to be cloathed So our Saviour breathed on the Apostles Ioh. 20.21 22. when he said Receive the Holy Ghost So the Apostles used imposition of hands to denote their ordained Successors 1 Tim. 5.22 and 4.14 Heb. 6.6 which ceremony the Church of Christ in all ages hath observed in the successive Ordinations of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons as one of the fundamentals of the Churches polity order and power Not that these outward Rites and Ceremonies are of the essence of the duty of the divine power but for the evidence of that order and authority which is necessary that there may be nothing dubious or doubtful or confused or upon bare presumptions and conjectures in the Churches sacred Ministry but such an authority as is both powerful in its efficacy and pregnant and signal in its derivation and execution that none might undertake the work who is not constituted to be a Workman nor any withdraw from it who is rightly furnished for so worthy a Work as the Apostle calls the work of a Bishop either the minores Episcopi which are orderly Presbyters or the majores Presbyteri which are the paternal Bishops We see Eliahs spirit falls on none but his annointed Successor The spirit and power follows the lawful succession nor was any so fit for the appointment and succession as Elisha a man indeed of plain breeding of a country yet honest way of living which is no prejudice or impediment when God intended to furnish him with Eliahs spirit 1 Kings 19.19 with extraordinary gifts and endowments with the power from on high as Christ did his fishermen when he made them fishers of men Luk. 5.10 This was in one hour more to their improvement than all Schools and Vniversities all literature and education all languages arts sciences and Scriptures But when these special gifts which were miraculous are not given nor needful in the ordinary ministration propagation and preservation of Religion there reading and study and diligence and education and Schools of the Prophets are the conduits of Gods good and perfect gifts conveyed by holy industry and prayer to those that study to shew themselves workmen that need not to be ashamed 2 Tim 2 15. when once they are sanctified or set apart by God and the Church as here Elisha was In whom doubtless God and Eliah had seen something that expressed a very gracious and sincere heart by an humble holy Elisha's fitness to succeed Eliah and unblameable life We never finde that men of leud or scandalous lives are called to be Prophets of God or allowed to be made Preachers and Bishops of the Church wherein the antient Canons of the Affrican and other Churches were very strict and circumspect whom when and how they were ordained Bishops Presbyters or Deacons St. Paul requires that they should be not only unblameable but of good report even among the Heathens and unbeleivers as to matters of Justice Morality and common honesty as well as sound and orthodox in the Christian faith § Elisha discovers an excellent spirit and fit for a Prophet of God 2 Kings 2.2 4 6 not only by his individual adherency to Eliah three times piously disobeying his commands when he bade him leave him As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth I will not leave thee The love of good company is a good sign of a good conscience a very good way to a good life and a ready means to make us partakers of spiritual gifts but further Elisha shews a most devout and divine soul in him fit to make a Prophet to succeed Eliah when first he doth not preposterously and presumptuously obtrude himself upon the holy Office and Succession but attends Gods call and the Prophets appointment of him Secondly When he sees it is the will of God and his father Eliah he doth not morosely refuse or deprecate and wave the imployment as some had done Moses and Jeremiah after though he knew it would be heavy and hot service in so bad times but submits to that onus no less than honos burthen as well as honor God imposeth on him Thirdly In order to his support and encouragement in the work he doth not covetously or ambitiously look to the preferment or honor or profit which might easily follow such an imployment especially if merchandise might be made of miracles as Gehazi designed and of the Gospel if Ministers turned Sucklers and Hucksters of the word of God as the Apostle taxeth some who were greedy of filthy lucre no but his earnest and only desire is for a double portion of Eliahs spirit to be upon him not that he might have more glory but be able to do more good 1 Kings 9. â—4 Iames 17 with more courage and constancy with less dejection and melancholy despondency than Eliah who was a man subject to like human passions and sometimes prone to fall not only into despiciencies and weariness of life but even to despair as to the cause of God and true Religion It is as Chrysologus calls it a commendable emulation to imitate the best men and a pious ambition to desire to excel them in spiritual gifts and graces which the Apostle St. Paul excites all to covet in their places which the more bright and excelling they are like the light of the sun the more they dispel all the vapors mists and fogs of humane passions or pride which by fits darken the souls of holy men I cannot here but own my desires The defective and dubious succession of Evangelical Ministers very deplorable and deplore the state of our times which forbids me almost to hope their accomplishment as to any orderly and meet succession of Evangelical Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Presbyters in this Church our Eliah's dayly drop away I do not see any care taken for Elisha's to suceed them in such compleat clear and indisputable ways of holy Ordination and Succession as may most avoid any shew of faction novelty and schism and be most uniform to the Antient Catholick primitive Apostolick and uniform pattern which never wanted in any setled Church either Presbyters to chuse and assist the Bishops or Bishops after the Apostles to try ordain oversee and govern with the Counsel of Presbyters and all other degrees and orders in the Church Darkness disputes divisions distractions dissatisfactions and confusions must needs follow that Army or City that knows not who are its Commission officers or lawful and authorised Magistrates so must it needs be in the Church when Christians know not who are their Fathers their Stewards their Shepherds their Bishops or their Presbyters There is nothing next the fundamentals of faith in which the Church should be more clear and confidently ascertained than in this the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 10.15 Ordination and succession of their Evangelical Prophets for how shall they preach or rule unless they be lawfully sent and set over the houshold of faith Christs
