pruning fencing and preserving this goodly Tree in its several Branches which have spread forth to several parts of the world but were never quite parted or separated from either Christ or one another but grounded in Christ they have alwayes grown up in him to such an holy Harmony without any Schismatical slipping breaking off or moral dividing from one another every small twigg every bigger branch every mainer arme of it either for private Christians or publick Congregations or Episcopal Combinations still holding that mutual Communion which became them both to Christ and his Church in general also to each other in particular according to the several Places Duties Stations and Proportions wherein the God of Order and Peace had set them under the Authority Power and Episcopacy of his Son Jesus Christ as Lord of all the King Priest and Prophet the chief Bishop and great Shepherd the principal Teacher Pastor and Ruler of his Church From our Lord Jesus Christ whose love to Mankind intended to enlarge the branches of his Church beyond the Jews even to all Nations under Heaven this small and tender Plant was afterward as a fruitful Vine and flourishing Tree carefully husbanded and orderly extended by such workmen as the Lord was pleased to chuse and appoint for this holy care and culture whom he endued with the spirit of power both for Authority when he solemnly breathed on them and for Ability when he powerfully sent the Spirit upon them enabling them not onely with such ordinary gifts as were necessary for all true Ministers and such ordinary authority as was fit to governe the Churches they gathered but also with such extraordinary and miraculous endowments as were meet for the Apostles to carry on the first plantations of the Gospel to all the world without any Interpreter beyond all contradiction the doctrine they taught of Jesus Christ being confirmed to be the Will and Wisdome of God by the concurrence of his Omnipotency in infallible signes and wonders By these twelve Apostles when their number was completed and the Apostasie of Judas made up by the choise of Matthias to succeed and supply his Episcopal charge and Office for the teaching and ruling of the Church to whom as a supernumerary help and great additional St. Paul was afterward joyned by these I say as by so many chief Pastors or Oecumenical Bishops who had the general care and joynt oversight or Episcopacy of the Catholick Church both Jews and Gentiles was this Tree mightily advanced in a few years both in bigness and bredth in strength and extention so that the Gospel according to Christs command was preached more or less to every Nation under Heaven and as the beams of the Sun are seen so the Evangelical sound of the Apostles was heard in all Lands so loud and audibly that every Nation might have applied themselves to listen and seek after the Lord and have heard and found him in the voice of his glorious Gospel if they would have followed that news which they heard of according to the curiosity after novelties which is in the nature of man The news of which so good and so great was every where reported to be as foretold by so many Prophets long before so attested and confirmed by so many Eye witnesses who not onely spake to every Nation in their several tongues but also wrought great miracles in every place where they came according to those several lots or portions which they had taken by the Lords appointment or by mutual consent as their particular Bishopricks or Dioceses for the more orderly carrying on of the work some staying at Jerusalem as St. James the Elder and the other James surnamed the Just where they were slain others dispersed themselves as St. Peter who went to Antioch Alexandria and Rome there planting eminent Churches appointing Bishops over them as Euodius at Antioch Mark at Alexandria Clemens and Linus at Rome one for the Circumcision the other for the Uncircumcision which Churches ever after even before the Nicene Council had the eminence of Patriarchal seats as afterward Jerusalem and Constantinople had The Histories of the Church either Sacred or Ecclesiastical are not punctual or exact in setting forth the several Countries to which the Apostles divided themselves or where they most resided and at last ended their days nor is it material it being sufficiently clear that as they did not at first so confine themselves to one place or Country as to exclude any other Apostles from coming thither so they went some one or more of them to all chief parts to Syria Arabia Persia India Ethiopia Armenia Scythia Asia the Less and Greater all Greece Illyricum Italy Spain France Germany Cyprus Britanny Africa and all the rest of the grand parts of the then-known World Continents and Islands where at last they either fixed in their old age as St. John did at Ephesus or were martyred leaving besides the Monuments of their preaching and miracles their Apostolical Seats supplied by an orderly Subordination and authoritative Succession of such Bishops and Presbyters Pastors and Teachers able and faithful men as they had Commission to ordain and did authorize for their successors in that holy Ministry spirit and power of Christ which was to continue to the end of the World for the further planting propagating and preserving the Church of Christ by such Doctrine Government and Discipline as they for the main rules and ends clearly by word and practise delivered to them which was then as their Faith Baptism and Hope but one among all Churches in the all world single Christians private Families of them small Congregations little Villages greater Cities ample Territories large Provinces great and small Churches as to their several distributions for conveniency of actual converse and communicating in holy Mysteries had still but one and the same Polity Order Discipline Ministry Government and Communion no Variety no Difformity no Deformity in Doctrine or Discipline among any Orthodox Christians but every one observed that Place Office Duty and Proportion wherein God by the Apostles and their successors had set him or them in relation to the whole Church as well as to that particular part or Congregation of it to which he was more locally and personally joyned yet mentally spiritually charitably cordially and consentiently he still adhered to the Catholick Conformity and Unity according to that holy Polity and Oeconomy which the Spirit of Christ in the Apostles first and for ever established so far as the nature of times and Gods providence would permit that as there was but one God and one Lord Jesus Christ so there might be but one Church one chast Virgin as the Spouse of Christ in all places For these holy Husbandmen and chief Labourers in Christs Vineyard the twelve or thirteen Apostles did not think it sufficient to teach to catechize to convert to baptize to confirm to communicate to admonish
me very sore yet heal me O my father and I shall be healed save me and I shall be saved for thou art my praise O be not thou a terrour to me who art my hope in the day of evil CHAP. V. THus may the Church of England be heard in every Closet and in every Congregation where devout souls either retire or meet sighing out its Sorrows and deploring its great Miseries sufficient to move the compassions of all those who have any filiall and gratefull respect to Her upon whose welfare as to the unity peace and prosperity of the true Christian and Reformed Religion all sober English-men may easily foresee that their own and their posterity's happinesse spirituall temporall and eternall under God doth chiefly depend It is the infinite grief of all good Patriots and true Protestants to see this sometime so famous and flourishing Church of England in danger to be eaten up not by a Sea-monster like Andromeda or by that over-grown Leviathan of Rome which takes his pastime in great waters and rules over many Nations People and Languages but by small vermine by a company for the most part of creeping and corroding Sectaries home-bred and home-fed like that tame Lizard or Dragon as Suetonius calls it which Tiberius Nero kept at Capreae which was eaten up with ants or pismires to the Emperour 's great grief and astonishment as an unhappy presage of his own fate by the fury of the multitude or like the Lions in Mesopotamia who are destroyed by gnats their importunity being such in those paludious places that the Lions by rubbing their eyes grow blind and so are drowned as Ammianus Marcellinus reports in his History of Julians wars If nothing else yet as Sir Henry Wotton glories in his sentence the very itching scratching of Christians eyes the scrupulous doubtings the vexatious disputings and endlesse janglings about Religion in England both as Christian and as Reformed already hath and daily will bring down such a Rheume and blood-shottennesse into mens eyes that unlesse some soveraign eye-salve be timely applied the most people will in a few years be onely fit to play at blind-man-buff in Religion taking what heresie or fancy comes next to hand and changing it the next day rather groping at all adventure in the dark than clearly discerning and conscientiously chusing the weighty matters of Religion which are hardly discovered when the blind lead the blind and â—s hardly either embraced when once practising is turned into prating and the power of godlinesse into pragmatick pomp or popular contempt Such is the sad and shamefull fate of the Church of England now like to be which heretofore never wanted nor yet doth such champions as durst undertake her defence against any who bring arguments not arms strong reasons and not long swords Scripture-demonstrations and not Scepticall declamations pious Antiquity and not partial Novelty But now It hath not the honour to be opposed or overcome by any such Antagonists whose learning wit and eloquence speciously managed would lessen the disgrace but She is in danger to be over-born by such petty parties such obscure animals such mechanick pieces and for the most part such illiterate wretches that it is not onely a grief but a shame to see so comely a Matron crowded and as it were stifled to death by a company of Scolds and Shrews a generation of men and women extremely unbred of passionate rude spitefull and plebeian spirits many of them the very abjects of man-kind viler then the earth as Job speaks whose manners are much baser then their fortunes which embase no good man who owe most of their stickling activities to their worldly necessities and conscious to their want of reall worth and abilities they seek to revenge their grosse defects either by their sacrilegious flatteries of others or by a rusticall fiercenesse of their own against the Church of England as if flailes and fannes and shovels and spades were the fittest instruments to thrash and purge such a Church or to discusse and ventilate the weighty matters of Religion as to a sober Christian Reformation O happy England who art of late bless'd with so cheap so easie so inspired so rare Reformers who get more skill in one dayes confidence in one nights dreaming or one hours quaking than modest Scholars either Divines or other Gentlemen can obtain in twice seven years study O how fruitfull is Faction how spreading is Schisme when they are fitted with soile and season These new-bred Creepers which are now so numerous and noxious in England are generally but the spawn or fly-blowings of those elder Sects and Factions which a long time have been buzzing and breeding in the bosome of the Church of England under the name of Disciplinarians whos 's first Authors long ago made some Essayes for their desired Innovations by modester indeed yet very popular wayes of remonstrances and supplications well knowing that it is ever welcome to the vulgar to see any fault found with their betters or any project of subjecting their superiours under any more Plebeian rigours and severities The next and worse abettors pejor aetas tried how far they might by scurrilous pamphlets railing reviling like Rabshakeh unravel the cords of all government both the majesty of the Civil and the authority of the Ecclesiastick After such biting Petitions and Satyrick Pasquils worthy of such Martonists came open menacings of Princes and Parlaments Priests and People too as Mr. R. Hooker observes in his Preface to his Ecclesiastical polity At last words came to be turned into swords many both at home and abroad having evil will at the Sion of England making their advantages of our unhappy differences in civil affairs and taking fire from those flames have sought by the licentiousnesse riot and rudenesse of infinite Sects and Factions as by so many trains and barrels of gunpowder utterly to blow up the whole frame and constitution of the Church of England Which unchristian practises and cruell designs that they might the better justifie or palliate to their credulous followers they every where as boldly as falsly affirm that both in the matter constituted and the form constituting a true Church in ordinances duties priviledges members ministrations Ministry communion and all comforts necessary for Christians there were few things in the Church of England tolerable most were blameable and many most abominable to their more sanctified senses yea some men clamour that there was nothing sound or constitutive of a Church of Christ but the whole head was sick and the whole heart faint that not onely Schisme is commendable but absolute Separation is as necessary from the Church of England as the going of Gods people out of Babylon These are the poysons with which some Serpents have sought to infect the minds of common people and to envenom even the better sort with their biting and bitter invectives against the purity and peace of the Church
wherein our blessed Saviour slept with whose Disciples we may well cry out Master save us we perish What tongue what pen can sufficiently set forth the rudenesses outrages barbarities despites diminutions and indignities which some have offered in their speeches and writings in their pamphlets and petitions in their restlesse agitations and implacable malice against all that was established in the Church of England contrary to that duty of Charity they owed and that profession of Communion they sometimes professed being possessed now with so fierce a spirit that they have broken all cords and bands of Humanity Civility Charity and Piety both private and publick I shall not need to mind you or any of them of their many oaths and subscriptions of those Protestations Vowes and Covenants which many of these now deserters and destroyers of the Church of England so easily and eagerly swallowed by which last three-fold cord most of them I believe tied themselves to maintain the Protestant Religion as it was established in the Church of England If any of them were so wise and cautious as to avoid such politick gins which how far they intended well to Church or State God only knows this to be sure all sober Christians see that they have little advanced the state of the Reformed Religion in England yet still they must know that themselves and all that are good Christians and honest English are bound by far higher and nobler bonds of their baptismall Vow and Covenant to their God and Saviour from whence do necessarily flow those of Christian gratitude duty love and charity obliging every good Christian to pray for and preserve the welfare of this Church and that Reformed Religion which was once happily established in it in which the glory of our God the honour of our Saviour the good of our Countrey and the salvation of many thousand souls are highly concerned Against all which for any man upon small or no account rashly proudly spitefully out of envy covetousnesse ambition or any other depraved lust and passion to offend especially where so great light of Divine Truth and Grace such a presence and pregnancy of Gods Spirit clearly shines as doth in the Church of England to the very dazling of the eyes of these Adversaries must needs be such a complicated and resolved wickedness a sin of so enormous and transcendent a nature that Irenaeus counts it a mangling or killing of Christ again and in earnest it seems scarce pardonable because 't is scarce a repentable sin or repairable malice therefore hardly to be repented of because few can plead with S. Paul they do it ignorantly and so hope to obtain mercy being wilfull persecutors and vastators of such an excellent and illustrious Church as this of England was before these spoilers thus came upon it to make havock of it In which Church if those holy Means and Divine Graces which accompany salvation were not professed and enjoyed for my part I despair any where to find the way of Truth and Peace of holinesse and happinesse I know nothing truly excellent and necessary in any Church ancient or later which this Church of England did not enjoy yea I find many things which seem lesse convenient or more superfluous in others we were happily freed from Nor can I yet discover any materiall defect in the Church of England as to Christians outward polity inward tranquillity and eternal felicity Nothing either pious or peacefull morall or mysterious rituall or spirituall orderly or comely that may contribute to the good of mens souls but was plentifully to be enjoyed in the Church of England whose rare accomplishments and prosperity both inward and outward were I believe the greatest eye-sore and grievance in the world both to evil men and devils when they saw that Truth and Holinesse those Graces and Vertues those spirituall gifts and comforts which were here entertained with excellent learning noble encouragements ingenuous honours peaceable serenity and munificent plenty in all which the Reformed Church of England so flourished many years by Gods and mans indulgence that nothing in truth was wanting to the perpetuity of its prosperity but moderation humility and charity these would on all sides have kept out luxury and lazinesse pride and envy the usuall moths and worms which breed in all things that are full and fair opulent and prosperous Which humane defects justly blameable on mans part and punishable on Gods may no way be imputed to the Church of England which afforded so great advantages of wel-doing wel-being to all good Christians but to us poor mortalls who were prone to abuse so great Indulgences of God and man so uncharitable unthankfull and unreasonable are those malecontents who blame the fulnesse of the breast or the sweetness of that milk honey of which they have eat and drank too much who either from other mens failings and infirmities or from their own corrupt fancies and conceits do take occasion to blast and blaspheme all that was Reformed sacred and setled as to Religion in the Church of England so filling all places with their dust and clamours against this Church that the levity and easinesse of many people have quite forsaken it running like those that are scared with Earthquakes out of their houses cities and temples to heaths woods and wildernesses Some out of a sequacious easinesse and vulgar basenesse studying to comply with their leaders interests and their own advantages affect to appear to the world not onely neglective and indifferent but scorners and high opposers of all that ever the Church of England pretended to as to the Truth Reformation Wisdome Spirit Power or Grace of Religion neither caring what they condemn nor much minding upon what grounds they do it Others taking advantage of the levity loosenesse covetousnesse sacriledge arrogancy injuriousnesse and madnesse of some that heretofore professed speciall purity and strictnesse in Religion do resolve as those Heathens of old who excused their own thefts and wantonnesses by the lubricities and pranks of their Gods fully to gratifie their own licentious native inclinations how inordinate soever utterly casting off and abhorring all outward form and profession as well as all inward power and perswasion of godlinesse counting all Religious duties to be no better than consecrated rattles which Polititians put into the hands of the common people to please and compose their childish frowardnesse The ground and rise of all which is from those many scandals which loose and unsetled tempers take from those endlesse strifes and janglings the continued disorders and deformities the poverty and contempt the maimes and wounds the cruelty and uncharitablenesse with which some high-flown Reformers have of late treated the Church of England and those that have most constantly adhered to it What man or woman capable of such profound serious and grave thoughts as become Christian Religion whose lusts or interests have not quite decocted all Humanity as well as Piety can
Attorneys among whom although Ministers find some very just ingenuous and generous Gentlemen lovers of Learning Religion Equity Order and of their Mother the Church of England yet others of them savour so strong of the apron antipathy of a rustick mechanick and illiterate breeding besides that factious and peevish temper which they have lately added to their other perfections that in good earnest the sober and sound Ministers of the Church of England are as unwelcome to them as cold water is to their feet in winter or vinegar to their aking teeth or smoke to their sore eyes which they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many wayes and oft expressed by their looks words gestures actions some of them treating aged grave godly venerable and most deserving Divines much their betters God and man knows in all true worth not onely with rudenesse and petulancy but with such bitternesse haughtinesse and disdain as they would not shew to a Foot-man or Lacquey related to any person whom they either fear love or esteem Herod was civill to John Baptist in comparison These puffe and swell they bite and threaten as Ahab did at Eliah or Micaiah counting these Ministers though never so supple humble tame trembling before their good Worships as enemies because they hold to the Catholick truth and as troublers of their Israel because they will not be flatterers of their new fancies in Religion because they persist in a judicious and consciencious owning their Orders and asserting their Ministry which is their chiefest honour because they will not yet fall down and worship the imaginations which some men seek to set up in England because they follow the Primitive order constancy and verity not complying with that ignorance levity vulgarity Schisme and Apostasie against the Church of England wherewith some men are so delighted without any sense of sin or shame though never so much against that duty gratitude love honour estimation and communion which they owed to the Church of England and the worthy Ministers of it CHAP. XXX THis I write to you O nobler Christians and my Honoured Countrymen as with great certainty sorrow and sympathy in regard of my Brethren the Ministers of this Church so with the greater freedome because it neither hath been nor is my particular case through Gods mercy either to be considerably injured or in any degree over-awed by common people much lesse by any men in Power either Military or Civill Nor have I any cause to complain of the generality of my own people as to any want of justice gratitude or civility expectable from persons of their size and proportion Yet my own experience teacheth me to have the more sensible belief of many other Ministers sad complaints who having it may be lesse advantages above their people and much depending upon them are forced in a very low posture to truckle under such factious imperious and injurious spirits as they meet withall There is I find no flock of Pigeons so pure and entire but there will be some Stares Jack-dawes and Rooks among them no people so modest and ingenuous so respective and submissive to their Ministers but there will be some surly and supercilious petulant and insolent spirits among them No Minister of any good name and merit is so exalted in the love and respect of his people but he will have some messenger of Satan to buffet him some Judas among his Disciples that will be prone to betray him to traduce him privately and publiquely to make him an offender for a word to suck poyson as Spiders out of the sweetest flowers of his zeal piety charity and oratory turning honey into gall and requiting evill for good I could give you if you wanted daily experiences some neer and notable instances how respective how gentle how good-natur'd how gratefull how civill some people are to their Ministers since they have taken the liberty to be rude petulant insolent unholy unthankfull I have seen how much they disdain to pay any more civility or outward respect to their Minister than they challenge to themselves or than they give to their meanest comrades which are of the same bran and barrell with themselves yea some of them have taken a glory and pleasure to shew incivility rudenesse contemptuousnesse in words and behaviour as well as looks more passionate malapert and imperious to their Ministers than they durst be toward a petty Constable or a Bum-baily some of them so unthankfull that for twice seven years constant pains among them they never returned any acknowledgment some have not been ashamed to use down-right railing scorn and ruffling to their faces others behind their back Some are so conceited of themselves that they have adventured to dictate and prescribe in a way even haughty and menacing what their Minister should doe and say There want not some aguish and feaverish Auditors who heare onely by fits when they list others are great criticks and severe censurers whose wanton curiosity useth Sermons as Walnuts they crack them and peel them and cast away the greatest part of them with great nicety eating little and digesting lesse of sound doctrine Some have high conceits that they can preach better than my self I or any Minister Some have begun a clownish contest with their Minister at the Font bringing their children to Baptism with such indifferency as when one was asked by his Minister if he desired to have his child baptized in the Christian Faith he answered very surlily Yes if you can doe it Another with great peremptorinesse refused to have his Child baptized unlesse the Minister would doe it himself though he pleaded with truth his great wearinesse after twice Preaching that day and desired another Minister then assistant and present might doe it as was usuall But he stiffe-girl and inexorable went with a short turn out of the Church carrying his child with him nor ever after offered it that I know to be baptized although he was intreated with great gentleness and kindness These are the religious demeanours and deeds of some people that I have known Nor am I a stranger to those garlands and flowers of rustick oratory and civil behaviour wherewith some true plebeians do crown the heads of their Ministers with as much love and respect as those did who platted a crown of thorns on Christs head I have heard and read the language of some of their tongues and pens too for they dare to scribble as well as babble nor doth their goose-quill want teeth any more than their lips do the poyson of Asps sufficient to exercise the best Antidotes of Christian patience and charity which any true Minister bears about him I have seen sometime the virulent letters of some of these Scribes and Pharisees as full of contempt insolency and menacing as their little wits and great malice could invent and this from such as have been sometime personally obliged and to whom their Minister willingly never gave the
