which was by that sea represented 5. Nor is it inconsiderable in this point the custome of washing or baptizing among the Jews as a religious ceremony used in admitting proselytes of the Gate which were not circumcised these were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 baptized with their whole houshold servants and children as the Talmudists report This usuall ceremony and custome of Baptisme chosen by Christ for an Evangelical Sacrament or sign of admittance to his Church may justly be thought in Christs use and intention to extend to the like latitude in its use or applying to Infants among Christians as it did among the Jewes especially where neither Christ nor the Apostles make any restraint or exception in the case of Infants 6. Who under the Gospel as S. Austin proves against the Pelagians are in as much want by nature of Evangelical mercy as they were under the Law and Jewish polity Nor is it to be imagined without great absurdity that Christ lessened Gods mercy or favour to them under the Gospel short of what was under the Law seeing they are every way as capable of this new Sign and Seal as they were of the former and want this as much which Origen urgeth as the ground of Infant-baptisme 7. Neither the Analogie of the Scripture nor the proportion of Gods dispensations of grace to his Church-Christian will allow us to think that God under the Gospel denies to believing parents or their children such latitudes of mercy and holy priviledges in the visible means of grace and salvation which were in another form afforded to the Jews that God hath no regard or makes no claim to children as his or any parts of his Church till they come to years of discretion that he would have the children of Christians while Infants now in no better state and capacity of his mercy by Christ than the children of meer Heathens and Infidels that either no Infants are now to be saved or not by the Blood of Christ or by no visible sign and means or by the Spirit alone without Water which Christ joyns together affirming that none can enter into the Kingdome of Heaven either the Kingdome of Grace or Glory the visible or invisible Church in the ordinary methods of Gods dispensation of grace now under the Gospel unlesse they be born again of Water and the Spirit 8. If children are capable to be sanctified by the Spirit they are no lesse capable to be washed by baptismall water which is consecrated by the Word and Spirit or power of Christ in his Church to so holy an use and spirituall washing away of sin as is attained by his blood represented by baptismall water for the sign is of less value than the thing signified as the wax and parchment are far less than the land or estate consigned and conveyed by them Since then Christ hath joyned these together in so full express and large a manner extending to all it must needs appear not onely a petulancy but arrogancy in any Christians to separate them and in order to gratifie a novell fancy or exotick opinion to run counter to all these proportions of Evangelicall Truth and Mercy which evidently crosse all those mentioned absurdities as inconsistent with Evangelicall promises favours and dispensations of grace which are much ampliated and enlarged but no way straitned or abated 9. This general tenour and scope of the Scriptures so highly favouring Christian Infants as a great part of those many nations and families which are prophecied and promised shall come in to Christ is in my judgement sufficient to satisfie all those that list not to be contentious especially where the words and actions of Christ do further expresly intimate yea largely declare his speciall favour indulgence toward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little Infants in his Church as Irenaeus justly urgeth in favour of them who lived anno 150. Christ having himself been an Infant and received then the seal of Circumcision as an Infant to denote his grace for them and favour to them suffering and shedding his blood in infancy for infants he afterward as three Evangelists tell us invited infants to come or be brought to him testified a favour for them blessed them and declares them capable of the Kingdome of Heaven as members of the Church both in grace and glory For as Infants have the spirit and principles of reason even then when they cannot exercise or exert them so may they have as Tertullian observes the spirit and principles of grace and glory of sanctification and salvation even then when they are as under Circumcision onely passive receivers not active employers of the grace of God given them by Christs merits The magnetick vertue may be communicated to a needle although it be not presently put into such an even posture or aequilibrium as will actually shew it so is the grace of God in Infants Which mercy and indulgence of God to the Infants of his Church is a gracious counterpoizing of that native misery and pravity which as Origen and Austin observe they derive from the old Adam to which they are not actively contributive but passively receptive In like manner by the second Adam Christ Jesus the Antidote or remedy is early and so preventive of their agency that as S. Cyprian urgeth the means of life and salvation is dispensed to them also in Baptisme before they can know their calamity CHAP. X. 10. ALl which weight and strength of reasoning drawn from Scripture in many instances and most conform to the love grace philanthropy mercy and benignity of God through Christ to his Church under the Gospel are sufficient to out-weigh those two small and weak cavils urged by the Anabaptists either from the Scriptures silence not naming Infants in the precept or history of Baptisme or limiting as they fancy for ever which was but in the first planting of Churches Baptism only to such as are taught and actually believe which is true as in Abrahams case and such as were men grown in his house he and they were first taught of God the meaning of that Evangelicall mystery but the Infants who in the second place received it could not be instructed and yet were circumcised that is owned for Gods dedicated to him distinguished by this visible sign from the children of Aliens and by this means of grace brought no doubt to glory so is it in Baptisme where the root of parents believing is once holy by baptismall relation and dedication to God keeping communion with Christ and his Church there the branches or children are also holy and belong to the Lord. 11. Nor is this reasoning from Scripture as to the harmony and concurrent sense of it either scepticall or curious or infirm but farre more pregnant and potent in Religion both as to faith and manners than any urging of one or two particular places contrary to this tenour and Analogie of faith or those proportions
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
ἹεÏá½° ΔάκÏυα Ecclesiae Anglicanae Suspiria THE TEARS SIGHS COMPLAINTS AND PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Setting forth Her former Constitution compared with Her present Condition ALSO The visible Causes and probable Cures of Her Distempers In IV. BOOKS By JOHN GAUDEN D.D. of Bocking in Essex Jer. 8.28 Is there no Balm in Gilead is there no Physician there Why then is not the health of the Daughter of my people recovered DEPRESSA RESVRGO LONDON Printed by J. G. for R. ROYSTON at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1659. ECCLESIA ANGLICANA PROTEGE PASCE DUX MEA IN TENEBRAS ET GAUDIUM IN MEROREM VT PELLICANA IN DESERTO Proprio vos sanguine pasco Nunquam CHRISTO Charior quam sub Cruce gemens Illustrissimis ANGLICANAE GENTIS Nobilibus Omniúmque Ordinum Generosis ingenuis Qui Natales Eruditione Eruditionem Virtute Virtutem Fide Fidem Moribus Verè Christianis Sanctitate Suavitatéque conspicuis Vel exaequarunt vel exuperarunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnibus Religionis Christianae Tam à Romanistarum Faece Scabie Quà m Fanaticorum Spumâ Rabie Reformatae Professoribus Hoc est verbo vitâque vindicibus Haec ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE MATRIS Olim Florentissimae nunc Afflictissimae Lugentis Languentis Suspirantis Et tantum non Expirantis Lacrymas Suspiria Planctus Preces Summa cum Reverentia Debitáque Observantia Pro Charitate Sympathia Quâ decuit Humillimum in Christo Servum D. D. D. J. G. THE CONTENTS The Preface or Address p. 1 BOOK I. Setting forth the present Distresses of the Church of England CHAP. I. THE Name and Thing the Title and Truth of the Church of England asserted p. 23 II. Primitive Piety and Prudence utterly against Schismatick dividing or mincing of Churches into small bodies or parcels p. 35 III. The present afflictions of the Church of England no argument against Her National and well-Reformed Constitution p. 46 IV. The England's Complaint p. 51 V. The cruel and unjust enmity of some against the Church of England p. 60 VI. The causeless malice and ingratitude of the England's enemies p. 64 VII Of the excellent Constitution of the Church of England and her undeserved calamities p. 68 VIII A furtâ—â—â—â— scrutiny and discovery of the England's miseries and enemies p. 73 CHAP. IX A general Vindication of the England's former excellent Constitution although it be now afflicted p. 76 X. Mr. Hooker's Defense of the Church of England unanswered and unanswerable p. 83 XI The excellent Constitution of the Church of England as to its Doctrinals p. 86 XII The Devotionals of the Church of England asserted p. 87 XIII The Ceremonies of the Church of England no meritorious cause of Her miseries p. 96 XIV A second Objection against the Church of England from Church-mens personal failings p. 114 Book II. Searching the Causes and Occasions of the Church of England's Decayes CHAP. I. HOW farre they conveniently may not and how farre they may be searched into p. 137 II. Inordinate Liberty in religious affairs the chief cause of miseries in the Church of England p. 139 CHAP. III. What Christian liberty is desirable and tolerable among people p. 143 IV. Of Plebeian rudeness and licentiousness in Religion if left to themselves p. 150 V. Instances of abused Liberty in the vulgar neglect of reading the Scriptures p. 153 VI. Vulgar neglect and scorn of Ancient Forms of wholsom words in the Decalogue Creed and Lords-Prayer p. 156 VII The Innovations Usurpations and Vastations made by some upon the Order Office and Authority of the Evangelical Ministry p. 159 VIII The pretensions of Intruders to excuse their wants p. 167 IX Of Ministerial sufficiencies real or pretended p. 171 X. What caution Christians ought to use as to those Ministers with whom they intrust the care of their souls p. 175 XI Of late new models for making Ministers of the Gospel p. 181 XII The false and foolish pretensions urged against the Ministry of England p. 188 XIII An impartial balancing of the old and new Ministers p. 190 XIV A charitable plea for the ancient Clergie of the Church of England against the ingratitude and indifferency of some men p. 193 CHAP. XV. The best of the new Teachers compared with the Ministers of England p. 195 XVI A farther sifting of these new Teachers p. 197 XVII The modesty gravity sanctity and solidity of true Ministers c. p. 200 XVIII The designs ends of fanatick Libertines fatal to the Reformed Religion p. 202 XIX An humble and earnest expostulation in the behalf of the people and Church of England p. 204 XX. The rudeness irreverence expressed by some in religious duties as a part of their Liberty p. 211 XXI The sad exchange people make of their old Religion for new Raptures p. 212 XXII The foul mistakes abuses of Christian liberty in vulgar spirits p. 214 XXIII A further discovery of mischiefs from abused liberty in Religion p. 217 XXIV The contagion of abused or mistaken Liberty spread among Ministers to the dividing debasing and destroying of them p. 221 XXV Unavoidable contentions among Ministers of different ordinations p. 224 XXVI The folly and factions of Ministers evidently seen and punished in their common calamities p. 233 CHAP. XXVII The great diminutions of all sorts of Ministers in England as to all civil respects p. 235 XXVIII The sordid envy and grudging against Ministers Tithes and Glebes p. 240 XXIX Ministers condition not to be envied but pitied p. 243 XXX Experimental instances how petulant some people are to their Ministers p. 245 XXXI The personal sufferings of Ministers after all their pains merits and troubles p. 248 XXXII Discouragements to ingenuous men to be made Ministers in England in after-times p. 254 XXXIII A worthy Ministry not expectable unless there be a worthy usage and entertainment p. 257 BOOK III. Setting forth the Evil Consequences felt or feared from the Distractions of Religion in England CHAP. I. DEcays in Godliness as to the former generation of Christians p. 261 II. â— Decayes of godliness as to the new brood and later off-spring of meaner Christians p. 267 III. The evil consequences infesting Christians of better quality p. 270 CHAP. IV. Prophaneness the fruit of unsetledness in Religion p. 273 V. Ministers molested by endless vexatious disputes p. 275 VI. The endless bickerings with Anabaptists c. now in England p. 278 VII The perverse disputings of Anabaptists aganst Infant-baptism p. 281 VIII The weakness of Anabaptists grounds against Infant-Baptism p. 283 IX The Catholick strength for Infant-Baptism p. 286 X. Of right reasoning from Scripture p. 289 XI Of the Churches Catholick custome and testimony p. 291 XII The sin of presumptuous delaying and denying baptism to Infants p. 295 XIII The dangerous effects principles of Anabaptism p. 297 XIV The Romish advantages by the divisions and deformities of the Church of England p. 300 XV. The wide and just distances between the Reformed and Romanists p. 305 XVI
successions of Christianity imparted to the Infants of Christian Parents who own their own Baptisme and continue in the Churches communion professing to believe that covenant of God made to them and their children as Gods people or Christs Disciples for the remission of sins original and actual through the blood of Christ Against which gracious sign of the Evangelicall covenant sealing the truth of the Gospel conferring the grace of it also distinguishing as by a visible mark of Church-fellowship the Infants of Christians or believers from those of heathens and professed unbelievers who are strangers to the flock of Christ the Anabaptists have ever since their rise in Germany which is about 130 years been not so much fair and candid disputants as bitter and reprochfull enemies for the most part not modestly doubting or civilly denying it as to their own private judgements with a latitude of charity to such in all the Christian world who from the Apostles dayes have and do retain Infant-Baptisme but as if all the Church had erred till their dayes they imperiously deny it they rudely despise it they scurrilously disdain and mock at the baptisme of Infants as wholly void and null therefore they repeat Baptisme to their Disciples whence they have their name CHAP. VII IN this one vexatious Controversie heretofore happily setled in the Church of England both by doctrine and practise conform to all Antiquity I presume as much hath been said and wrote on either side as the wit of man can well invent or the nature of the thing bear and possibly more than can well agree with Christian Charity on either side if the difference were onely as to a circumstance of time and not about the very essence or substance of our Baptisme against which the spirit and design of the Anabaptists doth so fiercely drive that by absolutely nulling all Infant-baptism in the Church of Christ they might overthrow not onely the honour fidelity and credit of this Church but of all other yea and the whole frame even to the foundation of all Christian ministrations priviledges comforts and communion both in England and all Christian Churches through the world as if all we had done said or enjoyed as Christian Ministers and people had been irregular confused inauthoritative invalid all things of Religion having been begun and continued exhibited and received by such Ministers and people as had no visible right to any Christian duties or priviledges in a Church-communion as having never been baptized after the way which Christ instituted so that their claim to be Christians or Churches is as false and insufficient as theirs is to an estate of which they have no deed seal or seisin but what are false or counterfeit By which high and bold reproch of the Anabaptists against this and all other Churches from the beginning it must follow that contrary to Christs promise the gates of Hell have so long prevailed against the Catholick Church in so great a concern as this Sacrament must needs be which being made void and null as to any initiation obsignation and confirmation of all Evangelicall gifts graces and priviledges it will follow not onely that all the Ministry and ministrations of the Church have been illegitimate invalid irregular being acted dispensed and received by such as had no right title or authority to them being persons unbaptized but also all the faith and repentance all the confessions and absolutions all the celebrations and consecrations of the Lords Supper all the perceptions of grace and spirituall comfort all sense of peace joy love of God and Christian charity all the patience and hopes of all Christians as Believers Confessors Martyrs all must be either very defective of Christs order and method or meerly fancifull and superstitious or grosly presumptuous preposterous and wholly impertinent because wanting the first root of Christian Religion the badge and band of Christs Disciples right or lawfull true and valid Baptisme So that however God guided his Church in all other things aright yet in this it seems to have erred a Catholick errour so far that in stead of one Baptisme which the Apostle urgeth as concurrent with other unities of Christian accord as one God one Faith one Body one Christ one Head c. all which the true Church retained constantly there must have been no Baptisme at all for the greatest part of 1600 years in which time as generally before so universally after the Church had peace all Christians brought their Infants to Baptisme Which abominable consequence or conclusion following the Anabaptistick opinion and practise seems to me so uncharitable so immodest so absurd so cruel so every-way unworthy of any good Christian who understands the fidelity exactnesse and constancy of primitive and persecuted Churches in following the way once delivered to them by Christ and his Apostles from which they were so far from an easie receding that they rather chose to die that this jealousie and scandall rather becomes Turks Jews Heathens Hereticks and Infidels or down-right Atheists than any good Christians so far to charge openly or but secretly indeed to suspect the fidelity honesty and integrity of the Catholick Church nor do I see how any judicious sober and humble Christian can with charity comfort and good conscience entertain and promote so horrid a jealousie and censure of all the Christian world as if having kept the two Testaments intire which I suppose the Anabaptists do not deny or doubt yet they had lost one of the two Sacraments and that which is the first foundation main hinge and centre of all the Churches polity priviledges community and unity in this world both to Christ and to each other It is not my purpose in this place or work which is rather to deplore the lapsed state of this Church than to dispute this or any other point long ago setled in this and all true Churches my aim is not to tire you my honoured Countrey-men with drawing over the rough sand of this controversie at large which hath of late by sharp reciprocations made such deep wounds or incisions on this Churches face and peace agreeable to the practise and spirit of the Anabaptists wherever they come and prevail Onely give me leave since this Anabaptistick poyson is still pregnant in this Nation in order to move your compassions to the Church of England and your love to the truth of God as it is in Jesus to shew you how unjustly She hath and still doth suffer yea and is daily more threatned by this sort of men who upon weak and shallow pretensions seek to overthrow so great so ancient so Catholick so Primitive so Apostolick so Scriptural so Christian a practise and priviledge as that is of baptizing the Infants of Christian Professors First the Anabaptists cannot with any forehead or face of reason and therefore the soberest of them do not deny but that the Infants of Christians have both in respect of sinfull
Christian Emperors the Churches Polity and Government being carried on by the same Apostolical power and Episcopal spirit was highly promoted even to secular Dignities and Estates Bishops being not onely every where unfeignedly venerated by all sorts of Christians as chief Pastors and spiritual Fathers succeeding to the chief Apostles by an uninterrupted and undoubted succession of which every Church had pregnant Records and Memorials but they were invested in such civil honors as make them Peers to the Senators Nobles or Patricians of the Empire which was more to their pomp and lustre but not more to their Episcopal authority and that filial respect which was paid to Bishops by all good Christians even then when they and their Clergy had nothing to live upon but the dona Matronarum oblationes Communicantium the contributions and offerings of devout people In this fair and sun-shine-weather as secular Peace and Plenty increased to the Church so Christianity spread very far as to the Fashion Profession and Form of it in branches and leaves but grew among many less fruitful in the real effects of Piety and Charity many now thronged into Christs Church but fewer touched him with the hand of Faith so as to heal their infirmities Yea as in the very first times under the Apostolical Episcopacy the Simonians Nicolaitans Gnosticks Corinthians and others afterward during the still-persecuting Ages the Marcionites Carpocratians Valentinians Montanists and others so in the most prosperous times the Manichees Novatians Donatists Arrians and Pelagians with diverse others became as branches either miserably split and slivered by their own schismatick and separate humors or quite wholy broken off by blasphemous Apostasies and the just sentences of Excommunication from that one Catholick Church and the unanimous Bishops of its communion for whom one Bishop did rightly excommunicate by the lesser or greater câ—nsure all Bishops Presbyters and Christians in all the world did the same virtually Hence many lesser and greater branches even some Bishops with their whole Presbyters and Churches grew sometimes scare and withered twice dead and pulled up by the roots by Error and Obstinacy by voluntary Desertion and Ecclesiastick Abdication as many Arrian and Donatist Bishopâ— Yet still by the correspondence and care of the excellently learned resolute and unanimous Bishops of the fourth fifth and sixth Centuries with their orderly Presbyters and faithful Flocks the Church ceased not to flourish for the most part in Verity and Unity in Piety and Charity as well as in civil Peace Plenty and Honour the holy and good Bishops every where still clearing the mosse and cankers which grew upon this fair Tree they pruned the Excrescencies and superfluities both of Jewish presumptions and Heathenish superstitions all and every one being prudently intent as far as times and the manners of men would bear to preserve his lot part or Diocese committed to him by consent of the people by the choice of his Presbyters and by the comprecation or consecration of his collegues the Neighbour-bishops so as became the relation they had to the whole Church after the grand patterns and models received from the blessed Apostles who first as Bishops of equal size and authority yet as men using an orderly precedency sprang from that one Root Christ Jesus and by their united Ministry spread abroad the Church far and neer 'T is true the primitive severity and rigour of Christian discipline much abated in times of greater peace and plenty many primitive signs of Christian love and communion as the Holy Kisse their Love-feasts their Oblations their Hospitality to all Christian strangers and the like were crowded out by the Wantonness Factiousness Hypocrisie Luxury and Avarice of some Christians besides Church-mens Ambition and Hereticall Furie none of whom would indure the sharp yoke of primitive Pennances Abstentions Castigations and many wayes of Mortification by Watching Sackcloth Fasting Prostrating Weeping Confessing c. At length Mahometan poyson and power cruelly pressed upon the divided and debauched Eastern Churches after this the Papal policy and power by insensible degrees in ignorant and turbulent Ages so prevailed upon the blindness and credulity of these Western Churches who were much wasted also with wars in Spain Italy Franee and here in Britanny by domestick Rebellions and barbarous Invasions that the face of this goodly Tree was much battered and altered from the primitive floridnesse and fruitfulnesse the Roman Church and its Bishop or Patriarch being like an Hydropick body swoln by secular Pride and Usurpation so much beyond its pristine comelinesse and honor that in stead of an holy and humble Apostolick Bishop of the same Order and Authority with his other brethren he must be owned in a superecclesiastical and a superepiscopal and a superimperial height as Lord and Soveraign and Prince above that is called God in Church and State Yet still while this Papal branch presumed thus to grow beyond its proportions to the over-dropping and dwindling of all other parts of the Church its form or fashion as a Tree in its winter or less-thrifty state remained even under those sad seasons of Papal perturbations and presumptions God never suffering the Church to be quite deformed much less hewen down because it was never so barren even in those dayes but it brought forth some tolerable Bishops Presbyters and other Christians yea many of them very commendable ones Neither Papal Foxes nor Mahometane Wild Bores had ever power to lay it quite wast or overthrow it both root and branch as to its saving foundations or its orderly constitutions or its authoritative successions in Bishops Presbyters and Deacons still holy Mysterys and holy Orders the holy Ministry and holy Scriptures holy Examples holy Doctrines holy Duties and holy Lives were continued in such order and by such conduct as easily represented the primitive pattern and Apostolick figure of this Tree though with many accressions and some deformities which time and ignorance and superstition or humane policy and secular pride had affixed to some main Branches of it in these Western parts of the Church yet the ancient Lineaments and true Model were very visible in Christian People Christian Deacons Christian Presbyters and Christian Bishops directed into several stations as Helps for the more orderly carrying on of the Churches Government in grand and national combinations In this posture stood the state of the Catholick Church as in all other places where the Vastations of Saracens and Turks had left any miserable Remnants of Christian Churches so most eminently in this Western world which the Providence of God had not yet wholly delivered over to Gog or Magog none of these Churches were without their Deacons Presbyters and Bishops untill that great Reparation rather than Alteration of Christian Religion began in these Western Churches about the Year 1520. which was justly called a blessed Reformation in many respects as to clearing the corruptions of Doctrine and Manners which had been contracted every where which