fair pots then was God their more immediate Prophet and Instructer The Patriarchal succession in families in dreams and night-visions in ocular and sensible apparitions by day in audable and articular expressions or in mental illuminations So to Enoch and Noah and Abraham Isaac and Jacob yet so as the holy Fathers of those families were at once as successive Princes Priests and Prophets to their families taking care to teach their posterity children and servants the true fear and worship of God Gen. 18.19 which the Lord promiseth himself from Abraham Iosh 24.15 and Joshua promiseth to God for himself and his house Afterward After successioning eater Polities when the Church of God multiplied from a family to a grand Polity or community which required those Laws and constitutions both Civil and Ecclesiastical together with the execution of them by Princes Priests and prophets which might best preserve humane society within those bounds of honesty and holiness and within the enjoyment of those blessings which might answer all just and good desires either as to the enjoyment of their lives estates and liberties in peace or as to the serving of God and keeping communion with him in those holy ways of his worship and service which he required of them for their good as well as his own glory then was it that the Lord either by special designation or by setled succession furnished his Church with such Princes Judges Priests and Prophets as he saw necessary for them Yea Ecclesiastical order and succeâ—â—â—on most necessary whatever scambling and confusion in Civil and Regular Magistracy mens ambition brought on the state of the Jews yet the Church order and polity of Religion was so fixed in Aarons family as to the constant Primacy of the Priesthood and in the Tribe of Levi as to the inferior offices and services that it continued many hundred of years after their Kings and after their Captivity inviolated among the Jews nor was that sacred Order and Succession quite depraved in Israel till a most unreasonable and detestable reason of state policy laying aside all true sense and conscience of piety 1 King 12.31 set up golden calves for gods to the silly people and consecrated the meanest of the people to serve them Meet Priests indeed for such bruitish gods When the great Prophet Moses was to leave the world Moses his care for succession yet he leaves the Church this legacy of comfort as to the divine care and providence for a succession The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me unto him you shall hearken which as it was most eminently and consummatively fulfilled in our blessed Saviour as Philip tells Nathanael Iohn 1.45 Acts 3.22 Acts 7.37 and as St. Peter with St. Stephen convince the Jewes who was the great inspirer and compleater of the Prophets and their Prophesies so it was also fulfilled in those intermediate Prophets which followed Moses even to John Baptist whom God sent successively to preserve reform and restore true Religion in the Church The Priestly Prophetick Ministerial successive authority as necessary as magistratick and Ministerial Office is not less necessary in the Church than the Princely and Magistratick power is in the State unless men judge their souls eternal interests less precious than those of their bodies and estates Yea for the most part Gods Providence hath so distinguished them that when there were the best Princes yet there were added to them eminent Prophets besides the constant Priests as in Davids time where Samuel Gad and Nathan were imployed And here in the great revolt and sad Apostacy of Israel from Gods and Davids house yet the Lord is not wanting to send an Eliah and when he is to be gone order is taken for the appointing Elisha to succeed him the Ordinances of heaven 1 Kings 16 1â—.1â— of night and day summer and winter of Spring and Harvest Gen. 8 22. are not more necessary by the successive motions of Sun and Moon and Stars than those Ministers and Ministrations are by which true Religion and an autoritative order in the Church are maintained in present and duly derived to posterity Hence our blessed Saviour Our blessed Saviours care of succession in the Church Iohn 20.20 the great Minister and Fulfiller of all righteousness before his ascention took care for the Apostolick confirmation Consecration Mission and Commission as Stewards and Ambassadors in his stead to be sent by him as he was by his Father The Apostles also before their departure had the like care as is evident in the history of the Acts and in the charge that St. Paul gives to Timothy and Titus within their respective Provinces and Diocesses to commit the Evangelical spiritual power and Ministry as a sacred depositum to faithful and able men that may as Bishops and Pastors 2 Tim. 2.2 as Presbyters and Teachers both instruct and rule the Church or flock of Christ committed to their charge according to the several proportions and combinations of those Ecclesiastical Societies over which not only many Teachers were ordained but also some one Father