy to be respected is against such kinde of Ceremonies as have been so grosly and shamefully abused in the Church of Rome that were they remain they are scandalous yea they cannot chuse but be stumbling blocks and grievous causes of offence Concerning this point therefore we are first to note What properly it is to be scandalous or offensive Secondly What kinde of Ceremonies are such And thirdly When they are necessarily for remedy thereof to be taken away and when not The common conceit of the vulgar sort is Whensoever they see any thing which they mislike and are angry at to think that every such thing is scandalous and that themselves in this case are the men concerning whom our Saviour spake in so fearful manner saying Whosoever shall scandalize or offend any one of these little ones which believe in me that is as they construe it Whosoever shall anger the meanest and simplest Artizan which carrieth a good minde by not removing out of the Church such Rites and Ceremonies as displease him better he were drowned in the bottom of the Sea But hard were the case of the Church of Christ if this were to scandalize Men are scandalized when they are moved led and provoked unto sin At good things evil men may take occasion to do evil and so Christ himself was a Rock of Offence in Israel they taking occasion at his poor estate and at the ignominy of his Cross to think him unworthy the Name of that Great and Glorious Mesias whom the Prophets describe in such ample and stately terms But that which we therefore term offensive because it inviteth men to offend and by a dumb kinde of provocation encourageth moveth or any way leadeth unto sin must of necessity be acknowledged actively scandalous Now some things are so even by their very essence and nature so that wheresoever they be found they are not neither can be without this force of provocation unto evil of which kinde all examples of sin and wickedness are Thus David was scandalous in that bloody act whereby he caused the enemies of God to be blasphemous Thus the whole state of Israel was scandalous when their publick disorders caused the Name of God to be ill spoken of amongst the Nations It is of this kinde that Tertullian
Lessons Human with Sacred at such time as the one both affected the Credit and usurped the Name of the other as by the Canon of a later Council providing remedy for the self-same Evil and yet allowing the old Ecclesiastical Books to be read it doth more plainly and clearly appear neither can be construed nor should be urged utterly to prejudice our use of those old Ecclesiastical Writings much less of Homilies which were a third kinde of Readings usual in former times a most commendable Institution as well then to supply the casual as now the necessary defect of Sermons In the heat of general Persecution whereunto Christian Belief was subject upon the first promulgation thereof throughout the World it much confirmed the courage and constancy of weaker mindes when publick relation was made unto them after what manner God had been glorified through the sufferings of Martyrs famous amongst them for Holiness during life and at the time of their death admirable in all mens eyes through miraculous evidence of Grace divine assisting them from above For which cause the Vertues of some being thought expedient to be annually had in remembrance above the rest this brought in a fouth kinde of Publick Reading whereby the lives of such Saints and Martyrs had at the time of their yearly Memorials solemn recognition in the Church of God The fond imitation of which laudible Custom being in later Ages resumed where there was neither the like cause to do as the Fathers before had done nor any Care Conscience or Wit in such as undertook to perform that Work some brainless men have by great labour and travel brought to pass that the Church is now ashamed of nothing more than of Saints If therefore Pope Gelasim did so long sithence see those defects of Judgment even then for which the reading of the Acts of Martyrs should be and was at that time forborn in the Church of Rome we are not to marvail that afterwards Legends being grown in a manner to be nothing else but heaps of frivolous and scandalous vanities they have been even with disdain thrown out the very Nests which bred them abhorring them We are not therefore to except only Scripture and to make confusedly all the residue of one sute as if they who abolish Legends could not without incongruity retain in the Church either Homilies or those old Ecclesiastical Books Which Books in case my self did think as some others do safer and better to be left publickly unread nevertheless as in other things of like nature even so in this my private Judgement I should be loath to oppose against the force of their Reverend Authority who rather considering the Divine excellency of some things in all and of all things in certain of those Apocrypha which we publickly read have thought-it better to let them stand as a lift or marginal border unto the Old Testament and though with Divine yet as Human compositions to grant at the least unto certain of them publick audience in the House of God For in as much as the due estimation of heavenly Truth dependeth wholly upon the known and approved authority of those famous Oracles of God it greatly behoveth the Church to have always most especial care lest through confused mixture at any time Human usurp the room and Title of Divine Writings Wherefore albeit for the Peoples more plain instruction as the antient use hath been we read in our Churches certain Books besides the Scripture yet as the Scripture we read them not All men know our professed opinion touching the difference whereby we sever them from the Scripture And if any where it be suspected that some one or other will haply mistake a thing so manifest in every man's eye there is no lett but that as often as those Books are read and need so requireth the style of their difference may expresly be mentioned to barr even all possiblity of Error It being then known that we hold not the Apocrypha for sacred as we do the holy Scripture but for human compositions the subject whereof are sundry Divine matters let there be reason shewed why to read any part of them publickly it should be unlawful or hurtful unto the Church of God I hear it said that many things in them are very frivolous and unworthy of publick audience yea many contrary plainly contrary to the holy Scripture Which hitherto is neither sufficiently proved by him who saith it and if the proofs thereof were strong yet the very allegation it self is weak Let us therefore suppose for I will not demand to what purpose it is that against our Custom of reading Books not Canonical they bring exceptions of matter in those Books which we never use to read suppose I say that what faults soever they have observed throughout the passages of all those Books the same in every respect were such as neither could be construed nor ought to be censured otherwise than even as themselves pretend Yet as men through too much haste oftentimes forget the Errand whereabout they should go so here it appeareth that an eager desire to take together whatsoever might prejudice or any way hinder the credit of Apocryphal Books hath caused the Collector's Pen so to run as it were on Wheels that the minde which should guide it had no leisure to think whether that which might haply serve to with-hold from giving them the Authority which belongeth unto Sacred Scripture and to cut them off from the Canon would as effectually serve to shut them altogether out of the Church and to withdraw from granting unto them that publick use wherein they are only held as profitable for instruction Is it not acknowledged that those Books are Holy that they are Ecclesiastical and Sacred that to term them Divine as being for their excellency next unto them which are properly so termed is no way to honour them above desert yea even that the whole Church of Christ as well at the first as sithence hath most worthily approved their fitness for the publick informations of Life and manners Is not thus much I say acknowledged and that by them who notwithstanding receive not the same for any part of Canonical Scripture by them who deny not but that they are Faulty by them who are ready enough to give instances wherein they seem to contain matter scarce agreeable with holy Scripture So little doth such their supposed Faultiness in moderate mens Judgments inforce the removal of them out of the House of God that still they are judged to retain worthily those very Titles of Commendation than which there cannot greater be given to Writings the Authors whereof are Men. As in truth if the Scripture it self ascribing to the Persons of Men Righteousness in regard of their manifold vertues may not rightly be construed as though it did thereby clear them and make them quite free from all faults no reason we should judge
made a Mother over his Family Last of all she received such advancement of state as things annexed unto his person might augment her with yea a right of participation was thereby given her both in him and even in all things which were his This doth somewhat the more-plainly appear by adding also that other Clause With all my worldy goods I thee endow The former branch having granted the principal the latter granteth that which is annexed thereunto To end the Publick Solemnity of Marriage with receiving the Blessed Sacrament is a Custom so Religious and so holy that if the Church of England be blameable in this respect it is not for suffering it to be so much but rather for not providing that it may be more put in Me. The Laws of Romulus concerning Marriage are therefore extolled above the rest amongst the Heathens which were before in that they established the use of certain special Solemnities whereby the mindes of men were drawn to make the greater conscience of Wedlock and to esteem the Bond thereof a thing which could not be without impiety dissolved If there be any thing in Christian Religion strong and effectual to like purpose it is the Sacrament of the holy Eucharist in regard of the force whereof Tertullian breaketh out into these words concerning Matrimony therewith sealed Unde sufficiam ad enarrandam faelicitatem ejus Matrimonii quod Ecclesia conciliat confirmat Oblatio I know not which way I should be able to shew the happiness of that Wedlock the knot whereof the Church doth fasten and the Sacrament of the Church confirm Touching Marriage therefore let thus much be sufficient 74. The Fruit of Marriage is Birth and the Companion of Birth Travail the grief whereof being so extream and the danger always so great Dare we open our mouths against the things that are holy and presume to censure it as a fault in the Church of Christ That Women after their Deliverance do publickly shew their thankful mindes unto God But behold What reason there is against it Forsâ—â—th if there should be solemn and express giving of Thanks in the Church for every benefit either equal or greater then this which any singular person in the Church doth receive We should not onely have no Preaching of the Word nor Ministring of the Sacraments but we should not have so much leisure as to do any corporal or bodily work but should be like those Massilian Hereticks which do nothing else but pray Surely better a great deal to be like unto those Hereticks which do nothing else but pray then those which do nothing else but quarrel Their heads it might happily trouble somewhat more then as yet they are aware of to finde out so many benefits greater then this or equivalent thereunto for which if so be our Laws did require solemn and express Thanksgivings in the Church the same were like to prove a thing so greatly cumbersome as is pretended But if there be such store of Mercies even inestimable poured every day upon thousands as indeed the Earth is full of the Blessings of the Lord which are day by day renewed without number and above measure shall it not be lawful to cause solemn Thanks to be given unto God for any benefit then which greater or whereunto equal are received no Law binding men in regard thereof to perform the like duty Suppose that some Bond there be that tieth us at certain times to mention publickly the names of sundry our Benefactors Some of them it may be are such That a day would scarcely serve to reckon up together with them the Catalogue of so many men besides as we are either more or equally beholden unto Because no Law requireth this impossible labor at our hands shall we therefore condemn that Law whereby the other being possible and also dutiful is enjoyned us So much we ow to the Lord of Heaven that we can never sufficiently praise him nor give him thanks for half those benefits for which this Sacrifice were most due Howbeit God forbid we should cease performing this duty when publick Order doth draw us unto it when it may be so easily done when it hath been so long executed by devout and vertuous people God forbid that being so many ways provoked in this case unto so good a duty we should omit it onely because there are other cases of like nature wherein we cannot so conveniently or at leastwise do not perform the same most vertuous Office of Piety Wherein we trust that as the action it self pleaseth God so the order and manner thereof is not such as may justly offend any It is but an over-flowing of Gall which causeth the Womans absence from the Church during the time of her lying in to be traduced and interpreted as though she were so long judged unholy and were thereby shut out or sequestred from the House of God according to the ancient Levitical Law Whereas the very Canon Law it self doth not so hold but directly professeth the contrary She is not barred from thence in such sort as they interpret it nor in respect of any unholiness forbidden entrance into the Church although her abstaining from publick Assembles and her abode in separation for the time be most convenient To scoff at the manner of attire then which there could be nothing devised for such a time more grave and decent to make it a token of some folly committed for which they are loth to shew their faces argueth that great Divines are sometime more merry then wise As for the Women themselves God accepting the service which they faithfully offer unto him it is no great disgrace though they suffer pleasant witted men a little to intermingle with zeal scorn The name of Oblations applied not onely here to those small and petit payments which yet are a part of the Ministers right but also generally given unto all such allowances as serve for their needful maintenance is both ancient and convenient For as the life of the Clergy is spent in the Service of God so it is sustained with his Revenue Nothing therefore more proper then to give the name of Oblations to such payments in token that we offer unto him whatsoever his Ministers receive 75. But to leave this there is a duty which the Church doth ow to the faithful departed wherein for as much as the Church of England is said to do those things which are though not unlawful yet inconvenient because it appointeth a prescript Form of Service at Burials suffereth mourning Apparel to be worn and permitteth Funeral Sermons a word or two concerning this point will be necessary although it be needless to dwell long upon it The end of Funeral duties is first to shew that love towards the party deceased which Nature requireth then to do him that honor which is fit both generally for man and particularly for the quality of his person Last of all to
