semper valuit ut quae cunque ab hoc consensu confirmata videam mihi sacrosancta immutabilia videantur Bishop Carleton de Consen eccles cap. 11. cap. 277. and humble Christians do and ever did the constant clear and concurrent which is the truly Catholick testimony of the Church in which so much of the truth Spirit and grace of God hath alwaies appeared amidst the many cloudings of humane infirmities to be far beyond any meer humane record or authority in point of establishing a Christians judgement or conscience in any thing that is not contrary to the evident command of the written word of God However some mens ignorance and self conceited confidence like bogs and quagmires are so loose and false that no piles never so long well driven and strongly compacted by the consent and harmonious testimonies of the most learned writers in the Church can reach any bottom or firm ground in them whereon to lay a foundation of humane belief or erect a firm bank and defense against the invasion of daily novelties which blow up all and break in upon the antient and most venerable orders practises and constitutions of the Church where ever they are yet continued which being evidently set forth to me by witnesses of so great credit for their piety diligence fidelity harmony integrity constancy and charity I know not how with any face of humanity or Christianity to question disbelieve or contradict Under which cloud of unsuspected witnesses I confess I cannot but much acquiesce and rest satisfied in those things which others endlessly dispute because they have not so literal and preceptive a ground in Scripture Quod universa tenet ecclesia nec consiliis institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi autoritate Apostolica traditum rectissimè creditur August cont Donat. l. 4. In Concil Loodic Melito Episc Sard. missus ut autographa ubique decernat c. Constabit id ab Apostolis traditum quod apud ecclesias fuerit sacrosanctum Tert. ad Mar. l. 4. however they have a very rational exexemplary analogical and consequential authority from thence which is made most clear as to the minde of God by that sense which the Primitive Doctors and Christians who lived with or next to the Apostles had of them and by their practise accordingly in the ways of Religion Thus the Canonical Books of the Scripture especially those of the New Testament which no where are enumerated in any one Book nor as from divine oracle any where commanded to be believed or received as the writings of such holy authors guided by the dictates or directions of Gods Spirit we own and receive as they were after some time with judgment and discretion rejecting many other pretended Gospels and Epistles antiently received by the Catholike Church and to this day are continued So also in point of the Church Government How in right Reason Order and Religion the Churches of Christ either in single Congregations and Parishes or in larger Associations and Fraternities ought to be governed in which thing we see that sudden variations from the Churches constant patern in all ages and places hath lately cost the expence not onely of much Ink but of much blood and have both cast and left us in great scandals deformities and confusions unbeseeming Christian Religion The like confirmation I have for Christians observing the Lords day as their holy Rest or Sabbath to the Lord and their variating herein upon the occasion of Christs Resurrection from the Seventh day or Jewish Sabbath which is not so much commanded by Precept as confirmed by Practise in the Church so in the baptising of the Infants of Christian Parents who profeâ—s to believe in Jesus Christ onely for the means of salvation to them and their children which after Saint Cyprian Saint Jerom and Augustine affirm to have been the custom of the Catholike Church in and before their days so as no Bishop or Council or Synod began it Cypr. ep ad Fidum Aust ep 28. And no less in this of the peculiar distinct calling order 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. Afric in Con. Carth. 1. anno 419. Some things in the Church are setled by Canon others by custom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Con. Nicoen office and succession of the Ministry Evangelical In all which if the Letter and Analogy of Scripture were less clear than â—t is so that the doctrines of those particulars which are among Christians counted divine were â—ike Vines and Honey-suckles less able to bear up themselves in full authority by that strength and vertue which they receive from the Scripture Precept where undoubtedly their root is and from whence they have grown shooted out so far and flourished in all Churches yet the constant judgment and practise of the Church of Christ which is called the pilâ—ar and ground of truth are stayes and firm supports to such sweet and usefull plants which have so long flourished in the Church of Christ whose custom may silence perverse disputes of corrupt and contentious minds And indeed doth fully satisfy and confirm both my believe and my religious observation of those particulars as sacred and unalâ—erable Nor hath any of those things Eucharistia sacramentum non de aliorum manu quaÌ„ prasidentium sumimus Tertul de Coro Mil. Impositionem manuuÌ„ qua Ecclesiae mininistri in suum manus initiantur ut non invitus patior vocari Sacramentum ita inter ordinaria Sacramenta non numero Calvin Inst l. 4. c. 14. sect 2. Amb. l. 5. ep 32. ad Valentin Commends that sentence which the Emperours Father had wrote touching judicatories and Judges in Church matters In causa fidei vel Ecclesiastici muneris eum judicare debere qui nec munere impar nec jure dissimilis constanter assero more clear evidence from Scripture or Catholick practice than this of the calling and succession of the Ministry of the Gospell hath wherein some men after due tryall and examination of their gifts and lives made by those who are of the same function and are in the Church indued with a derivable Commission and Authority to ordein an holy succession of men in the Ministry for the Churches use are by fasting prayer and solemn imposition of hands in the presence of the faithfull people publikely and peculiarly ordained consecrated set apart sent and authorised in the power and name of Christ to preach the Gospell to all men to administer the holy Sacraments and respectively to dispense all those holy duties and mysteries belonging to Christian Religion among Christian people that is such as profess to believe that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of Sinners Which holy and most necessary custom of ordaining some fit men by others of the same function to be Ministers in the Church hath not only the unanimous consent and practise of the Orthodox Christians and purest Churches in all ages from the Apostles times But no Hereticks or Schismaticks who owned any
with most charity to any others that have for the foundation of their faith the Scriptures and the Sacraments for the seals and a true Ministry for the ordering and right dispensing of holy things professing such latitudes of charity always as exclude no such Christians from communion with them Notwithstanding they have many and different superstructures in lesser things Without this Christian charity it is evident all ostentations of true Religion of Churches purity and of Reformation though accompanied with tongues miracles and martyrdoms 1 Cor. 14.1 3 c. are in vain and profit men nothing As it is not enough to make men of the true Church to say They are the onely true Church and in the onely Church-way or to censure condemn and exclude all other Christians who may be in the same path-way to Heaven though the paving be different of grass or gravel or stone c. So it is enough to exclude any party sect or faction of seeming Christians from being any sound part of the true Church to say in a Schismatical pride and uncharitable severity That they are the onely true Church Excidisti ab ecclesia ubi à charitate excideris quum à Christo ipso inde excidisti Aug. as the ring-leaders of the Novatians and Donatists did excommunicating by malicious proud and passionate principles or in any other novelizing ways vexing and disturbing the quiet of those Christians and Churches who have the true Means and Ministry the true Grounds and Seals of Faith with other holy and orderly Ministrations though with some different rites yet professing holiness of life and this with Christian charity to all others Col. 3.14 which is the very bond of perfection The want of which cannot consist with those other graces of true faith and love repentance and humility by which men pretend to be united to Christ The ready way not to be any part or true Member of the Catholike Church is Isai 65.4 They eat abominable things yet they say Stand by thy self come not neer me for I am holier than thou These saith the Lord are a smoke in my nose and a fire that burneth all the day To chalenge to be the onely true Church and to separate from all others both by non-communion with them and a total condemning or abdicating of them As the way for any branch to wither and come to nothing is To break it self off by a rude Schism or violent fraction from the Tree that it may have the glory to grow by it self and to say with a Pharisaick pride to all others stand by I am holier than you Thus parting from that Root and Body Christ and the Catholike Church in the communion with which by Truth and Charity its Life and Beauty did consist However then the unholy love of novelty proud curiosity cold charity and distempered zeal of some men dare cast off unchurch and anathematise not onely single persons and private Congregations but even greater associations of Christians bound together by the bonds of civil as well as Church societies in Nations and Kingdoms yea and to despise that Catholike form of all the Churches in the World 2 Cor. 10.12 They measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise of antient as well as present times Yet this vain-glorying through a verbal ignorant proud and uncharitable confidence of themselves and contempt of all others seems to have more in it of Belial and Antichrist than of Jesus Christ more of Lucifer than of the Father of Lights who also is the Father of Love who hath therefore shined on men with the light of his grace and love of Christ that he might lead them by this powerful patern of divine love to love one another as men and as Christians with all meekness and charity with all good hope forbearance and long-suffering toward those especially that profess to be of the houshold of faith who hold the foundation Christ crucified though they may have many additions of hay 1 Cor. 3.15 straw and stubble since Those may save though these suffer loss God will easily discern between his gold and our dross between the errors rising from simplicity and the truths joyned with charity and humility He will easily distinguish between the humble ignorance of many upright-hearted Christians who are seduced to wandrings and the subtilty pride or malice of Arch-hereticks and Schismaticks who seduce others for sinister ends All wise humble and charitable Christians should so order their judgements and censures if at any time they are forced to declare them that they must above all things take heed that they nourish not nor discover any uncharitable fewds or distances and antipathies against any Churches or Christians after the rate of those passions which are the common source both of Schisms and Heresies whose ignorance and pride like water and ice mutually arise from and are resolved into each other Therefore proud because ignorant and the more ignorant because so proud Nor yet may they follow those defiances and distances in Religion Tantum distat à vera charitate quorundam zetotarum praeceps intemperatus â—â—dâ— quantum maligna sebricitantium flamâ—ae à native vitali corporis calore Cas which Reason of State or the Interests of Princes or Power of Civil Factions or the Popular fierceness of some Ministers and eager Sticklers for sides and parties do nourish and vulgarly commend as high expressions of zeal and the onely ways of true Religion Where there is scarce one drop of charity in a sea of controversie or one star of necessary truth in the whole clouded Heaven of their differing opinions and ways which set men as far from true Christian temper as burning Feavers do from native heat and health 10. Extremes touching the Church I know no point hath used more liberal and excellent Pens than this concerning the true Church as it is visible or professional before men which is the proper subject of this dispute Some mens Pens flow with too much gall and bitterness as the rigid Papists on the one side and the keener Separatist on the other Denying any to be in a right Church-way save onely such as are just in their particular mold and form Either joyned in communion with the Roman profession and being subject to its head the Pope pleading antiquity unity universality visibility c. or else embodied with those new and smaller Incorporations which count themselves the onely true and properly so called Churches pretending more absolute Church-power more exact constitution and more compleat Scripture-Reformation than any antient National dilated and confederated Churches could or ever did attain too Herein there is a strong excess on both sides 1. By the Romanists Baron Anno Christi 45. p. 376. Haereticum esse qui à Romanae Cathedrae communione divisuâ— sit So Bellarm. dâ— Rom. Pont. l. 2.12 Vetusta coâ—suetudo servetur ut hic Episcopus Rom.
the Law Quicquid deficiunt aliae unica supplet charitatis gratio qua in aeternum non de ficiet Bern. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nis Prius chari quaÌ„ proximi Min. Fael 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just M. Tâ—ypl o. and all Churches was Scripture Truth the Cement Charity the Beauty Unity and the Strength orderly and social Government O thou fairest of ten thousands Christian Charity which were the wonder of the World in the Primitive times Which didst so spread thy wings over all the Earth like the Spirit of God on the face of the great deep the ocean of mankinde that every man might and every Christian did enjoy the vital heat and diviner influence of thy fosterings on their souls So far that what weaker Christians came short of in believing or failed in understanding or were defective in doing they made up in loving of Christ and for his sake one another Yea what the very enemies and persecutors of Christians wanted of that humanity which is as the morn and dawning of Christian Charity true Christians sought to relieve them by their prayers and to cover their horrid cruelties with their own kindness to them while killed by them and devotions for them while they were dying under them as the bâ—essed Martyr Stephen did and the Crown of Martyrs Christ Jesus They forgat not to pray for those that persecuted them which made Christians in their furthest dispersions greatest distances and grievousest sufferings still admired by all men though hated by them still endeared well acquainted and united in love to each other before they had seen or were personally known to each other O thou potent flame of celestial fire which the love of Christ Charitas est oleum unde clara virtutuÌ„ omnium lampas sustentatur Religio sine charitate est lampas sine oleo Bern. ep 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 28. So Just Martyr Ep. ad Diog. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 14. stronger than death had kindled in the souls of the first and best Christians No Seas no solitudes no poverty no pains no sufferings no torments no offences no injuries were able to damp or quench thee of old but still thou didst gloe to so fresh an heat that it warmed and melted the hardest Rocks of Heathen persecutors and tormentors Who before they believed the Gospel or love of God in Christ covered to be of that Christian society where they saw men love one another so dearly so purely so constantly as to be ready to die with and for each other Alas now every small drop of fancy every novelty of fashion in Religion every atome of Invention every dust of Opinion every mote of Ceremony every shadow of Reformation every difference of Practice damps rakes up buries puts out thy sacred sparks and embers in Christians hearts yea and kindles those unholy cruel and dreadful fires of contrariety jealousies scorn hatred enmity revenge impatience of union and zeal for separation to so great heights of all-devouring flames that nothing but the flesh of Christians will serve for fuel to maintain them and nothing but the blood of Believers to extinguish them So that no Christians now love further than they conspire and contend to destroy and conquer all but their own party and faction Thus the want of this holy grace of charity wastes us by the fires of unchristian fewds and even presages the approaching of those last dreadful conflagrations which shall consume the world and those eternal flames which shall revenge this sin of sins among Christians the want of charity which sins against the love of God the blood of Christ the Churches peace and our own souls How shall we uncharitable wretches not dread the coming of our Judge or how can we love his appearance in flaming fire who have thus singed and burnt that livery of Christs love wherewith we were clothed which was dipped and died in his own blood that so it might stanch the further effusions of blood among Christians and cover the stayns of that bloud which had been passionatly shed among them How can we hope our souls should be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus when we spend our dayes in damming and destroying each other and scarce suffer any to possess their souls in patience or in any degree of charity amidst the wasts and troubles of this conflicting and tottering Church Which like a great tree whose roots are loosned round and almost cut through stagger too and fro threatning to fall on every side being nothing now but weakness over-laden with weight and labouring with the burthen of it self is ready to destroy both it self and others by the suddenness and violence of its fall O you excellent Christians hasten as Lot should have done out of Sodom to withdraw your selves from the interests designs zeal devotion and Religion of this uncharitable and self destroying world wrap your selves in the mantle of charity peaceableness and patience hasten to hide your selves in the holes of this rock the love of Christ your Redeemer till he come who is at the dore and will not tarry Charitas sanctitatis Custos Chrysol ser 94. O pretious and inestimable grace of Charity the only Jewel of our lives the viaticum for our Deaths the greatest ornament of a Christian profession the sweetness of our bitterness the Antidote of our poysons the Cordiall in our infirmities the comforter under our dejections the supplyer of our defects the joy in our sorrows the witness of our sincerity the Crown of our graces the Seal of our hopes 1 Joh. 3.14 the stay and Pillar of our Souls amidst the tears tossings Dilectio suÌ„muÌ„ fidei sacramentum Christiani nomini thesaurus Tertul lib. de Patientia Mat. 5.44 Humanum est amicos Christianum inimicos diligere Hilar. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. de Christian dissid or 14. fears and conflicts of our mortall Pilgrimage In which we then only joy when we either love or are loved by others but then we have most cause of pious joy when being hated and cursed and persecuted by others we can yet love them and pray for them and bless them for Christs sake Thou that madest Martyrs and Confessors and all true Christians more than Conquerors of death and enemies men and Devils O how have we lost thee how have we banished thee how have we not injured thee yea how have we grieved thee more in this that we are loth to find thee But most in this that we seek thee among Heresies Schisms Apostacies seditions furies perjuries tyrannies superstitions sacrileges causeless disputes endless janglings yea cruell murthers of bodies and Anathemaes of souls But the highest indignity and greater than the greatest insolency offerd thee is That we boast and proclaim we have found thee in what we have most lost thee that we have raised thee by what we have ruined thee that we are most Churches when we are least Christians or most
false teachers to stop their mouths Tit. 1.11 to exhort command and rebuke with all authority Tit. 2.15 to do their work as workmen that need not to be ashamed 2 Tim. 2.15 as those that must give an account of their Ministry and the souls committed to their care and charge by God and the Church Adorns them also with peculiar privileges promises and speciall assistances takes care for peculiar maintenance 1 Cor. 9.9 19. and double honour to be given them by all true Christians 1 Tim. 5.17 and encourageth them in a work of so great pains exact care and consciencious diligence which must expect to meet alwaies as now it doth with much opposition and contradiction of sinners promising to them speciall degrees of glory and more ponderous Crowns of eternall rewards in Heaven 1 Cor. 12.29 Are all Apo. are all Prophets are all Teachers c. 1 Cor. 9.16 Though I Preach the Gospell I have nothing to glory of as superogating so necessity is layd upon me yea woe is unto me if I Preach not the Gospell By all which and many others which might be added the Demonstration is clear as the Sun at Noon day to all that are not wilfully blind That some and not all in the Church and these not arbitrary and occasionall but chosen and ordeined persons are sent in a succession from Christ in his name and by vertue of this divine mission speciall authority and ordination to the care service and work of the Ministry they are bound in the highest bonds of conscience to the glory of God and the salvation of their own and others souls under a dreadfull woe and curse of being guilty of their souls damnation who perish by their neglect to attend diligently to discharge faithfulâ—y and couragiously as in the name and authority of Jesus Christ the Lord of glory this great and dreadfull imployment of the Ministry which Angels would not undertake without they were sent nor if sent without some horror Onus opus iâ—sis angelicis formidandum humoris Betn 2 Cor. 2.16 Who is sufficient for these things i. e. to speak the word of God as of God in the sight of God in Christ i. e. of sincerity 2 Tim. 2.4 2 Tim. 4.13 14 15 16. Acts 4.19.20 The Epistle of Paul to Tim. and Tit. are the constant Canons and divine injunctions for the succession of Ministerial power by way of tryal imposition of hands prayer c. To which no earthen vessels are of themselves sufficient but through the grace of God they are made able and faithfull 1 Tim. 1.12 and being such are both successefull and accepted while they give themselves wholy to this work not entangling themselves with other incomberances but devoting the whole latitude of time parts studies gifts to this business of saving souls and this not in popular and precarious wayes or only upon grounds of charity but with all just confidence of having that authority with them as well as necessity upon them which makes them bold in the Lord that they cannot but speak the things for which they have received power and commission from Christ by the Ordination and appointment of the Governours and guides of the Church who formerly had received the same power To which none can without high impudence blasphemy and impiety pretend who are conscious to themselves to have received no such authority from Christ either immediatly or in that one mediate way of successive ordination by which he hath appointed it to be derived to posterity which I have already proved cannot by any shew of Scripture no more than in any way of reason and order becomming Religion be found to have any other way than by those that are in orders as Ministers neither is it intrusted with the community of people among Christians nor left to every private mans pleasure As then some men are duly invested with power ministeriall 7. None can be true Ministers but such as are rightly ordeined both to act in this power and to confer it to others after them and these only are commanded by the rule of Christ by their duty or office and by all bonds of conscience to make a right use of this peculiar and divine power for the Churches good So are all other men whatsoever not thus duly ordeined and impowred though never so well gifted in themselves forbidden under the sins of lying falsity disorderly walking proud usurpation and arrogant intrusion of themselves into an holy office uncalled and unsent either to take this office and Ministry of holy things on themselves or to confer the power which they never received on others which neither Melchisedeck nor Moses nor Aaron nor Samuel nor any of the Prophets nor the Lord Jesus Christ nor the blessed Apostles Heb. 5.1 Every high Priest taken from among men is ordeined for men in things pertaining to God c. 4. No man taketh this honour to himself but he that is called of God as was Anon c. 5. Christ also glorified not himself to be made an high Priest c. nor any Evangelist or any true Bishop or Presbyter nor any holy men succeeding them did ever take to themselves either as to the whole or any part of that power and Ministry not so much as to be a Deacon but still attended the Heavenly call and mission either immediatly Luke 12.42 Who then is a faithfull and wise Steward whom the Lord shall make ruler over his household to give them their portion in due season 43. Blessed c. 1 Tim. 3.15 If I tarry long that thou mayst know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the house of God c. which was confirmed by miracles and speciall revelations or predictions or mediatly in such an order and method of succession as the Lord of the Church who is not a God of confusion hath appointed and to this day preserved who otherwayes would have left his Church short of that blessing of orderly Government and Officers appointed for holy ministrations which is necessary in every society and which no wise man that is Master of any Family doth omit to appoint and settle especially in his personall absence where he governs by a visible derived and delegated authority given to others as Christ now doth his Church as to the extern order and dispensation of holy things Peoples duty The duty of all faithfull people in which bounds their comforts are conteined are no less distinct and evidently confined Quomodo valebit homo secularis sacerdotis magisterium adimplere cujus nec officium tenuit nec disciplinam agnovit Isid Hisp off l. 2. c. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lay man is bound up by Lay commands to keep his rank and order Cl. ep pag. 53. Nor can saith he the Presbyters be cast out or degraded without a great sin Pag. 57. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Exors officii exors solatii praemii Is Hisp Matth.