or Angel was constituted and owned by the Spirit of Christ as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rev. 2 3 chap. chief President over them the head or centre of order and union the principal Conservator and Dispenser of all Ecclesiastical power and authority which Irenaeus Tertullian St. Cyprian Origen and all the Antients counted Successiones successores Apostolorum having the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gift and character in ordinary which the Apostles had either as Presbyters or Presidents in the Church § Succession signalised by some visible ceremony That this might be done the more signally and conspicuously so as all might take notice of the solemn trausaction in a business of so sacred and great importance to the Church there was not onely due trial to be made of mens abilities inward and outward for such undertakings but they were to be invested with the Ecclesiastical power and admitted to the exercise of those sacred Ministrations by some evident ceremonies as tokens of Gods Ordination the Clergies approbation and the peoples acceptance of them So little is God an enemy as some have strongly fancied to all decent ceremonies in Religion which are shadows indeed of good things with whose substance they well agree We see that not only Sacramental mysteries even in the Gospel as well as under the Law are set forth by them and cloathed all over with them as to the outside or sign but also the Ordination of Priests Prophets and all Church Ministers ordinary and extraordinary have been adorned by them Elisha is first annointed by Eliah â— Kings 19.19 after this Eliah casts his mantle upon him even that mantle which afterward fell from Eliah ascending and was as an emblem of his spirit with which Elisha was
respect to St. Austin as a Bishop and his junior in age yet so far his superiour although St. Austins humility indeed so far Complements with and cools the others heat as to say that although Bishop Austins precedency before Presbyter Jerom was by Ecclesiastical use and custom very old Apostolical and universal yet as to the truth of personal worth and eminency of merit Presbyter Jerom was above Bishop Austin Had Bishops and Presbyters in our days carried this equanimity to each other it had been happyer for both § But if Presbyters were clearly of the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adequate in their holy Orders and Ecclesiastical Power as to the main which is not easily proved nor was of old so judged by the Fathers for even St. Jerom excepts Ordination as a peculiar belonging to Bishops both in fact and in right for ought appears as Successors to the twelve Apostles who were above the Seventy in point of precedency inspection power and jurisdiction yet the fancy of equality as to Bishops and Presbyters was chiefly fomented by some latter Schoolmen who urged this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Bishops and Presbyters to advance the Popes throne and Soveraignty above Bishops from whose authority Monks and Friars coverted exemption as immediately under the Popes visitation who commonly were old men far off and had dim eyes to see the Monastick disorders Besides the Parasites of the Pope were also to magnifie the later device of Transubstantiating and that Mass power of all Presbyters so high as none might or could exceed it if true yet still the eminent degree and exercise of Bishops as to the Polity and government of the Church both for general inspection and chief jurisdiction for Ordination and Discipline for presidency as well as precedency authority as order was never of old questioned much less denied as Antichristian being as rational and suitable to Religious Order yea and as Christian or Evangelical as for one to be Provost or Master of a Colledge over many Fellows possibly as good men and Schollars as himself or for some Commanders to be over fellow-Souldiers or for some Citizens to be Magistrates over other Freemen or for Parents to own their authority or superiority over their children when they are men and women of the same nature and stature with themselves The levelling of mankinde throughout in State and Church Of levellings in Church and State in Civil Military and Ecclesiastical power because in some things they are equal is but a policy and project of the great author of confusion 1 Cor. 14.33 the God of order appointed of old and approves for ever different degrees ranks and stations in his Church according as men are fitted by him with gifts for government in such ways of meet superiority and subordination as preserves order and deserves respect Exod. 6.25 as the Priests of Aarons family so of the whole Tribe of Levi had their ranks and orders their duties degrees and distances there were Heads and Fathers and chief Fathers of their Tribes and Families as well as of others which the Septuagint render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dâ—â— â— 15 Bishops or Overseers of them and this not onely in age and primogeniture by nature and years but officio praelatura by office and authoritative power so to oversee not as a bare Spectator but as Shepherds or Masters of Assemblies 1 Tim. 5.19 Tit. 2.15 who did rebuke with all Authority yea and reject in cases of demerit And then was it also by St Pauls example and prescription to Timothy and others among the Christian Churches who in the worst times never wanted their good Bishops nor in good time that love honor and obedient regard to them as to their Fathers in the Lord when they were worthy of that name and office The name Father is sanctum suave nomen Of the Name Father its highest sense belongs to God in comparison of whom none is to be called or counted a Father as Christ spake Nemo tam pater Mat. 3.23 nemo tam pius as Tertullian Ambitiosius Patris nomen quam Domini heri exigit God hath an ambition rather to be called Father by us and so treated than