mens fight may easily discover folly in the purest Angels of his Church many spots in the brightest Moones and much nebulousnesse in the fairest Stars Yet God forbid that any men of justice honour or conscience should charge upon all Ministers and the whole function the disorders of some when as there are many hundreds of grave learned wise humble meek and quiet spirited men whose excellent vertues graces endowments and publique merits may more than enough countervaile and expiate the weaknesse or extravagancies of their brethren Ministers as well as other men except those whose opinions and fancies are so died in graine that their follies will never depart from them have learned many experiences both in England and Scotland that an over-charged or an ill-discharged zeal usually breaks it self in sunder with infinite danger not only to its authours but to its abettors assistants and spectators And however at first it might seem levelled against enemies yet it makes the neerest friends and standers by ever after wary and afraid both of such Guns and their Gunners of such dangerous designes and their designers Nothing is more touchy and intractable than matters of civill power and dominion in which we have neither precept nor practise from Christ or his Apostles for Ministers to engage themselves in any way of offense which their wisedome avoided They were thought of old things fitter for the hands of Cyclops who forged Jupiters thunderbolts than for the Priests of the Gods Great and sad experiences shewing how rough and violent with bloud and ruine all secular changes are how unsutable and unsafe to the softer hands of Ministers these have added wisdome to the wise and taught them very sober and wholesome lessons of all peaceable and due subjection both to God who may govern us by whom he pleaseth and to man Psal 75.7 who cannot have power but by Gods permission Dan. 4.17 which at the best and justest posture is not to be envied so much as pitied by prudent and holy men who see it attended with so many cares Habet aliquid ex iniquo omne magnum exemplum quod contra singulos utilitate publica rependitur Tacit l. 14. An. Liceat inter abruptam contumaciam deforme obsequium pergere iter ambitione periculis vacuum Tac. An. l. 4. feares and horrours infinite dangers and temptations befides a kinde of necessity sometime in reason of State to doe things unjust and uncomfortable at least to tolerate wayes that are neither pious nor charitable So that the humble peaceable and discreet carriage of all wife and worthy Ministers which only becomes them may justly plead for favour and protection against this calumny of pronenesse to sedition faction or any illegall disturbance in civill affaires even in all the unhappy troubles of the late yeares the wisest and best Ministers have generally so behaved themselves as shewed they had no other design than to live a quiet life in all godlinesse and honesty to serve the Lord Christ and his Church peaceably if they might in that station where they were lawfully set if they could not help in fair wayes to steer the ship as they desired yet they did not seek to set it on fire or split and overwhelm it If in any thing relating to publique variations and violent tossings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pind. they were not able to act with a satisfied and good conscience yet they ever knew their duty was humbly to bear with silence and suffer with patience from the hands of men the will of God Rom. 11.33 whose judgements they humbly adore though dark deep and past finding out If some mens dubiousnesse and unsatisfiednesse in any things as they are the works of men who may sin and erre be to be blamed as it is not in any righteous judgement yet it is withall so far to be pitied and pardoned by all that are true Christians or civill men as they see it accompanied with commendable integrity meeknesse and harmlesse simplicity which onely becomes these doves and serpents Mat. 10.16 which Christ hath sent to teach his Church both wisdome and innocency to walk exactly and circumspectly in the slippery pathes of this world not onely by sound doctrine but also by setled examples Which excellent temper would prevent many troubles among Christians and much evill suspicion against Ministers who could not be justly offensive or suspected to any in power if they saw them chiefly intentive to serve and fearfull to offend God always tender of good consciences and of the honor of true Christian Religion which was not wont to see Ministers with swords and pistols in their hands but with their Bibles and Liturgies not rough and targetted as the Rhinoceroes but soft and gently clothed as the sheep and Shepherds of Christ There is not indeed a more portentous sight than to see Galeatos Clericos Ministers armed with any other helmet than that of Salvation or sword than that of the Spirit or shield than that of Faith by which they will easily overcome the world if once they have overcome themselves whose courage will be as great in praying preaching and suffering with patience meeknesse and constancy as in busting and fighting which becomes Butchers better than Ministers to whom Christ long ago commanded in the person of S. Peter to put up their swords Mat. 26.52 nor was he ever heard to repeal that word or to bid them draw their swords no not in Christs cause that is meerly for matters of Religion who hath Legions of Angels Armies of truths gifts and graces of the Spirit to defend himself and his true interests in Religion withall which are far better and fitter weapons in Ministers warfare 2 Cor. 10.4 The weapons of our warfare are not carnall than such swords and staves as they brought who intended to betray to take and to destroy Christ Let secular powers forcibly act as becomes them in the matters of Religion so farre as they are asserted and established by Law whose proper attendant is armed power It is enough for Ministers zeal to be with Moses Exod. 17. Aaron and Hur in the Mount praying when Joshua in the justest quarrell i◠fighting with Amalek that is the unprovoked and causelesse enemies of the Church If at any time they counsel or act matters of life and death they must be so clearly and indisputably just and within the compasse of their duty and relation as may every way become valiant men humble Christians and prudent Ministers Object 4. Of the Engagement But to confute all that can be said for the Ministers of England their adversaries are ready to object that many of them scruple the taking of the Engagement This they think is a pill which will either choak their consciences if they swallow it or purge them out of their livings if they doe not For contrary to all other Physick this operates most strongly on those that never take it