bill of Divorce to the humble and usefully gifted Christians Liberty Only finding by experience that like Dinah it is prone to gad abroad run out through wantonness pride or weakness to much disorder vanity and confusion besides foolish and corrupt opinions and of late to a petulancy contempt and emulating of the publike Ordinance of the Ministry the wisdom of the Church in all ages for ought I can see did think fit to keep it within those safe and privater bounds of families or at most within such friendly meetings as are short of publike solemn Church assemblys Nor was the modesty of any humble Christian ever grieved that his abilities should be so wisely restrained While yet it had all private freedom and due encouragements And in publike far better and more orderly supplies from Gods rich treasury than from its own purse and penury As for the publike use of that Liberty and gifts of prophecying which that Gentleman so much crys up and magnifies I do not think him so much a puny in discretion but that he must needs see it will be incumbred with many and hardly evitable inconveniences Inconveniences attending that prophecying of the people on the Lords Day so that it will be easy for a wise man to see the Quare impedit For first most good Christians are commonly well satisfied with those solemn publike exercises and duties upon the Lords-Day as praying oft reading oft expounding the Scriptures Catechising many times and twise Preaching alwaies besides the ceâ—ebrating of one or both Sacraments All which are the blessings which the bounty of God hath plentifully provided for Christian people and powreth on them every Lords Day by the Labours of their faithfull and able Ministers whom Christ and the order of the Church have undoubtedly set over them in the way of Divine Authority And to whom all serious Christians attend as of duty and conscience affording means sufficient by Gods blessing on their devout attentions judicious understandings retentive memorys fervent affections and suitable conversations to save their souls For whom it were infinitely better to have every where such a Minister duly setled and competently maintained by those Revenews which are in all Law both divine and humane due as given for this service of God and the Church than for Christians to be fobbed off with new projects of Prophets gifted Brethren and modern Itinerant inconstant and Mendicant Preachers which will amount to nothing but mischief however they may make a shew for a while as if there needed no constant resident Ministers or other setled and ordeined Ministry That so a way may be made to ignorance superstition Atheism and profaness First And in time that sacred Revenew which is given to God for the maintenance of his publike service and Ministry may be turned to some secular uses and come into private purses It is most evident that what prophecying exercise is by any gifted Brethren added in publike on the Lords Day to this sufficiency of the Ministry will for the most part come very short of that weight worth and Authority which usually is in the Ministers learned pains So that it will seem but as a Churl upon the Gentleman as tedious and nauseating as small Beer and Water after men have drank well of the best Wine Or as the scraps of coarse and plain Country fare after men have been filled with a feast of marrow and fat things Besides this exercise of prophecying which that Gentleman so pleads for will hardly find any convenient time or temper in Christians minds on the Lords Day either among or after the publike duties of the Ministry It must needs seem as unseasonable flat and tedious Cavenda vel maxime in sacris ne sit satietus Ne minimum devorando fastidiosa sit regurgitatio cibi Cui digerendo vacare debes ut salubriter nutriare Greg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. Solonis dict 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Instantur potius ad morbos vanitatem quam superfluis ferculis nutriuntur ad sanitatem vires Ber. Amarat nimietas quod poterat condire mensura Chrysost p. 125. Pro. 27.7 The full soul loathes the Hony comb Mal. 2.7 Heb. 13.7 as all superfluities and excesses in matter of Religion easily do when they border never so little upon the Nimiety or too much It is great wisdom to keep people short from a surfet of holy things and to leave them with appetites and give vacancy for digestion rather than to cram and cloy them with matters either of superfluity or curiosity when indeed men do scarce with chearfulness and intention bear the holy duties of clear divine use and most absolute necessity In all which common people by this super-addition of a prophecying exercise on the Lords Day will be but hindred from that profitable Meditation and carefull remembrance of what they have already plentifully heard from the Minister whose lips ought to preserve knowledge and on which the people ought to wait as those that must give account of their souls It will then be neither convenient nor usefull as it is not necessary to bring up Prophesying thus in the rear of preaching as to the common peoples capacities or occasions yea rather it will be to the injury and hindrance both of Minister and godly people on the Lords day unless you be sure to provide the people seldom any Minister and none constantly resident or else such weak and short-winded Preachers that they may be sure to give time and room enough to these eager Prophets and to be only as foyls to set off their fresh and more glistring gifts or as an antepast of coarser meats to whet on the appetite for that more delicate fare which these prophets will pretend to bring forth we see already many of them stickle for the Pulpits and are smart rivals against the Ablest Ministers whom either small maintenance or some factious and ingratefull people have almost quite dis-spirited Upon whom the Cryers up and admirers of these new prophetick gifts look but as the forlorn hope which is to make way all this while for the main body of those gifted prophets Many of whom have so great an activity and confidence joyned with their weakness Ignorantiae imbecilitati proxima est Temeritas that they had need be very well-disciplined and kept carefully in their due ranks and posts or else they will soon rout all order and honour of Religion in this or any Church Notwithstanding all the good hopes all the soft bespeakings of esteem and gentle insinuations for their acceptan for made by that Charitable writer who hath so largely pleaded ce them at the common peoples bar And who merited indeed to have bestowed his pains so publikely upon a subject that had a better title in the Scripture and the Church than this of peoples prophecying seems to have Besides this which I have alleged for inconvenient
antient Patern at least which God setled the Government of his Church among the Jews who had the heads of their Fathers as Bishops and rulers over their brethren the Priests and Levites Numb 3.24 Now 't is manifest that our Lord Christ and the Apostles had great regard to the Judaick customs in Christian Institutions As in the Baptising with water In the use of the Bread and Wine in the Lords Supper In the Sabbatising on the Lords Day and in the giving the power of the Keys to the Pastors and Teachers of the Church to open and shut to bind and loose expressing thereby Ministeriall Authority In all which there was some like or parallell precedents among the Jews in making their Rabbins and in celebrating holy mysteries and governing those of that Church and Religion 2. For the new Testament nothing either of precept or example seems against a right Episcopacy commanding a parity or forbidding order and subjection among Presbyters as well as other men what Christ forbids his Apostles of exercising dominion after the manner of Princes of the world excludes indeed First from the twelve who were pares in Apostolatu equally Apostles and were not long to live in one society but to lay the foundations of Religion in all the world by a parity of power coordinate but not subordinate to any but Christ who chose them and proportionably forbids all Bishops and Church-men the secular methods of gaining or using any Ecclesiasticall power and eminency in the Church as by ambition force usurpation tyranny by the sword and severities penally inflicted on the Bodies Estates Liberties and lives of men which was the way of the world but not of Christ or his Ministers yet these tyrannies which attend mens lusts and passions as men are as incident besides factions and emulations to the Presbyterian way where some are alwaies heady and leaders as to that of a right and regular Episcopacy whereto Presbyters are joyned The plain meaning of our Lord Jesus who owned himself as chief among his Apostles Calvin Inst l. 4. c. 4. Sect. 2. Saith Episcopall eminency is the best way to prevent Schisms and to keep peace in the Church Luke 22.26 But ye shall not be so But he that is greatest among you let him be as the youngest and he that is chief as he that doth serve Mat. 24. There may be a wise servant whom the Lord may set over his house Timothy is taught how to behave himself in the Church as a Governour no less than a Minister or Teacher 1 Tim. 3.15 Remis non sceper is guberuent Episcopi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost de Episc Tom. 4. p. 627. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is pel l. 2. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Liban to Basil says Bishops were c. Basil Ep. 154. yet condescended to serve them is That what ever excellency any Christian Minister or other had above others in age estate parts place power gifts graces or civill honors for what hinders a Prince or Nobleman to be a Minister of the Gospell and yet retain both his honour and estate temporall all these should be used and enjoyed without the leaven of pride insolency or oppression and only be turned to greater advantages of serving Christ and the Church with all humble Industry As Christ himself did And after him the Apostles who had undoubtedly as some order and precedency among themselves in the equality of their Apostolicall power so also priority both of place superiority of Church jurisdiction and authority and power over all other Disciples and beleivers And this not from any personall gifts temporary and privileges so much as from that wisdom and peaceable order which Christ would have observed alwaies in his Church after the Apostolicall example By some of whom as the antients tell us Some Ministers were clearly constituted as Bishops with an eminency of personall power over others to ordein censure rebuke silence even Presbyters and Deacons D. Blondell confesseth p. 183. None can be dispensed witâ— as tâ— the violating or neglect of that Chu ch ordâ—r and Government wh ch is pâ—esc ibed to Timothy and Titus which rule is of Divine right and perpetuall This is undeniably evident by Scripture in Timothy and Titus The validity and authority of which examples were esteemed by Antiquity and followed as warrantable divine precedents and obligatory examples to after ages in the like cases at least for imitation By preserving such an ordinary succession of power in Bishops among and above Presbyters both in ordination and jurisdiction Nor is this clear instance to be any way in reason avoyded by saying that Timothy and Titus w re Evangelists what ever that Office were in the Church either temporary and personall or common to other chief Ministers and perpetually to succeed for it makes nothing against a personall superiority of power and authority in them over their respective Churches which was to succeed to others in all reason as well as their Ministry did both these being alwaies necessary for the Church and indeed their ordinary power as to Government had no dependance on their being Evangelists 2 Tim. 2.15 1 Tim. 4.13 2 Tim. 4.2 no more than their Preaching and other Ministeriall acts had which we may not argue from these two persons to be incompatible to any Ministers now Unless they be Evangelists For then no Presbyters that are not Evangelists in their sense might study or Preach in season and out of season rebuke exhort c. or shew themselves Workmen that need not to be ashamed c. Now if these acts and Offices of Ministry are derivable to other single persons in a Ministeriall way why not also that Gubernative power too which was from the Apostle signally committed to Timothy and Titus and no where so expresly to any fraternity of Ministers or Presbytery in common 2 Cor. 11.5.12.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ioh. 21.15 After that rate of arguing we may conclude that none but the very chief Apostles might feed the Lambs and Sheep of Christ because that command was thrice given to Peter who was reckoned among the chiefest of the Apostles which Conclusions were as absurd and ridiculous being by all the practise and sense of the Primitive Churches confuted as this that the power of proving and ordeyning Presbyters 1 Tim. 5.19.22 Tit. 1.5 by laying on of hands of receiving accusations against them of rebuking censuring excommunicating silencing and restoring all Acts gubernative may not be eminently in any single person unless they be Apostles or Evangelists when as not only the use of such order and power is in all reason necessary for Church societies no less than for civill but the succession of it in such sort as it began in them to all times after seems clearly intimated by that vehement charge layd on Timothy 1 Tim. 5.21 2 Tim. 4.5 to keep those things unpartially and unblameably untill the comming of our Lord Jesus
businesse as that is which concernes the setled support of Ministers and in them of all learning and religion in this Nation makes me sometimes prone to think it almost a vain unseasonable and uncomely labour in me or any other Ministers who pretend to something of more ingenuous spirits thus to plead and that publiquely with any earnestnesse which seems to draw somewhat of the dregs of meannesse for their very bread which in the unequall distributions of humane affaires we see is not alwayes to men of worth and understanding Eccles 9 11. whom Christian principles and patterns teach to live above earthly things to minde things that are above Col. 3.1 to learn to want and to abound to be content in any condition Phil. 4.11 And truly in this the Ministers of England I think ought to have been prevented by some other advocates than men of their own coat As lately my worthy friend Mr. Edward Waterhouse hath done in his Apology for learning and learned men a work so honest and so seasonable as well became the candor piety and ingenuity of a Gentleman and a Christian who hath the honour to have made one of the first and bravest adventures in this kinde against these modern English Saracens And possibly many good men have a good minde so to doe even publiquely but they thinke it is conclamata res a forlorne and desperate cause as may bee offensive and unacceptable I almost think so too if some men may have their will and therefore the rather I have been excited to it if it be displeasing to some yea to many yet I doe not think it is so to the most or the greatest part of Christians I am sure it is not to the best of this Nation of what condition soever they be they cannot be so destitute of and unaffected with all reason Religion grounds of Conscience rules of Prudence considerations both of piety honour and honest policy In all which they are related by their own interests to the good and welfare of their true Ministers As Socrates when he was reproached for having no preferment in Athens answered It was enough for him to have fitted himselfe for preferment It was other mens work to bestow it on him So the studious learned modest and pious Ministers of England might well have thought it enough for them to have merited imployment and decent entertainment having with much paines and study and prayer furnished themselves for every good word and work within the bounds of their calling It seems hard thus to be put many of them after many yeares sore labour and travaile of their soules to plead for their wages or livelyhood yea and for their liberty but to worke while it is day in the Lords Vineyard of this Church wherein Christ hath set and ordained them Although there be a generation lately sprung up of degenerate Christians and ungenerous English who would make this whole Nation like themselves unworthy of the very bones of those excellent Ministers Ingrata patria ne ossa quidem mea habes Liv. an ur 566. which have lived here and merited so well of the publique as Scipio Africanus said of his bones when he died banished by his ungratefull countrey which he had so preserved yet we hope neither the most nor the best of men can be so stupid as not to consider how much they are concerned in the continuance and incouragement of such Ministers among them wherein no Nation or Church under heaven hath exceeded this However Ministers be earthen vessels and many have had both heretofore and lately great flawes and many faylings yet they ought in this Nation to be still highly regarded if not for their learning civility ingenuity and good society which is to be valued in any Nation that covets not to be barbarous yet for their work sake for that Gospell that God that Saviour that blessed Jesus his sake whom they truely teach for the holy Scriptures sake which they so frequently and so fully explain for those holy Sacraments which they duely administer both for the admission and augmentation birth and nourishment of Christians in the Church of Christ for the holy and good counsels and spirituall comforts which they oft give for the many wise stops and grave restraints to sin and error which they frequently put for the publique and good examples which most of them afford and all should by their place and calling These are cords of love enough to draw and binde all excellent Christians to them these are places of Oratory sufficient to make even any ordinary speaker an eloquent and potent Orator in their behalf And for my owne part having taken some serious view of the estate of this Church and the Ministers of it both in reference to the present and after times both as to that reall worth which hath been and still is in them the excellent use of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 52. and the miserable want which will be of them I cannot but at present be extremely sensible of and very much pity those sharp sad and unjust necessities which already have and must presse dayly more upon many worthy men of them and their families if some mens envyous and malicious designes take place onely I hope better things of those whose wisdome piety and publique influence hath hitherto under God restrained those Fountaines of the great deep from breaking in with all sacrilegious violence upon the whole Ministry whose wisdome power or counsell I doe not any way by this Apology seek to obstruct or prejudice as to any thing that may be better disposed of to the advantage of true Religion and the Church of England which are inseparable from a right and setled Ministry nor can that be had without such maintenance as is worthy of worthy men If no men will be with us but all forsake us 17. Good Ministers hopes in their desertions from men and some oppose us as Ministers yet we have one remedy besides the sympathy and charity of you O excellent Christians which is patience and prayer * Greg. Nis tels of St. Ephraem Though he was very poor yet he had a mine of rich prayers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gr. Nis in vita S. Ephraem He that allowes us to pray for our dayly bread and commands us to labour honestly for it even in this function of the Ministry he teacheth us to beleive that he will either give it or the grace to want it There may be some good * 1 King 18.4 Obadiahs who will feed the outed and impoverished Prophets of the Lord by fifties in their caves and obscure retirements as some have already done and it may be good Ministers shall then speak lowdest when their mouths are stopped and be as well liking in all true grace and comforts of Religion with * Dan. 1. their pulse as those that feed dayly on Kings provisions However if we must
or dubious in uncertainties or intangled with subtilties as Deer in acorn time they forget their food grow lean and fall into divers snares and temptations into many lusts and passions yea into the grave and pit of destruction whence there is no redemption Many as leaves from trees in Autumn every day drop away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. and dye in their mazes and labyrinths of Religion by wearying themselves in which they advance no more than birds in a cage and blinde horses in a mill whereas a true Christian should every day grieve to see himself nothing advanced in true holynesse or solid knowledge with grand steps he should be dayly going onward and upward with ample progresses and mighty increases of sound knowledge indisputable verities unquestionable practises of ly duties and heavenly conversation these are the steps by which holy men and women have ascended to heaven and conquered the difficulties of salvation That thus al the world might blesse themselves to see the happy improvements of true Christians beyond other men and the inestimable blessing of true and excellent Ministers paines among the filliest and worst of men in the dissolutest and worst of times O let not us then of the Ministry stand still and look on our own and the Churches miseries as the Lepers or mothers did in sieges till their children and themselves grew black with famine You that pretend to stand before the Lord of the whole world and the King of his Church you that bear the name of the most compassionate Redeemer who shed his bloud for his Church and laid down his life for his sheep Doe you never hear in the sounding of your own bowels the tears sighes and fears of infinite good Christians nor the voice of this English Sion lamenting and expecting pity at least from Ministers Is it worth thus much misery to root up Episcopacy to set up Presbytery and to undermine both with Independency All which might be fairly composed into a threefold cord of holy agreement such as was in primitive times between Bishops Presbyters and people whose passions have now ravelled out peace by sad divisions and weakned Religion by uncharitable contentions Though Parliaments and Assemblies and Armies and people should be miserable comforters passing by without regard and remorse yea though some be stripping the wounded and robbing this desolated Church yet doe not you forsake her now she is smitten of God Lamen 1.12 and despised of men Is it nothing to you O you that are more politicians than Preachers that passe by Stand and see if there be any sorrowes like the sorrowes of this reformed Church of England wherewith the Lord hath afflicted her in the day of his fierce anger It concernes no men more than Ministers to succour her which hath received these wounds most-what in the house and by the hands of her friends O give the Lord no rest untill he hath returned to this Church in mercy if you can by counsels and prayers reform nothing in the publique yet let nothing be unreformed in your private if you must be laid aside as to the peculiar office of Ministers yet you may mourn and pray the more in secret That the Lord would breath upon us with a Spirit of Truth and Peace of love and holy union of order and humility whereby none having any pride or ambition to govern every one may be humbly disposed to be governed For the great crisis of all Ministers distempers is in this not what Truths we shall beleive what doctrine we shall preach what holynesse we shall act but who shall govern whether Bishops or Presbyters or people yea the Keyes of some mens pretended power hangs so at the peoples girdle that it is too neer the apron-strings even of mechanicks and silly women When a right temper of Christian humility and love shall be restored to every part then will the spirits of Religion be recovered and aptly diffused into every member of this Church which blessed temperament as Christian Churches enjoyed in their primitive and florid strength nor is it lesse necessary now in their more aged and so decayed constitution O let not after ages say the Ministers of England were more butchers then Surgeons That they were Physitians of no value neither curing themselves nor others If any of us have not by malice so much as mistake given stronger physick and more graines of violent drugs than the constitution of this or any well reformed Church can well bear let us not be lesse forward to apply such cordials lenitives antidotes and restoratives of love moderation concession and equanimous wisedome as may recollect the dissipated and re-inforce the wasted spirits which yet remain in this reformed Church and the Ministry of it On which the enemies round about doe already look with the greedy eyes of ravens and vultures expecting when its languishing spirits shall be quite exhausted and its fainting eyes quite closed that so they may draw away the pillow and remaining supports of civill protection from under its head and violently force it to give up the ghost that the reformed Religion and Ministry of this Church may be at length quite cast out and buried with the buriall of an Asse that neither the place of reformed Bishops nor reformed Presbyters nor reformed people may know them any more in these British Islands In the last place therefore 13. Humble addresse to those in power in the behalf of Ministers I humbly crave leave to remind those that act in highest places and power who are thought no slight or shallow Statesmen That if neither piety to God nor conscience of their duty while they undertake to govern nor charity to mens soules both in present and after ages nor zeal for the reformed Religion move them as Christians nor yet justice and common equity to the encouragement and preservation of so many learned and godly men the lawfull Ministers of this Church in their legall rights and liberties nor yet common pity and charity to relieve so many pious men and their families If I say none of these should sway them as men or Christians the least of which should and I hope greatly will Yet worldy policy and right reason of State seems to advise the preservation and establishment of the so much shaken reformed Religion here in England which hath still deep root and impressions in the mindes and affections of the most and best people in this Nation Nor can this be done by more idoneous means than by giving publique favour incouragement and establishment to the true and ancient Ministry as to its main support and to godly Ministers as its head-most Professors If it be not absolutely necessary yet sure it is very convenient in order to the quiet and satisfaction of mens mindes who generally think themselves most concerned in matters of Religion either to confirm and restore to its pristine honour order and stability the ancient Ministry of the Church
ashamed to present to your view and patrociny in whom is a more Excellent Spirit this Apology For which as I have no encouragement so I expect no acceptance or thanks from any men who carry on other designs than those of Glory to God Peace to their own Consciences welfare to this Nation and Love to this and other Reformed Churches of Christ I know That Secular Projects and Ambitious Policies have for the most part such jealousies partialities and unevennesses in their Counsels and Motions as can hardly allow or bear that * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Generous Integrity and Freedom which is most necessary as well as most comely for the Cause of Christ which I in my Conscience take to be this of his Faithful and true Ministers of this Church and of the Reformed Religion Of which in no case and at no time any true Christian least of all a Minister of that sacred Name and Mystery may without sin be * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 H. Steph. Mark 8.38 ashamed or afraid to own before men in the place where God hath set him and after that maner which becomes Heavenly Wisdom when she is justified by any of her Children It is your Honor and happiness to Excel not onely in that Wisdom which can discern but also in that Candor which cheerfully accepts in that courage which dares publikely own what shall appear to be the Cause of God the Institution of Christ and his Churches Concernments amidst the Contempts Calumnies and Depressions which they meet with from the Ignorance Errors Passions Prejudices Lusts Interests and Jealousies of the World 1 Cor. 4.5 The excellency of the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ which you have attained by the blessing of God upon his and for Christs sake your servants the able faithful and true Ministers of the Gospel in this Church of England hath taught you to esteem all things in comparison Phil. 3.8 Tutiora sunt Christi pericula quà m mundisecuritates Jer. but as loss and dung to chuse to be with Christ in his storms if the will of God be so rather than enjoy the worlds calms There was never I think any time or cause since the Name of Christ had place upon Earth wherein your real and commendable excellencies had more opportunities to shew or greater occasions to exercise themselves than now This being the first adventure of some mens impudent Impiety attempting at once to annul and abrogate the whole Function and Office the Institution and uninterrupted Succession of the Evangelical Ministry Which prodigious attempt no antient Hereticks no Schismaticks none that ever owned the name of Christians were so guilty of as some now seem to be So that now if ever you are expected both by God and good men to appear worthy of your selves and your holy Profession either in Piety to God and Zeal to the Name of your Saviour Jesus Christ or in justice and gratitude to those your true Ministers who have Preached to you the true way of eternal life or in Pity and Charity not so much to them as to your selves indeed and your posterity the means of whose Salvation is disputed and endangered or in any other Christian Affections 2. True Saints Characters and heroick Motions such as are comely for those that are filled with holy Humanity being therefore the best of men because they have in them the most of Saints Saints I say Not because great but good men not as applauded by men but approved of God not as Arbitrators of outward but enjoyers of inward Peace not because Conquerors of others by the arm of flesh but more than * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. de â—ig Dial. 1. Rom. 8. Conquerors of themselves by the Graces of Gods Spirit not as violent Rulers of others but voluntary subduers of themselves not because prospered and encreased in Houses Lands Honors and Vain Glories by the ruine of others but by being mortified in Desires crucified in Enjoyments cautions in Liberties modest in Successes impatient of Flatteries Acts 12.23 which turn proud Herods into noysom Worms full of Self-denyings where they most excel coveting nothing so much as to be nothing in their own eyes to enjoy Christ in and above all things to abound in every good word and work to be humble in heights poor in plenty just in prevalencies moderate in felicities compassionate to others in calamity Ever most jealous of themselves lest prosperity be their snare lest they grow blackest under the hottest Sun-shine lest they should have their portion and reward in this world lest they should not turn secular advantages to Spiritual Improvements to holy Examples Secundae res acrioribus stimulis animum explicant Tacit. hist 1. to the ornament of Religion to the good of others to the peace and welfare of the Church of Christ Such living and true Saints I may humbly and earnestly supplicate without any Superstition who affect least but merit most that title upon Earth who are Gods visible Jewels Mal. 3.17 the Darlings of Jesus Christ the Lights and Beauties of the World the regenerate Honor of degenerate Humane Nature the rivals and competitors with Angels yet their care and charge the candidates of Eternal Glory Heb. 1.14 and Heirs of an Heavenly Kingdom Phil. 4.1 the crown and rejoycing of every true Minister the Blessed Fruit of their Labors and happy Harvest of their Souls The high Esteemers the hearty Lovers the liberal Relievers the unfeigned Pitiers the faithful Advocates and the earnest Intercessors for the distressed Ministers the so much despighted and by many despised Ministry of this Church You Rom. 8.11 in whom is the Spirit of the most Holy God shining on your mindes with the setled wisdom of sound Knowledge and saving Truths captivating all wandring fancies and pulling down all high imaginations 2 Cor. 10.5 which exalt themselves beyond the written Rule of Christ and the Analogy of that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints Rom. 12.6 in the holy Oracles of the Scriptures and continued to this day Jude 3. by the Ministry and Fidelity of the Church which is the pillar and ground of Truth 1 Tim. 3.16 both propounding and establishing it against all unbelief and opposition You whose wills are redeemed from the servitude of sinful lusts slavish fears secular factions whose Consciences and Conversations are bound by the silver Cord of the Love of God and Christ to all Sacred Verity real Piety unfeigned Charity sincere Purity exact Equity comely Order holy Policy and Christian Unity 2 Tim. 2.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from all prophane novelties seditious Extravagancies licentious Liberties fanatick Enthusiasms pragmatick Factions and hellish Confusions You that are strengthned with all holy and humble Resolutions which become the sober courage and calm magnanimity of true Christians either to speak and do what honestly you may for