successions of Christianity imparted to the Infants of Christian Parents who own their own Baptisme and continue in the Churches communion professing to believe that covenant of God made to them and their children as Gods people or Christs Disciples for the remission of sins original and actual through the blood of Christ Against which gracious sign of the Evangelicall covenant sealing the truth of the Gospel conferring the grace of it also distinguishing as by a visible mark of Church-fellowship the Infants of Christians or believers from those of heathens and professed unbelievers who are strangers to the flock of Christ the Anabaptists have ever since their rise in Germany which is about 130 years been not so much fair and candid disputants as bitter and reprochfull enemies for the most part not modestly doubting or civilly denying it as to their own private judgements with a latitude of charity to such in all the Christian world who from the Apostles dayes have and do retain Infant-Baptisme but as if all the Church had erred till their dayes they imperiously deny it they rudely despise it they scurrilously disdain and mock at the baptisme of Infants as wholly void and null therefore they repeat Baptisme to their Disciples whence they have their name CHAP. VII IN this one vexatious Controversie heretofore happily setled in the Church of England both by doctrine and practise conform to all Antiquity I presume as much hath been said and wrote on either side as the wit of man can well invent or the nature of the thing bear and possibly more than can well agree with Christian Charity on either side if the difference were onely as to a circumstance of time and not about the very essence or substance of our Baptisme against which the spirit and design of the Anabaptists doth so fiercely drive that by absolutely nulling all Infant-baptism in the Church of Christ they might overthrow not onely the honour fidelity and credit of this Church but of all other yea and the whole frame even to the foundation of all Christian ministrations priviledges comforts and communion both in England and all Christian Churches through the world as if all we had done said or enjoyed as Christian Ministers and people had been irregular confused inauthoritative invalid all things of Religion having been begun and continued exhibited and received by such Ministers and people as had no visible right to any Christian duties or priviledges in a church-Church-communion as having never been baptized after the way which Christ instituted so that their claim to be Christians or Churches is as false and insufficient as theirs is to an estate of which they have no deed seal or seisin but what are false or counterfeit By which high and bold reproch of the Anabaptists against this and all other Churches from the beginning it must follow that contrary to Christs promise the gates of Hell have so long prevailed against the Catholick Church in so great a concern as this Sacrament must needs be which being made void and null as to any initiation obsignation and confirmation of all Evangelicall gifts graces and priviledges it will follow not onely that all the Ministry and ministrations of the Church have been illegitimate invalid irregular being acted dispensed and received by such as had no right title or authority to them being persons unbaptized but also all the faith and repentance all the confessions and absolutions all the celebrations and consecrations of the Lords Supper all the perceptions of grace and spirituall comfort all sense of peace joy love of God and Christian charity all the patience and hopes of all Christians as Believers Confessors Martyrs all must be either very defective of Christs order and method or meerly fancifull and superstitious or grosly presumptuous preposterous and wholly impertinent because wanting the first root of Christian Religion the badge and band of Christs Disciples right or lawfull true and valid Baptisme So that however God guided his Church in all other things aright yet in this it seems to have erred a Catholick errour so far that in stead of one Baptisme which the Apostle urgeth as concurrent with other unities of Christian accord as one God one Faith one Body one Christ one Head c. all which the true Church retained constantly there must have been no Baptisme at all for the greatest part of 1600 years in which time as generally before so universally after the Church had peace all Christians brought their Infants to Baptisme Which abominable consequence or conclusion following the Anabaptistick opinion and practise seems to me so uncharitable so immodest so absurd so cruel so every-way unworthy of any good Christian who understands the fidelity exactnesse and constancy of primitive and persecuted Churches in following the way once delivered to them by Christ and his Apostles from which they were so far from an easie receding that they rather chose to die that this jealousie and scandall rather becomes Turks Jews Heathens Hereticks and Infidels or down-right Atheists than any good Christians so far to charge openly or but secretly indeed to suspect the fidelity honesty and integrity of the Catholick Church nor do I see how any judicious sober and humble Christian can with charity comfort and good conscience entertain and promote so horrid a jealousie and censure of all the Christian world as if having kept the two Testaments intire which I suppose the Anabaptists do not deny or doubt yet they had lost one of the two Sacraments and that which is the first foundation main hinge and centre of all the Churches polity priviledges community and unity in this world both to Christ and to each other It is not my purpose in this place or work which is rather to deplore the lapsed state of this Church than to dispute this or any other point long ago setled in this and all true Churches my aim is not to tire you my honoured Countrey-men with drawing over the rough sand of this controversie at large which hath of late by sharp reciprocations made such deep wounds or incisions on this Churches face and peace agreeable to the practise and spirit of the Anabaptists wherever they come and prevail Onely give me leave since this Anabaptistick poyson is still pregnant in this Nation in order to move your compassions to the Church of England and your love to the truth of God as it is in Jesus to shew you how unjustly She hath and still doth suffer yea and is daily more threatned by this sort of men who upon weak and shallow pretensions seek to overthrow so great so ancient so Catholick so Primitive so Apostolick so Scriptural so Christian a practise and priviledge as that is of baptizing the Infants of Christian Professors First the Anabaptists cannot with any forehead or face of reason and therefore the soberest of them do not deny but that the Infants of Christians have both in respect of sinfull
and defiance of all that went before who I beseech you of most ordinary Christians who are yet agitated by their youthfull lusts and unbridled passions will be so constant as to hold fast that profession which formerly they had taken up Who will continue to venerate that Church and Clergy whose heads they see crowned with thornes and their faces besmeared with blood and dirt whose comelinesse is deformed with the spittings buffetings and scornes of those that seek to expose them to open shame and to fasten them to the Crosse of death and infamy Alas they will not at all regard in a short time any orders of the Church or any ordination of Ministers or any sacred ordinances and mysteries dispensed by them since no pleas never so pregnant and unanswerable for the Antiquity Uniformity and Constancy of that way and method which was used in all ages and places of the Church of Christ since no gracious and glorious successes attending such ordaining Bishops and such ordained Presbyters since nothing prevailes against vulgar prejudices and extravagancies provoked by that impatient itch they alwaies have after novelties Many we see will have no Ordination no Ministers no Sacraments rather than Bishops should have any hand in ordaining The honor of that Ordination which was in all ancient Churches must be cruelly sacrificed with all ancient and Catholick Episcopacy rather then some mens passions for a parity or popularity or an Anarchy in the Church be not gratified All Bishops as such and all Presbyters and all Christians and all Churches and all holy duties performed by them in that station and communion must be cryed down yea thrown down as the adulteratings and prostitutions of the Churches Liberty and of the purity of Christs Ordinances The hands of Bishops and Presbyters too though joyned and imposed in Ordination must be declared as impure vile and invalid yea a flat novel and impertinent distinction must be found out to vacate the Bishops eminency and yet to assert the Presbyters parity and sole power as resting in any three two or one of them though never so petty poor and pittifull men in all respects naturall and civill sacred and morall Yet these forsooth some fancy as Presbyters may still ordain because a Bishop say they did so meerly as a Presbyter of the same degree and order not as having any eminency of office degree authority or jurisdiction above the meanest Minister which St. Jerom and all antiquity acknowledged as a branch of Apostolicall dignity and eminency peculiar to a Bishop above any one or more Presbyters Which reproches against the persons power and practise of Bishops in England as usurpers and monopolizers in this point of ordination which they ever challenged and exercised as their peculiar honor office and dignity in this as all Churches if they could by any Reason or Scripture by Law of God or Man by any judgement or practise of any one Church or of any one godly and renowned Christian in any age or History of the Church be verified so as to make their power of ordination to be but a subtile or forcible usurpation in Bishops it would have been not onely an act of high Justice to have abrogated all the pretensions of Bishops to that or any power in the Church but it will be a work of admiration yea of astonishment to the worlds end in all after-ages and successions of Christian Religion which will hardly last another 1500 yeares to consider the long and strong delusion which possessed the Christian world in this point of Ordination as onely regular and complete by Bishops where their presence and power might be enjoyed Nor will it be more matter of everlasting wonder to ponder not onely Gods long permission of such a strong delusion but his prospering it so much and so long as a principall meanes to preserve and propagate the Ministry Order Government Peace and Power of true Religion and the true Churches of Christ which were never without Bishops as Spirituall Fathers begetting as Epiphanius speakes both Presbyters and people to the Church Nor will it be the work of an ordinary wit whether Presbyterian or Independent to salve all those aspersions and diminutions of either ignorance and blindness or fatuity and credulity or weaknesse and impotency which must necessarily fall from this account not onely upon the wisest and best Church-men but upon the most Christian and wise Princes the most zealous and reformed Parlaments of England who in the grand Reformation of this Church and ever since for neer an 100. yeares have after grave counsell and mature debate approved and appointed countenanced by a law and incouraged by their actuall submission the ordination of Ministers chiefly by the authority of Bishops never without them And this they did certainly not out of policy but piety not in prudence onely but in conscience convinced not only of the lawfulnesse of Bishops but of the necessity of them where Providence doth not absolutely hinder or deny them as it never did in England or elsewhere by the example of the Apostles by the ancient constant and uniform practise of this and all Churches by the suffrages of all Learned and Godly men of any account in all ages To all which were added as great preponderatings in behalfe of Episcopacy the many and most incomparable Bishops that have been in all successions of the Church the many Martyrs Confessors excellent Preachers Writers and Governours of that order lastly the unspeakable blessings which by their Ordination Consultation and Jurisdiction have been derived to the Church of Christ If all Estates in the Reformed Church of England have been hitherto deceived as to this point of Episcopall Ordination by Bishops sure they are the more excusable because they have erred with all the Christian world Nor could they be justly blamed if when they reformed superfluous Superstition they yet abhorred in this point so great and dangerous an innovation which must needs shake and overthrow the faith of many if the peculiar office and power of Bishops to ordaine Ministers and governe the Church were either onely usurped or wholly invalid as some of late have pretended not with more clamor than falsity But if all these jealousies and reproches cast upon Bishops and their Authoritative Ordination as a peculiar office and exercise of power eminently residing in them be most false and by some mens calumnies heightned to such impudent lies that no eructations of Hell or belchings of Beelzebub had ever more blackness of darknesse in them or more affrontive to the glory God and the Honor of the Catholick Church whence I beseech you O my Noble and worthy Countrymen is that dulness stupor and indifferency come upon us in England so far as not onely connives at the arrogancy of some Presbyters who without Scripture-precept or Catholick-patterne challenge this ordaining and Governing power as onely and wholly due to themselves discarding all Episcopall Eminency and Authority above them but
ἹεÏá½° ΔάκÏυα Ecclesiae Anglicanae Suspiria THE TEARS SIGHS COMPLAINTS AND PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Setting forth Her former Constitution compared with Her present Condition ALSO The visible Causes and probable Cures of Her Distempers In IV. BOOKS By JOHN GAUDEN D.D. of Bocking in Essex Jer. 8.28 Is there no Balm in Gilead is there no Physician there Why then is not the health of the Daughter of my people recovered DEPRESSA RESVRGO LONDON Printed by J. G. for R. ROYSTON at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1659. ECCLESIA ANGLICANA PROTEGE PASCE DUX MEA IN TENEBRAS ET GAUDIUM IN MEROREM VT PELLICANA IN DESERTO Proprio vos sanguine pasco Nunquam CHRISTO Charior quam sub Cruce gemens Illustrissimis ANGLICANAE GENTIS Nobilibus Omniúmque Ordinum Generosis ingenuis Qui Natales Eruditione Eruditionem Virtute Virtutem Fide Fidem Moribus Verè Christianis Sanctitate Suavitatéque conspicuis Vel exaequarunt vel exuperarunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnibus Religionis Christianae Tam à Romanistarum Faece Scabie Quà m Fanaticorum Spumâ Rabie Reformatae Professoribus Hoc est verbo vitâque vindicibus Haec ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE MATRIS Olim Florentissimae nunc Afflictissimae Lugentis Languentis Suspirantis Et tantum non Expirantis Lacrymas Suspiria Planctus Preces Summa cum Reverentia Debitáque Observantia Pro Charitate Sympathia Quâ decuit Humillimum in Christo Servum D. D. D. J. G. THE CONTENTS The Preface or Address p. 1 BOOK I. Setting forth the present Distresses of the Church of England CHAP. I. THE Name and Thing the Title and Truth of the Church of England asserted p. 23 II. Primitive Piety and Prudence utterly against Schismatick dividing or mincing of Churches into small bodies or parcels p. 35 III. The present afflictions of the Church of England no argument against Her National and well-Reformed Constitution p. 46 IV. The England's Complaint p. 51 V. The cruel and unjust enmity of some against the Church of England p. 60 VI. The causeless malice and ingratitude of the England's enemies p. 64 VII Of the excellent Constitution of the Church of England and her undeserved calamities p. 68 VIII A furtâ—â—â—â— scrutiny and discovery of the England's miseries and enemies p. 73 CHAP. IX A general Vindication of the England's former excellent Constitution although it be now afflicted p. 76 X. Mr. Hooker's Defense of the Church of England unanswered and unanswerable p. 83 XI The excellent Constitution of the Church of England as to its Doctrinals p. 86 XII The Devotionals of the Church of England asserted p. 87 XIII The Ceremonies of the Church of England no meritorious cause of Her miseries p. 96 XIV A second Objection against the Church of England from Church-mens personal failings p. 114 Book II. Searching the Causes and Occasions of the Church of England's Decayes CHAP. I. HOW farre they conveniently may not and how farre they may be searched into p. 137 II. Inordinate Liberty in religious affairs the chief cause of miseries in the Church of England p. 139 CHAP. III. What Christian liberty is desirable and tolerable among people p. 143 IV. Of Plebeian rudeness and licentiousness in Religion if left to themselves p. 150 V. Instances of abused Liberty in the vulgar neglect of reading the Scriptures p. 153 VI. Vulgar neglect and scorn of Ancient Forms of wholsom words in the Decalogue Creed and Lords-Prayer p. 156 VII The Innovations Usurpations and Vastations made by some upon the Order Office and Authority of the Evangelical Ministry p. 159 VIII The pretensions of Intruders to excuse their wants p. 167 IX Of Ministerial sufficiencies real or pretended p. 171 X. What caution Christians ought to use as to those Ministers with whom they intrust the care of their souls p. 175 XI Of late new models for making Ministers of the Gospel p. 181 XII The false and foolish pretensions urged against the Ministry of England p. 188 XIII An impartial balancing of the old and new Ministers p. 190 XIV A charitable plea for the ancient Clergie of the Church of England against the ingratitude and indifferency of some men p. 193 CHAP. XV. The best of the new Teachers compared with the Ministers of England p. 195 XVI A farther sifting of these new Teachers p. 197 XVII The modesty gravity sanctity and solidity of true Ministers c. p. 200 XVIII The designs ends of fanatick Libertines fatal to the Reformed Religion p. 202 XIX An humble and earnest expostulation in the behalf of the people and Church of England p. 204 XX. The rudeness irreverence expressed by some in religious duties as a part of their Liberty p. 211 XXI The sad exchange people make of their old Religion for new Raptures p. 212 XXII The foul mistakes abuses of Christian liberty in vulgar spirits p. 214 XXIII A further discovery of mischiefs from abused liberty in Religion p. 217 XXIV The contagion of abused or mistaken Liberty spread among Ministers to the dividing debasing and destroying of them p. 221 XXV Unavoidable contentions among Ministers of different ordinations p. 224 XXVI The folly and factions of Ministers evidently seen and punished in their common calamities p. 233 CHAP. XXVII The great diminutions of all sorts of Ministers in England as to all civil respects p. 235 XXVIII The sordid envy and grudging against Ministers Tithes and Glebes p. 240 XXIX Ministers condition not to be envied but pitied p. 243 XXX Experimental instances how petulant some people are to their Ministers p. 245 XXXI The personal sufferings of Ministers after all their pains merits and troubles p. 248 XXXII Discouragements to ingenuous men to be made Ministers in England in after-times p. 254 XXXIII A worthy Ministry not expectable unless there be a worthy usage and entertainment p. 257 BOOK III. Setting forth the Evil Consequences felt or feared from the Distractions of Religion in England CHAP. I. DEcays in Godliness as to the former generation of Christians p. 261 II. â— Decayes of godliness as to the new brood and later off-spring of meaner Christians p. 267 III. The evil consequences infesting Christians of better quality p. 270 CHAP. IV. Prophaneness the fruit of unsetledness in Religion p. 273 V. Ministers molested by endless vexatious disputes p. 275 VI. The endless bickerings with Anabaptists c. now in England p. 278 VII The perverse disputings of Anabaptists aganst Infant-baptism p. 281 VIII The weakness of Anabaptists grounds against Infant-Baptism p. 283 IX The Catholick strength for Infant-Baptism p. 286 X. Of right reasoning from Scripture p. 289 XI Of the Churches Catholick custome and testimony p. 291 XII The sin of presumptuous delaying and denying baptism to Infants p. 295 XIII The dangerous effects principles of Anabaptism p. 297 XIV The Romish advantages by the divisions and deformities of the Church of England p. 300 XV. The wide and just distances between the Reformed and Romanists p. 305 XVI