authority those actions that appertain to our Place and Calling can our ears admit such a speech uttered in the reverend performance of that Solemnity or can we at any time renew the memory and enter into serious cogitation thereof but with much admiration and joy Remove what these foolish words do imply and what hath the Ministry of God besides wherein to glory Whereas now forasmuch as the Holy Ghost which our Saviour in his first Ordinations gave doth no lesse concurr with Spiritual vocations throughout all ages than the Spirit which God derived from Moses to them that assisted him in his Government did descend from them to their Successors in like Authority and Place we have for the least and meanest Duties performed by vertue of Ministerial power that to dignifie grace and authorize them which no other Offices on Earth can challenge Whether we Preach Pray Baptize Communicate Condemn give Absolution or whatsoever as Disposers of God's Mysteries ourwords judgemnts acts and deeds are not ours but the Holy Ghost's Enough If unfeigaedly and in heart we did believe it enough to banish whatsoever may justly be thought corrupt either in bestowing or in using or in esteeming the same otherwise than is meet For prophanely to bestow or loosely to use or vilely to esteem of the Holy Ghost we all in shew and profession abhor Now because the Ministerie is an Office of dignitie and honour some are doubtful whether any man may seek for it without offence or to speak more properly doubtful they are not but rather bold to accuse our Discipline in this respect as not only permitting but requiring also ambitious suits or other oblique waies or means whereby to obtain it Against this they plead that our Saviour did stay till his Father sent him and the Apostles till he them that the antient Bishops in the Church of Christ were examples and patterns of the same modesty Whereupon in the end they insert Let see therefore at the length amend that custom of repairing from all parts unto the Bishop at the day of Ordination and of seeking to obtain Orders Let the custom of bringing commendatory Letters be removed let men keep themselves at home expecting there the voyce of God and the authority of such as may call them to undertake charge Thus severely they censure and control ambition if it be ambition which they take upon them to reprehend For of that there is cause to doubt Ambition as we understand it hath been accounted a Vice which seeketh after Honours inordinately Ambitious mindes esteeming it their greatest happiness to be admired reverenced and adored above others use all means lawful and unlawful which may bring them to high rooms But as for the power of Order considered by it self and as in this case it must be considered such reputation it hath in the eye of this present World that they which affect it rather need encouragement to bear contempt than deserve blame as men that carry aspiring mindes The work whereunto this power serveth is commended and the desire thereof allowed by the Apostle for good Nevertheless because the burthen thereof is heavy and the charge great it commeth many times to pass that the mindes even of virtuous men are drawn into clean contrary affections some in humility declining that by reason of hardness which others in regard of goodness onely do with servent alacrity cover So that there is not the least degree in this service but it may be both in reverence shunned and of very devotion longed for If then the desire thereof may be holy religious and good may not the profession of that desire be so likewise We are not to think it so long good as it is dissembled and evil if once we begin to open it And allowing that it may be opened without ambition what offence I beseeth you is there in opening it there where it may be furthered and satisfied in case they to whom it appertaineth think meet In vain are those desires allowed the accomplishment whereof it is not lawful for men to seek Power therefore of Ecclesiastical order may be desired the desire thereof may be professed they which profess themselves that way inclined may endeavour to bring their desires to effect and in all this no necessity of evil Is it the bringing of testimonial Letters wherein so great obliquity consisteth What more simple more plain more harmless more agreeable with the law of common humanity than that men where they are not known use for their easier access the credit of such as can best give testimony of them Letters of any other construction our Church-discipline alloweth not and these to allow is neither to require ambitious saings not to approve any indirect or unlawful act The Prophet Esay receiving his message at the hands of God and his charge by heavenly vision heard the voice of the Lord saying Whom shall I send Who shall go for us Whereunto he recordeth his own answer Then I said Here Lord I am send me Which in effect is the Rule and Canon whereby touching this point the very order of the Church is framed The appointment of times for solemn Ordination is but the publick demand of the Church in the name of the Lord himself Whom shall I send who shall go for us The confluence of men whose inclinations are bent that way is but the answer thereunto whereby the labours of sundry being offered the Church hath freedom to take whom her Agents in such case think meet and requisite As for the example of our Saviour Christ who took not to himself this honour to be made our High Priest but received the same from him which said Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec his waiting and not attempting to execute the Office till God saw convenient time may serve in reproof of usurped honours for as much as we ought not of our own accord to assume dignities whereunto we are not called as Christ was But yet it should be withal considered that a proud usurpation without any orderly calling is one thing and another the bare declaration of willingness to obtain admittance which Willingness of minde I suppose did not want in him whose answer was to the voice of his heavenly calling Behold I am come to do thy will And had it been for him as it is for us expedient to receive his Commission signed with the hands of men to seek it might better have beseemed his humility than it doth our boldness to reprehend them of Pride and Ambition that make no worse kinde of suits than by Letters of information Himself in calling his Apostles prevented all cogitations of theirs that way to the end it might truly be said of them Ye chose not me but I of mine own voluntary motion made choice of you Which kinde of undesired nomination to Ecclesiastical Places hefell divers of the most famous amongst the antient Fathers of the Church
referring the name of a Title especially to the maintenance of the Minister infringe all Ordinations made except they which receive Orders be first intituled to a competent Ecclesiastical Benefice and which is most ridiculously strange except besides their present Title to some such Benefice they have likewise some other Title of Annual Rent or Pension whereby they may he relieved in case through infirmity sickness or other lawful impediment they grow unable to execute their Ecclesiastical Function So that every man lawfully ordained must bring a Bow which hath two strings a Title of present Right and another to provide for future possibility or chance Into these absurdities and follies they slide by mis-conceiving the true purpose of certain Canons which indeed have forbidden to ordain a Minister without a Title not that simply it is unlawful so to ordain but because it might grow to an inconvenience if the Church did not somewhat restrain that liberty For seeing they which have once received Ordination cannot again return into the World it behoveth them which Ordain to fore-see how such shall be afterwards able to live lest their poverty and destitution should redound to the disgrace and discredit of their Calling Which evil prevented those very Lawes which in that respect forbid doe expresly admit Ordinations to be made at large and without Title namely if the Party so ordained have of his own for the sustenance of this life or if the Bishop which giveth him Orders will finde him competent allowance till some place of Ministration from whence his maintenance may arise be provided for him or if any other fit and sufficient means be had against the danger before mentioned Absolutely therefore it is not true that any antient Canon of the Church which is or ought to be with us in force doth make Ordinations at large unlawful and as the state of the Church doth stand they are most necessary If there be any conscience in men â—ouching that which they write or speak let them consider as well what the present condition of all things doth now suffer as what the Ordinances of former Ages did appoint as well the weight of those Causes for which our Affairs have altered as the reasons in regard whereof our Fathers and Predecessours did sometime strictly and severely keep that which for us to observe now is neither meet nor alwayes possible In this our present Cause and Controversie whether any not having Title of Right to a Benefice may be lawfully ordained a Minister is it not manifest in the eyes of all men that whereas the name of a Benefice doth signifie some standing Ecclesiastical Revenue taken out of the Treasure of God and allotted to a Spiritual Person to the end he may use the same and enjoy it as his own for term of life unless his default cause Deprivation The Clergy for many years after Christ had no other Benefices but onely their Canonical Portions or monethly Dividends allowed them according to their several degrees and qualities out of the Common Stock of such Gifts Oblations and Tythes as the servour of Christian Piety did then yield Yea that even when Ministers had their Churches and Flocks assigned unto them in several yet for maintenance of life their former kinde of allowance continued till such time as Bishops and Churches Cathedral being sufficiently endowed with Lands other Presbyters enjoyed in stead of their first Benefices the Tythes and Profits of their own Congregations whole to themselves Is it not manifest that in this Realm and so in other the like Dominions where the tenure of Lands is altogether grounded on Military Laws and held as in Fee under Princes which are not made Heads of the People by force of voluntary Election but born the Soveraign Lords of those whole and intire Territories which Territories their famous Progenitours obtaining by way of Conquest retained what they would in their own hands and divided the rest to others with reservation of Soveraignty and Capital Interest the building of Churches and consequently the assigning of either Parishes or Benefices was a thing impossible without consent of such as were principal Owners of Land in which consideration for their more encouragement hereunto they which did so farr benefit the Church had by common consent granted as great equity and reason was a right for them and their Heirs till the Worlds end to nominate in those Benefices men whose quality the Bishop allowing might admit them thereunto Is it not manifest that from hence inevitably such inequality of Parishes hath grown as causeth some through the multitude of people which have refort unto one Church to be more than any one man can welld and some to be of that nature by reason of Chappels annex'd that they which are Incumbents should wrong the Church if so be they had not certain Stipendaries under them because where the Crops of the Profit or Benefice is but one the Title can be but one man 's and yet the charge may require more Not to mention therefore any other reason whereby it may clearly appear how expedient it is and profitable for this Church to admit Ordinations without Title this little may suffice to declare how impertinent their allegations against it are out of antient Canons how untrue their confident asseverations that onely through negligence of Popish Prelates the custom of making such kinde of Ministers hath prevailed in the Church of Rome against their Canons and that with us it is expresly against the Laws of our own Government when a Minister doth serve as a Stipendary Curate which kinde of Service neverthelesse the greatest Rabbins of that part doe altogether follow For howsoever they are loath peradventure to be named Curates Stipendaries they are and the labour they bestow is in other mens Cures a thing not unlawfull for them to doe yet unseemly for them to condemn which practise it I might here discover the like over-sight throughout all their Discourses made in behalf of the Peoples pretended right to elect their Ministers before the Bishop may lawfully ordain But because we have otherwhere at large disputed of popular Elections and of the right of Patronage wherein is drowned whatsoever the people under any pretence of colour may seem to challenge about Admission and Choyce of the Pastours that shall feed their Souls I cannot see what one Duty there is which alwayes ought to goe before Ordination but onely care of the Partie's worthinesse as well for integrity and vertue as knowledge yea for vertue more in as much as defect of knowledge may sundry wayes be supplyed but the scandal of vicious and wicked life is a deadly evil 81. The truth is that of all things hitherto mentioned the greatest is that threefold blott or blemish of notable ignorance unconscionable absence from the Cures whereof men have taken charge and unsatiable hunting after Spiritual preferments without either care or conscience of the publick good Whereof to the end
of Religion before admission of degrees to Learning or to any Ecclesiastical Living the custom of reading the same Articles and of approving them in publick Assemblies wheresoever men have Benefices with Cure of Souls the order of testifying under their hands allowance of the Book of Common-Prayer and the Book of ordaining Ministers finally the Discipline and moderate severity which is used either in other wise correcting or silencing them that trouble and disturb the Church with Doctrines which tend unto Innovation it being better that the Church should want altogether the benefit of such mens labours than endure the mischief of their inconformity to good Laws in which case if any repine at the course and proceedings of Justice they must learn to content themselves with the answer of M. Curius which had sometime occasion to cutt off one from the Body of the Common-wealth in whose behalf because it might have been pleaded that the party was a man serviceable he therefore began his judicial sentence with this preamble Non esse open Reip. to cive qui parers nescires The Common-wealth needeth men of quality yet never those men which have not learned how to obey But the wayes which the Church of England hath taken to provide that they who are Teachers of others may do it soundly that the Purity and Unity as well of antient Discipline as Doctrine may be upheld that avoiding singularities we may all glorifie God with one heart and one tongue they of all men do least approve that do most urge the Apostle's Rule and Canon For which cause they alledge it not so much to that purpose as to prove that unpreaching Ministers for so they term them can have no true nor lawful calling in the Church of God Sainst Augustine hath said of the will of man that simply to will proceedeth from Nature but our well-willing is from Grace We say as much of the Minister of God publickly to teach and instruct the Church is necessary in every Ecclesiastical Minister but ability to teach by Sermons is a Grace which God doth bestow on them whom he maketh sufficient for the commendable discharge of their duty That therefore wherein a Minister differeth from other Christian men is not as some have childishly imagined the sound-preaching of the Word of God but as they are lawfully and truly Governours to whom authority of Regiment is given in the Common-wealth according to the order which Polity hath set so Canonical Ordination in the Church of Christ is that which maketh a lawful Minister as touching the validity of any Act which appertaineth to that Vocation The cause why Saint Paul willed Timothy not to be over-hasty in ordaining Ministers was as we very well may conjecture because imposition of hands doth consecrate and make them Ministers whether they have gifts and qualities fit for the laudable discharge of their Duties or no. If want of Learning and skill to preach did frustrate their Vocation Ministers ordained before they be grown unto that maturity should receive new Ordination whensoever it chanceth that study and industry doth make them afterwards more able to perform the Office than which what conceit can be more absurd Was not Saint Augustine himself contented to admit an Assistant in his own Church a man of small Erudition considering that what he wanted in knowledge was supplyed by those vertues which made his life a better Orator than more Learning could make others whose conversation was less Holy Were the Priests fithence Moses all able and sufficient men learnedly to interpret the Law of God Or was it ever imagined that this defect should frustrate what they executed and deprive them of right unto any thing they claimed by vertue of their Priesthood Surely as in Magistrates the want of those Gifts which their Office neâ—deth is cause of just imputation of blame in them that wittingly chuse unsufficient and unfit men when they might do otherwise and yet therefore is not their choyce void nor every action of Magistracy frustrate in that respect So whether it were of necessity or even of very carelesnesse that men unable to Preach should be taken in Pastours rooms nevertheless it seemeth to be an errour in them which think that the lack of any such perfection defeateth utterly their Calling To wish that all men were so qualified as their Places and Dignities require to hate all sinister and corrupt dealings which hereunto are any lett to covet speedy redress of those things whatsoever whereby the Church sustaineth detriment these good and vertuous desires cannot offend any but ungodly mindes Notwithstanding some in the true vehemency and others under the fair pretence of these desires have adventured that which is strange that which is violent and unjust There are which in confidence of their general allegations concerning the knowledge the Residence and the single Livings of Ministers presume not onely to annihilate the solemn Ordinations of such as the Church must of force admit but also to urge a kinde of universal proscription against them to set down Articles to draw Commissions and almost to name themselves of the Quorum for inquiry into mens estates and dealings whom at their pleasure they would deprive and make obnoxious to what punishment themselves list and that not for any violation of Laws either Spiritual or Civil but because men have trusted the Laws too farr because they have held and enjoyed the liberty which Law granteth because they had not the wit to conceive as these men do that Laws were made to intrap the simple by permitting those things in shew and appearance which indeed should never take effect for as much as they were but granted with a secret condition to be put in practice If they should be profitable and agreeable with the Word of God which condition failing in all Ministers that cannot Preach in all that are absent from their Livings and in all that have divers Livings for so it must be presumed though never as yet proved therefore as men which have broken the Law of God and Nature they are depriveable at all hours Is this the Justice of that Discipline whereunto all Christian Churches must stoop and sabmit themselves Is this the equity wherewith they labour to reform the World I will no way diminish the force of those Arguments whereupon they ground But if it please them to behold the visage of these Collections in another Glass there are Civil as well as Ecclesiastical Unsufficiencies Non residences and Pluralitiesâ— yea the reasons which Light of Nature hath ministred against both are of such affinity that much less they cannot inforce in the one than in the other When they that bear great Offices be Persons of mean worth the contempt whereinto their authority groweth weakneth the sinews of the whole State Notwithstanding where many Governours are needful and they not many whom their quality cannot commend the penury of worthier must needs make the meaner