Hemlock very hurtful or death in the pot being judged by the wisdom of the Church and State here and by the most learned Divines abroad to be within the liberty and compass of those things of Order and Decency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut ordinata acies As an Army with Banners in Rank and File where nothing may be deformed by being disorderly which by that one grand charter 1 Cor. 14.40 are allowed by God to be ordered by the prudence of any particular National Church And in which all Churches in all ages and places have esteemed their several Customs as Laws to them without any breach of Charity or prejudice of Christian Liberty or blemish of the Faith yet never perhaps without the offence of some particular Members in the Churches whose fancies easily finde fault with any things whereof themselves are not Fathers or at least Gossips Humble Christians will thank God for moderate enjoyments nor are they bound to contend for what they think best to the perturbance of the publick Peace Patience is a remedy always near easie and safe nor is it likely that the state of any Church on Earth will ever be so happily compleated as to have nothing in it which may displease any good man Cato optimè sentit sed nocet interdum reipublicae Tacit. or which may not exercise his tollerancy and charity which are generally more commendable and unsuspected virtues than those of zealous activity and publick opposition which commonly draw somewhat upon the dregs of self either as to Passion or Interest Et multis utile bellum Luc. Party or Concernment For who is so mortified that doth not hope to get something of credit profit or honor by adhering to any side or new faction against the former setlings How many learned and godly men are and ever will be till better grounds be produced from Scripture Reason and practise of the Primitive Church unsatisfied with the parity and novelty yet pretended Divine Right of the sole-headless-Presbytery which chalenges to it self as from Christ such a supreme power as is exclusive and destructive of all Episcopacy that is of the constant Presidency of one among other Presbyters so placed by their own choice and consent And no less unsatisfied are thousands of learned and good Christians with that power of Lay Elders for so they are best called for distinction sake and not Ruling Elders lest by that title of Ruling they should fancy and usurp the sole power of rule to themselves which undoubtedly is equally if not eminently due to the Preaching Elders who labor in the Word and Doctrine Touching which point of Lay Elders in the Church I have read two Books written above thirty years since by a very learned godly and impartial Divine Master Chibald of London In the first of which he proved these Lay Elders to have no place office use Mr. Chibalds two Books of Lay Elders power or maintenance assigned them by Scripture nor ever in any Church of Christ which he demonstrates in the second Book which is full of excellent reading as to the Fathers Councils and Histories of the Church In none of which he findes them to have any footing as to office and power upon any Divine Right ever owned in the Church nor can they now have in every little Parish or private Congregation where the Country plainness may afford careful Over-seers for the Poor and Church-wardens but not fit men to match with the Minister and to fit as Rulers to govern their other Neighbors who will hardly believe they have authority from Heaven to rule them unless they see more abilities in them than usually can be found What use may be made of such Elders in the way of Prudence among greater Representations of the Church as in Synods and Councils he leaves to the wisdom of those that have power in such Conventions to call and regulate them But he denies any thing as of Divine Right belonging to them so as to binde every Parish or Congregation to have them which would be ridiculous and most inconvenient Both these Books being seven years since committed to the hands of Master Coleman as then a Licencer were unhappily either smothered and embezzled or carelesly lost to the great detriment of truth in that particular For truly in my best judgement and in other mens of far better to whom I imparted them never any thing was written of that subject more learnedly more uprightly more copiously or more candidly especially considering the Author was one that scrupuled some things of Conformity In like maner how few Christians in any Reformed Church are satisfied with those new and strange Limbs rather than Bodies of Independent Churches which word of bodying into small Corporations is as a novel so a very gross expression and hath something of a Solecism not onely in Religion which owns properly but one Body of Christ Rom. 12.5 We being many are one body in Christ 1 Cor. 12.13 By one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body which is Christs which is his Catholike Church whose communion with Christ the onely Head and one another as Members in several Offices and Operations is by the same Faith the same Scriptures the same Ministry the same Ministrations and as to the main and substance the same Christian Profession But it is also incongruous and absurd in ordinary significancy of Language while by such a singular Bodying they mean a Spiritual Union of those that pretend to be most Spiritual Christians Which names and novel inventions about constituting and compleating Churches in so many fractions parcels and places a part from all others by the means of an explicit Church Covenant as they call it how unscriptural how unconform to the examples of all ancient Churches how impertinent as to Piety how dangerous and destructive to the Truth Union Harmony and Dependance which ought to be among all Christians 1 Cor. 12.25 That there be no schism in the body i. e. In that one Body of Christ the Catholike Church and all Churches to avoid Schism in that one Catholike Body of Christ do they seem to many judicious and gracious Christians who think themselves and all others that profess to be Christians sufficiently added and united to the Church as the Primitive Believers being once baptized were without any more a do yea and declaredly bound by their * Acts 2.42 They that gladly received the word were baptized and the same day there were added to the Church about 3000. souls Baptism and Profession to all Christian conversation charitable communion and holy walking by these Publick Bonds and Sacraments of Religion which they owned and of which they were publickly partakers and professors So that not onely in these but in many other things we see the remedies which some men apply to former seeming distempers do to many men seem worse than the diseases ever were The little finger of grievances scruples
dubious in their rise and prone to be exorbitant in their progress and most injurious in their success have most of Love Patience and Christian Charity which are indisputably commendable in the Christian Psal 15.4 though they be to the mans own hinderance It will not be asked of Ministers of the Gospel at the last account who fought and slew and spoiled c. but who fasted and prayed and mourned for the sins and judgements on the Nation and Church nor will they easily be found in Gods Book of Martyrs who died upon disputable quarrels in Civil Wars while they neglected the indisputable duty of their Office and Ministery Levit. 10.19 Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed Incongruam non probat mixturam Deus bonitate simplicissimus simplicitate optimus August Ministers never reap less crops of love or respect from men than when they sow that forbidden mislane the Tares and Cockle of passionate novelties unproved opinions and civil dissentions among the seeds of Religion and essays of Reformation From which mixtures those Ministers whose gravity wisdom and humility have most withheld or soonest withdrawn their hearts and hands are the likeliest men by their piety moderation patience and constancy in holy and justifiable ways to recover and restore the dignity of their Calling Who in the midst of those great and wide inrodes which have much broken down the fence and occasioned the letting in all sorts of wilde beasts upon the Lords Vineyard of this Church while others like dead stakes formerly making a great shew in the hedg are found rotten weak and unsound These are evidenced to all true Christians to be as living standards well rooted in their pious principles and not easily removed from that stedfastness and meekness of their practises in ways of judicious constancy which they have hitherto with patience maintained in the midst of those tempests which have not so utterly overwhelmed them but that in many places they appear fixed and unmoved in their pious integrity and patient charity which makes them looked upon with some eye of pity love and honor by all ingenuous spectators while yet they generally reflect with scorn and laughter on many others who in the publick storm thought themselves gallant sailers and skilful steersmen yet having made great waste of their patience obedience and discretion they seem also much crackt in their conscience credit and reputation For seeking inconsiderately to pull down or to possess themselves of others Cabins who as Pilots had a long time safely steered the Ship they have almost split and sunk the whole Vessel wherein they and others were embarqued Nor will they any way be able to buoy it up again or stop the daily increasing and threatning leaks till forsaking those soft and shameful compliances with factious novelties and immoderate ways of vulgar reformings they return to that primitive firmness and indisputable simplicity of the Antient which were the putest and best formed Churches both as to Doctrine Discipline and Government which no learned and unpassionate man needs go far to finde out either in Scripture paterns or in the Churches after-imitation by which the dignity of the Ministry and Holy Mysteries of the Gospel always preserved themselves amidst the hottest persecutions both in the love and obedience of all sound and sober Christians So that in my judgement who know how hard it is to play an after-game in point of Reputation and who have no design but a Publick and Common good writing thus freely as under the favor so without the offence I hope of any good man The Ministers of this Church will never be able to stand before those men of Ai their many adversaries who are daily scattering them into many feeble factions and pursuing them every where so divided with scorn and afflicting them with many affronts and injuries until having taken a serious review of their late extravagancies and making a serious scrutiny into their consciences and finding as they needs must if they be not wilfully blinde or obstinate some accursed thing some Babylonish garment and wedg of Gold something wherein proud or ambitious or covetous or revengeful or injurious emulations or other more venial errors have tempted tâ—◠〈◊〉 to offend they cast them quite away and so humbly re'ally themselves to that Primitive Harmony that Excellent Discipline Order and Government wherein was the honor beauty and consistency of the Church and Christian Religion even when least protected and most opposed by secular powers Of whom Christian Bishops Ministers and People never asked leave either to believe in Jesus Christ or to live after that holy form and publick order wherein Jesus Christ and the blessed Apostles after him established and left them which obtained universal imitation and use in all Churches for many hundred of years from true Christians both Pastors and People in the midst of persecutions 14. Jere. 6.16 Thus saith the Lord Stand in the ways and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk therin and ye shall finde rest for your souls Out of which old and good way of Primitive Vnity Order Government Discipline and holy Ministrations if those immoralities be kept as they may most easily to which we see the lusts and passions of men are prone to run even in all * Non datur reditus ad unitatem nisi per veritatem nec ad veritatem nisi per vetustatem Quum illud est antiquissimum quod verissimum Cypr. novel forms and inventions pretend they never so much at first to glorious Reformations Nothing can be a more present and soverein restorative for this Church and the true Reformed Religion to settle with truth and peace among us both to the comfort of all able Ministers and the satisfaction of all sober Christians who study the truth and unity of the Faith not the power and prevalency of any faction We need not go far to seek the root and source of our miseries present or impendent which have brought forth so bitter fruits whereby God at once would shew and satisfie vain men with their own delusions * Isai 66.4 In which heady and high-minded men trusting more to their own wits or tongues and to the * Jere. 17.5 Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord. arm of flesh in politick machinations than to the living God in holy and humble ways of truth and peace have soon found them to be both vain and cursed things As it is evident at this day in the sad fate which some Ministers folly presumption and precipitancy together with other sinful frailtiles and excesses have brought upon themselves and their whole Function in this Church Who first despising then destroying the Antient and Catholike conduits of their Order and Ministry which derived from Christ by his Apostles went on in an after constant succession of true
malicious designs than to see that woful day wherein this abomination which threatens to make the Reformed Religion desolate in this Church of England being set up the whole Function and Succession of the true and lawful Ministry here should be questioned cashiered triumphed over and trampled upon by the foot of Ignorance Error Popery Jesuitism Atheism Profaneness and all sorts of disorderly mindes and maners All which heretofore felt the powerful restraints the mighty chains the just terrors and torments cast upon them by the convincing Sermons learned Writings frequent Prayers and holy examples of many excellent Ministers in England before whom the devils of ignorance error profaneness schism and superstition Luke 10.18 Vera fulgente luce flaccessit fulguris coruscatio terrore magìs quà m lumine conspicua Chrysost were wont to fall as lightning to the ground from their fanatick Heavens Have all these Sons of Thunder and of Consolation too who were esteemed heretofore by all Reformed Christians in this Church to be as Angels of God Embassadors from Heaven Friends of Christ the Bridegroom of their Souls more pretious than fine Gold dearer to humble and holy men than their right eyes the beauty of this Church and blessing of this Nation Have they all been hitherto but as Mahumetan Juglers or Messengers of Satan or Priests of Baal or as the cheating Pontifs of the Heathen gods and oracles Have they all been found lyers for God and born false witness against the Truth and Church of Christ Have they arrogantly and falsly * Numb 16.3 Ye take too much upon you since all the Congregation is holy every one of them c. Wherefore lift ye up your selves above the Church of the Lord Thus Korah and his company against Moses and Aaron taken too much upon them in exalting themselves above their line and measure Or magnifying their Office and Ministry above the common degree or sort of Christians And why all this art fraud and improbity of labor in Ministers Sure with the g eater sin and shame learned and knowing men should weary themselves in their iniquity Quò minor tentatio tò majus peccatum Aquin when they had so little temptation to be either false or wicked in so high a nature Alas For what hath been and is all this pompous pains and hypocritical sweat of Ministers Is it not for some poor living for the most part for a sorry subsistence a dry morsel a thred-bare coat a cottagely condition In comparison of that plenty gallantry superfluity splendor and honor wherewith other callings which require far less ability or pains have invited and entertained their professors in this plentiful Land Judges 8.6 Are not the gleanings of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer Are not the superfluities * Merito à secularibus negotiatoribus lucro praemio superamur quum caelestia aeterna à Christo expectamus munera Jeron of any ingenuous calling beyond the necessaries of most Ministers And all this that after infinite studies pale watchings fervent prayers frequent tears daily cares and endless pains exhausting their Time Spirits Estates and Health they might through many vulgar slightings reproaches and contempts with much patience condemn themselves and their relations first to * Grave est paupertatis onus ubi deest bonae conscientiae levamen quâ sublevante gravescit nihil quâ dulcante nihil amarescit Petrach poverty which is no light burden where a good conscience is wanting or an evil one attending as in this case malice doth suppose And now at last after more than One thousand five hundred years and one Century and half since the Reformation in all which time this Nation hath more or less enjoyed the inestimable blessing for so our pious Ancestors esteemed the lights of this World the true Ministers of the Church in their Prayers Preaching Writings holy Offices and Examples they should by some men be thought unworthy of any further publick favors or imployment and to have merited to be counted as sheep for the slaughter * Rom 8.16 For thy sake are we counted as sheep for the slaughter and killed all the day long Laniâ—na diaboli Christi victima Leo. They are Christs Lambs whom the Devil delights most to â—utcher in their persons And as to their Function or Calling which was ever esteemed sacred among true Christians to be wholly laid aside and outed with all disgraceful obloquies as if they had been but pious Impostors devout Vsurpers and religious Monopolizers of that holy Ordination divine Mission Power and Authority which Christ gave personally to the Apostles and both by declared intent and clear command to their due and rightful Successors in that ordinary Ministry which is necessary for the Churches good Or at best they must be reputed but as superfluous burthensom and impertinent both in Church and State chargeable to the publick purse dangerous to the publick peace useless as to any peculiar power of holy Administrations which some think may be more cheaply easily and safely supplied by other forward pretenders who think themselves endued with greater plenitude of the Spirit with rarer gifts with diviner illuminations more immediate teachings and special anointings by which without any pains or studies they are suddenly invested into the full office and power Ministerial And as they are themselves led so they can infallibly lead all others into all truth with such wonderful advantages of ease and thrift both for mens pains and purses that there will be no need to entertain that antient form and succession of ordained Ministers as any peculiar calling or function amidst so gifted and inspired a Nation So much more sweet and fruitful do these self-planted Country Crabs and Wildings now seem to many than those Trees of Paradise which with great care and art have been grafted pruned and preserved by most skilful hands which these new sprouts look upon and cry down as onely full of Moss and Missletow In this case then O you excellent Christians such freedom as I now use I hope may seem not onely pardonable but approvable and imitable to all good Christians who fear God and love the Lord Jesus Christ who have any care of their own souls any charity to the Reformed Churches any pity to their Countrey any tenderness to the religious welfare of posterity And in a matter of so great and publick importance it is hoped and expected by all good men That none of you either in your private places or publick power and influences will by any inconsiderate and mean compliance gratifie the evil mindes of unreasonable men in order to compass the Devils most Antichristian designs who seeks by such devices first to deceive you next to destroy and damn both you and your posterity Your * Blasphemiae proximum est Christiani silentium ubi Christi causa agitur negligitur quam filendâ— aquè prodimus ac Judas salutando aut
3.16 Hereby we perceive the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 16. Isai 32.2 Beatitudinum omnium beatissima beatitudo charitas Nienburg to lay down their malice factions and arms against each other for whom Charity and Christ bids them lay down their lives O let it move all excellent Christians and me who am less than the least that truly love thee and long for thee to mourn to see the generality of Christians so little moved by thee or to thee Let our heads and eyes be as Fountains and Rivers of Waters running with tears night and day for those thousands whom justice and those ten thousands whom uncharitableness schism and superstition have slain among Christians even in these Nations and Churches O let our humble hearts be thy retirement our sighs and prayers and tears thy refreshment in the heat and fury of these times and be thou to us as the shadow of that great Rock in a weary Land O blessed Blessing of all other blessings Charity what words what tears what prayers what sighs what Sermons what Writings can recover thee or recal thee or perswade thee to look back and return to these and others pitifully broken wasted forlorn and divided Churches But alas our words are sharp swords daily wheting and clashing against each other our tears are as the drops of revengeful and impatient spirits which cannot have their wills our prayers are the bitter effusions of hearts troubled and disquieted not with sin but with choler and unkindness so far from praying for our enemies that we pray nothing but enmity and are impatient that any should pray for their friends if we esteem them our enemies our sighs are but bellows to excite the languishing flames of declining factions against their opposers our Sermons oftimes are as firebrands tossed up and down by incendiaries and the breath of our Pulpits are like the Eructations of Aetna Vesuvius or Hecla scattering coals of fire and blasting all things neer them with sulphureous exhalations So that many Preachers are indeed as voices crying in the wilderness sounding alarms to Religious War and preparing a way for zealous desolations both in Church and State And for our Writings they are in great part but Pamphlets which serve as Paper to wrap up squibs or to kindle to quicker flames those smoaking jealousies and secret discontents which are smothered in our brests That even we Christians and reformed too speak and act and pray and Preach and Print in great part so as if we had not one God and one Lord Jesus one Spirit one Faith and one Baptism c. Ephes 4.4 5. But as if we had no God no Faith no Word no Sacrament no common relation to one Saviour no common salvation in One and by One as if we were Christians onely to be crosses and to crucifie one another As if we were all turned Canaanites scourges in the sides and thorns in the eyes of one another Charitas deus est substantivs dat nobis deitatem accidentâ—lem Bern. de dil Deo O thou flower and fragrancy of all graces and virtues which hast little of a Man nothing of a Devil and most of God of Christ and of the Holy Spirit in thee which carriest all sweetness serenity and tranquillity with thee If thou abhorrest the crowds of Christians and such as glory so much in their being gathered into Churches after new and uncouth ways If thou darest not trust their smiles and kisses their fervors and reformings who have so oft under the specious pretences of Religion sheathed their swords in thy bowels If thou art afraid not onely of religious rabbles and zealous multitudes but even of sacred Synods and Armies listed for holy Wars whose faith hath often failed thee and them too who while they thought to contend earnestly for the truth have crushed thee O Charity almost to nothing by their violences and divisions each novel faction seeming to strive for thee pull and tear thee in pieces ready by violent halings of thee to their sides Sects utterly to destroy thee O yet prepare a place for thy self among some humble and honest hearts some meek and quiet spirits here in England that so thou maist retire and hide thy self from thy friendly enemies from their cruel courtesies their dangerous importunities their deep agitations and designs O disdain not the broken hearts and contrite spirits of â—hat remnant of truly Reformed Catholike and charitable Christians which yet have escaped in this Church These value thee these long foâ— thee these are sick of love to thee and weary of life without thee To thy honor and restauration to their comfort and establishment these lines are chiefly consecrated O do thou cover them James 3.6 Psal 120.7 I am for peace but when I speak they are for war and this thy suppliant Orator under the shadow of thy wings till this calamity be overpast hide us from the strife of tongues which are set on fire with the fire of hell which burn most wheâ— cool drops and calm pleas for charity are sprinkled on them In the great and sad ruines of Churches and dissentions of Christians O be thou our refuge and protection teach us to live by divine love and so to love thee that we may live a divine 〈◊〉 with thee Learn us that highest lesson of a Christian to love our enemies and persecutors while others learn to hate their friends and their Fathers 1 Cor. 13.8 Charity never be faileth O Sempiternal Grace which are fitted for immortal souls let us be as Ruth to Naomi unseparable from thee while we are on Earth as thou art the onely remaining grace in Heaven being the crown and consummation of all other gifts and graces which like stars then disappear and are willingly swallowed up when thy lustre like the Suns is risen to its full strength and shines in an eternal Noon making the soul at once infinitely happy while it sees an object infinitely lovely and loves it with an infinite love Rather than we should fail of thee in this life O thou beloved of our souls carry us with thee from Cities to solitudes from company to deserts from the unsociable societies and uncharitable Churches to creeping cottages to weeping solitudes and howling wildernesses where we may enjoy thee in our own oft sighing and smitten brests rather than dwell in Palaces and Cities and Temples and where we see thee daily despised profaned and mangled tormented torn and trampled under the feet of Christians in Villages in Towns in Cities in Senates in Armies in Seats of Justice and in Pulpits Give us the wings of a Dove even thy wings O holy Charity by which thou ascendest at once to God in love and descendest for Gods sake in love to man that we may make haste and flie away and be at rest for ever that we may