dissociate sever and withdraw it self from that grand community and Nationall subordination which is justly esteemed by all wise men and therefore exacted by wise Governours as most necessary for the safety peace strength and honour of the Nation And can it I beseech YOU be thought by any wise and honest men to be lesse safe honourable and necessary for the people of England who were all heretofore professedly Christians and baptized to live in an Ecclesiasticall unity in a Catholick order in a Nationall religious polity Is there no weaknesse deformity or danger to be observed feared and avoided in all these breakings dividings shatterings schismes separatings sidings strifes envies animosities contempts cruelties factions furies whence grow confusion and every evill work as S. James tells us Jam. 3.16 with all which this Church and so the whole Nation is now much over-grown as to matters of Religion past all private help and recovery Requiring no lesse publique care united counsels and authoritative endeavours to compose and heale these Ecclesiastique or Church-distempers than those civill disjoyntings and disaffections doe under which this State hath long laboured and which are yet scarce fully healed After so many cuttings and lancings blisterings and blood-lettings which I doe not think proper remedies for such religious maladies as are not yet ulcerated to immoralities 'T is true indeed as Optatus speaks That each particular Churches welfare is much concerned in that of the Civill State or Common-wealth where it is imbarqued Yet it is as true which the Emperour Theodosius said to S. Cyril That the happinesse of these doth no lesse depend upon the purity of Religion and peace of the Church in which they are so bound up as Jacobs soule was in Benjamins that they live and die together As some of your Fore-fathers and Countrymen have in my memory found it so will YOU and your Posteritie That it is no piece of Good husbandry so to look to your own sieled houses as to neglect the Temple of God yea that part of the Bodie of Christ which is at least was in this Nation under the glorious name and title of The Church of England Sometimes famous and flourishing now grievously wounded and wasted torn and mangled dis-joynted and divided having many yeers suffered the Strapado in England as to the Christian and Reformed Religion In which behalf as the freedome of my present publique Addresse to YOU my Honoured and beloved Countrymen ariseth from the highest and best motives in the world so I hope it confines it self to that Sphere which is most proper for Me as a Minister of the Gospel Not onely a Professor with You but duly ordained to be a Preacher among You of that Christian reformed Religion which hath been wisely established and mightily prospered in the Church of England In whose honour and happinesse which chiefly depend upon the continuation and restauration of the true Christian and Reformed Religion since I know You are as good Christians and honest Englishmen most highly concerned both as to your persons and your posteritie I presume it will not be either unsuitable to Me or unacceptable to You That I here endeavour with all Christian freedome and faithfulnesse to present to your serious consideration First The present distresses of the Church of England Secondly The causes or occasions of them Thirdly The evill and dangerous consequences of them Fourthly The probable remedies and preventions of them So far as God hath enabled me to understand and expresse them Whose gracious assistance in the first place I most humbly implore Next I crave the pardon prayers and acceptance of all wise and worthy persons Their pardon for my boldnesse and defects Their prayers for Gods gracious direction Their acceptance of my honest endeavours which I chiefly devote after the Divine glory to your service under the most endearing notions of my Countrymen and Fellow-Christians Whose judicious affections tender compassions prudent counsels and consciencious endeavours attended with discreet zeal fervent prayers and unfeigned tears which are as the sweat of industrious and devout souls in their holy labours and agonies if I may be so far blest as to excite in YOU proportionable to the Majesty sanctity and concernment of this great Subject set before you under the name of The distressed Church of England I make no doubt but I shall by Gods help be an happy instrument at once to procure some peace and rest at least some ease and relief to Her while she may however see her selfe pitied by so many worthy persons which is no small comfort to any in affliction And possibly I may be some means to stave off abate or defeat the restlesse agitations and unreasonable expectations of Her most implacable enemies both at home and abroad Who as the Dragon that gaped upon the woman in the Revelation have already swallowed up whilst it is yet quick and alive this Reformed and sometime united Church of England in their malice and presumptions between Rome and Babylon Superstition and Separation Papal tyrannie and Popular Anarchy Hoping on all sides to make their advantages not onely by this Churches sufferings but by the want of sympathie in her children Whose silence and restivenesse in behalf of this Church and its Reformed Religion must needs prove their sin before God and their shame before all wise and good men in this and after-Ages when they shall see how infinitely this generation of English-men and Christians come short of that duty they owed to their God their Saviour their countrie their own souls and the good of their posteritie which are all included in the welfare of this Church to which they are neerly related in a double regard naturall and spirituall civill and religious as they were born and baptized in Her And here because I know infinite prejudices sinister suspicions and undeserved jealousies are prone like Flies in summer to light upon every thing that is publique and sold as it were in the Shambles I crave leave to present YOU and all men in this Porch or Preface with a true Prospect of my own Integrity as void of private passions and interests a qualification necessary for those that will meddle with Religious concernments This my present importunity and publique Addresse to YOU my worthie and honoured Countrymen is not to give vent to any private discontent forced by any such pressures as Solomon tells us are capable to make a wise man mad nor is it to take or seek revenge upon any that hath offered injury or insolency against me in particular As for private petulancies and indignities I thank God through his mercy and my own Integrity though I am not wholly without them yet I am as much above them as Armour of Proof is above the stings of wasps or hornets As for my publique station or fruitions I must ever with all gratefull humility to God and ingenuity to men acknowledge the great experiences
to excommunicate here and there several Christians and their families as single Slips and Off-sets of Christianity which might grow apart by themselves but their aim was with preaching Verity to plant Unity and with true Faith to graft fraternal Charity which conjoyned them to and with Christ and all Christians in the world This being a most visible mark of Christs Disciples also a special means for mutual assistance and comfort amidst the many persecutions which Christians would meet with sufficient utterly to discourage them if when they were scattered from each other they were presently without any joynt harmony greater combination and ampler communion of Saints by which means whereever Christians fled from one place to another if they met with Christians they were sure of hospitable friends bringing as they ever did letters of communication or commendation from their Bishops which presently made their way to such a kind reception and communion in all holy duties as that station permitted as Catechumens or Penitents or Eucharistical Communicants in which they stood whereever they had lived Therefore as the Apostolical wisdom so all their successors diligently gathered single believers and private families of Christians into greater Congregations these they led on to larger combinations which comprehended the Christians of many Villages Towns Cities and Territories according as the Spirit of Christ directed them for the greater conveniency and benefit of both Ministers and people who scattered in small bodies or parcels must needs be both more cold and more feeble but so united in grand Societies they would be both warmer stronger and safer and besides more eminent and conspicuous in the eyes of all the world Such beyond all doubt were those Apostolical and famous Churches distinguished by the Spirit of God according to the chief Cities which were the centre of their Religious addresses for Church-Order Authority and Communion as the Church of Jerusalem Antioch Rome Ephesus Corinth Sardis Smyrna Colosse with many more whose Cities being most-what Metropolitan or Mother-cities as to secular power and distribution of civil justice they were chosen as meetest for the principal residency of Religious Order Polity and Authority wherein as was meet the blessed Apostles did during their lives preside as Bishops either in their persons or by those faithful Apostolick men whom they as St. Paul did Timothy Titus Archippus others appointed as Rulers or Bishops under them for the carrying on of the service of Christ his Church partly by the common duty and office Ministerial which was to preach baptize celebrate other holy Mysteries in an orderly way even in lesser Congregations yea to private Families and single persons as occasion required which was the work of Bishops and Presbyters in common and partly to manage that presidential power and Episcopal Authority over both Presbyters and people united in larger combinations and Churches as might best preserve the Purity Unity and Honor of the Church and Christian Religion in doctrine and discipline also derive by way of right Ordination after the pattern given to Timothy and Titus and others a continued succession of an holy and authoritative Ministry by such an eminent power of Order as was specially delivered to the chief Apostles and by them to their principal successors as Bishops in those great Apostolical and complete Churches where as Christians increased many Presbyters were ordained by the chief Pastor or Bishop to be both Counsellers and Assistants to him in that Evangelical work of teaching and governing the Church committed to him First as appointed immediately by the chief Apostles while they lived and after as chosen by the surviving Presbyters in every precinct or Diocese to succeed so far in that Apostolical eminency and presidential authority as was necessary for the Churches constant Order and good Government according to that precedent Charter and Commission which all Churches had received from the Apostles and they from Christ not as a temporary Ordinance but such as for the main end and method the Lord would have continued till his coming again by a succession of ordinary Bishops who are a lesser or second sort of Apostles in many things short of their gifts yet having the same ordinary power to ordain Presbyters and Deacons to appoint them their offices and places in the Churches Ministry and to see they execute the same as is meet for the edifying of the Church in Truth and Love to rebuke and reject them in case of failing and obstinacy As the Church daily thus increased spreading its boughs even to the utmost seas still its Polity or Government as the bark or rinde of the Tree enlarged with the body or bulk being most necessary for the preserving both of lesser and greater branches to knit and bind all together to convey the sap and juice to every part and to the whole This once peeled or broken or cut wounds the tree weakens and oft kills that part which is so injured Trees may as well thrive without their bark and bodies live without their skins as Churches without setled and united Government Therefore that all true Christians might still keep a Catholick Correspondence Subordination and holy Communion between the whole and every branch or member they had not onely Deacons above the people but Presbyters above Deacons and Bishops above Presbyters yea and as the borders and numbers of the Church so increased that not onely Presbyters but Bishops grew many and so fit to be put into some method and order they had Archbishops or Metropolitanes above ordinary Bishops and Patriarchs above Archbishops or Metropolitanes and a generall Council above all thus still drawing nearer to a center of union and mutuall intelligence So that first three afterward five Patriarchs had the general Episcopacy Superintendency and Inspection over all the Christian world Nor were these Bishops Metropolitans and Patriarchs any ambitious affectations or forcible intrusions of pride or tyranny upon the Churches of Christ but by a wise and general consent on all sides Christian Bishops did so cast themselves into comely rancks of Subordination after the Apostolical pattern as might most suit to the good order correspondence and unanimity of all Christians as but one Church there being in the first 300. years of sore persecution no other motives to these eminent places and regular orders in the Church of Bishops Archbishops Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs but onely those of Labours and Cares of Sufferings and Martyrdoms which still pressed most upon the Presidents and chief Governours or Bishops of the Churches as was evident in the glorious marks of the Lord Jesus to be seen on the Faces Hands and other parts of the Bodies of those venerable Bishops 318 which met at the first great gaudy-day of the Church in the Council of Nice which all made but one Episcopacy and were Representers as well as Presidents or Rulers of but one Catholick Church After which time by the favour of
violence wrested the staffe out of its hands Presbytery seeming like the plant called Touch me not which flies in the face and breaks in the fingers of those that presse it but Independency as the sensible plant rather yielding to then resisting any hand that is applyed to it This later and softer plant no sooner almost began to be set on foot in England about the year 1650. but it soon gained much ground of Presbytery which had been an old bitten shrub ill rooted and never very florishing or fruitfull and lesse apt to be now at last transplanted But Independency as a new slip or full-shoot springs up apace spreads its roots and branches without any noise erects its Churches as fast as Presbytery could its Consistories out of the ruines of Presbyterians Parishes as well as of Bishops Dioceses Independency hath no great line or out-work to maintain and so can do it with fewer numbers and lesse noise it desired onely in Peace to enjoy it self affecting no forced ambition or unvoluntary Rule over others as did Presbytery it professeth to aime at nothing but a nearer and greater strictnesse of Sanctity Unity and Charity among Christians in their Church-way than it thought could well be had among the larger combinations of Presbyterian or Episcopall Churches which they think are not easily managed without much labour and toile besides offence and complaint because they urge many things as of duty and by constraint when this is onely by every ones free will and consent Nothing is more soft and supple than Independency in its first render branches and blossomes nor is it other than a little Embryo of Episcopacy in a little Parish or Diocese For Bishops Presbyters and People did of old and at first so neerly correspond as Fathers Brethren and Sons of a Family when they were but few and scarce made up one great Congregation in a City where one Minister at first was both Pastor and Teacher Bishop and Presbyter who as Christians increased ordained them Presbyters to carry on the work and yet to keep a filial Correspondency with him and respect to him as became them The pomp and solemnity of Independent Episcopacy is lesse but the Power and Authority Ecclesiasticall is though broken and abrupt yet full as great and absolute as to all Church-uses and intents as ever Bishops challenged How far this willow will grow an oake more rough and robust as it growes Elder Bigger Higher and Stronger no man knowes I presume it cannot have better beginnings of Order Unity Purity Piety Charity Meekness and Wisdom than Episcopacy had in its first Institution which is owned by all learned men to be at least Apostolicall both as to the enlarged Churches made up of many Congregations and the enlarged Authority of one Bishop placed by the Apostles over many Presbyters and Congregations so gathered by them into one Ecclesiastick Society or Combination as those Primitive Churches were in the Scripture Nor can it have more specious and modest beginnings for Purity and Sanctity than some former sects have professed such as were the Novatians and Donatists of which St. Cyprian and Optatus with St. Austin and others give us liberall accounts whose procedings did not answer their beginnings either in Modesty Charity or Equity but from rending from they fell to reviling and ruining all Churches but their own From the rise and advantages which these two new and now almost parallel plants in England Presbytery and Independency neither of which are yet any way grown up comparable to the Procerity Height and Goodliness which Episcopacy had and yet hath as in many Churches of Christ so in many English mens minds notwithstanding that both of them as notable suckers strive all they can to draw away all sap and succour from the old root of Episcopacy that it may quite wither and be extirpated every where as it hath been lately with Swords and Pickaxes terribly lopped and almost quite stubbed up in England From these two I say which have so much pleased either some Ministers or People with shewes of Novelty Liberty and share of Authority other Parties Sects and Factions have began to set up their scaling ladders and for a time staying one of their feet either on the standards of Presbytery or Independency they fall amaine with their hatchets to hack and hew down the remaines of all Episcopal order and Communion in Churches to cut off the battered stript and bare branches of that Ancient and goodly Tree which contained once the Catholick Church under its boughs and shade Thus these petty planters begin their new plantations that every one set up new Churches and Pastors after their own Hearts Opinions and Fancies making use of what seare barren and Schismatick slips or abscissions they are able to break or cut off aiming still to plant as they say further off from the root and bulk of Episcopacy as a notable character of more perfect Reformation than either Presbytery or Independency seem to have done who sometime professe they can comply with something in Episcopacy Hence first Erastians or Polititians begin to resolve all Churches into States all Ministry into Magistracy making no other origine of Church-power than that of the Common-wealth nor of any Ministers Bishops or Presbyters Authority than of a Justice or a Captaine or a Constable After this Anabaptists Quakers Enthusiasts Seekers Ranters all sorts of Fanatick Errors and lazy Libertines pursue their severall designes and interests under the notions of some new-found Church Sprigs and better plantations filling all places in England like a wood or thicket with Bushes and Briers and Thornes of Separations Abscissions Raptures Ruptures Novelties Varieties Contentions Contradictions Inordinations Reordinations Deordinations and Inordinations no Ordinations scarce owning any Church or Christians which are not just of their way and form as Optatus tells us the Donatist Bishop Parmenian and his party did All of them agreeing with Presbytery and Independency in this one thing however differing in others as in the matter of Tithes which these are reconciled to that they are enemies against all Diocesan Ruling Episcopacy quarrelling even the Honesty and Credit of Primitive Churches on that account despising all the Fathers and all the Councils and Canons of all Churches as levened with Episcopacy The reason in all of them is one and the same because true Episcopacy was a notable curb and restraint and remedy equally against all Schisms and Innovations in the Church of Christ as St. Hierom tells us And further by its venerable Authority so Famous so Ancient so Universal so Primitive so truely Apostolick it infinitely and intolerably upbraids all their Novelties and Extravagancies besides they are conscious that they shall hardly ever one for a hundred either equallize or exceed in many Ages the useful and excellent Abilities Gifts Graces and Miracles or the Benefits and Blessings which by and under regular and holy Episcopacy the Lord was pleased to bestow if ever any were
then quarrelled at Her garb and fashion If any of these be now grown so wilfully ignorant that they need to be informed in this point they may please to know That the Name of the Church of Engl. is more ancient more honourable and every way as proper as the new style and title of the Common-wealth of England Which denomination imports not the agreement of all private mens aims desires and interests in all civil things any more than the other doth all mens agreement in every opinion and point of Religion But it denotes the declared profession of far the major part which is esteemed as the whole whose consent is declared in the Laws and publick constitutions So by the name of the Church of Engl. it is not imported or implyed that we judge every particular person in this Nation to be inwardly a good Christian or a true Israelite that is really sanctified or spiritually a member of Christ and his mysticall body the Church Catholick invisible No we are not so rude understanders or uncriticall speakers But we plainly and charitably mean that part of mankind in this Polity or Nation which having been called baptized and instructed by lawfull Ministers in the mysteries and duties of the Gospel maketh a joynt and publick profession of the Christian faith and reformed Religion in the name and as the sense of the whole Nation as it is grounded upon the holy Scriptures guided also and administred by that uniform order due authority and holy Ministry for worship and government which according to the mind of Christ the pattern of the Apostles and the practise of all Primitive Churches hath been lawfully established by the wisdom and consent of all estates in this Nation in order to Gods glory the publick peace and the common good of mens souls I know there are some supercilious censors and supercriticall criticks who cavill at disown disgrace and deny this glorious Name of the Church of England allowing God no Title to any such Nationall Church nor any Nation such a relation to God since that of the Jews was dissolved nor doe they much approve the Name or believe the Article of the Catholique Church The truth and property of both which titles and expressions I know there is no need for me largely to vindicate among judicious sober and well catechized Christians who doe not drive on any design by the fractions parcellings and confusions of Nationall Churches as those seem to doe who are still affectedly ignorant for this subject hath been fully handled and cleared by many late excellent pens in England besides the ancient and forrein writers that the name of Church of Christ next to the highest sense which denotes all that holy and successionall society in heaven and earth who are or shall be gathered into one as the mysticall invisible body of Christ that is purchased sanctified and saved by him which is never at one intuition visible in this world this is also in a lower sense not more usually than aptly applyed to expresse that whole visible company of Christian Professors upon earth whose historicall faith declared profession and avowed obedience to the Gospel of Christ like a great body or goodly tree in its severall extensive parts and branches stretcheth forth it self throughout the whole world This collectively taken as derived from one root or bulk is called the visible Catholick militant Church of Christ being to particular Churches not as a genus to the species but as an integrall or whole to the parts of it Besides these the name of the Church of Christ serves to expresse any one of those more noble parts or eminent branches belonging to that Catholick visible Church which being similary or partaking of the same nature by the common faith have yet their convenient limits distinctions and confinements as to neerer society and locall communion for their better order unity peace and safety either in particular Cities or Countries Provinces or Nations each of which holding communion of faith and charity with the Catholick Church were in that respect anciently called Catholick Churches so were their Synods and Bishops called Catholick long before the Bishop or Church of Rome monopolized that name as that of Smyrna is styled in its commendatory Letter touching their holy Bishop and Martyr Polycarpus I deny not but the name of the Church of Christ is in Scripture and in common use may be applied in the lowest and least proper or complete sense to particular congregations and small families especially where others met to serve the Lord which may in some sense as Noahs family in the Ark be called Cities Common-wealths Kingdomes Nations as well as Churches being the Substrata Seminaries and Nurseries of both yet this in a defective improper and diminutive sense onely as apart from or compared to those larger combinations and ampler Communions which all reason besides the expresse wisdome of Christs Spirit and the practise of the blessed Apostles followed by all the Primitive Churches invites all Christians in any nation or polity unto for mutual peace good order safety and edification both as to Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government far beyond what can be enjoyed or expected in smaller parcels or separated societies whose meer locall advantages by neighbourhood or neerness of dwelling and actual meeting together in one place make them not any whit more a Church of Christ or in and of a Church than it makes them men or citizens but only gives them some conveniences for the exercise of some of those duties and priviledges which they enjoy not as Members of that single Congregation but as Branches of the Catholick Church of Christ to which Mystical Body they were admitted when they were baptized and to whose head Jesus Christ they are related and united so far as they are believers either in profession or in power Being further capable to enjoy all those benefits and advantages necessary for the publick Peace Order Government and well-being of a Church All which Christ intended it and which are not to be had in the small parcels of Christians but in the joynt authority of larger combinations Such sober Christians as live above capricious niceties captious sophistries and popular affectation of novel formes and termes do well understand That as little slips grow great trees and small families multiply to populous Cities and Nations whose strength honour safety and happinesse consists not in their living apart reserved and severed from one another in their private houses or parishes and Townships but in their joynt counsels large Fraternities and solemn Combinations under the same publick Lawes and Governours without which they cannot attaine or enjoy Peace and Safety the noblest fruits and highest ends of humane Societies and civil Polities whose Dangers Mischiefs and Miseries are such as cannot be avoyded or resisted save onely by united Counsels and Assistances to which just appeals and addresses may be made for redress of such