her tears Our Lord doth love that many should become suppliant for one In like sort long before him Tertullian Some few assembled make a Church and the Church is as Christ himself When thou dost therefore put forth thy hands to the knees of thy brethren thou touchest Christ it is Christ unto whom thou art a supplicant so when they pour one tears over them it is even Christ that taketh compassion Christ which prayeth when they pray Neither can that easily be denyed for which the Son is himself contented to become a suitor Whereas in these considerations therefore voluntary Penitents had been long accustomed for great and grievous crimes though secret yet openly both to repent and confess as the Canons of Antient Discipline required the Greek Church first and in processe of time the Latine altered this order judging it sufficient and more convenient that such offenders should do Penance and make confession in private onely The cause why the Latins did Leo declareth saying Although the ripeness of faith be commendable which for the fear of God doth not fear to incur shame before all men yet because every ones crimes are not such that it can be free and safe for them to make publication of all things wherein repentance is necessary let a custome so unfit to be kept be abrogated lest many forbear to use remedies of penitency whilst they either blush or are afraid to acquaint their enemies with those acts for which the Laws may take hold upon them Besides it shall win the more Repentance if the Consciences of Sinners be not emptied into the peoples ears And to this only cause doth Sozomen impure the change which the Grecians made by ordaining throughout all Churches certain Penitentiaries to take the Confessions and appoint the Penances of secret offenders Socrates for this also may be true that more inducements then one did set forward an alteration so generally made affirmeth the Grecians and not unlikely to have specially respected therein the occasion which the Novatianists took at the multititude of publick Penitents to insult over the Discipline of the Church against which they still cryed out wheresoever they had time and place He that sheweth Sinners favour doth but teach the innocent to Sin And therefore they themselves admitted no man to their Communion upon any Repentance which once was known to have offended after Baptism making Sinners thereby not the fewer but the closer and the more obdurate how fair soever their pretence might seem The Grecians Canon for some one Presbyter in every Church to undertake the charge of Penitency and to receive their voluntary Confessions which had sinned after Baptism continued in force for the space of above some hundred years till Nectarius and the Bishops of Churches under him begun a second alteration abolishing even that Confession which their Penitentiaries took in private There came to the Penitentiary of the Church of Constantinople a certain Gentlewoman and to him she made particular Confession of her faults committed after Baptism whom thereupon he advised to continue in Fasting and Prayer that as with tongue she had acknowledged her Sins so there might appear likewise in her some work worthy of Repentance But the Gentlewoman goeth forward and detecteth her self of a crime whereby they were forced to dis-robe an Ecclesiastical person that is to degrade a Deacon of the same Church When the matter by this mean came to publick notice the people were in a kind of tumult offended not onely at that which was done but much more because the Church should thereby endure open infamy and scorn The Clergy was perplexed and altogether doubtfull what way to take till one Eudemon born in Alexandria but at that time a Priest in the Church of Constantinople considering that the causes of voluntary Confession whether publick or private was especially to seek the Churches ayd as hath been before declared lest men should either not communicate with others or wittingly hazard their Souls if so be they did communicate and that the inconvenience which grew to the whole Church was otherwise exceeding great but especially grievous by means of so manifold offensive detections which must needs be continually more as the world did it self wax continually worse for Antiquity together with the gravity and severity thereof saith Sozomen had already begun by little and little to degenerate into loose and careless living whereas before offences were less partly through bashfulness in them which open their own faults and partly by means of their great austerity which sate as judges in this business these things Eudaemon having weighed with himself resolved easily the mind of Nectarius that the Penitentiaries office must be taken away and for participation in Gods holy mysteries every man be left to his own Conscience which was as he thought the onely means to free the Church from danger of Obloquie and Disgrace Thus much saith Socrates I am the bolder to relate because I received it from Eudaemons own mouth to whom mine answer was at that time Whether your counsel Sir have been for the Churches good or otherwise God knoweth But I see you have given occasion whereby we shall not now any more reprehend one anothers faults nor observe that Apostolick precept which saith Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of Darknesse but rather be ye also Reprovers of them With Socrates Sozomen both agreeth in the occasion of abolishing Penitentiaries and moreover testifieth also that in his time living with the younger Theodosius the same Abolition did still continue and that the Bishops had in a manner every where followed the example given them by Nectarius Wherefore to implead the truth of this History Cardinal Baronius alledgeeth that Socrates Sozomen and Eudaemon were all Novatianists and that they falsifie in saying for so they report that as many as held the Consubstantial Being of Christ gave their assent to the abrogation of the forehearsed Canon The summe is he would have it taken for a Fable and the World to be perswaded that Nectarius did never any such thing Why then should Socrates first and afterwards Sozomen publish it To please their Pew-fellows the Disciples of Novatien A poor gratification and they very silly Friends that would take Lyes for Good-turns For the more acceptable the Matter was being deemed true the lesse they must needs when they found the contrary either credit or affect him which had deceived them Notwithstanding we know that joy and gladness rising from false information do not onely make men so forward to believe that which they first hear but also apt to scholie upon it and to report as true whatsoever they wish were true But so farr is Socrates from any such purpose that the Fact of Nectarius which others did both like and follow he doth disallow and reprove His speech to Eudemon before set down is proof sufficient that he writeth nothing but what was famously known to all
cruel were a sinne most grievous considering that the people of God should be easie to relent as Joseph was towards his Brethren Finally if so it fall out that the death of him which was injured prevent his submission which did offend let him then for so they determine that he ought goe accompanied with ten others unto the Sepulchre of the Dead and there make confession of the Fault saying I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel and against this man to whom I have done such or such injury and if Money be due let it be restored to his Heirs or in case he have none known leave it with the house of Iudgement That is to say with the Senators Ancients and Guides of Israel We hold not Christian people tyed unto Jewish Orders for the manner of Restitution but surely Restitution we must hold necessary as well in our own Repentance as theirs for Sinnes of wilful oppression and wrong Now although it suffices that the Offices wherewith we pacifie God or private men be secretly done yet in Cases where the Church must be also satisfied it was not to this end and purpose unnecessary that the antient Discipline did farther require outward signes of Contrition to be shewed Confession of Sinnes to be made openly and those Works to be apparent which served as Testimonies for Conversion before men Wherein if either Hypocrisie did at any time delude their Judgment they knew that God is he whom Maskes and Mockeryes cannot blinde that he which seeth mens hearts would judge them according unto his own evidence and as Lord correct the Sentence of his Servants concerning matters beyond their reach Or if such as ought to have kept the Rules of Canonical Satisfaction would by sinister means and practises undermine the same obtruding presumptuously themselves to the participation of Christ's most sacred Mysteries before they were orderly re-admitted thereunto the Church for contempt of holy things held them incapable of that Grace which God in the Sacrament doth impart to devout Communicants and no doubt but he himself did retain bound whom the Church in those cases refused to loose The Fathers as may appear by sundry Decrees and Canons of the Primitive Church were in matter specially of publick Scandal provident that too much facility of pardoning might not be shewed He that casteth off his lawful wife saith Saint Basil and doth take another it adjudged an Adulterer by the verdict of our Lord himself and by our Fathers it is Canonically ordained that such for the space of a year shall mourn for two years space hear three years be prostrate the seventh year assemble with the faithful in Prayer and after that be admitted to communicate if with tears they bewail their fault Of them which had fallen from their faith in the time of Emperour Licinius and were not thereunto forced by any extream usage the Nicene Synod under Constantine ordained that earnestly repenting they should continue three years Hearers seven years be prostrate and two years communicate with the people in prayer before they came to receive the oblation Which rigour sometimes they tempered nevertheless with lenity the self-same Synod having likewise defined That whatsoever the cause were any man desirous at the time of departure out of this life to receive the Eucharist might with examination and tryal have it granted him by the Bishop Yea besides this case of special commiseration there is a Canon more large which giveth always liberty to abridge or extend out the time as the Parties meek or sturdy disposition should require By means of which Discipline the Church having power to hold them many years in suspence there was bred in the mindes of the Penitents through long and daily practise of submission a contrary habit unto that which before had been their ruine and for ever afterwards wariness not to fall into those snares out of which they knew they could not easily winde themselves Notwithstanding because there was likewise hope and possibility of shortning the time this made them in all the Parts and Offices of their Repentance the more fervent In the first station while they onely beheld others passing towards the Temple of God whereunto for themselves to approach it was not lawful they stood as miserable forlorn men the very patterns of perplexity and woe In the second when they had the favour to wait at the doors of God where the sound of his comfortable word might be heard none received it with attention like to theirs Thirdly being taken and admitted to the next degree of Prostrates at the feet yet behinde the back of that Angel representing God whom the rest saw face to face their tears and entreaties both of Pastour and People were such as no man could resist After the fourth step which gave them liberty to hear and pray with the rest of the People being so near the haven no diligence was then flacked which might hasten admission to the Heavenly Table of Christ their last desire It is not therefore a thing to be marvelled at though Saint Cyprian took it in very ill part when open Back-sliders from the faith and sacred Religion of Christ laboured by sinister practise to procure from imprisoned Saints those requests for present absolution which the Church could neither yield unto with safety of Discipline nor in honour of Martyrdom easily deny For what would thereby ensue they needed not to conjecture when they saw how every man which came so commended to the Church by Letters thought that now he needed not to crave but might challenge of duty his peace taking the matter very highly if but any little forbearance or small delay was used He which is overthrown saith Cyprian menaceth them that stand the wounded them that were never toucht and because presently he hath not the body of our Lord in his foul imbrued hands nor the blood within his polluted lips the miscreant fumeth at God's Priests Such is thy madness O thou furious man thou art angry with him which laboureth to turn away God's anger from thee him thou threatnest which sueth unto God for grace and mercy on thy behalf Touching Martyrs he answereth That it ought not in this case to seem offensive though they were denied seeing God himself did refuse to yield to the piety of his own righteous Saints making suit for obdurate Iews As for the Parties in whose behalf such shifts were used to have their desire was in very truth the way to make them the more guilty Such peace granted contrary to the rigour of the Gospel contrary to the Law of our Lord and God doth but under colour of merciful relaxation deceive Sinners and by soft handling destroy them a grace dangerous for the Giver and to him which receiveth it nothing at all available The patient expectation that bringeth health is by this means not regarded recovery of soundness not sought for by the only medicine available which is