assertion That no part of the Catholike Church of Christ in any age or place was ever setled or flourished without a constant peculiar Order and Ordination of Ministers who were consecrated to the receiving and exercise of that power in the Church as from Christ although by man which have continued to this day Theodoret. hist l. 1. c. 22. De Aedesio Frumentio apud Indos dâ—vina Ministeria â—bierunt Laicii cum erant Frumentius postea ab Athanasio ep factus Cap. 23. Captivamulier apud Iberos Evangelium praedicabet miracula edebat His Const M. Episcopos misit There are indeed three or four examples in cases extraordinary of some private unordained Christians in the Primitive times who occasionally trading to Heathens were means first to teach them the Mysteries of Christ so as they desired to be baptized which was after done by such Bishops and Ordained Ministers as were sent them upon their request from other Churches To produce particulâ—r testimonies out of each Author Father Council and Historian in every age to prove the constant succession the high veneration and the unfeigned love which was every where conferred upon the Bishops and Ministers of the Church also to shew forth that devout care and religious regard which the ordainers the faithful people and those to be ordained to the office had in their several relations and duties when Ministers were to be ordained and consecrated such allegations were easie being very many and obvious but I hold the pains needless considering that to learned men they are so well known and all ingenuous Christians will believe my solemn asseveration that as in the presence of God what I write is Truth As for those weak or wilful men who are in this my onely opposers I know they consider not any heaps of authorities which they account onely as humane which they cannot examine nor do they value them when convinced of the certainty and harmony of them were there never so sweet and many flowers gathered from the testimony of Antiquity and Authority of the Fathers these supercilious novellers will not vouchsafe to smell to them It is well if I can make them savor any thing well out of the Scriptures which favors the Function of the Ministry 4. Catholike custom confirmed by Scripture as to the Office of the Ministry 2. So then in the next place This Defence of the Churches clear constant and Catholike Testimony in this point of the peculiar Office of the Ministry as in any other becomes a brazen wall an impregnable bulwark able to break in pieces or to retort all engines and batteries made against it when it appears to be exactly drawn according to the scale line and measure set down in the holy Scripture which are therefore much sleighted by some who despise the Ministry because like well-planted Canons they defend the Church and its constant Ministry as on the other side the Churches fidelity and constancy are the ground-work and platforms on which the Scriptures are planted 1 Tim. 3.15 The Church of Christ bearing up as the ground and holding forth as a pillar that divine Truth Power and Authority which from God they have in them of which the Church is the Herald or Publisher but not the Author or Inditer Conferring nothing to their internal Truth which is from their revealer and inspirer God but much to their external credit and historick reception which we have tendered to us daily not as immediately from God or Angels or inspired Prophets but by the veracity and fidelity of the Church chiefly in its publick Ministry which in this point of so necessary constant and universal practise for the good of all faithful people in all Ages and Churches cannot be thought in any reason either to have had no rule divinely appointed or that all Churches have been wholly ignorant of it or knowingly have so wholly swerved from it that never any Church either in its Teachers and Pastors or in its people and believers were followers of the Scripture-Precept and Patern till these last and worst days whereas the clear and pregnant light of the Scripture is in this point of a setled Ministry so agreeing with the use and practice of the Catholike Church that as no error can be suspected in the one so no obscurity can be pretended in the other by any Christians who will allow the divine Authority and infallible Truth of those Scriptures which we call the New Testament In all which nothing is more evident Christ sent of the Father as a Minister of Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.25 Heb. 12.2 Matth. 17.5 Jâ—hn 4.34 5.36 6.57 7.16 Heb. 5.4 No mantaketh this honor to himself but he that is called of God as Aaron V. 5. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest but c. Matth. 3.17 and self-demonstrating beyond any cavil or contradiction than That our Lord Jesus Christ the promised Messias the beloved Son of God the Angel of the new and better Covenant the Minister of Righteousness the great Apostle the chief Bishop and Father of our souls the Author and Finisher of our Faith the supreme Lord and King the eternal and compassionate High Priest the unerring Prophet of his Church whose voice we are onely to hear and obey in all things he commands us That I say this Lord Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to a personal accomplishment of all Prophecies fulfilling of all righteousness to a visible Ministration of holy things for the Churches good That he came not in his own Name as a man to be Mediator and Teacher nor did he as a man take this honor of Prophet Priest or King of his Church upon him but had his mission or appointment from his Father God who gave evident testimonies from Heaven of him not onely before and at his birth but afterward at his solemn and publick inauguration by Baptism into the Work of his Ministry where a voice from Heaven was heard and a visible representation of the Holy Spirit was seen testifying him to be the beloved Son of God the anointed with the gifts of the Spirit above all as Head of the Church These after were followed with infallible signs and wonders while Jesus went about doing good teaching the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven instituting holy rites for the distinguishing of his Church from the world and for the comforting of the faithful in the world by those seals pledges and memorials of his love in dying for the Church and shedding both water and blood upon the Cross Christs sending his Apostles as Ministers Acts 1. Phil. 2.9 Christ having thus personally finished the suffering and meritorious part of his Ministry after his Resurrection being now no more to converse in a visible humane way of presence with his Church on Earth but ascending as was meet to that glory of the Father which as God he had ever with him as man he had
merited of him by suffering on the Cross and enduring the shame for his Churches salvation yet he left not his Disciples comfortless but as he promised sent his Spirit publickly and eminently upon the Twelve principal Apostles Acts 2. John 20.21 whom he had formerly chosen and appointed in his and his Fathers Name to Preach the Gospel to whom he gave the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven as to the Stewards and chief Deputies or Ministers of his houshold in his absence instructing them what to do on what foundation of faith in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Authority i. e. Legitima potentia Matth. 28.18 19 20. Mark 16.15 to build his Church by what Sacramental seals to confirm believers giving them full power and commission to go into all the world by Teaching and Baptising to make Disciples confirming this power to them by breathing on them and conferring farther Ministerial gifts of the Spirit upon them promising also to be with them to the end of the world which could not be meant of their persons who soon died but of their successors in that Office and Ministry that the same power authority and assistance should be with them in that holy way to which he thus ordeined and sent them by a divine charter and durable commission After all this for further publication of this great Authority and Ministerial power given to the Apostles and their Successors and for the confirmation of it both to their own consciences John 14.17 Acts 2. and to all the world the holy Spirit as was promised came upon them in the shape of fiery cloven tongues filling them with miraculous gifts and all Ministerial power both extraordinary in their persons and ordinary derivable to their Successors such as the wisdom of Christ thought most fit both for the first planting of the Church with miraculous gifts attending the Ministry of the Gospel and the after propagating of it by the same Ministry confirmed by the constancy of the Martyrs and Confessors which were in stead of daily miracles This whole frame polity and divine constitution of the order power and Ministry that should succeed Christ Jesus in his Church was no other than the proper effects of Christs prophetick power and wisdom for the instructing his Church an act or ordinance of his Kingly power for the governing of it and a fruit of his Priestly power and care for a right Liturgy or officiating to be continued in his Church thus furnishing it with an holy Succession of Evangelical Priests and Ministers in his name and authority who might always teach guide and govern also supplicate for consecrate and offer holy things with the faithful and for them namely the sacrifices of prayers thanksgiving and praises especially Heb. 9.14 10.12 that Eucharistical memorial of that one great oblation of himself once made on the Altar of the Cross for the Redemption of the World which is the great accomplishment of the Jewish Prophecies the abolishing of their Types and Ceremonies the main foundation of the Christians Religion and the chief subject of that Evangelical Ministry which Jesus Christ himself hath thus evidently instituted and sealed in his Church For whose sake he hath given those Ministerial gifts with a distinct power and authority making some not all either Apostles or Prophets or Evangelists or Pastors and Teachers Eph. 4.11 12. 1 Cor. 12.4 5 21 28. For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ c. And this by as manifest a distinction both for gifts and place and use as is in the parts of the body between the eyes and the hands the head and the feet Vers 29. So that all are not Apostles nor Prophets nor Teachers that are Believers and Members of the Body of Christ his Church no more than every part is an eye in the natural body however it partake of the same Soul as Believers do of the same Spirit 1 Cor. 12.6 7. yet in different manifestations of which difference of gifts and office those onely are to judge whom the Spirit of Christ hath enabled with gifts and indued successively in the Church with power from Christ to judge of them and accordingly to invest them 1 Cor. 14.32 The spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Propheâ—â— V. 33. For God is not the Author of confusion c. by solemn and holy ordination into the orderly power of exercising those gifts which they are judged to have received from the Spirit of Christ for the good of the Church both for Instruction and for Government of it Without which divinely-constituted Order and Office of Ministry began in Christ by him derived to the Apostles and by them and their successors constantly and duly observed to these days the Church of Christ had long ere this been a monster made up of confused excrescencies a very heap and huddle of Ignorance Heresies Schisms all maner of erroneous blindness and extravagant madness like those mishapen prodigies which we may often see among those who having cast off the lawful succession the sacred and antient order of the Ministry do in their varieties exceed even the mixtures and productions of Africa After Christs Ascension 5. The Apostles ordain and command other to ordain Ministers we have no less evidence of Scripture for the undoubted practise of the blessed Apostles when they had by a divine lot first filled up that place and part of the Ministry from which Judas had faln Acts 1.25 For having received power Ministerial immediately from Christ they did duly conscientiously orderly and effectually fulfil their own Ministry and also took care to ordain others that might do so too both in their times and after them distributing their own labors into several Countreys and to several sorts of people Gal. 2.7 some to the Circumcision of the Jews others to those of the uncircumcised Gentiles Among whom they exercised their Office and Ministry 1 Coâ— 5.20 As Aâ—â—â—â—sadors â—oâ— Christ as though God did be eech you by us we pray y u in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God 1 Cor. 3.9 2 Cor. 11.2 Esth 7.8 Eph. 4.11 Acts 14.23 And when they had ordained them Presbyters in every Church in Lystra Iconium Antioch c. Acts 20.28 Take heed to your selves and to all the flock over which the holy Ghost hath made you Bishops or overseers to feed the Church of God c. Pauls speech to the Presbyters of the Church of Ephesus V. 17. 1 Tim. 3. 5.22 Lay hands i. e. by way of ordination to the Ministry 2 Tim. 2.2 The things thou hast heard of me commit thou the same to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also Tit. 1.5 I left thee in Creet that thou shouldst ordain Elders in every City as I had appointed thee Non tam solicitus de cura Timothei sed propter successores ejus ut
all Prophets are all Teachers c. 18. All are not nor are any such as they are Christians or gracious c. 1 Cor. 12. ought to minister holy things to others to challenge the Keys of Heaven to themselves to be as in Christs stead to rule and oversee his house which cannot avoide as the Apostle proves abominable absurdities and detestable confusions no way beseeming the wisdom of Christ the majesty of Christian Religion or that order and decency which ought to be in Church-Assemblies being as contrary to reason as if every servant in an house should chalâ—enge the power of the Keys and the Stewards place or every member the office of the eyes tongue and hands by vertue of that common relation it hath as well as these parts to the same body the same soul and head As then right reason tells us beyond all reply That neither natural nor civil nor religious common gifts endowments or abilities instate any person in the office of Magistrate Judge Ambassador Herald Notary or publick Sealer Fraus est injuria quic quid agitur sub alterius persona sine debita ab illo autoritate Reg. Jur. Matth. 28.18 All power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or authority is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth that is in order to perfect Christs design his Churches good Acts 1.8 Autoritas delegata ab altâ—rius voluntate pendet tam quoad ipsam potestatâ—m quam ad derivandi modum Reg. Jur. 1 Cor. 4.19 I will know not the speech of them that are puffed up but the power V. 20. For the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power i. e. That holy polity and orderly Kingdom which Jesus Christ hath set up and governs in his Church is not managed by confident praters but by authoritative Preachers Matth. 7.28 As Christ Jesus so his true Ministers teach and administer holy things as men having authority and not as the Scribes which places require not onely personal sufficiencies for the office but an orderly designation and induction to it from the fountain of civil power either mediately or immediately The same right reason which is most agreeable and servient to true Christian Religion requires a right derivation or conveyance of all supernatural Ministerial Church power which is in and from Jesus Christ as the sole supreme head and divine origin of it either immediately as they and none others had to whom Christ first consigned it and both by miraculous gifts and works confirmed it to be in them or mediately as those Bishops and Presbyters had it who without force fraud or any sinister way of usurpation or bold intrusion received this power from the Apostles by prayer and benediction with imposition of their hands in the name of Christ and from them their successors have lawfully derived it without interruption to the true Ministers of the Gospel even to this day as I have proved which not onely the Scriptures of undisputable verity but even those other very credible Histories of the Church and other Records of learned and holy Men in all ages to these times which the providence of God hath afforded us do abundantly declare all which to deny with a morose perverseness or rustical indiffereâ—cy is as if a Hog should answer all arguments with grunting And to act contrary to so strong a stream of concurrent Authorities both as to the judgment and practise of the Church in all ages is a work onely fit for Ranters and Seekers and Fanaticks or for Jews Turks and Heathen Infidels but not for any sober Christian that owns in the least kinde the Name of Jesus Christ or desires to be a member of any true Christian Church In which as all true and humble Christians have always enjoyed and with thankfulness owned the rightful succession and authority of their oâ—dained Ministers Pastors and Teachers so the Lord from Heaven in all ages hath witnessed to them by his blessings of truth and peace on the hearts of his people and by their means chiefly continuing the light of the Gospel to these days amidst those Heathenish persecutions Heretical confusions and Schismatical fractions which have sought to overthrow the Being or the Purity or the Order and Unity of the true Church To this judgment and testimony of Scriptures and antient Writers both in right and fact I might adde a cloud of witnesses from later reformed Divines which were very learned and very holy men far above the vulgar spirits both in other Churches and in this of England all agreeing with our excellent Bishop Jewel Bishop Jewels Apology Ministrum Ecclesiae legitime vocari oportere rectè atque ordine praefici ecclesiae Dei Neminem autem ad sacrum Ministerium pro suo arbitrio ac ibidine posse se intrudere That no may may intrude himself into the Ministry by his own will and pleasure or by any others who are not of that Order and Calling but he ought to be lawfully called and duly ordained by those in whom the lawful succession of ordinative power ever hath been and still is rightly placed and continued Agreeable to which there is a whole Jury of eminent Modern Divines alleged by a late industrious and ingenuous * See Master Halls Pulpit guarded Author who hath spared me that pains 9. The Priestly order among the Jews Joel 2.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Niss de vita Mos Aronis Virga 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. l. 3. ep 20. Philo. Judaeus de sacerdotâ—o Aaronis calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Numb 16. Exod. 19.6 2 Chro. 26 20. Vzziah ceased to be fit to rule as a King being smitten with Leprosie who usurped the office of the Priest 1 King 13.33 4. I may adde by way of confirmation of that common equity and rules of order which must be among men in all things and most necessarily in things truly religious The inviolable Function and peculiar Office or Order of the Priests and Levites which were the Ministers of the Lord in his antient Church of the Jews which is a most convincing instance to prove not the sameness and succession of that Order but the equity comliness and exemplariness of a peculiar Ministry for holy things among Christians under the Gospel since that Levitical Ministry was not more holy or honorable nor more distinguished in power and authority and office from the people than this in the Christian Church which is more immediately derived from Christ as clearly instituted and ordained by him and more fully exhibitive of him both in the Historical Truths and in the Mystical gifts and graces of his Spirit Yet we see who so despised or violated that Order and Ministry among the Jews under pretence of a common holiness in Gods people who were in a spiritual sense indeed called an holy Nation and a royal Priesthood so as to confound the Functions and Offices divinely distinguished either the earth from beneath devoured them
by Christ committed to our charge as Ministers of and for Jesus Christ whose work is to see that the sufferings of Christ be not in vain that the soveraign salves and balms of his blood may be duly applied to the benummed to the tender to the wounded consciences to the broken and bleeding to the stony and hardned to the fleshy and flinty hearts This so prodigious a work and more than humane undertaking to be a Minister of the Gospel either as a Bishop or Presbyter for neither the difference nor the distance was great in point of the main work either of teaching or governing onely the higher place had the greater care and the more honor drew with it the greater burden of duty made those holy men of old so loth and unwilling to yield themselves to the desires importunities and even violencies of those Christians who looked upon them Ambr. off l. 1. c. 1. Ego invitus de tr bunalibus atque administrationis infulis ad sacerdotium Vita B. Ambrosii as fit for so great a work in the Church they said Nolo Episcopari in good earnest Saint Ambrose was for his learning integrity piety and eloquence so esteemed in his secular employment as a Judge that the faithful people of Millan otherways divided by the Arrian faction thought none more fit to be their Bishop and chief Pastor to guide by teaching and governing them in matters of Religion They in a maner forced him from the Tribunal to the Throne or Cathedral with pious compulsions which to avoid he fled by night and after a nights wandring found himself next morn at Millan He put on the face of cruelty and bloodiness invited loose and leud people to haunt his house that he might seem unworthy of that dignity and deter them from the choice Which he tel s us he suffered not without an holy impatience complaining of the injury done him and he would not have yielded if he had not been perswaded that the impulse and motion of the people so resolute so zealous and so unanimous was from God whose pleasure was thereby signified to him That leaving secular affairs he had work for him to do in his Church which he discharged with great diligence courage and fidelity after he was baptized duly ordained a Presbyter and consecrated to be a Bishop To whose learned and holy eloquence the Church oweth besides other excellent fruits the happy conversion of Saint Austine In like sort Saint Jerome tells us of Nepotian That when his holy learning and life had so recommended him that he was generally desired to be made a Minister of the Church Nepotianus eo dignioâ— erat quo se clamabat indignum populus quaerebat c. Humilitate superabat invidiam Jer. ad Holiodorum Ammonius fugiens aurem dextram praecidit cùm ad Episcopatum quae thatur ut deformitate impediretur electio Zozom l. 6. c. 30. Socâ—at l. 4. c. 18. Nihil in hae vita difficilius laboriosius periculosius Episcopi aut Presbyteri aut Diaconi officio sed apud deum nihil beatius si eo modo militetur quo imperator noster jubet Hinc lacrymae illae quas ordinationis meae tempore effundebam August epist 148. Greg. Nis in viâ—â— Thaumat tells how Greg. Thaum omni cura fugiebat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Orat. 25. Tells how unwillingly he was brought to be a Bishop which others hastned to so ambitiously he first hid himself When he was found they brought him to Ordination as it were to execution weeping deprecating and deploring with unfeigned earnestness protesting how unfit how unworthy he was for that great work whom nothing could have made more fit and worthy than so great humility with so great holiness and ability Some as Ammonius did maim and deform themselves to avoid this great undertaking Saint Austine a man of incomparable abilities professeth That he esteems nothing more difficult laborious and dangerous in this world than the office of a Bishop or Presbyter though nothing be more glorious and accepted before God if the work be discharged so as we have in charge from our chief commander and Bishop the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence saith he were those tears which he could not forbear to shed plentifully on the day of his Ordination which others wondred at then and he after gives the world an account of them O humble holy happy well-placed tears which watered on that occasion one of the most devout diligent and fruitful souls that ever the Church of Christ enjoyed Saint Chrysostome also a great and glorious star of the first magnitude in the Firmament of the Church who filled the Orb in which he was placed and equalled by his eloquent worth the eminency of the City Constantinople where he sate as Bishop passionately bemoans his condition and all of his order as Bishops and Ministers of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost In act 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. in 1. c. act 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synes ep 11. Thuanus Anno 1555. tells of Marcellus a wise and sober man When the Scâ—ipture was read before him of the office of a Bishop he with earnestness protested He could hardly see how any man in the eminency of his place could be intent to the salvation of his own soul professing That he thinks the work the danger and the difficulties so great that a Bishop and Minister had need have an hundred hands and as many eyes to avoid scandals and to dispatch the employment So that he protesteth That he cannot see how many Bishops or Ministers can be saved yea and believes far more are damned than saved Synesius also professeth Had he been aware of the vastness of the work and charge of souls he would have chosen many deaths rather than have been a Bishop or Presbyter in the Church as he was and a ve y worthy one too from an eloquent and learned Philosopher Thus and to this tune generally all those antient Bishops and most eminent Ministers of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nis vita Thaum Quanto in praecipitio stant illi qui tot mortibus sunt obnoxii quot habent in tutela animas Cleman Spel. and this not out of restiveness cowardise or want of zeal piety and charity but meerly out of unfeigned humility as Moses Jeremiah Isaiah Ezekiel and others abasing themselves out of the high esteem they had of the glory of Christ the honor of his Religion the dignity of his Ministry and the pretiousness of souls for which he had shed his sacred blood 9. Nor is the work God knows less or easier now 14. The Work not now easier than it was requires as able Ministers on our hands nor the burden lighter nor are our arms and shoulders stronger in these days than in former times that any mens confidence in undertaking or forwardness in obtruding on that calling should
For which necessity a relief was long ago hoped for and expected if not promised from the piety and nobleness of the Parliaments of England who could not but see that in many if not most parts either the Ministers abilities and pains exceeded the Benefice or the starving tenuity of the Benefice like an hungry and barren soyl Innovercante solo satae arbores quamvis generosiores feraces cito sterilescunt Varro Tenuitatem beneficiorum necessariâ— sequitur ignorantia sacerdotum Bishop Jewel eat up and consumed the Ministers gifts and parts which at first were florid and very hopeful and so would have thrived had they not been planted in a soyl that was rather a dry nurse than a kinde mother Nor was there then or is there now any way to avoid the mischief of admitting such minute offerers of their selves to the Ministry in places of so minute maintenance unless the entertainment were enlarged as is requisite in many Livings where the whole salary is not so much as the interest of the money bestowed in breeding of a Scholar would amount to which an able Minister cannot live upon so as to do his duty yet this fault of ordaining and instituting weak Ministers which arose from the hardness of Laymens hearts was better committed than omitted by the Ordainers for it was better that such small timber if as strait and sound as can be had be put in the wall than the house in that place lie quite open and decayed Better the poor people be taught in some measure the Mysteries and Truth of Religion than left wholly wilde and ignorant I know that as in a building it is not necessary that all pieces should be great and massie timber less will serve in their place and proportion yet the principal parts ought to be so substantial that they might relieve the weaker studs and rafters of the burden so that no danger might be to the whole Fabrick from their feebleness so assisted The state of the Church ought indeed to be so ordered that there should be a competency for all and a competency in all Ministers but in some there ought to be an eminency as in employment so in entertainment upon whom the greatest recumbency of Churches may be laid whose learning courage gravity tongue and pen may be able to sustain the weight of Religion in all controversies and oppositions which assertings and vindications require not onely good will and courage but great strength and dexterity The ablest Minister if he well ponders what he hath to do hath no cause to be very forward nor should the meanest that is honest and congruous have cause to despond or be discouraged in his good endeavors Great care ought to be had for Ordination of able Ministers and for augmentation of their Means to competency To restore the Reformed Christian Ministry in this Church to its true honor there should be greatest care had in the matter of ordination before which antiently the Church had solemn Fasting Prayer and Humiliation But in vain as to many places which all need able Ministers will this care be unless there be also some necessary augmentation of Ministers maintenance As the ablest men should be invited to the work so none unable should be admitted and none once admitted should have cause by the incompetency of their condition to be ashamed and by their poverty contract inabilities as Trees grow mossie and unfruitful in barren soyls Nor would this pious munificence be thought much by any Christian Nation to which God hath been so liberal in his earthly bounty if they did indeed value his heavenly dispensations and the necessity work or worth either of true Ministers or of poor mens souls whom itinerant Preachers cannot feed sufficiently with a bit and a way but they require constant and resident Ministers to make them thrifty and well-liking I conclude this Paragraph touching the great work of the Ministry with that Character of an able Minister which St. Bernard hath admirably set forth to Eugenius the then Bishop of Rome by which we may see what sense was in those days Four hundred and fifty years ago of the duty of Ministers and what kinde of ones holy men then required in the Church from whom our succession without any disparagement from mens personal faults is derived Such saith Saint Bernard are to be chosen Tales eligendi sunt Ministri qui sunt compositi ad mores probati ad sanctimoniam para â— ad obedientiam subjecti ad diciplinam rigid ad censuram Catholici ad fidem fideles ad dispensationem concordes ad pacem conformes ad unitatem Qui regibus Johannem exhibeant Egyptsis Mosen fornicatibus Phineam Heliam idolatris Helisaum avâ—â—is Petrum mentientibus Pauluâ— blasphemantibus Christum negoâ—tantibus Qui vulgus non spernant sed doceâ—nt non gravent sed foveant Minas principum non paveant sed contemnant qui marsupia non exhauriant sed corda reficiant De omni re orationi plus fidant quà m industriae sua O si videam in vita mea Ecclesiam tatibus niâ—aâ—â— columnis O si Domini sponsam cernerem tantae commissaâ—â— fidei tanta creditam puritati quid nec â—â—aâ—iâ—s quidve securius Bern. l. 1. ad Eugenium and ordained for Ministers of the Church who are composed for their maners approved for their sanctimony ready to obey their Superiors subject to Discipline strict in their Censures Catholike for their Faith faithful in their Preaching conform to the peace and unity of the Church Who to Kings may be as John Baptist to Egyptians as Moses to Fornicators as Phineas to Idolaters as Elias to Covetous as Elisha to Lyars as Peter to Blasphemers as Paul to Symonaical and Sacrilegious Trafickers in the Church as Christ to the Buyers and Sellers in the Temple Such as may not burthen or despise the poor but nourish and instruct them not flatter and fawn on the rich but rather rouze and affright their proud security not terrified by threats of Princes but living and acting above them not exhausting mens purses but comforting their consciences and filling their hungry souls with good things who in every duty may trust more to their Prayers than their Studies to Gods grace than their own gifts and industry O saith he that I might in my days see the Church of Christ set and built on such Pillars O that I might see the pure Spouse of Christ committed to the eare of such pure and faithful Guardians Nothing would make me so securely happy Thus this devout and holy man in his times to whose pious and earnest desire I could heartily say Amen if I did but hope that ever the request might be heard and granted in my time but though all men be liers yet we have a true God to trust in As for that Liberty which some Christians plead 16. Private Liberty of gifts and publick Ministry not inconsistent not upon a Socinian or fanatick