Lord and Master Therefore our Saviour begins his and our prayer with Our Father This venerable Name breatheth all comforts this mindeth us of and bindeth us to all filial love this racks us from the sowre dregs of servile fear 1 Iohn 4.18 he that can say this proem or first word Our Father with true faith to God and charity to man need not doubt to go on in that perfect prayer Since men lost their charity to others and their filial regard to God and their reverence to their parents they have avoided to use the saying or praying of the Lords prayer as afraid and ashamed of it because it binds them at the very first word to their good behaviour by the bands of piety to God in Father and of charity to men in Our which no factions or schisms no sinister interests and ends no Pharisaick pride or singularity can endure no more than Witches can the Creed or the unruly Demoniack the presence of Christ § Yet no man is or can be further happy than he hath and owns God for his Father 1. in creation and providence Father of the whole Family in heaven and earth Eph. 5.3 2. In Christ as sending his Son into the world a Redeemer for all men without exception in the value merit and offer of his sufferings and in that conditionate capacity into which every one is by Christ put upon his faith and repentance to be saved and owned as the brother of Christ and Son of God 3. And lastly God is a Father by those special effects of regeneration and grace which follow that immortal seed of his Word and motions of his Spirit where they fall upon broken and contrite spirits not upon hard hearts Mat. 13.5 or fallow and stony ground which refuse the reception and damp the operation of those holy means that are both able and apt to work the life of faith repentance and love in a reasonable soul This highest account of the name Father is only to shew how much it imports of honor love merit and duty being a branch rooted in God and from his goodness springing to his creatures § Why God communicates to men the name of Father But this relative name of Father is none of the incommunicable ones God is pleased to lend the graving or character of it to mankinde and to stamp this paternal honor and Majesty upon some men in natural civil and ecclesiastical respects Hence the first command of the Second Table or the last of the first is that caution to honor father and mother a duty of piety and religion as well as of morality civility humanity and polity God is concerned as despised and injured in any indignities offered to
any Parents It was stoning to death Deut. 21.20 by which God would have the honor of the meanest Parents though poor and old weak and simple asserted against their sturdy and proud children while yet under their roof and discipline § Next these Princes and Magistrates have the name as of Gods and Lords so of Fathers Patres Patriae and of nursing Mothers after these the Priests and Prophets of old were called Fathers So the King of Israel returns the very same compellation to Elisha dying which he gives here to Eliah thus in the Gospel St. 1 Cor 4.15 Paul owns his merit so far though you have had many teachers or instructers yet not many Fathers for he had first begotten them to the faith by his preaching the Gospel to them so in the antient Christian-Churches though they had many Presbyters as Instructers or Consecrators yet the Bishops were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a special honor as Successors to the Apostles in paternal inspection and authority as begetting Sons to the Church by instruction and patres minores lesser Fathers or Presbyters by Ordination called Patres then also Patriarchs were Patres patrum which by way of gemination brought in the two first syllables Pa Pa not from the Syriack Abba transposed but from the first syllables of Pater and Patriarcha or Pater Patrum into the Church as before into the Imperial State from Pater Patriae to make up Papa which title the Bishop of Rome hath monopolized when of old it was given to other Patriarchs and Bishops § This is certain The duty as well as dâ—gnity implyed in the name Father God that communicates the name of Father to Magistrates in State or Pastors or Bishops in the Church doth withal teach and exact the duties imported in the name Father First Father in Magâ—stracy Both Governors in Church and State should delight rather in that exercise which is Paternal than despotical fatherly than imperious or Lordly much less tyrannick to remember they govern sons not slaves and for Gods glory not for their own profit pomp and pleasure their design and work must be to glorifie God and by doing good with a fatherly freedom and indulgence to deserve the love of others Although they cannot have it from ingrate and ungracious children yet they shall finde God a Father to them when they have carried themselves as Fathers to others Specially Church Governors which were of old in England Fathers in the ministry of the Church and in all Christian Churches Bishops as chief Fathers chosen by the Presbyters approved by the people and endowed with estate and civil honor by Christian Princes these as such must not in their greatest eminency affect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 5.3 to exercise dominion after the way of the secular sword and severity over Ministers or people but only as Fathers and Spiritual Lords for edification not destruction with gravity not austerity with meekness of wisdom not rigidness of passion yea and as to that civil Dominion which is consistent with spiritual jurisdiction when any are both Bishops and Soveraign Princes which may very well meet in one man for what hinders a Prince as George of Anhalt to be a Bishop or Preacher of his Gospel who is Prince and Priest of his Church here they must the more make the world to see they bear the double name of Father to their people such paternal Bishops we had heretofore in England and