Government is confirmed yea strengthened it is and ratified even by the not establishment thereof in all Churches every where at the first 2. When they further dispute That if any such thing were usedful Christ would in Scripture have set down particular Statutes and Laws appointing that Bishops should be made and prescribing in what order even as the Law doth for all kinde of Officers which were needful in the Iewish Regiment might not a man that would bend his wit to maintain the fury of the Petrobrusian Hereticks in pulling down Oratories use the self-same argument with as much countenance of reason If it were needful that we should assemble our selves in Churches would that God which taught the Iews so exactly the frame of their sumptuous Temple leave us no particular instructions in writing no not so much at which way to lay any one stone Surely such kinde of Argumentation doth not so strengthen the sinews of their cause as weaken the credit of their Judgement which are led therewith 3. And whereas Thirdly in disproof of that use which Episcopal Authority hath in Judgement of Spiritual Causes they bring forth the verdict of Cyprian who saith That equity requireth every man's Cause to be heard where the fault he was charged with was committed forasmuch as there they may have both Accusers and Witnesses in the Cause This Argument grounding it self on Principles no lesse true in Civil than in Ecclesiastical Causes unless it be qualified with some exceptions or limitations over-turneth the highest Tribunal Seats both in Church and Common-wealth it taketh utterly away all appeals it secretly condemneth even the blessed Apostle himself as having transgressed the law of Equity by his appeal from the Court of Iudea unto those higher which were in Rome The generality of such kinde of axioms deceiveth unless it be construed with such cautions as the matter whereunto they are applyable doth require An usual and ordinary transportation of causes out of Africa into Italy out of one Kingdom into another as discontented Persons list which was the thing which Cyprian disalloweth may be unequal and unmeet and yet not therefore a thing unnecessary to have the Courts erectted in higher places and judgement committed unto greater Persons to whom the meaner may bring their causes either by way of appeal ot otherwise to be determined according to the order of Justice which hath been always observed every where in Civil States and is no less requisite also for the State of the Church of God The Reasons which teach it to be expedient for the one will shew it to be for the other at leastwise not unnecessary Inequality of Pastors is an Ordinance both Divine and profitable Their exceptions against it in these two respects we have shewed to be altogether causless unreasonable and unjust XIV The next thing which they upbraid us with is the difference between that inequality of Pastors which hath been of old and which now is For at length they grant That the superiority of Bishops and of Arch-bishops is somewhat antient but no such kinde of Superiority as ours have By the Laws of our Discipline a Bishop may ordain without asking the Peoples consent a Bishop may excommunicate and release alone a Bishop may imprison a Bishop may bear Civil Office in the Realm a Bishop may be a Counsellor of State these thing antient Bishops neither did nor might do Be it granted that ordinarily neither in elections nor deprivations neither in excommunicating nor in releasing the excommunicate in none of the weighty affairs of Government Bishops of old were wont to do any thing without consultation with their Clergy and consent of the People under them Be it granted that the same Bishops did neither touch any man with corporal punishment nor meddle with secular affairs and Offices the whole Clergy of God being then tyed by the strict and severe Canons of the Church to use no other than ghostly power to attend no other business than heavenly Tarquinius was in the Roman Common-wealth deservedly hated of whose unorderly proceedings the History speaketh thus Hic Regum primus traditum à Prioribus morem de omnibus Senatum consulendi solvit domesticis Consillis Rempub. administravit bellum pacem foedera societates perse ipsum cum quibus voluit injussu Populi ac Senatus fecit diremitque Against Bishops the like is objected That they are Invaders of other mens right and by intolerable usurpation take upon them to do that alone wherein antient Laws have appointed that others not they onely should bear sway Let the Case of Bishops he put not in such sort as it is but even as their very heavyest Adversaries would devise it Suppose that Bishops at the first had encroached upon the Church that by sleights and cunning practises they had appropriated Ecclesiastical as Augustus did Imperial power that they had taken the advantage of mens inclinable affections which did not suffer them for Revenue-sake to be suspected of Ambition that in the mean while their usurpation had gone forward by certain easie and unsensible degrees that being not discerned in the growth when it was thus farr grown as we now see it hath proceeded the world at length perceiving there was just cause of complaint but no place of remedy left had assented unto it by a general secret agreement to bear it now as an helpless evil all this supposed for certain and true yet surely a thing of this nature as for the Superiour to do that alone unto which of right the consent of some other Inferiours should have been required by them though it had an indirect entrance at the first must needs through continuance of so many ages as this hath stood be made now a thing more natural to the Church than that it should be opprest with the mention of contrary Orders worn so many ages since quite and clean out of ure But with Bishops the case is otherwise For in doing that by themselves which others together with them have been accustomed to do they do not any thing but that whereunto they have been upon just occasion authorized by orderly means All things natural have in them naturally more or less the power of providing for their own safety And as each particular man hath this power so every Politick Society of men must needs have the same that thereby the whole may provide for the good of all parts therein For other benefit we have not any by sorting our selves into Politick Societies saving only that by this mean each part hath that relief which the vertue of the whole is able to yield it The Church therefore being a Politick Society or Body cannot possibly want the power of providing for it self And the chiefest part of that power consisteth in the Authority of making Laws Now forasmuch as Corporations are perpetual the Laws of the antienter Church cannot chuse but binde the latter while they are in force But we
must note withal that because the body of the Church continueth the same it hath the same Authority still and may abrogate old Laws or make new as need shall require Wherefore vainly are the antient Canons and Constitutions objected as Laws when once they are either let secretly to dye by dis-usage or are openly abrogated by contrary Laws The Antient had cause to do no otherwise than they did and yet so strictly they judged not themselves in Conscience bound to observe those Orders but that in sundry cases they easily dispensed therewith which I suppose they would never have done had they esteemed them as things whereunto everlasting immutable and undispensible observation did belong The Bishop usually promoted none which were not first allowed as fit by conference had with the rest of his Clergy and with the People Notwithstanding in the case of Aurelius Saint Cyprian did otherwise In matters of Deliberation and Counsel for disposing of that which belongeth generally to the whole body of the Church or which being more particular is nevertheless of so great consequence that it needeth the force of many Judgements conferred in such things the common saying must necessarily take place An Eye cannot see that which Eyes can As for Clerical Ordinations there are no such reasons alledged against the Order which is but that it may be esteemed as good in every respect as that which hath been and in some considerations better at leastwise which is sufficient to our purpose it may be held in the Church of Christ without transgressing any Law either Antient or Late Divine or Human. which we ought to observe and keep The form of making Ecclesiastical Officers hath sundry parts neither are they all of equal moment When Deacons having not been before in the Church of Christ the Apostles saw it needful to have such ordained They first assemble the multitude and shew them how needful it is that Deacons be made Secondly they name unto them what number they judge convenient what quality the men must be of and to the People they commit the care of finding such out Thirdly the People hereunto assenting make their choyce of Stephen and the rest those chosen men they bring and present before the Apostles Howbeit all this doth not endue them with any Ecclesiastical Power But when so much was done the Apostles finding no cause to take exception did with Prayer and imposition of hands make them Deacons This was it which gave them their very being all other things besides were only preparations unto this Touching the form of making Presbyters although it be not wholly of purpose anywhere set down in the Apostles Writings yet sundry speeches there are which insinuate the chiefest things that belong unto that Action As when Paul and Barnabas are said to have fasted prayed and made Presbyters When Timothy is willed to lay hands suddenly on no man for fear of participating with other mens sins For this cause the Order of the Primitive Church was between Choyce and Ordination to have some space for such Probation and Tryal as the Apostle doth mention in Deacons saying Let them first be proved and then minister if so be they be found blameless Alexander Severus beholding in his time how careful the Church of Christ was especially for this point how after the choyce of their Pastors they used to publish the names of the Parties chosen and not to give them the final act of Approbation till they saw whether any lett or impediment would be alledged he gave Commandment That the like should also be done in his own Imperial Elections adding this as a Reason wherefore he so required namely For that both Christians and Iews being so wary about the Ordination of their Priests it seemed very unequal for him not to be in like sort circumspect to whom he committed the Government of Provinces containing power over mens both Estates and Lives This the Canon Law it self doth provide for requiring before Ordination scrutiny Let them diligently be examined three dayes together before the Sabbath and on the Sabbath let them be presented unto the Bishop And even this in effect also is the very use of the Church of England at all Solemne Ordaining of Ministers and if all Ordaining were Solemne I must confesse it were much the better The pretended disorder of the Church of England is that Bishops Ordain them to whose Election the People give no voyces and so the Bishops make them alone that is to say they give Ordination without Popular Election going before which antient Bishops neither did nor might do Now in very truth if the multitude have hereunto a right which right can never be translated from them for any cause then is there no remedy but we must yield that unto the lawful making of Ministers the voyce of the People is required and that according to the Adverse Parties Assertion such as make Ministers without asking the Peoples consent do but exercise a certain Tyranny At the first Erection of the Common-weals of Rome the People for so it was then fittest determined of all affairs Afterwards this growing troublesome their Senators did that for them which themselves before had done In the end all came to one man's hands and the Emperour alone was instead of many Senators In these things the experience of time may breed both Civil and Ecclesiastical change from that which hath been before received neither do latter things always violently exclude former but the one grawing less convenient then it hath been giveth place to that which is now become more That which was fit for the People themselves to do at the first might afterwards be more convenient for them to do by some other Which other is not thereby proved a Tyrant because he alone doth that which a multitude were wont to do unless by violence he take that Authority upon him against the Order of Law and without any publick appointment as with us if any did it should I suppose not long be safe for him so to do This Answer I hope will seem to be so much the more reasonable in that themselves who stand against us have furnish'd us therewith For whereas against the making of Ministers by Bishops alone their use hath been to object What sway the People did bear when Stephen and rest were ordained Deacons They begin to espy how their own Plat-form swerveth not a little from that example wherewith they controul the practices of others For touching the form of the Peoples concurrence in that Action they observe it not no they plainly profess that they are not in this point bound to be followers of the Apostles The Apostles Ordained whom the People had first chosen They hold that their Ecclesiastical Senate ought both to choose and also to Ordain Do not themselves then take away that which the Apostles gave the People namely the priviledge of chusing Ecclesiastical Officers They do But behold in what sort
Ecclesiastical have been authorized to ordain both and to give them the power of Order in the name of the whole Church Such were the Apostles such was Timothy such was Titus such are Bishops Not that there is between these no difference but that they all agree in preheminence of Place above both Presbyters and Deacons whom they otherwise might not ordain Now whereas hereupon some do inferr that no Ordination can stand but only such as is made by Bishops which have had their Ordination likewise by other Bishops before them till we come to the very Apostles of Christ themselves In which respect it was demanded of Beza at Poissie By what Authority he could administer the holy Sacraments being not thereunto ordained by any other than Calvin or by such as to whom the power of Ordination did not belong according to the antient Orders and Customs of the Church sith Calvin and they who joyned with him in that action were no Bishops And Athanasius maintaineth the fact of Macarius a Presbyter which overthrew the holy Table whereat one Ischyras would have ministred the blessed Sacrament having not been consecrated thereunto by laying on of some Bishops hands according to the Ecclesiastical Canons as also Epiphanius inveigheth sharply against divers for doing the like when they had not Episcopal Ordination To this we answer That there may be sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow Ordination made without a Bishop The whole Church visible being the true original subject of all power it hath not ordinarily allowed any other than Bishops alone to ordain Howbeit as the ordinary course is ordinarily in all things to be observed so it may be in some cases not unnecessary that we decline from the ordinary wayes Men may be extraordinarily yet allowably two wayes admitted unto Spiritual Functions in the Church One is when God himself doth of himself raise up any whose labour be useth without requiring that men should Authorize them But then he doth ratifie their Calling by manifest signes and tokens himself from Heaven And thus even such as believed not our Saviours teaching did yet acknowledge him a lawful Teacher sent from God Thou art a Teacher sent from God otherwise none could do those things which thou dost Luther did but reasonably therefore in declaring that the Senate of Mulheuse should do well to ask of Muncer From whence he received power to teach who it was that had called him And if his answer were that God had given him his Charge then to require at his hands some evident sign thereof for men's satisfaction because so God is wont when he himself is the Author of any extraordinary Calling Another extraordinary kinde of Vocation is when the exigence of necessity doth constrain to leave the usual wayes of the Church which otherwise we would willingly keep Where the Church must needs have some ordained and neither hath nor can have possibly a Bishop to ordain in case of such necessity the ordinary Institution of God hath given oftentimes and may give place And therefore we are not simply without exception to urge a lineal descent of power from the Apostles by continued succession of Bishops in every effectual Ordination These cases of inevitable necessity excepted none may ordain but only Bishops By the imposition of their hands it is that the Church giveth power of Order both unto Presbyters and Deacons Now when that power so received is once to have any certain Subject whereon it may work and whereunto it is to be tyed here cometh in the Peoples consent and not before The power of Order I may lawfully receive without asking leave of any multitude but that power I cannot exercise upon any one certain People utterly against their wills Neither is there in the Church of England any man by order of Law possessed with Pastoral charge over any Parish but the People in effect do chuse him thereunto For albeit they chuse not by giving every man personally his particular voyce yet can they not say that they have their Pastors violently obtruded upon them in as much as their antient and original interest therein hath been by orderly means derived into the Patron who chuseth for them And if any man be desirous to know how Petrons came to have such interest we are to consider that at the first erection of Churches it seemed but reasonable in the eyes of the whole Christian World to pass that right to them and their Successors on whose soyl and at whose charge the same were founded This all men gladly and willingly did both in honor of so great Piety and for encouragement of many others unto the like who peradventure else would have been as slow to erect Churches or to endow them as we are forward both to spoyl them and to pull them down It s no true assertion therefore in such sort as the pretended Reformers mean it That all Ministers of God's Word ought to be made by consent of many that is to say by the Peoples saffrages that antient Bishops neither did nor might or dain otherwise and that ours do herein usurp a farr greater power than was or then lawfully could have been granted unto Bishops which were of old Furthermore as touching Spiritual Jurisdiction our Bishops they say do that which of all things is most intollerable and which the Antient never did Our Bishops excommunicate and release alone whereas the Censures of the Church neither ought nor were want to be administred otherwise then by consent of many Their meaning here when they speak of Many is not as before it was When they hold that Ministers should be made with consent of many they understand by Many the Multitude or Common People but in requiring that many should evermore joyn with the Bishop in the administration of Church-censures they mean by Many a few Lay-Elders chosen out of the rest of the People to that purpose This they say is ratified by antient Councils by antient Bishops this was practised And the reason hereof as Beza supposeth was Because if the power of Ecclesiastical Censures did belong unto any one there would this great inconvenience follow Ecclesiastical Regiment should be changed into mere Tyranny or else into a Civil Royalty Therefore no one either Bishop or Presbyter should or can alone exercise that Power but with his Ecclesiastical Consistâ—ry he ought to do it as may appear by the old Discipline And is it possible that one so grave and judicious should think it in earnest Tyranny for a Bishop to excommunicate whom Law and Order hath authorized so to do or be perswaded that Ecclesiastâ—cal Regiment degenerateth into Civil Regality when one is allowed to do that which hath been at any time the deed of moe Surely farr meaner-witted men than the World accounteth Mr. Reza do easily perceive that Tyranny is Power violently exercised against Order against Law and that the difference of these two Regiments Ecclesiastical and Civil
