of the Book of Common-prayer Which very Title though agreeable to the style and mind of Antiquity as Ignatius Justin Martyr and S. Austin use it yet perhaps might in time something abate as to our English Dialect the reverence of common people toward it which probably might have been raised and preserved to an higher veneration if some Title more august solemn and sacred had been affixed to it as The holy Liturgy or The form of Gods publick worship or Divine service c. For ordinary people easily in time undervalue as triviall even in a religious satiety any thing which they are wonted to call and use as common which ought to be kept up by all prudent means to all due majesty sanctity solemnity veneration not onely in the use but in the very name and familiar appellation As to the substance and matter of this Book the wisdome of the Church of Engl. had first exactly adjusted it to the sense of Gods word nothing being there expressed as the mind of the Church which was not thought agreeable to the mind of Gods spirit in the Scriptures nor do I know any part of it to which a judicious Christian might not in faith say Amen taking the expressions of it in that pious and benigne sense which the Church intended and the words may well beare Next all the parts of it were so fitted both as to the language and the things contained in it to ordinary peoples capacities as well as all mens necessities that none had cause to complain of it as hard to be understood nor any to disdain it as too flat and easie Indeed the whole composure of the English Liturgie was in my judgement so holy so wholsome so handsome so complete so discreet so devout that I cannot but esteem it equal at least to yea I am prone with Gilbertus the German much to prefer it before any one Liturgie or publick form of serving God used in any Church ancient or later in Eastern or Western Greek or Latin Romish or Reformed that ever I saw Let any sober Christian that is able compare the Liturgie of England with those now extant as the Armenian the Constantinopolitan ascribed to S. Chrysostome the Greek Euchology used at this day that anciently ascribed to S. James those used by the Syrian and Egyptick Churches under the names of S. Basil or Gregory Nazianz. that of S. Cyril of which he gives a large account in his Catechisme the Gregorian or Roman Liturgie the Musarabick Liturgie of Spain composed by Isidore Hispalensis the Officium Ambrosianum by S. Ambrose that of Alcuinus in England which Bede mentions the Dutch French Suevick Danish any of the Lutheran or Calvinian Liturgies he will find nothing excellent in any of them but is in this of England many things which are less clear or necessary in them are better expressed or wisely omitted here As for the English Liturgies symbolizing with the Popish Missall as some have odiously and falsely calumniated it doth no more than our Communion or Lords Supper celebrated in England doth with the Masse at Rome or our doctrine about the Eucharist doth with theirs about Transubstantiation or our humble veneration of our God and Saviour in that mysterie doth with their strange Gesticulations and Superstitions In all which particulars how much the Church of Enland differed both in Doctrine and Devotion from that of Rome no man that is intelligent and honest can either deny or dissemble I am sure we differ as much as English doth from Latin Truth from Errour true Antiquity from Novelty Completeness from Defect Sanctity from Sacriledge the giving of the Cup to the people from the denying of it as much as the holy use of things doth from the superstitious abuse of them as much as Divine Faith doth from Humane Fancy or Scripture-plainnesse and proportions from Scholastick subtilties and inventions That the Church of England retained many things pious and proper to severall occasions which the Roman Devotionalls had received and retained from the ancient Liturgies is no more blamable than that we use and preserve those Scriptures Sacraments and other holy Services which the Church of Rome doth now profess to celebrate and use The wisdome of the Church of England did freely and justly assert to its use and to Gods glory whatever upon due triall it found to have the stamp of Gods Truth and Grace or the Churches Wisdome and Charity upon it as what it thought most fit for this Churches present benefit finding no cause peevishly to refuse any Good because it had been mixed with some evil but trying all things it held fast that which it judged good as it is commanded never thinking that the usurpations of Errour ought to be made any obstructions to Truth or that Humane inventions are any prejudice to Divine institutions It knew that though the holy vessels of the Temple had been captive at Babylon and there profaned by Belshazzar yet they might well be restored again and consecrated by Ezra to the service of God Some men possibly as conscientious others as curious and captious quarrelled perpetually at the Liturgie of the Church of England some at the whole form as prescribed others at some particular phrases and expressions as less proper and emphatick It is now an hundred years old and able to speak for it self justly alledging first the great joy devotion the piety thanks with which it was first received as an wholsome form of Prayer easie to be understood by English Christians next the great good it at first did ever since hath done for many years to many poor silly souls who otherwaies had been left in great blindness and barrennesse of devotion Further it pleads that it never intended to offend any good Christian since it studied in all things to be consonant to Gods holy will and word that as its order premeditatedness and constancy of devotion was never forbidden or dissallowed by God or any good men Jews of old or Christians of later times but rather approved exemplified and commanded in all their publick services both of prayers praises and benedictions so late experience abundantly teacheth how much the advantages of true Reformed Religion were generally carried on more happily by the publick and private use of that Liturgie than hath been of late years by the rejecting of it as many have done and introducing in its stead nothing but their own crude and extemporary prayers which being much unpremeditated are many times so confused so flat so flashy so affected so preposterous so improper so indiscreet so incomplete that they grow oft-times ridiculous sometimes profane bablings and battologies condemned by our Saviour when those men affect in publick extemporary prayers who have neither invention for the variety nor judgement for the solidity nor discretion for that gravity fitness and decency which are necessary in all our prayers especially when publick and social For some to
they now obtrude including the Apocryphall books then did their Church erre for so many hundred years before it so owned them for properly Canonicall as Cardinall Cajetan confesseth who saith that all Fathers and Councils in their expressions as to the larger Canon of Scriptures must be reduced ad Hieronymi limam to S. Jeroms file If the Canon be such as we with the Ancient Churches with Josephus S. Jerom Ruffinus the Council of Laodicea Gregory Nazianzen S. Austin in his riper years and others did and do hold as to the Old Testament then is the Church of Rome now in a very great and obstinate errour So that one way or other the Popes Infallibility and his party is shrewdly endangered unless they distinguish to salve their credit the books into Protocanonicos Deuterocanonicos Books of Divine Authority and Ecclesiasticall use as Sixtus Sen. Bibl. l. 1. and Stapleton Fid. doct l. 9. c. 6. do To tell you further how undigestible to sober Christians because Preter-scripturall and Anti-scripturall the Roman practise and opinion is of worshipping and praying to Saints departed and to Angels of worshipping with Divine worship the Images Crosses and Reliques which they so credulously and highly prize their so unprofitable using of a Language in their Divine and publick Services which to common people is not understood so far from Religion and the Apostles Rule that it is against all sense and reason against the end of speech and devotion which is to instruct or edifie the hearers their snares of celibacy and such vowes as many have cause to repent full sore either that they made them or no better kept them Adde to these their profitable and popular imaginations of Purgatory they applying not onely Prayers but Masses and Oblations Pardons and Indulgences yea other mens merits besides Christs to those that are dead as well as to the living and this in so mercenary a way as makes the most ingenuous Papists not a little ashamed to see Piety so much a servant to Policy and Religion a lacquay to Superstition Adde to all these so oft decantated Instances of Papall errours and presumptions which have so little Scripture for them one enormous Errour both in practise and opinion which hath so much Scripture-evidence against it as nothing can be desired more yet in this when we would have healed Babylon she refused to be healed This is their so great rude and sacrilegious maiming of the Lords Supper by their partial communicating of the Bread only to the people without the Cup then their strange racking of Christians Faith against all sense and reason nay beyond all Scripture-phrase and proportion of Sacramentall expressions or mysterious predications to believe they doe not receive so much as Bread but another substance under the accidents and shews of Bread What learned Romanist can deny but that both Clergy and Laity did for above a thousand years receive the Lords Supper in both kinds after the constant use of all Primitive Churches the Apostles Practise and Christs Institution Nor is there any more doubt but that the ancient Churches received those holy Mysteries with an high veneration indeed of that Body and Blood of Christ which was thereby signified conveyed and sealed to them in the truth and merits of his Passion but yet without any Divine Adoration of the Bread and Wine or any imagination that they were transubstantiated from their own seeming Essence and Nature to the very Body and Blood of Christ. Which fancy of Metemsomasis changing the Body and Substance of Sacramental signes into the bodily Substance of the Thing signified and represented by them as the incomparable Primate of Ireland hath observed out of Irenaeus began from the juglings of one Marcus a Greek Impostor or jugling Presbyter who using long Prayers at the Celebration of the Eucharist had some device to make the Cup and Wine appear of a purple or red and bloody colour that the people might think at his invocation the Grace from above did distill Blood into the Cup. After this the imagination spred from Greeks to Latins by popular and credulous fancies promoted much by one Paschasius Radhertus who in a legendary spirit tells us of Flesh and Blood of a Lamb and a little Child of appearing to those Receivers that were doubtfull of Christs corporall presence so he tells of limbs and little fingers found in the hands and mouths of Communicants From hence Damascen among the Greeks and P. Lumbard among the Latins carried on this credulity or vain curiosity using all their wits to make good this strange and impossible transmutation of disparate subjects and substances in which having nothing from Sense or Reason Nature or Philosophy from Scripture-Analogy or Sacramentall and Typicall predications frequent in Scripture as the Lamb is called the Passeover so Christ our Passeover Christ the Rock Vine Door these drie bones are the house of Israel the seven eares of corne are seven years c. the Tree is thou O King to prove the Miracle they flie to absolute omnipotency whether God will or no and shut out all reasoning from Sense Philosophy Scripture Nor do they regard ancient Fathers and Councils all which though highly and justly magnifying the great Mystery yea and the Elements consecrated as related to and united with the Body of Christ as Signs and Seals of its Reality Truth use and merit to a sinner yet generally they held them to be substantially and physically Bread and Wine but Sacramentally relatively or representatively onely the Body and Blood of Christ as the Council of Constantinople anno 754 consisting of 338 Bishops did affirm the Bread to be the Body of Christ not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in substance but in resemblance use and appointment Which Doctrine as Catholick was maintained to the Emperour Carolus Calvus by Bertramus or Patrannus anno 880. which was also maintained in England by Johannes Scotus in King Alfreds time untill Lanfranks days anno 1060. who condemned that Book of Scotus about the Sacrament agreeable to the opinion of Bertram whose Homily expressing his judgement at large against Transubstantiation was formerly read publickly in Churches on Easter day in order to prepare men for the right understanding and due receiving the Lords Supper Nor did the Doctrine of Transubstantiation obtain in the Church untill the year 1225. when Pope Innocent the third in the Council of Lateran published it for an Oracle That the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are truly contained under the forms of Bread and Wine the Bread being transubstantiated into the Body of Christ and the Wine into the Blood of Christ by the power of God Hence followed the invention of Concomitancy which presuming that the Communicant received under the accidents and shew of Bread the whole Body of Christ and so his Blood it was judged rather superfluous than necessary yea and
same Faith Spirit Power and Authority was it that made the just and valid sentence of Excommunication in Primitive times so terrible and that of absolution so comfortable to all good Christians even as the sentence of Jesus Christ at the last day which Tertullian Cyprian the first Council of Nice and others tel us of Because it was no private spirit of any Christian or Congregation or Church or Presbyter or Bishop or Metropolitane or Patriarch that properly did excommunicate but it was the Spirit Power and Authority of Jesus Christ given to diffused among and shed abroad in his whole body of the Catholick Church and in that name dispensed by the particular Bishops and Pastors of it in their severall Stations or Places as the visuall and audible powers or faculties which are in the soul are exerted and exercised onely by the Eyes and Eares Hence was it that whoever was by any one Catholick Bishop with his Presbyters and his people excommunicated was thereby cast out of that and all other Churches Communion in all the world nor was it lawfull as the Nicene Councill and African Canons tell us for any Bishop Presbyter or Christian people to receive into Church-fellowship or to the holy Communion of the Eucharist any one that was thus secluded Then did this great and weighty Thunderbolt of Excommunication seemingly lose its Primitive virtue and value not really for it holds good still according to the Originall Commission when lawfully executed in binding or loosing in opening or shutting as Christ deposited it with his Apostles and their successors when Factions or Schismes being risen in the Church contrary sentences of Excommunication were on all sides passionately bandied against each other not from that unity of the Spirit which kept the bond of Truth and Love but from the private Passions Presumptions Prejudices and Opinions of such as either openly deserted or occasionally declined from that Catholick Community and Unity of one Faith one Lord one Baptisme one Spirit for gifts and graces for the Authority and Efficacy of Christs holy Ministry After these preposterous and partiall methods not onely many particular Christians but some Presbyters and Bishops yea whole Synods and Councils have sometimes passed the sentences of Excommunication both as to declaring the guilt and merit of it also to the act and execution of it very precipitantly partially passionately and uncharitably even against such Doctrines Practises and Persons as were orthodox and peaceable really in Communion with Christ and with the Catholick Church of which one early great and sad instance was that in the second Century of Victor Bishop of Rome who in the case of Easter grew so zealously exasperated against the Greek and Eastern Churches as Quartadecimans that he thought them worthy to be excommunicated in the name of all the Latine Churches notwithstanding that many grave and Learned Bishops with their Churches testified that in observing the fourteenth day of the month they followed the Primitive Custome and pattern delivered by the Apostles to them wherein St. Irenaeus according to his name with greater Moderation and Charity sought not onely to appease but to represse the inordinate heats of that Pope and his adherents who had a zeal but not according to Charity breaking Christian Communion while he urged too much conformity in all outward things beyond the liberty which was granted and had been long used in the Church concluding that difference of times or daies not divinely determined in the observation of the same duty ought not to make any breach of Catholick Unity Christian Charity but rather assert exercise that Christian Liberty which may in Circumstantialls as to outward Rites be in the severall parts of Christs Church untill all think fit to agree in that Circumstance of time as well as they did in the substance of the duty which was the Eucharisticall Celebration of Christs Blessed Resurrections which was the reviving of the Christian faith and hope After this example did St. Cyprian in Africa excommunicate those that would not rebaptize or did communicate with such as Hereticks and Schismaticks baptized herein being contrary to the sense of the Catholick Church At length these and the like passions or surprises even of some Orthodox Bishops were made patterns and encouragements to any pragmatick Hereticks and arrogant Schismaticks These as they grew to any bulk and number like Snow-balls by rouling ventured to handle this hot Thunderbolt of Excommunication when they had most cause to fear it because their Petulancy Obstinacy and Contumacy against the true and Catholick Churches Judgement and Communion most deserved it if their first error did not Hence Excommunication was at last every where reduced and debased to private spirits full of pride revenge and partiality the Catharists or Novatians the Donatists and Arrians feared not by their Pseudoepiscopal Conventicles and Schismatical Assemblies to denounce these Terrors and Anathema's and to use the sharp sword of spiritual curses against the soundest parts of the Church as some dared to do against Athanasius and all the Orthodox both Bishops Presbyters and People This made in after-times all Excommunication very much slighted and despised while it either served to little other use than to execute the Popes wrath for many hundred years of great Darkness and blind Devotion or afterward in times of more Light and Heat it was uâ—ed as Squibbs are rather to scare and smut than much to burn or blast those who either used it or abused it rather to gratifie their own private spirits than to execute that publick power and Authority which Jesus Christ hath committed with his Spirit and Word to his Church and the Rulers of it by which who so was justly cut off cast out and given over to Satan was looked upon as separate from the comfort of Communion with Jesus Christ and the true God as well as the true Church in all the World Nor was this onely a declarative act as to the merit of that fearfull doome and state confirmed by the consonant suffrage of all the Church as damnablâ— without Repentance and Reconciliation of which every private Christian might easily make a verbal report and oral denunciation but it was an authoritative and effectual act executive of the just and deserved judgement of God so as to be ratified in Heaven according to the original tenor and validity of Christs Word and Commission without Repentance just as what is by virtue of their Office done by any publick Judge Notarie or Herald is not onely declarative but also executive of the Will and command of the Prince specified in the authentick Commission or mandate under the Broad seal which is not onely the voice of the King and his Councel but of the Law and publick Justice it self yea of the whole Republick or Community as every man lawfully condemned by any Judge or cast by any Jury is virtually cast and condemned by the Will suffrage and consent of the Body politick
blessings I enjoy The least of which I may say with Jacob is beyond my greatest deserts I am of opinion That No price is too dear to purchase civill peace except onely that which pawns or sels the peace of a good conscience for it That the Liberty and security of a private Christian under any Government and Governours to whom God hath subjected him is First to pray 1 Tim. 2.3 Next to pay Rom. 13.6 I am no stranger to the domestick defeats of humane policies pretensions protestations presumptions which have by their frustrations not onely confuted the light and vulgar confidences of some men and their parties But they have even non-plussed and confounded the most pregnant hopes and assured expectations of many both too credulous and too presumptuous Christians Who looking too much upon the supposed meritorious virtues of some men and the enormous vices as they thought of others have allowed lesse freedome to the wonderfull operations of God and the intricacies of Divine Providence than is fit to attend the Abysse of Soveraign power and the Majesty of Infinite Wisdome In which onely a wise man and good Christian who lives by Faith not Sense may safely rest and glory even then when he is most posed and least understands the riddles of Gods wayes or the depths of his unsearchable judgements whose fathomings and unfoldings are reserved to make up the eternall admirations and beatitudes of patient and humble Christians in another world I know we live in a querulous Age where few men are so modest as not to think they deserve larger enjoyments and better preferments than they enjoy Or so content as not to think they suffer more pressures than they have deserved You might no doubt have many importune monitors and would have infinite earnest Suppliants if YOU were in place and Petitions were in fashion from every County and Corporation in ENGLAND Where the meere vulgarity like Swine are prone to cry out more for a little bite by the eare than for all the sordidnesse of sin and irreligious faedities into which they shamefully fall and in which they securely wallow if left to themselves by the cruell indulgence of their betters and superiours The out-cries and complaints of the Commonalty in civill regards if you should every way effectually satisfie which is no easie matter It being as equally hard to please as it is base to flatter the Populacie And yet should leave the concernments of their soules as to the true Christian and Reformed profession of Religion to that loose licentious and languishing posture whereto some mens distempers and indifferencies already have and farther seek to reduce this Nation as to any setled doctrine uniform profession Catholick order and Nationall combination best becomming this as all such famous and ample Churches of Christ Certainly Your secular agitations complyances and successes would as little commend your fidelity and discretion much lesse your Christian zeal and charity as those cures would doe the skill of any Physicians who should take care to mend the clothes or heale the scratches of their raving and distracted Patients without any regard to their feavers and frenzies which are their greatest maladies and uncured will be their greatest miseries I presume you well understand That true Religion is the chiefest ingredient not onely to make up mens spirituall and eternall peace but even their civill and temporall tranquillitie That no men can be good Patriots who are not good Christians That men heal but slightly as Physicians of no value the hurts of the daughters of their people if they doe not apply seasonable and soveraign medicines to those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pestilent distempers which disaffect the heads and hearts of men in matters of Religion whose Body is Truth whose Soule is Love Its Beauty is Good Order Its Health is Peace with God and good men The indication crisis or judgment of its maladies are to be made not onely by that totall defect or absumption of Religion which is naturally incident to the profaner sort of men but many times it hath dangerous symptomes and effects arising from Pleurisies of piety from Surfets of Sanctity from the too hot Livers and over-boylings of Religion even in those that are as Solomon calls them righteous overmuch of too high and plethorick constitutions in Piety For as a wise and witty man once said The heads even of Gods children are as prone to breed nits and lice as other mens Infinite odde opinions like the itch and scabs or boils of Egypt arise from the ranknesse and luxuriancie of some mens crude and indigested godlinesse The best and most generous Vines even of Gods owne planting will soon run out by their luxuriancie not onely to sowrenesse but even to barrennesse as to good grapes unlesse they be carefully pruned and orderly bound up by those holy severities of Christian discipline order government and communion which are necessary to every Church especially those that are grown to so large a size to so numerous an extent as that of England Christian Counsellours and States-men such as YOU either are or may be will then prosper most in their politick counsels and designs when they suffer not Policy to overlay Piety when secular projects are neither the sole nor principall objects of their endeavours But primarily and impartially seek the kingdome of God and his righteousnesse Not putting that in the reare to be brought up in the fag end of a Civil war when both Church and State are sore and circumcised which should have been in the Van or front of all Parlamentary counsels and proceedings Nor setting mens heels above their heads Or which is more deformed preferring their Bodies and Estates before their Souls and Consciences Which preposterous methods doe oft make not onely Parlaments of State but even Church-Councils and Assemblies as Greg Nazianzen complains to become Nehustan broken idols and despised vessels while Christian men act more like cunning and pragmatick Politicians than charitable and sober Christians Passionately intending humane designs and Divine onely with partialities and factious byassings In such cases who can wonder if their results and conclusions be as wretched and ridiculous as their premises are unworthy of wise men and ingenuous Christians Who should never so remember they are Men as to forget they are Christians Related in Sacred and Religious as well as Civill and Naturall bands not onely to one another as Men as Brethren but also to one God their Father one Saviour their Elder Brother one holy Church both as Catholick and Nationall their common Mother I cannot but observe the solicitous counsels the sequacious complyances the vigilant cares the resolute endeavours of my Countrymen to preserve the civill unity and ancient polity of this Nation Not to suffer any part of this Commonwealth to be dismembred or under pretence of either naturall Liberty or a secular Independency to
among learned godly and wise men Nor doe I beleeve that in point of conscience they have hitherto found any great improvement of piety in themselves their families children and servants Yea I cannot but think they must be very sensible of those many breaches flawes and leakings which daily grow as upon their Country so upon their Parishes and Families by the extravagancies of their children strangenesse of their acquaintance and irreligiousnesse of their servants besides the factiousnesse of their neighbours and coldnesse of their very kindred who all affect according as they are cunning proud or simple the name of LIBERTY in Religion that is in some mens sense neither much to feare God nor to reverence Man However I wonder that any persons of great worth and prudence can with indifferency see the publique Nationall interests of Religion sinking which are the greatest jewels ornaments and honour of any Nation so as themselves may but have liberty to swim or paddle in what new pond puddle or plash of Religion they list to fancie 'T is strange to me that any persons of steady and sober brains should not easily foresee that these strange vertigo's these tempests and continuall tossings of Religion will in a short time if they have not already make the whole Nation quite giddie and as it were sea-sick even to a vomiting up of its Reformation But if there be indeed a Libertie indulged to every one for the picking and choosing what way of worship Religion Church and Ministery best likes them sure it will be the greatest honour and noblest freedome of all true English Christians to own and adhere to that solidly soberly Reformed Religion which was duly setled in this Church of England by better heads and I think as honest hearts as any either brochers or abetters of novelties can justly pretend to who as I conceive come vastly short in all their variations and new inventions of that Scripturall verity Catholick antiquity yea and of that Parlamentary authority and majesty which had once happily reformed and established Religion in this Church of England by the full counsell and free consent of all Estates Princes and People Clergy and Laity What is of late by Novellers pretended of an Apostolique rudenesse plainnesse illiteratenesse and simplicity which ought to be in Ministers of the Gospel is ridiculous unlesse these new Teachers could shew us their speciall gifts and extraordinary inspirations better than yet they have done which were indeed miraculously bestowed upon the Primitive Planters and Preachers but very superfluous in a Church so full and blest with the ordinary endowments of pious literature and all good learning both Humane and Divine as England was How childish an affectation were it in the Gentrie of England to forbeare to ride on good horses because Christ once rode upon an asse shewing that the greatest triumph of all Christians is humility lowlinesse and meeknesse How silly were it in them to expect that Asses should alwayes be able to instruct them because Balaams asse did once with great justice and a prodigious gravity rebuke his masters madnesse Much lesse should Gentlemen of worth and breeding be such silly sots and children as to fancie that every jingling hobby-horse will be sufficient to carry them to heaven No the ministery of your souls is a far greater work requiring greater ability and better authority to convince men of their sins to encounter their lusts to moderate their passions to purge out their corruptions to break and soften their hearts to terrifie and appease their consciences to prepare them for God to graft them by true faith into a crucified God and Saviour to wean them from the world to win them to goodnesse to pull them out of hell and the devils snares to bring them to heaven and into the arms of Christ All which are the great works of true able and authoritative Ministers requiring other-gates workmen than are now in many places much in fashion among common people though not so in favour with the wiser and better sort of Christians in England as to prefer these mens new and various fancies before the wise constitutions the ancient customes the Catholick and Religious Orders of the Church of England established by their pious and prosperous Progenitors All the world at home and abroad sees that after all the many changes and troublesome essayes of new-modelling the civill state of this Nation yet true reason of State and publique peace doe command yea inforce us to justifie the wisdome of our Fore-fathers by bringing back matters of Soveraigntie power and government to the former plat-form and polity as to reality onely changing a few formalities Truly this makes me not despaire but when all new fangles of Religion and popular models of Churches have been tryed in vain and are found as they will be both impertinent and incompetent for the happy state of Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation we may by Gods blessing return to those pristine and primitive forms of sound doctrine uniform order and government which were never taken up by any private inventions here or elsewhere but were of Catholick observation and so no doubt of Apostolique direction and divine institution Which if all men should silently forsake and in so doing reproch not onely the Church of England but the very first Catholique and Apostolique Churches yet let me cease to live when I cease to sympathize with them in their unjust reproches and with Her in her great distresses and 't is fit my tongue should cleave to my mouth when I forbear or am afraid to pray for the peace and happy restitution of our Jerusalem I who have seen Her in such order beauty peace plenty honour prosperity and piety I who have received in her bosome and tuition so many and great mercies not onely temporall but I hope spirituall and eternall I who desire my posterity kindred friends and countrey may never have other God or Saviour than what was owned and worshipped in the Church of England no other Scriptures and Gospel than what have here been excellently preached and comfortably believed no other Sacraments than such as were here duly administred and devoutly received no other Liturgie or prayers and holy offices than such as were here both publiquely proposed and privately used no better Bishops Presbyters pastors and guides of their souls both for learned abilities exemplary life than such as I have known frequent and flourishing in the Church of England I pray God they may but have as good for better Ministers and better means of salvation as they shall not need them so they cannot have them without miracles of which God is no prodigall I should greatly sin if I should not daily sigh and weep over the Church of England if I should not poure our my soule to the God and Father of Mercies for Her since she is now counted by many as Jeremie complains an out-cast and forsaken whom no
pruning fencing and preserving this goodly Tree in its several Branches which have spread forth to several parts of the world but were never quite parted or separated from either Christ or one another but grounded in Christ they have alwayes grown up in him to such an holy Harmony without any Schismatical slipping breaking off or moral dividing from one another every small twigg every bigger branch every mainer arme of it either for private Christians or publick Congregations or Episcopal Combinations still holding that mutual Communion which became them both to Christ and his Church in general also to each other in particular according to the several Places Duties Stations and Proportions wherein the God of Order and Peace had set them under the Authority Power and Episcopacy of his Son Jesus Christ as Lord of all the King Priest and Prophet the chief Bishop and great Shepherd the principal Teacher Pastor and Ruler of his Church From our Lord Jesus Christ whose love to Mankind intended to enlarge the branches of his Church beyond the Jews even to all Nations under Heaven this small and tender Plant was afterward as a fruitful Vine and flourishing Tree carefully husbanded and orderly extended by such workmen as the Lord was pleased to chuse and appoint for this holy care and culture whom he endued with the spirit of power both for Authority when he solemnly breathed on them and for Ability when he powerfully sent the Spirit upon them enabling them not onely with such ordinary gifts as were necessary for all true Ministers and such ordinary authority as was fit to governe the Churches they gathered but also with such extraordinary and miraculous endowments as were meet for the Apostles to carry on the first plantations of the Gospel to all the world without any Interpreter beyond all contradiction the doctrine they taught of Jesus Christ being confirmed to be the Will and Wisdome of God by the concurrence of his Omnipotency in infallible signes and wonders By these twelve Apostles when their number was completed and the Apostasie of Judas made up by the choise of Matthias to succeed and supply his Episcopal charge and Office for the teaching and ruling of the Church to whom as a supernumerary help and great additional St. Paul was afterward joyned by these I say as by so many chief Pastors or Oecumenical Bishops who had the general care and joynt oversight or Episcopacy of the Catholick Church both Jews and Gentiles was this Tree mightily advanced in a few years both in bigness and bredth in strength and extention so that the Gospel according to Christs command was preached more or less to every Nation under Heaven and as the beams of the Sun are seen so the Evangelical sound of the Apostles was heard in all Lands so loud and audibly that every Nation might have applied themselves to listen and seek after the Lord and have heard and found him in the voice of his glorious Gospel if they would have followed that news which they heard of according to the curiosity after novelties which is in the nature of man The news of which so good and so great was every where reported to be as foretold by so many Prophets long before so attested and confirmed by so many Eye witnesses who not onely spake to every Nation in their several tongues but also wrought great miracles in every place where they came according to those several lots or portions which they had taken by the Lords appointment or by mutual consent as their particular Bishopricks or Dioceses for the more orderly carrying on of the work some staying at Jerusalem as St. James the Elder and the other James surnamed the Just where they were slain others dispersed themselves as St. Peter who went to Antioch Alexandria and Rome there planting eminent Churches appointing Bishops over them as Euodius at Antioch Mark at Alexandria Clemens and Linus at Rome one for the Circumcision the other for the Uncircumcision which Churches ever after even before the Nicene Council had the eminence of Patriarchal seats as afterward Jerusalem and Constantinople had The Histories of the Church either Sacred or Ecclesiastical are not punctual or exact in setting forth the several Countries to which the Apostles divided themselves or where they most resided and at last ended their days nor is it material it being sufficiently clear that as they did not at first so confine themselves to one place or Country as to exclude any other Apostles from coming thither so they went some one or more of them to all chief parts to Syria Arabia Persia India Ethiopia Armenia Scythia Asia the Less and Greater all Greece Illyricum Italy Spain France Germany Cyprus Britanny Africa and all the rest of the grand parts of the then-known World Continents and Islands where at last they either fixed in their old age as St. John did at Ephesus or were martyred leaving besides the Monuments of their preaching and miracles their Apostolical Seats supplied by an orderly Subordination and authoritative Succession of such Bishops and Presbyters Pastors and Teachers able and faithful men as they had Commission to ordain and did authorize for their successors in that holy Ministry spirit and power of Christ which was to continue to the end of the World for the further planting propagating and preserving the Church of Christ by such Doctrine Government and Discipline as they for the main rules and ends clearly by word and practise delivered to them which was then as their Faith Baptism and Hope but one among all Churches in the all world single Christians private Families of them small Congregations little Villages greater Cities ample Territories large Provinces great and small Churches as to their several distributions for conveniency of actual converse and communicating in holy Mysteries had still but one and the same Polity Order Discipline Ministry Government and Communion no Variety no Difformity no Deformity in Doctrine or Discipline among any Orthodox Christians but every one observed that Place Office Duty and Proportion wherein God by the Apostles and their successors had set him or them in relation to the whole Church as well as to that particular part or Congregation of it to which he was more locally and personally joyned yet mentally spiritually charitably cordially and consentiently he still adhered to the Catholick Conformity and Unity according to that holy Polity and Oeconomy which the Spirit of Christ in the Apostles first and for ever established so far as the nature of times and Gods providence would permit that as there was but one God and one Lord Jesus Christ so there might be but one Church one chast Virgin as the Spouse of Christ in all places For these holy Husbandmen and chief Labourers in Christs Vineyard the twelve or thirteen Apostles did not think it sufficient to teach to catechize to convert to baptize to confirm to communicate to admonish
then quarrelled at Her garb and fashion If any of these be now grown so wilfully ignorant that they need to be informed in this point they may please to know That the Name of the Church of Engl. is more ancient more honourable and every way as proper as the new style and title of the Common-wealth of England Which denomination imports not the agreement of all private mens aims desires and interests in all civil things any more than the other doth all mens agreement in every opinion and point of Religion But it denotes the declared profession of far the major part which is esteemed as the whole whose consent is declared in the Laws and publick constitutions So by the name of the Church of Engl. it is not imported or implyed that we judge every particular person in this Nation to be inwardly a good Christian or a true Israelite that is really sanctified or spiritually a member of Christ and his mysticall body the Church Catholick invisible No we are not so rude understanders or uncriticall speakers But we plainly and charitably mean that part of mankind in this Polity or Nation which having been called baptized and instructed by lawfull Ministers in the mysteries and duties of the Gospel maketh a joynt and publick profession of the Christian faith and reformed Religion in the name and as the sense of the whole Nation as it is grounded upon the holy Scriptures guided also and administred by that uniform order due authority and holy Ministry for worship and government which according to the mind of Christ the pattern of the Apostles and the practise of all Primitive Churches hath been lawfully established by the wisdom and consent of all estates in this Nation in order to Gods glory the publick peace and the common good of mens souls I know there are some supercilious censors and supercriticall criticks who cavill at disown disgrace and deny this glorious Name of the Church of England allowing God no Title to any such Nationall Church nor any Nation such a relation to God since that of the Jews was dissolved nor doe they much approve the Name or believe the Article of the Catholique Church The truth and property of both which titles and expressions I know there is no need for me largely to vindicate among judicious sober and well catechized Christians who doe not drive on any design by the fractions parcellings and confusions of Nationall Churches as those seem to doe who are still affectedly ignorant for this subject hath been fully handled and cleared by many late excellent pens in England besides the ancient and forrein writers that the name of Church of Christ next to the highest sense which denotes all that holy and successionall society in heaven and earth who are or shall be gathered into one as the mysticall invisible body of Christ that is purchased sanctified and saved by him which is never at one intuition visible in this world this is also in a lower sense not more usually than aptly applyed to expresse that whole visible company of Christian Professors upon earth whose historicall faith declared profession and avowed obedience to the Gospel of Christ like a great body or goodly tree in its severall extensive parts and branches stretcheth forth it self throughout the whole world This collectively taken as derived from one root or bulk is called the visible Catholick militant Church of Christ being to particular Churches not as a genus to the species but as an integrall or whole to the parts of it Besides these the name of the Church of Christ serves to expresse any one of those more noble parts or eminent branches belonging to that Catholick visible Church which being similary or partaking of the same nature by the common faith have yet their convenient limits distinctions and confinements as to neerer society and locall communion for their better order unity peace and safety either in particular Cities or Countries Provinces or Nations each of which holding communion of faith and charity with the Catholick Church were in that respect anciently called Catholick Churches so were their Synods and Bishops called Catholick long before the Bishop or Church of Rome monopolized that name as that of Smyrna is styled in its commendatory Letter touching their holy Bishop and Martyr Polycarpus I deny not but the name of the Church of Christ is in Scripture and in common use may be applied in the lowest and least proper or complete sense to particular congregations and small families especially where others met to serve the Lord which may in some sense as Noahs family in the Ark be called Cities Common-wealths Kingdomes Nations as well as Churches being the Substrata Seminaries and Nurseries of both yet this in a defective improper and diminutive sense onely as apart from or compared to those larger combinations and ampler Communions which all reason besides the expresse wisdome of Christs Spirit and the practise of the blessed Apostles followed by all the Primitive Churches invites all Christians in any nation or polity unto for mutual peace good order safety and edification both as to Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government far beyond what can be enjoyed or expected in smaller parcels or separated societies whose meer locall advantages by neighbourhood or neerness of dwelling and actual meeting together in one place make them not any whit more a Church of Christ or in and of a Church than it makes them men or citizens but only gives them some conveniences for the exercise of some of those duties and priviledges which they enjoy not as Members of that single Congregation but as Branches of the Catholick Church of Christ to which Mystical Body they were admitted when they were baptized and to whose head Jesus Christ they are related and united so far as they are believers either in profession or in power Being further capable to enjoy all those benefits and advantages necessary for the publick Peace Order Government and well-being of a Church All which Christ intended it and which are not to be had in the small parcels of Christians but in the joynt authority of larger combinations Such sober Christians as live above capricious niceties captious sophistries and popular affectation of novel formes and termes do well understand That as little slips grow great trees and small families multiply to populous Cities and Nations whose strength honour safety and happinesse consists not in their living apart reserved and severed from one another in their private houses or parishes and Townships but in their joynt counsels large Fraternities and solemn Combinations under the same publick Lawes and Governours without which they cannot attaine or enjoy Peace and Safety the noblest fruits and highest ends of humane Societies and civil Polities whose Dangers Mischiefs and Miseries are such as cannot be avoyded or resisted save onely by united Counsels and Assistances to which just appeals and addresses may be made for redress of such