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
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
conscientiously scrupulous nor yet am I so against these or any other innocent Ceremonies recommended in any Church by the joynt consent of all parties and by due authority as for their sakes to withdraw my humble subjection to and charitable communion with this or any other Christian Church in the world that is otherwise sound in the Faith I do not so affect embroyderies in Religion as to have its garments too gay and heavy with the Church of Rome nor yet do I so affect a plainness as to abhorre all decency least of all am I of that curiosity or coynesse in Religion as I will rather rend my garments in pieces and go stark naked than weare such an one as may have possibly some spots or patches which might be spared if they could handsomly be removed but are better suffered than to have rude hands teare and cut them out as they list to the perturbation and injury of the whole Church As to the generall nature of Ceremonies used in the Church of England it may suffice at present in order to vindicate this Church to declare in its behalf First that the Ceremonies enjoyned and used in the Church of England were esteemed and oft so declared to be in the sense of the Church and its chief Governours not at all of the essence or necessary substance of any religious duty no more than the clothes of their opposers were of their constitution or their hair was of their heads yet both clothes and hair are very comely and convenient in the sociall living both of men and Christians together where neither nakednesse I think nor baldnesse would become them Secondly It doth no where appear that our blessed God is so Anti-ceremoniall a God as some men have vehemently fancied and clamoured rather than proved This I am sure the God of heaven whom we worshipped in England did institute many Ceremonies in the ancient religious services required of the Jewish Church which certainly God would not have done if all Ceremonies had been so utterly Anti-patheticall against the Divine nature or contrary to that spirituall sincere worship which he anciently required beyond all doubt of the Jew as well as the Christian as all the Prophets witnesse Nor do we find that God hath any where forbidden any decent Rites holy Customes or convenient Ceremonies to any Christians in order to advance the decency and order of his service or Christians mutuall edification and joynt devotion under the Gospel except onely such as were like the shadows of the night or morning which went before the rising of Jesus Christ the Sun of Righteousnesse importing Christs not being yet come in the flesh or implying the mystery of mans Redemption not yet completed by the Messias such as were Circumcision which was to last no longer in force than the promised seed of Abraham came in whom all nations should be blessed and the Covenant of God should be declared to the Gentiles as well as Jews under another sign or seal which is Baptisme The Mosaick Rites and Ceremonies as the Sacrifices the Passeover the High Priest and other legall Types as fore-going shadows justly vanished when the substance came but those subsequent shadowes Evangelicall Ceremonies and Signs which follow attend upon and betoken the Suns being now risen and present with his Church these in point of outward order and decency also of inward significancy and edification may well consist with the Evangelicall worship of God in Spirit and Truth however it be not founded on them or confined to them as to the inward judgement and conscience of the worshippers We see our blessed Saviour as he conformed to the Judaick Ceremonies both of Divine and Ecclesiastick Institution as in his sitting at the Passeover and celebrating the Encaenia or Feasts of Dedication till his work was finished so He from the Jewish use adopted or instituted some new Evangelicall Ceremonies to be used in a most solemn manner as Sacraments or holy Mysteries in his Church under the Gospel for visible Signs Memorials and Seals of his Love and Grace to us by which his Christian people may be instructed comforted and confirmed in Faith and Charity both to God and to one another Yea our blessed Saviour hath by his Spirit guiding the pens and practises of the Apostles sufficiently manifested as S. Austin observes that grand Charter and Commission of Liberty and Authority given to his Church and the governours of it for the choyce and use of such decent Customes Rites and Ceremonies as may agree with godly manners and the truth of the Gospel best serving for the order decency peace and edification of his Church in its severall states parts and dispersions not as annexing Ceremonies to the nature of the duties or humane inventions to the Essence of Divine Institutions which the Church of England never did but oft declared the contrary nor yet binding the judgement and consciences of those that used them to any such perswasion nor yet invading hereby or prejudicing the liberties of other Churches or any Christians in their respective subordinations but allowing other Churches the like liberty and investing its own members in the use and enjoyment of that Christian liberty as to those particulars which the Church hath chosen and appointed in the name of all its parts and adherents for their sociall order for the solemnity decency and mutuall edification of Christians Which was all that the Church of England intended in its Ceremonies agreeable to that indulgence and authority given by Christ to It as well as to any Church Nor have these enemies to the Church of England upon this account of its Ceremonies ever proved that Christ hath repealed this grant or denied it to this Church more than any others or that this Church hath yet abused its liberty or that themselves have any speciall warrant given them to enter their private dissent and put in a publick prohibition against the whole Church as if it might do nothing in the externalls ornamentalls and circumstantialls of Religion without asking leave of such supercilious censors and imperious dictators who scorn to make the consent of the Church in things of an indifferent and undefined nature to be their rule and law as to outward observance unity and conformity yet arrogate so much to themselves as they would make their private opinion and dissent to be a bar and negative to the whole Church For as the Liturgie so the Ceremonies used and enjoyned in the Church of England were not the private and novell inventions of any late Bishops or other Members of the Church of England much less of any Popes or Papists as some have imagined but they were of very ancient choice and primitive use in the Church of Christ whose judgement and example the Church of England alwayes followed by the consent of all estates in this Nation and Church represented in lawfull Parlaments and Convocations and this they did
reformed Religion as to its unity order stability and constancy either in doctrine or duty Sure it was far better to have the holy complete and reverent Sacrament of the Lords Supper administred and received by humble devout and prepared Christians meekly kneeling upon their knees than to have none at all celebrated for twice seven yeares both Ministers and people willingly excommunicating themselves and starving one another as to that holy refection It was much better and more Christian-like to have infants baptized with the ancient signe of the crosse as a token of their constant profession of the Faith of Christ crucified than to have them left wholly unbaptized and so betrayed to the Anabaptistick agitators who boldly nullifie that Sacrament when they see others either vilifie and wholly reject it as to infants or dispense with so great partiality as if every petty Preacher were a Lord and Judge not a Servant and Minister of the Church of Christ It was better to have some things lesse necessary yea inconvenient that looked like order decency and harmony in the Church than daily to run thus to endlesse faction ataxie confusion and irreligion Better that Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons officiate after the ancient manner in Eastern and Western Churches in white garments under which form Angels who are ministring spirits are represented to us and Christ himself in his transfiguration duly administring holy things to the people of God than to have no true Ministers no divine or due ministrations at all as is now in many places of England and Wales where either Churches and people are desolatâ— or pitifull intruders neither truly able nor duly ordained dare to officiate in their motley and py-bald habits as they list superciliously affecting such odde and antick fashions as they most fancy to please themselves or amuse the people with over whom they seek to have an absolute dominion If those few ceremonies appointed and accustomed to be used in the Church of England were not herbs of grace or of the most fragrant and cordiall sorts of flowers yet certainly they were never found to be so noxious and unsavoury weeds as some pretend the squeamishnesse of some people was no argument of any thing pestilent or banefull in them There are noses that have Antipathies against Roses and some will faint at any sweet smell If a few modest Christistians could lesse bear the sent or sight of them for my part I could willingly indulge them such a connivence and toleration as might consist with the publick peace order and rules of charity but I can never approve the counterscuffle of those who for their private disgusting of one sawce or dish rudely overthrow an orderly feast and well-furnished table who upon the suspicion of weeds root up all the good plants in a garden who jealous of briars and thorns destroy the vines and fig-trees Ceremonies if they bear no great or fair fruit yet they may as hedges be both a fence and ornament to Religion which truly for my part I esteemed them and so used them nor did they grow so offensive as now they have proved untill over-valuing on the one side and under-valuing on the other side pertinacy and obstinacy as S. Austin expresseth his sense and sorrow like a pair of alternative bellows kindled such flames of animosity as instead of bearing and forbearing one another in love sought to consume each other in those heats and flames which would not have risen had both sides more intended the substance and lesse the ceremonies of Religion There were infinite more obligations to Christian union by the true faith they joyntly professed than there were occasions of dividing by the ceremonies about which they differed But one sharp knife will easily cut in sunder many strong cords if it be in a mad or indiscreet mans hand Although Ceremonies of mans invention be no more to be made rivals to Religion than Hagar was to Sarah or Ismael to Isaac yet it is hard to cast them out having been sons or servants to the Churches family with scorn unlesse they be found to grow too petulant either jeering or justling pure Religion of whose genuine substance indeed they are not yet they may as hair is to women and men too be given It for an ornament nor do they deserve to be suspected for superstitious much lesse irreligious untill Christians make more of them then they deserve or the Church intended either so much contending for them or against them as takes them off from intending those main things wherein the grace and kingdome of God doth consist It doth not become the children of God either so to please themselves with toyes and bagatelloes as to neglect their meat or so to wrangle about them as to forget either the mutuall love they owe as brethren or the duty they owe to their parents But those little scratches which some Anticeremoniall mens itching fingers heretofore made upon the England's beautifull face would never I believe have so far festred and deformed all things of Religion in this Church if some men had not mixed of late some things of a more venomous nature and malignant design in order to gratify the despite of those rude Demagorasses of Rome who have most ill will and evil eyes against the beauty of this Parthenia the Church of England I know the common refuge of many who eagerly opposed the Church of England in this point of its Ceremonies was when they could not answer those arguments which learned and godly men brought to justifie the lawfull nature of the things in themselves also for the Churches undoubted liberty and power in chusing and using them lawfully they then flew to that popular and plausible argument which is in it self very fallacious arguing a mind rather servile to mens persons and enslaved to their opinions than enjoying the freedome of its own reason and judgement Namely that some learned and many godly men did greatly scruple those ceremonies being so scandalized with them that they either never used them or with very great regret others bitterly inveighed against them petitioning God and man for the removall of them Thus do most men plead who were but coppy-holders under the chief Lords of this Faction against the Ceremonies of the Church of England Ans I do not unwillingly grant as having been no stranger to some of them that many of those who were no great friends to the Ceremonies were yet learned grave and godly men such as they are reputed to be by those who pretend to be their followers and have rather out-gone them in the rigour of non-conformity than kept pace with them in that moderation gravity and charity which those men seemed to have who were not therefore sworn enemies against the Church of England because they were no great friends to Ceremonies yea I am perswaded there were few of them who truly deserved in former ages the names of godly and wise
whose constitution may be commendable although the execution of things may be blameable and punishable upon the merit of personall defaults not Ecclesiasticall defects No Chaldean no Magician no Soothsayer no Astrologer no Enchanter can spell any such meaning as to Gods displeasure against the frame and constitution of the Church of England out of that hand-writing which seems to be directed against the Clergie and Ministers of England 'T is true every one ventures to read and interpret it as they list to flatter their own parties opinions passions and interests so did the Philosophers the Heathens the Atheists the Idolaters the Scoffers the Julians the Apostates the Hereticks the Schismaticks of old grosly mistake the meaning of those hot and sharp persecutions which oft befell the Primitive Christians and Orthodox professors of faith in Christ crucified concluding they deserved true Crosses who so much gloried in the Cross of Christ not knowing what Theriak God makes out of those Serpents that sting us nor what Antidotes he extracts out of those deadly poysons which destroy us The royal Title over Christs head was never more deserved than when he was hanging upon the Crosse for on that as a King on his Throne he most conquered and after triumphed over both his and his Churches greatest enemies nor were his sufferings the least of his solemnities and glories his Father being never better pleased with him than when he cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me I am perswaded in like sort that the great afflictions now incumbent upon the Clergie and Church of Engl. do no way signifie that It or they are forsaken of God any more then Christ then was nor do they import any dislike that the God of peace and order hath against the respective office and subordination of Presbytery or the ordination and eminent gubernation of Bishops as they were designed and established in the Church of England according to the Primitive and Catholick pattern for both these God hath heretofore highly and signally approved if imploying blessing and prospering of them in his Church if accepting so many holy sacrifices and services from them be as much a sign of Gods approving their function as his now afflicting them is a sign of his reproving their faults But the plain sense of our sufferings is as S. Cyprian observes The Lord punisheth us that he may bring us to repentance for our sins both personall and professionall for those disorders by which we blemished or prophaned our holy orders 'T is not the government in it self but our own mis-governments that have offended God he aims not to consume that primitive and pure gold that is in this Church but to refine us from that dross we had as men contracted Nor do I doubt but God intends to improve us to his service in better times of which we may not despair if we find our selves amended by those bitter potions which in bad times and by evil men a good God administers to us for our health How glorious will both godly Bishops and orderly Presbyters in England appear to this Church and to all the world when coming out of this fiery furnace they shall shine brighter than ever they did with the love of Christ and of his Church both as to the care of those private charges and publick inspections committed to them in excellent order and administred by due authority when neither pride nor envy pomp nor popularity neither the upper nor the lower springs of ambition rising from Prince or people shall distract the counsels or divide the hearts or cross the endeavours of venerable Bishops and worthy Presbyters and pious people from that Christian subordination unanimity and conjunction which best becomes them as men and Christians which Ignatius so highly commends and which is so necessary both as to counsel and order government and proficiency for the good of all sorts of Christians in any Church Mean time it is no small mercy that exacts from some Ministers and enables them to give publick experiments of true Christian courage patience magnanimity and constancy which are our highest conformity to Christ by which the world may see that the honour of true Christian Bishops and Ministers doth consist as much or more in their sufferings as in their speaking and doing well in their losses as well as in their injoyments of all things Then will Princes Parlaments and People think us most worthy to enjoy the ancient estates honours liberties priviledges and immunities which the pristine piety charity munificence and gratitude of your and their fore-fathers bestowed upon the Clergie and devoted to God when they shall see that without these we are not onely willing but zealous to serve God and solicitous to save their souls as the greatest reward and wages of our work nor will the incumbent distresses upon the worthy Clergie of England much abate the love and value of them with those that are worthy of them certainly as mens sins should be esteemed their greatest afflictions so no mens sufferings are to be counted their sins If any Ministers have justly suffered as unable and so intruders as incorrigible and so unworthy having had the justice of being accused by two or three witnesses and the charity of receiving two or three admonitions before they were suspended silenced sequestred and ejected giving no hopes of their being amended yet even the grossest defects and immoralities of such Clergie-men who are indeed the shame and reproch of their profession may not be imputed to or revenged upon the whole calling and Church considering that the Church of England by her good Lawes wholsome Canons and wise Constitutions did strictly require not onely the best minds and abilities but the best manners and examples both from Bishops and Presbyters agreeable to those respective duties and instructions set before and charged upon them at their ordination which they were not onely to know but to do not onely to believe but to live that so the Ministers of this Church might appear not only the best of civil men but the best of Christians who ought to be holy men and the holiest of holy men as specially consecrated to the service of Christ and his Church It was by the Church intended that Church-men should be the most savoury salt in themselves and carefull seasoners of others if some proved unsavoury yet I am sure it is most unseasonable and unseasoned rashness to cast all Bishops and Presbyters yea the whole order and oeconomy of the Ministry and Church of England upon the dunghill of vulgar contempt among whom beyond all dispute were so many most accomplished Preachers and excellent Practisers of true Christianity whose breath was so good that their lungs could not be bad But if there had been a visible and generall Apostasy in many or the most part yea in all the Bishops and Ministers of England from their duty yet I conceive this is no argument
Christian can deny his assent if he hath ever made use of their excellent lives or labours to which as I formerly touched God himself hath set to the broad seal and great witnesse of his own Spirit upon the hearts and consciences of many thousands both still living and long ago dead These at the grand Assize or day of Gods righteous judgement will I am confident highly justifie before men and Angels the Church of England and its Clergie or Ministry as blessed means of their salvation these will convince the gainsayers enemies blasphemers and destroyers of this Church and its Ministry of their envy partiality blindness unthankfulness and malice also of their unreasonable lusts and injurious passions for nothing but such black and hellish clouds could ever hinder men after an hundred years experience from seeing owning esteeming and enjoying so great and glorious a light of grace and mercy truth and peace as hath shined in the Church of England ever since the Reformation while the golden Candlesticks were unbroken the beautifull order and proportion of their branches unconfounded the burning lamps of Bishops and Presbyters in them either not wholy extinguished or not snuffed so close as might put them quite out in respect of that pristine beauty and lustre love and honour which they formerly enjoyed and deserved in this as all well-composed Christian Churches What wise and gracious Christian comparing as the builders of the later Temple former times with these doth not with sadness of soul see and confess that the generall state of this Church the visible face of the Christian Reformed Religion the tempers of mens hearts and the praâ—â—ses of their lives were heretofore both as to truth order and peace to piety morality and charity incomparably beyond what now they commonly are or are like to be while so much emulation faction and confusion prevail among us which are the dry nurses of ignorance Atheism and irreligion Blessed be God in former times while worthy Bishops presided and discreet Presbyters assisted them in the great work of teaching and governing the Church of God in Eng. O what beauty what order what harmony what unity what gravity what solidity what candor what charity what sobriety what sanctity what sincerity what improvements what perseverance what correspondency what constancy was there generally to be seen among Christian Pastors and true Professors under their potent Ministry and prudent inspection Who is able to express or conceive unless he had some experience of those blessed times and tempers what sound and judicious knowledge what fruitfull faith what hearty love what discreet zeal what severe repentings what fervent prayers what earnest sighs what godly sorrows what unfeigned tears what just terrours what unspeakable comforts what well-grounded hopes what spirituall joyes what heavenly meditations what holy conversations what humble softnesses what diligent assurances what longing desires what unwearied endeavours what patient expectations what tender compassions what meekness of obedience what conscientious submissions were observable in the general frame of good Christians carriage as to God and their Saviour so to their Superiours both Civil Ecclesiastical in order to their own souls and their neighbours good And all this blessedness was enjoyed while some mendid pitifully complain that a few Ceremonies pinched their consciences that a white garment dazeled their eyes that the ancient transient signe of the Crosse crucified both the Sacrament and their senses that kneeling at the Communion bowed down their souls even to the ground that the devout Liturgie loaded their spirits that grave godly Bishops pressed Church-order and Discipline too hard upon them Yet then even then it was that Learning flourished Knowledge multiplied Graces abounded excellent preaching thrived Sacraments were duly administred and most devoutly received the fruits of Gods Spirit were every way mightily diffused Justice and common honesty were practised hospitable kindness exercised Christian charity maintained plain-heartedness and good works abounded without any such crafts and policies such frauds and factions such jealousies and distances such malice and animosities such rudeness and disorders such insolencies and hypocrisies such indignities and diminutions as are now of later years generally cast upon the Reformed Religion and those Preachers of it that adhere to the constitution and communion of the Church of England who are implacably maligned by those men who in persecuting and oppressing them and this Church do boast as if they had done God very good service and highly advanced the interests of Jesus Christ Which Themselves will then begin to doubt and disbâ—â—ieve when the heat of their passions is allayed when their popular fallacies and froths are vanished when their secular designes are frustrated when their high metal is abated when their strength begins to fail them when their sectators flatterers feeders and abettors are scattered from them when the tide of successes is come to its ebb when the terrours of death are upon them when their consciences shall give them a true and impartiall prospect of their actions and passions when they shall see how little holy fire there was amidst so great a smoke how much dross and trash hath been their superstructures how much their pragmatick spirits have ruined how little they have edified as to any thing of true serious solid and usefull Religion beyond what was formerly enjoyed to a satiety in England while they make it their master-piece of piety and reformation utterly to debase the Clergie to divide Christian people and to demolish the whole frame of the Church of England The great day of burning and refining will best discover and determine what the hearts and works the purposes and practises of such men have been Mean time that I may not be deceived in my own perswasions or prejudices who possibly may be partiall to my mother the Church of England I crave the favour of your upright judgement as wise Gentlemen and worthy Christians who remotest from all designs and discontents have most impartially observed the rise and progress the variations and depravations the folly and fury the divisions and confusions of some mens spirits and practises in England who have earnestly sought and still do to obtrude their fancifull deformed and many-formed Reformations upon this Church as much God knows against Her will as a lothsome potion is against the stomack of an healthfull patient Do you O my noble Countrey-men bona fide apart from fears and flatteries which are below persons of true honour and piety do you in earnest find the temper and constitution of Religion as Christian or Reformed either its inward power or its outward polity any way bettered and advanced in this Nation as to the visible form of it in essentials or ornamentals in Doctrine or Discipline in faith or good works in profession or reputation in order or peace in solidity or decency in authority or charity Do you find it in your own present comforts and enjoyments or in your hopes of after-blessings