are not fit to be Ministers which also hath been collected and that by sundry of the Antient and that it is requisite the Clergy be utterly forbidden Marriage For as the burthen of Civil Regiment doth make them who bear it the less able to attend their Ecclesiastical Charge even so Saint Paul doth say that the Married are careful for the World the unmarried freer to give themselves wholly to the service of God Howbeit both experience hath found it safer that the Clergy should bear the cares of honest Marriage than be subject to the inconveniencies which single life imposed upon them would draw after it And as many as are of sound judgement know it to be farr better for this present age that the detriment be born which haply may grow through the lessening of some few mens Spiritual labours than that the Clergy and Common-wealth should lack the benefit which both the one and the other may reap through their dealing in Civil Affairs In which consideration that men consecrated unto the Spiritual service of God be licensed so farr forth to meddle with the Secular affairs of the World as doth seem for some special good cause requisite and may be without any grievous prejudice unto the Church surely there is not in the Apostles words being rightly understood any lett That no Apostle did ever bear Office may it not be a wonder considering the great devotion of the age wherein they lived and the zeal of Herod of Nero the great Commander of the known World and of other Kings of the Earth at that time to advance by all means Christian Religion Their deriving unto others that smaller charge of distributing of the Goods which were laid at their feet and of making provision for the poor which charge being in part Civil themselves had before as I suppose lawfully undertaken and their following of that which was weightier may serve as a marvellous good example for the dividing of one man's Office into divers slips and the subordinating of Inferiours to discharge some part of the same when by reason of multitude increasing that labour waxeth great and troublesome which before was easie and light but very small force it hath to inferr a perpetual divorce between Ecclesiastical and Civil power in the same Persons The most that can be said in this Case is That sundry eminent Canons bearing the name of Apostolical and divers Conncils likewise there are which have forbidden the Clergy to bear any Secular Office and have enjoyned them to attend altogether upon Reading Preaching and Prayer Whereupon the most of the antient Fathers have shewed great dislikes that these two Powers should be united in one Person For a full and final Answer whereunto I would first demand Whether commension and separation of these two Powers be a matter of mere positive Law or else a thing simply with or against the Law immutable of God and Nature That which is simply against this latter Law can at no time be allowable in any Person more than Adultery Blasphemy Sacriledge and the like But conjunction of Power Ecclesiastical and Civil what Law is there which hath not at some time or other allowed as a thing convenient and meet In the Law of God we have examples sundry whereby it doth most manifestly appear how of him the same hath oftentime been approved No Kingdom or Nation in the World but hath been thereunto accustomed without inconvenience and hurt In the prime of the World Kings and Civil Rulers were Priests for the most part all The Romans note it as a thing beneficial in their own Common-wealth and even to them apparently forcible for the strengthening of the Jewes Regiment under Moses and Samuel I deny not but sometime there may be and hath been perhaps just cause to ordain otherwise Wherefore we are not to urge those things which heretofore have been either ordered or done as thereby to prejudice those Orders which upon contrary occasion and the exigence of the present time by like authority have been established For what is there which doth let but that from contrary occasions contrary Laws may grow and each he reasoned and disputed for by such as are subiect thereunto during the time they are in force and yet neither so opposite to other but that both may laudably continue as long as the ages which keep them do see no necessary cause which may draw them unto alteration Wherefore in these things Canons Constitutions and Laws which have been at one time meet do not prove that the Church should alwayes be bound to follow them Ecclesiastical Persons were by antient Order forbidden to be Executors of any man's Testament or to undertake the Wardship of Children Bishops by the Imperial Law are forbidden to bequeath by Testament or otherwise to alienate any thing grown unto them after they were made Bishops Is there no remedy but that these or the like Orders must therefore every where still be observed The reason is not always evident why former Orders have been repealed and other established in their room Herein therefore we must remember the axiom used in the Civil Laws That the Prince is alwayes presumed to do that with reason which is not against reason being done although no reason of his deed be exprest Which being in every respect as true of the Church and her Divine Authority in making Laws it should be some bridle unto those malepert and proud spirits whose wits not conceiving the reason of Laws that are established they adore their own private fancy as the supreme Law of all and accordingly take upon them to judge that whereby they should be judged But why labour we thus in vain For even to change that which now is and to establish instead thereof that which themselves would acknowledge the very self-same which hath been to what purpose were it fith they protest That they utterly condemn as well that which hath been as that which is as well the antient as the present Superiority Authority and Power of Ecclesiastical Persons XVI Now where they lastly alledge That the Law of our Lord Iesus Christ and the judgement of the best in all ages condemn all ruling Superiority of Ministers over Ministers they are in this as in the rest more bold to affirm than able to prove the things which they bring for support of their weak and feeble Cause The bearing of Dominion or the exercising of Authority they say is this wherein the Civil Magistrate is severed from the Ecclesiastical officer according to the words of our Lord and Saviour Kings of Nations bear rule over them but it shall not be so with you Therefore bearing of Dominion doth not agree to one Minister over another This place hath been and still is although most falsely yet with farr greater shew and likelyhood of truth brought forth by the Anabaptists to prove that the Church of Christ ought to have no Civil Magistrates but be ordered
up a Pillar shall be the House of God and of all that thou shall give me will I give the Tenth unto thee May a Christian man desire as great things as Iacob did at the hands of God may he desire them in as earliest manner may he promise as great thankfulness in acknowledging the goodness of God may he vow any certain kinde of publick acknowledgment before hand or though he vow it not perform it after in such sort that men may see he is perswaded how the Lord hath been his God Are these particular kindes of testifying thankfulness to God the erecting of Oratories the dedicating of Lands and Goods to maintain them forbidden any where Let any mortal man living shew but one reason wherefore in this point to follow Iacob's example should not be a thing both acceptable unto God and in the eyes of the World for ever most highly commendable Concerning Goods of this nature Goods whereof when we speak we term them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Goods that are consecrated unto God and as Tertullian speaketh Deposit a pietatis things which Piety and Devotion hath laid up as it were in the bosom of God Touching such Goods the Law Civil following mere light of Nature defineth them to be no mans because no mortal man or community of men hath right of propriety in them XXIII Persons Ecclesiastical are God's Stewards not onely for that he hath set them over his Family as the Ministers of ghostly food but even for this very cause also that they are to receive and dispose his Temporal Revenues the gifts and oblations which men bring him Of the Jews it is plain that their Tyths they offered unto the Lord and those offerings the Lord bestowed upon the Levites When the Levites gave the Tenth of their Tythes this their Gift the Law doth term the Lord's Heave-offering and appoint that the High-Priest should receive the same Of spoils taken in War that part which they were accustomed to separate unto God they brought it before the Priest of the Lord by whom it was laid up in the Tabernacle of the Congregation for a memorial of their thankfulness towards God and his goodness towards them in fighting for them against their enemies As therefore the Apostle magnifieth the honor of Melchisedec in that he being an High-Priest did receive at the hands of Abraham the Tyths which Abraham did honor God with so it argueth in the Apostles themselves great honor that at their feet the price of those Possessions was laid which men thought good to bestow on Christ. St. Paul commending the Churches which were in Macedonia for their exceeding liberality this way saith of them That he himself would bear record they had declared their forward mindes according to their power yea beyond their power and had so much exceeded his expectation of them that they seemed as it were even to give away themselves first to the Lord saith the Apostle and then by the will of God unto us To him as the owner of such gifts to us as his appointed receivers and dispensers The gift of the Church of Antioch bestowed unto the use of distressed Brethren which were in Iudea Paul and Baruabar did deliver unto the Presbyters of Ierusalem and the head of those Presbyters was Iames he therefore the Chiefest disposer thereof Amongst those Canons which are entituled Apostolical one is this We appoint that the Bishop have care of these things which belong to the Church the meaning is of Church-Goods as the Reason following sheweth For if the precious Souls of men must be committed unto him of trust much more it beloveth the charge of money to be given him that by his Authority the Presbyters and Deacons may administer all things to them that stand in need So that he which hath done them the honor to be as it were his Treasurers hath left them also authority and power to use these his Treasures both otherwise and for the maintenance even of their own Estate the lower sort of the Clergy according unto a meaner the higher after a larger proportion The use of Spiritual goods and possessions hath been a matte◠much disputed of grievous complaints there are usually made against the evil and unlawful usage of them but with no certain determination hitherto on what things and Persons with what proportion and measure they being bestowed do retain their lawful use Some men condemn it as idle superfluous and altogether vain that any part of the Treasure of God should be spent upon costly Ornaments appertaining unto his Service who being best worshipped when he is served in Spirit and truth hath not for want of pomp and magnificence rejected at any time those who with faithful hearts have adored him Whereupon the Hereticks termed Henriciani and Petrobusiani threw down Temples and Houses of Prayer erected with marvellous great charge as being in that respect not fit for Christ by us to be honored in We deny not but that they who sometime wandred as Pilgrims on earth and had no Temples but made Caves and Dens to pray in did God such honor as was most acceptable in his sight God did not reject them for their poverty and nakedness sake Their Sacraments were not abhorred for want of Vessels of Gold Howbeit let them who thus delight to plead answer me When Moses first and afterwards David exhorted the people of Israel unto matter of charge about the service of God suppose we it had been allowable in them to have thus pleaded Our Fathers in Egypt served God devoutly God war with them in all their afflictions he heard their Prayers pitied their Case and delivered them from the tyranny of their oppressors what House Tabernacle or Temple had they Such Argumentations are childish and fond God doth not refuse to be honored at all where there lacketh wealth but where abundance and store is he there requireth the Flower thereof being bestowed on him to be employed even unto the Ornament of his Service In Egypt the state of his People was servitude and therefore his Service was accordingly In the Defart they had no sooner ought of their own but a Tabernacle is required and in the Land of Canaan a Temple In the eyes of David it seemed a thing not fit a thing not decent that himself should be more richly seated than God But concerning the use of Ecclesiastical Goods bestowed this way there is not so much contention amongst us as what measure of allowance is fit for Ecclesiastical Persons to be maintained with A better rule in this case to judge things by we cannot possibly have than the◠Wisdom of God himself by considering what he thought meet for each degree of the Clergy to enjoy in time of the Law what for Levites what for Priests and what for High-Priests somewhat we shall be the more able to discern rightly what may be fit convenient and right for