popular Conventicles where either Piety or Prudence or Learning or Gravity besides authentick and due authority yea Civility and all good manners many times are prone to be very much wanting or if they be there in some few yet a thousand to one but they are quite over-born routed silenced over-voted and cryed down by the plebeian confidences of those many whose ignorance and rudenesse delights in nothing more than either to smother and crowd to death by numbers or to assassinate by downright clamours and brutish violence any thing that looks like sober Reason holy Order just Restraint and due Authority all which the vulgar esteem as their implacable enemies and intolerable burdens So little do those men seem masters of true Reason pious Policy Christian Prudence or sociable Charity who advise endeavour or encourage to divide and consequently to destroy Episcopall Metropoliticall and Nationall Churches by dissolving the noble frames the ancient and harmonious junctures of them onely to make up small Independent bodies or Presbyterian Classes Parochiall Consistories as the sole and supreme Tribunals or ultimate Judicatories beyond any remedy or appeal in Church-affairs which is much like the digging down of Mount Lebanon with a design to make it into many fine mole-hills In which a few poor yet pragmatick Christians like so many ants may busie themselves solely and absolutely about themselves as arrogating to themselves though but two or three or seven at most the perfect name complete nature entire power and highest emphasis of a Church of Christ to all uses ends and purposes without any regard to any other higher authority or to any greater and completer Society further than they list to advise or associate with them for a time as occasion serves and till some new invention offers it self Mean time they are not ashamed or concerned as to that rude and ingratefull violation of those duties which they owe and those relations which they ought to beare as Christians by the right of an holy propagation spirituall descent and ecclesiasticall derivation of their baptisme faith and religion to that Church which was their Mother and to those chief Pastors or Shepherds which were their spirituall Fathers by an Apostolick title designation and succession both in place order and power Which spirituall relation certainly imports no lesse duty love thanks reverence and submission than those of naturall and civill relations doe since the blessing is at least equall if not far beyond to those that value their souls or their Saviour who will not easily abdicate their ghostly parents or renounce their spirituall Fathers though they should see many infirmities and some frowardnesse in them I shall not need to instance in the many defects inconveniences disorders and mischiefs incident to these Ecclesiolae and Congregatiunculae little Churchlets and scattered Conventicles which cannot but be as S. Jerome observes the Seminaries of Schisme Nurseries of Faction strife and emulation since the Sire of them seems to be Ignorance and Weaknesse or pride and arrogancy as the Dam of them usually is faction private ends and popularity Nor will their Issue faile to multiply and swarm in a few years with grosse ignorance and rudenesse with all manner of errors and heresies accompanied with vulgar petulancie atheisme irreligion anarchy confusion and barbarity which like vermine will devoure both themselves and those completer Churches from whose communion order light strength discipline integrity and safety they have withdrawn themselves by needlesse divisions to the weakning shaking subverting and endangering of the faith charity and salvation of many thousands of poore soules the strength beauty honour safety and comfort of particular congregations as of private Christians and families consisting in that orderly conjuncture as parts with the whole body politick which may best preserve both It and themselves there being not onely more virtue in the whole than in any part but more vigour in each part while it is continuous to the whole than when it is divided Which as all Reason and Religion so most sad experience in the Church of England sufficiently assures us For however private Christians have indeed some power as to counsell admonish reprove comfort pray for and by charitable offices to help and edifie one another also private congregations have yet more advantages being many in their number to joyn in publique duties to comprobate and execute Ecclesiasticall censures further each single Minister or lawfull Presbyter hath yet greater authority in his place and office to administer holy things by preaching baptizing consecrating binding loosing exhorting rebuking likewise every Bishop hath still an higher order and authority regularly to ordaine to confirme to examine to censure to rebuke to suspend to absolve to excommunicate any private Presbyter or other Christians under his inspection Yet where the Bishop is assisted with the desires consent and approbation of many Christian congregations also with the joynt assistance of many learned and godly Presbyters yea and with the united suffrages and authority of many Bishops as in cases of great and generall concernment in matters of doctrine censure and discipline is requisite O how ponderous how solemn how celebrious how powerfull how Apostolick how divine must the majesty and authority of such transactions be in any Church thus combined established and fortified against both secret contagions and violent incursions of any mischiefs which easily grow too hard for private Christians and petty Congregations yea many times for particular Presbyters and single Bishops Nor can the remedy expectable from these in their solitary capacities and small proportions either cure or encounter the pregnancy and potency of those maladies which many times infest the flock of Christ as was evident in those Epidemick pests of Arianisme Nestorianisme Donatisme Pelagianisme and others which malignities required not onely the influence and authority of a few private Presbyters with their Congregations or of particular Bishops and their Churches but of Provinciall Synods and Nationall Churches yea of the Catholick Church as much as could be united in those General Councils which were as grand Ecclesiasticall Parlaments by their majority deputation inspection and authority representing all Churches in all the World that so the salve might still be wisely commensurate to the sore The danger of a divided Church being no lesse than that of of a divided State or Kingdome which our Saviour tells us cannot stand it must not be imagined that Christ hath left his Church destitute of defence and help in such cases of distraction These grand combinations of Christian people Presbyters and Bishops convening as occasion required not onely to serve God in the piety of his daily worship but for the right ordering and guiding of themselves and others in such publick concernments as Christian polity and gubernative prudence required these made Christian primitive Churches appear in their Synodicall Provinciall Nationall and Oecumenicall Assemblies as the fairest sides and goodliest prospects
of Christ were ever esteemed the fruits of carnall not Christian minds of such as had more subtilty than sanctity in them As the Apostles so their Primitive successors ever looked upon the mincing and mangling of Churches as the reproch pest poyson and deformity of Religion being diametrally opposite to those holy customes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian and sixty years after him the great Council of Nice so command and recommend as Ancient Primitive and Apostolick For they were not such children as to fancy those to be ancient customs and usages in the Catholick Church which were not older than their own beards or the Gibeonites bread and bottles which a late Writer of Schisme seems to suspect of those renowned Fathers who were not above three descents from some of the Apostles Some Bishops in the Council of Nice might very easily know Irenaeus as he tells us he did Papias and Polycarpus who both knew St. John so that the traditions and customs so evident by matter of fact to all the world could neither be dark nor dubious nor justly called Ancient then if not Primitive The greatest glory and most conspicuous character of the first famous Churches was as Ignatius tells us for Christians to love one another to be of one mind and one heart for their lesser Congregations to be subject to their severall Presbyters or Preachers for their People and Presbyters to be meekly subordinate to their respective Bishops for their Bishops to correspond with one another and all Christians by them in their joynt Councils and publick Conventions also by their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commendatory letters and testimonials which presently admitted every good Christian to communion with any part of the true Church or any congregation in all the world upon the testimony and account of their Baptismal covenant and orderly conversation or profession of the same faith once delivered to the Saints and that one hope or common salvation by which they stood related to the whole Church as one Body and to Christ Jesus as the onely Head of it without any new imposition or exaction of any other explicit covenants and formall professions or private engagements to any one Congregation or Preacher which must be renewed so oft as a Christian changeth his abode and may for ought I see as well be required by every private Family before they will pray or eat or drink with any stranger-Christian as by every particular Congregation which listeth to call it self a Church and so fancies it self to be absolute soveraign independent without any communion with or subordination to those greater Ecclesiasticall polities which in the primitive style and esteem were called and counted the onely regular politick organized and completed Churches the priviledges and benefits of whose communion every Christian was in charity presumed capable of and so allowed to enjoy who having been duly baptised instructed and confirmed in Christian mysteries did continue to professe the same by word and deed neither justly excommunicated out of that particular Church to which he was orderly joyned nor excommunicating himself by voluntary Schisme declared abscession separation or Apostasie To such Christians as thus professe the true faith and keep that comely order communion and subordination which is publickly professed and maintained in their respective nationall Churches and the several parts lesser Congregations contained in them to which private Christians are more immediately for order sake related there is no doubt but a just right and claim belongs according to their severall aptitudes and capacities as younger or elder catechised or fuller instructed novices or veterane and old Disciples to partake in due order of any ordinance and institution given by Christ to his Catholick Church as a mark and priviledge of his Disciples Nor can it seem lesse than a petulant and partiall if not a proud Schismatical and sacrilegious practise for any Minister or people to deny or rob any such approved Christian professor of the comfort of partaking such Christian rights as he duly requires meerly because he will not gratifie such a Minister or such a little Congregation in a new exotick way of bodying that is formally covenanting verbally engaging with them to them beyond the baptismall bond vow Thereby owning first a greater right and priviledge to be received by him from such covenanting with them than he had before as a Christian baptised and in Catholick communion with Christ and his Church next he must own an absolute soveraign and entire Church-power among them to the prejudice division and discarding of those higher relations by which he stands united and subordinate to the Church of Christ in order to higher ends and uses under greater notions and denominations as they are distinguished into severall bounds and orders both for Episcopal inspection and nationall correspondency or communion which are of far greater vertue and more publick concernment and benefit than that congregating or meeting together which is onely locall and onely followes the aptitude of a Christians residency or particular station in one place Undoubtedly the grand ecclesiastical relations and sacred generall bands of Christianity in one Body one Spirit one Faith one Baptism one Lord and Father of all c. are of a far higher and nobler nature than those which arise meerly from cohabitation or personall convention which are very variable humane and uncertain whereas the other are fixed divine and immutable except through mens own default by Infidelity Apostacy and Immorality Christian people owing to their Bishops or chief Governours as subjects do to their Princes a duty of love reverence and subjection also of due acknowledgement and holy obedience although they never see their faces nor meet them in any particular place as thousands of Christians never did at all or not for a long time and never any more after the Apostle S. Paul's departure from them who yet were subject to his orders and mandates instructions and traditions according to the mind and spirit of Christ declared by his own Epistles or such other Messengers and Apostles Bishops and Governours whom the Apostle sent to them and set over them as he did Timothy among the Ephesians Titus among the Cretians Epaphroditus among the Philippians Archippus among the Colossians These and such like with under and after the Apostles as eminent Pastors Bishops and Governours of such Churches and Christians as were contained in one great city and its Territory or Province which were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did take care that every Christian every Congregation every Presbyter or Preacher in those precincts should both do their duties keep their stations preserve the private and publick order and unity enjoy the priviledges of safety peace and assistance as parts or members of that Polity or Ecclesiasticall Body which still stood further related and so was subordinate
all ages if his prohibition be not against Separation Apostasy and total forsaking of the Churches communion both in Discipline and Doctrine in Polity and Verity as well as against Schisme The difference is not much between S. Pauls censure of Schisme and division as carnall and a work of the flesh Gal. 5.20 and that of S. Jude against such as separate as being sensuall and not having the Spirit especially where such communion is offered and required by a Church Christian and Reformed as is no way against the Word of God the Apostles example and the Primitive Catholick practise of all Churches such I believe and hope to prove that of the Church of England was and is as to those main essentialls of Religion which constitute a true Church both in the being and well-being But I needed not and therefore I crave your pardon worthy Gentlemen have spent so much breath to blow up and break the late thin bladders or light bubbles these new Corpusculas of separate Churches compared to the Catholick eminency unity and solidity of the Church of England and others of like size An easie foot will serve to beat down such new-sprung Mushromes of late perked up in this English soyle through the licentiousnesse of times and luxuriancy of mens humours since it hath been watered with Humane and Christian blood whose ambition seems to be not onely to divide and share but wholly to possess and engross this good land or else to leave desolate that field out of which they are sprung which bare far better fruits than now it doth long before their name was heard of under the new titles or style of bodyed and congregated associated or independented and new-fangled Churches Who have now the confidence to cry down the Church of England in its late visible polity harmony order and unity as a meer name and notion an insignificant Idea and empty imagination as if it were neither bonum nor jucundum good nor pleasant for Brethren in Christ to dwell together in unity or for men in one nation to be Christians in one Church as if bonds of civil polity reached farther than Ecclesiastick Some are so vain and vulgar as to boast that all Church-fellowship in England is no better then floten milk when once they have taken off the cream of some Saintly professors which they think worthy to make up and coagulate into their new and small bodyed Churches which are carried on by some with so high an hand and brow that a young master of that sect hath been heard to say not more magisterially than uncharitably he would sooner renounce his Baptism than own the Church of England to be a true Church And this notwithstanding that it is evident these new Rabbies have added nothing new and true to the Doctrine of the Church of England nor yet to the divine Worship and holy Ministrations or Duties used and professed in it with as much solemnity judgement and sincerity I believe as they can pretend to without blushing on mans part and with infinite more spirituall blessings and proficiency in all graces so far as yet appeares on Gods part Nor have they ever shewn any cause why It should be denyed the name honour priviledge and comfort of a true Church of Christ both in its principall parts and in the whole visible community or polity afflicted indeed at present but sometime famous and flourishing as in favour both with God and good men nor did it ever recede from its love or apostatize by any publick act or vote from such a profession of Christian and Reformed Religion as gives her a good Title to be and to be called a true Church of Christ in spight of men and Devils If any still list to quarrell at the name of a Nationall Church the same schismaticall sophisters may as well slight all those proportions and expressions used in all the grand Combinations and visible Constitutions of such ancient Churches throughout all descents of Christian Religion which never doubted to cast themselves into and continue in such Ecclesiasticall forms and parallel distributions as they found laid out by the blessed Apostles and the Spirit of Christ which without doubt most eminently guided those Primitive Churches When these new projectors have answered the Scripture style and the Apostolick patterns and pens followed by all antiquity which call and account all those Christians conjoyned in one Churches communion in point of Ecclesiasticall polity subordination chief power and jurisdiction who yet were dispersed in many places and so distinguished no doubt into many congregations as to the duties of ordinary worship throughout their Cities respective Provinces which I am sure were many of them far larger than any one Diocese or Province in England yea and possibly not much lesse than all England as Ephesus Crete Jerusalem Antioch whose province was all Syria as Ignatius tells us so Corinth Philippi Laodicea Rome c. with their Suburbs Territories and Provinces which extended as far as their proconsulary jurisdictions reached in one of which that learned and pious but fancifull interpreter Mr. Brightman doubted not to find a prophetick Type representing the Nationall Church of England with much more aptitude than his other Satyrick correspondencies were applied When the wit and artifices of Independent brethren if they allow me that relation have shrunk those great and famous Churches so distinguished and nominated by the Scripture line and record into little handfulls such as one mans lungs can reach at one time in one place when the Presbyterian brethren who have cast off yea cast out their Fathers the Bishops can manifest that the severall Congregations of Christians in those Parishes Classes or Associations which they fancy had as many Bishops properly so called and fully impowered as there were Presbyters or Preachers when by their joynt skill and force they can evince out of any Ecclesiasticall Records or Scripturall that there was not some one eminent person as the Apostle Angel Bishop and President or chief Governour among them over all those people and Presbyters who lived within such large Scripture-combinations as Churches such as was Timothy in Ephesus Titiâ— in Crete S. James the Just in Jerusalem either succeeding the Apostles after death or supplying their places during their absence from particular Churches who in their severall lots portions or Episcopal charges and divisions had while they lived the chief inspection rule authority and jurisdiction When I say these grand difficulties are cleared and removed as scales from our eyes who still honour the Church of England then we shall be willing and able to turn the other lessening end of the Optick glasse and to look upon the great and goodly Church of England as fit to be shrunk into decimo sexto volumes or to be divided into small pamphleting Congregations and bound up in Calves leather which heretofore by an happy deception of sight appeared to us at