mischiefs as small parties cannot avoid or remedy In like manner Christians have in all ages grown up from the first Apostolical Plantations of Christianity which were in particular persons and private families to such holy Associations Charitable Combinations and regular Subordinations as reached not onely to the first Families or lesse Congregations and Neighbourhoods which as I said may be called Churches in their Infancy Youth and Minority but they grew up spread and increased by the spirit of Prudence Peace Order Love and Unity even to great Cities large Provinces and whole Nations To all which more publick and extensive relations Christians finding themselves obliged by the ties not onely of their common faith and love but of their own wants and mutuall necessities for Order Safety and Peace they ever esteemed themselves so far bound in duty to every relation both greater and lesser as the generall good and more publick concernments of those Churches of Christ did require of them which were ever esteemed as Ecclesiae adultae Churches in their full growth beauty harmony procerity vigour and completenesse both as to the good to be enjoyed and the evils to be avoided by all Christians not onely in their private but publick and politick capacity 'T is happy indeed when one Sinner or one Family one Village or Congregation give their names to Christ at which the Angels in Heaven rejoyce But how much more august must their joy be how much more magnificent must the glory of Christ and the renown of his blessed name be when whole Cities Countreys and Nations willingly give themselves and be joyned to the Lord and to his Ministers or Ambassadours This carries more proportion as to the merit of Christs Sufferings price of his Blood and power of his Spirit so to the accomplishment of those many cleare and munificent promises foretold with so great pomp and majesty by the Prophets of Gods giving in the Nations with the glory and fulnesse of their multitudes to Christ for his Inheritance so far that many and mighty Kings and Queens should be nursing Fathers and Mothers to the Churches of Christ which should be not onely diffused and scattered according to the latitude and extent of their civil Dominions but piously owned prudently governed and orderly preserved by their princely and paternall care in their severall distributions and orderly jurisdictions according as all true prudence and polity Ecclesiasticall as well as Civil doth require of wise and good men Namely to such a grandeur beauty comelinesse and safety as was and is infinitely beyond any of those modern Models and petty Inventions which seek to slip goodly Boughs into small Twigs or Branches to reduce ancient Churches of long growth of tall and manly stature to their pueriles their long coats and cradles Such famous and flourishing Churches for instance were those in the Apostles times and long after which received their denomination or distinction from those great â—â—ties of Jerusalem Antioch Ephesus Philippi Thessalonica Corinth Rome and the like Mother-Cities According to whose latitude and extensions in point of civil distinction and proconsulary jurisdiction the union and communion of Christians there first converted and formed into severall Churches did extend by the holy and happy Association of their respective Bishops Presbyters Deacons and people into one Ecclesiasticall polity whose orderly and united influence contained in it not onely some one particular Congregation whose number might fitly meet in one place to worship God but it comprised all Christians and Congregations in that city how numerous soever yea and extended not onely to the walls of that city but to the suburbican distributions yea to their several Territories and Provinces appertaining to them in which although there were no doubt many thousands of Christians who were divided into severall Congregations according to the nearnesse of their dwellings and conveniencies of their meetings in one place to serve the Lord yet were they still but one Church as to that Polity Order Authority Government Inspection and Subordination which was among them which cast and comprehended them by a native kind of right and spirituall descent as children to fathers under the care rule and guidance of that Apostle or Apostolick Teacher who first taught and converted them which Apostle afterward committed them together with his own ordinary Authority over them to his Vicegerents Suffragans or Successors in that chief city who residing there was called the Angel Apostle Bishop President or Father of that Church even by the Apostles themselves and by the Spirit of Christ writing to the seven Churches of Asia Ephesus Sardis Pergamus Thyatira Smyrna Philadelphia and Laodicea All which were ever reckoned by Pliny Strabo Stephanus and others as chief Cities or Proconsulary Residencies to which many other Villages and Towns yea some lesser Cities and Countreys were subordinate and united as first in civil dependence and jurisdiction so afterward in Ecclesiasticall Communion and Subjection So that it is most evident by Scripture-dialect by the wisdome of Christs Spirit by the Apostolick prudence and the subsequent practices of all famous Churches as at Alexandria Constantinople Carthage and many other instances that the compleatnesse and perfection of Church-polity order union power and authority was never thought to be seated or circumscribed in every particular congregation of Christians as they were locally divided in their lesser conventions which would make all Churches as small twigs both feeble in themselves and despicable to others but it was placed in those great branches those strong and extensive boughs which had in them the united power or authority not onely of many Christians but of many congregations in which were many godly people many grave Deacons many venerable Presbyters and one eminent Bishop or Father who continued in that Presidentiall authority to water propagate increase preserve and â—overn in order peace and unity those Churches which the Apostles had so planted fixed and established in their severall polities and limits as to Ecclesiasticall union order and jurisdiction In which the chief Pastor President or Bishop so presided in the place power and spirit of the Apostle yea and of Jesus Christ that no private Christian no Deacon no Presbyter yea no particular congregation might as Ignatius and other Ancients tell us regularly doe any thing in publique doctrine discipline worship or ministration without his respective authority consent and allowance Yea all good Christians did ever make great conscience of dividing from the principall succession seat and Pastor who was the centre and conservator of that Church-union and government which was first setled by the Apostles in Primitive Churches and imitated by all others which grew up after them Primitive Christians ever esteeming it as the sin of schisme the work of the flesh a fruit of pride and factious arrogancy for any Christian or any company of Christians to dissolve to divide from and so to destroy that
popular Conventicles where either Piety or Prudence or Learning or Gravity besides authentick and due authority yea Civility and all good manners many times are prone to be very much wanting or if they be there in some few yet a thousand to one but they are quite over-born routed silenced over-voted and cryed down by the plebeian confidences of those many whose ignorance and rudenesse delights in nothing more than either to smother and crowd to death by numbers or to assassinate by downright clamours and brutish violence any thing that looks like sober Reason holy Order just Restraint and due Authority all which the vulgar esteem as their implacable enemies and intolerable burdens So little do those men seem masters of true Reason pious Policy Christian Prudence or sociable Charity who advise endeavour or encourage to divide and consequently to destroy Episcopall Metropoliticall and Nationall Churches by dissolving the noble frames the ancient and harmonious junctures of them onely to make up small Independent bodies or Presbyterian Classes Parochiall Consistories as the sole and supreme Tribunals or ultimate Judicatories beyond any remedy or appeal in Church-affairs which is much like the digging down of Mount Lebanon with a design to make it into many fine mole-hills In which a few poor yet pragmatick Christians like so many ants may busie themselves solely and absolutely about themselves as arrogating to themselves though but two or three or seven at most the perfect name complete nature entire power and highest emphasis of a Church of Christ to all uses ends and purposes without any regard to any other higher authority or to any greater and completer Society further than they list to advise or associate with them for a time as occasion serves and till some new invention offers it self Mean time they are not ashamed or concerned as to that rude and ingratefull violation of those duties which they owe and those relations which they ought to beare as Christians by the right of an holy propagation spirituall descent and ecclesiasticall derivation of their baptisme faith and religion to that Church which was their Mother and to those chief Pastors or Shepherds which were their spirituall Fathers by an Apostolick title designation and succession both in place order and power Which spirituall relation certainly imports no lesse duty love thanks reverence and submission than those of naturall and civill relations doe since the blessing is at least equall if not far beyond to those that value their souls or their Saviour who will not easily abdicate their ghostly parents or renounce their spirituall Fathers though they should see many infirmities and some frowardnesse in them I shall not need to instance in the many defects inconveniences disorders and mischiefs incident to these Ecclesiolae and Congregatiunculae little Churchlets and scattered Conventicles which cannot but be as S. Jerome observes the Seminaries of Schisme Nurseries of Faction strife and emulation since the Sire of them seems to be Ignorance and Weaknesse or pride and arrogancy as the Dam of them usually is faction private ends and popularity Nor will their Issue faile to multiply and swarm in a few years with grosse ignorance and rudenesse with all manner of errors and heresies accompanied with vulgar petulancie atheisme irreligion anarchy confusion and barbarity which like vermine will devoure both themselves and those completer Churches from whose communion order light strength discipline integrity and safety they have withdrawn themselves by needlesse divisions to the weakning shaking subverting and endangering of the faith charity and salvation of many thousands of poore soules the strength beauty honour safety and comfort of particular congregations as of private Christians and families consisting in that orderly conjuncture as parts with the whole body politick which may best preserve both It and themselves there being not onely more virtue in the whole than in any part but more vigour in each part while it is continuous to the whole than when it is divided Which as all Reason and Religion so most sad experience in the Church of England sufficiently assures us For however private Christians have indeed some power as to counsell admonish reprove comfort pray for and by charitable offices to help and edifie one another also private congregations have yet more advantages being many in their number to joyn in publique duties to comprobate and execute Ecclesiasticall censures further each single Minister or lawfull Presbyter hath yet greater authority in his place and office to administer holy things by preaching baptizing consecrating binding loosing exhorting rebuking likewise every Bishop hath still an higher order and authority regularly to ordaine to confirme to examine to censure to rebuke to suspend to absolve to excommunicate any private Presbyter or other Christians under his inspection Yet where the Bishop is assisted with the desires consent and approbation of many Christian congregations also with the joynt assistance of many learned and godly Presbyters yea and with the united suffrages and authority of many Bishops as in cases of great and generall concernment in matters of doctrine censure and discipline is requisite O how ponderous how solemn how celebrious how powerfull how Apostolick how divine must the majesty and authority of such transactions be in any Church thus combined established and fortified against both secret contagions and violent incursions of any mischiefs which easily grow too hard for private Christians and petty Congregations yea many times for particular Presbyters and single Bishops Nor can the remedy expectable from these in their solitary capacities and small proportions either cure or encounter the pregnancy and potency of those maladies which many times infest the flock of Christ as was evident in those Epidemick pests of Arianisme Nestorianisme Donatisme Pelagianisme and others which malignities required not onely the influence and authority of a few private Presbyters with their Congregations or of particular Bishops and their Churches but of Provinciall Synods and Nationall Churches yea of the Catholick Church as much as could be united in those General Councils which were as grand Ecclesiasticall Parlaments by their majority deputation inspection and authority representing all Churches in all the World that so the salve might still be wisely commensurate to the sore The danger of a divided Church being no lesse than that of of a divided State or Kingdome which our Saviour tells us cannot stand it must not be imagined that Christ hath left his Church destitute of defence and help in such cases of distraction These grand combinations of Christian people Presbyters and Bishops convening as occasion required not onely to serve God in the piety of his daily worship but for the right ordering and guiding of themselves and others in such publick concernments as Christian polity and gubernative prudence required these made Christian primitive Churches appear in their Synodicall Provinciall Nationall and Oecumenicall Assemblies as the fairest sides and goodliest prospects
and Reformation Notwithstanding the shew of all these I abhorred Her as a Synagogue of Satan a den of Thieves a cage of unclean birds a very Babylon worse than that Church was from which Peter wrote his first Epistle I called Her sacred things execrable I counted her Ministers no better than the Magicians of Egypt and Baals Priests Her ministrations as Magick enchantments Her Sacraments insignificant neither sanctified nor sanctifying So far am I from being a poor and sneaking Schismatick which like a viper secretly gnawes the bowels where it is bred and lodged That out of an higher spirit of Zeal and Reformation I have like Saturn or Time quite devoured the old and wholly begat a new Church notwithstanding that I saw heretofore many seeming notes of a true and reformed Church in England many specious fruits of Christs holy Spirit in many formall good words and works of his seemingly gracious servants in Doctrine Faith and Manners by which temptations I sometimes had been a great Zelot and eager Professor having an high esteem both of the Ministers and Ministrations of the Church of England But afterward a new light breaking in upon me I first began to scruple some things in the Church of England after to suspect more at last I was jealous of all things but my own heart From jealousie I soon fell to enmity from enmity to a divorce from being divorced to prostitute the name honour peace and patrimony of that Church to the most insolent spoilers profaners and persecutors from cavilling I fell to calumniating then to condemning at last to contemning all its professed Christianity and noised Reformation as meer nullities uncapable to invest any man in the priviledges honour and happinesse of a true Christian Church or holy Society Thus bogling cruelly at the too great authority and revenues of Bishops scared also with some ceremoniall shadows and no lesse frighted with the late Presbyterian rigour and severity I was so driven by I know not what impulse but I am prone to believe well of it because I have got well by it that I at last fled from the very substance shew and name of the Church of England chusing rather to be a rank Separate a meer Quaker an arrant Seeker or nothing at all of an old-fashioned Christian than to continue in any visible communion with so corrupt so false so lewd so no Church by which high-flown resolution all this while I thank God I am become no Schismatick because neither being nor owning and therefore not being because not owning my self as any member of that Church from which I rather chose boldly to separate than poorly to schismatise in it Having a while wandered alone as Lot when he fled out of Sodom and standing by my self as holier than others finding none meet to joyn with me in Church-fellowship but growing weary and a little ashamed of my solitude neither hearing nor praying nor receiving with any Christians for many moneths nay yeares at last I had an impulse to preach and prophecy that so I might erect and create a pure and perfect Church after my own heart and call it after my own name In which though I began but with a little handful whom I gleaned most-what out of the Presbyterian late harvest which proved too big for their barns and so was never yet well inned yet we two or three met together in Christs name though upon our own heads and by our own authority expecting yea challenging his promise to be in the midst of us with all that plenitude of his spirit with those clear illuminations and assurances with that divine power and supreme Church-authority which next and immediately under Christ we judge to be in and among us as the first subject capable of it and is by us to be dispensed to what Pastors Members and Officers we list to chuse Being thus happily agreed as men we further covenanted as Saints to live together in this Church-fellowship we organized our body with all Church-Officers some of us ordained our selves to be Ministers of the Gospel others of us begat our Fathers and formed our Pastors we equally exercised Church-discipline upon one another so long as we could hold together some indeed went out from us because they were not of us the remaining faithfull Members of Christs little flock still cemented themselves and kept together as a Church where was prophecying and dipping and breaking of bread and excommunicating and all manner of censuring and discipline to far better uses and effects than ever were in that spurious as well as spacious and over-grown Church of England All this I have ordered and done by a power of Christian liberty with my Church or Body without any check or controll from any above us in a way indeed new and strange to the world but more pure free and perfect than ever was used or known in this of England or any other pretended Reformed Church which were all grosly deformed yea we are gone beyond any of those famous Primitive Churches which were by some called pure but I find them leavened with the mysterie of iniquity universally governed by Bishops our bitter enemies and Presbyters our not very fast friends The Lands of Bishops are now happily sold and some of us have bought a good part of them the Livings Tithes and Places of Presbyters we now gape for and crowd into yet are we neither guilty of sacriledge nor schisme the two Prelatick scare-crows or Episcopall bug-beares because nothing could be sacred which was never consecrated or devoted to the true God in a right way as nothing could be which was given to maintain Episcopacy with and Presbytery a meer Idol which we and so God no doubt perfectly abhors however it got footing so early in all Churches and immediately perked up in the place of the Apostles This seems to be the summarie sense of that pious Apology lately offered in behalf of all through-pac'd Separates and perfect Apostates from the order and constitution of the Church of England where either these men extremely dissemble or they first learned Christ and became Christians at least in profession many yeares being baptized and instructed confirmed and communicated in this Church from which being now totally divided they thus most ingeniously seek to wipe off the shame ingratitude levity sin suspicion of Schism by their owning no true Church at all in England and declaring plenary Separation or Independency fancying that he is lesse blameable who quite burns up his neighbours coat than he that onely singeth it and he that flayeth off ones skin is lesse insolent and injurious than he that onely scratcheth it as if every Schisme were not a partiall Separation and every Separation a plenary Schisme How justifiable the ground of such a plea is I leave to wiser men to their own more coole and impartiall spirits and to the great judge of all hearts whose Word hath much deceived his Church in
all ages if his prohibition be not against Separation Apostasy and total forsaking of the Churches communion both in Discipline and Doctrine in Polity and Verity as well as against Schisme The difference is not much between S. Pauls censure of Schisme and division as carnall and a work of the flesh Gal. 5.20 and that of S. Jude against such as separate as being sensuall and not having the Spirit especially where such communion is offered and required by a Church Christian and Reformed as is no way against the Word of God the Apostles example and the Primitive Catholick practise of all Churches such I believe and hope to prove that of the Church of England was and is as to those main essentialls of Religion which constitute a true Church both in the being and well-being But I needed not and therefore I crave your pardon worthy Gentlemen have spent so much breath to blow up and break the late thin bladders or light bubbles these new Corpusculas of separate Churches compared to the Catholick eminency unity and solidity of the Church of England and others of like size An easie foot will serve to beat down such new-sprung Mushromes of late perked up in this English soyle through the licentiousnesse of times and luxuriancy of mens humours since it hath been watered with Humane and Christian blood whose ambition seems to be not onely to divide and share but wholly to possess and engross this good land or else to leave desolate that field out of which they are sprung which bare far better fruits than now it doth long before their name was heard of under the new titles or style of bodyed and congregated associated or independented and new-fangled Churches Who have now the confidence to cry down the Church of England in its late visible polity harmony order and unity as a meer name and notion an insignificant Idea and empty imagination as if it were neither bonum nor jucundum good nor pleasant for Brethren in Christ to dwell together in unity or for men in one nation to be Christians in one Church as if bonds of civil polity reached farther than Ecclesiastick Some are so vain and vulgar as to boast that all Church-fellowship in England is no better then floten milk when once they have taken off the cream of some Saintly professors which they think worthy to make up and coagulate into their new and small bodyed Churches which are carried on by some with so high an hand and brow that a young master of that sect hath been heard to say not more magisterially than uncharitably he would sooner renounce his Baptism than own the Church of England to be a true Church And this notwithstanding that it is evident these new Rabbies have added nothing new and true to the Doctrine of the Church of England nor yet to the divine Worship and holy Ministrations or Duties used and professed in it with as much solemnity judgement and sincerity I believe as they can pretend to without blushing on mans part and with infinite more spirituall blessings and proficiency in all graces so far as yet appeares on Gods part Nor have they ever shewn any cause why It should be denyed the name honour priviledge and comfort of a true Church of Christ both in its principall parts and in the whole visible community or polity afflicted indeed at present but sometime famous and flourishing as in favour both with God and good men nor did it ever recede from its love or apostatize by any publick act or vote from such a profession of Christian and Reformed Religion as gives her a good Title to be and to be called a true Church of Christ in spight of men and Devils If any still list to quarrell at the name of a Nationall Church the same schismaticall sophisters may as well slight all those proportions and expressions used in all the grand Combinations and visible Constitutions of such ancient Churches throughout all descents of Christian Religion which never doubted to cast themselves into and continue in such Ecclesiasticall forms and parallel distributions as they found laid out by the blessed Apostles and the Spirit of Christ which without doubt most eminently guided those Primitive Churches When these new projectors have answered the Scripture style and the Apostolick patterns and pens followed by all antiquity which call and account all those Christians conjoyned in one Churches communion in point of Ecclesiasticall polity subordination chief power and jurisdiction who yet were dispersed in many places and so distinguished no doubt into many congregations as to the duties of ordinary worship throughout their Cities respective Provinces which I am sure were many of them far larger than any one Diocese or Province in England yea and possibly not much lesse than all England as Ephesus Crete Jerusalem Antioch whose province was all Syria as Ignatius tells us so Corinth Philippi Laodicea Rome c. with their Suburbs Territories and Provinces which extended as far as their proconsulary jurisdictions reached in one of which that learned and pious but fancifull interpreter Mr. Brightman doubted not to find a prophetick Type representing the Nationall Church of England with much more aptitude than his other Satyrick correspondencies were applied When the wit and artifices of Independent brethren if they allow me that relation have shrunk those great and famous Churches so distinguished and nominated by the Scripture line and record into little handfulls such as one mans lungs can reach at one time in one place when the Presbyterian brethren who have cast off yea cast out their Fathers the Bishops can manifest that the severall Congregations of Christians in those Parishes Classes or Associations which they fancy had as many Bishops properly so called and fully impowered as there were Presbyters or Preachers when by their joynt skill and force they can evince out of any Ecclesiasticall Records or Scripturall that there was not some one eminent person as the Apostle Angel Bishop and President or chief Governour among them over all those people and Presbyters who lived within such large Scripture-combinations as Churches such as was Timothy in Ephesus Titiâ— in Crete S. James the Just in Jerusalem either succeeding the Apostles after death or supplying their places during their absence from particular Churches who in their severall lots portions or Episcopal charges and divisions had while they lived the chief inspection rule authority and jurisdiction When I say these grand difficulties are cleared and removed as scales from our eyes who still honour the Church of England then we shall be willing and able to turn the other lessening end of the Optick glasse and to look upon the great and goodly Church of England as fit to be shrunk into decimo sexto volumes or to be divided into small pamphleting Congregations and bound up in Calves leather which heretofore by an happy deception of sight appeared to us at
of England O venerable censors O severe Aristarchusses of a more than Catonian gravity to whose ploughs and looms and distaffs and clubs and hammers 't is meet as to so many sacred scepters this later English and Christian world should no lesse submit their souls than the Jews and Gentiles Greeks and Barbarians Romans and Scythians did to the nets and fish-hooks of the Apostles who were authorized with miraculous gifts and assisted by the speciall power of the holy Spirit of Christ to plant settle and reform and purge Christian Churches To whose holy Doctrine and Divine Institutions delivered in the Old and New Testament and followed by all the Primitive Catholick Churches notwithstanding that the Church of England did in its first Reformation diligently and exactly conform it self if we may believe the integrity of those Reformers who had the courage and constancy to be Martyrs whose learning worth piety hath been confirm'd by the testimony of so many wise religious Princes by the approbation sanction of so many honourable and unanimous Houses of Parliament by the suffrages of so many learned and reverend Convocations by the applauses of so many Sister-reformed Churches if we may believe the preaching living and dying of so many hundred excellent Bishops and Presbyters or the prayers praises and proficiencies of so many thousands of other good Christians or lastly if we may believe the wonderful blessings and speciall graces of a merciful God attesting to the verity sanctity and integrity of this Church-Reformation and Christian Constitution for many happy years Yet against all these some peevish Momusses some spitefull Caco-zelots some evil-ey'd Zoilusses some insolent and causelesse Enemies of the Church of England have not so much modesty as to conceale their malice or to smother their insolent folly and intolerable arrogancy which dares to put the ignorance giddinesse emptinesse vulgarity rashnesse precipitancy and sinisternesse of their silly censures into the balance of Religion contrary to the renowned learning piety gravity grace and majesty of all those who have had so great favour love respect and honour for the Church of England Whom her spitefull and envious adversaries now presume to follow with nothing but Contumelies and Anathema's with pillagings and spoylings with railings and revilings with waste and ruine to the excessive joy of Her Papall enemies whose deeply-designed policies have a long time desired and hoped to see that wofull day befall the Church of England in which her Bishops might beg her Presbyters be starved her Ministry contemned her Liturgie ejected her Unity dissolved and broken her Ancient and Primitive Government abolished her undoubted ordination and succession of Ministers interrupted her whole Christian Frame and Nationall Constitution which was for the main truly Catholick Primitive and Apostolick destroyed dissipated desolated What invincible Armadoes could not atchieve what monstrous Powder-plots could not accomplish what wily Jesuits and other subtile Sophisters despaired to attain having been oft defeated and repelled by the learned care and vigilant puissance of wise Princes sober Parlaments reverend Bishops and other able Ministers of the Church of England that the weaknesse wantonnesse and wickednesse of some of our own petty Sectaries Schismatick Agitators superâ—reforming Reformers is likely to bring to passe whom the most admired and devout Lord Primate of Armagh a great Prophet of God and Pillar of the Reformed Religion sometime told me he esteemed no other than Factors for Popery and Engines for Roman designs by divisions and domestick confusions of Religion to bring in Popish Superstition and Tyranny Indeed a prudent Conjecturer may in this case easily make a true Prophet For the Roman Eagle a watchfull powerfull and voracious bird can never fail at last to seise on these parts of Christendome for her prey where she shall see Ignorance prevail against Knowledge Barbarity against Learning Division against Unity Confusion against Order People against their Priests Novelty against Antiquity Anarchy against Catholick Authority and infinite deformities ushered in under the title of speciall Reformations That cunning Conclave which overlooks the Christian world as the greatest constellation of policy in the West knows full well that such feaverish distempers in any Church or Christian State as now afflict the Church of England will not faile if they long continue to bring it to such an hectick consumption as will quite destroy its former healthfull constitution and prepare it for those Italian Empiricks who will come then to be in request with common people when they find no good to be got by the best-reputed Physicians the most specious Reformers when these are at their wits ends so differing in their judgements and practise that they know not what to do by reason of the madnesse impatiency and petulancy of people those foraign Mountebanks will alwayes promise men help and cure at an easie rate for they require no more of the most desperate patients than to credit their receipts to be confident of and reconciled to the skill and artifice of the Church of Rome their Mother and the Pope their Father CHAP. VI. I Cannot believe that any of you who are persons of Learning Honour and Integrity lovers of your Countrey and the Reformed Religion can be wholly strangers to the sad and dangerous condition of the Church of England Nor can you if rightly set forth to you be unaffected with it unlesse your designs and fortunes are to be advanced by the rents and ruines of this Church of England In which as the Lord liveth before whom we all stand distempers are risen not onely to Divisions but Distractions not onely to Injuries but Insolencies not only to Obloquies but Oppressions not onely to Schismes but Abscissions not onely to Factions but Confusions not onely to Lapses but Apostacies not onely to rude Deformities but they tend to absolute Nullities as to any Christian Harmony Fraternity Order Beauty Unity Strength Safety and publick setling of that Reformed Religion which was once professed in the Church of England And this by reason of the Envies Despites Rudenesses Animosities Seditions Strifes Separations Raylings Reproches Contumelies Blasphemies and prophane Novelties every where pregnant and predominant among vulgar spirits and odiously cast upon all things that you and your forefathers esteemed as religious and sacred in this Church of England The torrent of rebukes and troubles like Ezekiels waters is now risen not onely to the ankles and knees but to the loyns and neck growing too rapid and deep for the common people to wade over or venture into nor are they safe for any to engage upon but those who as S. Christopher is represented in the Legendary Emblem are heightned by their own integrity and supported by Gods heroick Spirit for it is a black and dangerous a red and dead Sea upon which he adventures who will now seriously assert the Church of England whose troubled state is more stormy than those waters were on which S. Peter ventured to walk or
honour merited by the Emperours Diocletian Galerius for their extirpating Christian superstition restoring the worship of the Gods No pen saith Eusebius could equall the atrocity of those times against the Church of Christ Yet even then the gracious spirit of sincere Christians as the Ark in the deluge rose highest toward heaven then godly Bishops and Presbyters were as another Historian writes more ambitious of Martyrdome than now Presbyters are of being all made Bishops then were Christians more then conquerours and true Christianity most triumphant when it seemed most depressed despised and almost destroyed as Sulpitius Severus writes of the same times in his short but elegant History Thus Eusebius and others describe that horrid storm and black night which was relieved by the blessed day-star of Constantine the Great appearing In which dismall times learned men do not quarrell at the profession and state of Religion but at the irreligion and scandall of Christians lives the fault and provocation was not from the Faith Doctrine Liturgy Order and Government then established in the Churches of Christ but from the degenerous depraved and ungoverned passions of men as they all blamed these last whenever they appeared so they constantly asserted the other as was evident in the Synod of Antioch in which a little before Diocletians time the heresie of Paulus Samâ—satenus denying the Divinity of Christ was condemned by all being confuted by Malchion a learned man an accurate Disputant The Author or Heresiarch was excommunicated not onely from the Church of Antioch but also from the Catholick Church and separated from all Christian communion throughout the world by a just and unanimous severity Holy men then rightly judged that the meritorious cause of all those sore calamities arose not from the frame of Christian Churches which was holy uniform and Apostolick as yet but from the wantonness and wickedness of Christian professors neglecting so great means of salvation and abusing such Halcyon dayes as had been sometime afforded them Which censure I may without rashnesse or uncharitablenesse pass as to the present distresses incumbent upon the Church of England whose holy wise honourable and happy Reformation must ever be vindicated as much as in me lies against all such gain-sayers as make no scruple to condemne as all the generations of Gods children in former ages so those especially who worthily setled and valiantly maintained the Christian reformed Religion in the Church of England as against all Heathenish and Hereticall profaneness so against the more puissant and superstitious Papists also against the more peevish but then more feeble Schismaticks CHAP. X. IT were as impertinent a work for me in these times to insist upon every particular in the frame of the Church of England or to cry up every small lineament in Her for most rare and incomparable as it is unreasonable and spitefull in those that deny Her to have had any one handsome feature in Her or any thing grave comely Christian-like or Church-like in her main constitution and complexion Mr. Richard Hooker one of the ablest Pens and best Spirits that ever England employed or enjoyed hath besides many other worthy men abundantly examined every feature and dress of the Church of England asserting it by calm clear and unanswerable demonstrations of Reason and Scripture to have been very far from having any thing unchristian or uncomely deformed or intolerable which her then enemies declaimed and now have proclaimed whose wrathfull menaces the meekness and wisdome of that good man foresaw and in his Epistle foretold would be very fierce and cruell if once they got power answerable to their prejudices superstitions and passions against the Church of England which he fully proved to differ no more from the Primitive temper and prudence than was either lawfull convenient or necessary in the variation of times and occasions The excellent endeavours of that rarely-learned and godly Divine so full of the spirit and wisdome of Christ one would have thought might have been sufficient for ever to have kept up the peace order and honour of the Church of England also to have silenced the pratings and petulancies of her adversaries But alas few of those plebeian spirits and weaker capacities to whose errour anger and activity the Church of England now chiefly owes her miseries tears and fears were ever able to understand or bear away the weight strength and profoundnesse of that most ample mans reasonings and his eloquent writings Others of them that were more able were so cunning and partiall for the interest of their cause and faction as commonly to decry for obscure or to suspect as dangerous because prejudiciall to their interest or to bury in silence as their enemy that rare piece of Mr. Hookers Ecclesiasticall Polity which many of them had seldome either the courage or the honesty to read none of them the power ever to reply or the hardiness so much as to endeavour a just confutation of his mighty demonstrations Yea I have been credibly informed that some of the then-dissenters from the Church of England had the good or rather evil fortune utterly to suppress those now defective but by him promised and performed books touching the vindication of the Church of England in its Ordination Jurisdiction and Government by the way of Ancient Catholick Primitive and Apostolick Episcopacy Which one word Episcopacy hath of late years cost more blood and treasure in Scotland and England than all the enemies of Bishops and of this Church had in their veins or were worth 20. years ago whose importune clamours of old and endeavours of late to extirpate Primitive Catholick and Apostolicall Episcopacy out of this Church and to introduce by head and shoulders the exotick novelties and vanities of humane invention have brought themselves and this whole Church to so various and divided a posture as makes no setled or uniform Church-government at all by a popular precipitancy ruining an ancient and goodly Fabrick whose temporary decayes or defects might easily and wisely have been amended before they had agreed of a new model or seriously considered either their skill or their authority to erect a new one if they could find out a better which hitherto they have not done nor will they I believe ever be able to do as destitute in this point of any just commission direction power or precedent either from God or man I am sure the Supreme power of regulating all Ecclesiasticall affairs was under God by the laws of England invested in the Chief Magistrate and Governours of this Church without and against whose judgements consents and consciences no innovations were to be carried on nor indeed begun in this Church whose events or successes hitherto have been only worthy of such tumultuary beginnings the effects of them being full of dissolution confusion to all of injurious afflictions to many worthy men besides penall and perpetuall divisions among the Innovators themselves who
varying in this as in other things from the whole ancient Churches constitution no less than from this of England are likely to differ among themselves even till Doomesday unless they return under some new name and disguised notion of moderators and superintendents to what they have rashly deserted the true pattern in the Mount that paternall Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which was the centre and crown of the Churches unity peace order and honour which imports no more after all this clamour and terrour than one grave and worthy Presbyter duly chosen in the severall Dioceses limits to be the chief Ecclesiastick Overseer and Governour succeeding in the managing of that Ecclesiasticall power and authority which without an Apostolick President or Bishop properly so called Presbyters alone in parity or equality never did enjoy and so never ought to exercise in the Churches of Christ as to ordination and jurisdiction no more than Bishops regularly may without the counsel and assistance of Presbyters Which ancient Order eminent Authority of Primitive Episcopacy if neither right Reason nor the Word of God either in the Old or New Testament did clearly set forth to us as best if neither Apostles at first nor the Primitive Fathers after them if neither Church-history nor Catholick custome nor Primitive Antiquity nor the approbation of the best Reformed Churches and Divines if all these did not commend it as they evidently do to my best understanding yet the late mad and sad extravagancies in Religion do highly recommend it yea the great want of it in England shews the great use necessity and excellency of it especially if advanced to its greatest improvement of counsel order and authority I may adde the votes of all sober and impartiall Christians even now in England who are grown so wise by their woes as generally to wish for such Episcopacy whose restitution would be more welcome to the wiser and better sort of Christians in this nation than ever the removall of it was or the medlies of Presbytery and Independency is like to be Nor do I believe that the restauration of a right Episcopacy would be unacceptable to many of the soberest men even of those two parties if any expedient could be found to salve and redeem the reputations of some lay-leaders and popular Primates of those sides whose credits lie much at pawn with the people upon this very score as having been by them rashly biassed against all Episcopacy the abusing of which Apostolick order on one side and the abolishing of it on the other side were I think two of the greatest Engines the Devil used to batter the Church of Christ withall pride and parity insolency and Anarchy being equally pernicious to Church-polity and Christian piety The overboylings of some mens passions which the Scotch Thistles being set on fire under them chiefly occasioned having now almost quenched themselves by bringing infinite fedities and deformities upon the whole face of the Christian Reformed Religion in this Church as well as otherwhere these sad events may save me the labour of further asserting in this place the use and honour of Catholick Episcopacy in the Churches of Christ which is already done as by my owne so many abler pens as it was also done by Mr. Hooker sufficiently proving that the Church of England deserved not upon the account of its retaining the Catholick and Apostolick order of Episcopacy to have suffered these many calamities which have ensued since the Schismes and Apostasy of many from this Church and from that Primitive Government other than which was not so much as known or thought of in the Catholick Church of Christ for 1500 years nor then when the Church of England began its wise and happy Reformation which did not indeed abolish but reform and continue as became its wisdom that Ancient and Apostolick government of the Church which was primitively planted in these British Churches as in all others throughout the world long before the Bishop of Rome had any influence or authority among them being highly blessed of God and honoured of all good men nor hath yet any cause appeared why it should be blasted or accursed or scared by Smectymnuan terrors CHAP. XI AS for the Doctrinals of Christian Religion this Church of England ever had so high an approbation from the best Reformed Churches and so harmonious a consent with the most Orthodox and Primitive Churches that it must be extreme ignorance or impudence on this part to esteem the present miseries of this Church as merited by Her wherein it was indeed most exact and compleat as wholly consonant to the Word of God so nothing dissonant from the sense and practise of the ancient and purest Churches Yea I find that the bitterest enemies of the Church of England do in This least shew their teeth or clawes except onely in the point of Infant-Baptism not for want of ill will for nothing more pincheth them then the Doctrine of the Church of England which was according to godliness teaching all men that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts they should live righteously soberly and godlily in this present world but for want as of just cause so of skill and abilitie most of them being such as have no great stock of knowledge learning or judgement nor very capable on this side to assault the Church of England whose strength and shield is the invincible Word of God rightly understood Therefore the cunning Adversaries and Vastators of the Church of England drive a lesser trade of small cavellings and bitings rather as the serpent at the heel than head not much engaging themselves in any grand controversies of Divinity which are generally above the reach of their capacities whose feeble assaults the Church of England hath no cause to fear against the Doctrine set forth in Her 39. Articles Her Catechisme Her Liturgy and Her Homilies since She hath so many years mightily maintained this post of her Doctrine against the Learning Power and Policy of the Roman party who are veterane Souldiers and mighty Troopers weightily armed in comparison of whose puissance these light-armed Schismaticks and small Skirmishers are like Pot-guns to Canons or Pigmies to Giants seeking to deface the Pinnacles and Ornamentalls of Religion but not capable to shake the foundations of it as it was happily established and duly professed in the Church of England CHAP. XII NOr have they had either more cause for or better successe in their disputings against the Devotionals of the Church of England in its publick worshipping of God by Confessions Prayers Praises Psalmodies and other holy Oblations of rationall and Evangelicall Services offered up to God by the joynt devotion of this Church the subject and holy matter of which ever was is too hard for their biting therefore most of them contented themselves to bark at the manner of performing them chiefly quarrelling at that prescript form or Liturgie used in this Church under the title
extemporary prayer which to the hearers hath the same aspect of a crutch or staff no less than that set form which by many is composed and proposed to the congregation As for the humours of common people they are an ill compass to steer by in concernments of Church or State It is no wonder to see wontedness breed weariness and weariness wantonness wantonness loathing of the most holy duties and heavenly dainties as of Manna to the Jews unless the hearts of men be alwaies humbly devout and sincerely fervent and such can I am sure daily follow wonted wholsome forms with new fervours and give a fresh Amen to known oft-repeated petitions as well as a fiduciary assent to such precepts and promises as they have heard or read from Gods Word a thousand times Without which sacred flames of constant zeal and successive devotion upon mens hearts as the holy fire which was never to go out upon Gods altar not onely the extemporary varieties of mens own inventions will prove perfunctory and superficiall but even Scripture it self and the Oracles of God will grow to be meer Crambe yea the repeated Celebration of the most divine and adorable mysteries of the blessed Sacraments which Christ instituted as constant solemn Services in his Church will prove nauseous burdens and hypocriticall loades to the dull and indevout spirits of men whom if they be such in their hearts and tempers no variety or novelty will quicken ther niauseous and lazy hypocrisy if they be not such no constancy or wontedness will dull their sincere fervency and holy fragrancy of their affections The late ramblings barrenness and confusion of some mens sad and extemporary rhapsodies their rude and rusticall devotions are especially in solemn and Sacramentall Celebrations observed by many wise Christians to be such since the Cadet or younger Brother of the Directory if it deserves the honour of that name which to many seems but as a by-blow the illegitimate issue of partiall spirits Apostatizing from their former conformity to the Church of England in that point of its Liturgy since I say it crowded or as Jacob supplanted its elder brother out of the house of God though it self be now little used and less regarded even by its first patrons and sticklers that it makes them and me highly admire and more magnifie the wisdome of the Church of England in first composing after perfecting and prescribing that excellent Liturgie to common people which contained the very quintessence of all that we find used by the ancient piety and charity of Churches agreeable to Gods Word which is the onely pattern pillar and support for Christians prayers both publick and private Nor did the Church of England ever intend as I conceive by Her Liturgie so to stint and confine any discreet and able Minister or private Christian but they might further pour out their souls to God in prayers and praises publickly and privately so as occasion required and good order permitted onely it judged as I doe with pious Antiquity and all the most learned Reformers particularly Mr. Calvin that it is a great and reall concernment in every true and Orthodox Church that care be taken to settle and preserve wholsome forms and solemn Devotionalls for the publick celebrating of Prayers Praises holy Duties Christian Mysteries Sacraments and Ordinations next to the care of propounding and establishing sound Doctrine or true Confessions and Articles of Faith Which care of all Christians good in that behalf first induced the Ancient and Primitive Churches as S. Austin and others tell us next to their laying of Scripture-grounds in their Creeds and Confessions to enlarge and fix their Liturgies and Devotions finding that fanatick Errour and Levity would seem an Euchite as well as an Eristick Prâ—yant as well as Predicant a Devotionist as well as a Disputant insinuating it self with no less cunning under a Votary's Cowle than in a Doctors Chair in Prayers Sacraments and Euchologies as well as in Preachings Disputations and Writings This I am sure The Liturgie of the Church of England was so usefull so well advised so savoury so complete so suitable so solemn and so significant a form of publick Worshipping God so highly approved by wise and worthy men at home and abroad as composed by the speciall assistance of the holy Spirit of God in the judgement of the first Heroes and Martyrs of this Reformed Church so reverently used by many even lesse conformable in some things ceremoniall to the Church of England that beyond all question it deserved a longer question a more calm debate a more serene serious and impartiall triall before it should have been so utterly abdicated or expulsed out of the Church as Hagar was out of Abrahams family I humbly conceive that neither Recusants should have had so great a gratification to their refractoriness nor this so famous flourishing and wel Reformed Church should have had so great a slurr aspersion cast upon its Princes its Parlaments its Bishops its Presbyters all its faithfull people as if they had hitherto served God so far superstitiously irreligiously and unworthily that the very Book it self containing the method form matter and words of their publick service of God must be first vilified and scorned by the vulgar insolency next utterly abrogated and quite ejected out of this Church by such as passionately undertook to abett and patronize the present humours and distempered fits of popular surfeitings and inconstancy lately risen up not onely against their own former approbation and practise but against the piety wisdome and gravity of this Nation and all other setled Churches in the world Yea further the partiality and immoderation of some men seems in this most excessive that to shew their implacable despite against the Liturgie of the Church of England they cannot endure nor would if they had power permit any Christians to use it though they find it as our Marian Martyrs did very beneficiall to their souls comfort and therefore earnestly desire highly value and duly use it So imperious Dictators would some men be over other mens liberties and consciences even in Religion who are rigid asserters of their own impatient to be imposed upon by others and yet most insolently ambitious to impose upon other men how far they may or may not serve God in a religious way and manner fancying that nothing can please God which doth not please them What some men have preached and printed against the English Liturgie and all set forms of Prayers never so good and fit as if they were stintings and dampings of Gods Spirit c. I must confess I understand rather the jeer and contemptuousness of their words than the wit reason or Religion of them for certainly the same may be said against all Scriptures Psalms Sermons preached or printed against Ministers own Prayers and any other proposed helps for the advancing of knowledge or devotion in mens hearts And however some