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
Rulers and Guides or attending as Deacons and Servitors CHAP. IX IN reference to which sacred grand employments St. Paul's modesty and humility asked with trembling that unanswerable question Who is sufficient for these things Whereas now in Engl. there are such insolent intruders who act as asking quite contrary Who is not sufficient for these things as if forwardness boldness and confidence were all the sufficiency required in a Minister of the Gospel in which plebeian and pretended sufficiencies as these novell intruders do most abound so I am sure there were really never more blunt and leaden tooles in any age applyed to Church-work than many if not most of them are they come indeed with their beetles and wedges their swords and staves their axes and hammers to beat down all the carved work of Gods house rather than to prepare or polish the least stone or corner of that sacred building Who being not a little conscious to themselves that they are grosly defective in all those reall abilities of good learning sound knowledge sober judgement orderly method grave utterance and weighty eloquence which all wise and sober Christians expect should appear in every true Minister of the Church of Christ in such a competent measure evident manner as they may be able comfortably to discern them and usefully to enjoy them these crafty Intruders do first cry down all those reall and visible abilities as meerly naturall humane carnall as enemies to the Cross Grace and Spirit of Christ for as the apes in the fable these deceitfull workers having no tails themselves they would fain perswade all other creatures which have that ornament to cut them off as burdens and superfluous After this rude essay of craft and malice in vain attempted against the fruits of learned industry wherein the Ministers of the Church of England have and still do so vastly exceed these Mushrome Ministers of the last and worst editions they cunningly flie to the pretentions of speciall callings extraordinary inspirations illuminations and graces ministeriall which they well know are not easily to be discerned by any other but a mans self even there where they may possibly be real Who knows not that as to the point of inward Graces they are far more easily pretended and voiced than discerned and enjoyed in ones self much less can they be so proved and manifested to others as to satisfie their conscience in the points of anothers power and their own duty I am sure neither gifts nor graces ministeriall are by wise and sober Christians to be much supposed or expected there where men evidently silly and weak mean and vain ignorant and arrogant dare yet to disdain all that ancient order and uniform succession of the Evangelicall Ministry which hath been visible in all Churches as in this of England for 1500. years and to salve their credit or gain reputation as Teachers they bring for the satisfaction of their own and other mens conscience in point of that office duty and power ministeriall which they challenge and undertake no other signature and character of their commission and investiture into that office save onely what themselves pretend to be within them of secret impulses which being to mans judgement undiscernable are utterly insignificant nor ought they to bear any sway in the Church of Christ where the power ministeriall was first declared by miraculous gifts and endowments also by evident signs wonders sufficient to confirm its first commission and to authorize its after-succession from those onely with whom it was deposited to be transmitted by them and their successors to the Churches of Christ in all ages by such gifts and ordinary endowments as might be first duly tried and approved in men before they were ordained to be Ministers in the Church of Christ But these Heteroclite Teachers for the further corroboration of their dubious title and claim to the office of the Ministry are content to accept of some appointment from that power which is meerly military or civil and magistratick which powers in Primitive Churches for 300. years were so far from making any Minister either Bishop or Presbyter or Deacon in the Church of Christ that they sought by all means to persecute and destroy the whole profession of Christianity yea when the Empire became Christian as in Great 's time neither He nor any Christian Emperour Prince or Magistrate after him was ever so impertinent as to imagine that because they could derive civil and military power to others they had also power to make Christian Ministers or to invest them with the Ecclesiasticall power of holy orders nor did they think they had any thing more to do with the Clergie by way of authority save onely to take care for their due and comfortable discharge of that Ministery to which they were by another principle and power ordained according as the peace honour and order of the Church required which so conformed to the State and Common-weal that all Ministers were humbly subject to the Scepters of Princes in the severall places and stations Ecclesiasticall to which they were applied The Clergie owe to Princes the civil endowments of honour and revenue given to them as the temporall reward of their spirituall work but they are not the sources of their orders nor can their broad seal confer that power of the holy Spirit which onely makes a Minister of Jesus Christ not by way of graces or gifts so much as by way of mission and authority flowing onely from the Spirit of Christ as the chief Pastor Bishop and Minister of his Church Others of these new-modell'd Ministers in a way not more preposterous than ridiculous seek to deduce their ministerial power from meer plebeian suffrages from vulgar examinations approbations and elections which commonly are factiously begun foolishly carried on and schismatically concluded having not less weakness but less madness or possibly a little more seeming order civility or tameness than those whose who pretend no other warrant or authority for their being Ministers but what is to be had from their own blindness and boldness their proud conceit and flattering confidence of themselves which emboldens them by a self-ordination to take this holy power to themselves beyond what Aaron or the true Prophets or the Apostles or Christ himself as man did who were not self-sent or ordained but chosen and appointed solemnly consecrated and inaugurated to their office and Ministry either by clear prophecies accomplished or visible miracles wrought in the sight of the people or by some such other signall token ordinary or extraordinary by word or work as God was pleased to use for the manifestation of his will and for the satisfaction of his Church as to those persons which were to minister to the Lord and to whom his Church was conscientiously to submit as to the Lord. Agreeably to which holy pattern and as a full answer to all those clamours envies and despites which the
enemies rivals and extirpaters of the ancient Clergie and Ecclesiastick order in England can pretend the true Ministers Bishops and Presbyters of this Christian and Reformed Church doe challenge use and maintaine no other power priviledge or authority Ecclesiasticall than what they have duly and constantly received in the way of holy orders from their predecessors hands who have descended from the very Apostles dayes Nor are they such Monopolizers or appropriators of this power and office ministeriall to their own persons or to such onely as are formall Academicks professed Scholars and University Graduates as not willingly to admit into that holy Order and Fraternity by the right and Catholick way of due ordination not onely any worthy Gentlemen of competent parts pious affections and orderly lives whose hearts God shall move to so holy an ambition to desire so good a work but even those that are of plebeian proportions of meaner parts and less improved erudition provided they be found upon due trial to have acquired such competent abilities by Gods blessing upon their private industry and studious piety as may render them meet for any place or work in Christs husbandry where one may sow another may water a third may weed a fourth may fense the Church and Vineyard according to the severall gifts and dispensations ministred by the same Spirit and power of Christ which ought to be dispensed and carried on not in an arbitrary rude and precarious usurpation and intrusion but in an authoritative orderly and decent derivation succession for the honor profit peace of the Church of Christ Certainly no worthy Minister or sober Christian can so undervalue and debase those Evangelicall offices of Christ which are exercised by his ordained Ministers as to think that every self-flatterer and obtruder is presently to officiate without any due examination approbation and ordination from those with whom that commission and power hath been ever deposited in a regular and visible succession from Christ the great exemplar or Original which visible order mission and delegation is as necessary for the outward unity authority solemnity and majesty of Christs militant Church and Ministry upon earth as the workings of his blessed Spirit are for the inward operation and efficacie of true grace in mens hearts So that as no private and good Christian hath any cause to complain in this part of the Bishops and Ministers of the Church of England who in dispensing of holy orders or ministeriall power acted after the Catholick pattern of Primitive Churches no less than the particular constitutions of this Church allowed by all estates and degrees of men no more have any secular Powers or civil Magisrates who are or shall be professors of true Christian Religion any cause to be jealous of the ancient Bishops and Ministers of the Church nor shall they need either out of conscience or reasons of state to pervert and innovate that pristine course and regular succession of ministeriall authority yea as worthy Christians and wise Governours they ought both in piety and policy in honour and conscience to be no less exact in preserving this sacred order and divine authority from alteration invasion and usurpation than they are for their own civil power and secular jurisdiction which the renowned patterns of Christian Potentates Constantine Theodosius and other great and godly Princes were so far from arrogating to their imperiall power that they humbly submitted themselves to the order and power Ecclesiasticall in the things of Christ highly esteeming and venerating that Apostolick race of Bishops and Presbyters in the Church as the great Luminaries of the world the constant witnesses of Christs life and death the celebraters of his mysterious sufferings grace and glory the ministerial Fathers and confirmers of Christians faith as terrestiall Angels as Gods gracious Ambassadors for pardon and peace as Christs speciall commissioners appointed for to carry on the great work of saving mens souls Just and generous Princes if they be truly Christian cannot be so partial as to forbid any man under the highâ—st pain and penalty of high treason and death it self to challenge to himself any part of their civil or military power without a due commission derived either from themselves immediately or from those to whom they have deputed power for such ends and purposes which order they permit no man to violate or usurp however conceitedly or really able he may seem to be to himself or others for the managing of such power and yet permit such persons as are for the most part heady and high-minded insolent and disorderly to intrude themselves by a meer usurpation upon that sacred office authority and Ministry which is Christs without any due and solemn derivation of this power in such a way as hath ever been Apostolick Primitive Catholick and onely authentick in the Churches of Christ Certainly the rude innovation and usurpation upon this office and honour merits above any boldness as Nilus in Balsamon expresseth it that black brand of the last and perillous times when men shall be emphatically Traytors not onely to men but to Christ not onely to Common-weals but to Churches disobedient to parents not onely naturall and politick but also spirituall and ecclesiastick violating and betraying not onely the visible peace order uniformity and successive authority of the Church but the invisible comforts quiet and grace of poor peoples souls who must needs be at a great loss in a very sad and shamefull case as to their Religion where their spirituall leaders and shepherds are usurpers intruders clamberers not coming into the sheep-fold by the door of right ordination but climbing some other way as thieves and robbers when their titular and intruding Pastors prove either grievous wolves or miserable asses as they commonly are found to be who are not admitted by due ordination but crowd into the Ministry by rude and novell obtrusions so domineering over the flock of Christ over whom not the holy Ghost by an ordinary derived power and authority but their own unruly spirits have made them not so much over-seers of others as either stark blind or grosly over-seen in themselves CHAP. X. THe sense of this High Treason against Christ and of those sinfull disorders which men bring on themselves the Church of Christ by their intrusion usurpation upon this ministeriall power and office makes me here seriously suggest to You my honoured and beloved Country-men this religious caution That it very much concerns you for your own and your posterities souls good to be very wary not to be imposed upon and abused by vulgar pretensions of zeal and Christian liberty in this point of the Ministry but to be vigilant with whom you intrust as Ministers your own your childrens or any other peoples souls where you are Patrons of Livings And since your own prudent abilities for learning piety and experience are so modest as not rashly to adventure upon this
very vigilant and active doth then move most potently upon the face of our English waters when there is to be seen nothing but a sea of confusion a meer Chaos of the Christian and Reformed Religion Which feared deluge and by wise men foreseen devastation of the Reformed Religion once wisely established honourably maintained and mightily prospered in the Church of England is already much spread and prevalent among many people under the plea and colour of I know not what liberty to own any or no Minister any or no Religion any none or many Churches in England The visible decayes and debasings of the true and Reformed Religion in England as to piety equity unity and charity as to the authority of its Ministry and solemnity of its Ministrations are so palpable both in the outward peace and profession also in the inward warmth and perswasion that it is high time for all sober and wise men that love God Religion and their Countrey mightily to importune the mercies of God that breathing upon us with a spirit of meeknesse and wisdome truth and love humility and honesty he would at length asswage that deluge of contempt and confusion the troubled and bitter waters of wrath and contention which have over-whelmed the highest mountains of this Church over-topping by their salt waves and aspersions the gravest wisest most learned and religious both Preachers and professors of the Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation Which licentious insolencies have made all sober Christians so sick weary and ashamed of them that they cannot but be infinitely grieved to see and foresee the low ebbe to which the Reformed Religion in its purity and power must in time fall in England while the pristine dignity and authority of the Evangelicall Ministry is so invaded baffled and despised while the authentick derivation and Catholick succession of that holy power is so interrupted innovated divided destroyed while the reverence of primitive customes and examples is so slighted abated by fanatick innovators while the cords of Christian harmony and Church-polity are so loosened and ravelled on every side while the just honour and encouragements of learning and learned men are so much damped and exhausted while the Ecclesiastick Glory of this Nation which was its chiefest in being and owning it self as a true and Reformed Church of Christ is so much eclipsed to the great reproch of this present age and the infinite hazard of posterity which will hardly ever recover the honour order beauty and unity of Christian and Reformed Religion formerly enjoyed in this Church and Nation when once the Jewels of it the learned ordained orderly and authoritative Ministers of the Gospel with all their Ministry and Ministrations come to be either trampled under feet by Schismaticall fury or invaded and usurped by vulgar insolency which in time will rake them all up and bury them in the dunghill of Romish superstitions and Papal usurpations CHAP. XIX HOw far in humane policy or reason of State this popular liberty or rather insolency usurpation and anarchy in Religion is to be indulged I know not as not pretending to any of those depths of secular wisdome which will be found shallow at last if Gods glory and the good of mens souls be not in the bottom of them But thus far I conceive I may after so many years sad experience which all sober Christians have had of the retrogradations of the Reformed Religion in England appeal as to you who are the most generous and judicious persons in this Nation so to all prudent and well-advised persons of all sizes and conditions who are capable to weigh the true interests and future concernments of their Countrey and Posterity both as to Piety and Peace Honour and Happiness by way of an humble and earnest expostulation Hath not I beseech you this English world Prince and peasant Pastors and people great and small had enough both in cities and in villages of these late Hashshes Olives and Queckshoes of Religion in the mixture and dressing of which every foul hand must have a finger Do you not perceive a different face of Christian and Reformed Religion from what was heretofore in England when it had less experience of vulgar licentiousness but more true Christian liberty when in my memory most of yours Engl. was so full and flourishing with excellent Christians of all sorts young and old plain and polite learned and illiterate noble and ignoble in the Nobility Gentry Yeomanry and Peasantry whose setled judicious piety was the fruit of the labours cares counsels and inspection of those learned grave and godly Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters with whom you were blessed Have not all of you had enough and too much of these new flashes these fluttering squibs these erratick Planets these wandering Stars these pretenders to rarities novelties superfluities super-reformings raptures revelations and Enthusiasmes in Religion To all which you may easily see that a fancifull invention a melancholy pride a popular itching a profane spirit a loose temper and a glib tongue are very prone to betray men being as sufficient to furnish them in those trades as a little stock will go far to make up a pedlars pack yet have they so great confidence of themselves as if they exceeded not onely all former Christians all Ministers all Councils all Churches but even all holy Scriptures themselves whose darkness or incompleteness must as some men say be cleared and supplied by their speciall illuminations an old artifice of the Devil most used by those men and in those times which being most destitute of true reason good learning and Religion did most vapour of their visions and revelations their traditions and superstitions witness those Cimmerian Centuries or blinder ages of these Western Churches in which there were as many visions revelations and miracles daily obtruded on the credulous vulgar as there were Monasteries and Nunneries which in stead of Seminaries and Nurseries became dark dungeons wherein Christian Religion and Devotion were for many ages sadly confined and almost smothered with superstition idleness and luxury Have we not had enough too much of vulgar playings with piety of triflings with Christian and Reformed Religion of baffling abusing and abasing the Christian Ministry of buffetings of Christ of mockings of God by impudent pratings and insolent intrudings by confused rhapsodies and shuffling sanctities by endless janglings and refined blasphemies vented in some mens writings preachings prayings practisings so far from the light weight and height the sobriety sanctity and majesty of true Religion that they are most-what void of ordinary reason and common sense of equity and modesty of humanity and civility being little else but the froth of futile and fanatick spirits who blind poor people to enlighten them captivate them to make them free and ruine them under pretense of building them after new wayes and models of Religion sanctity salvation Have we not had enough of passionate transports popular
fanatick triflers troublers of Religion which no sober Christian can tolerate in their publick and religious meetings they presently meditate the most desperate separations they instantly fall to set up new Churches and Pastors after their own heart their full revenge must be had not onely by dividing themselves but by seducing and poysoning other silly people as much as may be withdrawing them from that good esteem they had and respect they formerly bare to the Church of England and their lawfull Ministers Then the followers of these pragmatick Preachers are taught to bear with patience as horses are the noise of drummes and trumpets all manner of scurrilous railings against the Church and Clergie of England At last they are by troops brought up in front to charge them with such insolency of speech and behaviour of writing and acting as sufficiently discovers their evil hearts to be like mines or Petars full fraught and charged with all kinds of bitterness contempt and animosity against them in order to destroy them utterly as soon as they have power and opportunity to do it In the room of whose orderly beauty learned gravity sober sanctity and exemplary piety so famous conspicuous and prosperous heretofore these bold extirpators and bitter Antagonists have hitherto produced as the eructations of Aetna and earth-quakes are wont with much swelling noise and terrour nothing but darkness smoke and thick vapours full of sulphureous obfuscations Sure their executions and conclusions must be full of mischiefs subversions confusions desolations to the Reformed Religion because there is not one dramme or iota that ever I could observe of sound knowledge of usefull piety of gracious effects of holy patterns of Christian principles to be found in them any way comparable to those proportions of wisdome and good understanding of justice and charity of meekness and moderation with all which the English world was heretofore well acquainted by the learned industry and exemplary piety of its reverend Bishops and other godly Ministers who were ever highly honoured passionately loved and worthily treated by pious Princes peacefull Parliaments and unpassionate people long before either tumultuary rabbles or schismatick agitators or the Scotch sword or the Smectymnuan juncto or a sifted sequacious Assemblie or covenanting Houses or Committee-Consistories or Military Superintendents undertook by an unwonted authority and severity not onely to catechise but to chastise the Church and Clergie of England even all the Bishops and most of the Presbyters among whom many one person might be found whose learning and worth every way might modestly be put into the balance against all that any or all those parties can pretend to or ever yet discovered to the wiser and better world who have been and are the most rigid exactors severest censurers and sorest enemies to the Reformed Clergie and Church of England Whos 's more crafty rivalls and cruellest persecutors finding themselves as heretofore so still vastly exceeded and infinitely out-done as to all reall endowments commendable practises and visible sufficiencies for learning knowledge utterance prudence for praying preaching writing and living they are now of late after the way of those old fanaticks who called themselves the pure elect inspired and spirituall ones flown to the retreats and refuges of their inward graces to more secret and spiritual perceptions to hidden and unseen acquaintances with God Which are as I formerly touched the old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of elect Manichees and paraclete Montanists meer shifts and sleights blinds and evasions where the light of mens works and gifts shines not to the glory of God as our Saviour speaks for these are a nemo scit as easily denied as they are rashly affirmed being indiscoverable and incommunicable to any but Gods and a mans own spirit The hidden manna the white stone the new name which none can read but he that hath it these if meant of Graces are best asserted or most confuted by mens works No man is of God who doth not the will and works of God as they are revealed in his Word in all righteousness and holiness with meekness and humility with sobriety and good order in all which if any the best of these Novellers do at any time come neer to the parts graces and merits of those that were and are dutifull sons and servants to the Church of England yet I am sure they cannot without intolerable impudence pretend to exceed them so far that no fair quarter may be allowed to the former Preachers and Professors in this Church that no place or naile should be left them in Gods sanctuary here in England CHAP. XXII INto which as I have by many instances evinced some mens folly or fury hath of later years sought to bring so much filth and confusion that they have almost made this Church an Augean stable so that it is an Herculean work to cleanse it of all those debordments and debasements faln upon Christian Religion of those fedities and deformities brought upon its reformed profession of those disorders and undecencies which have invaded Ecclesiastick duties and mysteries all which necessarily follow the invasions and usurpations of popular libertie in Religion which though already full of squallor and sordidness yet are still eagerly challenged loudly clamoured and fiercely asserted by the common people and their parasites the most plebeian spirits Who not capable to comprehend or not willing to understand the gracious beauty the holy modesty and divine majesty of true Christian liberty which most excludes all base licenciousnesse as the brightest light doth all darkness and the perfectest health all sickness have excessively doted in later years upon this Image of imaginary liberty as if it had newly come down from heaven in a whirlwind of Civil war and Schisme whereas in good earnest the most vociferant vulgar who most cry up this their Diana like the riotous rabble at Ephesus do least know what the matter is nor what true Christian liberty means which undoubtedly puts the severest restraints that may be upon it self as to doing any thing offensive to God or injurious to its neighbour in private and single much more in publick and sociall respects in civil much more in religious relations which as men and Christians we bear to one another True Christian liberty is as far as heaven from hell from any thing that looks like incivility rudeness barbarity inhumanity frenzy fedity disorder deformity Rationall and religious liberty is not the freedome of an untamed heifer of an unbridled horse of a mad dog or an unyoked hog which will ramble and wallow and bite and root up where they list which seeks to subvert not whole houses onely but famous Churches to infect as many as they can with the plague and contagion of mens own evil hearts It is not Christian liberty but an earthly sensuall and devillish lazinesse or licentiousness for men and women that have been baptised in the name of Christ and so