true ministeriall authority precious liberties what sober men count defections from the ancient Catholick Apostolick pattern they boast of as perfections what plain-hearted Christians esteem as decayings of the Reformed Religion and ill omens and presages of its ruine these Seraphicks affirm to be edifyings and repairings of that structure which since the Apostles times they pretend was alwayes decaying and dropping down to Apostasy being overladen with the fair roof or covering of Episcopacy of which burthen some blessed Reformers seek totally to have lightened this Church as they have done some Cathedrals of their Leads that they may leave this Church and the Reformed Religion as without any roof and defence against the injuries of foul weather so without any band or coping to keep the walls and sides together What others call Extirpations these magnifie as rare Plantations in which they fell down Cedars and set up Shrubs they root up Vines and plant Brambles rejecting venerable Bishops and orderly Presbyters who are of the Primitive Stock and Apostolick descent that they may bring in a novel brood of Heteroclite Teachers equivocall Pastors and new-moulded Ministers whose late Origine without all doubt ariseth no higher at best than Geneva or Frankfort or Amsteldam or Arneheim or New England some are such popular pieces so much terrae filii of obscure rise of base and mean extraction that they have no name of men or place to render them remarkable being like Mushromes perking up in every molehill and in a moment making themselves the Ministers of Jesus Christ To whose strange and novell productions in Old England the late civill distractions finding it seemes much prepared matter gave not onely life and activity but so great petulancy and insolency that many do not onely change their former profession and utterly abdicate their Church-standing and communion in England but as meer changelings they prefer the saddest Succubaes and Empusa's the most fanatick apparitions of modern fancies in their poor and pitifull Conventicles before the Church of England as some children do the Queen of Fairies before their genuine Mothers instead of whose sound Doctrine sacred Order and Catholick Councils they betake themselves each to their private dotages and ravings to meer nonsense and blasphemies which some cry up as strong reasonings high raptures extatick illuminations to which all men must subscribe though no wise man know what they mean Such confidence some men have that Christians in England have lost not onely their Religion but their Reason upon whom they hope so rudely and grosly to impose their most childish novelties and frivolous follies that as Erasmus speaks of some monkish corrupters or interpolators of S. Jeroms works who had made it harder for him to find out what that acute and learned Father wrote than ever it was for him to write his excellent works so in England what was formerly plain and easie sound and wholsome orderly and Catholick as to true Religion both in Faith Manners Ministry and Government the modern Novelties Whimseys Factions Intricacies and Extravagancies of some men have made not onely perplexed confused but contemptible and ridiculous Yet these are the trash and husks which some mens nauseo us wanton palates in this age do prefer and chuse rather than that wholsome food and sincere milk of Gods word with which the Reformed Church of England alwayes entertained her children untill an high-minded and stiff-necked generation of rank appetites like Jewes growing sick of quailes and surfeited of manna longed for the garlick and onions of Egypt legendary visions fabulous revelations and fanatick inspirations Which Egyptian diet hath of late by a just anger of Heaven upon mens ingratefull murmurings and wanton longings brought many in England to those high calentures and distempers in Religion that like frantick people they flye in the faces of their Fathers and tear the very flesh of their Mother Though civil troubles and State-furies seem much allayed yet these Clero-masticks and Church-destroyers still maintain a most implacable war against the Church of England thinking yea professing some of them that they shall do God good service utterly to destroy it with all its assistants and adherents In order to which design they have sought every where to vilifie and set at nought to crown with thorns and crucifie or at best to counterfeit and disguise the merit worth and majesty of all the sacred Solemnities and Rites the Peace and Polity the Ministry and Ministrations of the Church of England yea and fancying they have a liberty to mock them first and after to naile them to the Cross Good God! how have they buffeted them how importunely do they obtrude upon them amidst their many Agonies gall and vinegar to drink what cruell contempts what virulent pamphlets what scandalous and scurrilous petitions do they frequently vent against all Churches and Church-men relating to or depending upon the Church of England some of them ripping up by a Neronean cruelty the womb that bare them others cutting off by a more than Amazonian barbarity the breasts that gave them suck Nor do they despair to pierce at last this bleeding Church to the very heart if ever the power of the sword come into such hands as are professed enemies to all other Reformed Churches as well as this of England whose languishing but living fate they now behold as with great pleasure so with no small impatience while they see that notwithstanding all their sedulous and industrious machinations against learning and Religion against the Church and Universities of England against Ministers and their maintenance yet there is still some life and spirit some liberty and hope left through the mercy of God and the moderation of some men in power for those Christians that have the courage and conscience to own the Reformed Church of England as their Mother and the Reformed Clergy as their spirituall Fathers Whose just Honour and Interests as I must never desert while I live because I think them linked with those of Gods Glory my Redeemers Honour the Catholick Churches veracity the peace of my conscience and my countrey's happinesse both as to the present age and to posterity so I have thought it my duty in her deplorable condition and in the despondency of many mens spirits to apply the cordiall of this confection mingled with her teares and with her sighs presented to you my most honoured Countrey-men by the help of which you may both fortify your own honest minds and oppose that diffusive venome which you cannot but daily meet in some mens restlesse malice who neither know how to speak well of the Church of England nor how to hold their peace By the example of your judicious favour and generous compassion I doubt not to excite like affections of courage and constancy in all worthy Protestants honest-hearted English whose duty it is amidst the pertinacy of all other parties and factions who like Burres hang together to hold fast that holy and
it hath been delivered to me by the most credible testimony of the Catholick Church in the books of Canonicall Scripture truly so called Nor did I ever teach for Doctrines the Traditions of men which some have blasphemed As for the circumstantial and ceremonial parts of Religion I used in Them modestly cautiously and charitably that liberty and power for order and decency which I conceive Gods indulgence who is not the author of confusion but of peace allowed me no lesse than any of those Primitive or later Churches whose best examples I sought to follow If any of my children had discovered something in me lesse agreeable to that beauty order and gravity which had been desirable by them in a Christian and Reformed Church if any matter of reall uncomelinesse had been espied in me as what Church is there upon earth so fair but as the Moon it may have some spots wainings and eclipses what state of Christians so complete that God may not have a few things against them yet it had been their duty with the veile of Christian love and pity modestly to have covered silently concealed and dutifully reformed what was indeed amisse and not like so many Chams to have exposed such a parent such a mother to the petulancy and derision both of her enemies abroad and the plebs at home who are as prone as ever the Jews were to worship any new Calves they fancy to set up and to cast off Moses and Aaron that God and those Governours who had done such wonders among them If while men slept the enemy sowed some tares there where my Saviour had plentifully sowed good seed was I presently to be trampled under the feet of the beasts of the people or quite to be rooted up burnt and consumed because some tares appeared if my garments were in time a little spotted and sullied yet was my honour still unblemished and the sanctity of my profession as Christian and Reformed unviolated nor did my garments deserve thus to be rinced in the blood of my Children if the ceremonious lace and fringe of my coat were a little unript or torn with time yet there was no cause to rend it quite off or tear my coat in pieces if my garb and fashion seemed somewhat more grave Catholick and ancient than agreed with some mens singular and novellizing fancies yet did I not deserve to be stripp'd and stigmatiz'd to be thus exposed to shame and nakednesse much lesse to have my Flesh thus torn my Eyes pull'd out my Throat cut and my Skin to be flayed off which are the merciful endeavours of some of my reforming that is ruining enemies If some weak or unwise servants whom I trusted with the management of my affaires discharged their duties less piously or prudently than I expected or exacted of them as Church-Governours Ministers if the licentiousnesse of others was impatient to be governed so strictly as they should have been most men abhorring true Christian Discipline even then when they most clamoured for it intending extravagancies when they pretended severities yet was I not on the sudden to have been wholly deprived of all Church-government and order once duly established untill such time as my new Discipliners and wise Masters had found out some fitter way for me than that Catholick fabrick form and fashion which all Churches ever had and enjoyed from the Apostles times and constitutions Certainly the failings of Church-Governours ought not to have been so severely avenged upon the Church-government it self nor are any mens male-administrations to be laid to the charge of those good lawes and constitutions which are setled in either Church or State The very Apostolick Churches are oft blamed yea and threatened for their early degenerations without any reproch to their first institution which certainly was holy and good It savours too much of humane passion to pervert divine order under pretence of Reforming humane disorders Which in me were never so predominant as to remove me from that posture of Christian piety honour order and integrity wherein I stood firm and conspicuous in all the world as a Christian and well-Reformed Church hated indeed and many times opposed by my forraign adversaries of the Papall interest and perswasion but they despaired ever to prevail against me unlesse they first divided my children within me and armed my own bowels by home-bred and strange animosities against me These by infinite artifices and undiscerned stratagems have by them been heightened of late to such factious petulancies and furies as to adde scorns to the others thornes contempt to the others crosses gall to my vinegar scurrility to my agonies As if I could not be miserable enough to satisfie the malice of my enemies abroad unlesse I were made a scorn to my children and a shame to my friends both at home and abroad leaving me few that dare pity me fewer that can plead for me and fewest that are able and willing to relieve me My spitefull persecutors are so cruell that they are impatient to see any sympathize with me threatning those my children that dare yet own me for a true Church or their Mother the very name of which they seek to deprive me of hoping to make me quite forgotten who was sometime so renowned among the most celebrated Churches of the world Alas among some Furies it is not safe for sober Christians to speake one good word of me or for me they cannot endure any should pray for me no nor weep for me Teares are offensive and Charity it self is scandalous to my implacable enemies who labour to be my cruell and totall oppressors To this dreadfull height hath the Lord been pleased to afflict me with my children in the day of his fierce wrath in which He hath given me ashes for bread and mingled my drink with weeping filling me with blacknesse instead of beauty with war for peace with faction for union with confusion for order with impudent patricides and ungratefull matricides instead of modest thankfull and tender-hearted children Behold He hath smitten me into the place of Dragons and given me a cup of deadly wine to drink But it is the Lord let him do as seemeth good in his sight If my prayers and sighs and teares cannot yet possibly the exorbitant and implacable malice of my enemies who in the end will not appear Gods friends may provoke him to remember his tender mercies which have been ever of old and to repent him as a Father of the evil he hath suffered to be brought upon me by those that delight not in His justice but in their own sacrilegious advantages It may be he will return to be gracious as in former times and not shut up his loving kindnesse wholly from me since his oft-repeated mercy endureth for ever yea it is because his compassions fail not that I am not utterly consumed Though thou kill me yet will I trust in thee O Lord who hast wounded
Trinity for the justification sanctification and salvation of Sinners in all these I never found by my reading and experience nor do I know where to seek for any thing beyond or every way equall to what was graciously dispensed in the Church of England Upon which grounds appearing to me and all the unpassionate Christian World most certain no man can wonder if I so much magnifie and prefer the Church of England that in the communion of its Doctrine Worship Ministry and Order I chuse to live in the communion of its Faith Hope and Charity I desire to die Let my soul be numbred among those Martyrs and Confessors those renowned Bishops and orderly Presbyters those holy Preachers and humble Professors whose labours lives and deaths whose words works and sufferings helped to plant and propagate to reform settle and preserve to so great a conspicuity of piety grace and glory the Catholick Church of Christ in all ages and places and particularly this part of it which we call the Church of England I am so far from envying or admiring any novel pretenders who boast of their folly and glory in their shame in their endeavours to destroy and devour this Church that I rather pity their childish fondnesses their plebeian petulancies their insolent activities their unlearned levities their ingratefull vanities who have demolished much and edified nothing either better or any way so good as what they have sought to pull down as to the order honour tranquillity beauty and integrality of a Christian Church So little am I shaken or removed from my esteem love and honour to the Church of England that I am mightily confirmed in them by all the poor objections made against it by the unreasonable indignities cast upon it which are as dirt to a Diamond but the further test and triall of its reall worth and splendor nor do I conceive that by those afflictions which are come upon us God pleads against the Church of Engl. but rather for Her against the lewd manners of her ungracious and ungratefull children for whose wickednesse He makes so fruitfull a Mother to grow barren so fair an House to become desolate so flourishing a Church to decay and wither It is no news where the lives and manners of Christians are much depraved from the holy rule of Christ evidently set forth among them to see famous Churches like the Moon in the wane or eclipse clothed with sackcloth and turned into blood to see Order subverted Unity dissolved Peace perverted Beauty deformed Holy things profaned It is no news to read of holy Prophets blessed Apostles orthodox Bishops and godly Presbyters ill treated and despitefully used by Heathens Hereticks Schismaticks No men but ignorant and unlettered can wonder at Bibles and other holy Books burned at Church-lands alienated the houses demolished and the Preachers silenced banished destroyed All Church-histories tell us it was many times so even among the Primitive Churches even then when their pious and Apostolick constitution was no doubt at best it was most violently and desperately so just before the Churches enjoyed the greatest prosperity longest tranquillity the blackest darkness usually going immediately before the welcomest break of day as was remarkable in the serenity of Constantine the Great 's time succeeding the dreadfull storm of Diocletians persecution which was looked upon and intended as an utter extirpation of Christian Religion Which distressed estate of the Primitive Churches of Christ in all the Roman world Eusebius Bishop of Caesaria who lived in those worst dayes describes with so much pious oratory and so parallel in many things to the temper of our times that I cannot but present you my honoured countrey-men with the prospect of them because the fury and darknesse of that tempest reached even to the then British Churches in England under which many Bishops and Presbyters Noblemen and Gentlemen perished and among others that famous Martyr S. Alban who as Bede tells us in his History l. 1. rather then he would deliver or discover a pious Presbyter whom he had hid in his house by whom he was either converted or much confirmed in the Christian Faith chose to offer himself in the Priests habit to the Inquisitors and owning himself for a Christian though yet unbaptized he died for that profession Hereby the world may see how much poor mortalls are prone to mistake in their calculations of Gods judgements upon any Church both as to their own sins and other mens sufferings where the greatest sufferers are commonly the least sinners and the greatest inflicters are the least Saints Having in the former seven Books sayes Eusebius set forth that holy succession of Bishops which followed the Apostles in all the famous Primitive Churches in their several limits and proportions under the various seasons and storms of times the Churches had now in the Roman Empire so great liberty serenity and quiet that Bishops in many places were much honoured even by the civil Magistrates the Temples and Oratories of Christians were every where full and frequented new Churches were every day erected more goodly costly and capacious nor could the malice of men or Devils hinder the growing prosperity of the Churches every where while God was pleased to shine upon them with his favour Afterward too great liberty and ease degenerated to luxury and idlenesse these betrayed Christian Bishops Presbyters and people to mutuall emulations and contentions these sowred to hatred and malice these brake out to fury and faction Christians persecuting each other with words and reproches as with armes and weapons murmurings and seditions of governed and governours justling against each other grew frequent arising from desperate hypocrisies and dissemblings At last being generally less sensible of their sins than their sides and factions and less intent to the honour of the Church and its holy Canons than to their private passions and ambitions the wrath of God overtook them all Then saith that Historian as Jeremy complains did the Lord bring darknesse upon the beauty of the daughter of Sion then did He cast down to the ground the glory of Israel He remembred no more the place of his footstool in the day of his wrath then did he profane the habitation of his honour in the dust and made Her a reproch to all her enemies c. then were Churches commanded to be pull'd down to the ground holy Books and Bibles to be burnt the Bishops and Pastors some banished others imprisoned tortured and killed all silenced impoverished disgraced abhorred by the Emperour with his followers and flatterers Christians were forbidden all holy meetings and duties commanded and forced to sacrifice to popular Idols and plebeian Gods upon pain of death and torture seventeen thousand Christians slain in one month an utter extirpation of Bishops Presbyters Professors Churches and Christianity it self designed enjoyned and publickly solemnized by a triumphant pillar erected in Spain with this Inscription An Imperial monument of