such indeed was this worthy Prelate and such Fathers we might have had still if that had not been fulfilled among us Filius ante diem c. some Sons are impatient not to antidate their Fathers death and destinies or longer to expect the reversion of their estates § It is true that double honor which the piety and munificence of Christian Princes and States had bestowed on Bishops as Fathers in chief and other Ministers of the same relation though a lower station in the Church both as to ample revenues and some secular jurisdiction or dignity to give them greater advantages to improve their spiritual and paternal authority more to the glory of God and the good of Christian people as to instruction protection and relief these ought not in any sort to leaven or overlay those condescending Graces and paternal tendernessse which are the greatest eminencies of any Church-man and which may with all pious industry humility charity and hospitality be maintained and exercised by them without any diminution of their civil dignity or ecclesiastical authority as was frequently evidenced by our learned religious hospitable charitable and honorable Bishops in England when they lived both as Lords and as Fathers governing and doing good § Of civil honour added the Fathers the Church So that it cannot be other than a most partial and sinister perverseness in men of evil eyes and envious hearts to fancy that no learning study devotion diligence and prudence in any Minister or Clergyman is capable to merit or enjoy either such honorable estates and salaries or such eminent places and dignities as Counsellors and Senators as Lords and Peers in Parliament to which we see many mens meer riches and worthless money or their lower abilities and industries in legal and civil affairs or their military hardiness and prowess may actually advance them yea and this in a civil intestine War where victory it self is sad and untriumphant yet we have lived to see many short-lived Gourd-Lords created in a chaos of times from very small principles or preexistency of birth estates breeding or worth and this in one day by a kinde of superfetation of honor and these to sit as right honorable ones in another House and to supply the vacant Seats of the antient Barons of England which were Peers in Parliament and consisted of Lords Spiritual and Temporal who had not either forfeited their honor or deserted their places and duties but were driven out by such power as they could not withstand § But not to touch that harsh string too hard we see the Bishops of England have had no great cause to envy those that cast them out as to that honor of having a place in Parliaments since from that time the Nation hath scarce enjoyed one good day nor themselves that fulness and freedom that honor and happiness which of old belonged to the majesty of English Parliaments § This is certain that the name of Lord did not as it ought not to make a venerable Bishop of the Church forget his former name and softer relation of a Father the first is now confined much to denote civil order and secular dignity but the second implies not only natural temporal and humane but spiritual divine and eternal endearments importing that plentitude of paternal love and goodness as is never to be exhausted scarce obstructed for what such unworthiness was ever in children which the benignity and bowels of a Father is not ready to forgive and
it That nothing is more true than that Maxime both of piety and true policy Plus debet ecclesia Respublica Christiana ministris Ecclesiasticis quam militibus secularibus Soldiers may and oft do the work of Mahomet and Antichrist but good Preachers do always the work of Christ and of mens souls as to their inward and eternal interest yea as to outward and secular things of peace safety prosperity and victory over enemies Plus profuit Moses orans quam Josua pugnans Exod. 17.20 Moses did avail more by his praying than Joshua by his fighting Yea when the wrath of God is kindled and the fire of famine plague or war is broken out against any people these chariots and horsemen of Israel such as are powerful in prayer sober in their counsel exemplary in their lives are beyond imagination effectual to moderate remedy and remove divine vengeance When Noah Daniel and Job stand in the gap when Jacob wrestles with God Ezek. 14.14 when Moses holds his hands when Aaron and Phineas intervene between the living and the dead exciting the spirits of people to repentance and amendment to fasting and prayer when the Priests and Ministers of the Lord cry mightily to heaven Ioel. 2.17 and give the Lord no rest then is it that God spares and heals and returns to be gracious to the land § If men thought this they could not easily be so partial and unjust as to turn Tythes into Taxes to grudge the first as the Ministers portion and augment the second as the Souldiers pay good Ministers make a Nation need no Soldiery they are the murus aheneus brasen wall the fortification and ammunition that destroys sin the great enemy and traytor to all our happiness It is as true in the body Politique Qui militariter vivit misere vivit as that qui medice vivit misere vivit It is a sad life to live always medicinally and so to live always in a military necessity and danger besides the vaste charge that this Physick and these legions of Chyrurgeons stand any Nation in but grave godly peaceable and able Ministers are so far from being the lancets and leeches or the phlebotomists the exhausting pills and dispiriting purges that they are indeed the best cordials and restorative of the safety honors beauty strength peace health and happiness of any Church and State these help to put things into that posture of charity and peace that men may beat their swords into pruning-hooks Isai 2.4 Math. 4.3 and their armour into plowshears Once destroy or disband your able and orderly your learned and wel-armed Ministers