men who would not have born ten times more such Ceremonies with patience rather than have occasioned so great troubles and confusions to this Reformed Church which they highly honoured and stoutly asserted against those who under pretence of straining at gnats intended it seems to swallow down Camels and under colour of battering a few Ceremonies aimed at last to overthrow the whole frame of so famous and flourishing a Church which hath now suffered more from some mens malice or immoderation than ever it can hope to recover by the wisdome or godlinesse of any of that Anticeremoniall party But grant it that some of their patrons and predecessors who opposed Ceremonies were good and godly men yet still they were but men subject to like passions as others were Their hearts to God-ward I hope were sincere as to the inside of their Religion but they might as is usual even in good men be much warped as to the rinde or outside of their Religion both in their judgement and practise of things by their native tempers and complexions as they were either melancholick dark and scrupulous or cholerick hot and bold or more phlegmatick dull and easie or more sanguine popular and pompous for through the tincture of these glasses most men behold even religious forms either as more or less agreeable to their Genius and temper nor are they seldome lesse biassed and swayed by the prepossessions and prejudices of their education by custome conversation reputation expectation admiration of mens persons addition to particular parties private relations and interests all which though matters of no rationall or morall weight yet have a strong secret tide and influence upon mens minds and professions especially in cases disputable in matters of Religion that are of a sceptical dubious indifferent nature wherein most men are prone to be so superstitious as to imagine that to be most pleasing or displeasing to God which is so to themselves Many things are by some practised because they ever did so and by many omitted because they never did use them men flie from positive superstition with a strong rebound to negative superstition Nor is it lesse superstition I conceive for men to think it a point of Religion to forbear or remove such things than it is in others to think it necessary to retain and observe them upon a religious necessity which last was not the judgement of the Church of England as to any Ecclesiasticall ceremonies which were not held to be of necessity but onely of decency The opposers of them indeed pressed an absolute necessity of duty and conscience to remove them Who then were in this point superstitious persons is no hard matter to judge If the reputation of mens parts and pietie of their devotions and austerities of life signified much in the outward Rites and Ceremonies of Religion to make them good or bad lawful or unlawful certainly by those marks the Romish party will be able to produce many instances of exemplary sanctity severity and austerity in outward abstinences or observances by which to maintain the concurrent errours and grosser superstitions of their Religion Persons of applauded piety are many times like smooth and ponderous wedges the Devils fittest engines to cleave the Church in sunder the weight of their example presents all things to the minds of weak and sequacious Christians as great importances of Religion So Origen and Tertullian became the great scandalls and temptations of the Christian world by the greatnesse of their parts piety and reputation as Vincentius Lirinensis observes nor had Novatus Donatus Pelagius and others of old done so much mischief in the Church if they had been men either obscure for their parts or infamous for their moralls It is not onely to be considered how able men are in any setled Church but how peaceable how humble how far removed from private passions secular designs worldly discontents popular and pragmatick humours all which doe oft leaven men otherwise of commendable parts and piety especially in their younger dayes when they are most prone to have good conceits and confidences of themselves Once on wing in their own fancy and mounted by the breath of vulgar esteem they are loth to light and afraid to fall when their fame and credit are thus at stake besides the glimmering of some oblique interests of profit or preferment which lye within their eye and reach Elder years do morosely resolve to maintain what once they have adopted under the name of stricter piety and purer Religion Few men know how to revert or recant when once engaged in a party or difference which carries any mark or ensign of a speciall way of Religion Reputation is the bearded hook which holds most men faster than conscience to their sides even after they perceive how delusory the artificial bait was which first invited them to entangle themselves I have known some Ministers of worth and ability who in all things materiall agreed to the doctrine and worship of the Church of Engl. yet in point of non-conformity to some Ceremony rather chose being once engaged before they had so well examined all things to live a scrambling vagrant and almost mendicant life from one good house to another by which means some of them sucked no small benefit rather than they would take any setled living in the Church of England in which obstinacy they persisted to their dying day although they grew very calme and coole as to their first heats and perceiving in time the weaknesse of their own and others motives they durst not in their maturer years perswade any others no not their own sons which were Ministers in the Church of England to be non-conformists onely they were ashamed to be retrograde in their reputation though they were got well forward in their better judgements Yea even as to the polle and number of names which I think to be but the number of the Beast if we onely tell noses and not consider reasons who knows not but the conformable part both of Ministers and people in England were for many years twenty to one beyond the Non-conformists nor did they more exceed them in number than they equalled them every way in learning piety gravity in all good words and works yea in many things of publick and more generous charity they far exceeded them the one were for the most part getting and scraping for their private advantages the other were much more hospitable munificent and charitable The first and second generation of Non-conformists were more excusable and more modest in their dissentings for coming newly out of not onely the dungeon of Papall superstition and darkness to a marvellous light of Reformation they were jealous of any cloud or shadow which they suspected as threatning to eclipse that light but coming also out of the fiery furnace of Romish persecution they were jealous of every thing that had once past the Popes fingers lest it might be too hot for them
think their own refractoriness to be Religion and other mens honest devotion to be but superstition of which I confess I never thought either this Church or any other to be in the least degree guilty while they did observe such holy memorials with publick celebrity as were appointed to the honour of God and to the imitation of those graces which were remarkable in the eminentest servants of God renowned in the Gospel such as are the blessed Virgin and Mother of our Lord as also his prime Apostles by whose means the light of the Gospel shone through all the world Nor do we find our Saviour himself withdrawing in such cases his conformity to the Churches practise in those Encaenia or Feasts of dedication which were thankfull and joyfull memorials of the restauration of that material Temple which was to be demolished whereas these holiday-celebrations used in this Church have respect to such things as are never to be forgotten abolished or changed while the world continues and Christ hath any Church upon earth which I believe he will have to the end of the world according to his promised assistance to all his faithfull Ministers who continue in the fellowship and succession both for doctrine and authority of the blessed Apostles But I have done with these long and unhappy debates about the sacred Festivalls and other Ceremonies authorized by the Church of England on which some flesh-flies mistaking them for galls and sores when they were but decent variations of beautifull colours in its garment have so importunely fastened especially in the hotter season of these late dog-dayes that they have very much flye-blown the reformed Religion and endangered not onely the putrefaction but the utter corruption of the whole state of this Church of England whose quarrel and right in these things I should not have thus far revived or vindicated if I had not thought it necessary by this salt of sound speech to represse those further putrifying principles which upon this account are daily suggested to simple and well-meaning people against the whole frame and constitution of the Church of England Whose publick commands and setled constitutions as I alwayes approved and obeyed but most readily since I best understood them in their late fiery triall because I have found them in great and weighty matters serious solid scripturall in lesser things moderate discreet and charitable so I never had either heart or hand tongue or pen to assert any thing that was by private or particular mens fancies brought in either to a peevish non-conformity or to a pragmatick super-conformity Though I willingly allow many of my calling to be much wiser and better than my self yet I cannot look upon them as wiser than the whole Church of England which saw with many more eyes both forward and backward than any one Bishop or Presbyter can do whose reall Innovations in later times beyond what either the letter or usage of this Church which best interprets Its meaning did enjoyn and authorize I am no way concerned to maintain nor was I ever discontent to have them both gainsaid and removed as insolencies mis-becoming any Church-man never so wise or great to impose upon the Majesty of so famous a Church as England was which never needed any other additions innovations or decorations either in Doctrine or Discipline or Worship than those which It self had soberly chosen as a wise Mother and grave Matron which justly disdains to be made gayer or finer by such ribbands feathers and toyes as any of her Children shall list to pin upon her It had better become in my judgement the learning gravity and discretion of those men who most admired and obtruded their own supernumerary and unwonted ceremonies to have confined themselves to the Churches known Injunctions and Customes for it were endless if every man never so good should be gratified in his Church-projects and religious inventions which became the great pest and oppression of the Western Churches when the Bishops of Rome by their own incroachments and other Bishops connivence undertook to innovate or regulate all things in all Churches which should have been ordered either by generall Councils or by the Synods of particular Churches as was most convenient for them Nor in England could ever prudent men with reason have doâ—ed on any of their novelties when they plainly saw that even those few sparks of ancient Ceremonies with which the Church of England contented her self and which neither made nor marr'd Religion being rather spangles than spots on the Churches garments even these I say have a long time been made beyond their merit not onely occasions for some to rail others to scorn a third sort to blaspheme the purity and honour of the Church of England but also to schismatize in Her and separate wholy from Her Yea from the later obtrusions of some mens either renovations of things antiquated or innovations of Ceremonies never enjoyned by the Church those dreadful conflagrations have grown which have almost quite consumed Her the quenching of which deserves as it needs not onely these drops of my pen but of all your tears and prayers most worthy Gentlemen who find your selves as I am very much concerned for the honour and happiness of this Church which was in all points prudently reformed and excellently constituted CHAP. XIV A Second grand Objection very popular and plausible which the enemies of the Church of England have made great use of to decry and destroy if possible the whole frame constitution of It is taken from the private infirmities personall failings male-administrations which some men have either suspected or really observed in some of the Clergie either Arch-bishops Bishops or Presbyters of the Church of England against whom it is objected that either they were not so warm and voluble Preachers as those men do most fancy or possibly less learned and industrious then was fit for Ministers or not so prudent it may be and compassionate toward weaker Christians as became those that were stronger in the faith or lastly not so morally strict unblamable in their lives as indeed all Ministers of the Gospel ought to be at all times Hence the Adversaries of the Church of England do conclude that both head and heart were sick that there was no sound part that all was full of bruises and putrified sores that in the Church of England nothing could be found worthy of a true Church a true Minister or a true Christian My answer is That all the modest Clergie in England desire to be so humble so ingenuous so impartial as not to forget their own infirmities while they coÌ„plain of others injuries For my self being conscious how little removed I am from fallings as a mâ—n and Minister I shall willingly confess and strive to amend what any mans charity shall with truth convince me of and for others my Fathers and Brethren I presume I have because I humbly crave their leaves to
wife mans censure yet even for these chiefly it is that some subtil and silly people do most bitterly inveigh against them and in them against this whole Church and Nation which must either be guilty with the Clergie or the Clergie must be free and unblameable with the Parlaments and whole people of the land who chose and by law imposed such orders upon themselves and their Ministers Secondly for the Clergies private failings and personal infirmities either immorall or indiscreet to which as frail men they may be subject in these they desire to be the first accusers and severest censurers of themselves which ingenuity is sufficient to silence the malice of the worst to satisfie the justice of the best and to merit the pity as well as pardon of all charitable Christians who are not strangers to their own excess or defects Thirdly Beyond these which are but personal and occasional so venial failings the Clergie of England do defie and challenge their severest adversaries to charge and convince any considerable number of them either in private parties and conventions or in more publick Synods and Convocations of having at any time conspired to broach or abet any Heresy or false Doctrine any gross Errour Schisme or Apostasy any Immorality or Exorbitancy contrary to Truth Faith and good manners That liberty which some of the Clergie conceived might honestly be indulged to such people as were tired and exhausted with hard labour in the six dayes for their civil and sober recreation on the Lords day or Christian Sabbath thereby to counterpoise those Jewish severities which they saw some men began to urge and obtrude upon Christians both as to the change and rest of that day which quarrell is not yet dead in England this I am prone in charity to believe neither arose from any root of immorality in the advisers nor intended any fruits of impiety in the publishers who were not ignorant how far in such a Toleration they did conform to the judgement and practise too of some forreign reformed Churches and to the chief instruments of their Reformation who neither did nor do even in Geneva abhor avoid or forbid modest honest and seasonable recreations to servants and labouring people on the Lords day Although for my part I confess I approve rather according to the Doctrine of the Church of England in the Homily of the time and place of prayer that holy strict observance generally used by the most cautious Christians in England which yet doth allow such ingenuous relaxations of mind and motions on that day as are neither impious nor scanlous being at once far removed from Judaick rigours and from Heathenish riots which medium was the sense and practise too of the best and most of the Clergie in England as to that one point of the Christian Sabbath or Lords day which Justin Martyr calls Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so sharply objected against some of them So then as to any reall enormities of opinions or scandalous practises in Religion the Clergie of England taken in their polity and integrality neither are nor ever were guilty since the Reformation either in Doctrine Worship Discipline or Manners which justification is as clear as the noon-day's light if not our selves nor our home-bred enemies but the Reformed Churches abroad or the ancient and Primitive Churches might be our Judges None but Papists and Separatists or Anabaptists and Schismaticks have ever condemned or suspected the Church or Clergie of England of any corruption in Doctrine of any flaw in the Foundation of any fraud in holy Institutions of any allowed licentiousnesse in our Conversations of any undecency in our Devotions of any superstition in our religious Administrations in all which according to the directions of Gods Word by the assistance of Gods holy Spirit through faith in the merits and mediation of the Son of God our onely Saviour Jesus Christ we worshipped the onely true God who is blessed for ever As to the point of Church-Discipline wherein some men were so clamorous and importune as if there had been no health in this Church because it did not take their physick which it needed not as the laws had not enjoyned all those ancient severities and strictnesses of penances because neither the temper of the times nor mens spirits would bear them so the wise Bishops and discreet Ministers under them did so manage this point of Church-discipline for many years by their care and vigilancy their good doctrine and exemplary lives their fatherly monitions and charitable corrections as far as the laws gave them leave that they happily attained to the reall use and best end of all Church-discipline which is the Churches peace and preservation in purity and honour in sincerity and conspicuity of true Religion whose interests might possibly have been carried higher as to the point of Discipline if the Clergie of England had been furnished with such a latitude of power as Primitive Bishops and Presbyters both enjoyed and exercised which the softness and delicacy of this Age would hardly endure especially when once the passions novelties ambitions of men were carried on under the pretexts of Reformation and new Discipline in which some men resolved never to be satisfied till all things fell under the tuition and gubernation of their own factions unless all Church-power be in some mens hands no Church-government is worth a button Not but that the remissness of some Church-governours and the rigours of others according to their private tempers judgements and passions might sometime by their excesses or defects possibly displease more calm and moderate men as warping too much on either hand from that medium and rectitude of charity discretion legality and constancy which the Canons of the Church intended Its constitution health and peace required especially in the peevishness and touchiness of those times when many Philistins and Dalilahs lay in wait to betray and destroy the Church of England Yet amidst these seeming exorbitances of some Church-men it may with truth be affirmed and is by all experience confirmed that the state of Christian and Reformed Religion for doctrine manners and government for piety charity and proficiency was far better both in England and in Wales than it now is or is ever like to be under those sad effects to which some mens fury faction and confusion seek to reduce this Church So then the male-administrations truly charged upon some Church-governours heretofore had not so bad an influence upon this Church and the Reformed Religion as the later want of able and fit Governours after the ancient way of Church-government hath now produced every where For the defects and inordinacies of some private Ministers which can be no wonder where there were above ten thousand of them I neither approve nor patronize them in the least kind onely I plead in behalf of the whole order and function as it stood in this Churches constitution that a few Ministers faults ought not in
for which no Apology but made and affected necessity is alledged which none but God Almighty can convince confute and revenge hence those convulsions faintings swoonings and dyings which are befaln the Church of England and its holy profession the Reformed Religion which heretofore was a pure and unspotted Virgin free from the great offence constant to her principles and duties both to God and man alwayes victorious by her patience This seems now besmeared all over with blood this is sick deformed and ashamed of her self so many sanguinary and sacrilegious spirits pretend to court and engross her such foul spots are found upon Her which are not the spots of Gods children which no nitre no sope no fullers earth no palliations or pretensions of humane wit policy or necessity can wash away or make clean til He plead Her cause take away Her reproch whose love induced him to shed his own precious blood for his Church a noble eminent uniform and beautifull part of which I must ever own the Church of England to have been Of whose former holy and healthfull constitution I am daily the more assured by those modern eruptions and corruptions defections and infections errours and extravagancies blasphemies and impudicities which have so fiercely assaulted and grievously wasted the Truths the Morals the Sanctities the Solemnities the Mysteries and Ministrations the Government and Authority the whole Order and Constitution of the Church of England clearly evincing to me that this Church was heretofore not onely tolerably but most commendably reformed and happily established upon the pillars of piety and prudence verity and unity purity and charity Nor do I doubt but the blessed Apostle S. Paul with all those Primitive planters and Reformers of Churches would have given the right hand of fellowship to the Christian Bishops Presbyters and people of this Church of England cheerfully communicating with us in all holy things blessing God and greatly rejoycing to have beheld that power and peace that stedfastness and proficiency that beauty order and unity which was so admirably setled and happily preserved many years in this Church by the joynt consent and suffrage of the Nation Princes Parlaments and People cheerfully giving up their names to Christ and willingly yielding themselves to the Lord and to his Ministers Nor do I believe those Primitive and large-hearted Christians who brought the price of their estates and laid it down at the Apostles feet testifying their esteem of all things but as loss and dung in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ that these would have ever repined or envied at the riches plenty civil honours peace and prosperity wherewith the Governours and Ministers of Christs Church were here endowed No those first-fruits of the Gospel had too good hearts to have evil eyes because the eyes of Princes Peers and people had been good to the Clergie investing them with that double honour which the Spirit of God thinks them worthy of while they rule well and labour in the Word and Doctrine so as the godly Bishops and Presbyters of the Church of England did abundantly since the Reformation nor was their labour of love in vain in the Lord. What was really amisse or remisse in any Ministers as to their minds or manners as some Errata's we find even in those Pastors and Churches which were of the Apostolicall print the very first best Edition certainly there wanted not sufficient authority and wisdom skill or will in the Governours of Church and State to have reformed all things in such a way of Christian moderation as should have gratified no mens envies revenges ambitions covetousness and the like inordinate passions but have kept all within those bounds of piety justice charity and discretion which would have satisfied all wise and honest mens desires and consciences Such an Apostolical spirit and method of Reformation as would have cleared the rust and not consumed the metall sodered up the flaws but not battered down the whole frame of so goodly a Church this spirit might have mended all things really amiss in England at a far easier and cheaper rate than either calling for fire from heaven or calling in the Scots to quench our intestine flames with oyl To purge the English floor from all chaff there was no need to raise up such fierce winds as the Devil did when he overthrew the whole house and oppressed all Jobs children with the rubbish and ruine both of superstructures and foundations No work requires more wary wise and tender hearts and hands too than Church-work or that which men call Reformation of Religion which easily degenerates to high deformities if bunglers that are rash rude deformed and unskilfull undertake it Nothing is more obvious than for Empiricks to bring down high and plethorick constitutions to convulsions and consumptions by too much letting blood and other excessive evacuations those are sad purgations of Churches which with threatning some malignant humours do carry away the very life spirit and soul of Religion the whole order beauty unity and being of a Church especially so large so famous so reformed so flourishing an one as the Ch. of Engl. was which some mens ignorance malice and excess hath a long time aimed at impatient not to forsake yea and quite destroy both It and all its true Ministers to whose learning and labours they owe whatever spiritual gifts Christian graces priviledges or comforts they can with truth pretend to All which I believe they have not much bettered or increased since their rude Separations and violent Apostasies by which they have shewed themselves so excessively and unthankfully exasperated against the Fathers that begat them and the Mother that bare them more like a generation of vipers full of poysonous passions which swell the soul to proud and factious distempers than like truly humble meek and regenerate Christians who cannot be either so unholy or so unthankfull as to requite with shame despite and wounds the womb that bare them and the breasts that gave them suck not feeding them with fabulous Legends superstitious inventions or meer humane Traditions but with the sincere milk of Gods word as it was contained in the holy Scriptures which were the onely constant fountain from whence the Church of England drew and derived both its Doctrinals and its Devotionals its Ministry and Ministrations Of which truth having such a cloud of witnesses so many pregnant and undeniable demonstrations before God and the world before good Angels and Devils before mens own consciences in this Church and before all other reformed Churches round about I suppose these are sufficient Testimonies in the judgement of You O my worthy Countrey-men and of all other sober Christians to vindicate the Church of England that it never deserved either of Princes Parlaments or People so great exhaustings and abasings as some men have sought to inflict upon Her Over which no tongue is
so eloquent no pen so pathetick as to be able sufficiently to express eye no so melting as to weep enough no heart so soft and diffusive of its sorrows as worthily to lament when they consider that wantonness of wickedness that petulant importunity that superfluity of malice that unsatisfied cruelty of some men who have endeavoured to cast whole cart-loads of injust reproches vulgar injuries and shameful indignities upon the whole Church of England seeking to bury with the burial of an Asse either in the dunghill of Papall pride and tyranny or popular contempt and Anarchy all its former renown and glory its very name and being together with the office order authority distinction and succession of its Ancient Apostolick and Evangelical ministery which hath been the savour of life unto life the mighty power of God to the conversion and salvation of many thousand souls in the Church of England Whose sore Calamities and just Complaints having thus far presented to Your consideration and compassion it is now time for me to enquire after the causes and occasions of its troubles miseries confusions and feared vastations in order to find out the best methods and medicines for Her timely cure and happy recovery if God and man have yet any favour or compassion for Her The end of the first Book BOOK II. SEARCHING THE CAUSES AND OCCASIONS OF THE Church of England's decayes CHAP. I. BUt it is now time most honoured and worthy Countrey-men after so large and just so sore and true a complaint in behalf of the Church of England and the Reformed Religion heretofore wisely established unanimously professed in this Nation to look after the rise and originall the Causes and Occasions of our Decayes and Distempers of our Maladies and Miseries which by way of prevention or negation I have in the former Book demonstrated to be no way imputable to the former frame state or constitution of the Church of England but they must receive their source from some other fountain The search and discovery of which is necessary in order to a serious cure for rash and conjecturall applications to sick patients are prone as learned Physitians observe to commute their maladies or to run them out of one disease into another but not to cure any turning Dropsies into Jaundise and Feavers into Consumptions The greatest commendation of Physitians next their skill to discerne is to use such freedome in their discoveries and such fidelity in their applyings as may least flatter or conceal the disease In this disquisition or inquiry after the Causes and Occasions of our Ecclesiastick distempers I will not by an unwelcome scrutiny or uncharitable curiosity search into those more secret springs and hidden impulsives which proceed as our Blessed Saviour tells us out of mens hearts into their lives and actions such as are wrathfull revenges unchristian envies sacrilegious covetings impotent ambitions hypocriticall policies censorious vanities pragmatick impatiencies an itch after novelties mens over-valuing of themselves and undervaluing of others a secret delight in mean and vulgar spirits to see their betters levelled exauctorated impoverished abased contemned a general want of wisdome meekness humility and charity a plebeian petulancy and wanton satiety even as to holy things arising from peace plenty and constancy of enjoying them These spiritual wickednesses which are usually predominant in the high places of mens souls being Arcana Diaboli the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stratagemata Satanae the secret engines depths and stratagems used by the Devil to undermine the hearts of Christians to loosen the foundations of Churches and to overthrow the best setled Religion being least visible and discoverable for they are commonly covered as mines with the smooth surfaces and turfs of zeale sanctity reformation scrupulosity conscience c. these I must leave to that great day which will try mens works and hearts too when men shall be approved and rewarded not according to their Pharisaick boastings popular complyings and specious pretensions but according to their righteous actions and honest intentions Onely this I may without presumption or uncharitableness judge as to the distempers of our times and the ruinous state of the Church of England that many men who have been very busie in new brewing and embroyling all things of Religion would never have so bestirred themselves to divide dissipate and destroy the peace and polity of this Church if they had not been formerly offended and exasperated either by want of their desired preferment which S. Austin observes of Aerius the great and onely stickler of old against Bishops or by some Animadversion which they called persecution although it were no more than an exacting of legal conformity and either sworn or promised subjection as to Canonicall obedience Many men would have been quiet if they had not hoped to gain by rifling their Mother and robbing their Fathers Some at the first motions might perhaps have good meanings and desires as Eve had to grow wiser but they were soon corrupted by eating the forbidden fruit by the unlawfulness of those means and extravagancy of those methods they used to accomplish them But God and mens own consciences will in due time judge between these men and the Church of England whether they did either intend or act wisely or worthily justly or charitably gratefully or ingenuously This I am sure if they have the comfort of sincerity as to their intent they have the horrour of unsuccessfulness to humble them as to the sad events which have followed preposterous piety CHAP. II. THe chiefest apparent cause and most pregnant outward occasion of our Ecclesiastick mischiefs and miseries as I humbly conceive ariseth from that inordinate liberty and immodest freedome which of later years all sorts of people have challenged to themselves in matters of Religion presuming on such a Toleration and Indulgence as incourageth them to chuse and adhere to what doctrine opinion party perswasion fancy or faction they list under the name of their Religion their Church fellowship and communion nor are people to be blanked or scared from any thing which they list to call their Religion unless it have upon it the mark of Popery Prelacy or Blasphemy of which terrible names I think the common people are very incompetent judges nor do they well know what is meant by them as the onely forbidden fruit every party in England being prone to charge each other with something which they call Blasphemy and to suspect mutually either the affecting of Prelacy or the inclining to Popery in wayes that seem arrogant and imperious in themselves also insolent and injurious to others each aspiring so to set up their particular way as to give law to others not onely proposing but prescribing such Doctrine Discipline Worship Government and Ministry as they list to set up according to what they gather or guess out of Scripture whereof every private man and woman too as S. Jerom tells of the
Luciferian hereticks flatter themselves that they are meet and competent judges since they find themselves no way directed by any Catholick interpretation nor limited and circumscribed by any joynt wisdome and publick profession of this Church and Nation which heretofore was established and set forth in such a publick confession of their faith such Articles and Canons rules and boundaries of Religion as served for the orderly and unanimous carrying on and preserving Christian Doctrine Discipline Worship Ministry or Government This wide doore once opened and still kept open by the crowding and impetuosity of a people so full of fancy and fury spirit and animosity so wilfull and surly as the English generally are besides that they are naturally lovers and extremely fond as children of new fashions as in all things so in Religion it self it is not I say imaginable as at the pulling up of a great sluce or opening of a flood-gate what vortices voragines opinionum floods and torrents of opinions what precipitant rushings and impetuous whirlings both in mind and manners have every where carried a heady and head-strong people quite headlong in Religion not onely to veniall novelties softer whimsies and lesser extravagances in Religion which are very uncomely though not very pernicious but also to rank blasphemies to gross immoralities to rude licentiousnesse to insolent scandals to endless janglings to proud usurpations to an utter irreligion to a totall distracting confounding and subverting of the Church of Engl. All this under the notion of enjoying whatever liberty they list to take to themselves under the name and colour of Religion which anciently imported an holy Obligation of Christians to God and to each other carried on by a Catholick confession an unanimous profession an uniform tradition an holy ordination and orderly subjection but now they say it is to be learned and reformed not by the old wayes of pious education and Ecclesiastick instruction not from the Bishops or Ministers of this or any nationall Church but either by the new wayes of every private spirit's interpreting of Scriptures or by those new lights of some speciall inspirations which they say are daily held forth by themselves and others of their severall factions or according to the various policies of Lay-men and those pragmatick sanctions which serve the prevalent interests of parties This this is the project so cried up by some men for propagating the Gospel and advancing the Kingdome of Jesus Christ so rare so new so untried so unheard-of in any Christian Church ancient or later that it is no wonder if neither the Church of England nor its learned Clergy nor its dutifull children can either approve admire or follow such dubious and dangerous methods or labyrinths rather of Religion any more than they can canonize for Saints those vagrants and fanaticks of old who were justly stigmatized for damnable hereticks or desperate schismaticks for their deserting that Catholick faith tradition order and communion of the Churches of Christ which were clearly expressed in their Creeds and Canons founded upon Scripture and conform to Apostolick example The Gnosticks Cerinthians Valentinians Carpocratians Circumcellians Montanists Manichees Novatians Donatists Arians and others were esteemed by the Primitive Churches as Foxes and Wolves creatures of a wild and ferine nature impatient of the kindest restraints not induring to be kept in any folds or bounds of Christs flock which ever had an holy authentick and authoritative succession of ordained Bishops and Presbyters as its Pastors and Teachers also it had its safe and known limits for Religion in faith and manners Doctrine and Discipline for order and government both in lesser Congregations and larger Combinations The true Christian liberty anciently enjoyed by Primitive Christians and Churches was fullest of verity charity unity modesty humility sanctity sobriety harmonious subordination and holy subjection according to the stations in which God had placed every part or member in those bodies they were the farthest that could be from Schism Separation mutiny novelty ambition rebellion while every one kept the true temper order and decorum of a Christian Certainly if either particular Congregations or private Christians liberty had consisted in being exposed or betrayed as Sheep without their Shepherds to all manner of extravagancies incident to vulgar petulancy and humane infirmity those Primitive Churches and ancient Fathers those godly Bishops and blessed Martyrs those pious Emperours and Christian Princes of old might have spared a great deal of care cost pains and time which were spent in their severall Councils and Synods Parlaments Diets and Conventions whose design was not to make new but to renew those Scripture-Canons and Apostolicall constitutions which were necessary to preserve the faith once delivered to the Saints and to assert not onely the common salvation but also that Catholick succession communion and order of Churches transmitted from the Apostles in which endeavour the piety and wisdome the care and charity of ancient Councils expressed in their many Canons made for the keeping of the unity of the Spirits truth in the bond of peace among Christians were so far in my judgement from being meer heaps of hay straw and stubble burying and over-laying the foundations of Christian soundnesse and simplicity which seems to be the late censure of one whom I am as sorry to see in a posture of difference from the Church of England as any person of these times because I esteem his learning and abilities above most that have appeared adversaries to or dissenters from Her that I rather judge with Mr. Calvin a person far more learned judicious and impartiall in this case They were for the most part very sober wise and suitable superstructures little deviating from no way demolishing any of those grand foundations of Faith Holiness or Charity which were laid by Christ and his blessed Apostles which ever continued the same and were so owned by their pious successors however they used that liberty and authority in lesser matters which was given them by the Scriptures and derived to them by their Apostlick mission or succession for the prudent accommodating of such things as concerned the outward polity uniformity order and peace of the Church or for those decent celebrations and solemnities of Religioâ— which were most agreeable to the severall geniu'ses and civil rites of people and the mutable temper of times all which who so neglects to consider will never rightly judge of the severall counsels customes and constitutions of either ancient or later Churches The best of whose piety and prudence the Reformed Church of England chose to follow as exactly as it could first in Her decerning declaring determining translating and communicating to her children those Canonicall Books of holy Scripture also in the owning professing and propounding to them those Ancient Catholick and received Creeds which are as the summaries and boundaries of Christian Faith containing those articles which are necessary to be believed by all after this it used those
either to learn of me or to instruct me better and therefore such an one deserves to be treated not as an enemy but as a brother not tetrically morosely injuriously but candidly charitably christianly Yet because experience teacheth us that the ignorance infirmity and incapacity of most people is such that they cannot easily find out of themselves the Truths of God which are the grounds of true Religion yea some are so lazy and indifferent as to neglect all means which might help them yea and many are either so peevish or proud as they are impatient not to be singular or not to lead Disciples after them in Religion the highest ambition being that of Hereticks which seeks to domineere over mens souls and consciences for these and other weighty reasons both in civil and religious regards Christian Religion ought not in any Christian Church-polity or Nation to be left so loose and dissolute as to have no hedge or wall to the vineyard no limits or restraints set to the petulancy of those who under the name of liberty study to be malicious licentious abhorring any thing solid strict or setled in Religion either as to themselves or others counting all those as enemies to their factious designs and interests who enjoyn them to live in any godly order Hence these Oecumenicall censors and universall criticks as boldly and easily reproch revile contemn injure as they please all those Christians and Churches too who humbly conform to that profession of Religion though never so Christian and Reformed which is once established in any Nation or Church by publick consent and sanction upon the most mature deliberation and impartiall advise in order to Gods glory and the common good of that society If these dissolute fancies of Christian liberty should be followed or indulged to people by such Magistrates and Ministers as own that Religion certainly no society of men would be more unsociable more sordid more shamefull or more miserable Common people will be starved or poysoned if they be left to feed themselves they will be as so many ragged regiments if they be left as the Israelites to pick up Religion like straw where they can find it Therefore all piety policy and charity commands that in every Nation professing the faith of Jesus Christ as the only true Religion there should be as there was in Engl. some such wise and grand establishment as should be the publick measure or standard of Religion both as to Doctrine Worship Government This in all uprightness ought to be set before people not onely propounded and commended to them but so far commanded and enjoyned by authority as none should neglect it or vary from it without giving account much less should any man publickly scorn and contemn it or the Ministers and dispensers of it by writing speech or action to the scandall of the whole Church and Nation yea to the scandall of the very name of Jesus Christ and his holy Institution which ought to be as Tertullian rarely expresseth it received with godly fear and reverence entertained with solicitous diligence maintained with honourable munificence contained within the bounds of charitable union and humble subjection such as no way permits any private fancy upon any pretensions whatsoever rudely and publickly to oppose or despise it But because it is possible that some truths of Religion may be unseen and so omitted by the most publick diligence and some may afterward be discovered by private industry and devotion which ought not to be prejudged smothered or concealed if they have the character of Gods will revealed in his written Word whose true meaning is the fixed measure and unalterable rule of all true Religion to prevent the suppressing or detaining of any Truth which may be really offered to any Church or Christians beyond what is publickly owned and established also to avoyd the petulant and insolent obtruding whatever novelty any mans fancy listeth to set up upon his own private account variating frō or contrary to the publick establishment nothing were more necessary and happy than to have in every Nationall Church which hath agreed with one heart one mind one spirit and one mouth to serve the Lord Jesus according to the pattern of primitive piety and wisdome persons of eminent learning piety prudence and integrity publickly chosen and appointed to be the constant Conservators of Religion whose office it should be to try and examine all new opinions publickly propounded no man should print or preach any thing different from the publick standard and establishment of Religion untill he had first humbly propounded to that venerable council in writing his opinion together with his reasons why he adds to or differs from the publick profession If these grand Conservators of Religion who ought to be the choisest persons in the Church and Nation both for ability gravity and honesty do at their solemn and set meetings once or twice every year allow the propounders reasons and opinions he may then publicate his judgement by preaching disputing writing or printing But if they do not he shall then keep his opinion to himself in the bounds of private conference onely for his better satisfaction but in no way publicate it to the scandall or perturbation of what is setled in Religion Here every man may enjoy his ingenuous liberty as to private dissenting without any blame or penalty which he shall incurre and undergo in case he do so broach any thing without leave as a rude Innovator and proud disturber Private and modest dissentings among Christians safely may and charitably ought to be born with all Christian meeknesse and wisdome but certainly it would be the very pest and gangrene of all true Religion also the moth and canker of all civil as well as Ecclesiastick peace to tolerate every mans ignorance rudeness and pragmaticalness to innovate and act what they please in Religion Though Christians may be otherwaies sound and hearty yet they may have an itch of novelty popularity vain-glory It would make mad work in Religion if every man under the notion of Christian liberty should be permitted not onely to scratch himself as he listeth but to infect others by every pestilent contagion yea to make what riotous havock he pleaseth of the publick peace and order It were a miserable childishnesse in any nation professing Christianity to be ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of saving and necessary truths to be still tossed to and fro with winds of doctrine and never cast anchor upon sure and safe grounds which are easily found if men aimed at piety as well as policy and regarded Christs interest or his Churches more than their own private and secular advantages which was once happily done by Gods blessing in the Church of England to so great an exactness and completeness of Religion that nothing for necessity decency or majesty was to be added or desired by sober Christians nor could much be added for