Mendacia mendicabula and slow to teach as St. James adviseth As for those Histrionick Players and vaporing Preachers who with a Theatricall impudence in many places seek to fill the world with meer noise and clamor crying down all the antient Ministry as Antichristian and the Ministers as no way called sent or authorised by God or the Church turning all either into spirituall or new prophetick gifts to which they highly pretend certainly their vanity can move wise Christians no more than those cheats and wanderers do who swear they have found out and can sell you the true Elixar the Philosophers stone which will turn baser metals into gold while yet poor men their raggs sords and beggery sufficiently confutes their rare skill proclaiming to all but fools their lying and proud beggery which more needs anothers charity than is any way able to relieve any mans necossities If this Gentleman be in good earnest for a duty and office of prophecying besides and not against the order of the Ministry let him study how to restore to us the reall and usefull gifts of primitive Prophets Of the primitive prophetick gifts in the Church which may serve worthily to demonstrate beyond what is already done by excellent Writers the true sense of the Scriptures as to the great mysteries of Jesus Christ the Messias God forbid such should not have a primitive use and esteem in the Church But let us not be abused with such triflers as shall either darken what others have well explaned or shall only produce old protrite and stoln notions of other mens works as if these were the rare and new fruits of their own private prophetick gifts Possibly with this Gentlemans good leave the Church of Christ neither hath now nor needs any such prophetick gifts as were primitive and may truly be so called No more than it doth tongues miracles Chrysost orat 88. Gives reasons why Miracles are now ceased in the Church So Isid Pel. l. 4. Ep. 8. Rev. 2. and healings which it had and wanted too in those first times and dispensations when the Gospell of Christ was strange and new to the world and to the Churches which were but newly planted or in planting which now it is not specially in England after the Church hath enjoyed those plentifull diffusions of Evangelicall light from Christ and the Stars in his right hand for many hundred of years so that knowledge hath abounded as the waters of the Sea It is very probable the Churches in ages succeeding the Apostles gave over the form of the exercise of prophesying when once they saw the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or speciall gift ceased I remember no mention of this Prophecying among the publique officers duties or privileges of the Church No Councill no Father that I find regulates it or reckons upon it nor doth this Gentleman produce any one testimony for it out of the Churches after-practice in Ecclesiastick Histories and antient Records which may best distinguish for us Tacito omnium consensu per desuetudinem abrogantur Blond what things were of temporary what of perpetuall use in the Church It is evident that all things that were primitive and occasionall are not therefore to be made perpetuall or after long cessation to be restored many things used in the infancy and minority of some or all Churches have soon after been disposed as the collections on the first day Those collections for the poor on the Lords day Cyp. calls Gazophylacium and Corbona de Eleemos And St. Chrysost endeavoured to restore them in Constantinople See Bero. Ann. Anno Christi 44. In Tertul. time Christians abstained from blood Nec animalium sanguinem in esculentis habemus Apol. c. 9. yet in St. Austins time they did not abstain from blood or things strangled Aust cont Faust l. 3. c. 13 Mat. 2.20 1 Cor. 16. So the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Agapae or love feasts 1 Cor. 11.20 were by divers Councills forbidden when they degenerated from the Primitive simplicity and purity Jude 12. Spots in your feasts feeding themselves without fear So the Holy Kisses or salutings Rom. 16.16 1 Thes 5.26 The common stock of goods Acts 4.32 publikely dedicated to the relief of the Church in which the poorest believer had as much interest in what was given though they contributed nothing as he that gave most of his estate So the annointing of the sick James 5.14 So the Celebration of the Lords Supper every Lords day The peoples Amen 1 Cor. 14.16 which Jerom sayes was in his time as a Clap of Thunder such consent lowdness and alacrity was in that voice of Christian Assemblies The observation of the Jewish Sabbath with the first day of the week The abstinence from blood and things strangled and the like Nothing is more ridiculous in Religion than as some fond or fraudulent Papists do their exercisings and shews of daily Miracles to continue the ordinary use of all those things in the Church which we read were practised in Primitive times upon some extraordinary account either of necessity or charity or speciall gifts then only conferred Which when they were at the highest tide among professors yet were never wont to ouerflow the constant banks of the divinely established calling of the Ministry but still were kept within those modest holy and humble bounds which became the Christian flocks toward those Guides and Pastors which were to be constantly over them in the Lord with whom Christ promised to be as by his Authority and blessing so by his Spirit and assisting gifts to the end of the world As for this Gentleman whose devotion and charity hath raised him to so good hope and expectation of finding or making fit Prophets among the common people truly if he can bring forth any Gentlemen either Lawyers or others of so pregnant parts so ready in Scriptures and of so good utterance as in him appears together with so much gravity candor and equanimity as for the most part he expresses to the Ministry as a peculiar Calling and divinely instituted office such Prophets will be so far welcome as they shall be usefull to the Church Both Ministers and others wouâ—d be gâ—ad to see the Inns of Court or Chancery come in like Zilpah and Bilhad to supply the feared barrenness and decayes of Rachel and Leah Gen. 30. the two Universities which were wont to be the fruitfull Mothers and carefull Nurses of the true Prophets and Ministers Nor would it be a less acceptable wonder to all true Christians and Ministers to see such Zenasses 2 Tim. 4.10 devout Lawyers run cross to Demas his steps and forsaking this present world to follow after St. Paul than once it was to see Saul also among the Prophets 1 Sam. 19.24 Talis cum sis utinaÌ„ noster esses Ages ad Farnabasum inimicum ac mobilem Men that can write I presume speak too after so serious and Spiritual a way as that
strength of any part in its place and proportion doth not make it usurp the place or execute the Office of any other nobler part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist The measure of every part is the beauty and safety of the whole which cannot in naturall and ought not in Religious Bodies which are Churches be fitly disposed but only in such a way as God hath appointed for the daily forming building and well-ordering of his Church by such wisdom and Authority as Christ established in it Of which the Apostles and the Churches after them give us most evident testimony But to avoid destructive delusions But we must not be deluded either with the devils fulgurations and flashes or his transfigurations and disguises We must not forsake or stop up Gods fountains of living waters by digging the devils ditches Luke 10.18 I saw Satan fall like lâ—ghtning from Heaven 2 Cor. 11.14 Satan himself is transformed into an Angel oâ— l ght I a. 1.13 Eccl. 5.1 and wells which hold no water nay we may not wash our hands at the Devils Cistern to fit them for Gods service Nor may we take water from his troubled muddy and poysonous streams to water the plants of Christs Church We may not take strange fire from Satans Altar to kindle the sacrifices of God What need we cut off Dogs necks and offer swins bloud when we have so many clean beasts which are appointed for acceptable services that we shall not need any such vain oblations which are but the sacrifices of fools who consider not that they do evill nor look to their feet when they go to the house of God being as ready to stumble and fall and discover their nakedness and shame as they are forward to ascend to the altar of the Lord upon the steps of pride and presumption Exod. 20.26 which were forbidden to be made The humble heart being alwaies most welcom to God while others in vain arrogate to themselves power to perform those things which are not required at their hands Lev. 10.3 God hath said he will be sanctified of all these who come nigh to him in his publike service which is done not only by that inward sanctification of the heart by faith fear and reverence toward God but also by that exact observation of such rules of order power and Authority which he hath set who alone could do it in the publike way of his worship and service before the Sons of men We must not be such Children in understanding as to allow all to be gold which glisters when it will not endure the Touch-stone of Gods word Caiâ—itae Judae â—râ—diâ—orâ— Evangelium oâ—â—entabant Ophitae angelum in omni imunditie assistentem dicebant invocabant Hanc esse perfectioneÌ„ aiebant sine tremore in tales abire operationes quas ne nominare fas est Iren. l. 1. c. 35. Nulla enoris secta jam contra Christi veritateÌ„ nisi nomine cooperta Christiaâ—â— ad pugnandum pâ—â—silire audet Aust Ep. 56. or the probation of the Churches judgment We may not easily think that Gods Spirit in any private men runs counter to that holy order and clear Institution which the undoubted Spirit of God hath clearly set forth in the Scriptures and which the Church in all ages hath observed in the way of an ordeined authoritative Ministry All other or later inventions may well be suspected to be but Satans stratagems and devices There may be so many vermine crawling in a dead body as may make it seem to live and move when yet there is no true Spirit of life or Soul in it So it is no wonder if the various impulses wherewith mens secret and corrupt lusts stir them make some shew as if diviner gifts and endowments agitated them When indeed they have no other ayms or interests than such as Judas Iscariot or Symon Magus might have or those after Hereticks the Gnosticks Maniches and Montanists c. Who almost that had any shew of gifts or parts ever did mischief in the Church without great prefacings of holy and good intentions and pretensious of gifts and the Spirit of God There may be gifted Hypocrites devout devils angelized Satans Be mens gifts never so commendable if they want humility in themselves Miserrimis instabilibus fabulis tantam elationem assumpseruat ut meliores scipsos reliquis prasumpserunt Irenae l. 1. c. 35. de Caynitis Ophitis Judaeitis and charity to others which are the beauties of all endowments if they are puffed up seek themselves walk disorderly run unexamined unappointed unordained in scandalous and undue wayes they are nothing either as to private comfort in themselves or publick benefit to the Church The presumption and disorder of their example doth more hurt as the influence of some malignant stars in a Constellation than the light of their gifts can do they corrupt more than they either direct or correct If any of these Prophets or gifted men be indeed so able for the work of the Ministry that religion may suffer no detriment by them and people may have just cause to esteem them highly for their work sake God forbid they should not have the right hand of fellowship all incouragement from my self and all that desire to walk as becomes the Gospell when they are found upon just tryall fit to be solemnly ordeined set apart and sent forth with due authority to that holy service in Gods name let them be sent forth with good speed If they disdain this method of Ministeriall office and power which hath been setled by Christ and continued to this day in his Church which no wise humble and truly able Christian can with reason modesty or with conscience justly do but they will needs obtrude themselves upon the Church and crowd in against the true Ministers they may indeed be as sounding Brass and tinckling Cimballs fit rattles for Children or for the labouring Moon or for a Country Morice-dance and May-pole Nec veritate seneri nec charitate frugiâ—eri Greg. but they will never be as Aarons Pomegranates and golden Bells usefull Ornaments to Gods Sanctuary in words or works or any way becomming the Church of Jesus Christ which is as the woman clothed with the Sun the light of Truth and the lustre of holy Order And hath the Moon under her feet Rev. 12. not only all wordly vanities and unjust interests but also all humane inventions and novelties which have their continuall variations wainings disorders darknesses and deformities whereas Divine Institutions are alwayes glorious by the clear beams of Scripture-precept and the constant course of the Churches example Both which have held their Truth and Authority in the blackest nights of persecution wherein no untried and unordeined intruder was ever owned for a true Minister of holy things in any setled and incorrupted Church of Christ No more than any man shall be accounted an Officer or Souldier in an Army who hath not
are holy Numb 16. though the hand and fire were unholy which were applyed to them Our Ministery then may be and certainly is very good holy 4. Our Ministry not from nor of the Pope and divine as well as the Scriptures and Sacraments or other holy Ministrations and duties are when duly restored to their primitive purity order and authority which go along with their right succession notwithstanding they are derived to us through or by the Romish Church or the Popes dispensation yet do they not therefore descend from them but only from Christ the first institutor of his Church and of this Ministry with a perpetuall power of succession Possunt esse pastores Lupi alio respectu Pastores in veritate quam profitentur in potestate quaÌ„ ritè obtinuerunt Lupi in erroribus quos admiscent in corruptelis morum c. ut Scribae Pharisaei in Cathedra Mosis panem veritatis proponebant sed non sine fâ—â—mento errorum officium distinguendum à persona potestas à moâ—ibus Gerrard de Minist Rev. 2.4 Jer. 3.1 Thou hast played the harlot with thy lovers yet return to me saith the Lord. Rev. 3.2 Our Lord Jesus Christ the gracious Spouse of the Church as of every Soul that truly believes and obeys though with much unbelief and frailty disdains not to own his relation to any Church or Christians though they are not so faithfull to him though they lose their first love yet they may be still his by what still remains of soundness and outward profession Yea and Christ will vouchsafe to admit us again to the communion and covenant of his love even after long wandrings and unkind absences when ever we wash our selves and return to him from our disloyall adulteries and pollutions He doth not utterly divorce any Church when the substance and essentials of Religion which are but in a few things do remain notwithstanding the many meretricious paints and disguisings which the wantoness of humane inventions may have put upon it thereby disfiguring its Primitive beauty and simplicity Mans vanity and arrogancy against God or men doth no whit abrogate either the right which Christ or any Church and Christian posterity hath to the purity and power of his gifts and institutions in the right way of his Mâ—nistry All which may remain with a blessing in the root and Seed though they be much pestered over-dropped choked and almost starved by humane additions which keep them for some time from their full glory vigor and extension Therefore the learned and godly Reformers of this Christian Church in England did not dig any new fountain of Ordination or ministeriall power as some Romanists calumniated at first and were afterward convinced of the contrary by Master Masons learned defence of the Ministry of England as to its right succession but they only cleared that which they saw was divine in the first broaching or Institution by Christ and as in the purest derivation by the Apostles however in time it became foul by humane feculencies and dregs as it passed rightly though not purely through the hands of some Bishops and Presbyters even to their dayes Nor was ever any thing required by the best Reformed Churches further to confirm and validate the Authority or power Ministeriall which any had received when he was first ordeined Presbyter in the Romish Church Contaminarunt non sustulerunt Ministerium Ecclesiae Alsted but only this to renounce not his Baptism but his errâ—rs and former superstitions to profess the Reformed Truths of the Gospell and accordingly to exercise that Ministeriall power which he had received truly as to the substance and duly as to the succession both as to the Office conferred and the persons conferring it Howsoever the sword of the Ministry had through the neglect of those to whom it was committed been suffered to contract the rust of superstitions and to lose much of its beauty and sharpness yet it was still that true and same two-edged sword which came out of the mouth of Jesus Christ Rev. 2.12 the first ordeiner of a peculiar setled Ministry in his Church Nor may it be broken or cast away when it hath been rightly delivered but only cleared whetted and furbished from its rust bluntness and dulness That Pen which now writes blottingly might be well made at first and will write fairâ—y again if once the hairs or blurs which its neb hath contracted be but cleared from it It is still Gods Field and Husbandry with good Wheat in it though the enemy hath while men slept sowen many tares Bishops and Ministers reformed may be Gods true labourers and appointed Husbandmen though they have some time loytered as the Disciples were Christs when their eyes were so heavy to sleep that they could not watch with him that one hour of his most horrid agony Mat. 26.40 It were then but a passionate scuffling with mad men a most impertinent disputing with unreasonable minds further to argue about the Popes usurped or abused Authority in any kind over Churches or Bishops or holy Ordinances and Ministry For which he had as little grounds of Scripture or reason as these Anti-Ministeriall Obâ—ectors have now against this Church of England and the function of the Ministry in it against which these cunning cavillers have not so much pretence to argue from the Popes usurpation that our Ministry and Religion are all Antichristian as they have both Scripture Reason and Experience besides the consent of all Reformed Churches to conclude them to be truly Christian if anger or envie or covetousness had not blinded their blood-shotten eyes they might easily see some of those mighty works Mat. 11.20 which have been wrought on mens Souâ—s by the Ministry of England since the Reformation and without this efficacious Ministry I believe neither these Calumniators had been so much Christian as they pretend nor so able spightfully to contend with shewes of Piety and popular falacies against the true Ministry of this Church and the best Ministers with whose Heifer they have plowed We know well that not only the reformed Churches 5. Of the Popes pretended Supremacy in England but even the Gallican and Venetian which keep communion with the Romish Church and Papall party besides the Greek Asian and African Churches do generally oppose and vehemently deny the Popes abusive usurpations both in things Ecclesiasticall and Secular And this upon most pregnant grounds not only from Scripture whence nothing was ever fairly and pertinently urged as some places are fouly wrested and yet but little to the Popes advantage but also from * Caeteri Apostoli par consortium honoris potestatis acceperunt qui in toto orbe dispersi Evangelium praedicaverunt quibusque decedentibus successerunt Episcopi Is Hisp l. 2. off Eccl. c. 5. Qui sunt constituti in toto mundo in sedibus Apostolorum non ex genere carnis ut filii Aron sed pro unius cujusque
Christ Which Timothy in his infirm person could not do but in his care to transmit the holy patern to posterity and to his successors he might as he was enjoyned be said to do For what is once well done in a regular publike way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas M. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. Perenâ—â—s est aeterna praeclari exemplaris virtus Jeron Quadratus Atheniensis Eccl. Episcopus Apostolorum Discipulus Jeron Ep. ad Mag. St. Jerom tels us that St. John wrote his Gospell at the intreaty of the Bishopâ— of Asia Catal. Script Eccl. c. 9. Rev. 2. Angels i. e. Apostoli nuntii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. Bibl. è Diod. Sic. l. 40. Austin Sub Angeli nomine Laudatur praepositus Ecclesiae So Beza Annot. The chief teacher in the Synagogue was called the Angell of the Congregation Anisw in Deut. 31.11 So Malachi 2.7 The Priests lips shall preserve knowledge for he is the Angel or Messenger of the Lord of Hosts is ever after done as to the permanency of that vertue which is in a good and great example What other Churches did observe after the Apostles times Ordo Episcoporum ad originem recensus in Johannem stabit autorém Tertul. l. 4. c. 5. ad Marcio So Clem. Alex. testifies that S. John made Bishops in Asia Ignatius Epist ad Ephâ—s but twelve years after the Revelation written Dionysius Polycarpus Placed by St. John for the Bishop of â— Smyrna Iren. l. 3. c. 3. Before the Revelation So the Epistle of the Smyrnenses justify of him calling him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb l. 4. Hist 116. Anno 1450. Fratres Bohemi lib. de fide moribus eorum as to the manner of their Government when they grew numerous and spread to many Congregations and Presbyteries we may easily be resolved both by the testimony and practise of all Antiquity Fathers Councils Historians who have registred the uninterrupted succession of Bishops from the Apostles both in the seven Asiatick Churches mentioned in the Revelation whose * Angels were generally taken for their Presidents or Bishops and some of Apostles then living when as Archippus Evodius and Onesimus and Polycrates were Bishops c. What after times observed is evident to this day among all Christians even those of the Eastern and Abyssine Church have still their Bishops so the Greek and Muscovitish Churches so the furthest Asians which are thought to have been first converted by St. Thomas who furthest from believing did the penance of travelling furthest to Preach the Gospell in India And I observe the Fratres Bohemi in their persecuted state and poverty for a long time still retained a very happy and comly order of Episcopall Government Truly I never found so much light of Scripture patern and precept enjoyning any one or more Presbyters to do all those works of power and jurisdiction Nor ever did they without the presence of an Apostle or some Apostolicall successor and Bishop regularly ordein excommunicate silence c. so far as I can yet learn There are but two texts that mention the Presbytery and but one which can be pretended for ruling Lay-Elders which yet these are not preceptive or institutive but meerly narrative and touching without expressing any joynt power Office or Authority of Presbyters with any President or Bishop much less without them and against them Yea I read in St. Judes Epistles v. 8. foul marks put upon those in the Church that despise dominions and speak evill of dignities Against whose proud and seditious practises a woe is denounced Vers 11. as against men cruell like Cain covetous like Balaam ambitious as Korah factious disturbers of that order which God hath set in his Church as well as in civill societies after the mutinous example of Korah and his company Numb 16.3 who rose against both Moses and Aaron parallel to whose evill manners and disorderly practises 2 Pet. 2.10 these men had not been against whom St. Jude here and St. Peter in his second Epistle so sharply inveighs as presumptuous self-willed despisers of dignities c. unless there had been some eminencies in the Church Christian as well as was among the Jews which these men were most bold to oppose and contemn As for the civill powers Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2.13 that then were in the world humble Christians made conscience as God commanded them to submit to them in all honest things And those hypocrites were no doubt too wary to adventure any thing against them whose power was terrible by the sword But the Orders Governments Dignities and Dominions in the Church were exposed by their weakness to the scorn and affronts of any such proud and tumultuating Spirits which covered themselves under the veil of Christian Religion yea and pretensions of the Spirit too Jâ—d 19. the better to set off their Schisms and separatings from that authority power and order which God had by the Apostles setled in the Church even in those times 5 If there were not thus much of Scripture patern and precept pleading fairly for a right Episcopacy yet since there is nothing against it in Scripture or Reason in Religion or morals yea and so much for it in common reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato de leg Nihil sit in rep sine ordinis regiminis custodia So Lycurgus o dered ut nullus in repub ordo sine proprio esset Magisterio true polity and almost necessitie in Church societies no less than in either families Cities armies or any fraternities and Corporations of men No doubt the Lord of his Church hath not deprived or denyed that liberty and benefit of good order and rationall Government to his Church which in all civill societies may lawfully be used according to wisdom and discretion Truly we may as well think it unlawfull for one Minister to excell another or many others in age parts learning prudence gravity and gubernative faculties which if they may lawfully he had and are found in some by the especiall gift of God to so great differences from and excellencies above others what Reason or Religion can forbid them to be accordingly used and publikely employed in answerable differences of place and power for the Churches good only Christ â—equires humility in priority Ministry in their majority and service in their superiority proportioned to their gifts and endowments which God never gave in vain Nor doth there ever want indeed a plebs and vulgarity among many Presbyters thought honest and able men some of whom are still young and prone to be passionate imprudent factious and schismaticall whose folly is not yet decocted nor youthfull heats abated c. For the good ordering of whom beyond a contemptible and heady parity a right Episcopall presidency may be as usefull lawfull and necessary as a little Wine was for Timothy in regard of his frequent infirmities 1 Tim. 5.23 which St. Jerom every where owns as the ground of the
and enabled to effect those things which none other can presume to perform without vanity sin and presumption who hath not that gift power or authority consigned to him The right Ordination then of Ministers in the way of an holy succession in the Church of Christ hath in Religion and among true Christians these holy uses and clear advantages peculiar to it 1. 1. It confirms the truth of the Gospel 2 Cor. 8.23 First as to the main end the Glory of God and the saving of mens souls by their believing and obeying this testimony of all true Ministers that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of the world Nothing gives a more clear and credible testimony to the glory and honour of Jesus Christ and to truth of the Gospel than this uniform and constant succession of Ministers Multi barbarâ—rum in ChristuÌ„ credunt sine charactere vel attramento scriptam babenter in cordibus sum per spiritum salutem et veterum traditionem diligentes custodientes quam Apostoli tradiderunt iis quibus committebant Ecclesias cui ordinationi assentiunt multa gentes c. Iren. l. 3. c. 4. by a peculiar Ordination and authority even from Christ himself in person who at first began this Ministry and sent some speciall men as his messengers to bear witness of him in all the world that so men might believe not only what is written in the word before it was or as it is now written but also as that glorious truth hath been thus testified every where and in every age by chosen and peculiar men as a cloud of most credible witnesses whom thousands at first did and to this day do hear preaching and see them Celebrating the holy mysteries of Christs Gospell who never had or used any written word nor ever read it and for the most part believed before ever they saw any part of the Bible which the constant Ministry of the Church hath under God hitherto preserved chiefly upon the testimony and tradition or record of those that were ever thought and alwayes ought to be most able and faithfull men specially appointed by Christ in his Church as a perpetuall order and succession of Witnesses to testifie of him and to minister in his Name to the end of the world This walking Gospel and visible Ministry consisting as it ought of wise and worthy men Minister est verbum visibile ambulans Evangelium who have good reputation for their piety learning and fidelity running on to all generations is as a continued stream from the blessed Apostles who were the first witnesses immediatly appointed by Christ to hold forth his name and Gospell to the world Acts 1.8 which though never so far off in the decurrence of time from the fountain yet still testifies and assures all wise men that there is certainly a divine fountain of this ministeriall power and so of Evangelicall mysteries and truth which rose first from Christ and which hath constantly run as may appear by the enumeration or induction of particular descents in all ages in this Channel of the Apostles and their successors the Bishops and Presbyters of the Church for the better planting confirming and propagating of the Gospell to all Nations and times As a duty charge or office injoyned by divine command to some men and lying ever as a calling on their consciences Hereby evidently declaring the divine wisdom and Fatherly care of Christ for the good instruction and order of his Church in his personall absence In that he hath not left the Ministry of the Gospell and his holy Institutions which he would have alwaies continued for the gathering edifying of his Church to a loose and arbitrary way among the rabblâ— and promiscuous heards of men which would soon have made Evangelicall truths seem but as vagrant fables and generall uncertain rumors which run without any known and sure authority in the common chat and arbitrary report of the vulgar by which in a short time both the order beauty honour purity and credit of Truth is easily lost among men This holy and successionall ordination of the Evangelicall Ministry gives great proof and demonstration as of Christs personall presence as chief Bishop and Minister of his Church so of the fulfilling of Christs word and the veracity of his promise Mat. 28. after his departure to be with them that were sent and went in his name to the end of the world That the gates of hell neither yet have nor ever shall prevail against the Church While it carefully preserves a right succession holy order and authority of true Ministers the devill despairs of ever overthrowing Christian Religion in its reformed profession in any Country Down with the order Mat. 16.28 and sacred power and succession of the Ministry and all will in a short time be his own 2. 2. Evidenceth the Churches care Agnitio vera est Apostolorum doctrina antiquus Ecclesia status in universo mundo charactere corporis Christi secundum successiones Apostolorum quibus illi eam quae est in unoquoque loco Ecclesiam tradiderunt Scripturarum sine fictione custodita tractatio plenissima lâ—ctio sine salsatione secundum scripturas expositio legitima diligens sine periculo sine blasphemia Irenaeus l. 4. c. 43. In Ecclesia Catholica bacte nus inviolabili observatione tenetar qua potissimum Catholici ab Haereticis discriminantur nimirum ut cujusvis meriti atque praestantiae â—ir fuerit non sua sponte praedicationis munus suscipiat sed expectet donec ab Ecclesia mittatur ab eaque sacris functionibus initietur siâ—que initiatus praedicationi Evangelii mancipetur Baronius An. Anno Christi 44. It is also a notable evidence of the Churches care and fidelity in all ages not only in the preservation of the oracles of the word which it hath done but also of a constant holy Ministry to teach and explain them Also to celebrate those holy mysteries which are divinely annexed to the word as seals to confirm the faith of Christians And lastly to exercise that wholsome discipline for terror or comfort the power of which is chiefly in the Pastors and Rulers of the Church As it is then for the honour of the wisdom of Christ in the originall to have instituted such holy mysteries and such a Ministry so it is for the honour of the Church in the succession of all ages to have thus preserved them and it self in that order which becomes the family of Christ which had come far short of any well ordered family if the Father and Master of it Jesus Christ had left every servant to guess at his duty and all of them to scramble what part they list of employment aliment and enjoyment but the Lord Christ as every wise Master doth hath appointed and his Church hath preserved to this day constant Stewards and dispensers of holy things in his house-hold whose duty t is to