Bishops and Presbyters or take away their order and good Government as such in united Councils and Synods withdraw their maintenance and support you will soon want their help and shall never want wars and enemies in Church and State as our own sad experience tells us both the Wars of disputation and of digladiation Nor are the Peditatus The Infantry or foot forces of the Church the Infantry or foot-soldiery of this spiritual Militia to be despised as useless I mean the meanest of the people that truly fear God and humbly keep their ranks and orders both in Church and State these also do stand in the gap these as Tertullian speaks quasi agmine facto ambiunt gratam Deo vim inferunt these besiege God as it were with great squadrons or companies offering an acceptable force to the Divine majesty both to disarm his Justice and to obtain his Mercy Ministers Magistrates and godly people together of one heart and of one mind in the Lord do make a royal and heavenly host a compleat Army both of horse and foot being under the same Generalissimo the Lord Jesus Christ who loves to see his Soldiers not stragling and freebooting in broken parties and scattered Conventicles but united and combined in great Congregations as the Assemblies of his Saints and Soldiers not of Sectaries and Schismaticks under such Commanders both greater and less as he hath ordained and commissioned § If these be the merits use and publick influence both as to Church and State of Gods Prophets and Christs Ministers in their several degrees and stations I wonder whence those principles of State policy arose and prevailed so far in this Nation as for some men with equal ignorance and injustice to endeavor to rout and cashier all these settled and reformed forces of the Ministry of England either stoping their pay or taking away the Antisignani principal Rulers and Leaders the Ecclesiastical colours and Commanders with the cheif Standerd-bearers of the Church for learning and prudence which practices and attempts have already put all the regiments of horse and foot to very great routs and disorders irrecoverable without a miracle of mercy Yea some by a strange kinde of fatuity and cruelty strive to gratifie the Papists Jesuits and others our enemies on all sides 2 Sam. 8.4 1 Chron. 18.4 by houghing all the best horses and burning or breaking in pieces all the best chariots of our Israel and the nurseries or chief conservatories of them the Universities just as David did those of the Amonites or the chariots and horses of the Sun that in after ages the Reformed Religion in England might have none but pittiful unarmed Pygmies to encounter with armed Goliahs of Rome Of routing and disbanding the Ministry § Many fear we are undermined and betrayed by the secret and sinister plottings of our Romish Adversaries who have so many Pioneers and Ingineers at work and are glad beyond measure to see the havoke made of Protestant Preachers of reformed Bishops and Churches which uniform and united are strong scattered are of no great efficacy though perhaps good Christians as a single Soldier signifies not much though valiant It may be good yarn or thread that is spun but t is not cloth till it be well woven together in one web it is not an Army but a rabble without Officers and Order nor is it a Church once take these Pastoral staves of beauty and bands away or deprive both Pastors and people of due order unity and government or rob the Rulers and Laborers of their setled pay and due enterainment 1 Cor. 9.7 that either they must go to war at their own charge for nought or live by forrage and free-quarter or depend upon the arbitrary contributions of people which is but a kind of gentle plundering or living upon not free-quarter but alms rather in a way very uncomfortable to ingenuous and able men no less than unacceptable to common people who set no great rate on their souls Certainly this new modelling of our spiritual Militia or Ministry being once effected what can be expected but a petty company of mendicant Preachers a black guard and forlorn-hope of ignorant and contemptible Freebooters men of little learning less estate no respect and least worth to deserve it to the great triumph joy and jubilee of all
Councils of Bishops to the Courts of Princes § Ei birth But to avoid all envy and offence in a touchy and captious age where all people will be Preachers and all Presbyters will be Bishops and all Bishops must be extirpated be pleased to know that the spring or original of this so fair so deep so clear so noble a stream of learning piety and wisdom was at Ipswich a Town of good note in Suffolk where he was born Anno 1592. His Parents of Merchantly condition of worthy reputation and of very Christian conversation When he was not many weeks old God took away his earthly Father that himself might have the more tender and fatherly care of this now Orphan but most hopeful Infant § His youth and education By the prudence of his pious Mother his youth and first years of reason were not lost or cast away as the first broachings of a vessel but being hardly repaired if once neglected they were carefully improved for his breeding in all good learning of which he was to a wonder in all ages of his life not only capable but so comprehensive that he drank in learning not as narrow-mouthed bottles to which young learners are compared by drops but as a sponge by great draughts even in his puerice or minority § Indeed His minority when I would search for his minority or the first source and fountain of that large fluency of eloquent and pious literature with which he alway abounded they are like the fontes Nili springs of Nilus hardly to be found he scarce had any Minority comparatively to others except in growth and stature for he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul says of himself Gal. 1.4 above his equals or coetaneans superior or major in abilities when inferior