conveniency When Religion is thus setled by publick counsel consent and sanction it ought in all reason and conscience to be preserved in wayes of honour peace and safety more carefully than those banks are which by keeping out the seas inundations preserve our pastures and cattel from drowning else every Polity and Nation pretending to be Christian proclaim to all the world that they think Religion to be no better than matters of Scepticall dispute and variable opinion having nothing in it clear or certain as to any divine truth or infallible Revelation Of which since their ignorance and weakness or passion and partiality to which every private man is subject makes them less capable either to search or judge to dispute or determine the wisdome of God hath alwayes either established or exemplarily directed his Church to use and enjoy some such constant Conservators of Religion besides the occasionall Reformers and restorers of it which were of old the Prophets extraordinarily sent besides those that were ordinarily brought up in the schooles of the Prophets which were the nurseries of those learned and wise men who made up the Sanhedrim or grand Council among the Jews consisting of seventy men who were for piety parts and place chief Fathers Doctors and Rabbies in the Church of the Jews and the great Conservators of their Law and Religion Answerably we read in the Primitive Churches and times this care and power was by the wisdome of Christ fixed and by all good Christians owned in the Apostles and Elders to whom in case of any dispute or difference in Religion address was made not onely to hear their counsel and judgement but to submit to their decisions and decrees which bound every man to preach no other doctrine different from much less contrary to what that venerable consistory both taught and summarily delivered to the Churches of Christ viz. wholsome formes and short summaries of sound doctrine as well as in their more diffused writings occasionally sent to particular Churches and divinely delivered to the use care and custody of the Catholick Church Agreeable to these holy precedents every Christian Church in after-ages had within their several distributions or dioceses distinguished by their Cities or Provinces their Synods or Ecclesiasticall Councils for all those emergencies or concernments of Religion which arose within their limits and combinations proportionably they had more extensive Conventions and generall Councils in cases of grand concernment for the comprimising of all differences in Religion and conservation of the Churches both purity and peace These methods of prudent piety and pious prudence as they were of divine Institution so they ought to be perpetuall in the Church of Christ as being the onely means left for the conservation and reformation of Religion 'T is true in the dimness of after-ages when the decay of Primitive zeal love sanctity and sincerity had too much prevailed over these Western Churches the Bishops of Rome taking the advantage of the higher ground whereon the fame of that City was raised not onely for being the Metropolis of the Roman Empire but for being a prime Church of Apostolicall plantation and high renown for the Faith and martyrly constancy of its first Bishops these with no great difficulty as with great art and policy contrary to the judgement and practise of Antiquity for the first 600. years sought to fix the Standard of Religion in the Popes chair and to make his breast the great Conservator of Religion certainly a very easie compendious and happy way to keep up the peace and honour of Christian Religion and Churches if the Bishop of Rome could in the noon-day-light of these times either convince the world of his speciall gift of Infallibility or make good his claim of being sole and supreme Judge of all controversies in Religion above any other Pastors and Bishops yea and above a generall Council This late prodigious pillar or huge Colosse of the Popes infallible sole and supreme power hath as of old so of late years not onely been much weakned by many Churches Greek and Latine dissenting but by some it hath been quite overthrown demolished and broken in pieces as an arrogant abuse and intolerable tyranny contrary to all rules of Scripture and reason never challenged by the first famous and holy Bishops of that Church nor owned in after-ages when Popes began to usurp upon other Bishops and Churches by the most learned and godly men of those times This justice being done to the honour and liberty of the Churches of Christ and their respective Bishops or Pastors against the Papall obtrusion of his sole judicature yet no Reformed Church of any repute hath been so transported by just indignation against the Papall usurpations as to expose themselves and their Religion to the various breach and giddy brains of the vulgar but every one hath both confined and setled their profession by some publick profession as the standard of Religion also they have some such Conservators of Religion either ordinary or extraordinary as do take care that the established Religion suffer no injury or detriment This authority or power seems now much wanting in England though it be very necessary in my judgement which should so preserve the publick stability of true Religion as not to invade any good mans private liberty which ought not to be too severely curbed yet not so indulged as to injure the common welfare contrary to all rules of reason justice and charity These Conservators of Religion should not exact of private Christians any explicite conformity or subscription under penalty of any mulct or prison much less with the terrour of fire and faggot which was the zealotry of Papal tyranny onely they should take care that people be duly taught that Religion which is setled that none be a publick Preacher that is a declared dissenter or opposer of it that no man do broach any novelty without their approbation that no man do petulantly blaspheme oppose scorn or perturb that constitution of Religion which is publickly setled as supposed to be the best that no man abuse the name of Christian liberty to the publick injury All sober and wise Christians do see and feel by late sad experience that liberty in the vulgar sense and notion is but a golden Calf which licentious minds set up to themselves under that specious name as the Israelites did their abominable Idoll under the popular title and acclamation of These are thy Gods O Israel If common people be indulged in what freedome they will challenge to themselves wise men will soon find that their Christian liberty is no better than an Image of jealousie a Teraphim a Tamuz or Adonis offensive to the God of reason order law and government destructive to humane society dishonourable to the name of Christ and that holy profession which was so renowned of old as Christian that is the most regular meek harmlesse strict peaceable and charitable Religion in
Idolatry Heresie Schism and Apostasie in all the world if God had not in the place of primitive miracles supplied the Church with such Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters whose admirable learning undaunted courage indisputable authority uniform order and constant succession was beyond any miracle which did at once both wonderfully attest and mightily preserve the sanctity mystery and majesty of Christian Religion from the subtilty of persecutors the sophistry of Philosophers the contumacy of Schismaticks and contumelies of Hereticks being too hard by Gods assistance for the malice of men and the wiles of Satan All which are then under severall new notions and disguises probable to prevaile over this or any Christian Church when such liberty shall be used by vulgar spirits and inordinate minds as shall not onely diminish and abate but quite in time destroy and vacate the divine reverence and inviolable sanctity of religious mysteries and holy ministrations which will inevitably follow where the Catholick order and divine authority of Ministers derived through all ages is not onely questioned and disputed but denied despised variated prostituted usurped by whosoever list to make himself a Minister in any new way which cannot be true if new nor authentick if it be exotick unwonted in the Church of Christ either broken off or different from that primitive commission and constant exemplification or Catholick succession which was owned and observed in Bishops and Presbyters throughout all the Christian world For my part I abhor all intrusion and obtrusion of dangerous Novelties both from Papists and Separatists either in Doctrine Discipline or Government of the Church and those I account dangerous yea detestable Novelties which not upon any plea of ignorance or necessity but meerly out of wantonness and wilfulness seek to alter the sacred streams and currents of Ecclesiasticall power authority and order from those fountains where Christ first broached it and those conduits by which the Apostles derived it which unquestionably was by Bishops and Presbyters I know that the sacred office and Angelick function of the Evangelicall Ministry as it is from my Lord Jesus Christ and is in his name and stead so it ought to be managed reverenced esteemed transmitted and undertaken among all true Christians as a visible supply of Christs absence in body as an authoritative embassie or delegation from Him as a sacred dispensation of that Ministry to his Church by chosen and duly ordained men setting forth his History his Precepts Promises Sacraments and other holy Institutions together with the Ministrations and Gifts of his holy Spirit by which he promised to his Apostles to be with them to the end of the world in that holy work wherein he employed them and their lawfull successors to be his witnesses among all nations whither he should send them So that every true Minister as with the ancients Mr. Calvin observes in his proper place and order as Bishop or Presbyter is first a Prophet to teach and instruct in the truths of God that part of Christs Church over which he is constituted next he is as a Ruler Shepherd and Governour over them in the Lord to feed and guide them in that holy order and discipline which becomes the lesser and the greater the single and sociall parts of Christs flock according as they are under their several care and inspection lastly every true Minister is in his proper station to perform in Christs stead those offices of his Evangelicall Priesthood which he hath assigned to be dispensed for his Churches good as the solemn consecration and celebration of that Eucharisticall memoriall of the great oblation of Christ to his Father upon the Cross for the redemption of the world by which all mankind is put into a conditionall capacity of salvation and upon their true faith and repentance Christs body and blood with all his meritorious benefits are evidently set forth signally confirmed and personally exhibited in that great Sacrament and most venerable mystery to every worthy Receiver He is further to offer up upon the altar of Christs merits the spiritual sacrifices of the Church in prayers praises thanksgivings alms and charities Besides this there is in the true Pastor or Minister of the Church of Christ according to their proportion and degree their line and measure as Bishops and Presbyters a power of mission and propagation in order to maintain that holy succession of an Evangelicall Priesthood which Christ Jesus hath appointed and which the Apostles with their successors the Bishops and Pastors of the Church in all the world have to this day continued without any interruption or any variation as to the maine of the power and practise of Ordination So then as these three offices are eminently in Christ as the great Prophet Prince and Priest of his Church to all which he was consecrated by the mission of his Father by his own Blood-shed and Passion also by the anointing of his eternall Spirit which filled him with all divine Graces ministeriall Gifts and miraculous Power necessary for so great a work so the Lord Christ being absent in body but present in his power and Spirit had derived and committed the outward ministeriall execution of these his offices to chosen and ordained men as over-seers and workers together with Christ of themselves but earthen vessels yet the fittest instruments for the present dispensations of his Gospel and grace which yet are to be carried on according to the first appearance of Christ in the flesh in such darkness weaknesse and meannesse as may most set forth the present excellency of Gods gracious power and set off the future manifestations of his glory to his Church which even in this inferiority and obscurity of the Gospel hath yet as three that bear witnesse to its truth in heaven the wisdome of the Father contriving the love of the Son effecting and the power of the holy Ghost applying Evangelical mercies to poor sinners so it hath three that bear witnesse on earth to that glorious truth and mystery of the Gospel the water of Baptism which sprinkles to Regeneration the blood of the Lords Supper which feeds and refreshes believers also the Spirit of ministeriall Power and Authority which hath been and still is from Christ continued in all true Christian Churches As the first three are one in an essentiall unity of divine nature so these later three as S. John tells us agree in one that is in one Soveraign author Jesus Christ and in one sacred order and office of Church-Ministry or Evangelical dispensations successively derived from the Apostles Elders and Deacons by a power and commission peculiar to those who are duly ordained to be Christs Deputies Lieutenants and Vicegerents in his Church for those holy offices and divine ministrations whereto they are severally appointed in an higher or lower degree as Apostles or Elders as Bishops or Presbyters as Pastors or Teachers either over-seeing as
sacred office charge and ministration how infinitely ought you to be ashamed and regretted to see them usurped many times by the dogs of your flocks by your hinds and foot-men your grooms and serving-men by threshers weavers and coblers by taylors tinkers and tapsters any mean and mechanick people whose parts and spirits are onely fit for those trades to which their breeding and necessities have confined them Not that I despise or reproch these honest though mean employments but I highly blame their insolence and other mens patience to see these usurp upon the dignity of the Ministry Certainly such proud poor wretches may to some men possibly seem fittest Ministers in a disordered State and decaying Church as factors for Satan and Antichrist setters for Ignorance and Superstition turning Faith into Faction but they will never prove after that fashion of preparing and admitting either able or faithfull or fruitfull Ministers of Christ or his Church seeming themselves and making others despisers of Christ with the blasphemous Jews while they so look upon him and treat him as under the notion of the Carpenters son as their equall or inferiour in some handicraft forgetting his divine glory and majesty as the onely-begotten son of God to whom all power is given in heaven and earth who hath executed this power most visibly in sending forth his Ministers to teach and baptize all nations out of which to gather and govern his Church in his name They rudely slight Christs ministerial authority in such as are truly excellent and duly ordained Ministers that they may proudly challenge it to themselves without any reason or Scripture law or order command or example either from Christ or his Church These men who say they are Apostles Prophets and Preachers and are not will be in the end and already are found liars against God and their own souls deceitfull workers false Apostles Mock-ministers Pseudo-pastors disorderly walkers authors of infinite scandall and confusion of scorn and contempt to Christian and Reformed Religion both here and elsewhere many of them serving their bellies and gratifying their carnall lusts and momentary wants much more than designing to advance the glory of God the Kingdome of Christ or the eternall good of mens souls which are not to be carried on save in Gods way that is by fit abilities and with due authority both are required as necessary for a true Minister the first though reall is not sufficient without the second For as the meer outward materiall action cannot be a divine sacramentall or ministerial transaction more than every killing of an Ox was a sacrificing so nor are meer naturall or personall abilities sufficient to acquire any office or authority much less this of the Ministry which is divine or none any more than every able Butcher was presently enabled to be a Priest Any mans ability fully to understand or handsomely to relate the mind of his Prince makes him not presently an Embassador or Minister of State unless there be a commission or letters of credence to authorize the person The blessed Apostle S. Paul who was extraordinarily converted called and sent of God as a Christian a Minister or Apostle yet we see did not take upon him the exercise or office till first Ananias had by Gods speciall command laid his hands on him and he became endowed with the ministerial gift or power of the holy Ghost which were afterward in like sort solemnly confirmed and increased by the express command of God when Paul and Barnabas were separated and sent upon special service with fasting prayer and laying on of the hands of some Prophets and Teachers in Antioch where the Apostle had formerly preached in the Church a whole year among much people This same Apostle oft blames and bids Christians beware of false Apostles not onely false in their doctrine but in their ordination and mission as the Prophets of the Lord did of old the false Prophets whom God had not sent yet they ran The Spirit of Christ commends the Angel of the Church of Ephesus where as Irenaeus and others tell us S. John lived long and left the most pregnant examples of Ecclesiasticall order Episcopall power and Ministeriall succession for trying those that said they were Apostles and were not for finding esteeming and declaring them as liars no way listning and adhering to or communicating with them as being Falsaries and Impostors enemies at once to the truth order and peace of Christs Church For 't is seldome that a bastardly generation of Preachers doth not bring forth some false and base doctrines for it is observable in this as in civil Histories that Bastards in nature and so in office are commonly most daring and adventurous spirits Certainly the late illegitimate Ministers or spurious Preachers of new and strange originals in England have in less than fifteen years brought more monsters of opinions and factions in Religion than have arose in so many hundred years before in any one Church I know some Christians are prone to gratifie their curiosity as those do who sometime go to see monsters in making some triall and essay of these pretended Preachers that once knowing their ignorance and insolence they may upon juster grounds ever after abhor them If this be tolerable for some persons of able and sober judgements yet it is no better than a snare and dangerous temptation for others that are weak and unstable nor may the venture be oft made by the more steddy Christians lest they seem thereby to countenance and encourage so great a confusion innovation usurpation and scandal in the Church of Christ besides the abetting of that high profanation of holy duties and mysteries which ought not to be transacted but in the name power and authority of our God and Saviour Certainly good Christians ought not at any hand to communicate with such usurping intruders in any sacramentall action nor ought they to own any thing more of a Minister of Jesus Christ in them than they would of a King or Magistrate in a Stage-player Doubtless as no good Christian so least of all those that profess to be Ministers of Christ ought to live as sons of Belial disorderly refractory unruly after the arbitrary rude and presumptuous dictates of their own wills The spirit of true Ministers and Prophets will be subject as it ought to that rule order and custome which in all ages hath been the canon measure and commission of all Evangelical Ministers and Pastors of Christs Church As naturall and morall endowments are no plea to invest any man into any office military or civil much less into any power and authority Ecclesiastical The pretenses of new and extraordinary calls of missions immediate from God are not in any reason expectable nor in Christian Religion credible where the ordinary power and commission was continued and might duly be had as it was and yet is in the Church of England
which I am sure give all the seeing world in this point so clear so perfect so full a light and so uniform a testimony that no learned impartiall and conscientious Christian can desire more nor can they but acquiesce in these unless they dare to doubt and deny the veracity and fidelity of all authors that have given us account of any Ecclesiasticall Catholick affairs and customes since the Apostles times in all which no one point or practise hath less doubt or dispute less variation or diversity than this of Ecclesiasticall order both as to the Ministry and government of the Church What the ignorant vulgar who are the bran and courser sort of people may endlesly fancy and affect or what others of better parts but as base passions may cunningly pretend I know not the better to bring in their new modelings of Ministers and Churches but I am sure it will very ill become you O noble Gentlemen who are the best and finest flower the beauty and honour the strength and stability of this English Nation who are the choice and chiefest sons of the Church of England it ill becomes you to suspect all those burning and shining lights both Bishops and Presbyters Fathers and Historians single and sociall in their Closets and in their Councils even in the first innocent ages when the Church was most pure and persecuted as if they had all been either grosly ignorant of or supinely negligent in following the mind of Christ and methods of the blessed Apostles as to these great affairs of the Church which were openly uniformly universally both preached and practised by the Apostles also delivered to and received by their successors as in other things so most indisputably in this which so much concerned not onely the right ordering and well-being and polity of the estate of the Church militant but it s very being and Essence in Doctrine Ministry Duties Discipline and Government Can it I beseech you without great uncharitableness and pervicacy unworthy of any ingenuous soul be imagined that from the beginning during the life of some Apostles and their scholars the whole Church and the most eminent persons in it Ministers Martyrs and Confessors did all conspire to delude themselves and to deceive all posterity in so clear great and sacred concernments as those of the Churches Ministry and Polity were ever esteemed The incomparable and unanswerable Mr. Rich Hooker who is not to be read without admiration nor named without veneration long ago urged this Absurdity against the then more modest Sticklers for their Disciplinarian Innovations in the Ministry and Polity of the Church of England Sure saith he it were a very strange thing that such a Discipline meaning the Presbyterian as ye speak of should be taught by Christ and his Apostles in the Word of God and no Church hath ever found it out nor received it till this present time or contrariwise that the Government of the Church against which you bend your selves should be observed every where through all generations and ages of the Christian world and no Church ever perceive it to be against the word of God We require you to find out but one Church upon the face of the earth that hath been ordered by your Discipline or that hath not been ordered by ours that is Episcopall government for ordination and jurisdiction since the times that the blessed Apostles were conversant upon earth This unanswered challenge did that excellent person heretofore make in order to prevent if possible these innovations and mischiefs which are now grassant in England to the hazard of quite overthrowing all that ancient Order Ministry succession and Government which had been conserved in this Church conform to all parts of the Catholick Church If your other employments and studies have hindred you from being so well acquainted with the authentick works and authoritative testimonies of the ancientest writers of Church-affairs as those grand Authors deserve and your ingenuity cannot but desire yet far be it from your prudence piety and charity to derogate from the honour and credit of your own Countrey-men who have in the Histories of England both Civil and Ecclesiasticall to which you cannot well be strangers sufficiently shewed from the originall of these British Churches what Ministry and Orders they had If you are yet strangers to those eldest ages times and authors of your own and so cannot maturely ground your judgements upon their testimony yet what think you of the learning piety honesty and courage of those later and reall and renowned Reformers of this Church whether Clergie or Lay-men who lived in your fathers memories whose blood and ashes as Martyrs and Confessors against Papall innovations and corruptions is still warm and precious These did not lay new foundations of a Christian Church a true Religion or an authentick Ministry here in England but they onely repaired the decayes of the old and lightned them of those either erroneous or dangerous superstructures with which long ignorance and superstition had over-laded them and not so much built upon them as almost quite buried them These Heroes these worthy men I say who were worthy of the name of Christians English-men and Reformers did not ever design or go about to broach new fountains nor to cut new channels nor to lay new pipes by which to convey the Ecclesiasticall order and Ministeriall authority here in England but they cleansed the foulness they removed the obstructions they sodered the ruptures of the former Catholick way which was very good as well as very old yet not the antiquity but the veracity and divinity of it attested both by Scriptures and by the Catholick usage of all Churches made those blessed Reformers now an hundred years ago cheerfully subscribe to that polity Ministry and authority Ecclesiasticall which they mended but changed not these they recommended to all estates in this nation by whose Parlamentary votes and sanction they were established as the best means to preserve this Church both Christian and Reformed After these famous Fathers of England's happy Reformation whose judgement is manifest in the point of ministeriall power and holy order to be carried on by Bishops and Presbyters can you suspect that their later successors in office and judgement I mean all those learned grave and godly Ministers of England whom your eyes have seen and your ears have heard heretofore with great respect love and admiration dispensing the word of God and holy mysteries to you who till the divisions and deformities of these last and worst dayes have baptized instructed and guided both you and your hopefull posterity in the way to heaven and happiness in truth and peace in faith and repentance in humility and holiness in all graces vertues and good works powerfully set forth to you by their excellent Sermons and fervent Prayers by the blessed Sacraments and worthy Examples they have communicated to you can you I say suspect that all these together with the
it self both as to the actors and permitters If such inordinate liberty which naturally men affect and which imposeth on mankind the necessity of having publick laws and magistratick powers above all private mens fancies if it be so pestilent in civil and secular regards that the indulgence of it is no more to be permitted by wise and good men for one moneth or one day than a fire may be left to its freedome for one hour in any private cabbin or chamber to the endangering of the whole ship and house how I beseech you can it be convenient or profitable to the common interests of Religion or the honour of any Nation that desires to be called Christian to let every man pick and chuse their severall doctrines opinions forms and fashions of Religion as they best fancy or to suffer them to set up to themselves what Prophets Pastors or Preachers what Churches Congregations Conventicles they most affect one being of Paul another of Apollos a third of Cephas one Episcopall another Presbyterian a third Independent a fourth owning no Ministers no Religion at all Specious names and godly pretensions may be very pernicious to the peace of the Church the honour of Christ and the good of mens souls as the blessed Apostle there observes through the folly and factiousness of people Better the most deserving names how much more the most flattering Novellers in the world should be buried in eternal oblivion than they should be set up in the Church of Christ as so many apples of contention so many wedges of division so many rivals to the glory of Christ so many moths to religious unity and the Churches beauty so many Molechs or Idols through whose fires your posterity as Christians that are not yours onely but Gods children and as it were Christs seed and off-spring should be forced to pass with popular noyses and incondite acclamations of liberty onely to drown the sad cries of those poor souls who are to be tormented in those flames those Tophets of uncharitable novelties and factious liberties Christian liberty as vulgar spirits commonly use it is but a corroding salve spread on a silk plaister it is a confection of carnal projects wrought up with spirituall mixtures it is poyson presented in a gilt cup the Devils rats-bane mingled with sugar The sad effects already upon us in England and further threatning us do promise nothing upon this account but envies wraths strifes jealousies animosities whisperings swellings tumults seditions oppressions and mutual persecutions with every evil work among us as men and Christians CHAP. XXVI NOr are these mischiefs only rife among Lay-men or ordinary people whose ignorance meanness and discontent are prone to tempt them to any thing but even among those who desire to be called the Ministers Teachers Pastors leaders of the people for even these in many places either mis-led by the people or sadly misleading them are very much bitten and infected with this epidemicall disease of mistaken corrupted and abused liberties in matters of Religion both as to Doctrine and Worship as to Ecclesiasticall order and Ministeriall authority many of these otherwise men of worth for soundness and integrity no way unfit for the work or unworthy to have the honour of being Ministers of the Gospel yet are miserably tainted with these divisions distractions and deformities even among themselves Which contagion among the Pastors as well as the Flocks as a farther sad and evident instance of the grand causes or occasions of this Churches present miseries and of the great decayes of the Reformed Religion I crave leave without offence to any of my worthy and deserving Brethren in the Ministry of what name or title of what stamp or metall soever they are a little to insist upon that I may by further discovering the rise and progress of our mischiefs the better make way for such remedies as your wisdome O my noble Countrey-men shall see fittest for the recovery of health strength and beauty to this deformed Church and the remnants of Reformed Religion in it As all experience tells us poor mortalls that our greatest enemies are many times nearest to us and oft lie in our own bosoms so the greatest mischiefs that have or can befall the Christian Reformed Religion in England do chiefly arise from some Preachers or such as would be accounted the Ministers of Christs Church under severall notions and formations Vulgar reproches plebeian contempts the injuries of Lay-men yea the persecutions of great and mighty men the Clergie or true Ministers of Christs Church in England might possibly have born with patience constancy comfort and honour though much to their outward diminution if they had had the grace wisdome and understanding to have kept among themselves that harmony constancy and integrity in judgements practise and affections which became men that should be both wise and warm prudent as serpents and innocent as doves if they had as Christs Disciples loved one another though the world hated them if they had as one man held together like a well-turn'd Arch surely they might at once have upheld themselves and easily sustained any pressures laid upon them by the levity violence and ingratitude of other men the Clergie being as the cable and anchor of Religion which firmly twisted together and fraternally combined in truth and love will in time bring the people to quiet and calmnesse in Religion however they may have their storms and tossings sometime partly by innate fluctuancy as the rollings and tidings of the sea and partly by outward winds and tempests What Nation hath there been so barbarous what heathens so truculent what persecutors so inhumane whom godly Bishops and other Ministers have not by their exemplary faith patience unity and charity with Gods blessing in time softened and sweetened convinced and converted to be Christians while they all spake the same things carried on the same interests of Christ as it were with one shoulder These once broken in their orderly and uniform methods varied in their Catholick succession and authority divided in their fraternall concord and harmony the peoples minds soon grow distracted and are violently driven as ships from their anchors and cables upon a thousand dangers When primitive Pastors and people were most cordially united though they were most cruelly persecuted yet Christianity spread and prospered what the fury of men pull'd down that the care and charity of their Ministers built up twisting what others ravelled either as Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks which reparations of Religion were easily effected while the sheep knew their true shepherds following them or flying to them in case of any danger when the people knew their proper Presbyters and orderly Presbyters owned those Bishops to whom they were duly subordinate when all ranks and orders in the Church of Christ as parts in the body kept their stations and ranks their orders and correspondencies their proportions and duties either in
its strength and materialls from the Scripture its model manner and composure from the counsell wisdome experience and authority not onely of this Church of England but of the Primitive Ancient Catholick Church in all ages and places against all which few men had heretofore the confidence or indeed impudence in any grand part much lesse in the whole to oppose their private fancies and suggestions Now no petty people are so clownish or inconsiderable but they dare to cavil question or deny almost every point owned as Religion in the Church of England I shall not need to instance in the grand Mysteries of the Trinity Christs Divinity his satisfaction to divine justice in the resurrection of the body or the souls immortality nor yet in the point of Originall Sin or naturall depravedness and defects of the necessity of Divine Grace of Christians imperfection in the best state of this life of the right use of the Morall Law and the true bounds of Evangelicall Liberties All which with many other grand concernments of Religion are daily not onely ventilated and discussed but contradicted and denyed by many Modern Arrians Socinians Pelagians Antinomians Novatians and others besides the constant Controversies of Papists so far that nothing almost is left sound or setled among us nothing that any Minister can preach or practice as Religion but somewhere or other it finds much snarling quarrelling and gain-saying Every crosse-grain'd piece of pride or peevishnesse or ignorance adventures to bark at what they list yea to bite tear and worry the reputation and integrity together with the learning and ability of any yea all the true Ministers of England who are become miserable not onely by that great and unintermitted pains which they must take if they will be faithfull to their own and other mens souls nor yet by that biting poverty or tenuity of their worldly condition for the most part of them which is so hardly to be relieved by those dribliting pittances which with tedious attendings and shamefull importunings they can get in But beyond both these Ministers are in such a state of perpetuall inquietude as is like that of very poore people who are onely rich in vermine and so troubled with them that they are not permitted night or day to take their rest or to enjoy that sweet sleep and quiet repose indulged to all creatures by which they might sometime deceive their sore labour and forget both their miseries and their sorrowes For when all is done that belongs to a sober Ministers ministeriall duty and charge after indefatigable paines continuall studies invincible patience which like Ostridges must digest the iron morsels and manners of this age when despairing and made incapable of any honorary rewards in Church or State answerable to his gravity and merit every way he onely covets for some ingenuous rest and tranquillity under the shadow and protection of that Church and State which he hath a long time faithfully served yet then even in his age and at all times he must be summoned with daily alarmes and provoked to successive duels by all sorts of factious and fanatick Spirits new or old who list to be contentious T. though he be wearied and almost tired with the long and constant fatigations of his Ministery though he be almost naked and unarmed as to the polemick or controversall part of Divinity yet must he be compassed with Briars and Thornes frequently molested with the perverse disputes and endlesse janglings of those who have no reverence to this Church nor the Catholick Churches constant opinion or practise grounded upon Scripture and manifested by undeniable Tradition The Ministers of England are the common Butt at which every fooles bolt is presently shot If any be lesse apt for disputation through unwontednesse weaknesse depressions poverty and infinite dis-spiritings and so possibly lesse able on the sudden to defend that truth and that Church for which he hath dared to be a suffering Martyr and Confessour against the bitter arrowes and subtill Sophistries of his many-mouthed Adversaries modern Sectaries who make what use they can of the Philistines files and grindstones the wonted cavils sophistries and fallacies of the Papists and Jesuits against this Church the seeming disadvantages of any one Minister when he is publickly surprized and in the very Church assaulted by such impudent Antagonists these are presently voted among the vulgar as the totall rout baffle and disparagement of the whole Ministeriall order yea and of the Church of England As if none of its Fathers or Sons its Bishops or Presbyters so cried up heretofore for their excellent learning dexâ—â—rous fortitude were able to encounter these doughty Champions these men of Gath whose glory now is rather to defie and over-awe the Israel of God by force than to fight lawfully by the rules of right disputation from Scripture or Reason If the enemies of the Church of England would lay aside their Swords and Pistols their Troopers and Musketeers their Guns and Canons which have been so oft their Seconds and so alwaies a terror to the true Clergy of England if they would keep to the lists and weapons of Scripture and reason of Catholick example and constant tradition which armes are proper for Religious contests I believe they would be easily so matched in every point that they would have no cause long to boast of having the better of any Learned and Grave Minister who undertakes to assert the cause of the Church of England both in its Doctrine and Discipline Which is indeed assisted not onely by the Spirit and suffrage of all estates in this Church as Christian and reformed as ancient and modern but also by the wisdome and consent the judgement and practise of all the famous and flourishing Primitive Churches throughout the world so that the justification and honour of the Church of England depends not upon any one Ministers weaknesse or ability but upon that solidity juncture and conformity it hath in all the main parts of it with the Catholick Church of Christ in all Ages He that fights against one fighteth against all he must confute them all before he can justly condemn the Church of England which hath for so many years laboured between the Furnace and the Anvill under the restlesse files and hammers of its various Adversaries who have resolved sooner to die than to suffer the Church of England or its orderly Ministers to live in peace CHAP. VI. AMong other Sects that like swarms are of late risen up against the Church of England and its ancient Ministery none are more numerous petulant and importune none more busie bold and bitter than the haughty-spirited and hotter-headed Anabaptists For all of them have not at least shew not the like horns and hoofs some are persons of more calm grave and charitable tempers These novel Disputers against and despisers of all Infant-Baptisme whom no ancient Church ever knew no lateâ— Reformed Church but ever spewed out and abhorred
Austin as a most setled and Catholick practise owned by S. Chrysost Athanas Ambr. Paulinus Gregory Nazian S. Basil Epiphanius so before them by Origen and Irenaeus Of whose testimonies I shall not need here to make more particular mention or repetition for they are in many books of late duly cited which have wrote in English and in Latin of this subject nor can any Anabaptists teeth so gnaw that chain and series of successive Infant-baptisme in the Church of Christ as to break any one link of it or instance in any one author or century where it appears to have been otherwise in the judgement or practise of any one Church or famous person 13. Which Catholick custome of the Church so fully consonant to Scripture and the evident mind of Christ set forth in all his Evangelicall dispensations both general to all men and specially to infants in the Church no judicious sober humble and charitable Christian can either doubt with any shew of reason or dispute against with any shew of modesty Considering that as the custome of the Churches of Christ is stamped with the authority of a law silencing all contradiction and suppressing all novelty by the Apostle S. Paul so Christ himself bids us to heare the Church which if it hold good in lesser censures and determinations of private Congregations how much more is it our duty to be attentive to and observant of the Churches directions which are Catholick whose authority is very great and sacred as the pillar and ground of Truth holding it forth by doctrine and example by Scripture and practise Nor do I doubt that Christ and his Apostles left many things as to the outward polity practise and ministration of Religion lesse clear and expresse in the letter of the Word that thereby the credit and authority of the Catholick Church might be more conspicuous and venerable with all peaceable and orderly Christians who may safely defer this honour to the Catholick Church and to every particular Church agreeing to it as to acquiesce in a conformity to its judgement and practise no way contrary to the Word of God from which it cannot be presumed that the Catholick Church of Christ from the beginning or in any Age did vary either through ignorance or wilfulnesse however particular Churches and Teachers might 14. The Catholick testimony of the Church of Christ is more than a bare humane or historick witnesse it is so sacred so divine so irrefragable that it is more to be valued than an Angels from heaven and therfore ought in all reason and conscience to end such controversies lately raised in the Church and so it would have done long ago if humane passions and interests had not swayed more with some men than matter of conscience and Religion or if the Baptisme of infants were the onely thing that some Anabaptists have an aking tooth at or a mind to pull down No that cannot much hurt them nor doth any mischief or inconvenience follow that pious custome either to parents or children yea much good and comfort accrues to both Religion never thrived but with it no point of faith is prejudiced by it no Evangelicall truth or mercy is diminished or over-stretched but rather asserted and magnified to its due and divine extent Yet Infant-baptisme must be still crucified between the policy of the Anabaptists and their partiality their partiality urgeth one or two limited places against many pregnant and large ones their policy I fear would attain something beyond and more to the advantage of their popular spirits and designes which have in many places been discovered as far from equity and charity in civil regards as they are in this of Baptisme far from verity modesty and antiquity scornfully slighting the testimony of the Churches of Christ in all ages for which undoubtedly they had sufficient warrant from Christ and his Apostles even before the letter of the New Testament was written or the Canon setled Nor did they either need or expect a more explicite commission of baptizing of infants of believing parents than that which was sufficiently expressed as in the generall command to make Disciples in all nations baptizing them so also by the particular words and actions of Christ toward infants not without check to his Disciples also by his requiring all to be born again of Water and the Spirit who pretend to be of the Kingdome of Heaven that is the visible Church and lastly by the former parallell-dispensations of Gods mercy in the Covenant of grace by Circumcision to the members of his Church as children of faithfull Abraham both young and old men and infants 15. Contrary to all which for a few new men spitefully peevishly and everlastingly thus to contest and indeed onely cavill I conceive is not onely a great irreverence and scorn put upon the Church of Christ which we should respect love and honour as the mother of us all but it is an high affront to Christ to his Word Truth and Promise to be ever with it even to the end of the world by his Spirit leading it into all Evangelicall Truths for precept and duty as well as promise and comfort also keeping it from all Catholick Apostasies into any errour destructive to the foundation If they that reject or despise any one of Christs Messengers despise himselfe and his father how much more they that disbelieve despise and discredit so many of his Messengers and Ministers who in all ages have by uniforme word and practise declared to us the mind of Christ as to this point of Infant-baptism By which unhappy Controversie as by many other the strange but just judgements of God have of late in full vials of wrath been poured upon this Church of England by the Anabaptistick spirit chiefly after so much light and truth peace and unity grace and piety poured forth upon us by Gods former munificent mercy sanctifying and sealing with his Spirit and grace in due time that Sacrament of Baptisme which thousands had received in their infancy to their parents comfort to the infants happinesse dying and living also to the great glory of God in this as other Churches in all ages Nor is there to this day after so many bickerings and contests so many publick heats and flames kindled upon this and other accounts any way of wisdome and meeknesse publickly used by which to quench these flames of wild-fire which threaten not onely to scorch but utterly to consume this Reformed and truly Catholick Church with all its true Ministers and holy ministrations in which the Anabaptists are highly subservient to the Papists grand projects and designs which is to deface disgrace and quite overthrow all the frame of Reformed Religion and the face of any either uniform or reformed Church in England CHAP. XII FOr my part I freely professe that if the administration of Baptisme in point of age and time
infamous practises attending that opinion wherewith some of them have taught the world long ago in Germany as lately in England to beware lest in stead of water they baptize both infants and elder people with blood and fire as proclaiming all to be no Christians nor better than Heathens who will not come to their new dippings Their errour is not solitary nor the sting of their schisme either soft or blunt or unvenomous which doth not a little discover their opinion to be as far from the Spirit of Christ as it is from the mind meaning and intent of Christ in his Word nor are they now excusable as Luther at first thought but afterward recanted when he saw the bad and bitter fruits of their new doctrine they cannot now with any colour plead simple or invincible ignorance which now is boyled up by the heat of their spirits to obstinacy contumacy and insolency against this and all Churches both peace and practise for they doe still boldly persist in their tedious errour after so many Scripture-demonstrations cleared and confirmed by the Catholick testimony and practise of the Church of Christ Nor is their judgement or practise in other things accompanied with such meeknesse modesty charity humility and innocency as might render this a veniall errour or tolerable difference which may grow as a weed not very noxious or unsavoury among many sweet flowers of Graces Vertues and good Works like that of S. Cyprian in point of rebaptizing such as Hereticks had baptized which S. Austin calls in that holy man and Martyr a wart or mole in a fair and candid breast to be covered with the vaile of Christian charity But the Anabaptistick fury flies in the very face of this and all Churches pulling out the very eyes of Christians by which they obtained their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first illumination as Baptisme was anciently called by the Fathers and the Apostolick Author to the Hebrews it not onely sliely picks at but violently strives to overthrow the first foundation of all Christian Faith Profession Polity Order and Church-communion Hence besides its novelty and heterodoxie it riseth naturally from so presumptuous an errour to pertness sharpness tumultuariness sedition haughtiness contempt of all Christian men and Magistrates too who wil not either receive or connive at this and other their imperious errours Who is the◠Minister or other that differs from them be he never so sober grave and holy but he must be vilified reproched and openly railed at by their libellous scurrilous either pens or tongues Their greatest spite and malice lies as the Jesuits most levelled and implacable against the best and ablest Ministers who retain both Catholick Ordination and Baptisme whose successfull labours and excellent lives do most confute this and all other novell fancies while themselves are by the blessing of God justified to all the Christian world not willingly blind to be Ministers not onely of the Letter and Water but of the Spirit Grace and Power Such as desert Catholick Ordination and Government by Bishops give greatest advantage to Anabaptists for the pulling out of one corner-stone in a wall makes way for others easily to follow As all Anabaptists are against Bishops so all the Ancients who are for Infant-baptism as Catholick are for Episcopall Government even S. Jerome himself Not that I think all men who it may be lesse approve Infant-baptisme than that of elder years conceiving that practise to be more clear in the letter of the Scripture have the same calentures and cruell distempers many of them I hope may have sincerity to God-ward and charity to those Christians who in this differ from them But I conceive the tumultuating rude violent and uncharitable Anabaptists with all their Spawn of other Sects have greatly sinned against the Lord Christ and against his Church both in England and elsewhere also against his servants the Ministers of all ages and places whom they have most injuriously slandered and shamefully treated with great scorn malice and all manner of indignities that were within their reach and power whom I pray God to forgive giving them that true repentance which may redeem them from that gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity in which they seem to lie this is the worst I wish any of them In order to which good desire I thought it not amisse thus far to expresse my judgement and as much as in me lies to justifie after many others in the point of Infant-baptisme the doctrine and practise of my Mother the Church of England and both its Fathers and Sons who have suffered so undeservedly and therefore complain so justly of the mischiefs and miseries befaln and threatening them from this dangerous party and faction who resolve never to be satisfied in their perverse disputes and endlesse janglings who with one puffe blow away all that concurrent strength which in the behalf of Infant-baptisme is truly and solidly mustered up from the Covenant of Grace from the tenour of Scriptures from the proportion of Evangelicall priviledges from the relation which Christians in the Church have to God by Christ from the Catholick custome and practise of all Churches old and new from the joynt suffrages of all Councils Fathers and Church-Historians Against all which cloud and army of Witnesses they bring onely two or three literall allegations partially and incompleatly interpreted They boast much but falsely of Tertullian in this point whom they forsake in many others who was a person though excellently learned and of high parts yet immoderately passionate easily transported and in that very point as I have shewed is either different from himself in other places or to be understood in a meaning limited and occasionall either to the children of Heathens yet untaught and unprofessing Christian Religion or the children of Christians hurried up and down by persecutions which in Tertullians times were if not constant yet very frequent After him they have found in six hundred years one Walafridus Strabo who seemed to scruple Infant-baptism as not of primitive use but shews no grounds of his scruple and at last Ludovicus Vives in his notes of late on S. Austin de civitate Dei is produced as a witnesse against Antiquity a Papist in all things else and in this point differing from his own Church and Communion if it were his opinion and judgement which I see no cause to believe because he proveth nothing he not thinking it unlawfull or vain but perhaps not absolutely necessary to baptize all in infancy to which Nazianzen inclines except in case of death But all these are either single Doctors and private opinions or petty Pygmies and Mushromes compared to those many Heroes that Lebanon of tall Cedars which were all advocates of Infant-baptisme in all Ages and Churches from the Apostles dayes There is not any one of the Ancients doth dogmatically deny it as lawfull or so far doubt and dispute it