followed without neglect and affront of the true Ministâ—y Non Domini sed Daemonis sunt haec pascua Hi pastores Luther and this not without a great sin The devill is never pleased better than with such pragmatick Preachers and false Prophets who do Satans work under Christs Livery which is at once to invalidate and overthrow as the true Ministry so all conscience of true Religion that so having by these Nimrods hunted out and destroyed all the race of the antient holy order and succession he may set up the Babell of his Kingdom No Symptom of lapsing unto Atheism so great as the despising of the Ministry which Eusebius observes before the destruction of the Jews Aliâ—nâ—n sunt reâ—iâ—iendi praedicatores qâ—am quâ—s Christus instituit qui primus Apostolos mâ—sit Tertul de prae ad Hâ—â—r Oâ—tendant mihi ex qua auto itate prodâ—runt Probent se no vos Apostolos virtutes proferant miracula Tert. Ibâ—d 7. It gives great satisfaction to the conscience of all true believers and serious Christians in point of duty discharged and comfort obteined by holy ministrations of whose validity and efficacy they have then least scruples when they are most assured of the authority of the Minister performing them as in Christs way so in his Name wherein blessing is to be sought and only to be found Hence also they expect the graces of the duty when the Ministration is rightly done by those that are in Christs stead as to the outward form and presence which none can without a ly and hypocrisie pretend to but only true Ordeined Ministers Others in their arrogant and impudent intrusions are justly and easily despised and all duties they do which are first questioned then denyed having no plea or pretence of authority from Scripture reason or from the custome and practise of the Church whereby to perswade any sober man to regard them any more than God did the Oblations of Cain or Corah Nothing is more abhorred to the God of order 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 10.8 All that came before me were thieves i. e. came without commission in their own names In venientibus est praesumtio temeritatis in Missâ— est obsequium servitutis Jeron than presumptions in piety which disdain to serve God in his own way Nor will their zeal cover their rudeness and disobedience or excuse the ly which pretends to speak and go and run and prophecy in Gods name when the Lord sent them not Jer. 23.31 32. Therefore the antient Greek Lyturgies prayed in their Ordination of Ministers and Consecration of Bishops that God would bestow on the Ordeined such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministeriall gifts that the holy Ministry might be unblemished and unblamable that thereby a reverence might be preserved to holy offices and holy officers too for the peoples stay satisfaction and comfort And whereas the pleader for the peoples privilege and duty to Prophecy objects that few people are ever assured of those Ministers being duly ordeined who daily preach among them and administer holy things It is true every Minister doth not Luther demanded of Muncer a fanatick Prophet what ordinary call or Mission he had with which Luther contented himself In vita Lutheri every time he preacheth shew the letters or the Charter of his Ordination Nor is it necessary but only at some times If the discipline of the Church in this point were such as it ought to be in practise and which was in our Constitution viz. That none might presume to officiate properly as a Minister in holy Administrations beyond probationall preaching but only such as were sufficiently known to be true Ministers rightly Ordeined in publique under sufficient testimoniall The strict care of this would be a great means both to restore the lapsed honour of the Ministry and to establish many shaken Christians in their faith As right Ordination of the Evangelicall Ministry carrys with it the only acceptance from God as a service and duty for to others God will say Who required these things at your hands So it procures unspeakable blessings of Gods graces and gifts upon the Churches of Christ and the houshold of Faith more truth and soundness in the faith more Union Peace Charity Order Constancy c. The flourishing of Aarons rod Numb 17. both in blossomes and ripe fruit sufficiently testifies against these envious murmurers against Ordination whom the Lord hath chosen and ordeined to serve him as Ministers of the Gospell Rom. 4.10 How shall they preach unless they be sent It 's negative They cannot rightly lawfully acceptably successfully comfortably preach unless duly sent in Gods way nor can that place be meant only of the Apostles as F. Socinus interprets it since as Preaching and Ministry so authority in them and regard to them is alwayes necessary for the Churches good Never any Church or Christians were eminent for sound knowledge Orthodox profession or for holiness of life in all charity and vertues but only there where true Ministry and right Ordination was continued and incouraged The more any Church or Christians are defective or neglective and loose in this the more they are presently overgrown with ignorance or Errors or Superstition or infinite Schismes prophane novelties and scandalous licentiousness when every one that lists makes himself or another a Minister in new and Exotick wayes Such mock-Ministers are but as the block that fell among frogs nine dayes wonder but afterward the Pageantry concludes in the prophane babblings contempts and confusions justly and necessarily following such mockeries and Impostures Nor are they attended with only contempt of those Pretenders but also with neglect and indifferency in some men as to all holy duties and ministry Non fortunat Deus labores torum qui non sunt ordinati quanquam salutaria quaedam afferant tamen non aedificant Luther tom 4. Gen. fol. 9. which the miserable experience of many people in this Church too much confirms at this day No men and women being more dark unsavoury disorderly wasted torn wounded and scattered into factions and errors than those deluded creatures whose first error makes way for all other forsaking the true light and salt of the world and of the Church the teaching order and guidance of their true and faithfull Ministers After this they are easily abused with twinkling snuffs unsavory salt with Wolves and thieves who come not in at the dore when it is fairly open but climb over or creep under the wall of government order and discipline that they may steal destroy and disperse the flock Out of you shall arise men Joh. 10.1 speaking perverse things i. e. they rise of themselves by popular forwardness and disorderly presumption not from Christs and the Churches ordination Hence they prove so grievous and mischievous to the Church Acts 20.30 So that it is not only the Calamity and misery of poor Christians to be thus abused but it draws them into
with all judicious and sober Christians leave Potius vetera tuta quam periculosa nova sectemur Tac. to passe by the Idoll of their new dressed Spiritually and Sanctity without any admiration devotion or the least salutation Nor can we at all consider private spirits warped from and bent against the publique Spirit of Christ in the Scripture in the practise of the Catholick Church and in the most eminent Christians both ancient and modern We shall content our selves with that plain and pristine holynesse and manifestations of the Spirit True holinesse and true Saints Sanctitas est scientia colendorum deorun Tul. de Nat. D. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato in Eutyp which are expressed in the Word deposited in the Church preserved in an holy Ministry exemplified in all true Christians and most eminently in Jesus Christ and his Apostles the great and famous Founders Teachers and Establishers of holy Truths holy Duties holy Sacraments holy Orders and holy Ministry in the Church And this with divine Power and Authority not onely personall but successionall without which the instituted Service and Worship of Christ had ere this failed These being ever since Christs time in all the world imployed in Teaching Gathering Baptizing Governing Feeding Preserving and Perfecting the Body of Christ which is his Church We know not and so we cannot desire other holinesse than that by which we beleived the Truths obeyed the Commands feared the Threatnings observed the Duties preserved the Institutions continued the Orders reverenced the Embassadors joyed in the Graces hoped in the Promises and were led conformably to Christ by that Spirit which Jesus Christ had given to his Church long before these new coyners had graven the stamps or set up their Mintâ— We are glad and blesse God when we attain unfaignedly to that Spirit of Holynesse which hears the Word of God with fear and trembling from the mouth of those able and godly Ministers which are the Messengers or Angels sent from Christ by the Churches Ordination Which teacheth us to pray with understanding constancy fervently and comelinesse to receive the pledges of Gods love in Christ from their hands duly consecrating the holy mysteries with reverence preparednesse and thankfulnesse That holinesse which loves with sincerity gives with cheerfulnesse rejoyceth in well doing suffers with patience lives by Faith acts by Charity is holy with order contentednesse and humility without any fury faction or confusion That holinesse which hath nothing in it novell or praeterscripturall nothing fancifull verball tumultuary violent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. Euâ—yph Sâ—nctum est quod deo gratum schismaticall disorderly partiall pernicious or injurious to any which chuseth to be a Martyr for Charity and Unity as well as Verity in the Church rather suffering much than giving scandall or making a schism according to the pious and excellent couâ—sâ—ll of Dionysius to Novatus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dionys Epâ—st Auâ—ea apud Eusch l. 6. hist c. 38. That holinesse which is old as the Ancient of dayes reall rationall demonstrative from the Word of God and exemplified in the lives of former Saints Which is meek courteous charitable humble just to all men abounding with all righteousnesse and the fruits of righteousnesse peace and establishment both to private consciences and publique Churches That holinesse which hath nothing in it supercilious calumniating defamatory insolent bitter or burthensome to any true Christians true Churches and true Ministers which know how to reprove what is amisse without rejecting all that is well to reform the crooked without ruining what is right That holinesse which as the Sun-beams is always like it self like the Father of spirituall light uniform and constant in all true Saints in all ages and in all administrations Divine either immediate or mediate as to its rule the Will and Word of God as to its end the glory of God in Gods way as to its Epitome or sum the love of God and its neighbour as to its happy fruits and effects the good of mankinde chiefly of the Church of Christ These have ever been the same for kind however differing in degrees according to the measure which God hath given to his true Saints and servants who never differed from God or the Word or one another as they were holy and spirituall however as men and carnall in part they had their crookednesse unevennesses and dissentings These are the fruits of Gods Spirit this that true Holinesse for which we pray of which we dare not boast These are the Saints whose shadows we count Soveraign whose presence a blessing whose wayes unblameable whose joyes unspeakable whose works most imitable whose conversation most amiable heavenly and divine who chuse rather to suffer than any way to act in cases dubious as to secular dissensions which have much of the Beast somewhat of the Man and little of the true Christian The worth of these Pearls is infinitely beyond some mens counterfeit forgeries whose lustre is chiefly from worldly glory and secular advantages who out of ashes are melted up to the shining and bricklenesse of glasse by the fervour of some spirits who think it enough to glister with novelties and to boast of Inspirations fancying all is reformed which is but changed though much to the worse who are forced to set off themselves by the soil of severe censuring of others Fearing nothing so much as a true light and those discoveries which are made of them by serious and judicious Christians who judge not by mens lips and appearances but by their lives and practises compared to the Word of God For which true Ministers most eminently and impartially holding forth to the discovery of all mens deformities are of all men most abhorred by these pretenders who at a true and full view will not onely not appear to other such gifted men and spirituall as they pretend but they will be ashamed of their arrogance and despite against those good Christians and those true Minisers whom they have so much vilified and contemned The common mistake of proud weak or fancifull men 8. Vulgar mistakes of spirituall influences Luk. 9.55 Impudentiam pâ—o pietate jactitant quasi eo sanctiores essent quo verbosiores Bern. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thucid. hist l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas de Sp. s. whose tongues are onely tipt with Sanctity and the name of the Spirit is this That they know not indeed of what Spirit they are as to Profession Nor consider of what Spirit they ought to be as to temper if they will be truly Christs Disciples Contenting themselves with light and airy presumptions in stead of serious and searching examinations of truth comparing themselves with themselves they fancy they grow holyer as they grow bolder in their opinions or actions Hence they are easily flattered into high Imaginations and cheated with strong Presumptions as if some common gifts of knowledge some Scepticall quicknesse some volubility of utterance
nor raising any building of piety or sound knowledge in others for the same small stock always serves their turn in their severall gests and quarters By this meanes they hope the Church and State in a short time will be spoiled of all those fair flowers of good Scholars and able constant Ministers which were well rooted in learning and plentifully watered with the dew of heaven the gifts and graces of Gods Spirit that so there may be room enough for those rank and ill weeds to spread all over this English garden and field under whose specious covert of spiritualty all sort of venemous Serpents and hurtfull beasts may be hidden till they are so multiplied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. that through mutuall jealousies and dissensions they fall to tearing and devouring one another for however like Serpents wicked men may for a while twine together yet their different heads will soon find wherewith to exercise their stings and teeth against each other Impious mens confederacies are not friendship but faction and conspiracy Nothing being more in consistent than ignorance error and impiety which having no principles of union or order in them can have nothing of firmnesse or stability among them I doubt not but there are 12. The blessings which good Christians owe to good Ministers under God notwithstanding so many bitter spirits and rebellious children have become ungratefull Apostates against this Church and â—its worthy Ministery thousands of excellent Christians who have not bowed the knee to these Baaliâ—s who have both cause and hearts to confesse that the feet of these messengers the true Ministers of England have brought light and peace to their soules That their pious and constant labors have not been either so weak or unfruitfull as might in any sorâ— deserve or justifie such hard recompenses as these now are with which a foolish and unthankefull generation seeks to requite the Lord Deut. 32.6 and his faithfull servants the true Ministers whose names shall yet live among good Christians with durable honour Eccles 7.1 and their memories shall be pretious as sweet Ointments when these dead yet busie flies who seek to corrupt them Eccles 10.1 shall rot as dung on the face of the earth Their unsavory stench is already come up and hath greatly defiled many parts of this Church being justly offensive to all wise and good men in the present age and for the future they will be memorable for nothing but illiterate impudence ungratefull malice and confused madnesse who like beasts were able to waste a fair field and desolate a well reformed Church but never to cultivate or plant any thing like it The field of this Church in many places by the blessed labours of true and able husbandmen was heretofore full of good corn the valleys and hils did laugh and sing poore and rich were happy in the great increases with which the Lord of the harvest crowned the labours of his faithfull Ministers before the enemy had such liberty to sow his tares even at noon day yea in many places to rout the true labourers to leave many places desolate and only to scatter that self-sowing corn which is like to that which springs on the house top whereof the Mower shall never fill his hand Psal 129.7 nor he that bindeth up the sheaves his bosome Who sees not that one handfull of that crop which was formerly wont to be tilled by the skilfull and diligent hand of true and able Ministers was for its weighty soundnesse in knowledge and modest fulnesse in humility far more worth than many sheaves and cartloads of these burnt and blasted ears whose pride pretends in one night to grow to such eminent gifts of the Spirit for preaching as shall exceed all the parts and studies of Ministers when it 's evident to all that will but rub them in their hands that these wild oats and smutty ears by lifting up their heads so high doe but proclaim their emptinesse and lightnesse And 't were well if they were onely such cockle such trash and light gear they now grow to sharp thistles thornes mixed with true weed which seeks to starve choak and pull down to the earth all the hopes and joy of the true labourers that rich crop of truth order piety charity and sincerity which was formerly in great plenty and still is in good measure on the ground Yea thousands of Christians in many places of this Nation doe already grievously complain of the sad and desolate estate to which they are reduced for want of able and true Ministers Amos 8.11 Psal 106.15 residing among them crying out that a famine of the Word is come upon them and leannesse is entred into their soules having none to sow the immortall seed of the Word or to dispense the bread of life to them but a few straglers now and then of whose calling and authority to minister holy things no wise man hath any confidence and of whose insufficiency every way all men have too much experience where ever they obtrude themselves That most Christians had rather yea and better want the Word and Sacraments than receive them so defiled so nullified by such unwashen and unwarranted hands For it is hardly to be beleeved that those who are so much enemies to the spirit of Christ in true Ministers of which there hath been so great and good demonstrations in gifts lives and successes should either have or come in the power of the same Spirit which they so much despise and blaspheme Sure the Kingdome of Christ is not divided against it self but is uniform and constant not depending on the various impulses of mens humours fancies and worldly interests but established and governed by the most sure Word and those holy rules both for truth and order therein contained It is little sign of Christs Spirit in men to sow those seeds of errors and divisions which holy men have been alwayes plucking up or to build again that Babell which so many godly Ministers have pulled down But it becomes us Ministers not so much to dispute with these men about the Spirit to which they so highly pretend as to continue to outdoe them in the fruits of the Spirit as our famous and blessed forefathers have done and to leave the decision to the Consciences of true and wise Christians and to the great Searcher of mens hearts and tryer of mens spirits and workes who hath the Spirit of burning and refining Isa 4.4 and who if he hath not determined for the superfluity of wickednesse and ungratefull wontannesse of this Nation to lay us quite wast and desolate will in his due time after these days of triall throughly purge his floore and weed his field even this Mal. 3.12 so sadly havocked and neglected Church In which there are still some fruit that have a blessing in them Isa 65.8 and which we hope he will not destroy who knows how to separate between the
more than is needfull for their place and the Churches edification or safety and preservation And much I think is needfull to give a right sense of Scripture from the originall proprieties or emphasis of words 10. Wherein learning is necessary to Ministers Si ad humara perdiscenda â—ta hominis vita brevis est quid temporis sufficere potest ad intelligentiam divinum Chrysol To open the many allusions referring to Judaick rites and Ethnick customes in severall ages To clear and unfold the Scriptures by short paraphrases or larger Commentaries To analyse severall passages so as to reduce them to their proper place and order of reasoning wherein their force consists as the parts and joints of the body set in their due posture For the method of the reasoning and the strength of the argument or main scope in Scripture is oft very different from the series and order of the words in the Text Many times the ambiguity of the words the variety of stops the incoherence and independence of the sense as to the letter makes the method more obscure and the meaning very intricate yea the very text of Scriptures were in many copies of Bibles anciently as in St. Jeromes time Jeronymus in libris Jobi Danielis aliis and before him in Origens much altered by addition to or detraction from the pure and authentick Scripture untill those and other learned men the Bishops and Ministers of the Church with more accurate diligence reduced the Bible to its purity and integrity as much as is attainable by humane industry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basan hâ—m 24. de Leg. Ethn. or necessary to mans salvation In these and the like cases I suppose these objectors who are very simple but not with a dove-like simplicity must needs confesse unlesse they wholly trust to the reed of their Enthusiasms which they have very little cause to doe that there is a great need of learned Criticks of good Linguists of methodicall Analysts judicious Commentators accurate distinguishers and harmonious reconcilers that the truth purity and unity of the sacred Oracles may be preserved and vindicated against Jews Heathens Atheists Hereticks and capricious Enthusiasts who are ready to strike with contempt and passion any part of Scripture as uselesse or corrupted if it slow not as the rock with an easie sense and obvious interpretation to their weak and sudden capacities They are instantly prone with an high disdain and choler to prefer their most impertinent imaginations sudden fancies and addle raptures Or if they be ashamed of those being too weak grosse and impudent to be vended at noon day and in so faithfull a light as yet shines in this Church then they are crying up the book of the creatures and God in them or they applaud some easier morall heathens And I should think nothing should fit their fancies so well as the Turkish Alcoran or Jewish Talmuds and Cabals for these if any thing can have already out done them in toyes and incredible fables which may save them the labour of further inventions Swine will prefer the filthiest puddle before the fairest springs so will wanton proud and vain men take any light exception against the Scripture which they hate the more perfectly by how much they see it is a most perfect rule and fully contrary to their proud 2 Tim. 3.16 unjust and unruly passions And however the shell of those holy and unparelleld writings the blessed Scriptures be in many places rugged and hard so that every one cannot handle or break it yet blessed be God others can nor is the kernell of saving Truth lesse sweet and smooth because it is not easily explained but by the help of other mens better gifts whom the Lord raiseth up and fitteth for this very end with variety of gifts even in humane learning Who for the most part have been of the order of the Clergy although in these later times especially divers others both Nobility Gentry and Commoners have been as excellent pioners who have by their private studies very chearfully and industriously assisted and helped the Churches chiefest Champions and Leaders the Ministers who have not indeed every one those sharp tools of steel which can work at the hardest places of this rock and holy Mine the Scriptures yet have they generally such skill and leisure beyond the Vulgar as enables them to try the Ore to gather and refine the grains to cast them into fit wedges or ingots of Gold Truths reduced to some body method or common place of Divinity Thus assisted by their own and other studies method and industry they are well able to make plain yet learned and judicious Sermons with pathetick homilies fitted to the common peoples capacity memory and disposition whom neither leisure nor necessities of life and the hard labours under the Sun nor abilities of minde would suffer or serve one of a thousand to attain to any competent measure of religious knowledge if holy and learned men Ministers of the Church were not enabled by God approved by the Church and ordained by both to that constant service of the Ministry for the good of the plainer Christians who enjoy in every point of true doctrine or solid Divinity which is as a weighty piece of gold stamped with the clear testimony of the Scripture as people doe in every piece of current money the extract of the labour and the result of the art of many mens heads and hands who have thus fitted it for their ordinary use Besides this when common people are once well stored and inriched in their honest plainnesse with competent and sound knowledge in Religion by the care and faithfulnesse of their able and honest Ministers yet how easily would the cheats of Religion delude and impose on these poore Souls these plain and single hearted Christians abasing or changing counterfeit with truths cropt opinions and round-headed tenets for full weight of Christian doctrines Still cogging with religious * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 4.14 dice and cheating with plausible fallacies seemingly brought out of the Scripture untill those poore beleevers like the * Gal. 3.1 bewitched Galatians had lost all or their most part of their sound Religion yea some of these Impostors doe not leave poore Christians whom they have consened with fair shews of the Spirits revelations and new Gospels so much faith as to beleive the main Articles of the Christian Faith or the Scriptures to be the Word of God or that there is any true Church or any order and authority of true Ministry And whither would not this cousenage and deceit of these hucksters proceed 2 Cor. 2.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even to overthrow whole houses Parishes and Churches if there were not some learned and able Ministers in the Church who are as Gods and the Churches publique Officers to detect these jugglers to discover these deceitfull workers 2 Cor. 2.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to set
these cheats in the pillory of publique infamy that they may loose their Ears that is their * Vt tandem male audiant qui male diâ—â—â—nt agunt hearing well that credit and fame of gifts which they cover and captate among the Vulgar and which they would enjoy by reason of their many wiles and artifices by which they ly in wait to deceive with good words and fair speeches as the Divels setting Dogs the well affected and plain hearted Christians Rom. 16.18 if they were not every where routed and confounded by the Ministers of the Church who are both far abler and honester men and to whose charge the flock of Christ in its severall divisions and places is committed that they may take care it suffer no detriment either in truth or in peace in faith or manners in Doctrine or in holy order Thus then although the soules and faith of the meanest true Christians be alike pretious and dear to God 2 Pet. 1.1 as the most learned men's yet they are not pieces of the same weight for gifts of the same extension for endowments of the same polishings for studies nor of the same stamp and authority for their calling and office All which as they are not to the essence of true grace and religion so they are much to the lustre power beauty order usefulnesse and communicativenesse of those gifts which goe with true Religion and are by the Lords munificence bestowed on the Church and faithfull for their well being safety and comfort even in this world besides their happinesse in another which ought to be the grand design of all true Christians both Laymen and Churchmen both learned and unlearned both Governours and governed But these Illiterato's further object with open mouth 11. Object Christ and his Apostles had no humane Learning That they are sure neither Christ nor his Apostles had themselves or commended to the Churches use humane learning Answ My answer is They needed none as humane that is acquired by ordinary education or industry being far above it by those glorious and miraculous endowmenâ—s of the Spirit of wisedome which can easily shine in a moment through the darkest lanterns men of the meanest parts and grossest capacities So that those might as well dispense with the absence of all acquired humane learning as he that hath the Suns light needs not the Moon or Stars or Candles or he that had Angels wings and swiftnesse would not want the legge of man or beast to carry him or he that is neer a living and inexhaustible spring needs not labour to dig wels as Isaac did and so must we too Gen. 26 1â— in the barren and dry land where we live which none but inhumane Philistims would stop up This therefore of Christ and his Apostles is not more peevishly than impertinently alledged by these men in these times against the use of good learning in the Churches Ministers unlesse the reall experiences of these men pretended Apostolicall gifts extraordinary endowments and immediate sufficiencies from the Spirit of God could justifie these allegations either as fitted to them as to the present dispensations of Christ to his Church Although the Lord sometime gave his Church water out of a rock and refreshed wearied Samson by a miraculous fountain which suddenly sprung up in Lehi not in the Jaw-bone but in the place so called from Lehi i.e. the Jaw-bone Iudg. 15.19 by which instrument he had obtained so great a victory there where it continnued afterward yet I beleeve these men will think it no argument to expect every day such wonderfull emanations and neglecting all ordinary means to expect from the Jaw-bones of Asses water or drink to quench their thirst I am sure this Church hath not yet found any such flowings forth or refreshing from the mouths of these Objecters whose lips never yet dropped like Hermon so much as a Dew of sweet and wholesome knowledge upon any place and how should they whose tongues are for the most part set on fire and breathe out with much terrour nothing but ashes and cinders like Vesuvius or Etna whose eruptions are vastatious to all neere them Col. 2.3 Matth. 12.42 Unus verus magnus est magister Christus qui selus non didicit quod omnes doceret Amb. off l. 1. Matth. 5 45. As for our blessed Lord Christ we know he was filled with all the treasures of wisedome both divine and humane for being greater than Solomon he could not come short of Solomons wisdome in any thing who was in all his glory but a Type and shadow of Christ and no way comparable to him Our Saviours design indeed was not as Platos or Aristotles to advance naturall Philosophy meer morality humane learning and eloquence the beams of which Sun by common providence God had already made to shine by other wayes on the bad as well as the good on the heathens as well as the Jews and Christians but Christs intent was Mal. 4. 1 Cor. 1.26 by word and deed to set forth the beams of the Sunne of righteousnesse the wisdome of the Father the saving mysteries of his Crosse and sufferings in order to mans improvement not by humane learning but by divine grace And however our Blessed Saviour hath crucified as it were the flesh and pride of humane learning as well as of riches honour and all worldly excellencies which are infinitely short of the knowledge and love of God in Christ yet he quickned and raised them all by the Spirit which teacheth a sanctified and gracious use of them all to his Church Luk. 2.48 and true beleevers Our Lord Jesus did not disdain to converse with the learned Doctors and Rabbies of his time among whom he was found after his parents had sought him sorrowing because in vain otherwhere yet our wanderers and seekers are loth to seek afraid to find and disdain to own Jesus Christ when they have found him among the learned men and Ministers of this Church lest in so doing they should seem to confesse they had lost Christ and true Religion 12. The objecters may not argue from the Apostles gifts against learning now since they have neither of them in their illiterate Conventicles and ignorant presumptions As for the blessed Apostles who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immediately taught of God by conversing with the Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ the Christian world well knowes their miraculous and extraordinary fulnesse of all gifts and powers of the Spirit both habituall and occasionall so that they wanted neither any language nor learning which was then necessary to carry on the great work of preaching and planting the Gospell And no lesse doth the wiser world know the emptinesse and ridiculous penury of these disputers against good learning even as to the common gifts of sober reason and judicious understanding wherewith the blessing of heaven is now wont to crown onely the prayers