these now desire to appear as Goliah in their compleat Armour boldly braving the whole Church of England and this not onely as great Scripturists but great Artists too yea they would seem great Statists Pragmaticks and Politicians They pretend to be curious inspectors beyond all men into all religious mysteries yea rigid and exact Anatomizers of all both Modern and Ancient Churches subtile Insinuators into all Interests and grand Modellers of all Polities both Civil and Ecclesiasticall aiming no doubt in time to erect some Saintly soverainty for their party in England though their former ambitious attempts have every where miscarried as in severall parts of Germany so of late in Ireland These Anti-paedo-baptists who are such hard-hearted Fathers such unkind and unchristian Parents to their Children as to deny them those distinctions and indulgences of divine grace and favour which God of old granted to the Jewish infants and which the Catholick Christian Churches in all ages have thankfully accepted and faithfully applied to the Children of professed believers as a priviledge and donation renewed to them by Christ and confirmed by the Apostles these Birds glorying like Ostriches in their negligence toward their young ones are risen up to be not onely nimble Disputants against children but valiant combatants against men For they find after the way of the world more is got in one year by the terrour of armes than in ten yeares by the shew of arguments And although the pretended principle at first of that party was to go with soft feet as Lions and Cats do hiding and preserving their Clawes till there is use of them crying up Peace and crying down all Warre and sword-work upon Christs or the Gospels score yet the latter sort of their Disciples being in hopes to become more regnant and triumphant have interpreted the meaning of their Grandsires to be onely in prudence and caution not in piety and conscience that fighting was onely forbidden them when they had cause to despair of getting the better or just fear to be worsted but if Providence gives them honest hopes and advantages by the arm of flesh and the sword of Steel to set up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and his spirit they are ready with S. Peter not onely to fight for Christ but to cut off Malchus his eare yea and his head too if they find any Christian Prince or Prelate Magistrate or Minister stand in their way or if he seemeth to fight against that Anti-infantall Christ which they say is so predominant in them that he ought by their assistance to reform and rule all the Christian world first beginning to destroy the Baptismall rights of Christians Infants and then to go on to invade the rights of their parents both Civil and Ecclesiasticall The ancient Church as in England so every where adored a Saviour who invited infants to him and blessed them These men set up a Christ who will not endure the Infants of his Church and people to come neer him or have any relation to him as Lambs of the flock to that great Shepherd Thus the Papists on the one side agitate an endlesse controversie with this Church of England and all Reformed Churches touching the Lords Supper First in not restoring the Cup to Lay-men agreeable to Christs institution and intention which was best declared by the practise of the Apostles and the Catholick Church after them for a thousand years next in their stating precisely and explicitely as matter of faith under a grievous curse and Anathema the manner of Christs presence in that Sacrament which as we confesse to be very mysterious adorable and ineffable yet most reall true and effectuall to a worthy Receiver according to the proper capacity of Faith receiving its object so we conclude that it is not in that grosse and contradictive manner which they have lately invented and imposed upon the Churches credulity by way of Transubstantiatings which is a strange nulling of the substance nature of the signes Bread and Wine owned as such by the Apostle after consecration and inducing the intire substance of Christs Body and Blood under every crum and drop of those accidents or shadows which seem still to be Bread and Wine to the four Senses And this must be first done even then when Christ was yet at table with the Disciples and had not yet suffered so that they corporally eat of Christs Body made of the Bread when he gave them the Bread and was at once in their eyes and between their teeth Which strange and unheard-of manner of super-omnipotent transmuting or transposing or annihilating of Substances the Papists owe more to the wit and subtilties of some Schoolmen of later ages who scorned to seem ignorant of any thing or to be posed in any Christian mystery than either to the verdict of their senses to the principles of true Philosophy to the grounds of sound Reason to the Analogy or tenour of Scriptures in parallel Mysteries or Sacraments or last of all to the Testimony of the Primitive Fathers and ancient Churches as hath been amply and unanswerably proved by many Reformed Divines at home and abroad Who though they spake very high things of this blessed Sacrament as to its holy use end and relation to the Lord Jesus yet they thought it enough for Christians to believe adore and admire the invisible mysticall and spirituall yet reall presence of Christ in it for truly and fully present they ever believed him to be though they confessed themselves ignorant how and so were both humbly and modestly silent of the manner of his presence In which bounds if the later Church of Rome could have contained it self I believe much trouble and misery much blood-shed and persecution had been saved in these Western Churches which are now divided and destroyed upon no point more than this of the Lords Supper which was the greatest Symbol of Christians communion with Christ and one another till the Papall arts and policies did so maim and mishape that blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper as to make it a ground of everlasting contention On the other side the peevish and petulant Anabaptists who for many years past almost since the first day-spring of the Reformation visited these Western Churches have by the pens and tongues the writings and preachings of many learned and godly men been brayed in the mortar of Scripture-testimonies Ecclesiastick practise Catholick custome and tradition yet wil not their folly depart from them These I say have heretofore in Transilvania Westphalia and many parts of Germany and the adjacent Countreys and of late in England since it became Africa Septentrionalis the Northern Africa full of Serpents and fruitfull in Monsters with greater boldnesse and freedome than they ever enjoyed under any Christian Magistrate or in any Reformed Church sharply contested against the other great Sacrament of Baptisme so far as it was in the Church of England and ever hath been in all ages and
nature and in regard of the offer of Evangelick grace by Christ as much need and as much capacity of Baptisme as the Jewish children had of Circumcision so far as both those initial Sacraments betoken the taking away of sin the supply of righteousness and other benefits attainable by sinners young or old through the covenant made in the blood of J. Christ between God and his Church both Jewish and Christian Only they put in these three popular barres against Infants partaking of those benefits which they need and are otherwayes capable of by Christ but not as the Anabaptists say in the way of Baptisme at that age in which they have no right or capacity to be baptised because First They alledge there is no precise or nominall command in the New Testament to baptize any Infants by name Secondly Baptisme is limited to such as are first taught and professe to believe which must ever exclude Infants Thirdly There is no one expresse and nominall instance of any one example where Christ or his Apostles baptized any infant which if they could finde they confesse they should then with us interpret all places in favour of infants as contained under the expression of all nations and whole housholds and you and your children c. since they confesse the tenour of the Gospel the extent or proportions of Evangelicall mercies the sufficiencie of Christs merits and the sinfull state of infants by nature yea their damnable estate unlesse they be washed and saved by the blood of Christ all these make much for infants enjoying the Sign and Seal as well as the Thing signified Grace and Glory too if they had but one example or could be convinced that ever any Apostle did baptize any one infant CHAP. VIII THis in brief is the whole strength as I conceive of the Anabaptists whereto they so pertinaciously hold meerly as to the literall silence of the name Infant in the point of Baptisme and at the same rate they may deny many other points of Christian doctrine and practise which yet I suppose they do not which not having the express and individual letter of the word for them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the generall tenour and inclusive command namely the reason of the Scripture and Analogie of Faith to justifie them besides the constant practise and judgement of the Catholick Church whose fidelity is not to be questioned by any sober man upon such slight and captious pretensions of the Scriptures silence in point of particular enumerations when yet it is full as to generall and comprehensive expressions which are many and valid foundations on which to build Infant-baptisme no more to be justly overthrown by the most subtill Anabaptists in the world than the Saducees might deny and overthrow the resurrection against Christ or the Psychopannuchists the souls immortality or the Antidominicarians the Lords day or the Antiscripturists the received Scriptures or the Antitrinitarians the Trinity or the Arians the coessentiality of the Son with the Father as God because none of these are as the Arians urged in those very words names and syllables so set down as possibly cavilling Sophisters would require or else they will not believe The silence or not express naming of Infants is no more to be urged against them in this case than the silence of Christ as to the partakers of the Lords Supper who gave it onely to the twelve Disciples with command to them to do it c. without speaking of any Women or Lay-men yet were not these hereby excluded from the Communion as to matter of fact before it was so recorded in the Acts as an History The Church of Christ alwayes understood the latitudes of Baptism expressions as well as graces to include Infants of Christians no less than the institution of the other Sacrament did Lay-men and Women which were neither present at first institution nor are nominated in any particular command of Christ As for the condition limiting persons baptizable which is actual believing this also the Church of Christ understood in a limited temporary sense as reaching only to those who were the first fruits or plants of the Christian Church who were first as Abraham to be taught the nature of the covenant duty and seal before they could reasonably receive the sign or communicate it rightly to their children who come to their claim and priviledge as of Circumcision so of Baptisme not by vertue of their personal knowledge and faith which Abraham and men grown but not their children first had and so the first called and converted Christians as parents ought to have but by that federal relation which they have even in their ignorance and infancy to believing parents and by them to God as his people part of his flock and Church And this not by a naturall or civil right which yet descends to and upon children when they know nothing but by an Evangelicall right as to that covenant made by God in the blood of Christ with his Church both of old and of late with Jews and Christians inclusive of children yea even Infants of eight dayes old as is evident in Circumcision which signified the same grace under another signe or ceremony as the Apostle declares it at large Rom. 4. Leaving therefore the cavilling and pervicacious insistings of the Anabaptists about the letters names and syllables which they must have or they will not believe Infant-Baptism more than Thomas Christs Resurrection till he felt his wounds although we grant what they alledge as to the nominal silence of the word Infants wrested by their perverse disputations yet nothing is abated as to the right and use of Infant-baptisme which is grounded upon so many grand reasonings and right deductions from Scripture-sense which being explicite and clear in many places ought to over-rule that silence of the name Infants and seeming but misunderstood limitation of taught and believing which is all the force upon the point that ever the Anabaptists could muster together against the Churches Catholick judgement and practise conform to the whole tenour of Gods mind and will his love and mercy Christs grace and merits dispensed to his Church by some initiall Sacrament including Infants as well as the adulti of riper years That you may better see upon what little mole-hills the Anabaptists stand so on tip-toes as of late they have done in England pretending to over-top the mountain of the Lord which hath been established in all lands I mean the judgement and practise of the Catholick Church I will briefly set down as in a matter largely handled by many others both late long since what are the grand deductions and Scriptural reasonings upon which the Church of God hath as I conceive alwayes maintained the right priviledge and comfort of Infant-baptisme and this without any scruple or dispute for 1500 years not but that the Anabaptists objections from the silence of
the Scripture as to the name Infant were then as obvious as now nor were there wanting heretical spirits of the Jews and Gnosticks who would have cavilled in this as other points against the true and Orthodox profession if they had not been so palpably over-born and convinced by the pregnancy of the Churches practise and judgement agreeable to the Apostolical Tradition in this point who without doubt had baptized many Infants some years before there was any part of the New Testament written which the Anabaptists so much urge that it had been an intolerable impudence to doubt or deny Infant-baptism or to oppose the after-letter of the N. Testament against the constant and precedent practise of the Apostles and their Successors whose actions were a clear and sufficient yea the best interpretation in the world of the letter of the Scripture in case of any thing that seemed lesse explicite or any way dubious Nor do I doubt but the Church was ever in this so far commendable as it was conformable to the Apostles practise and went upon the same grounds as they did not once erring so Catholick and great an errour as to apply a Sacrament to such as Christ never intended yea denied and forbad it as is pretended and onely therefore pertinacious in all ages after yea so stupid as not to be sensible of so grand an errour or misapplication that it might not be thought to have erred but rather the Church continued constant and without scruple in the doctrine of the Apostles and practise of Infant-baptism as S. Austin urges against Pelagius because they were assured from the beginning it was the mind of Christ which the Apostles best understood and according to which they did constantly practise the baptizing of Infants from the beginning where once the faith was planted in the parents the branches or seed being presently holy in Gods claim or covenant and by the childrens relation to them and to God so soon as the parents were believers and had by receiving the faith and being baptized been brought into the visible fold or flock of Christ The Scriptural Religious and rationall grounds which this and all true Churches went upon in baptizing Infants of believing parents not apostated or excommunicated were these which I oppose to the petty and capricious cavils of the Anabaptists as a mighty wall or bulwark planted with great canon against so many pot-guns or bulrushes CHAP. IX 1. FIrst The Church of God considered the nature of that Evangelical and perpetual Covenant which was explicitely made with Abraham and his seed also confirmed to him and his children by another parallel Ceremony or Sacrament namely of Circumcision which Sign or Seale being as the Anabaptists confesse long ago abrogated rather by the consent practise of the Church than any personal command of Christ that can be alledged who himself was both circumcised and baptized yet 't is certain that the Covenant still continues to Abraham and his seed as eminently contained in Christ by relation to him derived not onely to the Jews after the flesh but to those that are Jews inwardly the Israel of God or spiritual seed of Abrah as he had his name augmented and was to be the Father of many nations not by natural succession but by fiduciary imitation of his faith who is called and commended to Christians as the father of the faithfull whose priviledges Evangelical descend to all those who after Abrahams example do believe the Evangelical promises of blessednesse by Christ these being of the household of faith Abrahams children have right to Abrahams covenant the priviledges of his spirituall seed which reached as to the naturall sons of Abraham and their Infants Jews so to these imitative sons and their infants whom since no word of restraint or forbidding hath excluded from the relation covenant rights priviledges comforts Evangelicall once given to Abraham and to all the family of Faith there was no cause for the Church-Christian to exclude infants of believing parents from partaking that Evangelicall new sign and visible seal which is Baptism set to the ancient Covenant with which either Anabapt must affirm no Infants now have any thing to do no right to it or the benefits by it or they must think infants have this in so tacite blind implicite a way as they nor their parents have any visible sign seal and token of it now in the Christian Church unless they will fall to circumcise their children again who so obstinately deny baptism for that end to infants whatever they think of it as to those of riper years 2. However the Anabaptistick flourishes ratlings as to the crambe of their negations that neither precept nor practise is found in Scripture mentioning Infant-baptism make a great shew noise with common people of small capacities and short-sighted yet the Anabapt have no cause to flatter themselves that they are wiser than all those Divines of Engl. other Churches who can render valid cogent unanswerable both Historick instances and reasons for the Catholick practise of this all Churches in this point and these drawn from the twisted and concurrent sense of Scripture set forth in the words of Christ confirmed by his actions best interpreted by the constant practise of the universal Church as in the second Cent. Orig. tells us the Church alwayes used Infant-bapt which may not be thought to have erred from the Apostles practise in this any more than the Apostles did from Christs mind 3. So that the Anabaptists erre partly by not understanding the Scriptures partly by wresting them They wrest the letter of one or two places to an exclusive sense contrary to the meaning of many other which are inclusive of Infants upon very great reasons and to avoid many absurd consequences as to the state Evangelicall They urge against Infants Baptisme the Scriptures not expresly naming them in precept or practise We might as well urge for them the like silence of Scripture no where by name excluding forbidding or excepting Infants where in common sense they are included as in all nations whole families or housholds where they are either actually baptized or commanded to be baptized by the Apostles without any reserve limitation or exclusion as to Infants 4. The usual parallel also of Circumcision and Baptism which S. Paul urgeth and S. Austin oft observes is of great force to those who consider that this latter Sacrament or sign of Gods covenant to his Church-Christian succeeding to the former as to its end use and vertues may not in reason be thought lesse extensive to Infants in the Church of God than the former was nor may the Antitype be straitned short of the Type In this all the Jewes Church even Infants as well as others were baptized to Moses in the red Sea and the cloud so must all to Christ in the Baptisme of his Blood now in the Church
of truth and mercy which are so manifest in the Scriptures that the contrary opinion or practise however seemingly drawn from some Scripture as Tertull. Cyprian S. Austin observed in the quotations of Hereticks yet carries great incongruities and absurdities such as are inconsistent with the Evangelical dispensations many wayes in other Scriptures declared and easily to be observed by those that bring no prejudice or prepossessions with them Our blessed Saviours wisdome hath taught us thus to understand the mind of God by this collective or deductive sense of Scriptures Thus he evinceth a grand article of Christian faith the resurrection of the dead against the blind cavils of the Sadduces first by alledging such Scriptures as named not but implied the Resurrection yea rather the souls immortality then he doth by principles and consequences of right reason draw forth the force of those places shewing as the souls existence so the possibility and certainty of the Resurrection also the state of those that are once risen and in glory In like manner our Saviour by comparing Scriptures proves Gods dispensations of labour as to works of piety charity and necessity both to God to man and to beasts even on the Sabbath where the letter of the command was expresse and fully negative Thou shalt doe no manner of work c. yet doth Christ redargue those Sabbaticall rigours which were by the Pharisees both hypocritically and uncharitably urged from the letter of that command Christ tells them they erred though they insisted on the letter of the command not knowing the Scriptures in their harmonious and concurrent sense which is by sober and right reasonings to be fairly understood rather than by harsh and dissonant exactings so urged as to make one part of Scripture clash with another or one place enterfeare and jarre with the whole tenour and Analogie of Divine wisdome truth mercy and grace Which in this point of Baptisme the Anabaptists do if not to their own damnation yet very much to the subversion of the faith of many to the dividing undermining and destroying of a famous and well-setled Church which hath suffered infinitely of late by some Anabaptistick petulancy pertinacy and peevishnesse Which in this point of Baptisme is much upon the same lock as they are in the point of Ministers maintenance under the Gospel by Tithes which is clear by the Analogie equity and intent of the Scriptures comparing the old and new together in which the mind and measure of the just and gracious God is evidently as liberall to the Gospel-Ministers as to the Jewish as S. Paul urgeth Even so hath the Lord ordained c. The force of which place I have unanswerably proved in a particular discourse upon Tithes Yet what out-cries and clamours what reproches and calumnies what a Tragick and Judaick businesse hath the covetous scrupulosity and sacrilegious nicety of some men made against Tithes and Ministers now receiving them pretending Scriptures against them which are most fully for them still wresting in this as other things the Scriptures silence or letter by the bias and scrue or rack of their own prejudices or depraved lusts and passions against the equity force and reasonings of Scripture concurrent and manifest from many places CHAP. XI 12. BUt in case the Scripture-meaning and letter were lesse clear in this point of Infant-baptisme than indeed they are if severall places do seem to stand in such defiance and opposition against each other that it were necessary to have an umpire to reconcile them so as might moderate limit and qualifie the seeming literall difference of some places in order to bring them to a compliance with others which are possibly lesse explicite in the letter but more comprehensive of and conform to the generall tenour sense and meaning of them and that Analogie of Faith or Evangelicall dispensations which are the whole scope and design of the Scriptures In this case to quiet the consciences of Christians and to compose the state of the Church of Christ in a way most charitable most comfortable and no way inconform to the will of God in his Word I appeal to all sober minds whether the constant practise Catholick custome of the Church of Christ in all ages and places be not the best interpreter and reconciler of Scripture when so Universall and Primitive as this of Infant-baptism is owned by all witnesses that it must needs be derived from Apostolick men yea and Apostles themselves who best knew the mind of Christ and without doubt most exactly in this as all things conformed to it No Anabaptist ever did or can prove by any one ancient Writer that from the beginning it was not so that Christian parents either ordinarily did not or that any one Doctor of the Church held it unlawfull to baptize their infants no not Tertullian the onely ancient which the Anabaptists urge in favour of their novel fancy who yet doth acknowledge otherwhere the prerogative of Christian Infants wholly yea and the use and practise of the Church in his dayes to baptize Infants with eagerness and hast even in that place where rather with wit and fancy than with argument he speaks of the inconvenience and impertinency of committing heavenly riches to those that are not capable to manage earthly and urgeth their innocency not having any sin and so needing no remission which was true as to actuall but not to originall sin for which cause as Origen Cyprian and Saint Austin urge Baptisme is applied to Infants The same flourish might have been made against the Covenant and grace of Circumcision yea against Christs blessing the little children when brought to him yea and it may as well be urged against giving the right or investiture of any estate temporall to Infants which is usuall and good in law because they cannot use or manage them at present These are strains of wit not weight of reason or Religion in Tertullian or any man nor may they sway with any Christian in this or any case contrary to the judgement and practise of the Church even then and at all times Which S. Cyprian in his large Epistle to Fidus owns as his own and others uniform judgement without any question as to Infant-baptisme who certainly in this differed not from his beloved Master Tertullian as he called him yea he would not so fully have allowed baptisme of Infants without any limitation to the eighth day which was the question put to him if he had thought Tertullian seriously doubting in the main of their being at all to be baptized I am sure Cyprian is as valid a testimony for it as Tertullian against it who yet is not against it unlesse it may be in some cases where persecution may hinder parents care of their childrens education and so there may be danger of childrens Apostasie The judgement of Cyprian with 66. Bishops is followed and commended by S. Hier. and S.