as to question the usual and approved practise of it from all times which S. Austin so vehemently affirmes that in his Epistle to Volusia he sayes The custom of our Mother the Church in baptizing Infants as it is not to be neglected as superfluous so nor would it have been either practised or believed unlesse it had been so delivered by the Apostles as their undoubted sense and practise which Pelagius did not yea could not with any colour deny as S. Austin observes though it had much served his design about original sin if he could in that point have baffled the credit custome and authority of the Catholick Church which S. Cyprian who lived in the second Century so beyond all cavill or scruple so industriously and fully sets down that if there were no other testimonies of the Ancients that alone would satisfie any sober man being written not upon any heat of dispute but calmly and clearly as of a matter ever done and never under dispute in the Church to his dayes But I have in this part done more than I designed in order to advance not strifes and further contention but Christian peace and charity on all sides in this Church and Nation as to those religious differences which are a great occasion of our miseries CHAP. XIV FRom the Deformities Divisions and Degeneration of Religion also the Falsifications Usurpations and Devastations which of later years have been made by the violent sort of Anabaptists and other furious Sectaries against the Unity and Authority the Sanctity and Majesty of the Church of England destroying its Primitive Order and Apostolick Government its Catholick Succession its holy Ordination its happy and most successfull Ministry to the great neglect and contempt of all holy ministrations and duties of Religion I cannot but further intimate to your piety and prudence O my honoured Countrey-men that which is most notorious and no lesse dangerous both in religious and civil respects namely the great Advantages Applauses and Increases which the Roman or Papal party daily gain against the Reformed Religion as it was once wisely honourably and happily established professed and maintained here in England which is now looked upon by the more subtill superstitious and malicious sort of Papists as deformed divided dissolved desolated so conclamate for dead that they fail not with scorn to boast that in England we have now no Church no Pastors no Bishops no Presbyters no true Ministry no holy Ministrations no Order no Unity no Authority no Reverence as to things Divine or Ecclesiastick Insomuch that we must in this sad posture not onely despair of ever getting ground against the Romanists by converting any of them from the errours of their way to the true Reformed Religion but we must daily expect to lose ground to the Popish party and their Proselytes there being no banks or piles now sufficient to keep the Sea of Rome from over-flowing or undermining us in order to advance their restlesse interests which have been and still are mightily promoted not by the reverend Bishops and the other Episcopal Clergie who are men of Learning Piety Prudence and Martyr-like constancy as some men with more Heat than Wit more Spite than Truth have in their mechanick and vulgar Oratory of late miserably and falsely declaimed but by those who have most done the Popes work while they have seemed most furiously to flie in the Popes face as popularly zealous against Popery and yet at the same time by a strange giddinesse headinesse and madnesse they have risen up against that Mother-Church which bare them and those Fathers in it who heretofore mightily defended them and theirs from the talons and gripes of that Roman Eagle and this not with childish scufflings or light skirmishings to which manner of fight the illiterate weaknesse and rudenesse of our new Masters and Champions hath reduced those Controversies but with such a Panoply or compleat Armour of proof such sharp Weapons such ponderous Engines such rare dexterity of well-managed Powers raised from all Learning both Divine and Humane that the high places and defences of Rome were not able to stand before them heretofore when they were battered by our Jewels our Lakes our Davenants our Whites our Halls our Mortons our Andrews and the late invincible Usher who deserved to be Primate not onely of Ireland but of all the Protestant Forces in the world All these were Bishops Worthies of the first three seconded in their ranks by able and orderly Presbyters as Whitakers Perkins Reynolds Whites Crakanthorps Sutliffs and innumerable others while our Regiments were orderly our Marchings comely and our Forces both united and encouraged Whereas now there is no doubt but the mercilesse mowing down and scattering of the Clergie of England like Hay with the withering and decay of Government Regularity and Order in this Church these have infinitely contributed to the Papall harvest and Romish agitations the gleanings of whose Emissaries will soon amount to more than the sheaves of any the most zealous and reformed Ministers in England By the Papall interests and advantages I doe not mean the Roman Clergies preaching or propagating those Truths of Christian Doctrine Duties which for the main they profess in common with us and all Christian Churches if any of them be thus piously industrious I neither quarrell at them nor envy their successes but rather I should rejoyce in them with S. Paul because however Christ crucified is preached by some whom common people will either more reverence or sooner believe than they generally doe the decayed despised divided Ministers of Engl. who seem to have many of them so small abilities and carrying so little shew or pretence of any good authority for their work ministeriall nor can they be potent or esteemed abroad who are so impotent and disesteemed at home But I mean that Papall Monarchy or Ecclesiasticall Tyranny by which the Church or rather the Court of Rome by such sinister Arts and unjust Policies as were shamefully used and discovered in the Tridentine conventicle seeks to usurp and continue an imperiall power over all Churches and Bishops as if there had been but one Apostle or one Apostolick Church planted in the world also to corrupt abuse that ancient Purity Simplicity and Liberty of Religion which was preserved among Primitive Churches and their coordinate Bishops Further without fear of God or reverence of man opposing some Divine Truths and undoubted institutions of Christ also imposing such erroneous Doctrines and superstitious Opinions upon all Christians to be believed and accordingly practised as become not the severity and sanctity of true Religion adding to that holy foundation which was indeed first laid by the great Apostles and continued happily for many hundred years by the successive Bishops of Rome those after superstructures not of ceremonies onely which are tolerable many of them like feathers making but little weight in Religion but of corrupt Doctrines and
superstitious Duties as seem at best impertinent to true Piety but some of them are erroneous sacrilegious pernicious In some things they are boldly adding to or detracting from the Doctrine and Institutions of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ in other things they impose for sacred and necessary such opinions and customes which are but the rust and drosse the disease and deformity of Christian Religion contracted in the long ignorance darknesse and almost barbarity of times which God winked at but now they appear highly and justly scandalous yea intolerable to more judicious and lesse credulous Christians who are very sensible not onely of that offence which many Papal Injunctions and Observations give to themselves as Christians but also to the very Heathens to Jewes and to Mahometans who cannot reconcile in any Reason or Religion the Idolatrous use of Images and Hoasts among Papists to which they must submit if they will be in communion with them or converted to be Christians nor yet those Tridentine Terrours and Anathema's of eternall damnation which are thundered by them against all those who will not against Christs expresse Word own as Truth and submit to as necessary those opinions and practises among Papists which seem either impious or impertinent as to true Faith and a good Conscience Against all which burthens too heavy for any wise and generous Christians to bear when once duly informed of the weight danger of them and duly reformed from them as the great Wisdom Piety and Order of the Ch. of Engl. in its sacred Ministry and holy Ministrations was heretofore the greatest barre and bulwark in all the Christian world so the disadvantages of the Reformed Religion are now so palpable and the danger of the people of this Nation as so obvious in their returning to that Egypt and Babylon again which is not the Church of Rome but its disease and oppression that I know not in ordinary providence any means can be used or is left to stop the daily prevalencies of Popery and the great Apostasie of England to the Romish superstition and subjection in after-times unlesse God stir up such Wisdome Zeal and Care in those that have honest hearts joyned with publick power and influence not so much to fleece and depress Popish Recusants by pecuniary exactions which is to set Religion to sale and to make merchandize of mens errours rather than fairly to perswade and win them by the proper and perswasive engines of true Religion but rather duly to restore and speedily assert the Honor Order Succession Unity Authority and Majesty of this Reformed Church and its Catholick Ministry from which when the Papists see our selves to be such profound Revolters with what face can we expect they should ever come in to our Reformation which they now behold with joyfull and disdainfull eyes so mangled so deformed so massacred by our own hands How can we with Justice Honour or Humanity inflict severe penalties upon Papists as refusing to conform to our Church and Religion when they protest with so much truth to our faces they cannot see any Church any Religion among us as uniform publick authentick constant What they say formerly had the goodliest figure and fairest presence of a Christian Church and the best Reformed of any is now deformed ruined demolished nothing but scattered rafters and pieces of that ship-wreckt vessel now appear floating up and down in a restless and foming sea of faction opposition and confusion between Bishops Ministers and People some are Episcopal others Presbyterian a third sort Independent all are disparate or opposite in Discipline some are Heterodox in Doctrine the Anabaptists rise against all and the Quakers soare above all To which of all these with many other Sects shall an honest-hearted Papist apply himself to be safe and setled in Religion If to the poor and depressed remaines of Bishops and the Episcopall Clergie who yet adhere to the Church of England alas they are weak and exhausted contemned by many pitied by some but asserted by few or none according to their true merit in former ages or their present Worth Courage Constancy and Patience in this If the Romanists go to the Presbyterian party which like small shoots sprang out so thick in England upon the cutting down of Episcopacy to which they all formerly submitted these besides their Levity Parity and Inconstancy as to their former Stations Opinions and Oaths seem so unseasonably insolent and magisterially domineering before they had got a full and just dominion that all sober men think them rather popular plebeian impertinent in their heats transports passions than so modest wise and grave as becomes those who will undertake to wrest Government out of the hands of their superiours and betters every way and to impose a novelty of untried and undesired Discipline upon such a great and stout Nation as England is which disdaining the insolency of Popes and offended at the indiscretion of some Bishops will hardly ever bear the pertnesse of petty Presbyters who cannot want Vanity Impudence and Arrogancy when they fancy themselves in a supremacy of Power above People Parlaments and Princes for they affect no lesse as Christs due and theirs too If the tossed Romanists run to the spruce and self-conceited Independents for shelter because these fine new Masters seem to have patents for Christian Liberty and urge a Magna Charta from Christ to be accountable to none in matters of Religion but their own little Congregation Church or Body in which as in an Ecclesiastick Corporation or free Burrough of Religion they may hang and draw exercise high and low Justice upon mens souls as they list in their little Conventicles yet here the poor Papist finds so much of a rude and exotick novelty such a grosse shew of Schisme such variety such an inconsistency such a plebeian petulancy such pitiful and ridiculous affectations and arrogating of Church-power in some of the plebs and such contempt of it in others that he cannot think it is other than some pieces of Josephs bloody coat or some torn limbs of his body compared to what Splendour Order Strength Beauty Unity Decency and Majesty in Doctrine and Discipline in Faith and holy Duties was formerly to be observed even to the envy admiration of sober Papists in the Church of England how much more in the Ancient and Catholick Churches grand Combinations from which these petty fractions and crumblings of Christians seem most abhorrent and dissonant This goodly Cedar then of the Church of England being thus broken and hewn down and nothing like it or comparable to it planted in its room but such Shrubs and Mushromes as grow of themselves out of the ranknesse of the earth vulgar humours and passions under whose shade any Egyptian Vermine Frogs or unclean Birds may hide themselves no wonder if the Papists triumph in their sufferings and constancies if they despise all our Presbyterian Independent Anabaptistick and fanatick Novelties if they
without which the welfare of this polity and intire Nation both in secular and religious regards could not be preserved by honest Magistrates conscientious Ministers or wise and valiant Princes Yet as our wise godly and sober Reformers first and last did worthy of the Honour and Piety of this Church and Nation vindicate the civil and religious Rights of both in all necessary points and interests of Doctrine and Government so their charity was no less cautious and commendable than their courage in this that as they did duly reforme what they thought amisse and establish what they judged in Piety and Prudence best so they did not by any heat and fury of popular transport either unnecessarily or uncharitably affect to give any offence to the Romanists by such distances as needlesse and groundlesse Innovations must needs occasion either to that or any other Christian Church in the world with all whom they ever aimed by their moderation to preserve merit a Christian communion correspondency not intending to schismatize or separate from them or their Christian Predecessors as to any Christian band and tie of Christian Verity or Charity not as to any point of Faith Morality or Sanctity not as to any right Order and Catholick succession of the Evangelicall Ministry not as to that Apostolick Government Inspection and Authority which either was of old or still is preserved in the Roman Church or any other nor last of all did they intend to vary from them in those things of honest policy and decent ceremony which were most commended by the Prudence and Piety of Antiquity onely they retained and rejected as they thought most became this Church in the use of its Liberty in matters Ceremonial wherein the Roman as all Churches have like freedome left them to be used with that Modesty Conscience and Charity which becomes all Christian Churches without giving or receiving any offence as St. Ambrose long ago expressed his sense to S. Austin But the aim of our wise Reformers who rather chose to be Martyrs Confessors for the Truth than popular Praters or Compliers with State-policies and private interests was onely this to purge away that drosse and dust which Christs floor had contracted by slovenly labourers in his husbandry They cast away the chaff but retained the wheat well winnowed they reformed those grosse Superstitions in Prayer Sacriledges in Sacraments Superfluities in Ceremonies Usurpations as to this Churches liberty and authority with all blind Innovations of later date compared to true primitive Antiquity all which were as evidently discernable by the reformed or restored light of Learning and Religion which God then brought into the Christian world to be upon the face of the then Roman Church as the leprosie of Naaman was upon Gehazi's forehead if neither they nor we may be judges but the pregnant testimonies of holy Scriptures evidently setting forth the institutions of Christ the Doctrine and Practises of the Apostles and the primitive constitutions of Churches All these further cleared to us if any thing be dark or dubious by the joynt and concurrent suffrages of the first Councils the ancient Fathers and all Ecclesiastical Historians which together ought to be valued far beyond the sense or example of the Roman or any one particular Church as the immovable bounds and unalterable measures of true Religion as to the substance and essentialls of it Nor doth any particular Church though heretofore never so justly famous as that of Rome was merit the honourable name and title of Christs Church or Catholick but rather of so far Apostatick and Antichristian when the Pastors and People of it do not by insensible degrees unawares slide into venial errours and small abuses but after so clear a light and conviction as the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regeneration of Learning and Religion hath afforded these parts of the world they yet wilfully and obstinately persist to corrupt no lesse than pervert the Doctrine and Institutions of Christ Jesus who is the great Pastor of his Church and chief Bishop of our Souls whose voice all parts of it ought readily to heare and humbly to obey at all times without regard to the antiquity or prevalency of any errours or abuses in former times to which no time or use can give authority or validity against the first appointments of Christ which are every way as the ancientest so the best for Truth Comfort and Safety to any Church and to every Christians Soul CHAP. XVI I Shall not need here to enumerate at large and in particular points those many and great differences in Religion which make your and your posterities return to the Roman compliance and communion impossible if you have judgements to understand or consciences to act according to their dictates out of the Word of God understood in the sense of the Catholick Doctors and Councils of the first 600 years after Christ The work is already done by so many able Writers in this Church that it is needlesse to repeat and scarce possible to adde more weight to what hath been by them alledged to justifie their protestation against and reformation of the errours abuses and corruptions of the Church of Rome He that seriously considers the Fraud Falsity and Pertinacy of the Romanists in that one grand point the Canon of the Scripture which is and must be when all is done that Policy and Art can invent the main pillar and standard of true Religion cannot but grow very jealous of their honesty in particular points of lesser concernments when he shall see beyond all reply or forehead that they have in the Council of Trent under the highest Anathema's or Curses of all that differ from them assumed into the Canon of Scriptures divinely inspired written and delivered to the Church as the Word of God those Apocryphal Books which however we with the Ancient Churches value according to their Worth Truth Credit and use yet we receive them not into the canon or rule of Faith because we find for certain that neither the Greek nor Latin Churches of old neither Jews nor Christians Councils nor Fathers for 1400 years did ever so own or receive them Which Truth after many others and beyond any other if I may say it without envy is exactly and fully cleared of late by a person whose reputation formerly clouded by some popular jealousies as to his Sincerity and Constancy in the Reformed Religion of the Church of England deserves to have its true lustre for Love and Honour with every true Protestant at home as he hath abroad for that learned Industry Courage and Honesty which he hath shewed in that particular to assert the main hinge of Religion the Canon of the Scriptures against the Papists effrontery in that particular which hath engaged them in such a Dilemma as is hard to be avoyded by the greatest sophisters of the Roman party For if the Canon of the Scriptures be such as
most industriously promote such a Christian and Catholick accord as were most for the honour of Christ and the peace of Christendome I know the youthfull fervours of some are jealous of all such motions and for fear of seeming luke-warme they resolve to boyle over all bounds till they quench both Truth and Charity among Christians and make way for Atheisme Turcisme Confusion and Barbarity These hotter heads possibly dread what I calmly desire that such a grand Catholick Convention of able Ecclesiasticks in these Western Churches might by the consent of Princes and chief Magistrates be so orderly convened with Freedome Impartiality and due Authority as might enable them to consent in one Canon or rule of Faith and good manners that the clear and concurrent sense of Scriptures might be owned by all in which all things necessary are contained either literally or by just deductions that what is dark or dubious should be left indifferently to Christians use and judgements that all would agree in the same ancient fundamentall Articles of Faith contained in primitive Creeds also in the same Sacraments or holy Mysteries to be devoutly celebrated so in the same way of good works to be practised that we might all have the same Catechise the same publick Liturgies so composed that all Christians might with Faith and Charity say Amen to them and in their severall Languages understand them that a Commentary on Scriptures and Sermons containing all Christian necessary Doctrine might be agreed upon that neither curiosities nor controversies should be couched in publick Prayers or Preachings that all might enjoy the same Catholick Source and course of Ecclesiastick Ordination Ministry and Authority so tempering Government and Discipline in the Church that none should justly think others too much exalted nor themselves too much depressed that Catholick Customes ancient Ceremonies and Traditions truly such being consonant to Gods Word and practically interpreting the meaning of it might be observed by all leaving yet such freedome in other things to particular Churches as might be most convenient yet still subordinate to and to be regulated by the judgement of such a General Council contrary to which none should affect extravagant liberty to the ruine of Christian Charity Blessed Lord What good Christian could be injured by such a Christian accord in the main concernments of Religion which cannot be impossible in the nature of the thing because it was of old enjoyed and many hundreds of years generally preserved among all Christians and Churches of any name and repute in all the world Nor did either the heat of Persecution or Prosperity as warm and soultry weather dispirit this charity of Christians who might still be as capable subjects of so great a blessing from God on earth if Passion Prejudice Partiality and private interests on all hands were laid aside without parting with any true and reall interest that concerns a wise or good man either in Conscience or Honour in civil or religious regards CHAP. XVIII WHich blessed accord so good and so pleasant to behold how much more to enjoy being not onely possible but most desirable and commendable among all good Christians two great Impediments or obstructions seem to me chiefly to hinder as to man besides our ill deservings on all sides at Gods hands which however I do not hope by my weak shoulders to remove they being like the Grave-stone on Christs Sepulchre whose sad and massy weight requires some mighty Angel from heaven to do it yet I cannot but here express my sense of them the more sensibly by how much I see the miserable distractions of the poor Church of England and the advantages given by some mens late immoderations and madnesses to alienate the very best and soberest of the Roman party from all propensity or thoughts of any happy close by reforming and so reconciling the parts of divided and distracted Christendome Which evil effect now more exasperated than ever I here instance in as one of the saddest consequences following the divided dissolved and deplored state of this Church of Engl. which was the grand mirrour or example of Christianity and Reformation from which neither Romanists nor others did so much withdraw by many degrees heretofore as now they do The first great hinderance is that exteme pertinacy and height of those of the Roman party who so much magnifie themselves their chief Bishop their Church and Communion upon the specious names of Antiquity Infallibility and Primacy as if no Church or Christians in the world were to be considered other then as novices ignorants and underlings in comparison of the Roman Name and Majesty Their Antiquity is not denied by sober men but their great Age is evidently attended with many decayes and infirmities which are novelties from which even primitive Churches were not wholly free both as to Humane frailty and Divine reproofs as we read in the Epistles of the Apostles and of Christ to the seven Churches Nor doe I know any priviledge the Roman Church hath above others unlesse they could make good their Infallibility either as to their chief Bishop or as to any Council in which he should preside That their persons have erred in Doctrine and Moralities that they have varied from and clashed against each other in their publick Decrees and Councils yea and from not onely pious Antiquity but the Scripture-verity is so evident in what my self have here lightly touched and others amply demonstrated that no ingenuous and honest Romanist at this day can deny it For the affected Supremacy or Primacy which they so glory in and challenge not onely before but above and over all Churches not as a matter of order and precedency but of power and authority as there is no Law of God which requires this or any Church so farre to own that of Rome or to be subject to it so nor did the ancient Ecclesiastical Lawes and distinctions lay more to the Roman Inspection or Jurisdiction than the Suburbicarian Regions which extended 100 miles from the City That the Roman Bishop was owned as the first or chief Patriarch in Order and Precedency in Place or Vote was not a regard to the persons of the Bishops or their authority as if it were more than other Bishops by any Divine or Humane right but a regard to the pristine Majesty of the City and the Apostolick eminency of that Church in which the two great Apostles S. Peter S. Paul had not onely placed much of their pains but ended their lives Lay aside the Roman pomp and insolency no sober man but will allow the Bishop of Rome his Civil and Ecclesiastical Primacy as King James and other Protestant Princes offered long ago nor would any of the great Reformers Luther or Calvin or Cranmer have grudged this if the Bishop of Rome would have submitted either to a General Council or to the Word of Christ If the Roman Arrogancy will needs claim and usurp more than its due which
was heretofore rather invaded and challenged by them and connived or winked at by others than ever given or granted to them by any power of lawfull donation or concession yet this cannot hold good by any former subtilty on their part or simplicity on the part of this or any Nation and Church to the prejudice of that fundamental Liberty and Honour which are inseparable from the free people of this Nation and Church as men and as Christians untill the Roman power hath made them Vassals again as a conquered Nation and dependent Church upon that Scepter and Mitre too which thing as yet was never done since Rome was Christian and I hope never will be How much more worthy of the Learning Prudence Antiquity Gravity seeming Piety and affected Majesty of that Roman Church were it for them to glory in nothing so much as in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and him crucified in conforming all things of Religion to his Word and example which hath the truest Antiquity onely Infallibility and eminency upon it yea and where they see as by the light of the Sun at noon-day there hath been either aberration from or addition to the rule and pattern of Christ through the ignorance or errour or policy of former Ages and Persons there to return with such holy and handsome Reformations to a conformity with Christ and the ancient Roman purity as will make no lesse for the glory of the present Church of Rome than it was some eclipse and diminution to their predecessors to suffer so much tares to be scattered among Christ's good wheat which by Apostolick hands was first sown and watered to mighty increases for many hundreds of year The misery is when knowing and learned men grow wilfull and serve their own and other mens secular interests more than that of Christ and mens souls they chuse rather to over-load the foundation of Religion than to lighten it of needlesse superstructures How little could it hurt them honestly to restore the cup to the people as was sometimes done to the Bohemians at the importunity of the Nobility and Clergy and offered to Queen Elizabeth as Sir Roger Twisden proves provided she would acknowledge the Popes Supremacy where as Luther urged against Eccius if the Blood of Christ as is pretended by Papists be given Lay-men by concomitancy with the Bread or Body sure they are as capable of the Cup in Christs method as in mans novelty and variation What could it lessen the Romanists if Christians being on all sides taught the reall presence of Christs Body and Blood with the benefits of them in the Sacrament truly offered and reverently received by every worthy Communicant the modus of the Presence were left undefined uninforced upon any Christians belief after the primitive freedome which rather admired and adored that Mystery than disputed it or determined precisely of it So in other things as praying to Angels and Saints worshipping before Images praying and offering for the dead in order to mend their condition how would it no way abate Christian verity or comfort or charity to lay these Superstructures of straw and stubble aside when we all believe that we have by Faith in Christ accesse to the Throne of Grace besides men would more take care to live and die holily when they lesse expect other mens devotions to relieve them after death These and many other humane and impertinent because unprofitable additionals to Sacraments and holy Duties how easily might they be spared without any losse to Religion as with great advantages to Christian and Catholick Communion Nor should these just Reformations prove any diminution to the estates or honours of the Roman Church-men if I might have any vote or influence in so happy an agreement which last jealousies and feares in matter of Honour and Estate are I believe the great wall of partition and terrour that keeps off and scares the wary Romanists from any thought of Reformation since they see the Deformities Uncertainties Beggeries Ruines and Vastations which at last follow some mens Reformations of Religion of Churches and Church-men if they be suffered to run on as far as popular humours have a mind to gratifie their passions with the Spoyls and Scorns of Religion and Church-men This indeed is in my judgement the second great bar the unmovable obstruction and unexcusable scandall which lies in the way of any Reconciliation faire Accommodation and Christian Communion among these Western Churches which in all probability might by Gods blessing have much advanced ere this time not onely just Reformations of what was really amisse but happy Unions in stead of those Rents and Separations which are now every where predominant if those of the Roman party had seen those sober bounds that Christian moderation and those uniform fixations among Reformers in their Doctrine and Manners which did become so good a work as Reformation is Nor were the most sober learned grave and impartiall of the Romanists so much against such a discreet and setled Reformation as they saw flourished in England beyond any Church in all the world in which due regard was had to Primitive Order and Catholick Antiquity to the just rewards and dignities of Church-men together with the sanctity solemnity of true Religion until they discovered that immoderation violence unsatisfiedness tumultuariness giddiness and transport which long ago even here in Engl. murmured and mutinied against the Happinesse and Honour of this flourishing Church and State mens Prejudices Passions and private Interests tyrannizing over their Reason Religion Charity Obedience and Consciences still clamouring for further Reformation and threatening violence if they might not every one set up their fancies in Religion under the name of through-Reformation and bring in intolerable licentiousnesse under the colour of Christian Liberty talking so much of the pattern in the mount till they have laid this Church and its Religion in the valley of death and shadow of darknesse so eager not to have an hoof left in Egypt that they have engaged themselves and this whole Church into a red sea and brought it to an howling wildernesse nor is it easie to be seen without multiplied miracles how they will ever bring Christian Religion to any land of Canaan a state of rest or due Reformation either here in England or other-where Which we must ever despair hereafter to see make any progresse among the Romanists either as to private mens perswasions or whole Churches Reformations especially since the late terrours of some English Super-reformers have given so loud an alarm to all wise Princes and sober People especially to all prudent Church-men assuring them that there is neither bottome nor bounds of some mens preposterous reformations their spirits are the black Abyssus of immodesty injustice disloyalty cruelty sacriledge inhumanity barbarity their teeming fancies are everlastingly spawning with new inventions their restlesse humours are alwayes like a Sea ebbing and flowing casting up mire and dirt their
and employing those advantages of Estates and Honours which they lawfully enjoy as any of those are like to doe who would by force or under specious pretensions deprive them of those enjoyments who can think it strange that such persons of eminency with all their Relations Friends Clientels and Dependences are very unwilling to come under the hands of such rifling Reformers such mad shavers of Religion who design not onely to cut off some part of the long locks and over-grown haire of Church-men I mean the Riot and Luxuriancy of their Manners which are the reall deformity of any Christian much more of any Clergy-man but they intend to treat them as Hanun did Davids Messengers or as the Philistins did Sampson shave them so bare and close make them so curtailed and cropt that all their strength beauty esteem and honour shall depart from them not onely in the sight of people of better quality but even before the very abjects of the people who may afterward safely contemn and scorn them as persons unable to doe them good or hurt Who sees not that some mens cruel severities and rude reformings if they had their wills are not to be satisfied with the wooll and fleece of Church-men but they study to flea off their very skins They gape like the pit and enlarge their mouthes like hell while any Estate is yet left to the Church not onely goodly mannors and fair houses which have properly belonged many hundred yeares to Church-men and the Church of Christ but Glebes Tithes yea the material Churches and Chappels must all goe down the unsatiable gulphs the sacrilegious Gules of some lack-latine Reformers nothing ample or setled must be left to any Ministers either Bishops or Presbyters be they never so sound in Doctrine exemplary in their Lives of excellent Abilities and charitable Spirits as many were heretofore and still are in England The greedy godlinesse of some Reformers would have all Preachers such spiritual persons as should like Chameleons live onely upon the aire their own and the popular breath with little or no corporal sustenance urging much that primitive poverty which armed with the conspicuity of miracles and attended with primitive charity in Christian people was no diminution but advantage to the Bishops and Ministers of the Gospel for they then lived among believers of so generous liberality grateful beneficence that they were the cream and flower of Christianity esteeming their Preachers dearer than their right eyes But we alas are faln among unsatiable leeches tenacious vultures in an age ingeniously wicked to mock God to rob the Church to deceive and damn their own with others souls full of the dregs of hypocritical cruelty covetous formality which loves the goods of the Church of Christ as much as those in former times did the good of it when by their munificent bounty Christian Princes Nobility and Gentry bestowed those many ample and honourable endowments on the Church of Christ and his Ministers in all Countreys where the state of Christians was peaceable and plentifull which gifts now were the great baits of some sacrilegious Reformers who to be sure love the world themselves and their mammon very well how they love God and Christ the Church and the Clergy I list not to judge but leave it to be known by their good works by the great things they have either done or suffered for Religion by the cost and charges they have been at from their private purses to make a gainfull Reformation by that zeale they have to eat up the Houses of God to serve God in a way that may cost them nothing to be sure and next get them some good Booty and Advantage from the Church while any is to be had I therefore appeale to all men of any equitable honest or ingenuous Senses Is it expectable that persons of so much Learning Reason Prudence and Experience as the Roman Clergy generally are should ever think of approving much lesse of embracing such a Reformation which besides other foul spots cast by some upon it unsuitable to any thing of true Religion evidently threatens the utter ruine of their Honour and Livelihood yea of their very Order and Function Will any sober Papist wash in this Jordan in order to be clean which he sees not onely so troubled and tumultuary but so violent and excessive that like a rapid Torrent it overflowes all banks of Modesty Moderation Equity and Charity carrying down all before it and overwhelming at once both Churches and Church-men it hurries them away without ever hearing them plead for themselves into the gulph and precipice of Poverty and Basenesse of Dishonour and Contempt of Disorder and Confusion What grave and well-advised Romanists wil not be much upon the reserve as to any thoughts of Reformation when they see that under that colour they are sure to be undone They must lose all those personall acquisitions and honorary enjoyments which they have obtained by the will of the dead by the lawes of any Christian Nation by the proportions of Equity and Gratitude by the indulgence of God the merits of Christ yea though they should be content to admit of all reall Reformations in doctrine and manners yet still they must by a pious stupidity and asinine sanctity consent to have themselves and their whole Order deprived of all those necessary Supports comely Ornaments and just Honours which were most fitting for the Christians God and Saviour for Christian Churches and Ministers of the glorious Gospel all these must be wasted alienated and embezelled from God his Church and his Ministers in order to gratifie either the exorbitant luxury of some riotous Prince or the more thrifty covetousnesse of some State and Common-wealth or the ever-craving and envious necessities of some private mean-spirited people till they see Deformity Beggery Contempt Confusion and all Irreligion dancing like Satyrs and evil Spirits among the Ruines of Religion and amidst the Desolations not of the pomp so much as of the very power and profession of true Christianity Which dreadfull effects must needs be much in the eye and abhorrence of every pious and prudent man who sees by evident experience what some mens Reformations doe mean when they not onely grudge at all setled just and honourable maintenance of Ministers which they would fain swallow up and divert another way but they are further as studious to demolish and devour as ever their fore-fathers were to build even those publick Monuments of pristine Devotion Gratitude and Magnificence which became Christians above all men to their bountifull God and blessed Saviour Even those goodly Cathedrals and other materiall Churches which never cost their defacers one penny to build or repaire them these must if some men may have their wills and they have had it God knowes too much be so robbed of all their great endowments and ancient Revenues that nothing must be left so much as to repaire them or keep them up
Foxes and wild Boars of Romish Power and Policy to enter in and not onely secretly but openly as occasion shall serve to destroy all the remaining stock of the true Protestants and Professors of the Reformed Religion who at first soberly protesting against Popish Errours and Deformities afterwards praying in-vain for a joynt and just Reformation did at last reform themselves after the rule of Gods Word interpreted by the Catholick Practise of purest Antiquity What without a miracle can hinder the Papall prevalency in England when once sound Doctrine is shaken corrupted despised when Scriptures are wrested by every private interpreter when the ancient Creeds and Symbols the Lords Prayer and Ten Commandements all wholsome forms of sound Doctrine and Devotion the Articles and Liturgy of such a Church together with the first famous Councils all are slighted vilified despised and abhorred by such English-men as pretend to be great Reformers when neither pristine Respect nor Support Credit nor Countenance Maintenance nor Reverence shall be left either to the Reformed Religion or the Ministry of it without which they will hardly be carried on beyond the fate of Pharaohs Chariots when their wheeles were taken off which is to be overwhelmed and drowned in the Romish red Sea which will certainly overflow all when once England is become not onely a dunghill and Tophet of Hereticall filth and Schismaticall fire but an Aceldama or field of blood by mutuall Animosities and civil Dissentions arising from the variations and confusions of Religions All which as the Roman Eagle now foresees and so followes the camp of Sectaries as Vultures and Birds of prey are wont to doe Armies so no man not blinded with private passions and present interest is so simple as not to know that it will in time terribly seize upon the blind dying or dead carkase of this Church and Nation whose expiration will be very visible when the Purity Order and Unity of Religion the Respect Support and Authority of the Ministry is vanished and banished out of England by the neglect of some the Malice Madnesse and Ingratitude of others your most unhappy Countrey-men Then shall the Israel of England return to the Egypt of Rome then shall the beauty of our Sion be captive to the bondage of Babylons either Superstition or Persecution from both which I beseech God to deliver us As an Omen of the future fate how many persons of fair Estates others of good parts and hopefull Learning are already shrewdly warped and inclined to the Church of Rome and either actually reconciled or in a great readinesse to embrace that Communion which excommunicates all Greek and Latine Churches Eastern Western and African Christians which will not submit to its Dominion and Superstition chiefly moved hereto because they know not what to make of or expect from the Religion and Reformation of the Church of England which they see so many zealous to reproch and ruine so few concerned to relieve restore or pity As for the return of you my noble Countrey-men and your Posterity to the Roman Subjection and Superstition I doubt not but many of you most of you all of you that are persons of judicious and consciencious Piety doe heartily deprecate it and would seriously avoid it to the best of your skill and power as indeed you have great cause both in Prudence and Conscience in Piety and Policy yet I believe none of you can flatter your selves that the next Century shall defend the Reformed Religion in England from Romish Pretensions Perswasions and Prevalencies as the last hath done while the Dignity Order and Authority of the Ministry the Government of excellent Bishops the Majesty and Unity of this reformed Church and its Religion were all maintained by the unanimous vote consent and power of all Estates Nay the Dilemma and distressed choice of Religion is now reduced to this that many peaceable and well-minded Christians having been so long harrassed bitten and worried with novell Factions and pretended Reformations would rather chuse that their Posterity if they may but have the excuse of ignorance in the main controversies to plead for Gods mercy in their joining to that Communion which hath so strong a relish of Egyptian Leeks and Onions of Idolatry and Superstition besides unchristian Arrogancy and intolerable Ambition that their Posterity I say should return to the Roman party which hath something among them setled orderly and uniform becoming Religion than to have them ever turning and tortured upon Ixions wheel catching in vain at fancifull Reformations as Tantalus at the deceitfull waters rolling with infinite paines and hazard the Reformed Religion like Sisyphus his stone sometime asserting it by Law and Power otherwhile exposing it to popular Liberty and Loosenesse than to have them tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine with the Fedities Blasphemies Animosities Anarchies Dangers and Confusions attending fanatick Fancies quotidian Reformations which like botches or boiles from surfeited and unwholsome bodies do daily break out among those Christians who have no rule of Religion but their own humours and no bounds of their Reformations but their own Interests the first makes them ridiculous the second pernicious to all sober Christians Whereas the Roman Church however tainted with rank Errours and dangerous Corruptions in Doctrine and Manners which forbid us under our present convictions to have in those things any visible sacred communion with them though we have a great charity and pity for them Charity in what they still retain good Pity in what they have erred from the Rule and Example of Christ and his Catholick Church yet it cannot be denied without a brutish blindnesse and injurious slander which onely serves to gratifie the grosse Antipathies of the gaping vulgar that the Church of Rome among its Tares and Cockle its Weeds and Thornes hath many wholsome Herbs and holy Plants growing much more of Reason and Religion of good Learning and sober Industry of Order and Polity of Morality and Constancy of Christian Candor and Civility of common Honesty and Humanity becoming grave men and Christians by which to invite after-Ages and your Posterity to adhere to it and them rather then to be everlastingly exposed to the profane bablings endless janglings miserable manglings childing confusions Atheisticall indifferencies and sacrilegious furies of some later spirits which are equally greedy and giddy making both a play and a prey of Religion who have nothing in them comparable to the Papall party to deserve your or your Posterities admiration or imitation but rather their greatest caution and prevention for you will finde what not I onely but sad experience of others may tell you that the sithes and pitch-forks of these petty Sects and plebeian Factions will be as sharp and heavy as the Papists Swords and Faggots heretofore were both to your religious and civil Happinesse CHAP. XXIX FOr however the feeblenesse and paucity of lesser Sects and Factions in Religion in some places their mutuall