fallacious or pernicious novelties to which the breath of some politick or passionate spirits had raised them so much above the ordinary mark of true Christian religion as to drown or threaten to carry away all those many happy enjoyments of truth peace order government and Ministry which formerly they enjoyed Not wholly it may be without but yet with fewer and more tolerable grievances which humble Christians ought to look upon in any setled Church and State rather as exercises of their patience duty and charity than as oppressions of their spirits Knowing that impatience usually punisheth it self by applying remedies sharper than the sufferings easily and hastily running down the hill as from health to sicknesse from peace to war from good to bad from bad to worse but very slowly returning from evill to good or recovering up the hill from worse to better It is true the Ministers of the Church of England of all degrees seem now to have an harder part to act for their honor and wisdome than ever they had under any Rulers professing to be Christian and reformed But they may not therefore weakly disclaim or meanly desert their Ordination and holy function nor may they despair of Gods if they have not mans protection who can soon make their very enemies to be at peace with them and stir up many friends unexpectedly for them It may be through the Lords mercy this winters floud shall be for their mendment or fertility and not for their utter vastation and ruine This fire shall not consume them but refine them this winnowing will be their purging and this shaking their setling As oppositions of old gave the greatest confirmations and polishings to those Truths which were most exercised with the hammer or file of heriticall pravity or schismaticall fury If it be the mending and not the ending the reformation and not the extirpation of Ministers which their severe censurers and opposers seek for why should not time of triall be given and all honest industry used to improve these well grown and flourishing fig trees before they be hewed down and stubbed up which heretofore have not been either barren or unfruitfull to God and man If either Papall or Anabaptisticall and Levelling enemies must at length after severall windings and turnings be gratified with their utter ruine and destruction which God forbid yet while Ministers have leave and liberty to pray to preach to print to doe well and worthily God forbid they should so farre injure God good men and so good a cause as not Christianly to endeavour its defence which at worst is to be done by comely suffering And who knows but that when these witnesses both against superstition and confusion in the Church shall seem to be slain cast out and buryed they may live again to the astonishment both of friends and enemies But if the sins of this Nation and the decrees of divine Justice doe indeed hasten an utter overthrow here of the reformed Ministry and the reformed Religion If Ministers of the ancient Ordination lawfull heirs of the true Apostolick succession are therefore accounted as sheep for the slaughter because they are better fed and better bred than others of leaner soules and meaner spirits If they are therefore to the men of this world as a savour of death unto death because they hold forth the Word of Truth and Life to the just reproach of a lying dying and self-destroying generation If we must at last perish and fall with our whole function and fraternity after all our studies charges labours and sufferings Yet it is fit some of us and the more the better lest our silence may argue guilt give the world both at present and in after ages some account why and how in so learned valiant wise and religious a Nation as this of England hath been wee as Ministers have stood so long what pious frauds and holy arts we had whereby to impose so many hundreds of years upon so many wise Princes so many venerable Parliaments so many pious professors of Christian and reformed Religion And lastly upon so quick and high spirited a people as these of England generally are neither so grosse as to be easily deluded nor so base as patiently to suffer themselves in so high a nature to be abused That so at least if the world can lesse discern for what cause the Ministry and Ministers are now to be destroyed they may see upon what grounds of piety or policy they were so long preserved in peace plenty and honour And for what reasons they now seek as their pious predecessors did to maintain not their persons so much as their office and function in its due order and authority that so they might have transmitted it in an holy and unblameable succession to posterity as that which in their consciences they verily think to be a most divine and Christian Institution Beneficiall for the good of the Church and of all mankinde which in former ages was ever esteemed the glory and blessing of this or any other Nation The setter forth of the light wisdome power and love of the eternall God in his