were in it self free and indifferent so as men might be baptized when they will and so baptize their children sooner or later as they please deferring it as some of old did even to their decrepit age and death-beds because they would not sin after it if this were left to an indifferency which I doe no way think it is any more than all other duties of the Lords Supper prayer hearing the Word preached c. are which have no precise measure and limited time set because they oblige alwayes as opportunity is offered Gods favours and indulgences import mans duty to accept and use them as soon as the Lord offers them to us and ours though Baptisme be not as S. Cyprian tells Fidus confined to the eighth day after infants birth nor yet to the eighth year yet when it may be duly had in the way of Gods providence it may not be delayed to the death of the child unbaptized without a great detriment to the infant so dying and crime to the parents or guardians so delaying and by their sottish negligence depriving the child of that visible means of grace which God hath allowed in his Church both to parents and their children which is the judgement of Gregory Nazianzen one of the ablest Divines that the Church ever had As a due debt unlimited to any day of payment is every day due so the favours of God and priviledges of his Church not precisely confined but daily offered us and not accepted contract upon us a great sin either of unbelief under the means or affected negligence undervaluing and ingratitude toward Divine Mercies sins under which no Christian of a truly tender conscience will dare to lie seven yeares no nor seven dayes meerly upon the delayes and scruples of his own or other mens both foolish and sluggish hearts As that soul among the Jews was precisely cut off from the Church of God both parents and children who was not unlesse in Gods connivence and speciall dispensation as in the fourty yeares pilgrimage in the wildernesse circumcised the eighth day so may those among Christians justly seem to be cut off from the Church of Christ here and hereafter which do presume to slight neglect and so not at all use Baptisme to their children according as God gives them in the uncertainties of life both opportunity and conveniency Gods leaving some things to our choice discretion and ingenuity must not be any remission but an excitation to speedy duty especially in setled Churches where daily at least weekly opportunities are offered which if denied by hot persecutions the delay is more excusable and it may be in some cases commendable where parents have just cause to fear lest their baptized children shall never attain by their paternall care such education as is correspondent to their Baptisme In which cases I conceive it was of old deferred not because it was thought either unlawfull or undesirable in it self to baptize infants born in the Church but for feare of the mischiefs attending persecution and sometimes the parents were cold and negligent in their duty If I say the time of Baptisme were left to our freedome which it is not as I have shewed yet still the black brand and grosse impudence of such a reproch contempt and errour as the ruder and spitefuller sort of Anabaptists cast upon this and all other Christian Churches is most intolerable while they dare to re-baptize such who have been once duly baptized if it be indifferent when in their infancy which re-baptizing of such as were once duly baptized in the Church was ever judged as much a monster and most insolent in all Christian Churches as it would have been to renew or repeat circumcision among the Jews which was not so much in expresse letter of Scripture forbidden as made indeed impossible in nature nor is repeating of Baptism so expresly forbidden in the Word of God where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Baptisme is mentioned which place the Hemerobaptists or daily dippers slighted as indeed it is and alwayes was excluded by the interpretation tradition and practise of the Catholick Church which no more allowed any to be twice baptized in Religion or twice ordained to the Ministry than twice born in nature yea this fancy heresie and novell insolency was looked upon as the setting up of a new Gospel another Jesus and more Gods than one as the ancient Councils and Fathers alwayes determined even in the case of S. Cyprians candid errour Against whose judgement for invalidating and so repeating Baptisme where administred by Hereticks and obstinate Schismaticks the Councils both of Africk Europe and Asia determined upon the ground of Scripture and Primitive custome both as to the use of Infant-baptisme and the not repeating of that or any other true baptisme once received Both which being such Catholick determinations of the Church it is with me not in the least degree disputable whether I should chuse to conform to the Churches universall testimony constant practise and primitive tradition in this and other modern disputes as that of the government of Churches in larger distributions by Bishops above Presbyters and Deacons so the use of the Lords day instead of the Judaick Sabath c. which are conforme to the generall scope tenour and direction of Scripture or rather comply both sillily and shamefully with those modern captious novelties and perverse disputings of some private spirits of yesterday who dare to cast so great jealousies blame and dishonour upon the Catholick Churches of Christ in all ages and places as not onely to suspect but to proclaime them both socially and singly to have been either grosly ignorant or most basely unfaithfull as to what the Apostles had delivered to them for the mind and will of the Lord either by Epistle word or Example No I had far rather with humility and charity though in infirmity and ignorance conform to the Catholick Church in errours and mistakes not fundamentall or immorall of which it never was guilty nor will be rather I say than by proud and pernicious curiosity or by scepticall and schismaticall novelty either blemish the Churches Integrity or break its Unity Both which the Anabaptists ever have done and ever will doe since their first eggshell and spawning in Germany by their endlesse and peevish litigations touching Infant-baptisme which though to some it seem but a small and circumstantiall businesse in point of time yet the scorn contempt and abhorrency of the Sacrament as applied to infants is an errour as I have shewed of so spreading a venome and dangerous consequences that it tends to overthrow all that is or hath been of religious polity and power too of essence and order in this and all true Churches of which we have any record in Scripture or other Writers CHAP. XIII BEsides this poysonous and now so swoln errour of the Anabaptists in Engl. against Infant-baptism is further sowred by other seditious principles
rejoyce in that vengeance which they conclude God hath made upon our Schismes Errours Obstinacies and Persecutions against them by our mutuall confusions Hence must daily and necessarily follow secret inclinations and accessions to the Roman party by all those who are not well grounded in the Reformed Religion or not much prejudiced against the Popish Errours or are indifferent for any Religion which is most easie or pleasing These at length will warp to the Roman party as the most specious of any so that unlesse there be a speedy restauration of the honour of the Church of England I see not how it is possible to prevent that fatall relapse either to Romish superstition and slavery or else to a dreadfull persecution which will in time necessarily follow those dissipations and destructions of this Reformed Church its Ministry Government and Religion which some men have already too much still do beyond measure so industriously promote to the excessive joy and gratifying of the Popish party and designes which are not onely invasive upon the honour and freedome of this Nation but highly scandalous to our Reformed Profession and dangerous to our consciences especially as we yet stand convinced of the Errours Superstitions and Sacriledges of the Romish Religion since it lapsed from the Primitive Institutions of Christ the patterns of the Apostles the ancient Communion of Christian Churches and the fraternall Coordination of Bishops who were alwayes united in orderly happy and harmonious Aristocracies rather than subordinate to any one Monarchicall Supremacy as to Ecclesiasticall Power and Jurisdiction however they had such regulation and primacy of order by Patriarchs and Metropolitans among Bishops and the representers of severall Churches as became wise men that were numerous when they met in great Councils or Church-Assemblies CHAP. XV. I Cannot but here recommend it to the most serious consideration of all wise and worthy Christians who make conscience and not policy of Religion as Christian and Reformed That however the soberest sort of Christians in Engl. do in many and possibly in most things necessary to salvation which are not very numerous agree both charitably and cheerfully with those of the Roman Church as to our common Faith in Jesus Christ and hope of Salvation by his merits in the way of an holy life and good works yet as it will never be hoped that the Papists shall return to a communion with us while we are so divided among our selves and daily excommunicating each other from Church and Christ and Heaven so it will be very difficult and dangerous both in point of conscience and prudence of sin and safety for you or your posterity to return to a plenary and visible Communion with the Papal profession or Roman Conventions considering how we now stand convinced in our judgements and so will many of your posterity ever be untill all Books of controversie which no purgatory Index can correct are burnt or buried by which you and they must needs be so well informed as to be justly opposite and uncompliant to those Errours Superstitions and Sacriledges which the Roman party seeks to impose upon all those that will have visible communion with them which no consciencious Christian can swallow down when they appear to him not onely different from but contradictive in plain termes to that Word of God which themselves with us do own to be the rule of faith and manners the measure of all true Religion contrary to which some of their Tenets Injunctions and Practises seem to us either to rob God of his peculiar honour and omniscience which is to search hearts to heare and answer the prayers of our souls as well as our lips or to rob Christ of the glory of his onely Merit Mediation Satisfaction and Intercession for us or lastly to rob the Church of Christ of that pure and plenary perception of Christs holy Institutions and blessed Sacraments to which they adde and detract as they please performing religious offices most-what in such a language as most people cannot understand and so not be edified either in their judgements or affections which ought in all reason by holy duties to be either more enlightened or judiciously warmed and devoutly excited to the knowledge of God to the love of Christ to an holy Life and mutuall Charity To remove all which Deformities Disorders and Indignities put upon religious Mysteries by the Church of Rome the Church of England with great Prudence Piety and Charity did assert and restore to a Scripturall rectitude primitive simplicity and sober decency the state of this Church and Nation by a just necessary and prudent Reformation of those Romish Errours Superfluities and Corruptions which had with great fraud and fallacy prevailed upon this as other parts of Christendome here in the Western world Which great and happy work of due Reformation was begun carried on and compleated not by any forraign or intestine Swords not by popular and tumultuary rudenesse as in many places which are the odious methods of the Devil to blast over-drive and pervert due and true Reformation in Churches or States but in Gods peaceable just and holy way by such publick lawful and complete Authority both Ecclesiasticall and Civil as this Church and Nation had originally in it self without any authoritative or subordinate dependance upon any forraign State or Church Prince or Prelate however it did in Charity so comply for many years and correspond with the pristine renown and eminency of the Roman Church as might most preserve Order and unity in the Christian world till it felt as well as saw the Roman Yoke to be intolerable in honour and conscience Which Independent and absolute state of this Church and Monarchy as to the originall right and power of it in it self hath been unanswerably asserted as by others so of late by those very reverend learned and judicious persons who have made it their businesse in particular Tracts to defend this Church and Christian State from the just charge of any unjust Schisme in respect of the Roman Communion and Jurisdiction or usurpation rather resuming upon good grounds both as to Divine and Humane Lawes that supreme power which is inherent and unalienable in this Nation both in Prince Nobility Prelates and People for the preserving of true Religion and reforming it as need shall require in order to the Honour Peace and Happinesse both of Prince and People Church and State who never did nor indeed ever could alienate or give away from themselves and their posterity those primitive ancient Rights or Immunities of the Nation which if any had in the darkness drowziness of times by great artifices and pretensions encroached upon all Reason and Justice required that when Prince and People awaked out of their dreams and superstitious slumbers they should reassume those honorary powers and hereditary priviledges of Church and State which were cunningly lurched or filched from them while they were dozed or asleep
sacrilegious petulancy and malice of Man had not so assaulted them in these last few years that the care of learned and ingenuous men is now how to preserve their Memories and goodly Fabricks in the Pictures and printed Types or Effigies of them whose beautifull Structures are daily threated with everlasting and irreparable ruines I am the more sensibly sorry and ashamed to see these deplorable and execrable ruines because I know they are great reproches to my Countrey as well as to the Reformed Religion professed in this Church The better sort of English people were ever esteemed as Valiant as Generous as Munificent as Charitable as Hospitable as Pious and as Devout as any civill people under Heaven I know not by what evil fate or genius we are now so changed that many men do not onely repine and envy at all plenty and splendor bestowed on Churches and Church-men nor do they onely suffer through lazinesse and neglect those goodly Temples to lapse and decay but they do with covetous hearts and cruell hands industriously seek to strip and pull them both down which I am perswaded no Christian under Heaven either Greeks or Latines Russians or Abissines Georgians or Armenians Reformed or Roman would ever either act or permit if they had the honour to enjoy such stately Houses of God among them they would infinitely disdain to appear so degenerous from the patterns of paternall piety Yea I should injure the very Jewes Turks Persians Tartars Indians and Chineses if I should believe they would suffer such stately Edifices being dedicated to the service and honour of their Gods to run to ruine if they were masters of them doubtlesse they would both preserve and imploy them to such uses as they thought holy Yet these are the beames that afflict some mens eyes in England these the Camels they long to swallow down under the pretended hunger and thirst of special Reformations whose impudent appetites have dared of late years publickly to petition the demolishing of all Church-edifices whatsoever pretending they have been guilty of superstitious abuses which if so is yet the fault of the Persons not the Places which are without doubt as capable to be consecrated by pious uses and holy duties as desecrated by any past superstitious abuses besides no publick Edifices of Churches should upon this account ever be preserved in the changes incident to the various opinions and perswasions the outward modes and fashions of Religion every form seeming to such as differ from it to have in it something either impious superfluous or superstitious by its Antiquity or its Novelty by its omissions or admissions If these sad and sordid spectacles which have so foul an aspect of sacrilegious profanenesse in respect of our materiall Churches which are the most visible tokens and publick badges of religious Honour and Reverence in any Nation if these cannot but scandalize and scare any sober ingenuous Papist from any thought or inclination to approve or adhere to any such immoderate immodest Reformations how much more will any honest-hearted Romanist loath and abhorre the very name of such Reformers as he sees daily spitting upon and casting dirt in the faces of their own Fathers the Bishops and Ministers of their Christian and Reformed Religion so much heretofore authorised reverenced by the voice of the whole Nation in its Parlaments whom yet some men have not only sought to lop crop to the very stub as to former endowments of Estate and Honour but they aim still in order to farther Reformations to grub up the very roots of all Religion and Learning of Civility and Sanctity they would depopulate and desolate the very Nurseries and Schools of able Scholars excellent Preachers sage Counsellours and prudent Governours both in Church and State all Universities Colledges and Free-schools must be robbed of their Lands and Revenues there want not those who long to see them confiscated and to make private purchases of them who would fain have leave to treat the Colledges and Scholars in them as Beares are wont to do the poore Bees when with their rude and mercilesse pawes they teare in pieces and overthrow their hives that they may plunder them of their honey Which abomination of utter desolation had ere this befaln all Scholars as well Lay-men as Clergy-men in England if Gods good providence had not set some bounds to the endlesse projects of sacrilegious Reformers by the Moderation Learning Justice Generosity and Prudence of those whose great power and greater minds were onely capable to curb that plebeian petulancy and mechanick importunity which not content to have taken away the liberall mangers and large provender of faire Estates and Honours from the Clergy of England with which all were dignified though but few enjoyed them have further sought to muzzle the mouths of the most laborious Oxen grudging the meanest and painfullest Ministers who are generally so lean that they are reduced to skin and bone the tenuity yet left them of Hay Straw and Stubble any thing of setled and secure Maintenance in their little and many times litigious livings Which cruelty however at present it would infinitely gratifie and fatten the Popish party to see all Ministers and Scholars which are the light and life the rationall part and intellect the very soul and spirit of any Nation in such a Reformed Church as England was thus treated and abased yet they cannot but stomack and scorn all Reformation that hath such scratches of sacrilegious Cruelties and rapacious Practises which are as the Mothes of Religion the very Mice and Rats of Reformation the effects not of piety and purity but of envy and fury great rocks of offence to all sober men to all good Christians to all ingenuous Papists setting them no doubt at everlasting distances and defiances from all Reformations of Religion which have such brands of Covetousnesse Contempt Sacriledge injustice and confusion upon them When these two precipicious Rocks and high Cliffs of distance can be closed between which lyeth that deep Gulph of mutuall antipathie hatred and abhorrence which keeps sober Protestants and moderate Papists from passing over or conversing as Christians one with another When on the one side the Romanists will not be ashamed ingenuously to own and consciensciously to reforme such things as are evidently and grosly amisse yea confessedly such if Scripture Antiquity Catholick and Primitive Testimony yea and many of their own best Authors may be Judges such as are for example The taking away the cup from Christian people The peremptory defining the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament and imposing an explicite belief of it contrary to all senses common reason and Scripture Analogy The worshipping of any creature or God under the form of it as in Bread Images Angels Saints Reliques The fallacious pedling with Indulgences and Purgatory The adding to the Scripture-Canon The imposing new articles of faith besides other intolerable practises of Papall arrogancy and Tyranny
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
conferences occasion better understanding between many of them and so by Gods blessing in time produce some such counsels as may be worthy of them and the publick But if their aime be slily to get into some hands such popular advantages by their soft insinuations of seeming equanimity and moderation as shall further displace and disparage the former Catholick Government of this and all ancient Churches they will be but as new patches put to an old garment which will make the rent and deformity the greater Certainly the state of the Reformed Religion in England will never be happy till it is setled nor setled till it be uniform nor uniform till the office and authority of Ministers be valid and venerable nor will this ever be untill the sanctity and samenesse of ordination together with the use of Ecclesiasticall power and holy Ministrations be rendred so August so Sacred and Complete as may be most conforme to Scripture and to pure Antiquity for while Ministers are of diverse makes and moulds they will be of diverse minds nor can they produce other than multiforme Christians of different fashions and deformed factions in Religion which do as necessarily bring forth infinite mischiefs in any Church or Christian State as the itch breeds scratching and scratching fetches blood As the blessed Apostles so their holy successors kept to one way of Religious Order and Power which preserved the unity of faith and love among Christian Bishops Presbyters and people I confess I do sometimes in my sad and retired solitudes hope that our common calamities may by Gods softning and calming grace upon mens spirits make both all Godly Ministers and all good people so wise as humbly sincerely and charitably to search into the cleare steps of Primitive prudence Apostolicall order and Ecclesiacall Authority which had due and tender regard to all sorts of Christians so as to keep up a meet subordination with a Christian communion To which end I was willing to hope this shew of Association might conduce But when I find in some of them nothing that looks civilly upon Episcopacy many things cast reprochfully and scornfully upon the excellent Bishops of England and all the Episcopall Clergy who were not inferiour in any regard to the best Associators when I find that some of them have the confidence to exclude all that have of late yeares been ordained by any Bishop with Presbyters though such an one as the late most venerable Bishop of Norwich Dr. Hall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when I see that some rigid Presbyterians and popular Independents affect with great Magistery to Duopolize all Church-power to grasp into their hands and bosomes as the sides of a drag-net meeting together all Ministeriall Authority not onely not owning the best surviving Bishops with any respect nor yet in any faire way applying to any of them after all their undeserved indignities but spitefully and professedly abdicating all communion with them under the name of Bishops reducing them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the levell and parallel of Presbyters which the 630. Orthodox Fathers in the fourth generall famous Councell of Chalcedon which all Ministers of England approved and I think subscribed to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an absurd and unreasonable practise yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great sacriledge and Zonaras upon that Canon makes it a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fighting as Giants against God as a dethroning of Christ the Bishops eminent authority and presidency in the Church being a lively representation of Christs sitting in the midst of the throne who did undoubtedly delegate his visible authority of governing the Church to the chief Apostles above the 70. and all other Teachers after which manner and proportion these chief Apostles who were the first and great Bishops after Christ did both commit and derive their authority to the following Bishops their successors who were a lesser sort or second edition of Apostles when I see what an Idol some Ministers and people make of their Scotch-Covenant by which great Engine or Military Ram they still think themselves bound to batter Episcopacy as if their Covenanting against it as it then stood in England were an obligation to persecute all Episcopacy for ever when in earnest the least variation of its former constitution both satisfies and absolves from that bond which some men still superstitiously venerate as if it were an image faln from heaven a matter of divine precept and institution and not rather of humane machination and politick invention which we are sure it was as if it were the solemn result of the pious or of the peaceable and publick sense of this Nation and not rather the issue of troubled braines and broken times indeed many forget that the Covenant smells more of fire smoke of sulphur and gun-powder than of the Spouses myrrh and perfumes of Christian Love and Charity Again when I consider how passion and pride betrayes many men to rashnesse rashnesse to folly folly to obstinacy obstinacy to presumption presumption to animosities and these to unchristian fewds everlasting despite and bitternesse which must still be vented as cholerick humors once in a month against the most innocent and Primitive Episcopacy yea against the most deserving and yet most suffering Bishops of this Church and of all the world old and new when I see the personall errata's and exorbitances or infirmities of some few Bishops by most uncharitable Synecdoches which put a part for the whole are in a pittifull fallacious way of vulgar oratory urged against all Episcopacy and Bishops in any orderly eminency or presidentiall authority in the Church contrary to the faith and honour of all antiquity and the former happy experiences of this Reformed Church when I find how wary and shy some Ministers are in their zeal and forwardnesse for their petty Associations to seem to own even their own judgements and reall inclinations toward any such condescentions and close with Episcopacy as may reflect upon their former transports how loth they are really and freely to offer such proposals as are equable and ingenuous pure and peaceable to the Episcopall party who aim at no more than such a paternall presidency and order as may best preserve the undoubted power of ordination and Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction as it was Primitively setled in and transmitted by the hands of the first Bishops who immediately succeeded the Apostles When I see as I plainly do this partiality restivenesse and cowardise in some Ministers of good parts then do I almost sink in despaire ever to see or enjoy while I live in England any thing in the Order Government and Discipline of this Church that may look like the Primitive pattern which was indeed a Catholicon approved in all Churches used in all ages and submitted to by all sorts of good Christians the onely proper Antidote I think against the poysons of our times farre beyond any of these kind of new confections which tampering and partiall Empiricks