much letting of blood as these last Calentures which have infinitely wasted the people and spirits of these three Nations taking their first popular heats or pretending so at least from the zeal each party had for its Religion not as Christian which all professe but as discriminated by particular marks of lesser Opinions and Perswasions which occasion more discords than all their agreement in other main matters can preserve of Love and Concord as men as Countrey-men or Christians How oft since the Reformation in England began and was perfected to so great a beauty for Justice Piety Order Charity Moderation and Honour as became the Glory of God the Majesty of Christian Religion and the Wisdome of this Nation have the struglings of Religion threatned and began civil broyles not onely in eighth's dayes both in the North and West when yet Reformation was much unhewn and unpolished people being unsatisfied because untaught as to the just grounds of necessary Alteration but afterward in succeeding Princes dayes especially in Queen Elizabeth's long and happy reign how infinitely did religious discontents boyle in some mens breasts insomuch that for want of vent in open flames of Hostility which the publick Power Policy and Vigilancy of those times repressed they bred all sorts of foul Impostumations even to the study of Assassinations Empoisonings and Treasons some so black and barbarous as are unparallel'd in former and will be scarce credible in after-Ages Nor did the discontented Papists onely meditate first revenge then Soveraignty by blowing all up at one blow that was sacred or civil in this Nation but even that little cloud which at first seemed but as an hands breadth of difference in some outward Forms Ceremonies and Circumstances of Religion as Christian and Reformed this in time grew so full of sulphurous or hot vapours that it looked very black when it was not yet very big in England either by schismes or separations being much cooled and allayed yea in great part dissipated and vanished through the excellent temper of that Government both in Church and State which that renowned Queen and her wise Councel preserved which suffered neither Conformity to grow wanton and lazy nor Non-conformity to be presumptuous or desperate nor yet too popular by out-vying the other party either in Piety or Industry Episcopacy as the ancient and onely Catholick Government of this and all other Churches for 1500. years was then had in due veneration allowed its double honour both in Church and State in Parlaments and Synods it was treated with great gravity and respect by that incomparable Princesse afterward it was asserted with greater indulgence and passion by King James who began that Proverb which his Son saw verified No Bishop no King yet in the beginning of the late Kings dayes Episcopacy and the state of the Church was even pampered and cosetted by so excessive a favour and propensity as made it seem his chief Favourite not onely for reasons of State but of Conscience The Episcopall throne and dignity seemed as immutable as the Kings Scepter and Majesty so zealously devoted he was to assert it so fearfull by any sacrilegious act to diminish it such a Patron such a Champion for the State Ecclesiastick that upon the matter he was resolved to venture Kingdomes Life and all upon this cause and either to swimme or sink with the Church of England against the Tide of all Faction What could be desired of greater advantage and security than such an immensity of favour from so potent a Monarch for the indemnity and stability of the Episcopall interests and its friends in England which in the Beginning of King Charles his reign had what they could hope or desire his benignity exceeding the very hopes of Church-men his Royall favour confirming all those Immunities Honours Jurisdictions and Revenues as sacred and inviolable which they enjoyed by the Lawes Priviledges and Customes of England to which the Learning Gravity and Merit of many worthy Bishops and other Church-men in England bare so great and good a proportion that few were so impudently envious as not to think that many yea most of them well deserved what they soberly enjoyed The heat of the opposite Factions as Non-conformists or Separatists was so much allayed that it seemed quite extinguished nor possibly could it have revived to so sudden and dreadfull flames if the immoderations of some mens passionate counsels and precipitate activities had not transported them beyond those bounds which politick and it may be pious prudence did require which easily re-inkindled those old differences which had been so much suppressed that they seemed quite buried in England till they took fresh and unexpected fires from the cold climate but hot spirits of Scotland which finding prepared and combustible matter there and here too soon brake out to such flames as were not to be quenched but with the best blood in England and the overthrow of the ancient Government both of Church and State even then when both seemed to be in their greatest height and fixation So dangerous even beyond all imagination and expression are the sparks of religious dissentions if they be either by preposterous Oppositions provoked or by imprudent Negligences permitted to ferment and spread in any Church and State or if they be not by at powerfull way of reall Wisdome and true Piety which is the best and surest policy so quenched and smothered as may take away from all men of any Worth Modesty and Conscience any just cause to endeavour or desire any such Innovations as those did who upon Presbyterian principles first aimed at not a totall change of Doctrine but onely an amendment of Discipline and Government in this Church which as they seemed in a short time to have obtained beyond their first designs so in no long time after they were as much frustrated and soon defeated by other subsequent parties which sprang up upon the like grounds of religious differences After Episcopacy was thrust under hatches what I pray could be more absolute and Magisteriall bigger in words lookes enterprises in terrours of others in boasts and confidences of it self than the Presbyterian party was after once that Leven by a Scotch maceration and infusion had diffused it self and sowred many peoples simplicity here in England against the Episcopall constitution and administration of this Church How did this high-flying Icarus in a short time disdain any rivall puffing at all its Prelatick adversaries setting its feet on all the Bishops and the Episcopall Clergies neck as the Israelites did on the five Kings of the Amorites before they were to be slain which thing was done at Josuahs command who was the supreme Magistrate but these forward Spirits tarried not for any such command or consent to their dominion from the Prince of the people but their new soveraginty fought to spread it self like lightning in a moment to the latitude of these three Kingdomes impregnated and palliated with many popular petitions
as much away from the Charity and Unity of Religion That Passion commonly darkens and sullies more than their pretensions of Piety do polish or brighten Religion That preposterous Reformers instead of snuffing the lamps of the Temple are prone to put them quite out especially when the ignorance and insolence of Lay-men undertake to set the Ark of God upon their Cart to draw it with Beasts and drive it with their whips and whistlings though they whistle to the tune of a Psalm yet Religion alwayes totters is oft overthrown by them being never safe but when it is as the Ark ought to have been carried upon the shoulders of able Priests and Levites such Bishops and Presbyters as ought to bear it up and to whose care that sacred depositum is chiefly committed by Christ and the Apostles Nor hath the learned and godly Clergy in England ever been so weak and unworthy as to want either ability or will Sufficiency or Authority to do this service to God and his Church however now they are so debased discouraged and almost beaten out of the Sanctuary Reformations of Religion ever prove either abortive or misshapen when they are either begotten or brought forth by Ministers factiousnesse or peoples fury tumultuating and irregular wayes of reforming any Church do but cut up and so kill the mother in hope to save that Bastard-child which having neither due form nor legitimation deserves no long life We see by too wofull experiences and infinite expences of blood that Churches when in some things decayed are easier mended in Fancy than in effect in the project than performance That this Church-work requires not onely proper workmen and skilfull Artists but tender hands and cautious fingers That where the Essentialls Vitals and Fundamentalls of Religion in any Church are good as to true doctrine saving faith holy institutions and honest moralls the prudentialls and ornamentalls cannot but be commendable if they be tolerable That the peace and safety of a setled Church ought not to be indangered for circumstances That it is a dangerous practice of Empiricks to give able and otherwise healthfull bodies uncorrected Quick-silver which shall kill them outright in order to kill some little itch or tetter upon them whose breaking forth to the circumference or outward habit of the body is a good effect of an ill cause a sign of firmer health in the nobler and more retired parts I must ever conclude with S. Austin and Dionysius Bishop of Athens it is better for the Churches peace and Christian charity sake to tolerate some inconveniences for some there will ever be or at least to some men seem to be in the best constituted Churches than to admit of such hazardous wayes and means of reforming as will endanger the ruine of Religion and totall routing of a well-setled Church that it is better in all respects to acquiesce in or submit to publick determinations and tried appointments of true Religion than to be still tampering with untried experiments and essayes of Novelty to the wast of that Order Peace and Unity which ought to be preferred before any such Truths as are but probable or so disputable that good men on either side have do and may hold them in some opposition without danger of their salvation It is but a delusion and device of the Devil which prompts men to wind up the strings of Religion to so high a note of Reformation as breaks both the strings themselves and the very ribs of that Instrument which they pretend to set to such a pitch An immoderation which hath as I have endeavoured to set forth by many sad instances in this third Book of the Church of Englands Sighs and Teares so defaced deformed shaken disunited weakned and endangered the state and honour of Religion as Christian and Reformed in this Church and Nation that it threatens like a Fistula Gangrene or Cancer a totall though it may be a lingring fatality both to Church and State unlesse by some wise hearts and worthy hands the Lord of Heaven vouchsafe to apply such Cures as may stop the prevailings of such sad Effects and remove the Causes which began or promoted them so far as to give occasion to this famous Church and her Children thus sadly to bemone themselves BOOK IV. SETTING FORTH THE SIGHS and PRAYERS of the CHURCH of ENGLAND In order to its Healing and Recovery CHAP. I. HAving set before you Honored and beloved Countrymen in the three former Bookes first the well-formed and sometime flourishing constitution of the Church of England Lib. 1. secondly its present decayes or destitutions both in the causes Lib. 2. and consequences Lib. 3. relating to Ministers and people in sacred and civill regards to the great diminution detriment and danger of the Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation It is now time to apply my thoughts and yours in this fourth Book to the Restitution or recovery of that which is the honour and happinesse of this as all Nations which undoubtedly consists in the Purity Unity Stability Sanctity Solemnity Autority and Efficacy of True Religion Hitherto I have powred Wine into the wounds of this Church not so much suppling as searching them by an honest severity The bruises and putrified sores which are all over the body of our reformed Religion were not capable of Oyles and Balsames of softer and sweeter applications till the putid and painfull ulcerations were first opened the cores of them discovered and the pus or sanies of them let out which to conceal and smother by gentle but unsincere salves by civil but cruel plaisters rather palliating our miseries than healing our maladies were a method of so great basenesse and unworthinesse in me as might for ever justly deprive me of the honour of faithfulnesse to God to this Church to true Religion to my Country to my own and to your soules I know the freedom of my pen hitherto like the sharpnesse of a Lancet or probe may be prone to offend on all sides few men are so humble as not to find fault with those that tell them of their faults those are commonly least patient of Phisitians or Chirurgeons hands who need them most crying out of other mens severities which are occasioned yea necessitated by their own debauchnesse and distempers Yet since my aymes are in this writing upon or rather ripping up the bilious inflammations of Religion not to spare my own disorders or theirs with whom I may seem most to symbolize in my opinion and practice I hope no good man great or small will be causelesly offended with the just incisions or scarrifyings I have made which as the gangrenous necessity of our maladies otherwise desperate and incurable have compelled me to so the pious peaceable and charitable intentions of my soul inorder to a common and publick good will then best excuse them when my Readers shall perceive with how liberall an hand and free an heart I do in this fourth Book
dissensions among us but must needs be now not onely out of love with them but in as great feare and abhorrence of them as he hath any favour and good will to the peace and prosperity either of his Country or this Church to the promoting of which as conscience binds him so all prudence and policy invites him CHAP. IV. THirdly to these I may further adde that great spur of generous industry which we call Sense of Honor or an impatience that worthy persons have to come short in any thing of that which doth best become them or is by God and good men expected from them I know how touchy even small minds and petty-spirited men are in point of reputation there where no true honor lies But meer shadowes and imaginary punctilio's deceive them under the notions of honor after that vulgar rate and esteem which gives many Gentlemen quicker resentments of any affronts neglects indignities or injuries done to themselves than of blasphemy to their God and Saviour more sensible for the honor of their mistresses of pleasure than for their Mother or Fathers I mean not so much naturall and politicall as Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall the Church and the Pastors of it such by whose care they have been bred and born to Christ baptised in the Name of the blessed Trinity brought up in the true Christian Faith nourished confirmed and sealed by the body the blood and Spirit of Christ directed in the waies of Holinesse and Eternall Happinesse Certainly the Command binds all Christians to Honour these parents as much as any No sense of Honor should be more quick and sensible than that which reflects upon our highest concernments in which not onely our private but our publick not onely our temporall but our eternall welfare is wrapped up and so confined that if in this we faile or miscarry all is lost that a great and gracious soul can consider If you were a Nation pinched with poverty over-awed with slavery despicable for your weaknesse base for your cowardise brutish for your ignorance dull with stupidity dejected by tenuity or barbarous through want of learning and civility if you were now to begin the principles of Christianity and knew not what belonged to true Religion which is the highest honor and happinesse of any Nation if that were the present State of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of England that they were now beginning to be Civilized and Catechized I should think my labour lost my oratory vaine and my importunity improper thus to conjure you by the highest sense of Honor to study the settlement of true Religion before you were acquainted with the sense of Civility Religion or Honor Or if I thought you had not so much pregnant light of Religion as might make you sensible of the truest and highest points of honor or not so much apprehension of honor as might make you most zealously tender in the behalfe of true Religion I would not be so impertinent as to think to move you beyond your inward principles But when I consider you as a people pampered with plenty exalted with liberty renowned for strength dreaded for valour enlightned with knowledge in all kinds accurately vigorous actively industrious as the chief of the Nations as the princesse of all Islands heightned to all magnificence polished with all good literature and civility old Disciples of Jesus Christ many hundred yeares agoe converted to Christianity and never wholly either perverted by Hereticks or subverted by the many barbarous invasions and warlike confusions which you have endured when I contemplate the grandeur the power the wisdome the majesty the publick piety heretofore of this Nation the antiquity of this Church and the prosperity of its reformed condition heretofore I cannot but with all humble and faithfull respects tell you That it is not worthy the name and honor of the English Nation so famous for Learning and Religion for Scholars and Souldiers for Magistrates and Ministers for Christian Princes and Christian people scarce to be parallel'd in all the world It is not for the Honor of such a Nation to halt between not two but twenty opinions to variate thus between the true God and the many new Baalims between Christ and the many Belials who will endure no publick yoak of Religion or Church-government but what themselves fancy and frame though never so different from that which this and the Catholick Church in all ages not onely used and submitted to but highly rejoyced in as the onely order that Jesus Christ and his Apostles had setled in all parts of his Church It is a shamefull posture for wise and sober men for ancient and renowned Christians to be thus inconsistent as divided between a doting upon former superstitions which some impute to us and indulging moderne innovations which others reproch us for 'T is ridiculous to be alwaies dancing the rounds of Religion and giddily moving in the mazes of endlesse Innovations which are but private and for the most part Childish inventions the effects either of proud and imperious or of peevish popular and plebeian Spirits who aime not at the publick Peace Piety and Honor of the Nation so much as at the gratifying their own little Fancies Humors Opinions and interests whose Novelties never so specious and plausible at first yet soon appeare pernicious to the publick so farre from mending and reforming the State of Religion that they threaten to marre all if the goodnesse of God and the moderation of wise men do not prevent Private formes and inventions never duly examined or solemnly allowed by the publick Representatives of any Church in Nationall Synods or Councills nor from thence recommended to and approved by the Representatives of the civill States in full and free Parliaments but surreptitiously broched at first afterward Magisterially obtruded by some pragmatick Preachers upon any Church or Christian people these prove no other in the end than like the ashes scattered over Egypt productive of sores and boyles swelling to great paine and insolency Especially in such a Church and Nation as this which was of the highest forme both for Christianity and reformation where God had to our admiration and his eternall praise blessed the former setled State of Religion and the Churches excellent constitution under those reverend and renowned Bishops assisted by Learned Orderly and Worthy Presbyters whose pious and profitable endeavours had long agoe advanced this Churches honor and happinesse to as high a pitch in point of Doctrine and Devotion and all spirituall experiences as any Church ever attained and further had improved its welfare in point of Discipline if they had not been ever curbed and hindered by the jealousies and impatiences of some Princes or people who would by no meanes endure the ancient just and holy Severities of Christian Discipline should be exercised by the Clergy against their Haughty and Licentious manners no not when the Ecclesiastick State of England was in its highest elevation and
lustre for Learning Honor Order Estate and Unity How much lesse are they now to be exercised by poore pusillanimous and petty Preachers with their pittifull Lay-Elders Yet amidst all the obstructions either in Doctrine or Discipline which either the pride and policies of men or the subtilties of devils have hitherto put amidst the peevishnesse of Schismaticks and the spite of Romanists amidst all the damps and dispiritings that this Church of England and the worthy Clergy thereof have long found and felt from all sides that were factious and had evill eyes or evill wills against them yet even then did the Lord of his Church so highly exalt them and this Nation in the eyes of all the world to such degrees of Piety Learning Peace Plenty Honor Love and all prosperity that could blesse any Christian Church or Nation that in good earnest there was no need any of these new patches should be put as deformities to that old garment which was so goodly and gracefull for true Christian Religion and due reformation that no novelty from private heads or hands could mend it especially when obtruded as a rent or forcibly pinned upon it as rags and hangby's of Religion by every petty Master whose fingers itch to be medling and innovating in Church affaires without any publick and impartiall counsell and authority Such preposterous endeavours no way worthy of the honor of this Nation nor contributive to its happinesse God hath already soon all sides blasted that they have been not onely unprosperous but many waies pernicious dishonourable ridiculous divine vengeance at once discovering their follies and confuting their confidences which instead of further setling or better Reforming Religion as was on all sides vapored and pretended have as much as in them lyes reduced a famous and flourishing a well-reformed and united Church almost to ruinous heaps and sordid confusions to the great shame and dishonour of this Nation both reproching your pious progenitors and you their posterity as if for this last hundred yeares none of them or you had served God as they and you should have done with holy and acceptable service because neither they nor you did permit every man or Minister to choose what Religion he would broach what Opinions he liked or to use what Discipline he pleased or beget what Churches and Pastors he fancied best and this after every free-man had either in Person or by his Proxy consented to that religious establishment which bound all men either actively to obey or passively to submit with silence and patience because it was of his own appointing being the result of all Estates in this Nation who without doubt were much more able to consider and conclude what was best for the publick Piety Peace and Honour of this Church and State than any private man could do whose self-overvaluing and overweening is generally the first step of their own and other mens undoing yea many times from these practises which at first are not much regarded much mischief accrews to the publick as the plague is thought to begin first in private alleys and by-lanes or from some one man or woman that hath a foul body or a very stinking breath which easily poysons the ambient ayre in which they walk especially when disposed to putrefaction and so diffusive of the Infection to others The stop and cure of which Epidemick pestilence which beginning from some mens ill lungs or lives hath now seised upon Religion it self and this whole Nation by your applying seasonable Antidotes and safe defensatives is a work most worthy of the Wisdome and Honor of this Nation which can be in no point more concerned or conspicuous than in this of true Religion so setled and maintained as best becomes both the Majesty of Religion and the renowne of the Nation Fourthly to which great and good work you stand obliged not onely in duty to God in love to your Saviour in charity to posterity and in just respects to your selves all which are great ingredients in true Honor but further give me leave to tell you something of Gratitude and just retribution lyes upon you as to the ancient Clergy or Ministry of this Nation who have faithfully served God and his Church you and your forefathers for many yeares in all Ecclesiasticall duties and religious offices If you and your Forefathers most honored Gentlemen and beloved Countrymen did well and worthily in a grave and orderly way of publick consent and by due Authority purge this Church and redeeme this Nation in its Doctrine and Duties its Ministry and Worship its Discipline and Government its just Liberties and immunities from the drosse and druggery of Romish errors and superstitions of Papall Tyrannies and Usurpations reserving or restoring that Purity Decency Authority Order Uniformity of Christian Religion which became the wisdome and honor of this Church and Nation by the exactest conformity with the Catholick Church in its purest and primitive constitution If you have effected and enjoyed this happinesse by Gods blessing chiefly upon the pious Counsells devout Prayers potent Preachings and learned Writings as of the first reformed and reforming Bishops and Presbyters subordinate to them so of their worthy Successors in the same Orders Offices and Functions who have many thousands of them confirmed their Doctrine sealed their labours asserted and authorised their Ministry by their holy lives and comfortable deaths yea some of them with their patient sufferings and Martyrdomes If the Clergy of this Reformed Church in their severall stations and degrees have by the Divine assistance ever since preserved this holy depositum of the true Christian Religion duly Reformed according to the Primitive gravity and Scripturall verity for above one hundred years to your and your forefathers inestimable honor and happinesse and this as with great Learning and all sorts of holy abilities so with no lesse industry and fidelity though not wholly without humane frailties and personall infirmities which God in mercy will pardon and man in charity ought to passe by where there was so much integrity and proficiency so much of commendable worth and constant excellency as to the maine If you cannot deny the many signall testimonies which God hath given of his being well-pleased with this Churches Reformation with the Ministry Worship and publick Profession of Religion in this Nation not so much by that long peace plenty and prosperity which you and your pious predecessors have to a wonder enjoyed at home besides the great Honor and renowne abroad nor yet by those nationall and signall deliverances from deep designes and imminent dangers which threatned the utter subversion of Church and State these preservations and lengthnings of our tranquillity being then surest signes of Gods favour and approbation of our waies when they are honestly obtained thankfully received and modestly enjoyed but beyond these conjecturall fruits of common providence we have those speciall tokens and testimonies wherein the Lord hath as I conceive evidenced
have hitherto so little justified their inventions or discretions that their mutuall divisions and severall diminutions besides the generall abatement and abasement both of Religion Reformation and Ministry do make the whole face of this Church appeare rather like Babel than Jerusalem which was a City at unity in it self not made up with patches and botches by fits and jobs with deformed angles crooked walls and swelling windowes like some narrow lanes in London whose sides seem built in spite to defie and darken one another but designed and wrought by such a juncture of wise Counsell from grand Architects as had well fore-cast and fore seen their work as those did by divine revelation who were to build the Ark Tabernacle and Temple for God as Moses David Salomon Zerubbabel and Ezekiel who had leisurely and exact visions sober and orderly revelations after due and Mathematicall proportions or plat-formes given them and were not hurried on by sudden raptures extemporary snatches and passionate surprises which are the Convulsions of Religion no fit tempers or motions to build or repaire the Church of Christ which even in Primitive defections as we read in the Epistles Correptory or Consolatory to the seven Asian Churches or others were taught by the Spirit of Christ and the Apostles not to seek out new Formes Fashions and Inventions to make Divisions Schismes and Separations either in or from the Respective Churches or from their Angels or Bishops the Presidents or Presbyters But in their Reformations they were to keep their former Church-communion in the grand and Apostolick Combinations which were constituted and proportioned by the guidance and wisdome of Christs Spirit both Pastors and people were to remember from whence they were faln to have due regard to their severall Rulers and Overseers in the Lord to returne to their first love of truth and peace to restore what was decayed to preserve what remained and was ready to dye to hold fast what was wholesome sound and good while they tryed and pared off what was evill and superfluous to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to them to keep to that forme of Doctrine with those Catholick Traditions and Customes which they had received They were not to invent new waies of Churches or Pastors any more than new Doctrines or new Gospels I am for Primitive Sanctities and Severities in all sorts or degrees of Ministers no lesse than for Primitive subordination and communion Ambitious I am for restoring the Piety and Purity as well as the Polity and Unity of Pristine times And although I find many Ministers so ill natured so peevish and crosse-grained that they can sooner vomit up the meate they have digested than recall or recant any error or extravagancy they have adopted and fomented yet I hope better things of the major part of my Fathers and brethren who are men of more calme and ingenuous tempers furthest from juvenile fervors from private designes and popular dependences Nor do I doubt but all Ministers that are worthy men will easily recede not from their Religion and Consciences but from their various superstitions and presumptions from their immoderate values and Idolatrous adorations of some petite opinions and novel imaginations which they have of late years taken up if once they could happily meet and parley together not in arbitrary Junctos and Associations but being thereto called and incouraged by the command and Counsel the Gravity and Authority of those their Superiours who are most able to advance the good of this Church and the restitution of the Reformed Religion If you O worthy Gentlemen should find us Ecclesiasticks more restive pertinacious or obstinate than becomes us either to retain our needlesse indulgences or superfluous severities and rigors of opinions and practises it will be your honor and candor to supple us and by your exemplary perswasions gently to compell us to be such as best becomes us and your selves You cannot give us the Ministers of England a more signall and ample testimony of your love and regard to us than by your exacting from us in our severall places not onely all morall severities and sanctities of life which are indispensible to our calling and duty but all those reall Ministerial strictnesses in all points of holy Ministrations to which our greatest enemies do so much pretend themselves and complaine of us as most defective in them either as to care or diligence or love towards our people But I beseech you let these sacred exactions as to our lives and Doctrines as to our ordination and Ministration be first Scripturall as to the maine ground rule and end of them next Rationall as to Order Decency and Gravity of them lastly let them be Primitive and Catholick not Novel and Fanatick but as much as may be conforme to the patterne of all ancient Churches who had their formations and fixations from the Apostles long before any of these moderne disputes and factions arose or passion had seized any Ministers judgements as to their particular sides and interests But let us not for Gods sake be urged as some designe utterly to forsake the Church of England to renounce our own former both practises and perswasions our standings and understandings too as Ministers which were so much grounded upon Scripturall directions Apostolick exemplifications Catholick imitations and nationall constitutions onely to conforme to some private mens modern fancies or to preferre as to Church-ordination Ministration and Government the novelties of Amsterdam or Geneva before the antiquities of Antioch and Jerusalem Nor yet may you leave us so far to our selves as to suffer every one of us to invent and do whatever seems good in his own eyes Alas many of us are weak in our Learning Religion and Reason strong onely in our Passions Prejudices and Presumptions easie and soft in our Judgements heady and obstinate in our opinions prone to be biased with private interests and abused with popular pretentions While we meane well yet we are ready to do very ill having much in us either cold and doting or young and raw or over-hot and uncomposed never worse governed than when we are left every man to governe our selves or our private flocks after our own various fancies and affectations which are most-what very partiall plebeian imprudent impolitick not many of us understanding the proportions of true Church-Government any more than we do the designes and dimensions of the most noble and magnificent buildings which were never erected and perfected by the occasionall concurrence of every spontaneous workman that listed to joyne his head and hand to carry on what figure and form he thought best but they are the effects of mature Counsell and grand advise from wise Master-builders who first agree in the whole model or Idea before they put the parts in execution The truth is no sorts of men are lesse tractable generally than we that professe to be Ministers If we have little Learning we are envious
polity and prudence but was further commended and confirmed by the ancient patternes of Gods own appointment among the Jewes by Christs Doctrine and example together with his Apostles practise and appointment evident in their writings and in the imitation of all Churches from the beginning The want and waste of which Primitive and Catholick Government as I do unfeignedly deplore in the Church of Engl. so I am glad to see any of my brethren so sensible of it as to make what handsome shift they can for a while to unite and defend themselves til the mercy of God and the wisdome of Governours shall restore such ancient order unity and authority to us as may be most happy for us on all hands And although I think these Associatings to be as incomplete as they seem partiall yet they are so far considerable and commendable as they seem to invite and draw Ministers to some Ecclesiastick union and fraternall society which may be in time much for their own Honour Safety and Happiness as well as the peoples peace especially if such closures arise not from a continued confederacy of factious Spirits against true Episcopacy but rather as preparations for it so farre as times may bear or bring on the due restitution of it not to its pristine pomp and splendor which is not expectable but to its Primitive Order Power and Spirituall Authority in the Church which without doubt is the Conservative the Crown the Consummation the Centre of all Churches Government Short of which what ever popular and plausible prefacings these projects of Associating may make to endeare some Ministers by the parity of their Oligarchies in Presbytery or to draw in common people by their specious Democracies in Independency yet I confesse I expect no great or durable good from either of their partialities First because they are but private mens projects not the results of the publick counsell and united wisdome of this Church and Nation Secondly they are in their constitution defective as to the true proportions of good Government and Polity which must have ability order intirenesse and authority which are not to be found in the parity or plebs either of Ministers or people Thirdly they are as new so precarious and arbitrary therefore unauthoritative and unauthentick easily baffled and despised by any that list to be recusant and refractory Fourthly as they are divided no lesse than Oligarchie and Democracy so they may be dangerous to the Authors abetters and executors of them when ever those that aâ—e or shall be in civill power list to bring them to the triall of a Prâ—munire which statute binds up the hands of all Pragmatick Presbyters and people from acting of their own heads in Church-affaires without Law This I am sure the policies of States-men are easily jealous of Church-men nor can the Clergy discreetly act any thing by way of publick influence in things Ecclesiasticall for which they have not the publick Counsel and consent Possibly these Associations if friendly and ingenuous may be some seeming shelter to some poor Ministers from the urgent stormes of popular contempt and insolency like the undergirding of that crazy and weather-beaten ship in which St. Paul was imbarqued and ready to perish untill the tossed vessell of this Church may be brought into a more commodious haven and fully repaired But if the aime of Associatings be no more than a cunning complicating of Presbyterian and Independent principles and interests together that they may rule in their Duumviracy exclusive of all primitive Presidency and slighting all pleas for Episcopacy which hath the onely Catholick and Classicall precedents for authentick ordination and full authority in the Church all will be no more than daubing with untempered morter by which they may foule their own fingers and other mens faces but they will never erect any stately and durable structure capable to supply the roome of that Primitive Apostolick and Catholick Government in comparison of which these precarious and poor Associatings of Ministers are but a setting up a stanty hedge instead of a good quick-set or a brick-wall for the sense of Christs vineyard Presbytery hath been already so baffled in England and Indepency hath so little place or credit both are such exotick novelties and so incompetent for Church-Government that neither single nor sociall ravelled nor twisted they will ever have any considerable power nor be able to give any protection to either Ministers or people much lesse will they promote the Reformed state of Religion or the peace of the Nation The community of Ministers and people though never so much Associated in such levelling factions will still appeare both to their enemies and friends but as so many silly sheep who fearing to be further worried by wolves and dogs do flock together indeed with great eagernesse and crowding but they are not thereby much the safer if they have neither fixed folds nor able valiant and watchfull shepheards to oversee and defend them with such eminent power and lawfull Authority as becomes the masters of such Assemblies and the chief Fathers of those Families which make up the most complete Churches of Christ As it is hard to draw a true circle unlesse the centre be fixed or to build a firm arch without the binding and centre-stone be added to the rest so I firmely believe that neither the interests of people by Independency nor of Presbyters by Presbytery will ever be advantaged to any honourable happy or durable condition by these Associations if they arrogantly and factiously usurp the rights and power of Primitive Episcopacy which hath been alwaies as usefull as venerable in the Church of Christ either used or approved or desired by all learned and sober men and asserted by infinite pregnant and unanswerable testimonies both ancient and late Nor will I hope the Antiquity Sanctity and Majesty of Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy ever want such Princes Peers such Presbyters and people as both in true polity and in good conscience will so approve it as to preferre it no lesse before all modern models than the first temple was preferrable before the second or either of them before the Tabernacle If these Associations do onely intend as some of them pretend to take in all interests with reservation of latitudes and freedomes both of different principles and practises to all sorts of Ministers will they not prove at last Dissociatings and amount to no higher edifying of this Church than the laying of brick and sand without lime which will never make a durable and strong building For they will soon divide and dissolve who are held together by no other bond than their own will and pleasure Possibly thus farre they may be of use as means somewhat to discover more the rubbish and ruines of our late distractions which have made Ministers so much strangers that they are enemies to each other yea possibly they may by drawing them to some amicable conventions and Christian
equality are emulation faction division among Ministers the younger sort naturally mutinying against the elder and the graver sort thinking themselves more wise worthy than the younger Hence grudgs and coldnesses cavils and contradictions sidings and divisions Hence adherings to severall heads and patrons of factions in different opinions or practises Then follow popular adherencies and such declamatory endeavours as may most draw people to severall Masters all which are sufficiently evidently the experiences of Franckfort of old of Roterdam in later years also of new and old England besides the intolerable petulancies and troubles by Masterly Presbyters in Scotland for many yeares in King James his minority and King Charles his too All these have loudly proclaimed that malapertnesse rudenesse insolency effrontery factions confusions are the genuine fruites of an un-sub Presbytery as indeed of all Government which is made up with parity or equality which is rather a lump or masse of flesh like monstrous and abortive births than any comely polity or symmetry befitting an organized body which must have some prime part for the honor order and regulation of the whole which must needs be loose diffused and confused if it be not cemented centred and fixed yea ruled and awed with some eminent part and principall power which having virtue from the whole gives also life vigor firmation and Majesty as to the whole body so to the Government and polity what ever it be civill or Ecclesiastick being as the Hoopes or Curbes of vessels which keep all the pipe-staves together The want of which authoritative order decorum and majesty in Government is prone to give such temptations to young and hot-headed Ministers besides giddy and surly people moving them to ambitious novelties to popular and preposterous practises that men of parts cannot easily resist them Besides the generality of people either of meaner or better quality especially in England will never have such reverence to petty Presbyters in a levelled parity as they will have when they see Ministers united guided honored and animated by a person of that Gravity Age Worth and Eminency that not onely the best Ministers own him as a Father but the best Gentlemen yea Noblemen will reverence him as a man of excellent Learning Piety and Wisdome whose censure or sentence no man of modesty or conscience can despise when they are managed with so much reason and Religion with such order and honor with such gravity and integrity as become such Bishops and such Presbyters happily united in a comely subordination The good that Independency pretends to hold forth to the people of God or Christs little flock in its severall parts and lesser parcels is a more neer union and endeared love of each other a closer care and watching over each others souls more frequent and familiar intercourses between Pastor and people exercising of their own exciting and discovering of their brethrens gifts and sisters graces neerer Communion with each other after the fashion of bodies though small yet so complete and confined to themselves that they are neither subject nor responsible to any but their own chosen members officers and pastor whose Tribunitian not imperatorian power is immediately founded as they say in the very plebs or herd of people as derived immediately from Christ and so completely endued with all Church-Power or spirituall authority that they are to Try Elect Ordain Censure Rebuke Depose Excommunicate and give over to Satan any part of their body They further professe an Art or Receipt they have above all others to keep all ordinances of Christ most entire and pure from all humane mixtures and inventions most set off and adorned with that Simplicity Sincerity Fervency Charity and Sanctity which becomes the Gospel all which are most eminently manifested in the precincts of their little bodies their Independent or Congregationall Churches farre beyond what ever either Episcopacy or Presbytery severally or socially could attain unto These are the gloryings of Independency The evils laid to the charge of Independency are first novelty and inconformity to all pious antiquity A way untaught untryed unthought of by any Christians that owned themselves as parts of the Church Catholick and related to its grand community or sacred society It meanly and miserably confines the Majesty of Ecclesiasticall power and shrinks its authority it drawes the Churches polity and communion to so very narrow and small a compasse that Independency seemes to act rather by distorted and convulsive motions than by that equable harmony of parts which attends all orderly bodies in their concurrent motions Farther it exposeth particular Churches or congregations together with the honor and safety of Religion and all Christian States to petty parties and fractions to popular nay plebeian humors It abaseth the honor of the Evangelicall Ministry weakning the power and diminishing the dignity of all Christian societies mincing and destroying those ancient Grand and Goodly combinations which were Apostolicall and Primitive in the respective Churches of Jerusalem Antioch the 7. Churches of Asia and many others cutting them into small chips and shreds It placeth the sole and absolute power of the keyes for Doctrine and Discipline there where no wise man much lesse the wise Redeemer of his Church would place them even among the vulgar where are seldome found any fit subjects capable to understand much lesse to manage and use them That such are the common sort and major part of all people no wise man is ignorant though they may be plainly and simply good yet seldome are they so prudent so knowing so composed or of such credit and reputation as is fit for any Government either in Church or State to be committed to them as the grand Masters and absolute Dictators which they seem to be in the Independent modell which either hath so many heads that it hath no feet or so many feet that it hath no head Furthermore Independency seems like the flats and shallowes of ponds and rivers the proper beds for all Faction and Schisme to spawne upon the seminary that breeds and noursery that feeds all the vermine of Religion while every silly soul that can but get two or three to conspire with his folly and flatter his new fancy may without feare or wit make a Minister begin a party and beget a Church built and distinguished by some new character of opinion or practise as its badg or sign-post Besides this Independency is indicted by many sober men as a felon or plagiary a sacrilegious robber of other Churches one that steales away Children from their Spirituall fathers sheep from their flocks and shepherds seducing servants from their Masters and children from their parents true Religion worship and devotion yea from all Christian Communion with them entising them first to straggle then to separate then to starve rather than returne to the good pasture and fold whence they have once wandered Lastly as it affects an equall and yet enormous power in every