extemporary prayer which to the hearers hath the same aspect of a crutch or staff no less than that set form which by many is composed and proposed to the congregation As for the humours of common people they are an ill compass to steer by in concernments of Church or State It is no wonder to see wontedness breed weariness and weariness wantonness wantonness loathing of the most holy duties and heavenly dainties as of Manna to the Jews unless the hearts of men be alwaies humbly devout and sincerely fervent and such can I am sure daily follow wonted wholsome forms with new fervours and give a fresh Amen to known oft-repeated petitions as well as a fiduciary assent to such precepts and promises as they have heard or read from Gods Word a thousand times Without which sacred flames of constant zeal and successive devotion upon mens hearts as the holy fire which was never to go out upon Gods altar not onely the extemporary varieties of mens own inventions will prove perfunctory and superficiall but even Scripture it self and the Oracles of God will grow to be meer Crambe yea the repeated Celebration of the most divine and adorable mysteries of the blessed Sacraments which Christ instituted as constant solemn Services in his Church will prove nauseous burdens and hypocriticall loades to the dull and indevout spirits of men whom if they be such in their hearts and tempers no variety or novelty will quicken ther niauseous and lazy hypocrisy if they be not such no constancy or wontedness will dull their sincere fervency and holy fragrancy of their affections The late ramblings barrenness and confusion of some mens sad and extemporary rhapsodies their rude and rusticall devotions are especially in solemn and Sacramentall Celebrations observed by many wise Christians to be such since the Cadet or younger Brother of the Directory if it deserves the honour of that name which to many seems but as a by-blow the illegitimate issue of partiall spirits Apostatizing from their former conformity to the Church of England in that point of its Liturgy since I say it crowded or as Jacob supplanted its elder brother out of the house of God though it self be now little used and less regarded even by its first patrons and sticklers that it makes them and me highly admire and more magnifie the wisdome of the Church of England in first composing after perfecting and prescribing that excellent Liturgie to common people which contained the very quintessence of all that we find used by the ancient piety and charity of Churches agreeable to Gods Word which is the onely pattern pillar and support for Christians prayers both publick and private Nor did the Church of England ever intend as I conceive by Her Liturgie so to stint and confine any discreet and able Minister or private Christian but they might further pour out their souls to God in prayers and praises publickly and privately so as occasion required and good order permitted onely it judged as I doe with pious Antiquity and all the most learned Reformers particularly Mr. Calvin that it is a great and reall concernment in every true and Orthodox Church that care be taken to settle and preserve wholsome forms and solemn Devotionalls for the publick celebrating of Prayers Praises holy Duties Christian Mysteries Sacraments and Ordinations next to the care of propounding and establishing sound Doctrine or true Confessions and Articles of Faith Which care of all Christians good in that behalf first induced the Ancient and Primitive Churches as S. Austin and others tell us next to their laying of Scripture-grounds in their Creeds and Confessions to enlarge and fix their Liturgies and Devotions finding that fanatick Errour and Levity would seem an Euchite as well as an Eristick Prâ—yant as well as Predicant a Devotionist as well as a Disputant insinuating it self with no less cunning under a Votary's Cowle than in a Doctors Chair in Prayers Sacraments and Euchologies as well as in Preachings Disputations and Writings This I am sure The Liturgie of the Church of England was so usefull so well advised so savoury so complete so suitable so solemn and so significant a form of publick Worshipping God so highly approved by wise and worthy men at home and abroad as composed by the speciall assistance of the holy Spirit of God in the judgement of the first Heroes and Martyrs of this Reformed Church so reverently used by many even lesse conformable in some things ceremoniall to the Church of England that beyond all question it deserved a longer question a more calm debate a more serene serious and impartiall triall before it should have been so utterly abdicated or expulsed out of the Church as Hagar was out of Abrahams family I humbly conceive that neither Recusants should have had so great a gratification to their refractoriness nor this so famous flourishing and wel Reformed Church should have had so great a slurr aspersion cast upon its Princes its Parlaments its Bishops its Presbyters all its faithfull people as if they had hitherto served God so far superstitiously irreligiously and unworthily that the very Book it self containing the method form matter and words of their publick service of God must be first vilified and scorned by the vulgar insolency next utterly abrogated and quite ejected out of this Church by such as passionately undertook to abett and patronize the present humours and distempered fits of popular surfeitings and inconstancy lately risen up not onely against their own former approbation and practise but against the piety wisdome and gravity of this Nation and all other setled Churches in the world Yea further the partiality and immoderation of some men seems in this most excessive that to shew their implacable despite against the Liturgie of the Church of England they cannot endure nor would if they had power permit any Christians to use it though they find it as our Marian Martyrs did very beneficiall to their souls comfort and therefore earnestly desire highly value and duly use it So imperious Dictators would some men be over other mens liberties and consciences even in Religion who are rigid asserters of their own impatient to be imposed upon by others and yet most insolently ambitious to impose upon other men how far they may or may not serve God in a religious way and manner fancying that nothing can please God which doth not please them What some men have preached and printed against the English Liturgie and all set forms of Prayers never so good and fit as if they were stintings and dampings of Gods Spirit c. I must confess I understand rather the jeer and contemptuousness of their words than the wit reason or Religion of them for certainly the same may be said against all Scriptures Psalms Sermons preached or printed against Ministers own Prayers and any other proposed helps for the advancing of knowledge or devotion in mens hearts And however some
conscientiously scrupulous nor yet am I so against these or any other innocent Ceremonies recommended in any Church by the joynt consent of all parties and by due authority as for their sakes to withdraw my humble subjection to and charitable communion with this or any other Christian Church in the world that is otherwise sound in the Faith I do not so affect embroyderies in Religion as to have its garments too gay and heavy with the Church of Rome nor yet do I so affect a plainness as to abhorre all decency least of all am I of that curiosity or coynesse in Religion as I will rather rend my garments in pieces and go stark naked than weare such an one as may have possibly some spots or patches which might be spared if they could handsomly be removed but are better suffered than to have rude hands teare and cut them out as they list to the perturbation and injury of the whole Church As to the generall nature of Ceremonies used in the Church of England it may suffice at present in order to vindicate this Church to declare in its behalf First that the Ceremonies enjoyned and used in the Church of England were esteemed and oft so declared to be in the sense of the Church and its chief Governours not at all of the essence or necessary substance of any religious duty no more than the clothes of their opposers were of their constitution or their hair was of their heads yet both clothes and hair are very comely and convenient in the sociall living both of men and Christians together where neither nakednesse I think nor baldnesse would become them Secondly It doth no where appear that our blessed God is so Anti-ceremoniall a God as some men have vehemently fancied and clamoured rather than proved This I am sure the God of heaven whom we worshipped in England did institute many Ceremonies in the ancient religious services required of the Jewish Church which certainly God would not have done if all Ceremonies had been so utterly Anti-patheticall against the Divine nature or contrary to that spirituall sincere worship which he anciently required beyond all doubt of the Jew as well as the Christian as all the Prophets witnesse Nor do we find that God hath any where forbidden any decent Rites holy Customes or convenient Ceremonies to any Christians in order to advance the decency and order of his service or Christians mutuall edification and joynt devotion under the Gospel except onely such as were like the shadows of the night or morning which went before the rising of Jesus Christ the Sun of Righteousnesse importing Christs not being yet come in the flesh or implying the mystery of mans Redemption not yet completed by the Messias such as were Circumcision which was to last no longer in force than the promised seed of Abraham came in whom all nations should be blessed and the Covenant of God should be declared to the Gentiles as well as Jews under another sign or seal which is Baptisme The Mosaick Rites and Ceremonies as the Sacrifices the Passeover the High Priest and other legall Types as fore-going shadows justly vanished when the substance came but those subsequent shadowes Evangelicall Ceremonies and Signs which follow attend upon and betoken the Suns being now risen and present with his Church these in point of outward order and decency also of inward significancy and edification may well consist with the Evangelicall worship of God in Spirit and Truth however it be not founded on them or confined to them as to the inward judgement and conscience of the worshippers We see our blessed Saviour as he conformed to the Judaick Ceremonies both of Divine and Ecclesiastick Institution as in his sitting at the Passeover and celebrating the Encaenia or Feasts of Dedication till his work was finished so He from the Jewish use adopted or instituted some new Evangelicall Ceremonies to be used in a most solemn manner as Sacraments or holy Mysteries in his Church under the Gospel for visible Signs Memorials and Seals of his Love and Grace to us by which his Christian people may be instructed comforted and confirmed in Faith and Charity both to God and to one another Yea our blessed Saviour hath by his Spirit guiding the pens and practises of the Apostles sufficiently manifested as S. Austin observes that grand Charter and Commission of Liberty and Authority given to his Church and the governours of it for the choyce and use of such decent Customes Rites and Ceremonies as may agree with godly manners and the truth of the Gospel best serving for the order decency peace and edification of his Church in its severall states parts and dispersions not as annexing Ceremonies to the nature of the duties or humane inventions to the Essence of Divine Institutions which the Church of England never did but oft declared the contrary nor yet binding the judgement and consciences of those that used them to any such perswasion nor yet invading hereby or prejudicing the liberties of other Churches or any Christians in their respective subordinations but allowing other Churches the like liberty and investing its own members in the use and enjoyment of that Christian liberty as to those particulars which the Church hath chosen and appointed in the name of all its parts and adherents for their sociall order for the solemnity decency and mutuall edification of Christians Which was all that the Church of England intended in its Ceremonies agreeable to that indulgence and authority given by Christ to It as well as to any Church Nor have these enemies to the Church of England upon this account of its Ceremonies ever proved that Christ hath repealed this grant or denied it to this Church more than any others or that this Church hath yet abused its liberty or that themselves have any speciall warrant given them to enter their private dissent and put in a publick prohibition against the whole Church as if it might do nothing in the externalls ornamentalls and circumstantialls of Religion without asking leave of such supercilious censors and imperious dictators who scorn to make the consent of the Church in things of an indifferent and undefined nature to be their rule and law as to outward observance unity and conformity yet arrogate so much to themselves as they would make their private opinion and dissent to be a bar and negative to the whole Church For as the Liturgie so the Ceremonies used and enjoyned in the Church of England were not the private and novell inventions of any late Bishops or other Members of the Church of England much less of any Popes or Papists as some have imagined but they were of very ancient choice and primitive use in the Church of Christ whose judgement and example the Church of England alwayes followed by the consent of all estates in this Nation and Church represented in lawfull Parlaments and Convocations and this they did
then when with a Martyr-like zeal and courage they put themselves into the happy state of a well-reformed Church paring off many superfluities or noveller fancies and onely retaining a few such ceremonies as they saw had upon them the noblest marks of best Antiquity Decency Nor may any man without discovering great folly and injustice find fault with those members of the Church of England who used those retained and enjoyned Ceremonies agreable to their judgements and in obedience to a publick lawfull command in which their own vote and consent was personally or virtually included so that He must by condemning such as were conformable either condemn himself and all others who were authors of this publick appointment or else he must prefer his own private judgement before them all The first is fatuous Levity the second is immodest Arrogancy I allow as much as these men demand and so oft impertinently decantate against the Ceremonies of the Church of England as to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that spirituall and inward worship of God in the rationall faculties of mens souls which the Church of England chiefly intended and vehemently required beyond any outward Ceremonies of all true and sincere worshippers of God but withall It judged and so do I that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the outward man which ought to be conform to the heart and being most conspicuous to others ought also to be most exemplary and significant in those visible acts which necessarily accompany the religious visible and sociall service of God that this ought not to be rude slovenly negligent confused irreverent or uncomely by affecting various singularities and inconformities to others which occasion scandalls strifes factions divisions animosities disorders and confusions in particular Churches or Congregations for avoiding of which every private Christians spirit ought in Reason and Religion to be subject to the publick prophetick Spirit of the Church in its joynt counsels consents and determinations against which a man cannot bring any pregnant demonstration of right reason and morality or of Faith and Scripture-revelation as S. Austin in his Epistle to Januarius observes having learned as he tells us that principle of calmness moderation humility and Charity from S. Ambrose as an oracle from Heaven These considerations moved the Primitive Churches of the first and second Centuries in their severall grand combinations and ampler distributions even amidst their Martyrdomes and sharp persecutions while they had no leisure to be superstitious or superfluous in things of Religion but onely were intent to Piety Devotion and Charity these moved them to use and retain as they had received them from the Apostles and their successors some Ceremonies yea many more than were used in the Reformed Church of England which appears in Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian Clem. Alexandrinus and others Who tell us of the holy kiss and love-feasts of Water added to the Wine in the Lords Supper of Oyl Milk Honey a white garment used in Baptisme of Christians not washing a week after they were baptized of constant fasts on Wednesdayes and Fridayes of frequent signations with the Crosse both in religious and civil motions as Indications of their courage and constancy in professing Christ crucified I might adde their solemn stations and vigils their adorations and prostrations toward the East besides their strict zeal in observing Easter or the time of Christs Resurrection also their Quadragesimal or Lemen fast preparatory to it their not kneeling between Easter and Whitsuntide nor upon any Lords day on which they were forbidden to fast before and at the Nicene Council besides their severe forms of exercising Discipline and enjoyning Penances to such as were scandalous offenders the great respect observance which Christian people payed to their Bishops and Presbyters yea to their Deacons in many things who all joyned in an high reverence and submission to their Bishops or chief governours in the Church in order to which duties concerning the Churches order and peace most Councils of the Church spent much of their time care and pains next to the keeping of Faith entire and sound If the Ceremonies of the Church of England had been many more in that kind than they were yet since they were in their generall nature allowed by God and left by him to the prudent choice and use of this as other particular Churches certainly as learned Zanchy and other reformed Divines observe they ought not by sober Christians to have been put into the balance of their Religion so far as for their sakes to overthrow the peace and whole state of such an happy and reformed Church as this was bringing infinite greater mischiefs upon Religion the whole Church by violently removing such ceremonies as neither empaired the faith nor depraved the manners of good Christians than ever could be feared by the sober use of them which did not so much as occasion any scandall or inconvenience to those that had knowing humble meek and quiet spirits rightly discerning the nature of such things and that liberty granted to themselves of submitting in them to the determination of the Church nor can it be other than weaknesse of judgement or want of charity or a signe of schismaticall and unquiet spirits that list to be contentious rising either from ignorance or superstition or pride and petulancy for private persons in such cases peevishly to sacrifice to their private passions and perswasions the publick peace and prosperity of the Church which ought to be so sacred as the learned and pious Bishop of Alexandria Dionysius wrote to the zealous and factious Presbyter Novatus that it is not to be violated upon less accounts than those for which one would chuse to suffer Martyrdome there may be as Saint Paul confesseth a zeal in them and yet they persecute the Church of Christ After that Divine justice hath further punished and manifested the supercilious folly and inquietude of some men Times may come in which sober Christians would be glad to enjoy such a state of reformed Religion in England as they sometimes happily enjoyed and despised under these so tedious and terrible burdens of ceremonies as some complained who are greatly wronged if they have not since charged their consciences with far greater pressures than any Ceremonies can be imagined the least wilfull and presumptuous immorality being heavier than a thousand such formalities as much as milstones are beyond feathers and talents of lead more ponderous than the largest shadows Experience hath already taught us that the authentick ceremonies of the Church of England were either up hinderances at all or far lesse as to the advance of piety holiness and charity than the taking away of them and the consequences have been especially in such a fashion as instead of ripping off the lace hath torn the whole garment into rags and pretending to shave the superfluous hair hath almost cut the throat of the
men who would not have born ten times more such Ceremonies with patience rather than have occasioned so great troubles and confusions to this Reformed Church which they highly honoured and stoutly asserted against those who under pretence of straining at gnats intended it seems to swallow down Camels and under colour of battering a few Ceremonies aimed at last to overthrow the whole frame of so famous and flourishing a Church which hath now suffered more from some mens malice or immoderation than ever it can hope to recover by the wisdome or godlinesse of any of that Anticeremoniall party But grant it that some of their patrons and predecessors who opposed Ceremonies were good and godly men yet still they were but men subject to like passions as others were Their hearts to God-ward I hope were sincere as to the inside of their Religion but they might as is usual even in good men be much warped as to the rinde or outside of their Religion both in their judgement and practise of things by their native tempers and complexions as they were either melancholick dark and scrupulous or cholerick hot and bold or more phlegmatick dull and easie or more sanguine popular and pompous for through the tincture of these glasses most men behold even religious forms either as more or less agreeable to their Genius and temper nor are they seldome lesse biassed and swayed by the prepossessions and prejudices of their education by custome conversation reputation expectation admiration of mens persons addition to particular parties private relations and interests all which though matters of no rationall or morall weight yet have a strong secret tide and influence upon mens minds and professions especially in cases disputable in matters of Religion that are of a sceptical dubious indifferent nature wherein most men are prone to be so superstitious as to imagine that to be most pleasing or displeasing to God which is so to themselves Many things are by some practised because they ever did so and by many omitted because they never did use them men flie from positive superstition with a strong rebound to negative superstition Nor is it lesse superstition I conceive for men to think it a point of Religion to forbear or remove such things than it is in others to think it necessary to retain and observe them upon a religious necessity which last was not the judgement of the Church of England as to any Ecclesiasticall ceremonies which were not held to be of necessity but onely of decency The opposers of them indeed pressed an absolute necessity of duty and conscience to remove them Who then were in this point superstitious persons is no hard matter to judge If the reputation of mens parts and pietie of their devotions and austerities of life signified much in the outward Rites and Ceremonies of Religion to make them good or bad lawful or unlawful certainly by those marks the Romish party will be able to produce many instances of exemplary sanctity severity and austerity in outward abstinences or observances by which to maintain the concurrent errours and grosser superstitions of their Religion Persons of applauded piety are many times like smooth and ponderous wedges the Devils fittest engines to cleave the Church in sunder the weight of their example presents all things to the minds of weak and sequacious Christians as great importances of Religion So Origen and Tertullian became the great scandalls and temptations of the Christian world by the greatnesse of their parts piety and reputation as Vincentius Lirinensis observes nor had Novatus Donatus Pelagius and others of old done so much mischief in the Church if they had been men either obscure for their parts or infamous for their moralls It is not onely to be considered how able men are in any setled Church but how peaceable how humble how far removed from private passions secular designs worldly discontents popular and pragmatick humours all which doe oft leaven men otherwise of commendable parts and piety especially in their younger dayes when they are most prone to have good conceits and confidences of themselves Once on wing in their own fancy and mounted by the breath of vulgar esteem they are loth to light and afraid to fall when their fame and credit are thus at stake besides the glimmering of some oblique interests of profit or preferment which lye within their eye and reach Elder years do morosely resolve to maintain what once they have adopted under the name of stricter piety and purer Religion Few men know how to revert or recant when once engaged in a party or difference which carries any mark or ensign of a speciall way of Religion Reputation is the bearded hook which holds most men faster than conscience to their sides even after they perceive how delusory the artificial bait was which first invited them to entangle themselves I have known some Ministers of worth and ability who in all things materiall agreed to the doctrine and worship of the Church of Engl. yet in point of non-conformity to some Ceremony rather chose being once engaged before they had so well examined all things to live a scrambling vagrant and almost mendicant life from one good house to another by which means some of them sucked no small benefit rather than they would take any setled living in the Church of England in which obstinacy they persisted to their dying day although they grew very calme and coole as to their first heats and perceiving in time the weaknesse of their own and others motives they durst not in their maturer years perswade any others no not their own sons which were Ministers in the Church of England to be non-conformists onely they were ashamed to be retrograde in their reputation though they were got well forward in their better judgements Yea even as to the polle and number of names which I think to be but the number of the Beast if we onely tell noses and not consider reasons who knows not but the conformable part both of Ministers and people in England were for many years twenty to one beyond the Non-conformists nor did they more exceed them in number than they equalled them every way in learning piety gravity in all good words and works yea in many things of publick and more generous charity they far exceeded them the one were for the most part getting and scraping for their private advantages the other were much more hospitable munificent and charitable The first and second generation of Non-conformists were more excusable and more modest in their dissentings for coming newly out of not onely the dungeon of Papall superstition and darkness to a marvellous light of Reformation they were jealous of any cloud or shadow which they suspected as threatning to eclipse that light but coming also out of the fiery furnace of Romish persecution they were jealous of every thing that had once past the Popes fingers lest it might be too hot for them