Son Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinners and which thousands of Christians in all ages and places have experienced and approved to be to their soules the Savour of life unto life the mighty power of God to salvation The Author easily observes the present face of our heavens which are much darkned by those black and lowring clouds which chiefly hang over constant true and faithfull Ministers heads menacing them above any rank or calling of men Nor is he ignorant of the touchinesse and roughnesse the jealousies and timorousnesse of many mens spirits in these times whose highest pretentions to piety are set forth either by fierce oppositions against the Ministry or by such a weak pleading for and wary owning of their succession and ordination their calling and persons as ra-rather invites opposition contempt and insolency than any way gives credit or countenance to them and their function whose remaining branches of Presbytery will hardly thrive by the watering of those hands which have been and are destroyers of its root the Primitive Apostolicall Episcopacy they are pitifull defenders of that who are passionate opposers of this who of all men have given the greatest advantages to those that seek to abrogate the whole function and calling or to arrogate it to vulgar ignorance and impudence The grim and sad aspect on all hands upon Ministers makes the Authour out of charity to himself and others as willing to give a fair account of his profession so loath to offend any sober and judicious Reader or to contract the enmity of any others of ruder tempers by any rash stroke or inconsiderate dash of his pen to which he may be subject and for which he begs pardon both of God and man if any have escaped which yet may be so far venial as its innocent sharpnesse aims at no mens person but onely
Word however we cannot by bare humane reason comprehend or demonstrate them oftentimes praying to God as all sufficient omniscient omnipresent and omnipotent supplicating for that from his grace power and bounty which we have not deserve not nor can attain otherways in this lapsed corrupted and cursed estate of our nature Eph. 2.5 By g ace ye are saved Which owes all its reparations onely to the free grace of God manifesting himself in his works and words also in those secret inward operations of the Spirit upon the conscience and whole soul by illuminations Blanda violentia victrix delectatio Aug. restraints terrors convictions conversions sweet yet powerful attractions victorious yet delectable prevailings agreeable to the nature of the soul and the liberty of the will which then recovers its true liberty Quò strictius ad Deum ligamur eo perfectius liberamur à peccatorum pondere pravitatum vinculis nec reatu nec terrore nec infirmitate amplius detinemur aut opprimimur August Non dii facti sumus sed divini non in Dei essentiam transmutamur sed in sanctam hoc est divinam naturam reparamur quantum satanae lapsi tantum Deo reparati confirmamur Prosp when by the cords of Gods love its unwillingness is bound up and its chains of violent lusts are taken off Whence such great impressions and real changes are made upon every rational faculty in the soul as those from darkness to light from captivity to freedom from death to life according to the several representations of Gods excellencies in nature in morals and in mysteries wherein the exceeding great riches of his free-grace and love to us in Christ Ephes 1.9 2.7 hath the most softning melting and transforming influence which fully received upon the soul the whole-man in minde and spirit in fancy understanding judgement memory will appetite affections passions and conscience becomes partaker through grace of a divine nature 2 Pet. 1.4 compared to what he was and becomes a * 2 Cor. 5.17 new creature not as to its essence but as to all ends principles motions and actions which are begun and continued designed and ended in holiness that is in humble and unfeigned regards to the glory of God and exact purposes of conformity to the will of God in his written Word New creatures by a newness of grace in which we remain what we were Men but are made what we were not Saints 3. Scripture the only rule of true Religion 1 Tim. 3.15 Heb. 4.12 Acts 7.38 Rom. 3.2 To which Word of God in the Scriptures we being guided and directed by the constant and most credible testimony of the Church of Christ that pillar and ground of Truth so as to receive and regard them They at length by Gods grace on the heart demonstrate themselves by their native and divine light to be the very Word of God those lively oracles which set forth most divine precepts paterns prophecies histories and mysteries proffers also and promises of such good things as the soul would most desire most wants and onely can truly delight in living and dying and to eternity Religion consists in no fond fancies Beyond * Hoc prius credimus non esse ultra Scripturas quod credere debeamus nobis curiositate non opus est post Christum nec inquisitione post Evangelium Tertul. de praes ad Hae. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Niss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Nos tantum Scripturas sacras habemus plenas inviolatas integras eas vel in purissimo fonte vel in pura translatione bibimus Sal. de Gub. l. 5. Tantummodo sacris Scripturis canonicis hanc ingenuam debeo servitutem quà eas solas ita sequar ut conscriptores earum nihil omnino in eis eâ—rasse nihil fallaciter posuissè non dubitem August ep 19 ad Jeron Si canonicarum scripturarum authoritate quidquam firmatur sine ulla dubitatione credendum est Aliis verò testibus tibi credere vel non credere liceat August ep cap. 12. these Scriptures which we justly call The Word of God understood in their true sense and meaning we do not own any thing for a ground rule or duty in Religion Nâ—r are we at all moved by those bold triflings and endless janglings about Religion Grace Spirit and Inspirations which weak and vain men looking to their own foolish fancies and not to the divine Oracles do scatter too and fro as chaff to blinde the eyes of simple and credulous people which would make Religion a matter of novelty and curiosity of cavilling meerly and contending of censuring and condemning others of self-confidence and intollerable boastings of sequaciousness and feminine softness of custom onely and paternal example or of ease and idleness where out of a lazy temper neglecting all ordinary means Ministry and duties some men expect by special inspirations and dictates to have their defect of pains and industry supplied Or else they place their Religion in the adhering to some party and faction in popular and specious insinuations and pretensions or in admiration of mens persons and gifts or in the prevailencies of power and worldly successes or in unjust gain and sacrilegious thrift or in great zealotries for some new form and way of constituting disciplining and governing Churches or in boldness to affirm to deny and to do any thing or in meer verbal assurances and loose confidences of being elected and predestinated to happiness of being called to be Saints and Preachers and Prophets in a new and extraordinary way to advance such opinions and practises as no holy men of old ever knew acted or owned for Religious or lastly in railing upon despising and seeking to destroy all those that approve not or follow not those self-conceited confidences and violent extravagancies which some men affect in their rude and unwarrantable undertakings Such were the fanatick mad and at last sad Religion of those Circumcellions of old and those Anabaptists and other later Sects in Germany * Sleidan Com. l. 10. ad an 1535. who wanted nothing but constant successes and continued power to have made all men as wilde and wicked as themselves or else to have destroyed them Alas who sees not how far different and much easier to sinful flesh and blood to vain ambition and proud hypocrisies these pretty soft fallacies these froths and fumes those great swelling words 2 Pet. 2.18 and titles of vanity That God is their Father that they are Saints and spiritual inspired Prophets sent of God to call the World to repentance to reign with Christ Those rotten sensualities of Religion as some blasphemously call it those libidinous excrescencies those lying prophecies c. How much easier I say these are than those humble sober exact and constant tyes of Conscience and duties of true Religion by which holy men and women in all ages have given all diligence to make their
us naked and wounded Though we have not only forsaken thee but driven thee from us not only lost thee but are loth to find thee and joy in thy loss and are afraid of thy return yet since thou art Charity that is all divine sweetness kindness and goodness doe not utterly forsake us the scattered and torn remnant of surviving Christians Are our distances more unreconcileable than those were between God and Sinners yet these thou hast composed by that blood of attonement which Christ the Son and love of God shed for us to redeem us out of all Nations tongues and people who hath given us this badge of his Disciciples to love one another Joh. 13.35 not with private and Schismaticall factiousness but with publike and Catholick affections which reach as far as the Name of Christ is owned Thou art not only an Angell ascending up to Heaven in the love of God but also descending down to men chiefly to the fraternities of Christians Nor is the stream of thy sweetness which flows with Milk and Honey only diffused upon the Church triumphant the blessed Angels and Souls of just men made perfect who are ever bathed in an Ocean of thy Nectar which is infinite love but thou hast also received gifts for men and hast effusions of love to soften our hard hearts to supple our brawny hands to clear out polluted consciences and to chear up our Cainish countenances Better we had been among the slain Procellae tenebrae mortes tormenta Gehennaein sunt animae in qua charitas non remanet regnat Fulg. that are gone down to the Pit and covered in darkness with the dust of death than to live without thee whose presence makes our moment here to be Heaven and thy absence makes our after eternity to be Hell O let not the cruell factious profane and Atheisticall world say That thou the Charity of Christians wert never beyond a fable a meteor in their fancies a morning dew falling from their lips or a melancholy softness a pusillanimous pitty a devout cowardise As if Christians were kind no longer than they wanted power to be cruell and humbly obeyed no longer than they wanted opportunity to be proudly rebellious against those whom they feared more as slaves than loved as Christians Is there nothing in thy ingenuous wisdom which delightest to doe best and most where men merit least by which to bring back those Theriandri Anthropophagi or Lycanthropi those men that are become savage of civill those Christians that are turned Tygers and Lions and Bears and Wolves degenerated far from the pristine shape and forms which they had of meek Lambs and Sheep O bring forth those excellent eye salves by which thou didst of old open the eyes of the blind and barbarous Heathens Shew to the deformed Christians of this metamorphosed age thy primitive beauties the attractives of thy meekness the charms of thy gentleness the trophies of thy patience forbearances and brotherly kindness bring forth the Magazins of thy mercies bowels of pitty tenderness tears use thy honest frauds thy pious crafts 2 Cor. 12.16 thy Dove-like arts thy Saint-like policies of self denyall courtesy modesty giving and forgiving Quanto magis regnum cupiditatis destruitur tanto charitatis augetur Austin de doct Christiano 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Christianis Just M. ad Diog. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just in Apol. Mark 13.22 by which means Christians ever flourished in grace abounded in comforts and though they were destroyed and persecuted yet still they were emulated and renowned O remove the paints and veils and masks and shadows the deceits and dawbings which are upon the face of Christian Religion which is indeed nothing without thee a meer mockery of graces a pageantry of virtue a phantasm of courage a delusion of zeal a shadow of reformation fitted only to deceive if it were possible even the very elect If thy torments and blood-sheds and deaths of old will not serve to moysten and enlarge the dryed and contracted bowels of modern Christians to mollify their hearts to calm their spirits and to sweeten their looks to one another O shew them thy later foul scratches thy fresh wounds thy grievous reproches thy many bleedings thy deep stigmatizings thy prisons thy piercings thy dyings thy crucifyings all which thou hast received in the house of thy friends by the hands of thy friends even such as are called Christians but can hardly be counted charitable which have brought thee and us to these fears and tremblings and paleness and despairs as if God and Christ and Gospell and Ministry and Heaven and salvation and true Religion were all departing with thee which are thy inseparable companions 1 Pet. 1.29 Obstinati animi adamantina corda minis duriora monicis pejora solo Christi sanguine conspersa emolliuntur Bern. O duri indurati obdurati filii Adam quos non emollit tanta benignitas tanta flamma tam ingens ardor tam vehemâ—ns amator quem nec agon â—e crux nec mors terruit quin te amaret Acts 3.15 19. 1 Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 3.19 If these will not move Christians to look after thee or at least to pitty thee and to pray for thee or rather for themselves in thee yet hast thou one holy Relique of infinite merit incomparable worth and inestimable valew set forth this to the blood-shotten eyes of the Christian world even Jesus Christ crucified for them and professed by them to be their common Saviour Possibly his precious bloud sprinkled on their consciences may as water on lime slake and dissolve that firy Spirit and flinty Heart which is among them Nothing can work such miracles as this age wants but only the cross and wounds and agony and sweats and tears and blood and death of Jesus Christ whose love used the malice and cruelty of his enemies for an instrument to kill him that he being slain by them might merit life for them that by this act of highest uncharitableness in man to kill his Saviour Christ might set forth his other-wayes unexpressible Charity toward men by saving his destroyers his love being stronger than death and giving us hereby a patern how we should be disposed to one another not only when friends but also when enemies Rather to dye for them in away of charity which is a beam of divine mercy than to kill them even in away of equity which is but a stroke of humane justice but least of all should we destroy our Brother in away of policy passion and malice which is devillish cruelty Since to hate our Brother is murther as he is a man sure not only to hate but even for Religion sake to kill our brother a Christian must be a crucifying afresh the Lord of Life who died for his Church So then uncharitable destroyers of Christians are rather Deicides than Homicides If all this move not those that are called Christians 1 John
Sacrament we reject together with the consequentiall Idolatry of worshiping the bread Also the sacrilege of detaining the Cup of the Lord from the people we cannot allow as being contrary both to the primitive practise of the Church and to the express command of Christ in the Institution which was after also revealed to St. Paul by Christ himself Yet still we use and observe the Sacramentall Elements with the same high estimation and veneration which pious and purest antiquity ever did bear to that Sacred mysterie how ever we forbear to use some of their expressions whose Oratory occasioned in part the after error which mistook that as spoken of the Bread in its nature which magnified it only in the Sacramentall use and mysterie which is indeed very high retaining both the Elements words and holy form which Christ instituted and Christians alwayes used not so much disputing and determining the manner of Sacramentall union as endevouring after those graces which may make us worthy Communicants and reall partakers of the Body and Bâ—ood of Jesus Christ when we do receive that dreadfull yet most desirable seal of our Faith which consigns fuller to us and confirms in us those comforts which as sinners we want and may have most really and only from Christ not by eating his flesh in a bodily and gross way with our mouths but by receiving him by a true and lively faith into our souls as he is set forth to us in the Scriptures to be God incarnate the only Saviour of the world of whose merit death passion body and blood we are by the same faith though in less degrees of strength really partakers and nourished to eternall life before we receive him in that Sacrament of the Lords Supper yea though we never should have opportunity so to receive him which is but the same object received by the same faith to the same end though in a different manner and with different degrees So for Baptism Baptism we retain the substance of that holy Sacrament as we find it in the Scriptures rejecting only those superfluous dresses of Salt Spittle Oyl Insufflation and the like which cumber and deform that duty and Ordinance but they do not destroy it nor do ever any Protestants that are of any name or honour for Religion re-baptise those who were baptised in the Roman Church Concil Laodicenum omits only the Apocal. Apocrypha Books Hieron in Prolog Galaten Josephus l. 1. cont Appio we i. e. the Jews have not infinite