part of the whole body so it exerciseth this authority with such confusion and passion with so much Childishnesse and petulancy that there is little or nothing of due subordination feare reverence and submission as to any Divine Authority as of Conscience of or for Christs sake but every one takes offence when he listeth growes froward and insolent divides and so destroyes as much as in him lyes and at as easie a rate as one doth crush a worme those petty bodies and puny Churches which are indeed but Infants Embryo's and Pygmies compared to that stature and strength that procerity and puissance which of old was preserved and ever ought to be in the Church of Christ when it hath its peace and growth not shred into poor patches and pittifull parcels but united maintained and managed in conspicuous combinations in ample and august proportions in which may well be contained many thousands of Christian people some hundreds of worthy Presbyters and Deacons under some one or more venerable Bishops in so holy so happy and so handsome a subordination or dependency as was of old that whatever was done by the Authority of those that ruled or the Humility of those that obeyed all was done with Charity and Unanimity while excellent Bishops knew how to keep the true temper of Christian Government and both Presbyters and people concurred with them in filial obedience and fraternall love CHAP. X. THus we see every party or side however it justifie or magnifie it selfe yet it falls under either the blame or jealousie of its rivals as defective or excessive yet not so much in the fundamentals of Religion or main points either for Doctrine Worship Duty or Manners as chiefly in matters of Ordination Discipline and Government Nor is the difference here so broad that any side denies them as necessary both in the parts and whole in greater and lesser proportions for the Church of Christ but the reall dispute is who shall mannage and execute them in whom the chief power and Authority shall reside whether eminently in Bishops or solely in Presbyters or supremely in the people as the Alpha and Omega the first recipient and the last result of Church-power All sides except Fanaticks Seekers and Enthusiasts seem to agree as in the Canon of the Scripture so in the soundnesse of the faith in the sanctity of divine mysteries in the celebration of them by such as are some way ordained and authorised for that holy service also in the participation of them by such onely as are in the judgement of Charity worthy or meet to be partakers of them All agree in the main Christian graces virtues and morals required in a good Christians practise yet still each party is suspected and reproched by others the brisk Independent boasts of the Liberty simplicity and purity of his way yet is blamed for Novelty Subtilty Vulgarity Anarchy the rigid Presbyterian glories in his Aristocratick Parity and levelling community which makes every petty Presbyter a Pope and a Prince though he disdain to be a Priest yet is taxed for petulancy popularity arrogancy and novelty casting off that Catholick and ancient order which God and Nature Reason and Religion all civill and military policy both require and observe among all societies Episcopacy justly challengeth the advantages right and honor of Apostolick and Primitive Antiquity of universality and unity beyond any pretenders yet is this condemned by some for undue incrochments and oppressions upon both Ministers and peoples ingenuous Liberty and Christian priviledge by a kind of secular height and arbitrary soveraignty to which many Bishops in after-ages have been betrayed as by their own pride and ambition so by the indulgence of times the munificence of Christian Princes and sometimes by the flatteries of people Take away the popular principle of the first which prostrates Government to the vulgar Take away the levelling ambition of the second which degrades Government to a very preposterous and unproportionate parity Take away the monopoly of the third which seems to ingrosse to one man more than is meet for the whole each of them will be sufficiently purged as I conceive of what is most dangerous or noxious in them for which they are most jealous of and divided from each other Restore to people their Liberty in some such way of choosing or at least approving their Ministers and assenting to Church-censures as may become them in reason and conscience restore to Presbyters their priviledges in such publick counsel and concurrence with their Bishops as may become them lastly restore to Bishops that Primitive precedency and Catholick presidency which they ever had among and above Presbyters both for that chief Authority or Eminency which they ever had in ordaining of Presbyters and Deacons also in exercising such Ecclesiasticall Discipline and Censures that nothing be done without them I see no cause why any sober Ministers and wise men should be unsatisfied nor why they should longer stand at such distances and defiances as if the Liberties of Christian people the Privileges of Christian Presbyters and the Dignity of Christian Bishops were wholly inconsistent whereas they are easily reconciled and as a threefold cord may be so handsomely twisted together that none should have cause to complaine or be jealous all should have cause to joy in and enjoy each other Bishops should deserve their eminency with the assistance counsel and respect of their Presbyters Bishops and Presbyters might enjoy the love reverence and submission of Christian people both people and Presbyters might be blessed with the orderly direction and fatherly protection of the Bishops all should have the blessings of that sweet subordination harmony and unity which best becomes the Church of Jesus Christ both in the Governors and Governed in Ministers and People wherein we see the most Antiepiscopall Presbyters and refractory people cannot but be so sensible by their own sufferings of the want of some principle of order some band of unity and some ground of due Authority among them that they are forced to make use of some Moderator Chaire-man or Prolocutor as a kind of temporary Pilot and arbitrary Bishop there being no regular moving of popular bodies in Church or State without such an head or President as the rudder of a ship whose order as it is usefull so then most when it is fixed and confirmed with a valid power and venerable authority which are the maine wheeles of all Government As for the Sacramentall scrutinies and other holy severities to be used in any part of Christian Discipline with charity and discretion however the Presbyterian and Independent preachers have very much sought in this point to captate popular applause and exalt themselves above measure as if they exacted farre greater rigors of preparatory sufficiency and sanctity than the Episcopall Clergy ever did or do either require or practise Yet is this but either a vapour or a fallacy or a calumny in respect of the
dispensers of it be not wisely united not onely in their doctrine but in the derivation and reception as well as dispensation of that holy Authority by which they officiate for otherwise one Minister is prone to magnifie himself against all others of any other make mold to disparage all that is done by others as sacred to draw disciples from one side to another perswading people according to the feuds which were between the Samaritan Jewes and Priests of that Temple against those of Jerusalem that what is done in holy duties by such as are not of his stamp form is unauthoritative presumptuous invalid meer nullities and profanations of holy mysteries without Spirit Life Power or Efficacy an histrionick pageantry of Preaching Praying Baptising Consecrating Celebrating Censuring Binding Absolving Terrifying Comforting as in the name of Christ when indeed there is either no power or authority but a new one that must needs be a false one either usurped or obtruded or pretended by those that have nothing to shew for their Commission Order and Derivation of such spirituall power either from the Scripture or the constant practise or the Catholick Custome of the Church of Christ Thus everlasting feuds distances and defiances will follow among people and Pastors where an harmony is not in this maine point of ordination or Ministeriall Authority which certainly were no hard matter to effect if Ministers would so far agree by an Episcopall subordination in an uniformity of ordination and all other Ecclesiastical Ministrations as no Ministers or peoples just claime and interest should be either neglected excluded or oppressed 1. First the rights of people should be so far satisfied that no man should be ordained a Minister but in the most publick and solemn convention of the Diocese after publick notice given of his name and demand what any could say against his being ordained in like manner no Minister should be obtruded upon any people by patron or Bishop without hearing what they had to object against him and rationall satisfaction given to them which was required in St. Cyprians time 2. Next the rights of Presbyters should be so far satisfied that none should be ordained a Presbyter untill he had passed the orderly triall as of the Bishop so of any Minister that list to examine his sufficiency or his manners and life after which done Presbyters should not onely be present at the solemnity of preaching and praying but such as could conveniently of the eldest and gravest Ministers might lay their hands with the Bishops or Presidents upon the ordained both in their own and others behalfe as a testimony of a joynt consent on all sides to his ordination 3. Last of all the rights and claime of Episcopacy or Bishops would easily be satisfied and very compliant with the other of Presbyters and people if no ordination might passe without either the presence of the Bishop as President or of such a Presbyter as in the Bishops necessary absence should be his suffragane or Vicegerent nominated by him and allowed by that Presbytery over whom the Bishop presideth This method and moderation would as I humbly conceive both complete and settle in all sober mens judgements the ordination of Ministers and giving satisfaction to all just demands or ingenuous pretensions it would powerfully and happily unite both Bishops Presbyters and people as answering all the claimes and expectations considerable of Episcopall Presbyterian and Independent parties as to the maine point of unanimous and uniform Ministry Among whom a like correspondency would easily if wisely and meekly be carried on in all other Ecclesiasticall affaires of publick concernment for Doctrine Worship Discipline Censures Appeales Admission Abstention Excommunication Absolution Synodal conventions and the like It is not imaginable how great an harmony honor and happiness would hence arise to the infinite content and comfort of all good Christians to the great advantage of the Reformed Religion to the peace of this Church to the happiness of the Nation to the Glory of God and to the unspeakable quiet of many thousands of poor soules who are now agitated with infinite Scruples Feares Anger 's Jealousies and Despites in Religion according as they are ingaged and exasperated in their first entrance or beginnings all these would peaceably and comfortably apply by Gods help and Ministers harmony to the improvement of their soules in faith and repentance in truth and love to lead holy and orderly lives to hear with diligence and reverence to receive with frequency and charity to pray with understanding and fervency to do all things with meekness and wisdome lastly to die with earnest desire and blessed hope of further enjoying that Christian and sweet Communion with God with Christ Jesus and his holy Servants Saints and Angels in an other life of which he hath had so blessed experience and pleasing a fore-taste even in this world where the onely heaven a good Christian can have consists in the happy Communion he hath with God and good Christians without which all society is but solitude or worse an harmony no better than what may be found in hell which is a conspiracy in sin and conjunction in misery This holy Communion is so much the more divine and joyfull even in this world by how much it enlargeth it self to greater numbers and extentions true Christian love being loth to be confined to a narrower compasse than the Christian and Catholick faith is but coveting as light and heate most ample dilatations and Catholick diffusions seeking if possible and as much as in it lies to live peaceably with all men and chearfully with all that are of Christs family or the houshold of faith who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity By these and such like peacefull methods of prudence and love of moderation and mutuall condescension among Ministers without further disputing or urging any of their former principles upon which they seemed to differ much lesse casting any further reproaches upon each other I do not see but by the blessing of God upon them they might all meet in an happy union and accord in Church-Government according to those principles of right Reason and Religion of Piety and Polity of Scripture-Canons and Catholick Customes in which all sober Ministers must necessarily agree as the best rules of Christian prudence the surest methods of holy order and the firmest bonds of Christian Communion To which maine ends as all good Christians should chiefly bend all their Counsels Prayers and endeavours so I do not conceive they are so strictly confined and limited by any precise rules or formes of any externe Polity and Order but they may as occasion requires for the peace of the Church and edification of Christians in love use such a liberty in their mutuall condescendings and compliances as shall no way offend the blessed God of Truth Order and Peace nor violate any of their own consciences while they bear such a tender regard to other mens as they
the very beasts of the people are so far flattered as to be suffered with their foule feet daily to trouble and confound that cleare fountain and constant streame of Ministeriall Authority and Ecclesiasticall succession by way of Episcopall Ordination which was ever of so solemn and conspicuous use in all Churches of so venerable a succession of so ancient and uninterrupted a derivation from the very Apostles dayes and hands that it never failed to keep its course as some rivers do through salt waters amidst all the confusions which either heathenish hereticall or schismaticall persecutions raised in the Church Yea no Hereticks no Schismaticks except Aerius and his few complices who discontent for not obtaining a Bishoprick which â—e sought and turning Arrian was the first the onely and the fitâ—â—st engine to oppose Episcopacy as Epiphanius observes were ever so wild so fanatick so desperate as to cast off all Episcopall succession Authority over them both in Ordination and jurisdiction yea they knew no meanes to keep their confederacies and factions better together than that which they saw had alwaies been serviceable to preserve the true Churches communion Though the Manicheans Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Pelagians and others together with the Novatians Donatists withdrew from or were justly excluded by the Bishops of the sound and orthodox profession yet still these Heterodox Opiniasters had not onely Deacons and Presbyters but Bishops of their own Some of which Bishops afterward returning to the Catholick Communion were not degraded from their Episcopall power but onely suspended from the exercise of it in another Bishops jurisdiction or Diocese without his leave which being granted to some of them gave occasion to those Chorepiscopi which were Bishops without particular title and locall jurisdiction but yet enjoying and using this power of Ordination in some Country-Townes and Villages by the permission of the Bishop or Metropolitane of the Diocese or Province residing in the chief City which indulgence was after as the Church-Histories tell us taken away from the Chorepiscopi when it was found to occasion great inconveniences by admitting two Bishops in one Precinct or Diocese Certainly what is so pregnantly Catholick and usefull that not onely all good men but even such as were evill could not but approve and use it it were not onely folly but frenzy to cast quite away if it were the full vote and free act of the Nation What Apology could be sufficient to excuse this Nation either among Churches abroad or to posterity at home when they should see that by a rash partiall and popular precipitancy we have been hurried against all Reason Honor and Religion to forsake or to stop up the ancient fountaines of living waters which have alwaies flowed from Episcopall Ordination supplying this as all Churches in all places and offices with orderly Presbyters and usefull Deacons onely to try what those pits will afford which novellers have digged to themselves and which they eagerly obtrude upon this Church notwithstanding they are already found by sad experience to hold no such cleare and pure waters either for Doctrine or Discipline for Authority or Unity for Order or Peace as those were which the Apostles digged and the Catholick Church ever used and esteemed for sacred In this great point then of Right Ordination and true Ministeriall Authority of which the Learned Mr. Mason professeth next his salvation he desires to be assured it is as I humbly conceive not onely piously but prudently necessary for our Reformed Church Religion and Ministry to be effectually vindicated and by all possible meanes fairly united If there were ever any other way of Ordination used or allowed in the Church of Christ let the Authors Histories and instances be produced either as to their grounds or their practise If there were never any other either used or approved or thought of besides that which was in the Church of England managed by Bishops as necessary and chief agents in it truly it is but Justice Reason Conscience and Honor to own this Truth to follow this Catholick precedent to returne to an holy conformity with pious Antiquity which neither invented nor induced Bishops or Episcopall Ordination and jurisdiction as an affected novelty or a studied variety but they followed doubtlesse herein what was received from the very first Bishops who succeeded to the Apostles as authorized and placed by them So that as the succession of Bishops was lineally reducible to the Apostles which Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian Eusebius Nicephorus and others evidently prove not onely by their publick Registers but by their private memories when the names of Bishops were fresh in Christians minds and not very numerous as in the second and third Centuries No lesse may be affirmed of Ordination by Bishops it had its precept and pattern from the Apostles expresly committed and enjoyned to some persons as chief Bishops never trusted to meer Presbyters alone much less to people in common so far as any Record of the Church Sacred or Ecclesiastick doth informe us whose constant silence in this case is a better Testimony against all innovation of Ecclesiasticall Ordination than all the Sorites the Rhapsodies heapes and scamblings of I know not what broken scraps and wrested allegations out of any Scriptures or Fathers can be by which I see some men have sought with much dust sweat and blood to bring in their new uncertaine unaccustomed and unauthentick formes of Ordination exclusive of any President or Bishop who ever was as the principall Verb in a sentence which cannot be wanting without making the sense of all other words very lame defective incoherent and insignificant These grand perswasions joyned to the sad experiences made in Englands late variations do thus far command me to be more intent and earnest that in this point of valid complete undoubted and most authoritative Ordination we might be made uniform that all Ministers like currant money might have the same image and superscription upon them It is most certaine that the Christian and Reformed Religion will never be able to shine either clearly or constantly or comfortably upon the consciences of Christians either as Ministers or people while it is in this great point of Ordination so darkned clouded and eclipsed that it lookes like the Sun wrapped in sackcloth or the Moon turned into blood What Ministry what Ministers what Ordination what Ordained what Ordainers what Ordinances of Christ will in time be much esteemed in England by the Nobility Gentry or Yeomanry when they shall see various waies of Ordination daily invented and obtruded pittifull Novelties induced uniform Antiquity discarded Primitive Episcopacy exautorated a subordinate Presbytery scorned a popular parity and petulancy indulged every where to make what extemporary Priests and Preachers they list of the dregs and meanest of the people as little God knowes to their own soules benefit as to the Churches peace or to the honor of this Nation though they do it with as much
faith or manners they may more testifie their distances from and animosities against each other as Ministers Men of very good parts yea and of piety many times as Saint Jerome and Ruffinus from lesser disputes and differences are transported to wide and sharp defiances not onely as to their persons but as to their perswasions Hence we see Ministers of different descents commonly affect to be known by some different points Doctrines Presbyterians and Independents are thought generally to follow Mr. Calvin in all points as sworne to his dictates or determinations who was a man though of excellent parts yet not of Divine and infallible perfections but mixed with humane infirmities passions and imperfections Episcopall Divines are suspected most-what to have at least a tang and relish of Lutheran Arminian Pelagian opinions some are said to run out to a ranknesse of Socinianisme though the most and best of them I know do confine themselves to the Doctrine of their Mother the Church of England which was neither inconstant curious nor superfluous but cleare necessary and constant owning no Dictator but Christ and no Canon of Faith but the Scriptures doing and determining all things of Religion with great gravity counsell moderation charity and circumspection besides a just soveraigne Authority which swayes much with the Episcopall Clergy As the Church of England did not despise Luthers Melanchthons or Calvins judgement so it justly preferred its own before theirs or any one mans being alwaies guided by the concurrent Wisdome and Piety of many Learned and Godly Clergy-men both Bishops and Presbyters no way inferiour to those or any forraigne Divines and in some things far their superiours not onely as to the eminent places they held in this Church but as to the great discretion and temper of their Spirits which made many of them fitter for the glorious Crown of Martyrdome which they enjoyed than either of those two hotter-spirited yet renowned men who died in their beds who had not onely to contend with the Papall errors and superstitions which then extreamely pestered them and all Christendome but with their own passions and transports yea and with those many popular extravagancies which they rather occasioned I hope than designed among the vulgar who presently fancyed that they had the precepts and patternes of those great men Luther and Calvin to animate them to popular seditious rude injurious and rebellious methods of Reformation in which the very plebs or populacy imagined themselves better able to judge of Religion than any of their Governours in Church or State and because they had more hands therefore they must needs have better hearts and heads to do that work when and how they listed Which mad methods as the Church of England never used in its practise so it perfectly abhorred in its Doctrine to which few Ministers do heartily ingenuously and fully conforme who have forsaken its Discipline and Ordination from which who so flies furthest commonly wanders and wilders most in Enthusiastick Familistick and Anabaptistick opinions In order to this designe of restoring an uniforme and Authoritative Ordination O how ingenuous how religious how prudent how just how charitable how noble a work would it be on all sides for wise and worthy men to have some regard to those few clusters of Episcopacy which are yet remaining in England as a seed in which may be a blessing if the learned and venerable Bishops yet living among us were fairely treated and invited to such a concurrence and common union in this point of Ordination as might transmit both it and their Authority without any flaw or scruple of schisme interruption or fraction as most valid complete and authentick to posterity according to the Catholick and Primitive patterne O how great a security and satisfaction would this conjuncture and derivation completion of holy orders by Bishops with Presbyters give to many learned mens scruples and to many good Christians consciences without any injury or offence that I know to such of any party as are truly pious and peaceable who no doubt would be glad to see that no disorder or discord might be in holy orders from which as from a good well-tempered spring in a Watch all the regular motions of the wheeles and the true indications of the hand are derived directed and depending There can be nothing but clashings enterferings and confusions in any Church or society of Christians where there are crosse-grained contradictive or counterfeited Ministers as to their Ordination Here must be laid the principall and corner binding-stone of our happy Constitution and Communion as a Christian Church or Ecclesiasticall polity The affecting of novelty and variety in this as to the maine of the Ministeriall Order Power and Authority had been the way to have made at first a very crasie and weak Reformation in England and is now the way to deforme yea to destroy all again giving infinite advantages to the projects and policies of Rome also to the licentious distempers of mens own hearts and manners which considerations have made me the more large and importune as in a point of no lesse consequence and importance as to the visible constitution and managery of any Church than the unity and uniformity of civill power or Magistratick Authority is necessary for any Commonwealth or Kingdom where divided magistracy doth certainly tend to distraction and so to destruction as our own late miseries do abundantly convince us as to our civill peace and secular interest And truly no lesse will a divided Ministry infallibly tend to the distraction first and then the destruction of this Church and the Reformed Religion a new Ministry portends either no Ministry or no true one And where most Reverend Episcopacy which hath so many glorious marks of Primitive Antiquity Rare Piety Signall Prosperity Undisputable Universality Apostolick Order Scripturall Authority and Divine benediction upon it where this comes after 1600. years of Christianity and one hundred yeares of an happy Reformation to be questioned baffled exautorated there is no great likelihood that the novices and punyes Presbytery or Independency or Anabaptisme or Enthusiasme should take any great root in the love and esteem of any Christians who if Learned Wise and Upright must needs have greater confidence of and reverence for an Episcopall Ministry than for any new-modes which never yet had at their best any thing either very desirable or very commendable in them as to Wise and Grave mens affections and judgements And take them in their passions pragmaticalnesse popularities partialities novelties varieties inconstancies confusions and injuriousness and insolencies by which they have either begun or increased their parties waies and designes in many places many times against the will and Authority of lawfull Magistrates and Soveraigne Princes no lesse than against the dignity authority of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church look upon the best of them I say under these marks which are almost inseparable from them
especially in the height of their lusts and hopes which are as their rutting time which secular ambitions and popular acclamations raise them to I believe as they will never obtaine the consciencious respect of the wisest and best men so nor will they in conclusion constantly enjoy the vulgar flatteries and applaudings of weak or wicked men who having not cast any anchor of fixation to their judgements and affections either in clear Reason or sound Religion in Equity or Charity in Faith or Love in holy Antiquity or Primitive conformity but preferring factious and fancifull novelties before Catholick and Uniforme Antiquity they must needs be everlastingly fluctuating in their endlesse inventions ambitions inconstancies and vertiginous Reformations of Ministry and Religion which are commonly biassed by some private advantages over-swaying them to invent or embrace some gainfull novelty contrary to that due veneration and humble submission which all sober Christians owe to Primitive simplicity and that Catholick Authority which is indelebly stamped upon the Universall Churches custome consent and practise agreeable to the Scripture-Canon or rule which it ever was All which are in no one thing more evident than in this of the Originall constitution derivation and transmission of the Ministeriall Order Office and Authority by the way of Episcopall eminency where Bishops with their Presbyters did ever rightly ordaine Evangelicall Ministers but Presbyters without any Bishops above them never did by any allowed example or usuall practise in any Church from the Apostles daies till the last Century CHAP. XVII THe Essentials or Being of true Ministers thus restored and preserved both in their Ability and Autority the first to be searched by due Examination the second conferred by lawfull and Catholick Ordination the next thing which craves your counsell care and charity most worthy Christians is the bene esse well-being of your Clergy both for their maintenance and their respect for their single support and their sociall consorting For poor and alone or rich yet scattered like disjoyned figures and cyphers they will signifie not much as to publick reputation or gubernative influence But together their Competency and Communion will make up that double Honor which the Apostle by the Spirit of God requireth as due to such Evangelicall Bishops and Ministers as rule well labouring in the Word and Doctrine according to the place and proportion wherein God and the Church have set them The personall maintenance of Ministers by which they may comfortably subsist diligently attend and cheerfully dispense the things of God to their severall charges I put in the first place not as the more noble in respect of the common good and joynt honor of the Clergy but as naturall and most necessary for as Ministers will have no great spirit or ability for private employment so much lesse joy or confidence in any publick Church-Government if they have not such convenient support as may countenance and embolden them to appear in publick Without doubt nothing is more unbecoming the Honor and Grandeur the Plenty and Piety of any Christian Nation than to keep their Clergy poor indigent and dejected so beyond measure is it vile for any Christian people to rob their able Ministers of that honorable maintenance which once they have been lawfully possessed of and long enjoyed as devout donations given to Gods Church and his more immediate Servants the Ministers of the Gospel by pristine piety for the publick good of mens soules but above all things to be abominated is that Atheisticall Hypocrisy whose fraud pretends to Reforme Religion as Herod promised to worship the babe Christ when he intended to kill him by reducing the dispensers of it to sordid poverty and sharking necessity by compelling Preachers to use Mechanick Trades and extemporary preachings yea and after all this by laying the weight even of Church-Government upon such weak and low shoulders either of such poor Bishops or Pygmy-Presbyters who must forsooth live upon popular contributions and arbitrary Almes after the Primitive and Apostolick pattern as some men urge even of St. Paul and of other prime Preachers at first who they say preached gratis having no set salary and exacting nothing as due from the people Which Primitive and Apostolick patterne is not more impertinently and injuriously than falsely and impudently urged by illiberall men in sacrilegious times For they may easily find that the justice and power of demanding hire or wages as due for their work was urged and owned by St. Paul as due by the Law of God under the Gospel as well as before it though sometime remitted in tendernesse to the temper of mens hearts and Estates in those hard yet charitable times when there was so much of gratitude and charity in zealous Christians that there needed nothing as of compulsion and necessity and in which very cheap though extraordinary gifts did most-what enable the Apostles and others beyond what Ministers may now expect under the rate of much Time Charge Study and Paines Alas those Primitive Preachers needed not to be very solicitous for their support or salary among true Christians when t is evident that Christian people had generally such largenesse of hearts as offered not onely the Tithe but the Totall of their Estates Goods and Lands too to the support of their Preachers and their poor However it is not to be doubted but that as the Apostles so all Bishops and Ministers of the Gospel may with as much equity as modesty demand receive and enjoy whatever was then or afterward either occasionally or constantly conferred upon them by any Christian people or Princes the distribution of which was in Primitive times chiefly intrusted to the care of the Bishops who appointed both rewards to Presbyters and relief to the poor So that it must needs be barbarously covetous and Judasly sacrilegious for any Christian people violently and unjustly to take away from their Learned and deserving Clergy either such other Lands and Revenues or those very Tithes which people have once put out of their power by giving them to God by an act of solemn and publick consent testified in their nationall Lawes every way agreeable to the Will and Word of God to the Light and Law of Nature to the Patriarchicall Tradition and Practise before the Law of Moses to Gods own proportion and appointment among the Jewes to the Apostolical comprobation and the parallel ordaining of the Lord under the Gospel or to the right and merits of Jesus Christ beyond the type of Melchisedech whose Evangelicall Priesthood being to continue in the Church surely deserves no lesse honor and maintenance than the Aaronicall and Leviticall and much more sure than any Priestly office among the heathens Yet who hath not either heard or read in all Histories that the very heathens out of an instinct of gratitude and Religion did every where offer the Tenth of their Fruites Corn Spices Gumms Minerals Metals and spoiles in war to the Temples
For other wretches I know how their penurious covetous and sacrilegious pulse doth beat they are in nothing more envious and jealous t is equally harsh and odious to them to heare of any thing to be given or restored to the Church being much more sensible of any damage and injury done to their private purses and Estates than of such publick detriments and depressions as cloud the glory of their God and Saviour eclipse the honor of this Church and State vilifie and upon the point nullifie the dignity of the Ministry and prostitute the soules of poor people for which Christ hath died to ignorance and Atheisme to licenciousnesse and hypocrisie it being more with many men to save a penny than to save a soul more willing to spare a sound tooth out of their heads than one pound or shilling to advance Religion they are for a cheap heaven or none so willing they are to perish with their money rather than live by lightning the ship a little CHAP. XVIII AFter the foundations of a true Christian Ministry are thus laid both for its Being which consists in reall abilities discovered and in valid Authority conferred after the most venerable Catholick and authentick custome of the Church which being conforme to the word of God ought in such cases to be as a Law sacred and inviolable after I have further set forth the wel-being of the Clergy and in that of the whole Church by sustaining able Ministers in their severall degrees and stations with such ingenuous maintenance as may become not onely the honor of the work and workmen but the Glory of the Christians God the love and value of their Saviour and the beauty or majesty of the Church in which they are employed in so sacred solemn publick and constant services which ought in all reason and Religion to be kept up by all good Christians to some outward conspicuity and decency as far as Gods indulgence affords men peace and plenty The next thing I humbly commend to the Noblenesse Wisdome and Piety of my Country for the further strengthning and preservation of the being and wel-being of this Church and its Christian Reformed Religion both in Ministers and people able Preachers and honest Professors is so to combine cement and unite all worthy Ministers and other Christians in an uniforme and holy harmony of due subordination holy discipline and decent Government as may best keep them by Gods blessing from such fractures and factions such schismes and swellings such dashings and dividings against and from each other as have of latter years not onely battered themselves and each other to great diminutions weaknings and deformities but they have crushed this whole Church and crumbled its former intirenesse and amplenesse to so many broken bits and pieces through the impotent ambition of those Ministers or people who being least apt or able are most greedy to govern of themselves and loth to be governed by others which refractoâ—inesse hath not onely defaced the beauty and broken the unity of this Church but further threatens to shake the civill peace stability and consistence of this Nation whose honor and happinesse is not onely now at the stake but much abated and in hazard to be quite lost if that publick wisdome and courage be not applied which is necessary to recover the blessing of the Reformed Religion and the unity of this Church to such a posture of setledness order and unity as shall not need to feare either fanatick Confusion or Romish usurpations which are the great plots and designes laid against this Church and Nation of England I easily foresee that nothing will be a more hard knotty and flinty work than the recomposing of this Church to any Ecclesiasticall Uniformity Charitable Harmony and Orderly Government if either the late sharp passions private interests or mutuall prejudices of any one of the parties so divided from each other in England be made the partiall and scanty measures of Church-Order and Polity For the animosities and Antipathies among them are such that they will on all sides disdaine to be forcibly cast into any one of the pretended models which are on foot The onely probable and feisable way to reduce all sober Ministers and honest people to a consciencious and charitable Communion is for the wisdome and piety of this Nation to do as Constantine the Great did when he burnt all the querulous demands and uncharitable petitions of the Ecclesiasticks against one another so reconciling them all while he utterly silenced all their quarrels and buried their complaints In like manner the best and speediest method of our union will be to lay aside all the earnest pleas and violent pretentions of all sides either Episcopal Presbyterian or Independent which have occasioned or increased our late differences and onely to examine calmely seriously and impartially what was the Idea of Church-Order and Government for the first three or four hundred yeares that is twelve hundred yeares at least before these late contests and debates were raised or indeed thought on in this or any Church Certainly the Primitive Catholick and Apostolick posture of the Churches Polity Order and Government must needs be the true pattern in the Mount as Mr. Calvin confesseth in which times there was lesse leisure for ambitious or factious variations the Church being either persecuted most-what for 300. yeares or miraculously refreshed at its freedome in the fourth Century through Gods indulgence and the munificence of Constantine the Great and other Christian Emperours who as Princely nursing Fathers studied the Peace Unity and prosperity of the Church as much as that of the Empire In both which conditions both calme and storme it is most remarkable that as no one Author Father Historian Synod or Councill did any way doubt dispute or divide about Church-Government before the Great Council of Nice so when that great and Oecumenick Councill did come together to take a survey as of the Churches unity in sound Doctrine and Manners so of its Discipline and Government that it might gather together and recompose what ever the tempestuous times of persecution had shaken or shattered yet this grand most venerable and holy Assembly did neither begin any new Hierarchy or Government of the Church nor did they in the least sort tax former times of any Innovation Alteration or desertion from the Primitive Apostolick and Universall pattern which was still fresh in mens memories but they began their Session and Sanctions with that solemn approbation confirmation of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 former ancient Customes or Orders of the Church-Catholick as holy and Authentick which all men knew had prevailed from the beginning Nor was there then any doubt or debate in the generall as to the point of Episcopall presidency or jurisdiction however as to their respective Dioceses and particular distributions some disputes had risen But as to the succession of chief Bishops from the very Apostles daies and
pitty being tenderly severe and most compassionately cruell when it is compelled to exert the sharpest authority doing all things according to the word example and Spirit of Christ Jesus in Meeknesse of Wisdome not to the destruction but edification of the Church in truth and faith in charity and unity To these Presbyters Bishops and Christian people are Deacons subordinate and servient in all things necessary for decency conveniency charity and carrying on of the Churches Autority both in private congregations and more ample conventions part of whole office we see time and custome had devolved upon our Church-Wardens and Overseers for the poor These ends and meanes this order and proportion this constitution and execution of Churchâ—Government by Episcopacy as far as it is conform to Catholick Antiquity and setled by the consent of any Christian Church and Nation by its Synods and Parlaments I do in no sort conceive to be arbitrary precarious or mutable as to the maine however it may be reduced and reformed in its deviations except in cases of invincible necessity which may dispense with Sabbaths Sacraments and all publick externall duties of Polity yea of Piety so far am I from judging it any part of prudent Piety or true Reformation for men rudely to baffle and despise wholly to abrogate and extirpate it because I cannot but look upon it as Scriptuall and Apostolick sacred and binding Christians consciences to due approbation obedience and subjection to it for the Lords sake who undoubtedly intended the right constitution and constant regulation of his Church with Order and Honor no lesse than that of States and Common-weales for whose peaceable Polity the Gospel hath set so many bounds and bonds of subjection Sure neither Church nor State can be honestly or handsomely governed in any way of parity or popularity where every one thinks himself fit to command and so disdains to obey according to those innate passions which are in all men and oft in good men and in good Ministers too who being many are as prone to run into many distempers and dangerous exorbitances if they be left to themselves As Mariners are without a Pilot or sheep without a shepherd or souldiers without a Commander or people without a Prince even so are Christians without ordained Ministers and Ministers without Authoritative Bishops exposed to all manner of Schisms Disorders Factions and Insolencies Which must necessarily follow where the Clergy is either not at all governed by any Grave and Worthy Ecclesiasticall persons or by such Ministers as have none but a popular and precarious Authority or where Ministers are onely curbed and crushed by the imperiousnesse and impertinency of meer Lay-men yea and of such as are not fit to be Judges or Rulers in the least civill affaires much lesse over Learned men whose Place Office and Concerns are properly religious as they stand related to God and his Church Nor can the Clergy be in much better case when they are by a Democratick or Levelling spirit cast into such spontaneous Associations and Confederacies as give to no Minister that orderly and eminent power respect and due authority which is fitting for the Government of the Churches nor yet teach common people that modesty and submission which are necessary for such as desire to be well and worthily governed When all is said and tried that can be in point of Church-Government I doubt not but it will be found true as Beza expresseth it in the happy State of England that Episcopacy is singularis Dei beneficientia Gods singular bounty and blessing to this and any Church which he prayes it might alwaies enjoy where it may be rightly enjoyed and religiously used which the Augustane Confession and all Reformed Churches with their most eminent Professors did desire to submit unto as a most speciall meanes to preserve the Honor Unity and Authority of the Church and its Discipline which as a great River growes weak and shallow when it is drawn into many small channels and rivulets How suitable and almost necessary a right and Primitive Episcopacy is for the temper of England I shall afterward more fully expresse at present it may suffice to shew how easie the restauration of it would be if all sides would sincerely look to the Primitive pattern of Church-Government First if the Diocese committed to the presidential inspection of one worthy Bishop were of so moderate an extent as might fall under one mans care and visitation and be most convenient both for the private addresses and dispatches also for the generall meetings of the Clergy in some principall place of it it would much remedy the great grievance of long journies tedious expectation and many tims frustraneous attendance at Westminister to which all Ministers are now compelled to their great charge and trouble many times for a small Living and sometime for a meer repulse Such Counties as Norfolk Suffolk Essex Kent Middlesex with London may seem proportionable to make each of them one Episcopal distribution greater Counties may be divided and lesser united Secondly if the generality of the Clergy or the whole Ministry of each Diocese might choose some few prime men of their Company to be the constant Electors chief Counsellors Correspondents and Assistants with the Bishop to avoid multitudinous tedious and confused managings of elections Ordinations and other publick affaires Thirdly if in case of Episcopall vacancy the generality of the Clergy meeting together might present the names of three or four or more prime men out of which number the Electors should choose one whose election should stand if approved by the Prince or chief Magistrate if not they should choose some other of the nominated Fourthly the person thus chosen and approved on all sides should be solemnly and publickly consecrated by other Bishops in the presence of the Ministers and people of the Diocese By these meanes as there will be no crowd or enterfering among the Clergy so there will be great satisfaction to Prince and people without any clashing between the Civill and Spirituall power which must be avoided considering that not onely the exercise of all Church-power must depend on the leave of the Prince in his dominions but also the honorary setled maintenance of the Bishops as of all the Clergy is but Eleemosynary in the originall from the pious concession and munificence of the Prince or State who as they will not in conscience or honor deny competent allowances to all worthy Ministers of the Gospel so no doubt they will not grudge to adde such Honorary supports to every Bishop or President as may decently maintaine that Authority Charity and Hospitality which becomes his Place Worth and Merit for certainly no men can do more good or deserve better of their Nation and Country than excellent Bishops may do as by their Doctrine and example so by their wise and holy way of governing the Church with such Honor and Authority as became them which could
can be proper to usher in true Christian Religion and Reformation these methods have made them so stunted and ricketly that they are come to a stop-game so that in these last and worst Ages of the world there hath been little or no progresse made to the true propagating of the Gospel among any heathen Nations or of any Reformation among the decayed Christians because Religion is every where even among many Christians and Reformers too much managed as the Spaniards did among the West-Indies with force and fraud with covetousnesse and cruelty with faction and ambition with regard to worldly interests of men more than to the true precepts and holy concernments of Christ and his Church Who is there that will entertaine Christianity or any Reformation when it comes in like Turcisme and Barbarisme with fire and brimstone with swords and canons pretending to convert and save soules but to be sure it will first pervert the Lawes ravine mens Estates and destroy at last mens lives if they do not submit even against their consciences as well as the Lawes to strange Innovations Truly these are engines onely fit to be used by such spirits as are Antichristian who know not of what Spirit Christ and his Apostles with their successors the Primitive Bishops and Presbyters were Nor did the Popes of Rome ever more staine the honor of that Apostolick See and the glorious name of Catholick Episcopacy than when they forgot to follow their pious predecessors holy and humble Bishops of that famous Church for 600. yeares who were Martyrs or Confessors or true Professors of the Gospel and betook themselves to such arts of secular policy and power of sedition and ambition as made some after-Bishops of Rome seem rather Monsters of men as their own writers confesse than Ministers of Jesus Christ imitators of Sylla Marius and Caesar more than of St. Peter or St. Paul or St. Clemens when they sought by Hildebrandine arts to exalt themselves above all that is called God in civil Magistracy which justly claimes under God and from him as did the Kings of Judah that supreme visible power which within their respective dominions doth orderly and duly manage all ministrations Ecclesiasticall as well as Civil for the publick peace and welfare Certainly since Christianity it self in its grand Articles Ministry and Mysteries must not thus be brought in by head and shoulders by force and affronts upon any Prince or State whatsoever much lesse may any Reformation never so desirable and just As for some little defects or veniall deformities they ought not in any sort to be so urged as should carrie Religion beyond good manners or Reformation to rudenesse Not persecuting but persecuted Bishops and Presbyters are the ablest preachers and aptest propagators of the Gospel such as while they lift up their voyce like a trumpet not to give the alarmes of war but to tell Judah of their sins and Israel of their transgressions do also lift up holy hands and pure hearts to God in prayer for all men but chiefly for Kings and all in Authority In the greatest depressions of Christianity and Episcopacy for they ever went together as Truth and Order Ministry and Authority both of them being necessary for the being or well-being of any Church never any godly Bishop or orderly Presbyter who were still the foremost and stoutest Champions for Religion did make any seditious appeales scurrilous libels or declamatory invectives against the powers that were by whatever meanes they either obtained or held or exercised their soveraignty They never thought it their duty as Christians or Ministers to stir up the spirits of any men great or small many or few to any unlawfull commotions and so they esteemed all to be which had not the consent and Commission of those in civil dominion who were supreme and the present Powers ordained of God When any of those holy Bishops and Presbyters were necessitated not out of revenge or anger but out of charity and pitty to their persecutors to bring forth their strong reasons by way of Learned Grave and unanswerable Apologies for their Religion as many of them did hoping thereby to buoy up the cause of Christianity not onely from unjust persecutions but from false prejudices they did write them indeed with an heroick kind of freedom yet with all due respect dedicating their writings by way of humble supplications or cleare yet comely Remonstrances to the Emperours or Senates to the Princes and supreme Magistrates themselves so did Justine Martyr his first Apology to the Senate of Rome his second to the Emperour Antoninus Pius so Tertullian his to the Emperour Severus and his Son so Quadratus Bishop of Athens to Adrian the Emperour and in like manner did others But never any Primitive Bishop or Presbyter did use any Satanick Stratagems or such seditious practises as were to advance Religion by any thing that tended to or intended popular tumults and rebellion no impudent libellings and scurrilous pamphletings to make either the persons of Princes odious or their Government infamous Episcopacy never used any such conjurations as would either bring down fire from heaven or stir up Earth-quakes neither exciting the Optimacy and Nobility nor the Populacy and Communalty against any either supreme or subordinate powers they never made the waters above the firmament and those under it so to meet by breaking up the great deeps of subjection or by opening the fountains of plebeian Liberties as to bring in terrible inundations upon Kingdomes or Common-wealths No they alwaies by the word and Spirit of Christ which were their onely swords and these two as Christ said to St. Peter were enough for that work set bounds to the proud waves of that raging Sea the tumultuating people and rather repaired the banks and breaches that others rashnesse as the Circumcellions and Euchites somtime made than either assisted or countenanced those horrid deluges of sedition They never wrested the Revelation or any other places of Scripture so as to animate the earth that is the common and meanest people to help the Woman that is whatever some list to call their Church and Religion in its agonies that by their unlawfull motions they might bring forth something that faction lists to call Reformation a word that is never out of the mouths of John of Leiden and his complices though far from their hearts Godly Bishops and Presbyters never either taught or thought those practises to be any helping of the Lord against the mighty No they ever judged and preached after St. Pauls St. Peters and our Blessed Saviours Doctrine and example that such inordinate motions upon pretexts of Religion are cursed and damnable resistings of those powers which God hath ordained by the civil Lawes and customes of any Church or State The Lord and true Religion are onely to be helped by laudable and lawfull actions the measures of which are not to be sought in every mans private breast and