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
corners and dissolved the face of any visible Church on earth if after the severall sad dispersions and vastations of them the chief Pastors and Bishops of the Church succeeding to the ordinary power of Apostles had not either in Oecumenick Councills or in their particular Diocess Provinces taken care with their brethren to call together and settle in Holy Communion of faith and manners the remaines of their dispersed Presbyters and disordered people To which good work of calling Councils and Synods for the rectifying and restoring of Religion all good Christian Emperours besides the Bishops did cheerfully contribute both their favour and Treasure as the most noble way in the world to employ them Shall the Counsels and powers the tributes and revenues of Christian Magistrates and people be onely laid out in making war at home and abroad onely to recover or keep up their civill peace or to build their own houses and is nothing to be laid out to maintain the Faith of Christ to keep the fort of Sion and to build the Towers and Temple of Jerusalem to restore and preserve the Purity and Peace the Sanctity and Solemnity the Order and Authority of Christian yea Reformed Religion Must that be left like Pauls to impaire or repaire it self as well as it can or onely be committed to the care of such men as are commonly better at pulling down than building up Churches who neither know how to begin nor how to end any Church-work having neither heads nor hands materialls nor skill line nor rule fit for such businesse And when they have done all they can in bungling and new waies neither the Clergy or Ministers under their power nor the Laity or people under their command will much more regard as to conscience what is so done by only Lay-mens magisterial decrees and imperial appointments than they now do consider the Covenant and Holy League or the Directory and Engagement new models for Religion cut out not so much by nationall Synods and Councils as by swords and pistols and accordingly both esteemed and used by all men that are of sound and judicious minds not corrupted with partiality credulity popularity and novelty For how can those bind the conscience of the Nation in the most indifferent things of Religion who never had the choice counsell or consent of all Estates in the nation either to advise or determine or enjoyne any such things which require to make them valid and conscientiously obligatory the Soveraignes call the Clergies counsell and the Parlaments sanction CHAP. XVI I Well know how hard a work it is for the best and wisest of men to stop the leakes of Religion to repaire a broken Church or to buoy up a sunk and lapsed Clergy when once they are either overwhelmed with the corrupt Doctrines and licentious manners of Preachers and Professors or split with intestine Schismes and Divisions or debased with vulgar usurpations and presumptions or oppressed with the secular policies and sacrilegious injuries of violent and unreasonable men who are alwaies afraid lest the renewed light and restored vigor of true Religion with the due Authority of its Ministry in the Church should give any stop or check to their extravagant lusts and enormous actions To which purpose such pragmaticks will be sure either utterly to hinder all good meanes that may effectually recover the true interests of Religion and its Ministry or else they labour impertinently to apply such onely as they know will render them more uncurable and set them next doore to an impossibility Which will be the State of the Church of England if the Recovery of Religion as to its visible Beauty Order Unity and Polity be either managed by Lay-mens Counsels and activities onely excluding all Ministers from all publick equall and impartiall consultations or if on the other side Church-affaires be wholly left to the various heads divided hands and partiall designes of such as are now called Preachers and pretend to be Ministers among whom commonly the weakest heads have the most pragmatick hands and men of least abilities are greatest sticklers though it be but more to puzzle confound and destroy themselves and others On the other side such Clergy-men as have most of solid Learning sober Piety sacred Authority and real Sufficiencies for such a work will be either afraid or ashamed to act or assist in it if they have not some publick Commission with equall and impartiall incouragement from those in power For certaine meer mechanick and illiterate preachers such as some people now most affect will never be able if willing to do any good in so great and good a work no more than wasps are like to make honey Ignorance and disorder faction and confusion being for their interest as muddy places are best for Eeles Other Ministers though never so willing and able yet as tooles that are blunt and have no edge set on them can never carry on such a work handsomely unlesse their late rust and dis-spiriting their poverty and depression be taken off unlesse their mutuall contempts distances and jealousies be fairly removed unlesse they be restored to such Charity Comfort and Courage as becomes Learned and Godly Ministers Such a constitution as was heretofore most eminently to be seen in the Ecclesiasticall Synods and Convocations of the English Clergy while they enjoyed by the favours of munificent Princes and the assistance of unanimous Parlaments those many noble priviledges both of Honor and Estate together with their undoubted Ecclesiasticall Authority which were by ancient and moderne Lawes setled upon them which kept up the Learning and Religion the Credit and Comfort of the Clergy of this Nation to so great an height both of Love and Reputation that neither the petulancy of people nor the arrogancy of any parasitick preachers either dared or were able thus to divide and wound them and the Church through the pretences of such Liberties and Reformations as knew no bounds of modesty or common honesty so far were they from any true grounds of piety or Christianity Nor will the divided and depressed State of Religion in this Church ever recover its pristine vigor its due authority its holy influence or its honorable esteem unlesse you O my noble and honored Countrymen who are persons of most publick eminence and influence be pleased to make it one of the chiefest objects of your Counsells Prayers and endeavours to revive the drooping Spirits to raise the dejected estate and to re-compose the shattered posture of the Clergy or Ministry of England in whose ruine the Reformed Religion will be ruined and in whose recovery true Christian Religion will be recovered to its just harmony stability and honor for it is impossible that Religion as Christian and Reformed should enjoy either unity reverence or authority while the chief Pastors Preachers and Professors of it are in so dubious debased and divided a condition Since then the Religious happinesse of this Church and Nation chiefly depends
Church in all Ages and places of which we have two expresse witnesses and great exemplifications in the commissions given by Saint Paul to Timothy and Titus both as to ordination and jurisdiction Such as hath been preserved in the Church through all times and places as a sacred depositum of Spirituall power enabling Bishops and Presbyters to act as Ministers of Christ in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit in those holy Offices and Mysteries which are instituted by them for the calling collecting constituting and governing of the Church in a regular society and visible polity which least of all affects or admits any novelty or variety in its holy orders or authority Which great Trust Power and Commission for duly ordaining and sending forth Ministers into the Church of Christ no man not wilfully blind but must confesse that it hath been in all times parts and states of the Church of Christ executed if not onely yet chiefly by the Ecclesiasticall presidents or Bishops in every grand distribution of the Churches polity So as it was never regularly warrantably or completely done by any Christian people or by any Presbyters or Preachers without the presence consent or permission of their respective Bishops in the severall limits or partitions Nor was this great sacred and solemn work of Ordination ever either usurped by Bishops as arrogant and imperious or executed by them as a thing arbitrary and precarious but it was alwaies owned esteemed and used by all true Christians both Ministers and People as an Authority Sacred and Divine fixed and exercised by way of spirituall Jurisdiction and power Ecclesiasticall specially inherent and eminently resident in Bishops as such that is so invested with the peculiar power of conferring holy orders to others even from the hands and times of the Blessed Apostles who had undoubtedly this power placed in them and as undoubtedly ordered such a transmission of it as to Timothy and Titus so to all those holy Bishops that were their Primitive Successors who did as they ought still continue that holy succession to all ages by laying on such Episcopall hands as were the unquestionable Conservators and chief distributers of that Ministeriall power ever esteemed Sacred Apostolick Catholick and Divine being from one fountain or source Jesus Christ and uniformly carried on by one orderly course without any perverting or interrupting from any good Christians either Presbyters or people Nor were they ever judged other than factious schismaticall irregular impudent and injurious who either usurped to themselves a power of Ordination or despised and neglected it in their lawfull and orthodox Bishops upon any pretence of parity or popularity as Learned Saravia proves unanswerably against Mr. Beza when to make good the new Presbyterian Consistory at Geneva he sought in this point to weaken the ancient Catholick and constant prerogative of Episcopall Ordination which never appeares either in Scripture to have been committed or in any Church-History to have been used by any Presbyters or People apart from much lesse in despite and affront of the respective Bishops which were over them This great power of Ordination which the Author to the Hebrewes signifies by the solemn ceremonie or laying on of hands is esteemed by that Apostolick writer as a maine principle or chief pillar of Christian Religion in respect of Ecclesiastick Order Polity Peace Authority and Comfort necessary for all Christians both as Ministers and as people in sociall and single capacities For there is ordinarily no true and orthodox believing without powerful and authoritative preaching and there can be no such preaching without a just mission or sending from those in whom that Sacred Commission hath ever been deposited exemplified and preserved which were the Bishops of the Church beyond all dispute who did not ordaine Presbyters in private and clandestine fashions but in a most publick and solemn manner after fasting preaching and praying so as might best satisfie the Presbyters assistant and the people present at that grand transaction both of them being highly concerned the first what Ministers or fellow labourers were joyned with them in the work of the Lord the other what Pastors and Teachers were set over them as from the Lord and not meerly from man in any natural morall or civill capacity whence the authority of the Christian Ministry cannot be since it is not of man or from man but from that Lord and God who is the great Teacher and Saviour of his Church who onely could give power as gifts meet for the Pastors Bishops and Teachers of it These serious weighty and undoubted perswasions touching one uniforme holy and divine ordination being fixed in the consciences of all wise and sober Christians it will follow without all peradventure that true Religion as Christian and Reformed will never be able to recover in this or any Christian Nation its pristine lustre and Primitive Majesty its ancient life and vigor its due credit and comfort much lesse its just Power and Authority over mens hearts and consciences untill this point of Ordination or solemn investiture of fit men into Ministeriall Office and Power be effectually vindicated and happily redeemed from those moderne intrusions usurpations variations and dissentions which are now so rife among Preachers themselves whence flow those licentious and insolent humors so predominant in common people who by dividing the other by usurping both by innovating in this point of Ordination have brought those infinite distractions contempts and indifferences upon Religion and its Ministry as Christian and Reformed which are at this day to be seen in England beyond any Nation that I know under Heaven It is most certain that the major part of mankind yea and of formall Christians too do not much care for the power of any Religion nor for the Authority of any Ministry no nor for any serious profession or form of Religion further than these may suite with their fancies lusts and interests If custome or education have dipped them in some tincture of Religion during their minority if the cords of counsell and example have bound them up to some form of godlinesse in their tender yeares and tamer tempers yet as they grow elder they are prone to grow bolder to sin and to affect such refractory liberties as may not onely dispute and quarrell some parts but despise and trample under feet all the frame of Religion that is not indulgent to their humors or compliant to their inordinate desires and designes Especially when once they find publick disorders distractions and disgraces cast upon that very Religion in which they were instituted when they see contumelies and affronts cast upon that whole Church in which they were baptized and all manner of contemptuous insolencies offered to those chief Church-men by whom they had received the derivations and dispensations of all Holy Orders Truths and Mysteries When men see new Religions new Churches new Ministers and new modes of Ordination set up to the reproch
degenerous persons as deserved not to bear the name or knew not how to use the Office of a Bishop Doubtless their Enemies being Judges no place no Age no one Nation or Church in the world since the Apostles ever exceeded the Bishops of England for piety and learning for useful and exemplary vertues of which I shall afterward give more exact account no Church ever more happy flourishing or prosperous then the reformed Church of England was under such worthy Bishops as some men so despitefully used Could Bishops in this and all Churches be so blessed of God and yet Episcopacy deserve to be so abhorred of men Were the Evangelical labours of godly Bishops so plentifully watered with the Dew of Heaven and yet doth their function deserve to be rooted out of the Earth If Episcopacy in its secular riches and honours must needs be destroyed in order to confiscate the Churches Lands yet at least primitive though poor Episcopacy might have been preserved whose ancient eminency would have been both authoritative and conspicuous among good Christians through the Clouds of such undeserved poverty Though some men might presume to deprive Bishops of their deserved and lawful Estates yet sure they were too bold to rob the Church of all excellent and deserving Bishops such as England ever afforded both before and since the Reformation which the Romish and Jesuitick policies never hoped more effectually to deforme and destroy than by helping to carry on the routing of Episcopacy Certainly the excellent Bishops of England were the greatest Eye-sore of the Pope and his Conclave nor did they care to fight by their secret and open Engines against small or great Presbyters so much as against these Prelates who had so long stood in their way They knew when these chief Shepherds were smitten the Sheep would soon be scattered nor were Papists ever more gratified than when Episcopacy was extirpated out of England What if the God the Lord of his Church the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath laid the Government of it on the Shoulders of Christ Jesus and he derived the external administration or dispensation of it to the Apostles and they to succeeding Bishops as spiritual Pastors and venerable Fathers of his Church what if he should thus plead the cause of Episcopacy in the eminency of its Apostolical order and primitive authority against all those that have spoken acted and written so many peevish spiteful popular partial and perverse things against it What if he should lay to their Consciences what is visible to their and all mens eyes the sad divisions miserable confusions and horrid vastations of this Church and the Reformed Religion which have followed the destroying of harmlesse honourable ancient venerable useful and necessary Episcopacy Would they not be infinitely ashamed and mightily confounded for the new Modes which they have taken up for the Oakes which they have chosen to over-shadow themselves yea for the Briars and Brambles which they fancy as fittest to rule themselves and the Church of Christ in this Land either by way of parity or popularity which are not fit methods to rule their own families withall Will a few arbitrary precarious Presbyters and unautoritative Preachers or their new Associations serve their turn Or will a few petty Congregations or Schismatizing Conventicles here and there scattered and scrambled together in Cities and Countries be able to countervail the damage or to recompence the unspeakable defects and detriments which this Church and Nation which all estates and degrees of Christian people have sustained by the totall loss and overthrow of primitive Episcopacy which was as it were smothered to death in a crowd and huddle never legally examined or fairly condemned by the free and full suffrages of all estates so as its Antiquity worth and honour did deserve What learned prudent and conscientious Ministers or other Christians can be fully satisfied with those new-fashioned ordinations and ministrations of holy things which neither they nor their Fore-fathers nor any ancient Churches ever knew and wherein that Divine Authority which they challenge is so justly doubted or disputed as by no Catholick hand or regular course committed to them If that Ministeriall power which is challenged and exercised upon such new accounts of humane policies and later inventions if it should really be none at all or as weak and defective as it is dubious for Ordination as it is for Jurisdiction which is very much feared and suspected by very wise and good men especially where not want and necessity deny but wantonnesse and wilfulnesse seek to deprive Christians of their true Bishop O how vain how invalid how arrogant how insignificant must those Ministers and all their holy Ministrations appear to many Christians who have of later years set themselves up by a Presbyterian Commission or Popular Election not onely without but against their lawful Superiours who were every way so able so worthy and so lawfully authorized for that office and eminency not onely as they were ordained Presbyters but as they were further consecrated Bishops that is placed by Christ and appointed by the Church in an higher degree capacity use and exercise of Ecclesiastical power and jurisdiction then ever was in any Presbyters Of which eminency Episcopal as that famous Council of Nice took such care to have it continued after the cient mode and patern of publick Election and solemn Consecration or the Churches Benediction so all this formality must have been very superstitious and ridiculous if it added nothing of authority and power peculiar to them as Bishops but onely what they formerly had received in common as Presbyters Doubtless reordination as rebaptization to the same office and degree in the Church was ever condemned in the Church of Christ as impious because superfluous a meer mockery of Religion a taking the name of God in vaine forbidden by the African Canons and many Councils never practised by any but such as St. Basil the Great reports one Eustathius of Sebastia to have been whom he calls an infamous Heretick a notorious deserter of the Churches Catholick Communion If St. Chrysostome in the fourth Century had judged it enough to complete him in his Episcopall power and Authority to have been once ordained a Presbyter as he was in Antioch where he so lived twelve yeares sure he would not have troubled himself to have been after ordained or consecrated a Bishop by Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria and others of that order when he was chosen to be Bishop of Constantinople Nor would St. Austin a person no lesse pious and learned who had been ordained Presbyter by Valerius Bishop of Hippo been ordained anew by Megalius Patriarch of Numidia when he was chosen to be Bishop of Hippo. In like sort was one Alexander a Presbyter ordained by St. Chrysostome to be Bishop of Bassinopolis according to the uniforme method of Antiquity which judged that the Presbyters chusing the peoples approving and the