life Whether it were covetousness or sensuality in their lives absurdity or error in their teaching any breach of the laws and Canons of the Church wherein he espied them faulty certain and sure they were to be thereof most plainly told Which thing they whose dealings were justly culpable could not bear but instead of amending their faults bent their hatred against him who sought their amendment till at length they drove him by extremity of infestation through weariness of striving against their injuries to leave both them and with them the Church Amongst the manifold accusations either generally intended against the Bishops of this our Church or laid particularly to the charge of any of them I cannot find that hitherto their spitefullest adversaries have been able to say justly that any man for telling them their personal faults in good and Christian sort hath sustained in that respect much persecution Wherefore notwithstanding mine own inferior estate and calling in Gods Church the consideration whereof assureth me that in this kind the sweetest Sacrifice which I can offer unto Christ is meek Obedience reverence and aw unto the Prelates which he hath placed in seats of higher Authority over me emboldned I am so far as may conveniently stand with that duty of humble subjection meekly to crave my good L L. your favourable pardon if it shall seem a fault thus far to presume or if otherwise your wonted courteous acceptation AEneid l. 12. Sinite hat haud mollia fatu Sublatis aperite dolis In government be it of what kind soever but especially if it be such kind of Government as Prelates have over the Church there is not one thing publiquely more hurtful then that an hard opinion should be conceived of Governors at the first and a good opinion how should the World ever conceive of them for their after-proceedings in Regiment whose first access and entrance thereunto giveth just occasion to think them corrupt men which fear not that God in whose name they are to rule Wherefore a scandalous thing it is to the Church of God and to the Actors themselves dangerous to have aspired unto rooms of Prelacy by wicked means We are not at this day troubled much with that tumultuous kind of ambition wherewith the elections of Damasus in S. Ieromes age and of Maximus in Gregories time and of others were long sithence stained Our greatest fear is rather the evil which Leo and Anthemius did by Imperial constitution endeavour as much as in them by to prevent He which granteth or he which receiveth the office and dignity of a Bishop otherwise then beseemeth a thing Divine and most holy he which bestoweth and he which obteineth it after any other sort then were honest and lawful to use if our Lord Jesus Christ were present himself on earth to bestow it even with his own hands sinneth a sin by so much more grievous then the sin of Balshazar by how much Offices and Functions heavenly are more precious then the meanest ornaments or implements which thereunto appertain If it be as the Apostle saith that the Holy Ghost doth make Bishops and that the whole action of making them is Gods own deed men being therein but his Agents what spark of the fear of God can there possibly remain in their hearts who representing the person of God in naming worthy men to Ecclesiastial charge do sell that which in his name they are to bestow or who standing as it were at the Throne of the Living God do bargain for that which at his hands they are to receive Wo worth such impious and irreligious prophanations The Church of Christ hath been hereby made not a den of thieves but in a manner the very dwelling place of soul spirits for undoubtedly such a number of them have been in all ages who thus have climbed into the seat of Episcopal Regiment 2. Men may by orderly means be invested with spiritual Authority and yet do harm by reason of ignorance how to use it to the good of the Church It is saith Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing highly to be accompted of but a hard thing to be that which a Bishop should be Yea a hard and a toilsom thing it is for a Bishop to know the things that belong unto a Bishop A right good man may be a very unfit Magistrate And for discharge of a Bishops Office to be well minded is not enough no not to be well learned also Skill to instruct is a thing necessary skill to govern much more necessary in a Bishop It is not safe for the Church of Christ when Pishops learn what belongeth unto Government as Empericks learn physick by killing of the sick Bishops were wont to be men of great learning in the Laws both Civil and of the Church and while they were so the wisest men in the land for Counsel and Government were Bishops 3. Know we never so well what belongeth unto a charge of so great moment yet can we not therein proceed but with hazard of publique detriment if we relye on our selves alone and use not the benefit of conference with others A singular mean to unity and concord amongst themselves a marvellous help unto uniformity in their dealings no small addition of weight and credit unto that which they do a strong bridle unto such as watch for occasions to stir against them finally a very great stay unto all that are under their Government it could not chuse but be soon found if Bishops did often and seriously use the help of mutual consultation These three rehearsed are things onely preparatory unto the course of Episcopal proceedings But the hurt is more manifestly seen which doth grow to the Church of God by faults inherent in their several actions as when they carelesly Ordein when they Institute negligently when corruptly they bestow Church-Livings Benefices Prebends and rooms especially of Jurisdiction when they visit for gain-sake rather then with serious intent to do good when their Courts erected for the maintenance of good Order are disordered when they regard not the Clergy under them when neither Clergy nor Laity are kept in that aw for which this authority should serve when any thing appeareth in them rather then a fatherly affection towards the flock of Christ when they have no respect to posterity and finally when they neglect the true and requisite means whereby their authority should be upheld Surely the hurt which groweth out of these defects must needs be exceeding great In a Minister ignorance and disability to teach is a maim nor is it held a thing allowable to ordain such were it not for the avoiding of a greater evil which the Church must needs sustain if in so great scarcity of able men and unsufficiency of most Parishes throughout the Land to maintain them both publick Prayer and the Administration of Sacraments should rather want then any man thereunto be admitted lacking dexterity and skill to perform that which
otherwise was most requisite Wherefore the necessity of ordaining such is no excuse for the rash and careless ordaining of every one that hath but a friend to bestow some two or three words of ordinary commendation in his behalf By reason whereof the Church groweth burdened with silly creatures more then need whose noted baseness and insufficiency bringeth their very Order it self into contempt It may be that the fear of a Quare impedit doth cause Institutions to pass more easily then otherwise they would And to speak plainly the very truth it may be that Writs of Quare non impedit were for these times most necessary in the others place Yet where Law will not suffer men to follow their own judgment to shew their judgment they are not hindred And I doubt not but that even conscienceless and wicked Patrons of which sort the swarms are too great in the Church of England are the more imboldened to present unto Bishops any reffuse by finding so easie acceptation thereof Somewhat they might redress this sore notwithstanding so strong impediments if it did plainly appear that they took it indeed to heart were not in a manner contented with it Shall we look for care in admitting whom others present if that which some of your selves confer be at any time corruptly bestowed A foul and an ugly kind of deformity it hath if a man do but think what it is for a Bishop to draw commodity and gain from those things whereof he is left a free bestower and that in trust without any other obligation then his sacred Order only and that religious Integrity which hath been presumed on in him Simoniacal corruption I may not for honors sake suspect to be amongst men of so great place So often they do not I trust offend by sale as by unadvised gift of such preferments wherein that ancient Canon should specially be remembred which forbiddeth a Bishop to be led by humane affection in bestowing the things of God A fault no where so hurtful as in bestowing places of jurisdiction and in furnishing Cathedral Churches the Prebendaries and other Dignities whereof are the very true successors of those ancient Presbyters which were at the first as Counsellers unto Bishops A foul abuse it is that any one man should be loaded as some are with Livings in this kind yea some even of them who condemn utterly the granting of any two Benefices unto the same man whereas the other is in truth a matter of far greater sequel as experience would soon shew if Churches Cathedral being furnished with the residence of a competent number of vertuous grave wise and learned Divines the rest of the Prebends of every such Church were given within the Diocess unto men of worthiest desert for their better encouragement unto industry and travel unless it seem also convenient to extend the benefit of them unto the learned in Universities and men of special imployment otherwise in the affairs of the Church of God But howsoever surely with the publick good of the Church it will hardly stand that in any one person such favours be more multiplied then law permitteth in those Livings which are with Cure Touching Bishops Visitations the first institution of them was profitable to the end that the state and condition of Churches being known there might be for evils growing convenient remedies provided in due time The observation of Church Laws the correction of faults in the service of God and manners of men these are things that visitors should seek When these things are inquired of formally and but for custom sake fees and pensions being the only thing which is sought and little else done by Visitations we are not to marvel if the baseness of the end doth make the action it self loathsom The good which Bishops may do not only by these Visitations belonging ordinarily to their Office but also in respect of that power which the Founders of Colledges have given them of special trust charging even fearfully their consciences therewith the good I say which they might do by this their authority both within their own Diocess and in the well-springs themselves the Universities is plainly such as cannot chuse but add weight to their heavy accounts in that dreadful Day if they do it not In their Courts where nothing but singular integrity and Justice should prevail if palpable and gross corruptions be found by reason of Offices so often granted unto men who seek nothing but their own gain and make no account what disgrace doth grow by their unjust dealings unto them under whom they deal the evil hereof shall work more then they which procure it do perhaps imagine At the hands of a Bishop the first thing looked for is a care of the Clergy under him a care that in doing good they may have whatsoever comforts and encouragements his countenance authority and place may yield Otherwise what heard shall they have to proceed in their painful course all sorts of men besides being so ready to malign despise and every way oppress them Let them find nothing but disdain in Bishops in the enemies of present Government if that way lift to betake themselves all kind of favourable and friendly help unto which part think we it likely that men having wit courage and stomack will incline As great a fault is the want of severity when need requireth as of kindness and courtesie in Bishops But touching this what with ill usage of their powe amongst the meaner and what with disuage amongst the higher sort they are in the eyes of both sorts as Bees have lost their sting It is a long time sithence any great one hath felt or almost any one much feared the edge of that Ecclesiastical severity which sometime held Lords and Dukes in a more religious aw then now the meanest are able to be kept A Bishop in whom there did plainly appear the marks and tokens of a fatherly affection towards them are under his charge what good might he do ten thousand ways more then any man knows how to set down But the souls of men are not loved that which Christ shed his blood for is not esteemed precious This is the very root the fountain of all negligence in Church-Government Most wretched are the terms of mens estate when once they are at a point of wrechlesness so extream that thy bend not their wits any further than only to shift out the present time never regarding what shall become of their Successors after them Had our Predecessors so loosely cast off from them all care and respect to posterity a Church Christian there had noâ— been about the regiment whereof we should need at this day to strive It was the barbarous affection of Nero that the ruine of his own Imperial Seat he could have been well enough contented to see in case he might also have seen it accompanied with the fall of the whole World An affection not more intolerable then theirs
at all upon any in Civil authority and the Common-weal in hers altogether without the privity of the Church so it ought to continue still even in such Common-weals as have now publikely embraced the truth of Christian Religion whether they ought evermore to be two societies in such sort several and distinct I ask therefore what society was that in Rome whereunto the Apostle did give the name of the Church of Rome in his time If they answer as needs they must that the Church of Rome in those dayes was that whole society of men which in Rome professed the Name of Christ and not that Religion which the Laws of the Common-weal did then authorize we say as much and therefore grant that the Common-weal of Rome was one society and the Church of Rome another in such sort that there was between them no mutual dependance But when whole Rome became Christian when they all embraced the Gospel and made Laws in defence thereof if it be heid that the Church and Common-weal of Rome did then remain as before there is no way how this could be possible save only one and that is They must restrain the name of a Church in a Christian Common-weal to the Clergy excluding all the rest of believers both Prince and People For if all that believe be contained in the name of the Church how should the Church remain by personal subsistence divided from the Common-weal when the whole Common-weal doth believe The Church and the Common-weal are in this case therefore personally one Society which Society being termed a Common-weal as it liveth under whatsoever Form of Secular Law and Regiment a Church as it liveth under the spiritual Law of Christ forsomuch as these two Laws contain so many and different Offices there must of necessity be appointed in it some to one charge and some to another yet without dividing the whole and making it two several impaled Societies The difference therefore either of Affairs or Offices Ecclesiastical from Secular is no Argument that the Church and Common-weal are always separate and independent the one on the other which thing even Allain himself considering somewhat better doth in this Point a little correct his former judgement before mentioned and confesseth in his defence of English Catholicks that the power Political hath her Princes Laws Tribunals the Spiritual her Prelates Canons Councels Judgments and those when the Temporal Princes were Pagans wholly separate but in Christian Common-weals joyned though not confounded Howbeit afterwards his former sting appeareth again for in a Common-wealth he holdeth that the Church ought not to depend at all upon the authority of any civil person whatsoever as in England he saith it doth It will be objected that the Fathers do oftentimes mention the Common-weal and the Church of God by way of opposition Can the same thing be opposed to it self If one and the same society be both Church and Common-wealth what sense can there be in that Speech That they suffer and flourish together What sense is that which maketh one thing to be adjudged to the Church and another to the Common-weal Finally in that which putteth a difference between the causes of the Province and the Church doth it not hereby appear that the Church and the Common-weal are things evermore personally separate No it doth not hereby appear that there is not perpetually any such separation we speak of them as two we may sever the rights and the causes of the one well enough from the other in regard of that difference which we grant is between them albeit we make no personal difference For the truth is that the Church and the Common-wealth are names which import things really different but those things are accidents and such accidents as may and always should lovingly dwell together in one subject Wherefore the real difference between the accidents signified by these names doth not prove different subjects for them always to reside in For albeit the subjects wherein they be resident be sometimes different as when the people of God have their residence among Infidels yet the nature of them is not such but that their subject may be one and therefore it is but a changeable accident in those accidents they are to divers There can be no Errour in our conceit concerning this Point if we remember still what accident that is for which a society hath the name of a Common-wealth and what accident that which doth cause it to be termed a Church A Common-wealth we name it simply in regard of some regiment or policy under which men live a Church for the truth of that Religion which they pofess Now Names betokening accidents inabstracted betoken noâ— only the Accidents themselves but also together with them Subjects whereunto they cleave As when we name a School-master and a Physitian those names do not only betoken two accidents Teaching and Curing but also some person or persons in whom those accidents are For there is no impediment but both may be in one man as well as they are for the most part in divers The Common-weal and the Church therefore being such names they do not only betoken these Accidents of civil Government and Christian Religion which we have mentioned but also together with them such multitudes as are the subjects of those accidents Again their nature being such as they may well enough dwell together in one subject it followeth that their names though always implying that difference of accidents that hath been set down yet do not always imply different subjects also When we oppose therefore the Church and the Common-wealth in Christian Society we mean by the Common-wealth that Society with relation to all the publike affairs thereof only the matter of true Religion excepted by the Church the same Society with only reference unto the matter of true Religion without any affairsâ— Besides when that Society which is both a Church and a Common-wealth doth flourish in those things which belong unto it as a Common-wealth we then say The Common-wealth doth flourish when in both them we then say The Church and Common-wealth do flourish together The Prophet Esay to note corruptions in the Common-wealth complaineth That where justice and judgement had lodged now were murtherers Princes were become companions of Thieves every one loved gifts and rewards but the fatherless was not judged neither did the widows cause come before them To shew abuses in the Church Malachy doth make his complaint Ye offer unclean bread upon mine Altar If ye offer the blind for sacrifice it is not evill as ye think if the lame and the sick nothing is amiss The treasure which David bestowed upon the Temple did argue the love which he bore unto the Church The pains which Nehemiah took for building the walls of the Citie are tokens of his care for the Common-wealth Causes of the Common-wealth or Province are such as Gallio was content to be