Darknesse Truth and Falshood Error and sound Doctrine between the Institutions of Christ and the sacrilegious Inventions of Men between the infallible Rule and Oracles of Gods Word in the Scripture and the variable Canons of poor men between the Catholick Custom of pure and Primitive Churches and the particular practises of later Usurpations brought in in the twilight of dark and depraved times These diametral distances ought ever to be preserved by all godly Bishops who may not come neerer to Popery than Popery is neer to Christianity or then Antichristian policies may correspond in some things with Christian piety Which just bounds as far as ever I could understand our pious Bishops in England from the first Reformation till now have religiously observed not one of them much less all deliberately or openly owning any communion with the Church of Rome where they saw the Church of England had made a just clear and necessary separation yea the learned Bishops of England have generally so fully confuted the Falsity Injury and Indignity of that calumny both by their Preaching Writing Living and Dying that men must be blind with despite mad with malice or drunk with passion when they vomit out so foul calumnies against all Bishops and Episcopacy in England as if they were Pandars for Popery and Pimps to the Whore of Babylon for this is the language of some mens oratorious Zeal against our Bishops and all Episcopacy which will in time much more agree with Presbytery and Independency I fear than ever it did with Episcopacy But it wil be demanded of me whence then arose this smoke of Jealousie which was so popular and spread abroad that it made so many pure Eyes to ake and smart yea to grow watry and blood-shotten not onely among the vulgar but even among our greatest Seers and Overseers Was there no fire where there was so great a smoke My Answer is these jealousies of some Bishops and other Ministers who most imitated them being Popishly inclined never had so far as ever I could discern any farther ground than this Some Bishops pleased themselves beyond what was generally practised in England with a more ceremonious conformity than others observed first to the Canons and Injunctions which they thought were yet in force in the Church of England being not repealed but onely antiquated through a general disuse next being aged and learned men and more conversant in the Antiquities of the Church than younger Ministers they found that such ceremonious Solemnities in Religion were then very much used without any sin or scandal no godly Bishop Presbyter or other good Christian ever making scruple of using the sign of the Cross in Baptism and at other times of Bowing Kneeling Prostrating himself or of putting his mouth to the ground and kissing the Pavement when he came to worship God or to celebrate holy Mysteries expressing thereby that Humility Faith Fervency sense of his own sinful Unworthiness and that unfeigned Reverence which he bare in his heart toward God and his Service This I suppose made some of our Bishops hope that they might with the like inoffensivenesse add such Solemnity to Sanctity and such outward Veneration to inward Devotion and yet be as far from Popery or Superstition as the ancient Christians were yea as those Ministers and others now pretend to be who make so much of lifting up their eyes and hands in Prayer or who are pleased to be uncovered in Praying Preaching Singing or Celebrating the Sacraments Besides this many Bishops found a secret genius of Rusticity and Rudenesse of Familiarity and Irreverence strangely prevailing among Country-Preachers and People so far that they saw many of them placed much of their Religion in affecting a slovenly rudenesse and irreverence in all publick and holy Duties loth to kneel not onely at the Sacrament but at any Prayers or to be uncovered at any Duty enemies to any man and prejudiced against all he did if he shewed any ceremonious respect in his serving God They saw some were grown so spiritual that they forgot they had bodies and pretending to approve themselves to God onely as to the inward man they cared not for any thing that was regular exemplary orderly comely or reverent as to the outward celebration in the judgement and appointment of the Church of England Hence some men grew to such great applaudings of themselves as if this were the onely simplicity of the Gospel that they thought every man went about to cut the throat of Reformed Religion who applied any Scissers or Razor to pare off rudeness and rusticity or to trim it to any decency in the outward Ministrations according to what seemed best to the Church of England Many Bishops thought that Religion would grow strangely wild hirsute horrid and incult like Nebuchadnezzars hair and nails if it were left to the boysterous Clowneries and unmannerly Liberties which every one would affect contrary to the publick appointment of the Church If some Bishops pleased themselves in using such outward and enjoyned Ceremonies beyond what was ordinary to some men yet certainly a thousand decent and innocent Ceremonies such as those enjoyned by the Church of England were declared to be do not amount to one Popish Opinion nor are they so heavy as one popular erroneous Principle which tends to Faction Licentiousnesse and Profanenesse Ceremonies may possibly be thought superfluous because not of the substance of the Duty but they are not to be charged as superstitious where the Devotion of the heart is holy and the Duty is sincerely performed for the Essentials of it as it is instituted by Christ enjoyned by the Word of God who hath left the ceremonious part of Religion more or less very much to the prudence of his Church according to the several forms and customs of civil respect and decency used in the world which St. Austin and St. Ambrose with all the Ancients declare placing no further Religion in any Ceremony of humane invention and use than it served aptly to excite or express inward sincerity of Devotion and an outward conformity to the decent customs of any Church Which keeping to the Truth Faith and holy Institutions of Christ for the main were not blameable for that variety of Ceremony which was and might be observed without any damage to Truth or breach of Charity As to the maine charge then that Bishops in England were Popish that is warping from the Reformed Doctrine of the Church of England as it was and is stated opposite to the Romish errors and corruptions I do believe that the Bishops of England were in all Ages since the Reformation and in this last as much removed and as free from Popery as the most rigid censors of them who dare accuse every man for Popish who is not boyled up to the same superstitious height and Ceremonious Antipathy with themselves or who do not presently adopt every mans new fancy opinion and form of Religion though private
forraine and impertinent to us rather than the publick Authority and wisdome of the Church of England in its religious determinations and injunctions which were not more Moderate than Orthodox Orderly and Comely not partaking of the Romish contagion though it did not abhor the Romane or any Christians Communion so far as Rome kept any Communion with Jerusalem I meane with the Primitive Catholick and true Church of Christ I do not pretend to search the hearts of any Bishops nor it may be should I have approved some things which some of them said or did as to the unseasonablenesse rigor and excesse yet this I affirm that those men must have foreheads of flint hearts of brasse and pens of Iron who dare to charge with Popery any one of those excellent Bishops whom I have mentioned with honor besides many more whom I have omitted who better knew the true Medium of Religion and Measures of Reformation between Superstition and Profanenesse Affectation and Irreverence Indevoutnesse and Rudenesse than any of their fiercest opposers and unjust destroyers And since I have thus far undertaken not the Patrociny which is a work far above me but such a parentation at the Funerall of my Fathers as may I hope not misbecome me I shall further adventure to do so much right to some Bishops to whom I was most a stranger as to this foule suspicion of Popery which being first fixed upon them was easily diffused to all the Bishops of England by the wonted spreading of all envious and evil reports which easier find entertainment in mens hearts and tongues than any that are good For these seem to men to lessen themselves by commending others the others help either to cover or excuse mens own faults or to set off their seeming zeal and vertues The first and greatest was the last Archbishop of Canterbury who was by many suspected and charged not onely as Popishly affected himself but as a poysoner of the whole streame and current of the Reformed Religion in England at last he was treated either as a Heretick or a Traitor or both to Church and State It becomes not me to sentence either the sentenced or sentencers that adjudged him to death his and their judgement is with the Lord onely as to the aspersion of his being Popish in his judgement which reflected in the repute and event upon all the Bishops of England truly his own Book may best of any and sufficiently vindicate him to be a very great Antipapist great I say because it seemes by that Learned dispute that he dissented from Popery not upon popular surmises and easie prejudices but very learned and solid grounds which true Reason and Religion make good agreeable to the judgement of the Catholick Church in the purest and best times And in this the Archbishop doth to my judgement so very impartially weigh the state and weight of all the considerable differences between the Papists and the English Protestants not such as are simple futile and fanatick but learned serious and sober that he neither gratifies the Romanist nor exasperates him beyond what is just neither warping to a novel and needless super-reformation which is a deformity on the right hand nor to a sub-reformation which is a deformity on the left but keeping that golden Meane which was held by the Church of England and the greatest defenders of it As to his secret designe of working up this Church by little and little to a Romish conformity and captivity I do not believe he had any such purpose or approved thought because besides his declared judgement and conscience I find no secular policy or interest which he could thereby gaine either private or publick but rather lose much of the greatnesse and freedome which he and other Bishops with the whole Church had without which temptation no man in charity may be suspected to act contrary to so cleare convictions so deliberate and declared determinations of his conscience and judgement in Religion as the Archbishop expresses in that very excellent Book I am indeed prone to think that possibly He wished there could have been any faire close or accommodation between all Christian Churches the same which many grave and learned men have much desired And it may be his Lordship thought himself no unfit instrument to make way for so great and good a work considering the eminencies of parts power and favour which he had Haply he judged as many learned and moderate men have that in some things between Papists and Protestants differences are made wider and kept more open raw and sore than need be by the private pens and passions of some men and the interests of some little parties whose partial policies really neglect the publick and true interest of the Catholick Church and Christian Religion which consists much in peace as well as in purity in charity as in verity he found that where Papists were silenced and convinced in the more grand and pregnant disputes that they are novel partial and unconforme to the Catholick Church in ancient times as in the Cup withdrawing in the peremptory defining of Transubstantiation in publick Latine prayers such as common people understand not what is prayed or said in praying to Angels and Saints in worshipping Reliques and Images with divine worship in challenging of a Primacy of Divine Power and Jurisdiction to the Bishop of Rome over all in their adding Apocryphall Bookes to the proper and ancient Canon of the Scripture in their forbidding marriage to the Clergy and the like when in these points the Romanists were tired discountenanced and convinced then he found they recovered spirits and contested afresh against the unreasonable transports violences and immoderations of some professing to be Protestants who to avoid Idolatry and Superstition run to sacriledge and rudeness in Religion denying many things that are just honest safe true and reasonable meerly out of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excessive Antipathy to Papists Hence some are run so far that they will have as no materiall Churches built or used or consecrated so no Liturgy never so sound solemn and easie to be understood so as no Bishops never so holy and Orthodox so no Ministers rightly ordained by them no orderly Ceremonies or decent Rites whatsoever used by the Papists though they first had these from those Churches which were yet beautifull and pure in their Primitive health and integrity The truth is it would make a wise man mad to fall under the sinister censures and oppressions of all vulgar opinions who still urge in things indifferent that unsociableness which is between light and darkness truth and error Reformation and Superstition never suspecting themselves for superstitious in being so Anticeremonious Antiliturgicall and Antiepiscopall nor are they jealous lest any thing that hath the heat of their zeal might want the light of true judgement and be like a Taylors goose or pressing iron hot and heavy enough but neither bright nor light neither seeing nor
in horrid and desolate plantations I confesse things of this nature which being obsolete are urged afresh upon the publick practise of Christians in Religion ought as I conceive to have their revived and renewed Authority from the joynt Counsell pblick prudence and consent of the Nation else rigorous remedies even of disorders may prove worse than the supposed or reall diseases For many antiquated Ceremonies in Religion though they be not quite worne out yet as garments long agoe made and now out of fashion are rather to be kept as Monuments in the Wardrobe and Records of Religion than to be on the suddaine put upon mens backs and urged to be worne especially when they seem antique to the most and uncomely by their unwontedness to be commonly worne though the stuffe be never so good and the state of them not unhandsome Although all these might not amount to any thing that is properly Popery no more than a thousand shadowes can make one substance or body yet many did judge them as a cumulative kind of Popery which cloyes Religion with such a Masse of needless Ceremonies that it is like a tree too much over-growne with mosse even to a barrenness or like a garment not adorned and set off but wholly hidden incumbred and buried with a superfluity of lace which is either a great Prodigality or as great a Vanity and Affectation especially considering the matronely gravity which best becomes Christian and Reformed Religion as that sancy was of our Henry the Fifth who when he was Prince of Wales came one day to the Court and his Fathers presence with a suite all cut and embroidered with oilet-holes having a needle hanging out of every hole that he looked more like a Porcupine than a Prince But as that Prince afterward proved a very brave King very pious and valiant besides successfull which adds much to any Princes piety in the opinion of common people when he left his needless needles betook him to his Victorious Sword so it is probable this Bishop if he had received so grave an admonition as the wisdome and meekness of a Parlament could have given him and other Bishops of his mind would easily have amended any such luxuriancy of Ceremonious observations which if they would be a meanes to induce any judicious Papists to change their opinion as to these points of Doctrine which most divide us and them truly it were a very great uncharitableness in us not to comply very far with them in whatever the Church commands as innocent and decent ceremonies But sure they must be very silly birds and scarce worth the catching which will be taken onely with the chaffe of ceremonies or pictures in a case of Religion which so highly concernes their consciences and salvation so as to change their side upon these formalities untill their judgement in the maine matters of Doctrine be convinced and satisfied nor do I know how we can well lay such strong lime-twiggs among such chaffe as would hold any Papists firme to our party and perswasion Not that I would have them scared or scandalized the more against us for want of that reverence and decency which becomes us in the worship of God and in holy mysteries by the dictates of Reason as well as the Indulgences of Religion but considering that just and vast distance in some grand points between us and the Papists as to outward worship grounded upon inward perswasion and devotion I think it becomes the wisdome and wariness of Protestants according to the admirable temper and moderation of the Church of England in its Reformation as not to deny themselves the use of any things enjoyned as decent because Papists had abused them so not to affect by any particular modes to symbolize so far with them as may confirme them in any thing that we judge Superstitious or Idolatrous This made many sober men so much strangers to the Policy and Piety of those who so much urged to set the Lords Table Altar-wise to adorne it with the Crucifix and other pictures and to bow with adoration toward it Though these might be lawfull in the abstract yet sure not expedient in that state wherein the Reformed Profession stands opposite to the Papists superstitious veneration of a Creature transubstantiated to a God Though I have no conscience of duty toward an Idol so as to worship it but onely to the true God who is every where yet I think it best for me not to go into an Idols Temple there to worship the true God when I may do it other-where without any such appearance of evill or scandall to those that see me and know my principles against it But as to the true and real discriminations between the Religion of the Church of England and Popery in Doctrine I conceive the best dimensions of this Bishop are to be taken by those that are wholly strangers to him as I am by that notable Book which was lately published and dedicated to his Lordship by Dr. Cosins his well-known friend and successour than whom no man ever fell under greater popular jealousies for Popish yet no man it seems less deservedly as appeared when he came to the Test before the Committee of Lords who then cleered him as to Mr. Smarts accusations for Superstition and since that he hath further cleered himself no man more handsomly before the best Protestants in France where his long exile and sufferings have not so exasperated him as to make him yield any way to the Papists yea no man hath at home or abroad been a more stout Defender of the Protestant Religion as it was established in the Church of Engl. which the testimony of Mr. Daillé one of the Protestant Ministers at Charenton neer Paris fully and freely confirms telling all the world That they are either beasts or fanaticks who count Dr. Cosins a Papist from whom no man is really more removed which his very excellent History touching the Canon of the Scripture fully assures us being a grand and fundamental point in difference between the Papists and us wherein he having so irreparably battered and shaken their Apocryphal Babel by solidly proving the Church of Rome to be erroneous and pertinacious in that point all sober men will soon suspect her honesty fidelity and pretended infallibility in other things which do as little agree with the pristine Practice and judgement of the Catholick Church Truely it is pitty so great and able a vindicator of the Reformed Religion should longer suffer a pilgrimage among Papists being forced to dwell in Mesech and to have his habitation in the Tents of Kedar and not have leave to return in peace to his native Country of which he hath so well deserved in this learned undertaking which piece sure he would not have dedicated being so Antipapistical that it peels the very bark of the Church of Rome round to his friend the Bishop of Ely if he did not intend him a collateral security
the maine Rule End and Order of Religion This once done however there might still be some tossings and dis-satisfactions as to private mens opinions yet as to the maine interests of Religion as Christian and Reformed also as to the grand concernments of this Church in its Unity Honor Purity and just Priviledges these would by such Ligatures and limits of Truth and Love be much preserved from running into endlesse factions and sacrilegious confusions which cannot but tend to civil combustions and end at last in the Romish usurpation which as the Dam of Romulus never failes to make its prey of any Churches that are divided and any Christians that are scattered dis-satisfied or scandalized with their Religion by which meanes either our Thames will run to Tiber or Tiber will come to our Thames This will be the last result these the dregs and bottom of our Religious distractions and unsetlednesse if they be not wisely remedied Mean time for want of some such sober fixation and equall standard of Religion in its publick profession to which both Prince and people of all sorts might both wisely consent and conform First there cannot be that mutual Christian Charity and neighbourly Communion among subjects Next there cannot be that kindness or correspondence that Love and Fidelity between Prince and people which would be if they did say Amen to the same prayers and serve the same God in the same manner Civil disaffections do infallibly follow between Soveraignes and Subjects upon any Diversity in Religion as is evident not onely in Germany Poland France Ireland and Scotland where the greatest popular dis-satisfactions and asperities against their Princes were still raised by the jealousies which some people had of their Religion but also in England while Subjects suspected as if their Governors in Church and State did daily warp from that Religion which was Reformed and established in the Church of England from which at last it appeares none varied lesse than those that have been most destroyed none more than those whose jealousies and passions for Reformation have over-born them and this Church to as great deformities as there are novelties and to as many distractions as there are divisions which in Religion as wounds do not onely divide but deface the beauty of any body Naturall Civil and Ecclesiastick Nor can there be any publick discrepancies of Religion between Prince and people but either the Prince cries out of Faction Sedition and Rebellion against his subjects or subjects complain of Tyranny and Persecution as to their Princes injunctions at least of superstition as to his profession if it be with more ceremony or lesse solemnity than they fancy or are wonted to Yea we find by some mens interpretation of their Covenant the clause for allegiance thus limited in the preservation of true Religion that is say some as far as we think the King preserves what seemes to us true Religion so far we will be faithfull to him if he varies from that we may fall from him Besides these mischiefs which are either imminent or incumbent and indeed unavoidable where Prince and People are still left to chuse their several Religions amidst the Varieties and Uncertainties of different Modes and Forms of opposite Preachers Parties Professions and Churches such as now divide not onely England but all Christendom in time the Prince or chief Magistrate here in England or any Christian and Reformed Church may be either an Atheist as unsetled in any Religion because he sees so many or else he may be an Idolater an Arrian a Socinian a Papist an Anabaptist a Familist a Seeker a Quaker any thing or nothing as well as a Protestant or Professor of the true Reformed Religion which is never well Reformed if it be not well united and established no more than a diseased body is well cured or purged which is daily breaking out in boyles and botches And since experience shews us in England that many Subjects by the scandal of our Divisions are turned Atheists Papists Socinians Anabaptists Familists Seekers Ranters Quakers any thing yea nothing as to true Religion which consists in Piety Equanimity Charity the Love of God and our Neighbour what shall hinder those that hereafter may be in Soveraign power and exposed to many temptations to take the same freedom when they list and to profess Popery or any thing when Religion is left to their choice and Indifferency there being no publick Worship Catechize Articles or Canons to which all agree as the Card and Compass of Religion by which both Prince and People may safely and unanimously steer their course towards Heaven in a Christian consent and harmony much more punctual and explicit than that is of owning onely one God which the Turks do and one Lord Jesus Christ which all Hereticks and Schismaticks do Which sad fate of a Prince and People who are every day to seek and chuse or change their Religion cannot befall England without sore conflicts and many bloody bickerings the temper of the English being not so dull and flegmatick and over-awed as that which possesseth some Dutch-men and Almaines whose zeal for trade and gain besides their social drinking which begins and ends all their differences makes them more capable to endure different professions of Religion among them so far as they do not endanger the civil peace nor obstruct their blessed commerce yet even these Churches and States have some setled form and profession of Religion in Doctrine worship and discipline yea they in the Netherlands have a very handsom Liturgy and other publick boundaries or Symbols of their Religion from which when once their Magistrates perceived such variations to grow by the Remonstrants party as might shake their civil peace and the stability of their Church they did to their no small cost and pains stop the breach both by the Synod of Dort and the power of the Sword not permitting those whom the publick sense counted Innovators in Religion to enjoy any such freedom or toleration as might endanger any publick perturbations which would have grown easily from such parties as wanted not Learning Wit and Pretentions of Piety on each side to carry on their Opinions as far as their passions and interests listed which is to have Empire and Dominion not onely over all mens bodies but their souls too either by fair or foul means for no Opinion or Sect is content with the Trundle-bed or Footstool but affects the Throne and Scepter of State and of Religion that it may have a complete soveraignty over men which is never well managed by private mens petty activities and therefore best prevented by the publick Wisdom Moderation and Setledness which ought to be in every Nation State Kingdom or Commonwealth that owns it self as a Church of Christ who is but one Lord and hath taught all his Disciples but one Religion All sober and honest men whose fishing and harvest lyes not in our troubles do sufficiently see that Religion as Christian
which can by no persons of any right understanding be thought to be the temper of any thing that is worthy to bear the name inscription of the true God or the Christian and Reformed Religion This is not the pulse of piety nor can be the influence of Gods holy wise and peaceable spirit No Christian can be so uncatechised as not to know that these wounds and scarres which are upon the face of Religion and made by Christians of the same countrey and communion are not the marks of Christs sheep nor the characters of his Disciples who have been in all ages most eminent for all graces and vertues for all things true comely orderly just generous benigne charitable none exceeded or equalled them for mutuall love while they were neer or far off insomuch that primitive Assemblies of Bishops Presbyters and people were most lively resemblances of that Angelick Order Quire and Harmony which is in Heaven before the Throne of God and of the Lamb. This union and subordination kept up the reverence of Religion and the dignity of the Evangelicall Ministry among Christians even then when persecution most raged against them when the persons of holy Bishops and Presbyters were imprisoned banished mangled and massacred by Heathenish and Jewish persecutors yet then was the authority of Ministers looked upon as sacred and divine not from the earth but heaven not from Kings and Princes not from Parlaments and civil Senates not from Protectors and Major-Generals or new Triers much lesse from any principle or power which is now challenged by popular arrogancy and vulgar usurpation but from Christ Jesus and so from the blessed God who sent his Son and He his Apostles and other Ministers as his Father sent him for the same end and work in those measures and proportions of his Spirit which were necessary for the calling converting continuing and perfecting the Church as the Body of Christ While these continued in an holy and uninterrupted succession of undoubted Authority as Apostles Bishops Pastors and Teachers of one mind and mission of one ordination and succession they easily preserved the doctrine of Christian Religion uncorrupted the Mysteries unprophaned the Ministry unviolated the reverence of Religion unabased but these once divided against each other in opinions and factions their ranks and order broken their succession interrupted their commission counterfeited or varied their office invaded their authority doubted denied and destroyed who knowes not what spring-tides what whole seas of faction and fury of negligence and irreverence of Atheisme and irreligion must necessarily flow in upon the face of any Church when the truest and compleatest Ministers shall be questioned or scorned the dubious defective or false ones magnified by secular policy or popular levity when Lay-men shall either think there are no Ministers invested with any due authority or themselves as good as the best set up after some novell and arbitrary modes of their own invention which must not onely vye with the true ancient and Catholick ordination of 1500 years standing but justle it quite out of the Church like the bastard Abimelech who slew all the legitimate issue of Gideon his Father Who can heare with trembling or pray with devotion or receive with reverence or be reproved with patience or be comforted with peace or be terrified with judgement or mortified to any lust or moderated to any passion or confined to new obedience or won to true repentance or moved in conscience or raised in hope when he applies to any or all these duties out of faction novelty curiosity levity custome affectation or hypocrisie when he thinks the Minister that officiates hath no more power than himself or his groom and footman when he looks upon his Minister as a poor man confined to his teddar staked to his petty living dependant upon mens charity exposed to plebeian contempt at best but an almesman of the State a publick pensioner or an Evangelicall Trooper whose commission is ad placitum hominum after the will of man having no divine power or authority to his office and work no legall right or title as to certainty or perpetuity in any thing he enjoyes as his wages further than the arbitrary favours or frowns of men are dispensed to him a very trembling and precarious orator whose pulpit is like the Ara Lugdunensis soon made his scene his coffin and his sepulchre especially if either fervently praying or faithfully preaching or justly yet wisely reproving he displease any captious and peevish Auditor who hath confidence enough to make him an offender for a word and influence enough to sequester to silence yea to starve him and his family if he use an honest and innocent parrhesy or freedome of speaking such as becomes the Messenger of heaven the Minister of Christ and the Ambassadour of God When the mouths of Gods oxen are thus easily muzled when his Prophets are so cheaply despised when his neerest servants are thus despitefully used no wonder if irreverence Atheisme and profanenesse in all sorts of people attend all religious exercises as necessarily as shadows doe those grosse bodies which intervene between the sight and light which is the first sad and bad consequence following and flowing from the inconstancie and unsetlednesse of Religion CHAP. V. BEsides the decayes of Piety and Charity in mens hearts both as to the principles power and practice becoming Christians which like a Lethargick numbnesse and stupor is come upon the old stock of Christians in England together with that unsetlednesse irreverence contempt Atheisme and profanenesse which grows upon the younger sort of people who have been bred amidst these our divisions distractions and extravagancies of Religion to very much of irreligion the lusts and vanities of their minds being not any way so curbed and repressed by the incumbent majesty and authority of any such setled and uniform Religion as is necessary either to perswade men to be good or to over-awe and restrain them from being so bad as they would be Besides these mischiefes which I have already set forth to you my Honoured Countrymen there is a second sad and bad consequence which like a Gangrene or spreading Canker daily frets the spirits and as it were eats up the very substance and vitals of Religion in this Nation by reason of those endlesse and vexatious disputes which agitate the spirits and exasperate the minds of all sorts of Christians and of none so much as Ministers who are looked upon as those that expose and offer themselves to be the chief heads or Champions of Religion in their severall parties who are to undertake the combates and challenges of all opposers which truly were no very hard province if either Ministers were unanimous and mutually assisted by concurrent judgement among themselves or if they were protected by the shield of this Churches declared Doctrine and uniform profession of Religion Which heretofore was justly esteemed as sacred inviolable and invulnerable having
of revenge whence arise publick seditions therefore I rather chuse a speedy and safe accommodation than any dilatory and dangerous Toleration which will but increase disputes and distances animosities and asperities among good men And because I find it is not any thing really burdensome noxious or offensive in Primitive Episcopacy which makes many so shy and jealous of it but onely the ignorance errors and prejudices of some men who have sought to make It of later yeares especially obnoxious to all manner of popular jealousies calumnies and reproches which have endeavoured so to hide all the pristine beauty and true excellency of it that many look upon Prelacy that is Episcopacy as if it were in the same Form with Popery and think most sillily that they may no more in conscience comply with any regular Episcopacy than with the Popes irregular Primacy in that arrogant and imperious sense which he now challengeth beyond the modesty and humility of his Primitive Predecessors who were then greatest Bishops when least in their ambitions It will be therefore as I suppose not an act of partiality as to any one side but of justice and charity to all sorts of Christians for me a little further to sweeten the name and cleare the cause of Primitive Episcopacy such as I have stated it and as all Antiquity ever esteemed it to be the chiefest support of Religious safety honor and order the Center Crown and Consummation of the Churches peace authority unity and prosperity It is pitty so Primitive so Apostolick so Venerable an Order so universally used in this as all Churches heretofore should any further lye under the dirt and disguises of vulgar prejudices popular reproches or any mens personall faults and infirmities especially when all wise men know that the usuall distasts which have vitiated most mens palates do arise rather from their own or other mens cholerick and revengefull distempers and the diffusions of their redundant galls than from any reall defect or demerit of true Episcopacy or from any just blame imputable to worthy men either of that place and office or of that perswasion and Communion in the Church of England CHAP. XIX THere are severall grand pleas in behalf of Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which I here crave leave to produce and urge in a way different from other mens pens before all Learned Godly and Consciencious Christians Ministers and others not onely in order to relieve oppressed Episcopacy but also to reduce them to an happy reconciliation and this Church to the state of a setled and uniform Reformation or Religion which will hardly ever be obtained in England by the violent and partiall exclusion of the ancient Rights pristine Power and evident priviledges of Episcopacy unlesse the Antiepiscopall parties can take care to burn or smother all Monuments of true Antiquity or to banish all excellent books ancient and modern which have asserted it or at least forbid their new seminaries and all Scholars the reading of them If they cannot rid the world of these bookes then they must make some sharp Index expurgatorius which shall blot out the words of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Episcopus Antistes Praepositus summus Sacerdos Pastor Pater with those of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—aternitas Eminentia Dignitas Sanctitas Authoritas and other like expressions setting forth the eminent dignity and ancient authority of Episcopacy in all Churches which expressions are so frequent and conspicuous in all Ecclesiastick writers Greek and Latin that the starres in the firmament are not more numerous or more illustrious in a clear night or the Sun-beames shining at bright noon The Native Primitive Apostolick Catholick and Divine splendor of Episcopacy cannot be eclipsed without darkning the faces of all Churches and all Christians Nor in effect will it ever be done unlesse its implacable enemies can take care by their cunning activity that none shall be Students or Preachers or Professors of Christianity or of true Divinity in England but such as will be content first to be blinded and hoodwinckt as to all knowledge of Antiquity next that their Disciples shall take the measures of their Religion Ordination Church-order Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and Christian Communion not from Jerusalem or Antioch or Ephesus or old Rome or any other famous Catholick Primitive Churches which were all under Episcopall inspection and in its Communion but from Geneva Francfort Amsterdam Arnheim or Edenbrough and this since they have pretended of later yeares to be wiser than their Teachers and first Founders in Christianity grown more Eagle-ey'd in Church-affaires than all Antiquity and all Churches in the world whose constant consent and Catholick Testimony in the point of Episcopacy as an Apostolick institution custome and succession is I conceive as much to be credited for the certainty and fidelity of it as it is for the Scripture-Canon received preserved and delivered to us or for the two Sacraments to be used or for the Lords day to be observed or for Presbytery it self or for any ordained Ministry distinct and authoritative for none of these as to the Historick and Catholick attestation of them is more ancient or more evident than Episcopacy Sure if the ancient Church were faithfull in all other things of universal use and reception it is not to be suspected as to this great depositum of Ecclesiastick Order for gubernative Power Authority and Jurisdiction in what hands it was setled and deposited for the Churches future peace and constant good Government to all posterity it being equally impertinent to affirm first that Church-Government and Governours were needlesse for the Church or that it was not ordered by the Apostles that is by the Spirit and wisdome of Christ or that it is arbitrary and mutable every year as men have a mind to novelty and sedition or lastly that those holy men who immediately succeeded the Apostles did vary from their rule and prescription changing Presbytery or Independency into a Presidentiall or Episcopall primacy which is a thing incredible considering the purity exactness and holy pertinacy of Primitive Churches as to what was of Apostolicall Tradition as Tertullian rarely expresseth it in his book of Prescription against Heresies So that my first pregnant consideration perswading you O worthy Gentlemen with my brethren of the Ministry and all my religious Countrymen to look upon right Episcopacy with a more propitious and favourable eye is taken from the great credit and just veneration which is due to Antiquity there where we find a Primitive practise and Catholick consent and this not onely no way contrary to or diverse from but most consonant and every way agreeable to the mind of Christ and the wisdome of God which the Church hath delivered to us in the holy Scriptures It is not to be doubted but the streame of Christianity ran clearest the neerer it was to the Apostolick fountaines as in purity of Doctrine and simplicity of Devotion so in the Discipline Order
and Government of the Church as to that power and authority which is meet in all offices and Ministrations Who can deny that the Primitive Churches and Pastors best understood the appointments of Christ and his Apostles in this point of Government as in all things else when they had such an anointing of the Spirit and Truth to teach them how to constitute and govern all Churches as needed not any Presbyterian or Independent Tutors to teach them new modes who are as Irenaeus speaks of some Innovators in his time much younger than those Bishops who were the successors of the Apostles who as they could not possibly be ignorant of the Apostolick appointment so nor probably could they be so impertinent as presently to alter it even in the first Century while some Apostles or Apostolick men were yet living and not onely preaching as Presbyters but so ruling as Presidents or Bishops among them and above them that they were far enough from the Incubus of popularity or the Polypus of parity among Ministers Both which methods must have left the enlarged and numerous Churches of Christ either Acephalists confused without any head or Polycephalists burdened with many heads and divided into infinite fragments far enough from any such influence and autority God knows as was capable to preserve such large combinations of Churches as then and after were combined in any regular order subordination and communion wherein primitive Churches as in all other things most excelled being furthest from any such distractions defectivenesse or deformities as are monstrous in Christianity because most contrary to those constant proportions of Modesty Humility Order Wisdom Peace Unity and Polity which God hath set before all sober men and specially wise Christians both in reason and religion in the systeme of all bodies natural or social in all communities civil and military oeconomick or politick yea in all magistracies or eminencies which are either paternal fraternal or despotical In the ordering of all which there ever is and must be some Parent or Elder brother or Master or Chieftane or Superiour or Commander who in a kind of Episcopacy over-see and over-rule those that are under their several charges and within the several combinations which order strictly established by God in his ancient Church of the Jews can never be made to appear either as Paradox or Heterodox from the wisdom and will of God in the several families fraternities or polities of his Christian Church nor may it be thought that in this Christ suffered his Church to erre a Catholick error which in all things else he ever preserved according to his promise from all general defection Can it then seem other then Juvenility Peevishness Partiality Pride Petulancy Love of novelty and factious inclination or some other impotent passion which may as diseases be sometime too popular prevalent and Epidemick among Christians so grosly to blemish suspect despise and discredit as some do the veracity and fidelity of the Church of Christ in the point of Catholick Episcopacy as most ancient and venerable which is indeed and ever was both used and esteemed as he onely crown and completion of all well governed Churches as in latter so in primitive times before whose gray head and reverent age it well becomes such Novices as we are to rise up and pay a due respect Since then presidential or paternal Episcopacy is beyond all cavil or dispute the elder Brother by far to Presbytery or Independency since it had possession as in all other so in these British Churches of which Tertullian who lived in the second Century after Christ makes mention from the first Constitution of them in their just proportions which St. Jerom calls Adultas ecclesias adult or full-grown Churches which had attained their due stature and dimensions since the quiet possession and long prescription of fifteen or sixteen hundred yeares is a valid title in justice and invincible prejudice against all novell pretenders and violent disseisors of Episcopacy it were but modest and ingenuous reasonable and religious equall and charitable for all Ministers and others of any Learning Worth and Honesty as many I hope are of all sides to make some handsome if not retractations yet retrogradations and returnes toward this Apostolick and Catholick Ancient and Primitive Episcopacy O How well would it become Presbyterians and Independents that have a due sense of things comely honest praise-worthy and honorable in stead of making up their new Associations which is but a marriage or medly of Presbytery and Independency to offer or receive some faire offers and fraternall proposalls in order to an happy accommodation with those Learned and worthy men who are still firme to the Episcopall interests and just Authority as Ancient Primitive and Catholick which are not to be slighted by any men of Learning and Worth however the Cause may be more afflicted and the men lesse favoured at present It ill becomes any Grave Godly and ingenuous men still to take those poor advantages against Episcopacy which arise from popular ignorance vulgar prejudices or covetous jealousies much lesse from the plebeian petulancies used against all Bishops and the undeserved depressions faln on many Episcopall Divines over whom disdainfully to triumph and with a kind of scorne to crow and insult is both base and barbarous nor is it much more ingenuous to pass them by with a supercilious silence and neglect which I see some new masters affect to do counting them all as unsavoury salt not fit to be gathered from those Dung-hills on which they have been cast God knows not for want of savour in themselves but of favour from others A third sort there are of Associaters who that they might seem more civil and candid to Episcopacy and to Episcopal Ministers of whose worth they are convinced as much as of their sustained injuries have sometime yet not without the strictures of some brow and glorying invited them to joyne with them that is to subscribe and submit to their new Associations For in these as the designe and Opera is laid those men whose judgement and conscience hath most confined and confirmed them to Episcopacy must either as Cyphers signifie nothing and when they convene but sit still and say nothing being onely tame Spectators of other mens rare activities who would fain Christen their Presbytery and Independency with some drops and sprincklings of Episcopacy and so have some Episcopall Divines as Gossips to their new Births or else they must first as good as openly renounce Episcopacy and desert their former both opinion Ordination and station in the Church as Christians and as Ministers next they must admit the rare and new invention of a particular Church-Covenant as they call it or an incorporating engagement by word or subscription contrary to what they formerly had explicitely passed to this Church and its Government in their ordination and subscription yea and beyond that Baptismall Covenant which every Christian professor