either keeping for the main to the same matter method and tenour of devotion which was in the Church of England or with great artifice varying so much as it may be thought to be new and unpremeditated yea and inspired too rather than from any ordinary gift or common habit acquired which sober Christians know full well to be neither an hard nor a rare matter for any men to attain who have quick inventions moderate judgements and voluble tongues Lastly even in the point of Ceremonies which they have clamoured for dangerous and rendred so odious in the Church of England even these men that are so impatient to be concluded under any ceremonies upon publick order and injunction yet many of them use two ceremonies for one after their own fancies and inventions not only by those emphatick looks dreadful eagernesses vehement loudnesses long and extatick silences antick actions odde and theatrick postures which they peculiarly chuse to personate in hereby setting off as they think with the greater grace and gusto their religious performances before the people but further they require of their Disciples and all that will be their followers some things of a ceremonial nature besides words and phrases as speciall marks and discriminations both of admission to and communion with their Churches or parties who may commonly be known by those omissions no less than by those expressions which they affect to use 'T is Religion with some not to give the title of Saint to any but their own partie never to use the Lords prayer Creed or ten Commandements They have also speciall times and gestures yea vestures too observed by them in their holy duties some chuse to sit others to stand at the Lords Supper neither of which was the posture of Christ or his Apostles which was a leaning or recumbency some take it after their own suppers others before some familiarly hand the elements one to another most of them use such words in consecration and distribution as they like best or as come first to their lips sometimes such rude expressions which I have known by some that were no little Idols of the vulgar that truly no wise man or good Christian could approve them There are that abhor to appeare as Ministers of the Church of England by wearing any gown or so much as black clothes in their officiatings many of them rather than wear a black cap which is most grave and comely in case they need one chuse to put on a white cap though they need none appearing as if they went to execution when they go to preaching some love to preach in cuerpo casting off their clokes as if they went like boyes to wrestling when they go to preaching How ill would these men take it if any of those that are lovers and esteemers of the Ch. of Engl. should so severely circumcise their devotions as not to suffer them to use any of those new forms exotick fashions or affected Ceremonies which they have thus chosen to themselves as the discriminations of their factions the decencies of their profession and the solemnities no doubt of their devotions how angry would they be to hear any men crying down all their fine new modes which no doubt themselves think very demure and Saintly as very undecent and superstitious as superfluous and scandalous as unnecessary yea impious because not expresly commanded by Christ not punctually practised by the Apostles nor any other holy men in any Church To many of whom the strange and affected carriages of some new men in their duties and devotions would certainly seem very ridiculous and indiscreet if not worse while they are such imperious and severe censurers of a few Ceremonies thought fit to be used by the wisdome of the Church of England Whatever these men can plead for those ceremonious customes and observations used by them in their religious performances which have no other signature or note upon them but onely their own fancy choice and use that I am sure and much more may any sober Christian plead in behalf of the Ceremonies chosen by and used in the Church of England as seemed fittest and best for the common good There is a necessity of decency reverence order and convenience for the adorning of religious duties that are sociall and exemplary related not onely to God but to men in outward profession quickening thereby and incouraging our selves winning and alluring others yea instructing and edifying all sorts in some degree like the flourishings of capitall letters which make them not more significant but more remarkable These are no less lawfull and necessary than discretion is to devotion or prudence is to piety though they are not of the highest and most absolute necessity which constitutes what these adorn gives being to what these onely beautifie gives the inward and essentiall form to what these adde onely outward and visible forms to Ceremonies making religious duties not more pious but more conspicuous not more sacred but more solemn not more spirituall and holy but more visible and imitable In all which things of a circumstantiall and ceremoniall nature for Ceremonies seem no other but modified or limited circumstances such as are time place gesture vesture posture action c. all which in the generall do attend as shadows do gross bodies in the Sun-shine all the outward actions of men either naturall civil or religious in this life of mortality if any men may lawfully use as these enemies to the Church of England now do what their private fancy skill and will list to set up in opposition to and derogation from the custome wisdome and publick consent of such a Church as England was Certainly wise and godly men may with much more modesty safety and discretion follow the joynt advice and direction of so famous a Church to whom and to its followers some of these new Reformers will not now allow so much liberty as to follow their own judgement and the Churches appointment too in matters of Religion either for substance or ceremony which liberty they alwayes boldly demanded and lately challenged to themselves and their adherents as a right or priviledge belonging to them not onely as men but as Christians which yet by their good will no Christians should enjoy besides themselves and such as receive the Lawes of Religion from their lips It is possible indeed for one man to be in some things at some time and occasion wiser than many men for truth doth not alwayes go in crowds never in rabbles as one Lay-man seemed in the great Council of Nice who was as Socrates Ruffinus and Nicephorus tell us a very plain and simple man yet he relieved those Fathers when they were shrewdly perplexed by a subtill sophister in the point of Christs Divinity and the most adorable Trinity whose disputative insolency that one plain man as David against Goliah did so rebuke not by subtilty of his reasonings but by the majesty of his faith
give God the glory of his own justice of other mens malice and of our own failings My design is not to reproch any man in particular but to excite my self with all other Ministers to such repentance amendment as God requires the better world expects the malice of our enemies exacts our own safety and this Churches distresses command of us The Clergie of England of all degrees have endured too many sufferings beyond any other rank or order of men to fancy they have not had many sins Not to own our distempers after the long application of so rough physick were indeed to tax the wisest and gentlest Physician not of severity but cruelty and superfluity whereas the father of our souls never chastiseth his children so much for his own pleasure as indeed for their profit Gods judgements are in this very mercifull and his severities the fruits of his loving kindness that he chuseth rather to punish us than forsake us and to afflict us by his own justice than to betray us to the cruel flatteries of our own lusts which would prove ours and his greatest enemies too if we were left to our selves The smart eye-salve which the Clergy of England have endured of late years may well cleare our sight so farre at least as to discern and confess those faults which heretofore it may be we over-looked or slighted or excused upon the common score of humane infirmity which indulgence may better be allowed to any men than to Ministers of the Gospel especially if persons of eminency and conspicuity Of all Clergie-men beyond all other men the world justly expects and so doth God sobriety gravity exactness even in their younger years as S. Paul doth of Timothy how much more in their maturity and age Little sins in them if publicated grow great by their scandall and contagion O how ponderous how immense how flagitious are the presumptions the vicious habits the wilfull open obstinate and constant deformities of Ministers In all which if the just God should be extreme to mark what hath been amisse among us both young and old great and small who is able to abide it Before the Lord who hath done it we must with old Eli and holy Job put our mouths in the dust and smother our sense in silence Nevertheless we are and ever must be pertinacious even to the death with holy and afflicted Job to maintain not onely the innocency but also the merit of the Clergie or Ministry of England as to the greater and better part of them in respect of the people of this Nation in all degrees Although as David did when Shimei reproched and cursed him bitterly disdainfully and injustly we cannot but be sensible complain of some mens excessive malice immoderation against us yeâ— we cannot but make an humble submission to with an agnition and justification of that divine wrath justice which seems to be gone out against us before the Almighty we desire to be either silent or confitent or suppliant as becomes those that are justly ashamed and truly penitent T is fit we hide and abhor our selves in dust and ashes before his presence who onely can pity and repair us by turning the causeless curses of men into a blessing making the sacrilegious impoverishings and indignities the ingratefull abasings and insoleâ—â—ies of some unreasonable and violent men an occasion of his gracious favour and all good mens compassions toward the afflicted Clergie and Church of England for where Church-men are miserable the Church cannot be happy where the Clergie are distressed the Laity cannot be prosperous We are so far willing to gratifie the malice of our bitter adversaries to whom no musick is so pleasing as any evil report brought upon the Ministers of England as with S. Austin to make our confession to God that we may be more vile in our own eyes before the Lord and cover our selves with that cloke of confusion which God hath suffered some men to cast upon us after they have stripped us of those ancient Honours and Ornaments with which we were by the piety gratitude and munificence of former times happily invested not more to our own than the whole nations great renown in all the world Without all peradventure the most holy and all-seeing God who walketh in the midst of the golden Candlesticks whose pure eyes are most intent upon the Ministers of his Church hath found out the iniquity of his servants the Bishops and other Ministers of the Church of England not onely in our persons but in our professions not onely in our morals but in our ministrations Who being solemnly consecrated and duly set apart to the service of God his Church in the name place power and authority of Jesus Christ and drawing neer to his speciall presence with Moses in the Mount with Aaron in the Holy of Holies in those glorious manifestations of God in Christ to his Church by publick ordinances and spirituall influences yet have not so sanctified the name of the Lord our God by our hearts and lives by our doctrine and duties as we ought to have done Many of us doing the work of God which is a great work of eternal concernment to our own and other mens souls either so unpreparedly negligently and irreverently or so partially popularly and passionatly or so formally pompously and superciliously that our very officiatings have been offences to God and man our oblations vain our prayers the sacrifices of fooles our pains in preaching how much more our idleness hath been no better than the foolishnesse of preaching in good earnest Some of us have been prone to place the highest pitch of our Ministeriall care exactness and duty in ceremonious conformities which alone are meer chaffe miserable empty formalities neglecting the substance life and soul of Christian Religion which consists in righteousness and true holiness while we too much intended the meer shadow shell and out-side of it others have so eagerly doted upon their sticklings against what was duly and decently established in this Church as to the outward circumstances and ceremonies the decent manner and form of sociall Religion that they feared not as far as in them lay to make havock of the power of Religion together with the peace unity order and very being of this famous Church Many of us so over-preached our peoples capacities that the generality of our auditors after many years preaching were very little edified nothing amended being kept at too high a rack both of affected Oratory and abstruse Divinity for want of plain catechising and charitable condescending to them others in a supine and slovenly negligence have sunk so much below the just gravity solidity and majesty of true preaching that the meanest sort of illiterate people have undertook to vie with them and to match them infinite swarms of mechanick rivals rose up into desks and pulpits when once they saw such pitiful preaching
whose constitution may be commendable although the execution of things may be blameable and punishable upon the merit of personall defaults not Ecclesiasticall defects No Chaldean no Magician no Soothsayer no Astrologer no Enchanter can spell any such meaning as to Gods displeasure against the frame and constitution of the Church of England out of that hand-writing which seems to be directed against the Clergie and Ministers of England 'T is true every one ventures to read and interpret it as they list to flatter their own parties opinions passions and interests so did the Philosophers the Heathens the Atheists the Idolaters the Scoffers the Julians the Apostates the Hereticks the Schismaticks of old grosly mistake the meaning of those hot and sharp persecutions which oft befell the Primitive Christians and Orthodox professors of faith in Christ crucified concluding they deserved true Crosses who so much gloried in the Cross of Christ not knowing what Theriak God makes out of those Serpents that sting us nor what Antidotes he extracts out of those deadly poysons which destroy us The royal Title over Christs head was never more deserved than when he was hanging upon the Crosse for on that as a King on his Throne he most conquered and after triumphed over both his and his Churches greatest enemies nor were his sufferings the least of his solemnities and glories his Father being never better pleased with him than when he cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me I am perswaded in like sort that the great afflictions now incumbent upon the Clergie and Church of Engl. do no way signifie that It or they are forsaken of God any more then Christ then was nor do they import any dislike that the God of peace and order hath against the respective office and subordination of Presbytery or the ordination and eminent gubernation of Bishops as they were designed and established in the Church of England according to the Primitive and Catholick pattern for both these God hath heretofore highly and signally approved if imploying blessing and prospering of them in his Church if accepting so many holy sacrifices and services from them be as much a sign of Gods approving their function as his now afflicting them is a sign of his reproving their faults But the plain sense of our sufferings is as S. Cyprian observes The Lord punisheth us that he may bring us to repentance for our sins both personall and professionall for those disorders by which we blemished or prophaned our holy orders 'T is not the government in it self but our own mis-governments that have offended God he aims not to consume that primitive and pure gold that is in this Church but to refine us from that dross we had as men contracted Nor do I doubt but God intends to improve us to his service in better times of which we may not despair if we find our selves amended by those bitter potions which in bad times and by evil men a good God administers to us for our health How glorious will both godly Bishops and orderly Presbyters in England appear to this Church and to all the world when coming out of this fiery furnace they shall shine brighter than ever they did with the love of Christ and of his Church both as to the care of those private charges and publick inspections committed to them in excellent order and administred by due authority when neither pride nor envy pomp nor popularity neither the upper nor the lower springs of ambition rising from Prince or people shall distract the counsels or divide the hearts or cross the endeavours of venerable Bishops and worthy Presbyters and pious people from that Christian subordination unanimity and conjunction which best becomes them as men and Christians which Ignatius so highly commends and which is so necessary both as to counsel and order government and proficiency for the good of all sorts of Christians in any Church Mean time it is no small mercy that exacts from some Ministers and enables them to give publick experiments of true Christian courage patience magnanimity and constancy which are our highest conformity to Christ by which the world may see that the honour of true Christian Bishops and Ministers doth consist as much or more in their sufferings as in their speaking and doing well in their losses as well as in their injoyments of all things Then will Princes Parlaments and People think us most worthy to enjoy the ancient estates honours liberties priviledges and immunities which the pristine piety charity munificence and gratitude of your and their fore-fathers bestowed upon the Clergie and devoted to God when they shall see that without these we are not onely willing but zealous to serve God and solicitous to save their souls as the greatest reward and wages of our work nor will the incumbent distresses upon the worthy Clergie of England much abate the love and value of them with those that are worthy of them certainly as mens sins should be esteemed their greatest afflictions so no mens sufferings are to be counted their sins If any Ministers have justly suffered as unable and so intruders as incorrigible and so unworthy having had the justice of being accused by two or three witnesses and the charity of receiving two or three admonitions before they were suspended silenced sequestred and ejected giving no hopes of their being amended yet even the grossest defects and immoralities of such Clergie-men who are indeed the shame and reproch of their profession may not be imputed to or revenged upon the whole calling and Church considering that the Church of England by her good Lawes wholsome Canons and wise Constitutions did strictly require not onely the best minds and abilities but the best manners and examples both from Bishops and Presbyters agreeable to those respective duties and instructions set before and charged upon them at their ordination which they were not onely to know but to do not onely to believe but to live that so the Ministers of this Church might appear not only the best of civil men but the best of Christians who ought to be holy men and the holiest of holy men as specially consecrated to the service of Christ and his Church It was by the Church intended that Church-men should be the most savoury salt in themselves and carefull seasoners of others if some proved unsavoury yet I am sure it is most unseasonable and unseasoned rashness to cast all Bishops and Presbyters yea the whole order and oeconomy of the Ministry and Church of England upon the dunghill of vulgar contempt among whom beyond all dispute were so many most accomplished Preachers and excellent Practisers of true Christianity whose breath was so good that their lungs could not be bad But if there had been a visible and generall Apostasy in many or the most part yea in all the Bishops and Ministers of England from their duty yet I conceive this is no argument
for which no Apology but made and affected necessity is alledged which none but God Almighty can convince confute and revenge hence those convulsions faintings swoonings and dyings which are befaln the Church of England and its holy profession the Reformed Religion which heretofore was a pure and unspotted Virgin free from the great offence constant to her principles and duties both to God and man alwayes victorious by her patience This seems now besmeared all over with blood this is sick deformed and ashamed of her self so many sanguinary and sacrilegious spirits pretend to court and engross her such foul spots are found upon Her which are not the spots of Gods children which no nitre no sope no fullers earth no palliations or pretensions of humane wit policy or necessity can wash away or make clean til He plead Her cause take away Her reproch whose love induced him to shed his own precious blood for his Church a noble eminent uniform and beautifull part of which I must ever own the Church of England to have been Of whose former holy and healthfull constitution I am daily the more assured by those modern eruptions and corruptions defections and infections errours and extravagancies blasphemies and impudicities which have so fiercely assaulted and grievously wasted the Truths the Morals the Sanctities the Solemnities the Mysteries and Ministrations the Government and Authority the whole Order and Constitution of the Church of England clearly evincing to me that this Church was heretofore not onely tolerably but most commendably reformed and happily established upon the pillars of piety and prudence verity and unity purity and charity Nor do I doubt but the blessed Apostle S. Paul with all those Primitive planters and Reformers of Churches would have given the right hand of fellowship to the Christian Bishops Presbyters and people of this Church of England cheerfully communicating with us in all holy things blessing God and greatly rejoycing to have beheld that power and peace that stedfastness and proficiency that beauty order and unity which was so admirably setled and happily preserved many years in this Church by the joynt consent and suffrage of the Nation Princes Parlaments and People cheerfully giving up their names to Christ and willingly yielding themselves to the Lord and to his Ministers Nor do I believe those Primitive and large-hearted Christians who brought the price of their estates and laid it down at the Apostles feet testifying their esteem of all things but as loss and dung in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ that these would have ever repined or envied at the riches plenty civil honours peace and prosperity wherewith the Governours and Ministers of Christs Church were here endowed No those first-fruits of the Gospel had too good hearts to have evil eyes because the eyes of Princes Peers and people had been good to the Clergie investing them with that double honour which the Spirit of God thinks them worthy of while they rule well and labour in the Word and Doctrine so as the godly Bishops and Presbyters of the Church of England did abundantly since the Reformation nor was their labour of love in vain in the Lord. What was really amisse or remisse in any Ministers as to their minds or manners as some Errata's we find even in those Pastors and Churches which were of the Apostolicall print the very first best Edition certainly there wanted not sufficient authority and wisdom skill or will in the Governours of Church and State to have reformed all things in such a way of Christian moderation as should have gratified no mens envies revenges ambitions covetousness and the like inordinate passions but have kept all within those bounds of piety justice charity and discretion which would have satisfied all wise and honest mens desires and consciences Such an Apostolical spirit and method of Reformation as would have cleared the rust and not consumed the metall sodered up the flaws but not battered down the whole frame of so goodly a Church this spirit might have mended all things really amiss in England at a far easier and cheaper rate than either calling for fire from heaven or calling in the Scots to quench our intestine flames with oyl To purge the English floor from all chaff there was no need to raise up such fierce winds as the Devil did when he overthrew the whole house and oppressed all Jobs children with the rubbish and ruine both of superstructures and foundations No work requires more wary wise and tender hearts and hands too than Church-work or that which men call Reformation of Religion which easily degenerates to high deformities if bunglers that are rash rude deformed and unskilfull undertake it Nothing is more obvious than for Empiricks to bring down high and plethorick constitutions to convulsions and consumptions by too much letting blood and other excessive evacuations those are sad purgations of Churches which with threatning some malignant humours do carry away the very life spirit and soul of Religion the whole order beauty unity and being of a Church especially so large so famous so reformed so flourishing an one as the Ch. of Engl. was which some mens ignorance malice and excess hath a long time aimed at impatient not to forsake yea and quite destroy both It and all its true Ministers to whose learning and labours they owe whatever spiritual gifts Christian graces priviledges or comforts they can with truth pretend to All which I believe they have not much bettered or increased since their rude Separations and violent Apostasies by which they have shewed themselves so excessively and unthankfully exasperated against the Fathers that begat them and the Mother that bare them more like a generation of vipers full of poysonous passions which swell the soul to proud and factious distempers than like truly humble meek and regenerate Christians who cannot be either so unholy or so unthankfull as to requite with shame despite and wounds the womb that bare them and the breasts that gave them suck not feeding them with fabulous Legends superstitious inventions or meer humane Traditions but with the sincere milk of Gods word as it was contained in the holy Scriptures which were the onely constant fountain from whence the Church of England drew and derived both its Doctrinals and its Devotionals its Ministry and Ministrations Of which truth having such a cloud of witnesses so many pregnant and undeniable demonstrations before God and the world before good Angels and Devils before mens own consciences in this Church and before all other reformed Churches round about I suppose these are sufficient Testimonies in the judgement of You O my worthy Countrey-men and of all other sober Christians to vindicate the Church of England that it never deserved either of Princes Parlaments or People so great exhaustings and abasings as some men have sought to inflict upon Her Over which no tongue is