or minor in years Thus as he grew in age and stature so he grew also in wisdom and favour both with God and man Luk. 2.52 He was as the sons of Giants giantly infants giantly children giantly boyes giantly youths and gyantly men or like the Sun still the Sun at morning noon and night in its rise height and decline he never suffered any lessening or eclipse in himself § He suffered no diminutions but by the darknings of the times That fatal one upon this Church and State which befell him as a Bishop and his whole Order by the bold interposing of popular and headless Presbytery which in its due order not only preserved as Ignatius observes an holy harmony with Episcopacy but ever had as the Moon its light of holy Ordination and spiritval power from its aspect and respect to primitive and Catholick Episcopacy as the Sun But this sad diminution of him and other worthy Bishops was more a publick than a private disaster which even Presbytery it self hath found while the populacy or vulgar people like the earth do revenge even on that envious Moon the eclipse and injury it did to the Sun and to it self for as Episcopacy was turned into the sackcloth of mourning so Presbytery into the blood of war of fury of popular and endless factions for how can Presbyters keep their union lustre and honor but in conjunction with and subordination to Episcopacy as St. Cyprian long ago urged against some heady Presbyters in his days who lived in the second Century § The best method to take the exaltations and dimensions of this bright star which was one of the first magnitude is to observe his motions from his ascending to his decline and the several eradiations of his imitable worth When the Nurse of the Grammer-School had fitted him for his Mother the Vniversity His comming to the Vniversity he was sent in his fourteenth year to Pembrook-hall in Cambridge there his modesty pregnancy and piety soon invited preferment He was made first Schollar of the House and after Fellow a little sooner than either his years or standing in rigor of Statute permitted but the Colledge was impatient not to make sure of him by grafting him firmly into that Society which had been famous for many excellent men but for none more than for Ralph Brounrig when Batchelor of Arts when Master in Arts when Batchelor of Divinity when Doctor of Divinity and when Bp. of Exceter for as he fairly ascended every step or degree so he was ever thought no less to adorn than to deserve his advancements § His florid and fruitfull wit when first he appeared in publique to give testimony of his abilities and proficiency it is not to be expressed how sweet and welcome the very first productions of his most florid and fertile soul were which had the fragrant blossoms of a most facetious and inoffensive wit the fair leaves or ample ornaments of his most eloquent tongue the most pleasant fruits of Philosophy History Poetry and all sorts of ingenuous Arts and Sciences well digested accurately fitted to all occasions these at length raised to Divinity well grounded on Scripture and adorned by the study of antiquity the Fathers Councils and histories of the Church made him appear as one of the goodliest trees in the Paradise or garden of God the Vniversity and Church of England § His memory and eâ—oquence assisting his wit and parts He had always cum fideli memoria uberrimum ingenium beatam facundiam with an happy memory wit and words that were ful free without pumping or hesitancy set forth with an elocution or tone which was grandiloquent dictatorian and imperial he was at once profitably pleasant as Jothams vine and figtree to God and man His great wit was not forced frothy or affected but native apt and free muchless had it any thing muddy in it of prophaness scurrility or immodesty but chast ingenuous and innocent still tempered with such serious learned and pious mixtures or such grave retreates and closes that it seemed no other than beauty well dressed or goodness appearing in a fair and chearful Summers day having nothing of those melancholy clouds or winter dejections of more gloomy tempers He made the proof and experiment good That wit which is a kind of gaiety of fancy and luxuriancy of a ready invention is to be reckoned as beauty and handsomness among the good gifts of God when well used a jewel too bright and precious to be cast before swine or troden under the foul feet of wanton Poets of prophane and ridiculous Atheists who fancy they can out-wit God while yet non tam credunt quam cupiunt non esse Deum they rather wish there were not than believe there is no God being most sadly to be pitied when they seek to make themselves merry and the Devil to laugh by their grieving and mocking God or playing with the Scriptures and holy things which they disbelieve Quia malunt extingui quà m ad supplicia reparari as Minut. Felix speaks of the resurrection because they chuse annihilation rather than penal reparation § But here wit was consecrated to the
were not likely to have made a Liturgy of straw and stubble 2. For its excellent matter which is divine sound and holy besides its method which is prudent and good 3. For the very great good he saw it did as to all sober Christians so to the common sort of plain people who what ever other provision they had of their Ministers private abilities yet they were sure every Lords Day at least to have a wholesom and compleat form not only of Prayers but of all other necessaries to salvavation set before them for faith holy life and devotion in the Creeds Commandments Lords Prayer with Confessions and Supplications admirably linked together and fitted to the meanest capacities the want of which he saw was not supplied by any Ministers private way of praying or preaching which in very deed are but small pittances of piety or fragments compared to the latitude of religious fundamentals and varieties contained in the Liturgie the want of which he