and diffâ—rent Books but only 22. which are justly called Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mosis 5. Prophet 13. Psal 4. The rest from Artaxereâ— to these times have not the like credit because not a certain succession of Prophets The Apocryphall additions of the Romish Church to the Canon of the Scriptures we reject from being rules of faith however we approve their excellent morals And this we do upon the same grounds that the Jewish Church of old and the Primitive Christian for the most part ever did yet we retain those books as oracles of God which we have received with and from the Romish Church as of divine inspiration according to that testimony which both the Jewish and Christian Churches fidelity have given us of them The eâ—une dull and spiritless and formall devotions Prayers in a language not vulgar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nis de Placilla orat Funcb Delinquens soli Deo cognitus de reatis nudare apud homines verecunda conscientia non cogitur Ser. 34. Chrysol So Ber. s 42. Non expedit omnibus omnia inâ—â—tescere quae scimus de nobis in Cant. Liturgies and prayers used by the Romanists in any tongue unknown to the most and with so many vain repetitions we refuse yet still we retain the holy custom of Christians assembling in publike and worshipping God by publike Liturgies prayers and praises In somethings we hold nothing common with them either in opinion or practise as in the profitable fancy of purgatory the popular fashion of worshipping Images or adoring God in and by Images of oblations and prayers for the dead of praying to Saints and Angels of Auricular confession of dispensing by Indulgences the merits or supperogating righteousness of some Christians to others Since in these and the like matters which I only touch it being not my work now to handle those controversies which have been so fully discussed by many learned men of this Church of Engand whose works praise them We find no Scripture ground either for precept or permission So likewise in the ambitious claim of the Popes Infallible judgement His universall jurisdiction and Supreme Authority over all Churches and Councils We deny it as un usurpation gotten by indulgences of some times and Princes also by the flatteries frauds cruelties power and policies of severall Popes in their successions but not grounded on any Law or right either humane or divine neither by the Institution of God nor by the consent of all Churches Yet we deny not to the Pope such a primacy of place or priority of order and precedency as is reasonable and just either in the Roman Diocess as a Bishop or in a Councill as Bishop of that famous City In like manner for the sacred order and function of the Ministry we reject what ever imaginary power or will-worship is annexed to the office by humane superstition but we approve the antient form of Commission and Divine Authority derived by them to Presbyters and Bishops for Preaching the word celebrating the Sacraments reconciling penitents use of the Keys in doctrine or jurisdiction and Government In the Roman Pontificall The Bishop to be consecraâ—ed is charged after many Ceremonâ—es and pompous modes with this as his office and duty To judge to interpret to consecrate to confer holy orders to offer to Baptize aâ—d to confirm after that the Consecratorâ— laying the Bible on his shoulder and their hands on his head say these words Receive the holy Spirit i. e. the gifts and power to be a Bishop or chief Pastor to teach and rule in the Church So the Presbyter is by the Bishop ordeyning and otheâ—s with him imposing their hands on the head enjoyned To offer to bless to govern to Preach and to Baptise as becomes his place and Office Mar. 13.25 Also of the continued power of Ordination for a succession of Ministers in the Church In all these and the like what ever we find to be spurious issues of meer humane invention of Scripture-less opinions of groundless traditions obtruded as matters of Religion upon the consciences of Christians we use that just severity which we think the Apostles and Primitive fathers would have done to dash these Babylonish brats against the stones yet still we redeem and preserve alive the legitimate succession the Sons of Sion the Israel of God and justify the Children of true wisdom and of the Heavenly Jerusalem that is the divine and truly religious
and so a persecuting of his soul to let him hunt the divels suit without check and to follow the trains of errour Steriles fugiendae sunt passines Aust by which he leades men to perdition when it is in our way of charity much more in out place and authority to endeavour to convert or at least stop him so as others may not be perverted by him Good husbands will not forbear for their lowd crying to ring and yoke those Swine Non omnis qui parcit amicus est nec omnis qui verberat inimicus melius est cum severitate diligere quam cum lenitate decipere Aust de coercendis Haereticis Ep. 48. vid. Perpende non quid pateâ—is sed quare quo modo Lact. Inst l. which they see doe root up the pastures break through the fences and wast the corn yet still they leave even these beasts freedom enough to feed themselves and live orderly but not mischievously Although the man in every one is to be treated humanely and the Christian Christianly with all reason and charity because the Creator is to be reverenced in every creature and Christ in every Christian yet the Beast or Divell which may be even in regenerâ—ted men must be used accordingly that the man may be preserved though the other be restrained as we do without injury to those that are mad or daemoniack to whom if sober men should allow what liberty they affect cry out and strive for it were to proclaim themselves to all the world the madder of the two Salute reparata tanto uberius gratias agunt quanto minus fiti quemque pepe cisse sentiuut Aust Ep. 48. of