in dealing is tyed unto the soundest perfectest and most indifferent Rule which Rule is the Law I mean not only the Law of Nature and of God but the National Law consonant thereunto Happier that people whose Law is their King in the greatest things then that whose King is himself their Law where the King doth guide the State and the Law the King that Common-wealth is like an Harp or Melodious Instrument the strings whereof are turned and handled all by one hand following as Laws the Rules and Canons of Musical Science Most divinely therefore Archytas maketh unto publike felicity these four steps and degrees every of which doth spring from the former as from another cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The King ruling by Law the Magistrate following the Subject free and the whole Society happy Adding on the contrary side that where this order is not it cometh by transgression thereof to pass that a King groweth a Tyrant he that ruleth under him abhorreth to be guided by him or commanded the people subject unto both have freedome under neither and the whole Community is wretched In which respect I cannot chuse but commend highly their wisdom by whom the Foundations of the Common-wealth hath been laid wherein though no manner of Person or cause be unsubject unto the Kings Power yet so is the Power of the King over all and in all limited that unto all his proceedings the Law it self is a rule The Axioms of our Regal Government are these Lex facit regem The Kings Grant of any favour made contrary to the Law is void Rex nibil potest nisi quod jure potest Our Kings therefore when they are to take possession of the Crown they are called unto have it pointed our before their eyes even by the very Solemnities and Rites of their Inauguration to what affairs by the same Law their Supream Power and Authority reacheth crowned we see they are enthronized and annointed the Crown a Sign of a Military Dominion the Throne of Sedentary or Judicial the Oyl of Religious and Sacred Power It is not on any side denied that Kings may have Authority in Secular affairs The Question then is What power they may lawfully have and exercise in causes of God A Prince or Magistrate or a Community saith Doctor Stapleton may have power to lay corporal punishment on them which are teachers of perverse things power to make Laws for the Peace of the Church Power to proclaim to defend and even by revenge to preserve dogmata the very Articles of Religion themselves from violation Others in affection no less devoted unto the Papacy do likewise yield that the Civil Magistrate may by his Edicts and Laws keep all Ecclesiastical Persons within the bounds of their duties and constrain them to observe the Canons of the Church to follow the rule of ancient Discipline That if Ioash was commended for his care and provision concerning so small a part of Religion as the Church-treasure it must needs be both unto Christian Kings themselves greater honour and to Christianity a larger benefit when the custody of Religion and the worship of God in general is their charge It therefore all these things mentioned be most properly the affairs of Gods Ecclesiastical causes if the actions specified be works of power and if that power be such as Kings may use of themselves without the fear of any other power superior in the same thing it followeth necessarily that Kings may have supream power not only in Civil but also in Ecclesiastical affairs and consequently that they may withstand what Bishop or Pope soever shall under the pretended claim of higher Spiritual Authority oppose themselves against their proceedings But they which have made us the former grant will never hereunto condescend what they yield that Princes may do it is with secret exception always understood If the Bishop of Rome give leave if he enterpose no prohibition wherefore somewhat it is in shew in truth nothing which they grant Our own Reformes do the very like when they make their discourse in general concerning the Authority which Magistrates may have a man would think them to be far from withdrawing any jot of that which with reason may be thought due The Prince and Civil Magistrate saith one of them hath to see the Laws of God touching his Worship and touching all Matters and all Orders of the Church to be executed and duly observed and to see every Ecclesiastical Person do that office whereunto he is appointed and to punish those which fail in their office accordingly Another acknowledgeth That the Magistrate may lawfully uphold all truth by his Sword punish all persons enforce all to their duties towards God and men maintain by his Laws every point of Gods Word punish all vice in all men see into all causes visit the Ecclesiastical Estate and correct the abuses thereof Finally to look to his Subjects that under him they may lead their lives in all godliness and honesty◠A third more frankly prosesseth That in case their Church Discipline were established so little it shortneth the Arms of Soveraign Dominion in causes Ecclesiastical that Her Gracious Majesty for any thing they teach or hold to the contrary may no less then now remain still over all persons in all things Supream Governess even with that full and Royal Authority Superiority and Preheminence Supremacy and Prerogative which the Laws already established do give her and her Majesties Injunctions and the Articles of the Convocation house and other writings Apologetical of her Royal Authority and Supream Dignity do declare and explain Possidonius was wont to say of the Epicure That he thought there were no Gods but that those things which he spake concerning the Gods were only given out for fear of growing adious amongst men and therefore that in words he left gods remaining but in very deed overthrew them in so much as he gave them no kind of Action After the very self same manner when we come unto those particular effects Prerogatives of Dominion which the Laws of this Land do grant unto the Kings thereof it will appear how these men notwithstanding their large and liberal Speeches abate such parcels out of the afore alleadged grant and flourishing shew that a man comparing the one with the other may half stand in doubt lest their Opinion in very truth be against that Authority which by their Speeches they seem mightily to uphold partly for the avoiding of publike obloquie envie and hatred partly to the intent they may both in the cad by the establishment of their Discipline extinguish the force of Supream Power which Princes have and yet in the mean while by giving forth these smooth Discourses obtain that their savourers may have somewhat to alleadge for them by way of Apologie and that such words only sound towards all kind of fulness of Power But for my self I had rather construe such their contradictions in the better
those Churches then is my Calling being the same with theirs also lawful But I suppose notwithstanding they use this general speech they mean only my Calling is not sufficient to deâ— in the Ministry within this Land because I was not made Minister according to that Order which in this Case is ordained by our Laws Whereunto I beseech your Honours to consider throughly of mine Answer because exception now again is taken to my Ministery whereas having been heretofore called in question for it I so answered the matter as I continued in my Ministery and for any thing I discerned looked to hear that no more objected unto me The communion of Saints which every Christian man professeth to believe is such as that the Acts which are done in any true Church of Christs according to his Word are held as lawful being done in one Church as in another Which as it holdeth in other Acts of Ministery as Baptism Mariage and such like so doth it in the calling to the Ministery by reason whereof all Churches do acknowledge and receive him for a Minister of the Word who hath been lawfully called thereunto in any Church of the same Profession A Doctor created in any University of Christendom is acknowledged sufficiently qualified to teach in any Country The Church of Rome it self and the Canon law holdeth it that being ordered in Spain they may execute that belongeth to their Order in Italy or in any other place And the Churches of the Gospel never made any question of it which if they shall now begin to make doubt of and deny such to be lawfully called to the Ministry as are called by another Order than our own then may it well be looked for that other Churches will do the like And if a Minister called in the Low-countries be not lawfully called in England then may they say to our Preachers which are there that being made of another Order than theirs they cannot suffer them to execute any Act of Ministry amongst them which in the end must needs breed a Schism and dangerous divisions in the Churches Further I have heard of those that are learned in the Laws of this Land that by express Statute to that purpose Anno 13. upon subscription to the Articles agreed upon Anno 62. that they who pretend to have been ordered by another Order than that which is now established are of like capacity to enjoy any place of Ministry within the Land as they which have been ordered according to that which is now by law in this case established Which comprehending manifestly all even such as were made Priests according to the Order of the Church of Rome it must needs be that the Law of a Christian Land professing the Gospel should be as favourable for a Minister of the Word as for a Popish Priest which also was so found in Mr. Whittingham's Case who notwithstanding such Replies against him enjoyed still the benefit he had by his Ministry and might have done untill this day if God had spared him life so long which if it be understood so and practised in others why should the change of the Person alter the right which the Law giveth to all other The place of Ministry whereunto I was called was not Presentative and if it had been so surely they would never have presented any man whom they never knew and the order of this Church is agreeable herein to the Word of God and the antient and best Canons that no man should be made a Minister sine titulo therefore having none I could not by the Orders of this Church have entred into the Ministry before I had a Charge to tend upon When I was at Antwerp and to take a Place of Ministry among the People of that Nation I see no cause why I should have returned again over the Seas for Orders here nor how I could have done it without disallowing the Orders of the Churches provided in the Country where I was to live Whereby I hope it appeareth that my Calling to the Ministry is lawful and maketh me by our Law of capacity to enjoy any benefit or commodity that any other by reason of his Ministry may enjoy But my Cause is yet more easie who reaped no benefit of my Ministery by Law receiving onely a benevolence and voluntary Contribution and the Ministery I dealt with being Preaching onely which every Deacon here may do being licensed and certain that are neither Ministers not Deacons Thus I answer the former of these two Points whereof if there be yet any doubt I humbly desire for a final end thereof that some competent Judges in Law may determine of it whereunto I referr and submit my self with all reverence and duty The second is That I preached without License Whereunto this is my Answer I have not presumed upon the Calling I had to the Ministery abroad to Preach or deal with any part of the Ministery within this Church without the consent and allowance of such as were to allow me unto it my Allowance was from the Bishop of London testified by his two several Letters to the Inner Temple who without such testimony would by no means rest satified in it which Letters being by me produced I referr it to your Honours wisdom whether I have taken upon me to Preach without being allowed as they charge according to the Orders of the Realm Thus having answered the second point also I have done with the Objection of dealing without Calling or License The other Reason they alledge is concerning a late Action wherein I had to deal with Mr. Hooker Master of the Temple In the handling of which Cause they charge me with an Indiscretion and want of Duty In that I inveighed as they say against certain Points of Doctrine taught by him as erroneous not conferring with him nor complaining of it to them My Answer hereunto standeth in declaring to your Honours the whole course and carriage of that Cause and the degrees of proceeding in it which I will do as briefly as I can and according to the truth God be my witness as near as my best memory and notes of remembrance may serve me thereunto After that I have taken away that which seemed to have moved them to think me not charitably minded to Mr. Hooker which is Because he was brought in to Mr. Alveyes Place wherein this Church desired that I might have succeeded which Place if I would have made suit to have obtained or if I had ambitiously affected and sought I would not have refused to have satisfied by subscription such as the matter them seemed to depend upon whereas contrariwise notwithstanding I would not hinder the Church to do that they thought to be most for their edification and comfort yet did I neither by Speech nor Letter make suit to any for the obtaining of it following herein that resolution which I judge to be most agreeable to the Word and Will of God that is that
to hold especially sit hence the publishing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ whereby the simplest having now a Key unto Knowledge which the Eunuch in the Acts did want our Children may of themselves by reading understand that which he without an Interpreter could not they are in Scripture plain and easie to be understood As for those things which at the first are obscure and dark when memory hath laid them up for a time Judgment afterwards growing explaineth them Scripture therefore is not so hard but that the only reading thereof may give life unto willing Hearers The easie performance of which holy labour is in like sort a very cold Objection to prejudice the vertue thereof For what though an Infidel yes though a Childe may be able to read there is no doubt but the meanest and worst amongst the People under the Law had been as able as the Priests themselves were to offer Sacrifice Did this make Sacrifice of no effect unto that purpose for which it was instituted In Religion some duties are not commended so much by the hardness of their execution as by the worthiness and dignity of that acceptation wherein they are held with God We admire the goodness of God in nature when we consider how he hath provided that things most needful to preserve this life should be most prompt and easie for all living Creatures to come by Is it not as evident a sign of his wonderful providence over us when that food of Eternal life upon the utter want whereof our endless death and destruction necessarily ensueth is prepared and always set in such a readiness that those very means than which nothing is more easie may suffice to procure the same Surely if we perish it is not the lack of Scribes and learned Expounders that can be out just excuse The Word which saveth our Souls is near us we need for knowledge but to read and live The man which readeth the Word of God the Word it self doth pronounce blessed if he also observe the same Now all these things being well considered it shall be no intricate matter for any man to judge with indifferency on which part the good of the Church is most conveniently sought whether on ours whose opinion is such as hath been shewed or else on theirs who leaving no ordinary way of Salvation for them unto whom the Word of God is but only read do seldom name them but with great disdain and contempt who execute that Service in the Church of Christ. By means whereof it hath come to pass that Churches which cannot enjoy the benefit of usual Preaching are judged as it were even forsaken of God forlorn and without either hope or comfort Contrariwise those places which every day for the most part are at Sermons as the flowing sea do both by their emptiness at times of reading and by other apparent tokens