judged would induce a great ignorance as he saw and said to me a little before his death it had done already among the ordinary sort of people in Countrey and City whose souls are as precious to God as others of greater parts and capacities whose appetites were not to be flattered and deceived with novelties but fitted and fed with wonted solidities by which they would thrive look better as by the use of plain and repeated food which is as their daily bread than those that delight in greater varieties and dainties which may seem more toothsom to wanton palates but are not more wholesom or nourishing to honest hearts who are commonly less licorous in Religion and best content with what is best for them § Not that he was such a Formalist Verbalist and Sententiolist as could not endure any alteration of words or phrases or method or manner of expressions in the Liturgie to which either change of times or of language or things may invite he well knew there had been variety of Liturgies in Churches and variations in the same Church he made very much but not too much of the English Liturgie not as the Scriptures unalterable but yet he judged that all alterations in such publick and settled concerns of Religion ought to be done by the publick spirit counsel and consent of the Prophets Prince and People However this was a concluded Maxim with him That the solemnity and sacredness of consecrating those Christian mysteries of the blessed Sacraments were not to be adventured upon Ministers private abilities tenuities or distempers but by a publick and uniform spirit among Preachers and people all should say Amen to the same Prayers and receive the same mysteries under one form of consecration in which nothing should be defective or superfluous § His personal and occasional abilities for prayer were answerable to his other gifts and graces both for matter method utterance discretion and devotion full fervent and pathetick upon his own and others spirits not coldly formal and stark nor yet wildly rambling loose and broken but judicious apt grave and of so moderate an extent as suited the weight of the occasion the capacity of the auditors and the intensiveness of his own heart his prayers were not the labor and product only of lips lungs and tongue but of his spirit and understanding he minded not the glory but grace of prayer As to the Government of the Church by Episcopal Presidency His judgment of Church government by Episcopacy to which Prince and Presbyters agree he was too learned a man to doubt and too honest to deny the universal custom and practice of the Church of Christ in all ages and places for Fifteen hundred years according to the pattern at least received from the Apostles who without doubt followed as they best knew the mind of Christ This Catholick prescription he he thought so sacred that as it did sufficiently prejudge all novel presumptions so nothing but importune and grand necessities put upon any Church could excuse much less justifie the cutting off those pipes or the turning of that primitive and perpetual course of Ecclesiastical Ordination subordination and Government into another channel Nor did he understand the method of those new Vitruviusses who would seem Master-builders though they are yet but destroyers when they affect to have all timber and stones in the Churches building of the same shape size and bigness when the Church of Christ is compared to a body which hath members of different forms use and honor 1 Cor. 12. § Yet this worthy man had nothing of secular pomp or vain ambition in his thoughts meerly to bear up or bolster out a formal and titular Episcopacy with Goats hair like Michols image No he exacted worth and work And where true Bishops did the duties and good works belonging to the principal Pastors of the flock he thought they deserved double honor as Fathers and Governors among good Christians both of revenue and reverence § Yet he did not judge the principal dignity or authority of Episcopacy to depend upon its Secular advantages but on its Ecclesiastical custom and Apostolick institution and however no man was more ready to condescend to any external diminutions and comely moderations that might stand with a good conscience and prudence as tending to the peace and unity of the Church yet no man was more firm resolute and immovable from gratifying any Sacrilegious Projectors or proud Factionists or peevish Novellers to the reproach of the Church of England yea and of the Catholick Church in all the world which had its Bishops every where before it had its Bible or its Scriptures compleated In the matter of Episcopacy he differed little from Bishop Vshers moddel of the ancient Synodical Government only he thought the petulancy of mens spirit in these times beyond the primitive simplicity did require all prudent advantages of Order and authority which might consist with piety and true policy as antidotes ought to be heightned to the measure of the poison they are to encounter § He approved not a leveling party among Ministers Only he could never be induced so far to forsake the principle of all Reason Order and Government in humane societies or to disown the remarkable differences which God and Nature age and education experience and studies industry and grace did make between Ministers no less than other men as to think that neither work nor rewards of honor and estate may be proportioned to their different worths but that the youngest Schollar yea the meanest Schoolmaster if they can but now and then appear in a Pulpit and take Orders as they best fancy shall presently in all things of publick honor and Ecclesiastick authority run parallel to the greatest Schollars and gravest Divines so that either a beardless and juvenile petulancy or more aged but empty gravity shall in all points be level and justle with the most venerable worth and accomplished learning of those that are capable to