the Donatists and Circumcelliones reduced by just punishments ab inquâ—eta suae teâ—eritate from their seditious rashnesse And none would have more cause to repent when they came to themselves of those indulgences fondly granted them which they poore men know not how to use but to their own and others harm Indeed those men * Sui juris esse non debet qui nisi in aliorum injuriâ—s vivere nescit Reg. Iur. forfeit their private liberty to the publique discretion and power who will not or cannot use it but to the publique detriment and the injury of others which to prevent or hinder is the highest work of charity None but sons of Belial that is of such as will not indure the yoke in Religion either in piety purity or charity nor suffer others to enjoy the benefit of it in peace and order can desire such a * Adâ—ò libere esse volunt ut nec Deunt habere velâ—â—t Dominum Aust freedom as will not indure the Lord for their God nor man for their Governour who seek to break the staves of beauty and of bonds on their Shepheards heads or to wrest the keys out of their hands who like wild asses would be left to feed in the wilderness to their own barren fancies and to snuffe up the winde of their own or others vain opinions till they are starved and destroyed rather than be kept in good pasture with due limits There is a damnable and damning Liberty a Toleration which the Divels would enjoy who would soone destroy all things on which is any Image of the Creators glory if the sharp curb and weighty chains of Gods omnipotency were not upon them both immediately and mediately through that wisdome care courage and authority which he gives to Christian Magistrates and Ministers to resist and to bind up Satan If they then that are thus furnished by God with just power in Church and State should leave the things of God in matters of Religion as outwardly professed to such liberties that all men may run which ways they please of ignorance errour atheism prophanenesse blasphemy being seduced and seducing others if they take no care that younger people bee catechised and others duly attend the publique duties of that religion which is established and which they still professe Vbi non est veritas merito talis est disciplina Ter. if they should neither stop nor restrain any man in any course of opinion or practise which he cals Conscience without giving any account of Reason or Scripture for it to those in Authority Certainly such an intolerable Toleration letting every one doe what seemes right in their own eyes Iudg 21.21 in the things of God and onely to look exactly to civill interests and safety is to make Magistratick power Rom. 13. which is Gods Ordinance for the good of mankinde to concurre with the malice of the Divels and that innate folly vanity and madnesse which is in mens hearts to the ruine of simple multitudes who cannot sin or miscarry eternally in such sinfull liberties irreligious and tolerations but at the cost and charge of the Magistrates souls if they be Christian and are perswaded of the truth of that Religion as we read the master became a trespasser or murtherer and was put to death who knowingly suffered his petulant Ox to enjoy such a liberty Exod. 21.29 as ended in the damage or destruction of his neighbours goods or life 10. Such Toleration is but a subtill persecution A toleration of any thing as to publique profession among Christians under the notion of Christian liberty is but the divels finest and subtillest way of persecution for he is as sure to gain by such indulgences as weeds doe by the husbandmans or Gardners negligence or lothnesse to pluck them up for fear of hurting the corn or good plants which when they are fully discerned to be but weeds as they are not possibly to be puld up by mans hand as to the private errours and hypocrisies of mens hearts which are to be left to the great Judge and Searcher of hearts so nor may they rashly be pulled up by every one that sees them lest injury be done to the good seed but yet they are not carelesly and sluggishly to bee suffered to * The Manichees forbad to pull up any weeds out of a field or garden Aust de Mani Agrum spinis purgari nefas putant quod plantae sentiunt overgrow and choak the good plants As if nothing were true fixed and certaine in religion nothing hereticall corrupt and damnable in opinion and doctrine nothing immorall unlawfull and abominable in practise nothing perverse uncharitable and uncomely in seditions schisms and separations We read frequently the zeal care and courage of Magistrates Princes and Priests among the Jews Hezekiah 2 Chron. 29. Josiah 2 Chron. 34. much commended for reforming Religion restoring true wayes of piety suppressing all abuses in Religion Certainly it is not lesse a duty nor lesse pleasing to God now among Christians to take all care that the name of Christ be not blasphemed nor the way of truth perverted or evill spoken of We read also the Spirit of Christ reproving as a great sin and omission of duty Rev. 2.14 20. that
excellent and truely reformed Christians 8. Cavill Object 1. It 's not safe to plead for or protect Ministers onely left a wary super-politick and over-cautious spirit to encounter and dispell which pleads policy against piety and prefers outward safety before inward peace Being as it pretends lothe yea and afraid to displease deny or gainsay so great and powerfull at least so active bold and pragmaticall a party as is by these Antiministeriall adversaries pretended to be both among military men and others implacably ingaged against not onely the persons present standing and maintenance of Ministers but even the very calling ordination and function of the Ministry which they are resolved to undermine by calumnies or overthrow by force either by fair or foul means These Antiministeriall spirits must by all meanes be gratified and by no means displeased lest impatient of the repulses