shew to the voice of the living God this way sounding in the ears of men a great deal less reverence then were meet But if no other evil were known to grow thereby who can chuse but think them cruel which doth hear them so boldly teach that if God as to him there nothing impossible do haply save any such as continue where they have all other means of instruction but are not taught by continual preaching yet this is miraculous and more than the fitness of so poor instruments can give any man cause to hope for that Sacraments are not effectual to Salvation except men be instructed by Preaching before they be made Partakers of them yea that both Sacraments and Prayers also where Sermons are not do not only not feed but are ordinarily to further condemnation What mans heart doth not rise at the mention of these thingsâ— It is true that the weakness of our Wits and the dulness of our Affections do make us for the most part even as our Lords own Disciples were for a certain time hard and slow to believe what is written For help whereof expositions and exhortations are needful and that in the most effectual manner The principal Churches throughout the Land and no small part of the rest being in this respect by the goodness of God so abundantly provided for they which want the like furtherance unto knowledge wherewith it were greatly to be desired that they also did abound are yet we hope not left in so extream desticution that justly any men should think the ordinary means of Eternal life taken from them because their teaching is in publick for the most part but by Reading For which cause amongst whom there are not those helps that others have to set them forward in the way of Life such to dis-hearten with fearful Sentences as though their Salvation could hardly be hoped for is not in our understanding so consonant with Christian Charity We hold it safer a great deal and better to give them incouragement to put them in minde that it is not the deepness of their Knowledge but the singleness of their Belief which God accepteth That they which hunger and thirst after Righteousness shall be satisfied That no imbecillity of Means can prejudice the truth of the promise of God herein That the weaker their helps are the more their need is to sharpen the edge of their own industry And that painfulness by feeble meanes shall be able to gain that which in the plenty of more forcible instruments is through sloth and negligence lost As for the men with whom we have thus fart taken pains to conferr about the force of the Word of God either read by it self or opened in Sermons their speeches concerning both the one and the other are in truth such as might give us very just cause to think that the reckoning is not great which they make of either For howsoever they have been driven to devise some odde kinde of blinde uses whereunto they may answer that reading doth serve yet the reading of the Word of God in publick more than their Preachers bare Text who will not judge that they deem needless when if we chance at any time to term it necessary as being a thing which God himself did institute amongst the Jews for purposes that touch as well us as them a thing which the Apostles commend under the Old and ordain under the New Testament a thing whereof the Church of God hath ever sithence the first beginning reaped singular Commodity a thing which without exceeding great detriment no Church can omit they only are the men that ever we heard of by whom this hath been cross'd and gain-said they only the men which have given their peremptory sentence to the contrary It is untrue that simple Reading is necessary in the Church And why untrue Because although it be very convenient which is used in some Churches where before Preaching-time the Church assembled hath the Scriptures read in such order that the whole Canon thereof is
oftentimes in one year run through yet a number of Churches which have no such order of simple Reading cannot be in this point charged with breach of Gods commandement which they might be if simple Reading were necessary A poor a cold and an hungry cavil Shall we therefore to please them change the Word Necessary and say that it hath been a commendable Order a Custom very expedient or an Ordinance most profitable whereby they know right well that we mean exceedingly behoovful to read the Word of God at large in the Church whether it be as our manner is or as theirs is whom they prefer before us It is not this that will content or satisfie their mindes They have against it a marvellous deep and profound Axiome that Two things to one and the same end cannot but very improperly be said most profitable And therefore if Preaching be most profitable to man's Salvation then is not Reading if Reading be then Preaching is not Are they resolved then at the leastwise if Preaching be the only ordinary mean whereby it pleaseth God to save our Souls what kinde of Preaching it is which doth save Understand they how or in what respect there is that force or vertue in Preaching We have reason wherefore to make these Demands for that although their Pens run all upon Preaching and Sermons yet when themselves do practise that whereof they write they change their Dialect and those words they shun as if there were in them some secret sting It is not their phrase to say they Preach or to give to their own instructions and exhortations the name of Sermons the pain they take themselves in this kinde is either opening or Lecturing or Reading or Exercising but in no case Preaching And in this present Question they also warily protest that what they ascribe to the vertue of Preaching they still mean it of good Preaching Now one of them saith that a good Sermon must expound and apply a large portion of the Text of Scripture at one time Another giveth us to understand that sound Preaching is not to do as one did at London who spent most of his time in Invectives against good men and told his Audience how the Magistrate should have an eye to such as troubled the peace of the Church The best of them hold it for no good Preaching when a man endeavoureth to make a glorious shew of Eloquence and Learning rather than to apply himself to the capacity of the simple But let them shape us out a good Preacher by what pattern soever pleaseth them best let them exclude and inclose whom they will with their definitions we are not desirous to enter into any contention with them about this or to abate the conceit they have of their own ways so that when once we are agreed what Sermons shall currently pass for good we may at length understand from them what that is in a good Sermon which doth make it the Word of Life unto such as hear If substance of matter evidence of things strength and validity of arguments and proofs or if any other vertue else which Words and Sentences may contain of all this what is there in the best Sermons being uttered which they lose by being read But they utterly deny that the reading either of Scriptures or Homilies and Sermons can ever by the ordinary grace of God save any Soul So that although we had all the Sermons word for word which Iames Paul Peter and the rest of the Apostles made some one of which Sermons was of power to convert thousands of the Hearers unto Christian Faith yea although we had all the instructions exhortations consolations which came from the gracious lips of our Lord Jesus Christ himself and should read them ten thousand times over to Faith and Salvation no man could hereby hope to attain Whereupon it must of necessity follow that the vigour and vital efficacy of Sermons doth grow from certain accidents which are not in them but in their Maker his vertue his gesture his countenance his zeal the motion of his body and the inflexion of his voice who first uttereth them as his own is that which giveth them the form the nature the very essence of instruments available to Eternal life If they like neither that nor this what remaineth but that their final conclusion be Sermons we know are the only ordinary means to Salvation but why or how we cannot tell Wherefore to end this tedious Controversie wherein the too great importunity of our over-eager Adversaries hath constrained us much longer to dwell than the barrenness of so poor a Cause could have seemed at the first likely either to require or to admit if they which without partialities and passions are accustomed to weigh all things and accordingly to give their sentence shall here sit down to receive our Audit and to cast up the whole reckoning on both sides the sum which Truth amounteth unto will appear to be but this that as Medicines provided of Nature and applyed by Art for the benefit of bodily health take effect sometime under and sometime above the natural proportion of their vertue according as the minde and fancy of the Patient doth more or less concurr with them So whether we barely read unto men the Scriptures of God or by Homilies concerning matter of Belief and Conversation seek to lay before them the duties which they owe unto God and Man whether we deliver them Books to read and consider of in private at their own best leasure or call them to the hearing of Sermons publickly in the House of God albeit every of these and the like unto these means do truly and daily effect that in the hearts of men for which they are each and all meant yet the operation which they have in common being most sensible and most generally noted in one kinde above the rest that one hath in some mens opinions drowned altogether the rest and injuriously brought to pass that they have been thought not less effectual than the other but without the other uneffectual to save souls Whereas the cause why Sermons only are observed to prevail so much while all means else seem to sleep and do nothing is in truth but that singular affection and attention which the people sheweth every where towards the one and their cold disposition to the other the reason hereof being partly the Art which our Adversaries use for the credit of their Sermons to bring men out of conceit with all other Teaching besides partly a custom which men have to let those things carelesly pass by their ears which they have oftentimes heard before or know they may hear again whenever it pleaseth themselves partly the especial advantages which Sermons naturally have to procure attention both in that they come always new and because by the Hearer it is still presumed that if they be let slip for the present what good soever they contain is
of causes of Judgement to be highest let thus much suffice as well for declaration of our own meaning as for defence of the truth therein The cause is not like when such Assemblies are gathered together by Suream Authority concerning other affairs of the Church and when they meet about the making of Ecclesiastical Laws or Statutes For in the one they are onely to advise in the other to decree The Persons which are of the one the King doth voluntarily assemble as being in respect of quality fit to consult withal them which are of the other he calleth by prescript of Law as having right to be thereunto called Finally the one are but themselves and their Sentence hath but the weight of their own Judgment the other represent the whole Clergy and their voyces are as much as if all did give personal verdict Now the question is Whether the Clergy alone so assembled ought to have the whole power of making Ecclesiastical Laws or else consent of the Laity may thereunto be made necessary and the King's assent so necessary that his sole denial may be of force to stay them from being Laws If they with whom we dispute were uniform strong and constant in that which they say we should not need to trouble our selves about their Persons to whom the power of making Laws for the Church belongs for they are sometime very vehement in contention that from the greatest thing unto the least about the Church all must needs be immediately from God And to this they apply the pattern of the antient Tabernacle which God delivered unto Moses and was therein so exact that there was not left as much as the least pin for the wit of man to devise in the framing of it To this they also apply that streight and severe charge which God soosten gave concerning his own Law Whatsoever I command you take heed ye do it Thou shalt put nothing thereto thou shalt take nothing from it Nothing whether it be great or small Yet sometimes bethinking themselves better they speak as acknowledging that it doth suffice to have received in such sort the principal things from God and that for other matters the Church had sufficient authority to make Laws whereupon they now have made it a question What Persons they are whose right it is to take order for the Churches affairs when the institution of any new thing therein is requisite Law may be requisite to be made either concerning things that are onely to be known and believed in or else touching that which is to be done by the Church of God The Law of Nature and the Law of God are sufficient for declaration in both what belongeth unto each man separately as his Soul is the Spouse of Christ yea so sufficient that they plainly and fully shew whatsoever God doth require by way of necessary introduction unto the state of everlasting bliss But as a man liveth joyned with others in common society and belongeth to the outward Politick Body of the Church albeit the same Law of Nature and Scripture have in this respect also made manifest the things that are of greatest necessity nevertheless by reason of new occasions still arising which the Church having care of Souls must take order for as need requireth hereby it cometh to pass that there is and ever will be so great use even of Human Laws and Ordinances deducted by way of discourse as a conclusion from the former Divine and Natural serving as Principals thereunto No man doubteth but that for matters of Action and Practice in the Affairs of God for manner in Divine Service for order in Ecclesiastical proceedings about the Regiment of the Church there may be oftentimes cause very urgent to have Laws made but the reason is not so plain wherefore Human laws should appoint men what to believe Wherefore in this we must note two things 1. That in matters of opinion the Law doth not make that to be truth which before was not as in matter of Action is causeth that to be a duty which was not before but manifesteth only and giveth men notice of that to be truth the contrary whereunto they ought not before to have believed 2. That opinions do cleave to the understanding and are in heat assented unto it is not in the power of any Human law to command them because to prescribe what men shall think belongeth only unto God Corde creditur ore fit confessio saith the Apostle As opinions are either fit or inconvenient to be professed so man's laws hath to determine of them It may for Publick unities sake require mens professed assent or prohibit their contradiction to special Articles wherein as there haply hath been Controversie what is true so the same were like to continue still not without grievous detriment unto a number of Souls except Law to remedy that evil should set down a certainty which no man afterwards is to gain-say Wherefore as in regard of Divine laws which the Church receiveth from God we may unto every man apply those words of wisdom in Solomon My Son keep thou thy Fathers Precepts Conserva Fili mi praecepta Patris tui even so concerning the Statutes and Ordinances which the Church it self makes we may add thereunto the words that follow Etut dimitt as legem Matris tuae And forsake thou not thy Mothers law It is a thing even undoubtedly natural that all free and Independent Societies should themselves make their own Laws and that this power should belong to the whole not to any certain part of a Politick body though haply some one part may have greater sway in that action than the rest which thing being generally fit and expedient in the making of all Laws we see no cause why to think otherwise in Laws concerning the service of God which in all well-order'd States and Common-wealths is the first thing that Law hath care to provide for When we speak of the right which naturally belongeth to a Common-wealth we speak of that which must needs belong to the Church of God For if the Common-wealth be Christian if the People which are of it do publickly embrace the true Religion this very thing doth make it the Church as hath been shewed So that unless the verity and purity of Religion do take from them which embrace it that power wherewith otherwise they are possessed look what authority as touching laws for Religion a Common-wealth hath simply it must of necessity being of the Christian Religion It will be therefore perhaps alledged that a part of the verity of Christian Religion is to hold the power of making Ecclesiastical Laws a thing appropriated unto the Clergy in their Synods and whatsoever is by their only voyces agreed upon it needeth no further approbation to give unto it the strength of a Law as may plainly appear by the Canons of that first most venerable Assembly where those things the Apostle and Iames had concluded