next Bishops consecrating or blessing of the Elect Bishop made up that complete power and eminent Authority in which he that was formerly but a Presbyter was now invested as a Bishop or President of any Church which made Epiphanius brand Aerius for a mad man and subverted by the Devill upon his discontent for being repulsed from a Bishoprick of which he was ambitious because he made Episcopacy and Presbytery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of equall dignity efficacy and authority yet is Epiphanius often and highly commended by St. Jerom who was but a Presbyter and lived in his Diocese sometime as a person sanctae venerabilis memoriae of holy and happy memory This then appearing so pregnantly to have been the judgement and practise of all Antiquity which preferred Episcopall dignity and Authority above simple Presbytery I do not see how learned modest and ingenuous men can lightly esteem or actually oppose so Ancient and Catholick an order in the Church so usefull so necessary for any Churches well-being which is unseparable from its good Government Lay aside then passions prejudices partiality love of novelty and childish pertinacy I cannot but hope sober men will cheerfully returne in their judgements desires and endeavours to correspond with Primitive and paternall Episcopacy acknowledging the ancient Rights of it as well as the use of it to be Catholick and Apostolick so delivered to us in all Ages and successions not onely by Bishops but by Presbyters and Deacons too such as Clemens of Alexandria Tertullian Origen and others were from all which wholly to vary and recede cannot be other than shaking and in great part subverting the very foundations of Unity Charity and Stability in the Catholick Church as to its visible Order Communion and Government wherein all good Christians should not so much study the temporary satisfaction of particular parties and interests as the constant and common good of the whole Polity and Society wherein all honest mens private concernments are best preserved by such a publick Authority as is most venerable and least disputable What some have alledged to weaken and baffle the Catholick Antiquity of Episcopacy as to its Primitive and Apostolick plantation by bastardizing all the Epistles of Ignatius as wholly supposititious and so interpolated at best with the oft-repeated Crambes of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons to a kind of nauseous affectation savouring they say more of later subtilty than Primitive simplicity All this hath no weight in it considering the high esteem was had of Ignatius in the Churches of the second and third Centuries besides what the learned Usserius and Vossius do own in their late Examens not onely for his Martyrly constancy but for his so holy and generous Epistles so full of devout flames and sacred fervors of love to Christ of Charity to his Church and zeal for Martyrdome that it were a thousand pitties this lukewarm Age should want the warmth of Ignatius his spirit glowing in his Epistles such as were often owned and cited by the first Ecclesiastick Writers St. Jerom Eusebius and others as genuine Nor doth it seem so probable that any in those or after-times which had no dispute either for or against Episcopacy should studiously adde those frequent testimonies for it which are seen in the most unsuspected parts of Ignatius but rather that Holy man was directed by Gods good Spirit in his Martyrly zeal and extasies of love to Christ and the Church to reinforce and reiterate as he doth the validity of his testimony for Order and Unity in the Church as foreseeing the quarrels which might be about Episcopacy and that the Communion of the Church would be much dissolved when the reverence and submission to Episcopall order and eminency should be so remitted disputed or denied that either Presbyters or people should run to parity and popularity the certaine high-waies to Anarchy Truly Ignatius is not more frequent for the honor and eminency of Episcopacy than for a venerable Presbytery in its due place and rank which might make him seem lesse fulsome to some Presbyters if they were not their own enemies out of excessive transports against all Bishops Vedelius of Geneva who had as good a nose and quick a sent as most men would not have so studied Ignatius his Epistles and sifted them as he doth if he thought them all drosse or refuse yea he is so evicted by them that he cannot forbear to subscribe to many of them in many places yea and to such an Episcopacy as that holy Martyr joynes with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a venerable Presbytery which he hardly doubts much lesse denies to have been in that first Century after Christ when Ignatius wrote those Epistles being Bishop of Antioch after Eâ—odias constituted there by Saint Peter when he left that Church to go to others Nor is there any more force in the fancies that some men draw from St. Clemens contemporary with St. Paul who in his Epistles ownes no Bishops as distinct among or above Presbyters in the Church of Corinth to whom he wrote that divine letter upon occasion of Schisme or Sedition risen among the Presbyters of that Church Sure the enemies of Episcopacy are hardly driven to find testimonies in Antiquity against it when they are forced to wrest them out of such Writers who were undoubtedly themselves Bishops as Clemens was in the Church of Rome in whose person he writes that Epistle to the Corinthians as Eusebius St. Jerom and all Antiquity before them do witness It is true St. Clemens then wrote when the Name of Bishop and Presbyter were not so distinct as afterward Episcopal eminency being either in the Apostolicall persons and power yet surviving or conveyed under the Names of Bishops and Presbyters to lesser Apostles and Apostolick successors whom St. Clemens calls the first fruits of the Apostles placed by them as he saith to be Bishops Presbyters and Deacons in all Churches to serve and oversee or Rule the Church according to Christian order and Ecclesiasticall comelinesse as the State of the Churches required Which he represents by those three orders among the Jewes which God had appointed namely the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief Priests the Priests and Levites which Orders as he sayes God confirmed by the miracle of Aarons Rod against the factious and seditious spirits among the Jewes so the Apostles foreseeing the contention that would arise about the name of Episcopacy did place those worthy persons to be their successors whom others in like order might follow to execute as he expresseth the proper ministrations and offices which are to be performed in the Church not confusedly but by such persons and in such times and places as the Lord had appointed So that either the Corinthian Presbyters were then as so many particular Bishops attended onely with their Deacons in their severall Charges which might be many and large enough in that ample
pull down and rob buy and sell squander and embezell Bishops besides their temporary daily and occasionall bounty founded and erected many costly works of durable and Monumentall Charity in Colledges Libraries Free-Schooles Hospitals Almes-Houses and the like many noble endowments they began many they encreased many they perfected to Gods glory the Nations Honor the incouragement of Learning and Religion as well as the relief of many poor people They took as much pleasure in their works of Charity as others can do in their sacriledge or robbery taking away those things from the Church and all religious uses to which neither they nor any of their progenitors ever gave one farthing for they are commonly persons of the meanest blood and ignoblest descents as well as minds and manners who are most repiners at the Churches patrimony which all persons of generous piety both feare and abhor to do knowing that those penurious practises and sacrilegious principles which some men follow are as much Antievangelicall as they are Antiepiscopall against Christ and his Gospel as much as against the Clergy and true Christian Charity It being impossible than Christian or Reformed Religion should ever flourish except by miracle as Aarons dry Rod did when it was nourished by no earth or dew when the Ministers of it are such diminutives kept alwaies in a mendicant Minority and in a plebeian parity as well as poverty when Pastors of the Church are so pittifully penurious and inconspicuous that they are alwaies driven like vermine to be creeping and biting crying and whining craving and coveting crouching and complaining rather than giving or distributing any thing with charity and cheerfulnesse to men or consecrating any free-will offering to God the Church and their Country O how perfect a Blessing how complete a Reformation how Triumphant a Church how glorious a Ministry how pretious Predicants must there needs be then in England when the visible order sociall beauty politick harmony and ancient Government of Religion being first deprived of all honors and amplenesses Ministers are reduced to meannesse and tenuity either wholly scattered into fragments of Independency or molded up in the Masse and Chaos of Presbytery where every Ministers principle and practise must necessarily tend either to rule in Common or else to rend from the Community where there shall be no further motive to any Loyalty Subjection and Peaceablenesse than what either the terror and necessity of others power or the tenuity and paucity of their own party and sides imposeth upon such Ministers and their various Sectators who thus levelled or ravelled or hudled up without any due Subordination to Ecclesiasticall Governours of any Eminency or Authority must needs sow all seeds of Faction Sedition civil Troubles and Disloyalty toward civil Magistrates whatever Title or Majesty they affect to be clothed withall They cannot avoid to be alwaies exposed to and exercised with their peoples mutuall emulations contrarieties contradictions and contempts which are raised and exercised upon the score of different Teachers and Religious disputes for the determining of which there are no men of venerable worth and conspicuity appointed such as Bishops and Synods of old were in all Ages Men cannot long have a consciencious regard to Civil Governours when either they have not or they will not endure any Ecclesiasticall They that see nothing deserving honor love and submission to a Worthy Learned Grave and Godly Bishop will hardly see much in any Justice Judge or Prince especially when Duty Obedience and Fidelity shall be measured by mens parties and opinions in Religion by their civil and secular interests which is alwaies expectable from any people that affect irregular liberties and formidable freedomes in any Church or State As Princes that ever have been Episcopal do hardly suite with the novelties and intrusions of either Presbytery or Independency so t is certain Presbyterian Preachers will as hardly comply with an Episcopall or an Independent Prince as with a Bishop and the like may be imagined of Independents when neither of them enduring any order or subjection as to Religious polity beyond their own fancy must needs be lesse pliable to that obedience which is legal and civil especially when it is exacted by those Princes that are not of their perswasion and way Nor can there be indeed any aptitude in such mens spirits or tempers to any stability of loyalty when their very conjunctions are like the first confused concretion of all things rather an heap of contraries or novelties daily emerging than a composure of any noble orderly and constant harmony in Religion which is never to be expected where there must ever be either a combination of folly and faction of juvenility and simplicity onely none being admitted to some confederacies that do not first renounce much of their Learning and Reading if they have any or of their credit and esteem as to all Ancient Churches or else like lumps of yce they must be compacted and governed as it hits by Gravity and Levity by Age and Youth by Weaknesse and Ability by Steadiness and Giddiness by Rashnesse and Wariness by Passion and Judgement by Prudence and Confidence by Modesty and Impudence Hemp and Silk Course and Fine Linnen and Woollen being twisted and jumbled together these at the best must make up the associating and fluctuating methods of any levelled Ministry or else they must be like sand and stones without lime rather cast into severall little heaps than built up in a joynt and grand fabrick by just Rules Orders and proportions truly edifying when there shall be nothing of Authority among Ministers proportionate to the different Ages Capacities Gifts or Offices and Merits of any of them which make up the true harmony of Government and internall Majesty of all Authority but all things of Religious and Church-order must be left in such a popular and plebeian posture as shall most incourage whatever is most Turbulent Factious Seditious and Rebellious in any mens spirits who will be prone either to affect more Rule than is their due or else be impatient that any should govern them in Church or State further than they list or think is agreeable to those principles and perswasions of Religion or Reformation which they strongly fancy to themselves and aime as strongly to set up and impose on others when they shall be able not by the approbation and permission of the chief Magistrate onely where it may be fairly had but in case he be so blind wilfull obstinate and unconvertible as some have been for Episcopacy against Presbytery they will find a call from God and some speciall impulsives to obtrude their opinions and designes without yea against the expresse will of the Soveraigne Governour whose obstinacy against any such supposed waies of God and pretended Discipline of Jesus Christ is thought by many a sufficient Absolution and Dispensation from their civil Loyalty Oathes and Subjection Thus looking for God in fires and Earth-quakes of civil combustions
not worthy to be their Rulers in the least kind This submission cannot be expected unless Englishmen are now to be subdued by fine words and made obedient by the formal and supercilious looks of some men who affect in their Churches and Parishes to govern all and are not fit alone to govern any unless they had been more able and willing to govern themselves and to have kept within that compasse of Ecclesiastical Order and subjection to their Bishops and betters which the example of all Churches and all worthy Presbyters and true Christians in all Ages commended to them besides the particular Laws and constitutions of this Church and State These considerations of the unproportionableness of any other Church-government than a right Episcopacy to the temper of England moved the supercilious yet very learned Salmasius in his advice to the Prince Elector then in England and to some other of the long Parlament and of the Scotized Assembly who desired his judgement upon the then hot and perboyling yea passionate and over-boyling debates touching Episcopacy to tell them That as the Episcopal Government rightly constituted and executed is very agreeable to the Word of God and most conform to all Antiquity so it was of all other most suitable to the English spirit and constitution The want of which he already foresaw was and would ever be the cause of much disorder and distraction of infinite Factions Heresies Schismes and Confusions Thus the great Dictator of Learning as he esteemed himself was pleased in this passage and other-where graciously to express his judgement and pleasure according to the humour he was in or to the Interest which he was pleased to adopt Sometimes he is Walo Messalinus and ashamed to own his Name against Episcopacy he was in that disguise to gratifie the pretentions of Presbytery and the adherence or dependence which he had to the French and Dutch Churches otherwhile he puts off the vizard and with open face owns the eminency authority antiquity and universality of Episcopacy yea the incomparable utility of it when joyned with a grave and orderly Presbytery besides a particular aptitude in it to the English Genius For he well saw that all Government and Church-Government as much as any is a beame of Divine Majesty and requires not onely something of a Diviner sufficiency as to inward abilities and endowments but also of a Diviner conspicuity and lustre for Authority civil eminency and ornament We read that God besides his choice of Aaron and his Sons to be complete persons to make them chief Priests according to his Command and Commission gave also strict order for their garments to have them made with such comelinesse cost and curiosity as should be for glory and beauty even before the eyes of the people over whom they were placed And we further read that God forbad to his people the Jewes all birds that did creep and yet fly they were uncleane and abominable to be eaten An Emblem that nothing is lesse comely in Gods Church than to see those men ambitiously affect to fly high in governing others whose condition is low and creeping on the ground Indeed no Government can be carried on in Church or State especially in Engl. but either by the absolute terror of the sword and secular power commanding or by such legal injunctions and religious perswasions as bind good men in conscience to submit first to God and for his sake to those whom he as Lord of all is pleased to set over us Then is government in Church or State most complete and constant when it hath first that rational Empire and religious prevalency over mens hearts which ariseth from the perswasion that people have of the worth abilities right and authority which Governours have by their laws as from God in the State so from Christ in the Church Which perswasion as it brought all Christian people Presbyters and Bishops to be so wholy subject to their civil Magistrates and Soveraigns so it made all Christian Presbyters and Professors to be filially submiss to their Bishops as to Fathers given them by Christ even then when Bishops were rich in graces and gifts of the Spirit but low as to worldly greatness and under much persecution yet then did the Majesty of Episcopal authority prevail on which the lively Characters and pregnant Memorials of the Apostolical pattern designation and succession were still fresh and most remarkable then did it draw all true Believers and good Christians to venerate their Bishops or chief Pastors for Conscience sake by so much the more by how much Presbyters and People had more of the power of Godlinesse in them whereas now it is made a new mark of Godliness and Saintship with many to cast off to hate abhor despise and destroy all Bishops and all eminent Episcopacy Sure either primitive purity or modern dreggs must be very much out of the right way and which of them erres I leave to all sober men to judge As for other Christians of looser Consciences and Conversation which were prone in all Ages to be as weeds in the garden of the Church especially in times of Peace Plenty and Prosperity the piety and wisdom of Christian Princes and other godly people ever took care to keep them in the more awe and reverence toward their Bishops and Ecclesiastical Governours by investing these in such outward and visible enjoyments for estate and honour which might adde some outward respect and authority to them and that no small one before those that had most need to be so restrained overawed and dazled Hence the piety and policy of Constantine the Great not onely gave liberal supports to the Bishops of the Church but gave them places and honors equal to the Patricii the Senators in order and degree which were the Roman chief Nobility It is not onely an imprudent but an impious presumption and a tempting of God to needless miracles for any people to invest those men in any Government as in State so in Church who are as St. Paul saith little esteemed because deserving little who have neither personal abilities for the Office nor any clear and undoubted commission to authorize them in it from God or Man from Christ and his Church which I conceive can hardly if ever be found in any wayes of Church-government which are suspected for Novelty or tainted with Parity and Popularity contemners of Catholick Custom Primitive Antiquity and Apostolical Succession in an holy Uniformity From all which depravations as venerable Episcopacy is sufficiently known to be farthest removed of any so it cannot but seem to all impartial Christians to be as every way best in it self so fittest for the native temper of England where mens spirits are more accurate and acute more inquisitive and searching into the rights foundations and grounds of all authority over them then in other Countries where meannesse and easinesse servility and credulity of common people makes them venerate
or a vindication from any such aspersion of being either a practical or dogmatical Papist wherewith many have more pleased themselves than proved it against that Bishop But no Net playes with wider wings or larger bosom than that popular Drag which sweeps as it listeth into its bosom all men for Papists Pelagians or Arminians who are not just of some mens private opinions in all things taking what freedomes and latitudes they please themselves in their opinions and actions but allowing none to other men no not in points that admit of dispute without scratching the Conscience violating the true Faith or breaking Christian Charity It is a wonder of wise and just men how this Bishop if he were so evil a doer as was voiced hath not been long agoe publickly heard and sentenced according to his deeds but is punished beforehand by a long imprisonment when as he was committed to prison not as his sentence I think but as his security to be forth-coming at his lawful tryal to which in eighteen years he hath not been brought If then neither of these two Prelates whose eminency and activity drew so many eyes of envy upon them were really popish which was not very probable when they knew the Prince whose favour they injoyed to be so stedfast and able in his judgement against Popery as I have oft heard the Earl of Holland and others affirm I presume the other late Bishops of Engl. upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell may find so much justice and charity as to be freed from that suspicion and not to be thought greater sinners as to that particular than many Presbyterians who joyed most in their destruction Never any of them that ever I heard gave any occasion to be thought a Papist except onely the last Bishop of Glocester Dr. Goodman Vir sui nominis as some report a man of good learning and good life who having suffered in his old age almost to a distraction by the storme and distresses of times which wet many other men to the skin but it stripped off the clothes flayed off the very skins of many Clergymen and all Bishops especially was driven it seems beyond his pace something beyond his patience for thus provoked beyond all measure and merit as he thought by those who much professed Reformation and yet so much in his sense and experience did deform and destroy the Church of England it is no wonder if dying and dejected he chose rather to depart in communion with the Church of Rome than to adhere to the Church of England which as Eliah he thought now decayed and dissolved at least as to its visible Order and Polity if not quite destroyed Not that he owned I hope a communion or Conciliation with the Romane Church as Popish but as far as it was Christian not as erroneous in some things but as Orthodox in many others from which as Bishop Bedel saith no good Christian doth or ought to separate And since we hold Baptism among the Papists to be valid which is the sign of a Christians new birth and first admittance to the Churches Catholick Communion he might hope that dying in that Communion so far as it was Catholick would be no hindrance to his admission to the Church in Heaven At worst it seems his discontent and despair drove him rather to think of returning to the Confines of Egypt where he believed there might be found some Bread of life in an orderly way of House-keeping than to dye in the Wildernesse of a Church which was now howling and starving and self-desolating in his apprehension that as Lots Daughters were so far excusable for their incests with their Father as they believed all men were destroyed besides so may this poor Bishop now made poor when he had been very rich have this to plead for his resting at last in the bosom of the Church of Rome that he knew not any other so visible and conspicuous a Church either fit or worthy or willing to receive one that had so long lived a Protestant and a Bishop in the Church of Engl. and was now no longer permitted either to live or dye either a Protestant or a Bishop according to the constitution of the Church of England from which at its best many of those have more separated themselves living and dying who are the sharpest Censurers of this Bishop for dying a Papist which is but a greater kind of Separatist from the Church of England and the Church Catholick in some Opinions and Practises But I have done with this Bishop who was dying most declared and with the other two who living were most dubious and ambiguous in the censures of the world as to their Religion What their Morals Prudentials or Devotionals were who had so long and so great an influence of power and favour I must leave to the Supreme Judicature of God above them and that subordinate or lower Bench of their Consciences within them If we should take their dimensions by the successes and events truly they have been very unhappy after-Counsels are prone to think it had been easie to have prevented such calamities but the race is not to the swift nor the battail to the strong Though true Piety is alwayes the best Policy yet it is not alwayes attended with Prosperity No doubt the sins of all sorts were ripe for wrath and in common calamities the best may suffer as well as the worst the afflictions of the first being their tryals of the second their punishment My concern is onely to examine the ground of that Charge cast upon them and for their sakes upon all our Reformed Bishops as if ranckly popish as if Prelacy and Popery were no more separable then Gehezies Bribery and his Leprosie which I justifie to be as false a calumny as it is foul and no way becoming the mouths or thoughts of those who aim to judge righteous judgement or consider the account they must give to God of what they say and do in truth or falsity in justice or iniquity This I am sure if our Bishops and many other grave Divines had no inclination to Popery in their Prosperity their Adversity might have been a great temptation to them less to approve that Reformed Religion not for which but from which they have suffered so hard measure as untried and unconvicted to be condemned punished destroyed beyond any men that lived orderly and peaceably CHAP. XXIV THat I may for ever silence the harsh braying and tedious barkings of all Antiepiscopal Pens and Tongues against our Godly Bishops and Venerable Episcopacy which is as much or more an enemie to Popery than either Presbytery or Independency I crave leave to insist a little more largely upon the name worth and memory of one of our Bishops very well known not onely to the British Churches but to all the Christian world that hath any correspondency or commerce with Learned men It is Dr. James Usher