which was the harmonious way of primitive Christians in persecution when no State factions troubled the purer streams of that doctrine government and discipline which the Churches had received from the divine fountaines and had preserved sweet amidst the bitter streams and great stormes of persecution when no interest was on foot among Christians but that of Christ's to save soules which did easily keep together in humble and honest hearts piety and humanity zeale and meeknesse mens understandings and affections constancy in fundamentall truths and tolerancy in lesser differences That Truth and Peace Order and Unity might kisse each other and as twins live together the foundations remain unviolable while the superstructures might be varied as much as hay and stubble are from gold and silver 1 Cor. 3.12 That the faith of Christians might not serve to begin or nourish feuds nor Christians who are as lines drawn from severall points of saiths circumference yet to the same center Christ Jesus might ever crosse and thwart one another to the breach of charity but still keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace The same Faith invariable Ephes 4.3 as once delivered to the Saints yet with those latitudes of private charity which Gods indulgence had allowed to true wisdome and which an inoffensive liberty grants in many things to sober Christians I doe not despair but that such bloud may one day yet run in the veins of this Church of England which is now almost faint and swooning by the losse of much bloud which civil wars and secular interests have let out which may recover it to strength and beauty both in doctrine and discipline Yet will it never be the honour of those men to effect it who trust onely to military force or intend either to set up any one violent saction or a loose toleration in religion It will be little lesse indeed than a miracle of divine mercy and Christian moderation which must recover the spirit and life the purity and peace of this Church In the best setled Church or State Christian 9. An excellent way for unity and peace in the Church I conceive it were a happy and most convenient way for calming and composing all differences rising in Religion to have as the Jews had their Sanhedrin or great Assembly if we in England had some setled Synod or solemn Convocation of pious grave and learned men before whom all opinions arising to any difference Twise a year Synods were in primitive times appointed where the Bishops and other chief Fathers of the Church met to consider of Doctrines and disputes in religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. Apoc. 36. Which undoubtedly shew the practise and minde of the primitive times soon after the Apostles from what is once setled should be debated publiquely deliberated of seriously and charitably composed if not definitively determined that so the main truths may be preserved unshaken which concern faith and holinesse on which grounds peace and charity in every Church ought to be continued So that none under great penalty should vent any doctrine in publique by preaching or printing different from the received and established way before he had acquainted that Consistory or Councell with it and had from them received approbation so that no man should be punishable for his error what ever he produced before them but might either * Vtili terrori doctrina salutaris adjungatur Aust Et deâ—â— ipse nos sâ—â—oite dâ—ceâ— salâ—bâ—i tâ—r â—â—rrâ—â— receive satisfaction from them or only this charge and restraint that he keep his opinion to himselfe till God shew him the truth and that he presume not to divulge it save onely in private conference to others and that in a modest and peaceable manner In matters of judgement and opinion where no man is accountable for more than he can understand and upon grounds of right reasoning either beleive or know much prudence tendernesse and charity is to be used which will easily distinguish between honest simplicity privately dissenting upon plausible grounds or harmlesly erring without design and that turbulent pertinacy by which pride is resolved as a dry nurse to bring up by hand at the charge and trouble of others every novell and spurious opinion which an adulterous or wanton fancy lists to bring forth though there be no milk for it in the breasts of Reason or Scripture rightly understood The first is as Joseph out of his way wandring and desiring to be directed whom it is charity to reduce to the right way The second is like sturdy Vagabonds who are never out of their way but seek to seduce others that they may rob or murther them these ought to be justly punished and restrained The first is as cold water which may dabble and disorder one that fals into it yea and may drown him too but the other is as falling into scalding hot water which pride soone boyles up to malice and both to publique trouble unlesse it be thus wisely prevented before it have like fire a publique vent for commonly pertinacy of men ariseth more from the love of credit and applause which they think they have got or may lose or from some other advantage they aim at than barely from any esteem they have of the opinions wherein they innovate which brats of mens brains not their beauty but their propriety and relation commends to an eager maintaining Mallent semper errare quam semel errasse videri which in a publique debate by wise and impartiall men of high credit and reputation for their learning gravity and integrity will be so blasted that they will hardly ever after thrive or spread De Nerva dictum Res insociabiles miscuit Imperium liberitatem Tacit. This or the like care of Christian Magistrates by way of rationall restraints charitable convictions and just repressings of all factious and â—â—rbulent innovations in Religion being full of wisedome 〈◊〉 charity and just policy for the publique and private good of men may not be taxed with the least suspicion of tyranny nor may wise and good men startle at the name and outcry of persecution which some proud or passionate opiniasters may charge upon them any more than good Pati non est Christianae justitiae certum documentum ut Donatistae meritò repressi â—ociferabent Aust Ep. 163. Physitians or Chirurgeons should be moved from the Rules of their art and experiences by the clamors and imputations of cruelty from those that are full of foolish pity when they are forced to use rougher Physick Matth. 5.10 Blessed are they that are persecuted but it must be for righteousnesse sake and such severer medicines which the disease and health of the Patient doth necessarily require of them unlesse they would flatter the disease to destroy the man or spare one part to ruine the whole body It is indeed an * Lev. 19.17 hating of our brother and partaking of his sin
sincerity and godly simplicity We beleive he will not fail us nor forsake us though men though Christians though reformers doe There is not a better sign of Gods love than to be persecuted for righteousnesse sake It is our honour Matth. 5. as St. Jerom wrote to St. Austin Heb. 12. that the divell and his fanatick factions do unanimously hate us and malign us for if they were for Christ they could not be against us And we finde by experience that these Antiministeriall agitators have no such displeasure against any men be they never so flagitious or their estates never so luxuriant as against the most orderly and deserving Ministers So that it is their piety and pains which afflicts their enemies more than their plenty And if they cannot strangle Christ in the Cradle yet they hope to starve him in the Desart Blessed be God we see the end and bounds of these mens power and malice They are finite flesh and not infinite Gods yea they are proud flesh lately risen up which God will eat off with fitting corrosives if ever he heals this Church and Nation These murmurers never set us on work nor doe we depend on such unjust masters for our wages Though they be not converted or gathered from their follies Isai 49.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cle. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. Dei particeps nulliâ—â— indigus factions and separations yet our reward shall be from the Lord who hath sent us and whom we have served with faithfull hearts as to our temporary subsistence we hope wee shall never depend on these mens injurious justice or câ—uel mercies much lesse on their envious alms and supercilious charity who are our enemies for the Gospels sake which we preach And although we should not be protected in point of our civill rights from their despight and rage yet as to the honour and vindication of our Ministry and holy function Gal. 2.5 we must not give place no not for an houre to their cavils and calumnies Yea we doe not despair but that we may find so much equity and pity in some mens hearts in whose hands is power that they will rather harken and incline to the just plea of those labourers in Christs harvest who have borne the heat and burthen of the day and who crave but liberty first to doe the work to which Christ and the Church hath ordained them and next which is but a just and righteous thing to enjoy that reward which the Law hath assigned them than to listen to the envious suggestions or injurious proposals of those novell intruders upon the Ministry who have yet given not the least assurance to the wiser world or any reformed Christians that they in any thing exceed or equall the true ancient Ministers of England nor have they yet by any demonstrations of modesty ingenuity sense of honour or of shame nor by any part of good learning which they decry and hate nor by any other usefull and commendable quality redeemed themselves from the most sordid passions and saddest distempers of humane nature nor yet reconciled themselves to any love and value of vertue worth and excellency in others We know well that their ignorances and errours are grosse in many things both divine and humane for how can they but erre excessively who are very active and for the most part both bold and blind Any piece of rustical ignorance clownish confidence serves some mens turn to oppose any Minister withall setting up their puppetly Teraphims their deformed Dagons their Images of jealousie in the place and temple of the living God Among their other errours this we hope is none of their least that they fancy and every where proclaim that they have so charmed with their philters and enchantments which are Confections made up of ignorance and malice pride and cruelty covetousnesse and uncharitablenesse together with a perfect disdain of all that is rationall learned or excellent that with these charms they have so possessed many or most of those in power That they are resolved to root out abase and destroy all those Ministers who are any way eminent in learning courage and constancy both for the honour of their function and of the reformed Religion and of this Church and Nation We cannot think those in power to be so easily perswaded to be enemies to themselves and the publique by being made enemies to true Ministers without a cause One of whose serious and solid abilities is able to doe more good to Church and State in one year than can be hoped from the whole fraternity and faction of those supercilious adversaries of the Ministry in as many ages as a year hath dayes For if wise men may guesse at the future by what they already finde of them they must conclude that like Fistulas and gangrened Vlcers the longer they prevail the more desperate and incurable they will be both to the Church and the State every day bringing us neerer either to old Rome or the elder Babylon to superstition or confusion For there is nothing almost in this Church of England as to the extern order and profession of Religion which some of these Antiministerials and Antidecimists doe not contest against and study to overthrow Which makes me here a little digresse 20. Answer to other lesse scruples yet not from my maine design which is to satisfie all excellent Christians and others as to any thing by these men objectable against the Ministers and Ministry of the Church of England by looking at some lesser calumnies and cavils which they every where scatter among the common people to alienate them from or prejudice them against their Ministers quarrelling against the places where publiquely we meet to serve God and many things used by us in our holy Ministrations 1. Of publique places called Churches As to the publique places where Christians meet and Ministers officiate these supercriticall masters of words and censors of all mens language and manners but their owne cannot indure the impropriety and profanenesse as they say of calling those places Churches This they scorn with very severe smiles and supercilious frownes so profound is their judgement It was the work of Diocletian to burn all the books and destroy all the Churches of the Christians Euseb hist l. 10. and so scrupulous their conscience that they had rather pull down such publique and convenient places than venture to be defiled by coming into them or once so much as to call them Churches they say they have far higher senses and definitions of a Church than will agree with piles of wood and stones Answ We doubt not of their deep Divinity touching a Church which it may be they will not dare yet to define as not being well agreed what a Church is or what is the right matter and forme or way of a Church Much broken and wrangling stuffe they have heaped up touching a Church but scarse one stone is yet
laid of the edifice I have otherwhere endevoured to lead them out of the labyrinth of their rubbidge who have disputed more about constituting Church than ever they studied to be lively and orderly members either of the highest sense of a Church the mysticall body of Christ which is made up by faith and charity or of that lower sense of a sociall Church which yet is most proper to us and fals neerest under mans consideration which consists of a visible polity of men on earth professing to beleive in the name of Jesus Christ and partaking of those holy Institutions which he hath appointed both to gather and distinguish to plant and propagate to build and preserve to guide and govern such an holy fraternity of religious professors in such truth order and unity as to have a professionall relation to Christ the head and a communion of Charity with each other as members of one body which is that Catholick Church all over the world in its severall parts and branches In these and some other the like ambiguities about a Church as greater or lesse they please themselves spending much time to instruct their silly auditors how much difference there is between these Churches of Christ which are spirituall or rationall and those Steeple-houses which we other weaker ones call most absurdly as they pretend Churches O how devout a thing is ignorance How Saraphick men and women grow by having no skill in any language but their own mother tongue which yet in this is of our side and being the rule of speech every where justifies our calling those places Churches by the authority of the best writers in humanity law history or divinity But that they say was an errour of speech which men sucked in with their milk which to spend and evaporate these men are every day making issues in their auditours eares that they may unlearn that dangerous errour and scandalous word of calling the meeting places Churches I know these Rabbies scorne to be brought to their Grammars or to any Etymologicall authours or makers of Dictionaries Church Kâ—rch or Kerck Sax. quasi Kuriack i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords house for these they reckon among the cursed spawn of learned men and look on them as if they were Negroes of Chams posterity yet I cannot but make a little stay here that I may shew them the way to that locall Church where some of them have not been these many years unlesse it be to make a wrangling rate For however these be not the main Ulcers which I desire to cure yet they are a strange kinde of itch and scurfe of Religion which makes many Christians oft scratch very unquietly and unhandsomely It is very easie and very true to tell them that it is no more unproper to call these places where Christians as the Lords people publiquely meet to worship the Lord Psal 74.8 Churches than it was to call the Synagogues among the Jews Psal 83.12 the Houses of God for the building of which we read no precise command from God which was but for one house namely the Temple at Jerusalem The Saxon Scottish British and Dutch names These places called by the ancients Ecclesia Dei Domus Tertul. de velan Virg Orig. in Psal 36. Dominicum Aust which are all from the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Latin Dominicum as the Lords Table and the Lords day signifies no more than this That such a place time or table is set apart for the Lords service or for the Lords people Doth not Joshua say I and my house will serve the Lord meaning the rationall family not the materiall pile Senate and City are used for both the persons and the place so is the Parliament house for both These Metonymies are no soloecismes but elegancies and aptitudes of speech and if they were lesse proper yet sure Collecta locus Cyp. it is no sin for Christians to speak after the vulgar use and common language True Religion hath set no such pedantique bounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euse de laud. Const as these captious Criticks would pretend which scrupulosity of speaking is among the other pedling superstitions and popular trifles which they pin on the sleeve of piety Affecting to be knowne by such small differences of speech as their Shiboleths from other Christians Indeed their great penury both of knowledge and discretion makes them no more fit Masters to teach men how to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. hist l. 9. c. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. l. 2. Ep. 246. or what to doe then how to give their learning and their liberality are much alike 2. 21. Of Churches as consecrated As it is easie to help these Infant-wits over the straw of the name Church applyed to the place which they will needs make a stumbling block so with as much ease we may relieve them from that rock of offence on which they dash against the places we call Churches in regard of their dedication or consecration to sacred or religious uses This they have onely heard This subject is learnedly and gravely handled as all things he undertook by the incomparable Mr. Hocker l. 5. Pol. Sec. 14 15 16. it may be they never either saw or read it yet they abominate the places for the report counting them desecrated and execrable Here they may please to know Vide Hospin de Templorum Origine Quid lapides isti petuerunt sanctitatis habere Ber. vid. Ser. 6. That wise men look upon that ancient custome among Christians of setting solemnly apart some place for the service of God not as any affixing inherent holinesse to them or deriving any communicative or virtuall holynesse from them but meerly a publique and solemn owning appointing and declaring those houses or places to be erected and dedicated by common consent for those holy ends uses and duties which Christians ought to intend when they meet in those places Non locus hominem sed homines locum sanctificant Nemo se blandiatur de loco qui sanctus dicitur Bern. 182. not for common civill profane or uncomely affaires which appropriating or dedicating is an act of right Reason flowing from the light of Nature and that common notion of reverence to be externally expressed to God which is in all men that owne any God which right Reason is most agreeable to true Religion and alwayes as servient to it as Deacons and Church-wardens ought to be to the Ministers in holy things as both these Reason and Religion distinguish ends duties and commands which are divine as coming from God or relating to him so likewise they distinguish times places persons actions and other things which are separated from meere humane naturall and civill uses to such as are both preceptively and intentionally divine that is from God and for God Nor can the God of order who hath
reformed Church and that true Religion which the Ministers of this Church have professed and preached in many years And this not upon light and unexamined presumptions not upon customary traditions and the meer ducture of education not upon politick principles and civill compliances with Princes or people but upon serious grounds as solid and clear demonstrations as can by right and impartiall reasonings be gathered from the Word of God and in cases of its obscuritie or our own weaknesse from that light which the consent and practise of the primitive and purest Churches of Christ hath held forth to us in points of Faith doctrine and in all good orders or manners becomming Christians either in their private moralities or their publique decencies In this integrity innocency and simplicity which neither men nor divels can take from us we are sure to be destroyed if it must be so and to be delivered from an ungratefull generation of vipers Matth. 3.7 who think it enough to destroy those who have been a means of their being and life as Christians if our injuries and bloud could be silenced with us yet the very dust of our feet Matth. 1◠14 will be a testimony against such men at the last day of judgement when it shall be more tolerable for any Christian people under heaven than for these in England since among none clearer truths have been taught or greater workes done or better examples given than have been here by the Ministers of this Church Where hath there been under heaven more frequent Ministers merit of this Nation and more excellent preaching where more frequent and yet unaffected praying where more judicious pious and practicall writing where more learned and industrious searching out of all divine truths where more free and ingenuous declaring of them so as nothing hath been withheld or smothered where more devout holy and gracious living where more orderly harmonious and charitable agreeing than among those that were the best Bishops the best Ministers and the best Christians here in England Adorned with these ribands fillets and garlands of good words good works and good bookes must the Ministers of England like solemn victimes and piatory sacrifices be destroyed onely to gratifie some mens petulancy insolency covetousnesse and cruelty who list to be actors or spectators in so religious massacres 2. Considerations touching the Ministers of England humbly propounded But O you excellent Christians of all ranks and proportions If there be yet any ear of patience left free to hear the Ministers plea and apology if calumny hath not obstructed all wayes of justice or charity if slavish feares have not so imbased your piety and zeal for the Christian reformed Religion that you dare not seem no not to pity the Ministers of it if the separations and brokennesse of Religion in our unhappy times have not wholly blinded your eyes and baffled your judgements so that you have lost all sight both of true Church and true Ministry here in England I humbly desire that before the true and ancient Ministers be cashiered and quite destroyed these things may be considered 1. Whether it be a just proceeding to impute the personall failings of some men to the whole function and profession whether at that rate all Judges Magistrates and Commanders may not be cryed down as well as all Ministers Since where there are many there are alwayes some that are not very good 2. Whether it be fitting to condemne and destroy any men in any of their rights to which they pretend either of office or reward and that by Laws both divine and humane without a fair and full hearing what can be said for them or whether any man would have such measure meted to themselves 3. Whether Pride in some Lay-men of their gifts Envy in others against the welfare of the Ministers of Christ Covetousnesse in others as to their maintenance Profanenesse in others against all holinesse Ambition in others to begin or carry on some worldly ends and secular projects Licentiousnesse in others against all religious restraints Impatience in others to see any govern without or besides themselves Malice and spite in others against this as all other reformed Churches Hopes in others by our confusions to introduce their superstitious usurpations Whether I say these and the like inordinate lusts and motions in mens hearts as their severall interests lead and tempt them may not be great causes and influentiall occasions of these violent distempers which break out thus against the generality of the Ministers and the whole calling of the Ministry in this Church Yea what if all odious clamours and calumnies against them and their calling have no more of truth in them than a Jewell hath of dirt in it when filth is cast upon it whose innate firmness preserves its inward and essentiall purity What if nothing be wanting to the innocency and honour of the Ministry of this Church but onely patient and impartiall Judges pious patrons and generous protectours which was all St. Paul wanted when he was accused of many and grievous crimes by the cruell and hard-hearted Jewes which were his Countrey men and for whom he had that heroick charity as to wish himself Anathema from Christ that they might be saved Whether ever any Ministers of learning honesty and piety that had done so much for the religious welfare of any Christian Nation as the able Ministers of England generally have done for many ages were ever so rewarded by Christians or whether ever it entred into the hearts of religious men so to deal with their Ministers as some now meditate and design It were good for men how metald and resolute so ever they seem to be in carrying on their designs to make some pause and halt before they strike such a stroak as may seem to challenge Christ Severissimè punit Deus cum paenalis nutritur impunitas Aust and fight against God whose stroakes against men are heaviest when they are least visible and his wounds sorest when men have the least sense of their contending against him The perswasions and confidences of men may be great in their proceedings * Act. 26.9 Act. 9.4 as was in Saul persecuting when yet their zeale is but dashing against the goades or thornes and a meer persecuting of Christ himselfe which will in the end pierce their own souls through with many errors What if notwithstanding many personal failings in Ministers as men their function calling and Ministry be the holy institution and appointment of Jesus Christ transmitted to these times and this Church by a right order and uninterrupted succession as to the substance of the power and essence of the authority The talents or gifts were Christs and from Christ delivered to his Servants the Ministers of the Church though some of them might be idle and unfaithfull whose burying them in the earth or wrapping them up in a napking at any time was no wasting or imbezling of