and elusions oft given to their many petitions and essayes against the Ministry they fly out to greater disorders than either the Ministers or the Gospell the reformed Religion or Christ himself are worth Better this one function of the Ministry though ancient usefull and necessary to the Church yea though holy and of divine institution the greatest gift of God next Jesus Christ to the world better this be destroyed than a generation of violent spirits should get a head and destroy both us and our Nation Thus some men whose feares are strong objecters against their judgements and consciences which cannot but acknowledg both of the Ministry and Ministers of England that God is in them and hath been with them of a Truth Answ I see how many Lyons the base fears and cowardise of men are prone to fancy to be in * Prov. 20 13. their way when they should undertake to maintain the cause of God of Christ and of true Religion 1. Mens cowardise in religious matters which the cause of the Ministers indeed is * Iudg. 9.36 Here the shadows of mountaines and * Phil. de Com fields of thistles appeare like armed men to timorous and degenerous Christians when yet all the outward difficulties all the inward terrours all the divels in hell cannot deter some men from those adventures wherein their worldly interest of profit safety or honour are concerned There oft-times necessities are first made then they are prosecuted after they are pleaded as grounds for excuse at least if not of justification of actions lesse warrantable If I thought as truly I doe not that this ungratefull mutiny of some men against the Ministry and the mean despondency of others their cold and faint friends were generall and Epidemicall among men of any considerableness for quality number and estate that these did either oppose or desert their Ministers Sueton. in Jul. Cas I conceive it would admit of no better confutation and remedy than for Ministers with Caesar to open our naked brests and to offer them to the ponyards and swords or pistols of those that think it fit to desert us and by a second hand to destroy us Ministers yeeld to the sentence of the Nation If those that excell in any vertue or in power doe indeed think the Ministers and Ministry of England have deserved to be thus vilified and exploded as the filth and off-scouring of all things if in reason of state and politick interest it be found therefore best because safest that Learning must yeeld to illiteratenesse study to temerity knowledge to ignorance modesty to impudence ingenuity to rusticity order to confusion gravity to giddinesse holy eloquence to vain blessings serious disputings to rude and profane janglings That the grave learned and venerable Preachers of the true Christian reformed Religion must give place to cunning and insolent Factors for all manner of errours superstitions and confusions if this be necessary or highly convenient for the publique good they shall doe wisely if not well with all speed to stigmatize by publique vote and act both the Ministers and their Ministry on the foreheads as so many vile persons whose craft hath hitherto cheated and abused the English world in stead of seeking and shewing men the true way to heaven Nothing is more just than to stop such mouths whose Oracles are no better than those which were silenced when Christ came into the world Yea quite to abrogate the function will be the shortest way whereby to satisfie the Antiministeriall malice And to expiate the sin or folly at least of this Church and Nation which self-displeased for entertaining them so long and so liberally shall now take but a just revenge in either sterving them and their families to death or condemning them to a wandering beggery That so by such a penall retaliation Fuâ—um vendidisti sumo pereas Sueton. in Vespas as that Emperour commanded a Cheater to be stifled to death with smoak because he vented only smoak Ministers may want common bread to live who have pretended to feed mens souls with the bread of life and have in this onely deluded men For coming now to be searched by the more accurate eyes of some new Illuminates they are found like the Priests and Temples of the heathenish devotion to have in them in stead of a venerable deity nothing but the Images of cats or crocodiles and the like despicable figures If neither God nor good men have any further pleasure in the lifes labours and prosperity of his servants the Ministers of England against whom the Shimei's of these times are bold so loudly to cast forth their cursing and evill speeches 2 Sam. 16. Let the Lord do with us as it seemeth good in his eyes Loe we are many of us in our severall places and charges yet residing some are already scattered and ejected most of us almost beggered exhausted weather-beaten and shipwracked in stormes and tossings of these times Some are even weary of themselves filled with the dayly and bitter reproaches of their insolent adversaries 1 King 19.4 and even praying with Elias It is enough we are not better then our Forefathers thus persecuted they the godly Ministers the Bishops the Presbyters the Apostles the Prophets of old fit our soules for thee and take them to thee that we may be delivered from so injurious and unthankefull a generation whose aim is to destroy the true Prophets and pull down all the house of God in the land Alas we of the Ministry have no weapons or arms Ministers unarmed innocency 1 Sam. 22.17 Non nobis tanti est vita ut armis tuenda fit Tiber. ad Senatum Tac. an 6. no strong holds or defenced Cities besides our prayers patience and as we hope good consciences it will be no hard work for a few Doegs to destroy all the true Prophets and Ministers of the Lord in the land That so this great Hecatomb so long desired and expected may be an acceptable sacrifice to the Jesuited Papists and pragmatick Separatists and all other malicious enemies of this