and Reformed hath suffered very much in England when it was best setled we have upon us the wounds both of peace and war As our former long peace and undeserved prosperity treasured up much morbifick matter so the civil war by mutual chafings and exasperatings did breed higher inflammations and festrings yea and our late truce rather than tranquillity hath been so far from a serious consideration and well-advised setling of our distractions in Religion that many men have had but more leisure and liberty to scratch their own and other mens scabious itchings and to make wider the gaping corifices of our religious Ulcers Indeed private hands can do no other who besides their petulant passions being under no publick restraint and modesty have infinite partialities both as to self-flatteries and designs It must be the Gravity and Majesty the Nobleness and Ampleness of publick Wisdom and Authority which must by prudence and impartiality both in counsels and actions reach the depth and equal the proportions either of our maladies or our remedies to which if wise and worthy men do not in time contribute their counsels prayers and endeavours for the help and healing of our Religious Affairs doubtless the disorders and sinister policies of either weak or wicked men will utterly ruine the very remains and ruines of this Church Nor can the Civil State be ever steddy or permanent where Prince and Subjects Preachers and People are so divided in their principles and practises of Religion both as to their Ministry and Ministration as to the original and exercise of all Ecclesiastical Authority and Communion that they still think it a great part of their Religion either to reform or ruine each other It is observed to be one main pillar of the Turkish Polity Peace and Empire which is so vast and diffused yet generally so peaceable and unanimous that their Religion or Holy Law as they call it being once setled is never permitted by any man to be shaken or disputed much less altered or innovated in the least kind I know it is not fit for Christians to follow all Mahometan rigors and severities no more than their follies and simplicities yet if the setledness of so wild a Rhapsody of Religion as the Alcoran contains which is made up of Truth and Falshood of Fables and Fancies of Dreams and Dotages be of so great moment to preserve their civil peace where no wise man can be much concerned what is believed or disbelieved by him or any man in such a meer Romance of Religion of how much more consequence and conscience would it be to all Christians in any Polity or Nation to have their Religion well fixed and setled which is so Ancient so Holy so True so Venerable so Divine so in its Nature Centre and Circumference but one so deserving to be most United and Uniform both as to its Doctrine and Profession It is a shame to see Mahometans wiser in their generation than Christians who are or ought to be the children of that Wisdom and that Light which shines upon them all by the Scriptures as the Beams of the Sun of Righteousness It is childish for us who are cunning careful enough to preserve civil peace to be so careless of religious Unity and Harmony as to be tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine according to the sleight of men who lye in wait to deceive the hearts of the simple serving not the Lord but their own bellies We should rather study to be rooted and grounded in the Catholick Truth which is according to Holiness Justice Order and Charity after the primitive pattern and constant practise of all true Churches Preachers and Professors whose Authority and Reverence ought to sway more with us than any new and private mens Inventions which no man will admire that well understands the old which were so founded upon Verity so fortified by Charity so edified in Unity so reverend for Antiquity so permanent in their Constancy according to the particular constitutions of every Church which still kept the great and Catholick Communion as to the main amidst some little varieties of outward profession not as to substance but onely in Circumstances or Ceremony For as to the main every Christian Layical or Clerical Catechumens Penitents and Communicants Deacons and Presbyters kept the stations in which God and the Church had set them Every member kept to its Congregation every Congregation to its ordained Presbyter or lawfull Minister every Presbyter to his own Bishop every Bishop to his Metropolitane every Metropolitane to his Patriarch every Patriarch not to the Pope but to the Generall Councills and every Generall Councill to the Scriptures and those Apostolick Traditions which were Catholick and so agreeable to them All which orderly gradations were certainly in the Catholick Church as lawfull as those which the policy of Presbytery hath invented for Congregationall Classicall Provinciall and Nationall Consistories I am sure they were much more usefull For those of old preserved every private Christian every Family every City every Country every Province every Nation that was Christian not onely in a Church-way or Ecclesiasticall Communion and Correspondency as to their particular bounds and neerer relations in every Parish or Congregation or City or Country but as to that Catholick bond of Charity which binds up all Christians in all the world in one fellowship of one body and one Church whose head is Christ to whom every true believer and visible Professor in the whole latitude of the Church being by the Word and Spirit of Christ fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectuall working in the measure of every part doth both edifie and increase it self and others in Truth and Love without which all Churches all Religion and all Reformation are but like parts or members separate from their body not without flesh sinewes substance or bones but yet without blood and Spirits Life and Soul For as the particular parts and members of the naturall body do not live thrive and move onely by that particular substance spirit life and aptitude which is apart in them but by a concurrence with an influence from and a participation of that common Spirit Life Virtue which they have from the whole while they are in Communion with it so is it with Christians singly and severally considered their virtue is small and separated none at all because they want so much of Authority and Validity as they want of Catholick Unity and Ecclesiasticall harmony which keep Christians and Churches intire to Christ and to each other by that one and common spirit which runs through all true Christians by virtue of which and not of any private spirit all publick transactions which concern any nobler part or portion of Christs Church are to be carried on and anciently were in all orderly Churches as branches of the Catholick This this great and publick Communion in the
and their Communion certainly there could nothing hence be expected but such sad effects as alwaies follow the dividing or any part from the whole whose integrity is the common Safety Beauty and honor All breakings severings and dissociatings among any Christians or in any Church are the fatall fore-runners of much misery decay and death as to that Truth and Love which are the life and vigor of all Christian societies And such I feare in time will be the state of this languishing and lamenting this broken and bleeding Church of England where every mans hand of late yeares hath been and still is lifted up against his brother and the Sons against their Fathers wounding and tearing destroying and devouring one another where none are afraid either to Excommunicate themselves or others whom they list or to deserve any the justest sentence of Excommunication from any others in whom the true power and judgement under Christ resides This this seemes to be the state of the Church of England which heretofore was ever justly esteemed as a Noble Ancient Renowned and Principall part of the Catholick Militant and visible Church of Christ untill it came to be thus torne and mangled into many Churches thus wounded and divided by uncharitable factions thus swoln and inflamed by proud and passionate separations thus deformed and dying by continued and uncured Distractions which will destroy the whole as to all Honor Beauty Unity Integrity and Authority while men study to foment and advance their private and severall parties contrary to the reall and publick interests of the whole Church of England both as Nationall and as a Member of the Catholick In whose behalf I know not how to expresse before I dye a greater zeal for Gods glory or love to my Redeemer or Charity to my Country than by thus recommending to your Pious Princely and Generous care O my Worthy and Honored Countrymen the state of the Church of England and of the Reformed Religion sometime so professed in her that she was the Glory Crown Rejoycing and Triumph of all Christian and Reformed Churches CHAP. XXVI BEseeching You again and again as persons of Wisdome and Power of Piety and Honor of Grandeur and Candor first by all meanes to redeem the Interests of this Reformed Church of true Religion and its true Ministers from those undeserved diminutions and sacrilegious depredations to which they are still exposed by the Envy Malice Injuriousnesse Presumption and unsatiable Covetousnesse of many men of later yeares grown up in England Alas poor and despicable men will as certainly make poor Ministers as leane hackneys in long travelling will tire you may as soon mix Oyle and Water Clay and Gold as fix any Honor or Regard upon that Ministry or Clergy which is depressed in these last and worst these brasse and iron times to popular dependence and its necessary consequents Poverty or which is worse Flattery Such as make no scruple to take away from Ministers even from the best and chiefest of them one part of their double Honor a setled competent and honourable maintenance will never make conscience to deprive them of the other part which is civill respect and verball value which are but the shels and shadowes of Honor men will make no bones to take away fleece and all who will venture to steal the carkase of the sheep You cannot but with me see that there are many men of a new light and sight too who look upon nothing which hath been given to the Church either for its Instruction or Government for its Ministers Education or Entertainment for Charity or Hospitality for Decency or Honor under any notion I do not say of sacred as devoted to our God and Saviour alas this is blasted for superstitious and superfluous as neither needfull nor acceptable to God but not so much as just in any civil Right or common Equity so far as the proprietors have the use and possession of them according to as good law as any man hath his Lands and Goods of which they cannot in justice be disseised unlesse they are convicted by law to have forfeited them by Felony or Treason or such Misdemeanour as the law thinks fit to punish by such deprivation Who almost is there of these new Illuminates that makes any scruple or conscience to shark to defraud to detaine to delay to deny any thing that belongeth to thâ— â—ergy or Ministry comply they never so much with the populâ—â—ther what they requâ—re as their Right by Law as well as 〈…〉 â—ewish or Superstitious or Popish or Pompous or Super◠〈…〉 or Abused and so may better be turned to other 〈…〉 other men of civil Trades and Professions 〈…〉 â—ssary to the Common-wealth than any Ministers 〈…〉 â—riledge is in every corner yea and in Market-place 〈…〉 yea oft in Churches and Pulpits Murmuring 〈…〉 Repâ—ing Coveting and Plotting how to eate up not onely all the Houses of God in the Land but all his chief servants the Rulers and Ministers of his Son Jesus Christ the Pastors and Teachers of his Church We have already seen if some men like to have no Bishops as chief Fathers Presidents and Governours nor any Deanes and Chapters as their constant Presbyteries and Counsell which all Reason and Religion all Policy and Order all Practise and Custome of the Church of God old and new all Wisdome Divine and Humane either commands or commends in all Polities Societies and Fraternities of men presently away with all these Amalekites their Revenues Houses and Honors must be sold and converted to other uses If others or the same genius like to have no Presbyters or Ministers as set apart and ordained for that Office and Calling will not nay do not their Teeth ake and fingers itch to take away all Glebes and Tithes from all Ministers though never so industrious and deserving and by Law invested in them as to all civil Right Would not some men either have Ministers fall to Spinning and Carding to Thrashing and Digging to Begging and Stealing to Starving or Hanging as well as to Preaching or else they will bring Diggers and Thatchers Combers and Weavers with other Godly Mechanicks who will preach all things and demand nothing as due however no Tithes which are to some as abominable as feeding upon Mice and Rats So if others like to have no Scholars bred to Humane Learning which they say doth but obstruct the teachings of Gods Spirit and puffe up Ministers with the leaven of Philosophy Arts and Sciences above the simplicity of the Gospel and above the Plowes Carts and High-shoes of their silly neighbours O how do they grieve and pine away day by day as Amnon did for love of Tamar or as Ahab did for Naboths Vineyard that they might once seize upon the Lands and Colledges of both Universities and all Free-Schooles which go beyond Writing Reading and Cyphering O what fine Estates what pretty Dwellings might be picked out of those needlesse seminaries of Scholars
to common peoples grosser minds might be prescribed than those are of loose rambling arbitrary and diffused preaching where after twenty yeares preaching yea and with great applause many times as well as good paines yet poor people are most-what very ignorant or raw as to the very first and maine principles of Religion which I humbly conceive might be drawn up into so many short discourses and cleare Summaries as might every Lords-day take up one quarter of an hour or little more before and after noon in the Ministers distinct reading some one of them to the people in such a constant order as once in every half year might finish the whole series of them which might be printed for the use of such as can reade and for others that cannot reade this frequent inculcating and constant repeating of those main points so set forth could not but much improve the sound understanding of plainer people in the doctrines mysteries graces and promises precepts and duties of true Religion which now they learne either not at all in some necessary points or so rawly raggedly loosely and confusedly that it comes far short of that judicious and methodicall solidity which they might attaine if they were clearly uniformly and constantly taught so as they could best beare and heare understand and remember Nor would this be any hinderance to preaching praying or catechizing but a great furtherance to them all what ever people had beside from the meanest gifted Minister they might be sure to have every Lords-day one or two heads of good Divinity well set forth to them yea and one or two chapters of the Bible well explained to them till the whole were gone through Which would be a great meanes to prevent the odd idle and addle senses by which silly or pragmatick-spirited people pervert and corrupt the Scripture not onely by their private and weak but by their ridiculous erroneous and blasphemous interpretations the variety and loosenesse besides the easinesse and flatnesse of most mens preaching doth rather confound than build common people in Religion all which by constant Synods might be amended If the Church of England were so barren of godly able learned and honest Ministers that a good and safe choice of fit members cannot be made every time such venerable Synods and usefull Assemblies should meet if we of the Clergy are all so degenerated as to become of late yeares either dunces and unlearned or erroneous and corrupt in our judgements or licencious and immorall in our manners or partiall and imprudent in our designes or base and cowardly in all our dealings that we are not to be trusted in the mysteries or managery of our own calling and function truly t is pitty we should be owned any longer as Ministers of Christ in this or any Church being so unfit for our own sphere and duty Nor can I understand how it should be that Mechanick Artificers Merchants Tradesmen and Souldiers should still be thought fittest to be advised with in their severall waies and mysteries of life onely the Clergy should be thought so defective in all abilities and honesty as not to be trusted with any advise or counsell in publick matters of Religion no more than with any place in any civil counsell or transactions Parlament-men they may not be while the most puny-gentry petty Lawyers and triviall Physitians while Merchants and Milleners Gold-smiths and Copper-smiths while Drugsters Apothecaries Haberdashers of small wares and Leather-sellers and while every handy-crafts-man and prentice aspire to be not onely Committee but even Parlament-men yea and it may be Counsellors of State Onely Clergy-men must be wholly excluded as Monks condemned to their beades and bellies while those lay-Masters challenge not onely all civill Counsels and Honorable employments to themselves but they further seek to engrosse even those great concernments of Religion not allowing any Ministers of what ever size their Learning Wisdome and Worth be to move in their own mystery or joynt and publick interests further than as they are impounded to their parish-Pulpits and tedered to their texts or desks Every sorry and silly mechanick dares to arrogate as great nay far greater Empire-influences and latitudes in the publick management of Religion than the best Divines in England may ever hope to attaine or adventure to use in any sphere private or publick unless there be a more indulgent and equall regard had to the worth and calling of Ministers than of late yeares hath been had O happy England whose Laity and Communalty of late hath so excelled thy Clergy or rather O miserable England who either hast such Church men as are not fit to be advised with or not trusted in Religion or which art so unworthily jealous and neglective of them as not to trust or use them in those great and sacred concernments for which they were educated and in which they were heretofore not onely thought but known to be as able as any Clergy in all the world till they were thus divided and shattered thus disabled and disparaged most of them rather by popular discouragings prejudices and oppressions than by any reall defects in themselves either of Piety Learning or Honesty I cannot sufficiently pitty and deplore thy sad and miserable fate O my Country which either abasing or abusing at least not using thy worthiest Clergy for such publick ends deprivest thy self of the most soveraigne nay onely ordinary meanes under Heaven whereby to recover thy self to the former Beauty Honor Lustre Stability and integrity of true Religion which thou didst enjoy everlasting divisions deformities and confusions wil be thy portion without a miracle if thou trustest to those Egyptian reeds the novel pretensions and usurpations of ignorant and arrogant Lay-men of inspired and aspiring Levellers which will pierce into thy hand and heart while thou leanest on them Nothing can restore or preserve the health and soundnesse of Religion but those waies which are tryed Authoritative and Authentick which have Gods Image Christs Power the Spirits Wisdome the Apostles prescription and the Catholick Churches Character upon them which may first perswade mens judgements and then oblige their consciences to obey for the Lords sake All methods used in Religion that are perverse popular novell arrogant or invasive contrary to the sacred and venerable methods of Gods direction and the Churches Catholick Custome are like sluces and banks ill-bottomed soon blown up having neither depth nor weight foundation nor superstruction to make them good Nor shall I ever think the Lawes of Parlaments more binding to obey in civill things than such Canons of Church-Councils are obligatory as to submission in religious matters where nothing is decreed contrary to Gods express will in his Word nor beyond those generall latitudes and Commissions of Charity Order Peace Decency and Holinesse which God hath indulged to his Church Certainly the Wolves Foxes and Boares Hereticks Schismaticks and heathen persecutors had long ago scattered the severall flocks of Christ into
and moves upon this one hindge give me leave with all humble and earnest advise to commend to your Christian consideration First the preservation of the very being or essence of a true and authoritative Ministry upon which depends the visible polity and orderly being of any true Church also the powerfull dispensation and comfortable reception of all holy mysteries Secondly the bene esse well-being or flourishing estate of such a true Ministry by which it may be kept in such order honor and unity as may redeem it both from vulgar arrogancies contempts and confusions also from mutuall factions and divisions by which meanes of later yeares the very face of a Church as to any Nationall harmony fraternity subordination and Communion in England is either quite lost or so hidden deformed and disguised that not onely the sacred dignity and authority but the very Name and Office of a true Minister is become odious infamous and ridiculous among many people who either will have no Ministers at all or onely such as themselves list to create in their severall Conventicles which are in respect of the true Church and Clergy of England no more to be esteemed than the concubines of jealousie and harlots of adultery are to be compared to lawfull wives that are Matrons of unspotted honor 1. The Essentials of a true Christian Ministry consist First in the person or subject fitly qualified for that callings Secondly in the commission or power by which the proper Forme and Authority Ministeriall is duly applyed to any person so qualified 1. The person subject matter or recipient of Holy Orders ought to be such persons as are furnished with those Ministeriall gifts and abilities both internall and externall for knowledge and utterance for unblamable life and good report as may make them not onely competent for that holy work in generall but likewise fit for that particular place whereto God by man doth call them Of these reall and discernable competencies besides those sincere and gracious propensities in charity to be hoped and presumed to glorifie God in that service not out of ambition covetousness popularity or meer necessity but out of an humble zeal and an holy choice a judicious serious strict solemn publick and authoritative triall and approbation ought to be made as was appointed in the Church of England by such Ecclesiasticall persons as are in all reason most able and so most meet to be appointed by law for the examining and judging of Ministers both as to their personall sufficiencies and the publick testimonies of their life and manners In this point I know some men are jealous that some Bishops in former times were too private remisse and superficiall approving and ordaining Ministers onely upon the Chaplaines triall and testimony which after proved but sorry Clerks for which easinesse they had many times to plead the meannesse of those Livings to which such Ministers were presented as could not bear an exacter triall Poor people must have such preachers or none in such starving entertainments as were in many places which like heathy grounds neither can breed nor feed any thing that is grand or goodly Were the maintenance of Ministers every where made competent nothing shouid be more severely looked to by the ordainers of Ministers than the competent abilities and worth of those to whom they transmit and impart that sacred power charge and Ministration For not onely the consciences of the ordained but of the ordainers stand here highly responsible to God and the Church that God may be glorified that the Church both in generall and particular may be satisfied that both other Ministers may cheerfully joyne with them in the work of the Lord and that their peculiar charge may receive them with that due respect love and submission which becomes those that minister to them the holy things of God in the stead of Jesus Christ as his Stewards Lieutenants and Embassadors No men will conscienciously no nor civilly regard any Minister when once the plebeian heat of faction is allayed of whose sufficiency and authority too they have no just confidence because no publick triall credible testimony or authoritative mission How much lesse when men shall have pregnant evidences of a Ministers weaknesse ignorance folly schisme and scandall many waies T is true in the highest and exactest sense as the Apostle sayes none are sufficient for those things but yet in a lower and qualified sense none ought to be ordained who are not in some sort sufficient for them Because none are by way of Divine equivalency worthy we must not therefore admit such as are in humane morall or intellectuall proportions utterly unworthy since the Lord of his Church is pleased in all ages to give such gifts and blessings to mens tenuity as may in some sense fit those earthen vessels to be workers together with God by the help of the excellency of his Divine power whose operations in this kind are not miraculous as without any fit meanes but morall and proportionate to the aptitude of such meanes as God hath appointed and required in his Church for humane ability and industry When the Materiall qualifications of one that is a Candidate or Expectant of the Ministry are thus examined by the ordainers discovered to all those who are concerned the next care for the Essentials of a Minister consists in applying that true Character stamp and Authority wherein the Essential Form and Soule as it were of a Minister of the Gospel doth consist which as I have in another work largely declared doth not arise from any thing that is common in Nature or Grace from any morall civill or religious respects for then all men and women too that have naturall or acquired abilities religious or gracious endowments might presently either challenge to themselves the place power office and authority of a Minister of Christ and his Church or communicate it to others as they please which would be the originall of all presumption and confusion in the Church of Christ as much as parallel practises would be in civill States if every man should put himself into what place and imployment publick he listeth either magistratick or military without any Commission or expresse authority derived to him from the fountaine of civill or magistratick power No the true valid and authentick authority of an Evangelicall Minister of any rank and degree as Deacon Presbyter or Bishop in the Church consists in that Divine mission and Ecclesiasticall Commission which is duly derived and orderly conferred to meet persons by those who are the lawfull and Catholick conduits of that power to whom it bath been in all ages and places committed and who are in a capacity to transmit or communicate and impart it to others by way of holy ordination such as Jesus Christ received from his Father such as he derived to his Apostles such as they committed to their deputed successors the Bishops and Pastors of the