the substance of them nor any lessening of Christs right to them And for this I have produced not weak opinions not light conjectures not partiall customes not bare prepossession 3. A summary of what makes for the function of the Ministry not uncertain tradition not blind antiquity not meer crowds or numbers of men much lesse do I solemnly alledge my own specious fancies devout dreams uncertain guessings Seraphick dictates and magisteriall Enthusiasms But 1. evident grounds out of the Word of God for a divine Ordination and institution at first 2. Scripture history for succession to four generations actually 3. Promises and precepts for perpetuity of power Ministeriall and assistance which was derived by the solemn ceremony of the imposition of hands by such only as had been ordained and so enabled with successionall power till the coming of Christ 4. This primitive root and divine plantation of the Ministeriall office and power we finde oft confirmed by miraculous gifts besides the innocency humility simplicity piety and charity of those Apostles primitive Bishops and Presbyters set forth in the holinesse of their lives and the glorious successes of their Ministeriall labours converting thousands by preaching the Gospell and by their Ministeriall power and authority planting Churches in all the then known and reputed world oft crowning their doctrines and Ministry with Martyrdome 5. After this I produce what is undenyably alleadged from authours of the best credit learned and godly men famous in the Church through all the first ages shewing the Catholick and uncontradicted consent the constant and uninterrupted succession by Bishops and Presbyters in every City and Countrey which all Christians in every true Church owned received and reverenced as men indued with such order and power Ministeriall as was divine supernaturall and sacred as from Christ and in his Name though by man as the means and conduit of it This is made good to our dayes in the persons and office of those Ministers who were and are duely ordained in this Church 6. Next I plead with the like evident and undenyable demonstrations the great abilities in all sorts of ministeriall gifts the use and advancement of all good learning the vindicating of true Christian and reformed religion the manifold discoveries of sound judgement discreet zeal holy industry blamelesse constancy and all other graces wherein the Ministers of England have not been inferiour to the best and most famous in any reformed Christian Church and incomparably beyond any of their defamatory adversaries 7. I add to these as credentiall Letters the testimonies and seales which God hath given of his grace and holy Spirit accompanying the Ministry in England upon the hearts of many thousands both before and eminently since the Reformation by which men have been converted to and confirmed in Faith Repentance Charity and holy life the tryall of which is most evident in that patience and constancy which many Ministers as other Christians in this Church have oft shewen in the sufferings which they have chosen rather then they would sin agaist their Conscience and that duty which they owed to God and man 8. Last of all if any humane consideration may hope for place in the neglect of so many divine the civill rights and priviledges which the piety of this Nation and the Laws of this Land have alwayes given to Ministers of the Gospell by the fullest and freest consent of all Estates in Parliament that they might never want able Ministers nor these all fitting support and incouragements These I say ought so far to be regarded by men of justice honour and conscience as not suddenly to break all those sacred sanctions and laws asunder by which their forefathers have bound them to God to his Church and Ministers for the perpetuall preservation of the true Christian Religion among them and their posterity Furthermore 4. The fruits of Ministers labours in England if the godly Ministers of this Church of England whom some men destine to as certain destruction and extirpation as ever the Agagite did the Jews if they be the messengers of the most high God the Prophets of the Lord the Evangelicall Priests those by whom Salvation hath been brought and continued to this part of the world If they have like the good Vine and Figtree been serviceable to God and man to Church and State If they have laboured more aboundantly and been blessed more remarkably than any other under heaven If they have preached sound doctrine in season and out of season if they have given full proof of their Ministry not handling the Word of God deceitfully nor defrauding the Church of any Truth of God or divine Ordinance If many of them have fought a good fight and finished their course with joy and great successe against sin errour superstition and profanenesse If they have snatched many firebrands out of hell pulled many souls out of the snares of the divell If they have fasted and mourned and watched and prayed and studyed and taught and lived to the honour of the Gospell and the good of many soules If they have like Davids Worthies stood in the gap against those Anakims and Zanzummins who by lying wonders learned sophistries and accurate policies have to this day from the first reformation and coming out of Egypt sought to bring us thither again or else to destroy the very name of Protestants and reformed Religion from under heaven If almost all good Christians and not a few of these renegadoes their ungratefull enemies doe owe in respect of knowledge or grace to the Ministers of England as Philemon to St. Paul even their very selves If they have oft in secret wept over this sinfull Nation and wantonly wicked people as Christ did over Jerusalem and as Noah Daniel and Job oft stood in the gap to turne away the wrath of God from this self-destroying Nation If now they have no other thoughts or practises but such as become the truth and peace of that Gospell which they preach and that blessed example which Christ hath set them whom in all things they desire to imitate in serving God edifying the Church doing good to all men praying for their enemies and paying all civill respects which they owe to any men If all true and faithfull Ministers have done and designe onely to doe many great and good works in this Church and Nation for which of these is it that some men seek and others with silence suffer them to be stoned as the Jews threatned Christ and the inconstant Lystrians acted on St. Paul who after miracles wrought by him among them and high applauses of him from them was after dragged as a dead dog out of their City by them Act. 14.19 supposing him to be dead If all true and worthy Ministers being conscious to their own Integrity a midst their common infirmities after their escaping the late stormes in which many perished are easily able without any disorder to them to shake off those
peace and extern order in which the publique wisdom and consent of the Nation confined it self them and all men in it by laws are to be called superstition tyranny and oppression in Ministers more then all other men who being under government thought it their duty to submit to every ordinance of man 1 Pet. 2.13 which did not crosse any divine ordinance but kept within the bounds of that liberty order and decency which are left to the wisdome of any Christian Church and State whereby to preserve the honor of Religion and the order and peace of the publique Those jejune and threadbare objections oft used against Ministers in these things wherein there were but obedientiall and passive the activity lying in those who had the power to enjoyne and command them which was done by all Estates in Parliament have been so oft and fully answered that all sober and wise Christians see the weaknesse of reason and the strength of passion in them as they are charged for faults on Ministers in their respective obedience and conformity For which they were like to know better grounds than any their enemies had against them And being in all other main matters very knowing and consciencious men they are not in charity to be suspected in those lesser and extern matters to have sprung any leak of sinfull weaknesse or to have made any shipwrack of a good conscience Later events have much recommended former duties and laws * Vires inordinatae mole ruunt sua Quo vehementiores eo infirmiores inque propriam ruinam valentissimae Salust shewing how weak even Truth and Religion are as to extern profession where like loose and scattered souldiers Beleevers or Professors are destitute of all order and just discipline But if the Ministers of the Church of England had discovered many failings as men compassed about with infirmities 6. Ministers in their weaknesses yet superiour to their adversaries who cannot supply their roome which easily beset them for which they oft mourned against which they were alwayes praying and striving yet what is it wherein the pretended perfections of their presumptuous and implacable adversaries doe excell the very weaknesses and defects of Ministers yea wherein will the vapouring of any new projectors be able to repair the dammage or recompense the want which thousands must have yea this whole Nation suffer if by these mens cruell designes they be deprived of the blessing of these whom they please to count so weak unworthy and contemptible Ministers Will those old pieces or those new Proteusses who pretend and fancy to be new stamped with the mark of popular ordination which is none of Christs whose wisdome never committed any power of Ministry and holy offices or divine Ordination to the common people as I have proved who are betrayers haters and desertors of that true power and authority which they formerly received in that just and lawfull ordination which was from all antiquity derived to this Church from which no mean and vulgar complyance should have drawn any man of piety learning and honesty to so great a schism defection and Apostasie from the Catholick rule and ancient practise will I say these new masters or those heaps of Teachers which country people are prone to raise up to themselves in their fervent folly and zealous simplicity will they furnish Church or State with better and abler Ministers in any kinde with better learning better doctrine better preaching better praying better living then those former Ministers did in the midst of their many infirmities Yea will not these new obtruders with most impudent foreheads while they looke you in the face cheat and deceive you Will they not while they smile upon you with shews of Gifts and Spirit O miserandam sponsam talibus creditam Paranymphis Ber. de Cons Praedatores non praedicatores peculatores non speculatores Raptores non Pastores Id. and Prophets and speciall calls and extraordinary ordinations exchange counterfeit for true Jewels brasse for gold stones for bread pebbles for pearls dirt for diamonds gloeworms for stars candles full of theives and soil for the Sun In stead of the excellent and usefull worth the divine and due authority of your learned and godly Ministers you shall have either confident ignorance or fraudulent learning or Jesuitick sophistry or fanatick nonsense or flattering errors or factious semblances of truth to usher in most damnable doctrines and most unchristian practises Doe men gather grapes of thornes or figs of thistles Can these bitter fountaines send forth sweet waters or these burning Etnas breath forth other than such sparkes and flames as their sulphureous spirits and their hearts full of envy Jam. 3.12 and malice and pride afford which seek to darken the Sun of Truth at noon day or to scorch up the fruits of holinesse to infect the common air of Christian charity order and peace in which true Christians delight to breath When these plagiaries have destroyed or driven away the fathers of Christs family and Church will they not either seduce and steal away the children to their own erratick factions or even sell these Orphanes for a pair of shoes to Cantors and Tom-a-bedlams committing or rather casting away the soules of men to the carelesse care of those sturdy vagrants whose minds are more unsetled than their eyes or feet or tongues which are so far bent against true Ministers as they are intent to their booty and prey from every quarter Will these who seek to be the maules and hammers of the Ministers of this Church either by their skill or power wit or learning prudence or policy ever forge on the hard anvils of their heads or bring forth out of the rude moulds of their inventions any thing that shall be like a true Minister of the Gospell Are there ordinarily any such blocks to be found among them of which there is any hope that they may be shapen to such Mercuries as are the true Gods Messengers Are there any such tempting materials as any art and industry may promise to fit them up to such a degree and pitch of competent Ministers as may direct the countrey plainnesse and guide that peevish and disputative madnesse which is among even the meanest people in every village Will these skippers or skullers ever furnish out such Pilots as may safely steere the ship of this Church in which the Truth of God the honour of Christ the reformed Religion the happinesse of thousands of soules are embarqued amidst the rocks of errours Syrens of secular temptations and piracies of strong enemies on every side They say that better ships are now built in England than ever were and shall we be content with worse Pilots lesse able Ministers in the Church who are as the Argonautae bringers of the golden fleece the riches and righteousnesse of Christ the Lamb of God the treasures of heaven the true gold of Ophir which hath been seven times tryed in stead of which
these new trafiquers intend to trade for nothing but the Apes and Peacocks toyes of new opinions Shall Noahs Ark the Churches purity which is the Conservatory of Christs little flock of the holy seed of a Christian succession both for fathers and children be broken up or dashed in pieces against the rocks of sacrilegious envy and policy for these Antiministerial projects will never be the mountaines of Ararat on which the Church or true Religion may rest * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. l. 4. Ep. 210. Shall this Island whose safety consists so much in the guard of the Seas be lesse carefull to guard the coasts of the Church and the reformed Christian Religion whose narrow frete or strait runs between the rocks of Atheisme and Superstition of Parity and Profanenesse of Heresie and Schism of Tyranny and Toleration Will ever these new dwindling Divines the Propheticall pygmies of this age which oppose the able Ministers and true Ministry of the Church of England will they ever bring forth for the service of God 7. Eminent Bishâ—ps and Presbyters of former days in the Church of England or for the maintenance of the true Christian reformed Religion such a race and succession of mighty men of excellent Ministers of incomparable Heroes worthily renowned in their own and after generations whose workes yet praise them in the gates of whom none but evill tongues can speak evill such as this later age or century hath brought forth to looke no further back to those excellent men of former and obscurer times Can you expect Crammers Latimers Bradfords Ridleys Hoopers Grindals Whitgifts Fletchers Sands Elmers Jewels Kings Abbots Lakes Bilsons Babbingtons Andrews Feltons Fields Cowpers Whites Davenants Potters Prideauxes and Westfields with many others now at rest in the Lord all venerable in their Episcopall order and eminency as fathers of the Church and as elder brothers among their brethen the other Ministers whose humility disdained not to be subject to those reverend Bishops although some of them might be equall to them in eminent gifts Animi nil magnae laudis egentes Virg. Aen. Such as were Gilpin Fox Knewtubbs Perkins Whitaker Reinolds Willet White Richard Hooker Vmphry Overall Greenham Rogers Dent Dod Heron Bifield Smith Bolton Taylor Hildersham Crakanthorp Donne Stoughton Ward Holsworth Shutes Featly and Doctor Sibs which last fragrant name I may not mention without speciall gratitude and honour due to the memory of that venerable Divine not onely for the piety learning devotion and politenesse of his two genuine writings The bruised Reed and Soules conflict but also for that paternall love care and counsell by which hee much oblieged mee to him in my younger yeares Indeed that holy man I found altogether made up of sweetnesse and smoothnesse oil and honey As his actions so his gifts and graces were set in a kinde of Mosaick work admirable for that meeknesse and humility which while they sought to conceal and shadow over his vertues they gave the greatest lustre to them Besides these there were an innumerable company of other immortall Angels but yet Ministring spirits to this Church of England who are now made perfect and whom nothing would so probably afflict in heaven as to see the degenerate succession both of Ministers and Christians now likely to follow in this age Many of these and other Worthies of this function in former times as now living and dying in countrey obscurities were buried in those sepulchers which they had made in the Gardens that is those Dioceses or Parishes which they had planted or diligently watered and disposed by pious industry to a pleasant peaceable and happy fertility Men however different in some externall lineaments as may be among Brethren yet all of excellent features and some of the first three both in beauty and strength for piety learning judgement acutenesse eloquence depth devotion charity gravity industry and a kinde of Angelick majesty at once both amiable and venerable both in their preaching writing and practice These great men and greater Ministers have indeed left us behinde them Ministers of the present age Nos ingentium exemplâ—rum parvi imitatetes Sal. ad Agr. a generation far inferiour to them for the most part more feeble and unable to work or warr having more enemies enjoying lesse incouragements scarce any now considerable as to this world bearing greater crosses and heavier burthens every way for charge duty and reproach who are oft forced to lay out in publique taxes a great part of that little they have to buy themselves bookes or bread Who have onely this advantage of our troublesome envious and evill times that we may learn to be more humble in our selves more diligent in our duties more charitable to others and more valiant for the Truth hoping that while we have after the primitive pattern nothing left to glory in but the Crosse of Jesus Christ both our afflictions and infirmities may prove opportunities to exercise discover and increase the graces of God and true Ministeriall gifts in us whose power can perfect it selfe and us too in the midst of our infirmities and support us under the many unjust oppressions which threaten us There are indeed yet left through Gods mercy in the field or forest of this Church and Nation some goodly old Trees both venerable Bishops and worthy Presbyters here and there Some shrewdly battered and strangely neglected which yet retain something that is very goodly and gracefull amidst their battered tops and shattered arms being yet stately monuments or reliques of that former benignity which was in this English soil toward Churchmen and Ministers many of whom grew to so tall a procerity as of learning and worth so of wealth and honour in some degree answerable to their worth and becoming that reall dignity which was in them far more usefull and considerable by wise men than any bare descent of titular honor These I must be so civill to as not to name any of them that I may avoid suspicion either of envy or flattery two most detestable distempers in mens spirits and full of malignity Indeed I need not name some of them for although they are left as cottages in a wildernesse and as beacons on a hill yet they are still such burning and shining lights as cannot be quite hid Some of whose fame is in all the reformed Churches and their eminency renowned in all the learned world being indeed the beauty and glory of these British Nations the pillar and honor of the Protestant party the grand examples of pious Prelacy learned humility holy industry the great lights of this Northern climate Which alone might serve to fulfill Which wonder in heaven occasioned the learned studies of Ticho Brahe and did as he sayes foretell extraordinary light of learning and Religion Tich Brahe Astro Restius what the Cassiopeian flames did portend by that new star in the year 1572. Shall this age be not onely guilty spectators
something different from their primitive majesty beauty and simplicity by putting on what was superfluous rather than pernicious But if there should not be in our dayes so just and noble recantations from this Church and Nation yet as Ministers of Christ it 's fit for us to deserve it we are reduced but to the primitive posture of those holy Bishops and Presbyters who more sought to gain men to Christ than honour and maintenance to themselves Better we cease to be men than cease to be Christs Bishops and Ministers we must do our duties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost de Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. till we dy having any opportunities though we have no incouragements from men our lean wasted and famished carkasses such as St. Chrysostome saith the Apostle Paul carryed about the world so much subdued by himself and neglected as if he had not been battered and persecuted enough by others those will serve to be Temples of the Holy Ghost and lively stones or pillars to the reformed Church of Christ as well as if they had the fatnesse of Monkes and the obeseness of Abbots whose fulnesse you will lesse have cause to envy when the pious industry of your poverty shall exceed the lazy dulnesse and uselesse fogginesse of many of them amidst their plenty which no true reformed Christian grudges them when they imploy in industry humility mortification devotion and holy contemplation as some of them doe and thereby shew that plenty is no enemy to piety in them Let us shew that neither is poverty an enemy to vertue in us Though the Roman Clergy rejoice at our penury let not us repine at their superfluity but wish them truth and holinesse as ample as their revenues Above all take heed you doe not gratifie them or any others of meaner spirits with any desertion or abasing of your holy calling and Ministry either in word or in deed Neither adopting a spurious Ministry of novell and popular production nor giving over the consciencious exercise of that which you have received here by an holy and right succession your religious constancy in it will be the highest vindication of it to be of no mean and cravenly kinde which preacheth more out of duty and conscience to God than from secular rewards from them Many of your afflictions have been still are and are like to be as great so of long continuance Such as to which God no doubt hath proportioned his gifts and graces in you that so by this great honorary of suffering as becomes you both God may be glorified further in you and you may be more sensibly comforted and amply crowned by him your losses will turn to your greatest gains and your desertions as from men to your happiest fruitions of God The highest and spring tides of grace usually follow the lowest ebbes of estate Then are holy men at their best and most when they seem least and nothing to man as those stars whose obscurity is recompensed with their vicinity to heaven Your restraints will be your enlargements and your silencings will proclaime the worlds folly and unhappinesse to deprive it self of your excellent gifts and also set forth your humility who know how to be silent with meeknesse and patience no lesse than to speak with wisedome and eloquence I should not need nor would presume here to make any particular addresse to those reverened Bishops learned and godly fathers as yet surviving and almost forgotten in this Church whose worth I highly venerate towards whose dignity I never was nor am either an envious diminisher or an ambitious aspirer whose eminency every way hath made good that abstract and character which I formerly gave of a true Christian Bishop if I did not observe how little they are for the most part considered by any ordinary minds who generally admire the ornaments more than the endowments of vertue Vulgar spirits seldome salute any Deity whose shrines and Temples are ruined Few men have that gallantry of minde which M. Petronius expressed to Julius Caesar when he led Cato to prison whom he with other Senators followed out of the Senate telling him He had rather be with Cato's vertue in a prison * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Xiphilin in Pompeio than with Caesars violence in a palace The worlds vanity is prone to judge those the greatest sinners who are the greatest sufferers whereas thousands perish eternally by their prosperous successes few by their calamitous sufferings The methods and riddles of divine dispensation and love are far different from plebeian censures and flatteries God suffers his Peters to be winnowed and his Pauls to be buffeted yea he grindes in the sharpest mils as holy Ignatius desired the corn he most esteemes casting his gold into the hottest furnaces Absit ut hoc argumento religiosos putemus a Deo negligi per quod confidimus plus amari Sal. l. 1. Gub. de Aff. to make it at once more pure in it self and more precious to himself It is necessary as * Plato in Phado 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato saith for the divinest minds to be abstracted from and elevated above and even dead unto the very best of things mundane and sensible although good lawfull and laudable which a wiser than Plato tels us are to be accounted by Apostolick and Episcopall piety but * Phil. 3.8 as losse and dung in comparison of Jesus Christ which honour and treasure of your souls no envy malice fury or force can deprive you of This no doubt makes it seem not a strange thing to you that the Lord hath thus dealt even with you who have suffered the losse of all things as to those publique legall and temporary rewards of your studies learning and labourers while yet you were uncondemned for any sin that ever I have heard of committed either against the laws of God or man only upon this account because you were Bishops or chief Presidents in the order government and care of this reformed Church * See the judgment of Bishop Cowper a learned and holy Bishop in Scotland in his life written by himself according to the present Laws then in force anâ— agreeable for the main to the practise of all pious Antiquity I need not put your learned piety in minde of that voice from heaven wâ—ich was audible to blessed Polycarp a primitive Bishop and Martyr at Smyrna when he was haled at fourescore years old to exeâ—ution the tumultuous rable crying after him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Away with these wicked ones c. But the celestiall eccho was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Polycarp be of good courage * Euseb l. 4. hist c. 14. and quit thy self like a valiant man a faithfull Christian and worthy Bishop of the Church None merit more to be preserved many times than they whom vulgar fury and faction seeks to crucifie and destroy Nor are any lesse meriting than those who are by such easie
in any Christian Nation which will be interpreted a fighting against God and an opposing Christ Jesus who as he is the onely true rock on which the Church is to be built as to internall comfort and eternall happinesse so he hath regulated it as to externall order beauty and harmony and this not by every unskilfull hand that hath a minde to be mudling but by such as he hath appointed to be tryed approved and rightly ordained to the work of edifying the Church in truth and love Vicisti Galilae vicisti Julian dying cries 1 Pet. 2.6.8 This Galilean must overcome Christ will no doubt prove as a stumbling stone so a rock of ruine and offence to all those that dash against him in this Ordinance of his holy Ministry which though it seem small and contemptible to those that think themselves Grandees in power and policy yet as it was not cut out by humane hands so it will be a very burdensome stone to all that think to lift it out of the way and lay it aside from being an holy function and divine institution 15. The Ministers of Christ not safely to be injured I think therefore under favor that it will be not the least point of wisdome and policy in those who by exercising magistratick power stand most accountable to God and man for the support of the Ministry to harken to and follow that grave counsell * Act. 5.35 Greg. Naz. tels us that Saint Basil the Great was in so great reverence in the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They could not be friends with God who were at enmity with Basil orat 16. Take heed what you doe to these men who are the rrue Ministers of Jesus Christ the messengers of the most high God who preach to you the way of salvation For if their function mission and Ministry be from Christ which I have proved and those can hardly doubt who are so much inlightned by Scripture as some are who may yet be blinded by secular interests it shall prevail though it be in the way of being persecuted Humane malice may a while oppose but it shall not quite blow out quench or smother those burning and shining lights of the Church Which it would doe with no lesse detriment to the Church and State than if it should extinguish the flame light and lustre of the Sun in the Firmament * Vide Jer. 33.20 which Prophesie is clear for a constant and immutable Ministry in the Church of Christ Nor are those ordinances of heaven and that Covenant God hath made in Nature more necessary or lesse durable than are these of holy Ministrations and Evangelicall Ministry which God hath appointed for Christ in the Church It is but little and with far lesse comfort that we see of God in the creature than what we see of him in Christ nor are the beams of the Sun so glorious or necessary Mal. 4. Rom. 10.18 as these of the Sun of righteousnesse which are diffused by his Ministers which are as his wings by which he hath moved into all parts of the earth and his voice hath been heard to the ends of the world And truly the most judicious Christians who are able to discern the day of Gods visitation Gildas de excid Brit. de plores the sacrilegious injuries and neglect of holy men and holy duties before those miseries doe looke upon this shaking and battery made by some men against the publique office and authority of the Ministry of this reformed Church of England to be nothing else but the effects of those counsels and plots which are always contriving by the powers of darknesse and the gates of hell against God and Christ against the Orthodox Faith and purest Churches And however they shall never prevail to destroy the true Christian reformed Religion in all places yet they may occasion its ebbing and receding from a negligent wanton and ungratefull people who love Apostasies Isai 1.5 and increase back-slidings as many in England seeme to doe It may provoke the Lord to transplant the Gospell to some other Nation which shall bring forth better fruits and leave our houses desolate who brought forth such sowre grapes as these are wherewith after so many hundred years Decr. 32.6 some men now seek to requite the Lord and his faithfull Ministers in this Church what can indeed be expected but some fatall Apostasie either to grosse superstition or Atheistical liberty or heathenish barbarity which is nigh at hand and even at the dore when once the divine honour and succession of the Evangelicall Ministry is outed and overthrowne for what else can follow when people shall either have no true Ministers or be taught to beleive that they need not any and have no more cause to regard them that are such by profession than so many Mountebanks whom no man is bound in reason honour conscience or civility to hear obey maintain or reverence as having no higher mandate mission or authority than from their own mindes or peoples humors To prevent which direfull sin shame and mischief to give some stay to the feares and life to the hopes of thousands besides and better then my selfe I have taken this boldnesse upon me by Gods direction and assistance as I trust though unknowne and not much considerable to the many excellent Christians 16. The preservation of the honour of the Ministry most worthy of all excellent Christians which are yet in this Church and least of all to those in power whom the matter most concerns with all due respects all Christian charity and humility to present to the publique view of all those whom this subject of the Ministry and reformed Religion doth concern these most sad and serious thoughts of my heart which are not bufied about Prophetick obscurities or Apocalyptick uncertainties which may please melancholy fancies and abuse curious readers but about a matter most clear from Scripture most necessary to the being of any true Church in this world to the comfort of every true Christian to the succession of Religion in after ages None of which can be kept in any way of Gods revealed will and ordinary providence but onely by a right and authoritative Ministry which carries a relation and bond of conscience with it between Minister and people which cannot be had unlesse we still keep to the pattern which Christ hath set us and the Church of Christ in all ages followed without any falsity though not wholly without some infirmity Nor is there any thing wherein men of the highest power and excellency can shew themselves more worthy of the name of Christians than in their endeavouring effectually to restore and establish the due authority and succession of the Ministry by being patrons incouragers and protectors of all able and peaceable Ministers and their calling Whose honour is Gods and will redound to theirs whom God shall so far blesse as to make them instruments of so