the Churches of Christ both as to good doctrine and orderly conversation First if you consider the Magna Charta grand charter of your souls the holy Scriptures Those lively oracles which were given by inspiration and direction of Gods Spirit which beyond all books in the world have been most desperately persecuted and most divinely preserved having in them the clearest characters of divine Truth love mercy wisdome power majesty and glory the impressions and manifestations of greatest goodness grace both in morals mysteries in the prophecies and their accomplishment in the admirable harmony of prescience performance of Prophets Apostles setting forth the blessed Messias as the prefigured Sacrifice the promised Saviour the desire of the world those Books which have been delivered to us by the most credible testimony in the world the uniform consent of the pillar and ground of Truth the Catholick Church of God which the Apostle S. Paul prefers before that of an Angel from Heaven that divine Record which hath been confirmed to us by so many miracles sealed by the faith and confession the repentance and conversion the doctrine and example the gracious lives and glorious deaths of so many holy Confessors and Martyrs in all ages besides an innumerable company of other humble professors who have been perfected sanctified and saved by that word of life dwelling richly in them in all wisdome Yet even in this grand concernment of Religion the holy Scriptures whose two Testaments are as the two poles on which all morality and Christianity turn the two hinges on which all our piety and felicity depend much negligence indifferency and coldness is of late used by many not onely people but their heaps of Preachers under the notion and imagination of their Christian liberty that is seldome or never seriously to read either privately or publickly any part of the holy Scripture unless it be a short Text or Theame for fashion sake which like a broken morsell they list to chew a while in their mouths but the solemn attentive grave devout and distinct reading of Psalms or Chapters or any other set portion of the holy Scriptures old or new to which S. Chrysostome S. Jerome S. Austin and the other ancient Fathers both Greek and Latin so oft and so earnestly exhorted all Christians this they esteem as a poor and puerile business onely fit for children at school not for Christians at Church unless it be attended with some exposition or gloss upon it though never so superficiall simple and extemporary which is like painting over well-polished marble being more prone to wrest darken and pervert than rightly to explain clear or interpret the Scriptures which of themselves are in most places easie to be understood obscure places are rather more perplexed than expounded when they are undertaken by persons not very learned or not well prepared for that work which was the employment anciently as Justin Martyr tells us chiefly of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop or President then present whose office was far above the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Readers who having done his duty the other as Pastor of the flock either opened or applyed such parts of the Scripture as he thought best to insist upon Yet there are now many such supercilious and nauseous Christians who utterly despise the bare reading or reciting of the Word of God to the Congregation as if no beauty were on it no life or power in it no good or vertue to be gotten by it unlesse the breath of a poore man further inspire it unlesse a poore worm like a snaile flightly passing over it set a slimy varnish upon it as if the saving truth and self-shining light of Gods Word in the precepts examples promises prophecies and histories were not most cleare and easie of it self as to all things necessary to be believed obeyed or hoped as if honest and pure-hearted Christians could not easily perceive the mind of God in the Scriptures unlesse they used alwayes such extemporary spectacles as some men glory to put upon their own or their auditors noses Certainly such new masters in our Israel forget how much they symbolize with the Papists in this fancy while denying or disdaining all reading of Scriptures in publick unless some expound them though never so sorrily slovenly and suddenly they must by consequence highly discourage yea and utterly forbid common people the reading of any portion of them privately in their closets or families where they can have no other expositors but themselves and it may be are not themselves so confident as to undertake the work of expounding the hard and obscurer places as for other places which are more necessary and easie sure they explain themselves sufficiently to every humble diligent and attentive reader or hearer the blessed use and effects of which if these supercilious Rabbies had found in themselves while the Word of God is publickly distinctly and solemnly read in the Church to them doubtlesly they would not have so much disused despised and decried this godly custome in the Church of England of emphatick reading the Word of God in the audience of Christian Congregations O rare and unheard of Christian Liberty which dares to cast so great a slighting and despiciency upon the publick reading of the Scriptures which are the Churches chiefest Jewel so esteemed and used by Jewes and Gentiles full of its own sacred innate and divine lustre then indeed most spendid and illustrious when handsomely set that is when the Priests lips preserve the knowledge of them and duly impart them to Christian people both by discreet reading and preaching that is explaining and applying them CHAP. VI. AFter these vulgar slightings and depreciatings cast upon the publick reading of the Word of God by some novellers I shall in vain set forth to You what is less strange yet very strange and new in the Church of Christ that is the supercilious contempt and total rejection of all those ancient venerable forms of sound words and wholsome doctrine either literally contained and expresly commanded in the Scripture such as are the Ten Commandements and Lords Prayer or evidently grounded and anciently deduced out of the Scriptures such as are the Apostles Creed with other ancient Symbols and Doxologies which were bounds and marks of all Christians unity and soundness in the faith generally used by all pristine and modern Churches of any renown who mixed with their publick Services of God these great pillars and chief foundations of piety these constant rules standards and measures of Religion by which they took the scantlings or proportions of all their duties and devotions of their sins and repentance of their faith and hope hence the humble confession of their sins the sincere agnition of their duties the earnest deprecations of divine vengeance the fervent supplications for mercy and pardon the hearty invocations for grace the solemn consecration of the sacramentall elements
like Monsters having neither matter nor form proportionate to Ministers Against whose petulant and too prevalent poyson I have formerly sought to apply some Antidote not more smart and severe than charitable and conscientious aiming as now I do neither to flatter nor exasperate any but in all Christian integrity and sincerity to discharge my duty to God and my neighbour to this Church and to my Countrey Nor was it indeed then or is it now other than high time to answer that folly to repell and obstruct if possible that Epidemick mischief which on this side greatly threatens both Church State Faith and good manners all things civil as well as sacred What wise and honest-hearted Christian that hath any care of posterity or prospect for the future doth not daily find as an holy impatience so an infinite despondency rising in his soul while he sees so many weak shoulders such unwashen hands such unprepared feet such rash heads and such divided hearts not onely disown cast off contemn and abhor all Ministry and Ministers in the Church of England but they are publickly intruding themselves upon all holy duties all sacred Offices all solemn Mysteries all divine Ministrations after what fashion they list both in their admission and execution In many places either pittifull silly wretches or more subtill and crafty fellows have become the mighty Rivals the supercilious Censors yea the open menacers opposers no less than secret underminers of the most learned and renowned the most reverend able and faithful both Bishops and Presbyters in England All that ever these Worthies have done in former ages or still do never so commendably in their religious services of God and this Church is superciliously and scurrilously cried down by some men under the presumption and protection of their ignorant and impudent Liberties as no better than formall and superficiall carnall and unspirituall as unchristian yea Antichristian All their and our catechisings preachings prayings baptisings consecratings their instructing of babes their confirming of the weak their resolvings of the dubious their terrifying and binding over to judgement unbelieving and impenitent sinners their censuring and admonishing of the scandalous their excommunicating the contumacious their loosing the penitent their comforting the afflicted their binding up the broken-hearted all the exercise and operations of their spirituall power yea their very ordination and holy orders their gifts and graces their abilities and authority either from God or this Church all these are either baffled and disparaged or invaded usurped by some rude Novellers with equall insolency and insufficiency being for the most part by so much the more impudent by how much they are grosly ignorant Yea some of them the better to colour over their lazy and illiterate licentiousnesse to which they are now degenerated have such audacious brows and seared consciences as after they have pretended to have tasted how gracious the Lord was in the orderly and holy dispensations of heavenly gifts by the Ministry of the Church of Engl. yet they now glory to cast off all her ministrations to separate from her communion and all due subjection to any of her Ministers vapouring much of their own and other mens gifts of extraordinary callings of odde ravings and rantings of new seekings and quakings of rare dippings and dreamings of their extemporary prophecyings and inspired yet confused prayings of extraordinary unctions and inward illuminations the grounds and fruits of which strange pretensions I have been a long time diligently curious to observe in the speech writings and actions of these pretenders And I must profess that either I am wholly a stranger to right reason as well as true Religion to the Word and Spirit of God principles and practises of all godly men and women in former ages or I am utterly uncapable to discern any of these either rationall or religious orderly or honest expressions in any instances or degrees proportionable or indeed comparable to much less beyond what was most clearly observable as the Suns light at noon-day in the Sermons Prayers Writings Lives and Actions of those Ministers and other excellent Christians who heretofore held and still do an holy communion with the Clergie and Church of England Beyond whose sober light and solid discoveries of true Religion these new Masters who will needs be Ministers have yet offered to me no other but such strange stuffe such rambling rhapsodies such crude incoherences such chymicall chimaeras such Chaos-like confusions such Seraphick whimsies such Socinian subtilties such Behmemick bumbast such profound non-sense such blasphemous raptures big as Behemoth and disdainfull as Leviathan proud swelling words of vanity as no sober Christian hath leisure to intend or need to understand if he had capacity which he is not likely to have since I am confident they pass their authors own understanding not that there is any thing in them that flows from the higher springs of grace or the profounder depths of divine mysteries but they are meer puffings up of proud and fleshly minds intruding themselves into things they have not seen who delight in this froth of idleness these lyings and vapourings of hypocrisie which never did of old in the Gnosticks Montanists Manichees or others of the like bran with these men in the least degree advance the majesty or authority of Christian Religion or the credit and comfort of Christian Preachers or Professors however they served for a time the bellies and interests of such popular Parasites more than Preachers of the Gospel or Ministers of Jesus Christ Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father was of old still is and ever will be in the minds and mouthes of true Ministers when these Hucksters and Mountebanks these deceitfull workers are buried in infamy and obscurity with those their rotten predecessors a rich magazine of heavenly wisdome a Treasury of sound knowledge a store-house of pregnant and ponderous Truths bringing men to a good understanding of God themselves and their neighbours free from the rust and scurf of childish easiness and popular petulancy planted by holy and humble industry watered by prayers and patience beautified with all manner of usefull vertues and moralities dispensed to others with authority industry and perspicuity entertained in mens own hearts with honesty and charity not studying to be admired of men but approved of God not affecting to stupifie auditors with strange difficulties and curiosities but to edifie them with saving Truths and sound Doctrine in words easie to be understood five of which S. Paul preferred before ten thousand in an unknown tongue or unintelligible gibberish so much affected by these new-minted Ministers That primitive plain and profitable way of preaching praying and writing was the commendable method of those excellent ordained and orderly Ministers of the Church of England who were furnished both with ability and authority for so great and sacred a work whose notions were more in the fruitfull valleys of practicall
Rulers and Guides or attending as Deacons and Servitors CHAP. IX IN reference to which sacred grand employments St. Paul's modesty and humility asked with trembling that unanswerable question Who is sufficient for these things Whereas now in Engl. there are such insolent intruders who act as asking quite contrary Who is not sufficient for these things as if forwardness boldness and confidence were all the sufficiency required in a Minister of the Gospel in which plebeian and pretended sufficiencies as these novell intruders do most abound so I am sure there were really never more blunt and leaden tooles in any age applyed to Church-work than many if not most of them are they come indeed with their beetles and wedges their swords and staves their axes and hammers to beat down all the carved work of Gods house rather than to prepare or polish the least stone or corner of that sacred building Who being not a little conscious to themselves that they are grosly defective in all those reall abilities of good learning sound knowledge sober judgement orderly method grave utterance and weighty eloquence which all wise and sober Christians expect should appear in every true Minister of the Church of Christ in such a competent measure evident manner as they may be able comfortably to discern them and usefully to enjoy them these crafty Intruders do first cry down all those reall and visible abilities as meerly naturall humane carnall as enemies to the Cross Grace and Spirit of Christ for as the apes in the fable these deceitfull workers having no tails themselves they would fain perswade all other creatures which have that ornament to cut them off as burdens and superfluous After this rude essay of craft and malice in vain attempted against the fruits of learned industry wherein the Ministers of the Church of England have and still do so vastly exceed these Mushrome Ministers of the last and worst editions they cunningly flie to the pretentions of speciall callings extraordinary inspirations illuminations and graces ministeriall which they well know are not easily to be discerned by any other but a mans self even there where they may possibly be real Who knows not that as to the point of inward Graces they are far more easily pretended and voiced than discerned and enjoyed in ones self much less can they be so proved and manifested to others as to satisfie their conscience in the points of anothers power and their own duty I am sure neither gifts nor graces ministeriall are by wise and sober Christians to be much supposed or expected there where men evidently silly and weak mean and vain ignorant and arrogant dare yet to disdain all that ancient order and uniform succession of the Evangelicall Ministry which hath been visible in all Churches as in this of England for 1500. years and to salve their credit or gain reputation as Teachers they bring for the satisfaction of their own and other mens conscience in point of that office duty and power ministeriall which they challenge and undertake no other signature and character of their commission and investiture into that office save onely what themselves pretend to be within them of secret impulses which being to mans judgement undiscernable are utterly insignificant nor ought they to bear any sway in the Church of Christ where the power ministeriall was first declared by miraculous gifts and endowments also by evident signs wonders sufficient to confirm its first commission and to authorize its after-succession from those onely with whom it was deposited to be transmitted by them and their successors to the Churches of Christ in all ages by such gifts and ordinary endowments as might be first duly tried and approved in men before they were ordained to be Ministers in the Church of Christ But these Heteroclite Teachers for the further corroboration of their dubious title and claim to the office of the Ministry are content to accept of some appointment from that power which is meerly military or civil and magistratick which powers in Primitive Churches for 300. years were so far from making any Minister either Bishop or Presbyter or Deacon in the Church of Christ that they sought by all means to persecute and destroy the whole profession of Christianity yea when the Empire became Christian as in Great 's time neither He nor any Christian Emperour Prince or Magistrate after him was ever so impertinent as to imagine that because they could derive civil and military power to others they had also power to make Christian Ministers or to invest them with the Ecclesiasticall power of holy orders nor did they think they had any thing more to do with the Clergie by way of authority save onely to take care for their due and comfortable discharge of that Ministery to which they were by another principle and power ordained according as the peace honour and order of the Church required which so conformed to the State and Common-weal that all Ministers were humbly subject to the Scepters of Princes in the severall places and stations Ecclesiasticall to which they were applied The Clergie owe to Princes the civil endowments of honour and revenue given to them as the temporall reward of their spirituall work but they are not the sources of their orders nor can their broad seal confer that power of the holy Spirit which onely makes a Minister of Jesus Christ not by way of graces or gifts so much as by way of mission and authority flowing onely from the Spirit of Christ as the chief Pastor Bishop and Minister of his Church Others of these new-modell'd Ministers in a way not more preposterous than ridiculous seek to deduce their ministerial power from meer plebeian suffrages from vulgar examinations approbations and elections which commonly are factiously begun foolishly carried on and schismatically concluded having not less weakness but less madness or possibly a little more seeming order civility or tameness than those whose who pretend no other warrant or authority for their being Ministers but what is to be had from their own blindness and boldness their proud conceit and flattering confidence of themselves which emboldens them by a self-ordination to take this holy power to themselves beyond what Aaron or the true Prophets or the Apostles or Christ himself as man did who were not self-sent or ordained but chosen and appointed solemnly consecrated and inaugurated to their office and Ministry either by clear prophecies accomplished or visible miracles wrought in the sight of the people or by some such other signall token ordinary or extraordinary by word or work as God was pleased to use for the manifestation of his will and for the satisfaction of his Church as to those persons which were to minister to the Lord and to whom his Church was conscientiously to submit as to the Lord. Agreeably to which holy pattern and as a full answer to all those clamours envies and despites which the
sacred office charge and ministration how infinitely ought you to be ashamed and regretted to see them usurped many times by the dogs of your flocks by your hinds and foot-men your grooms and serving-men by threshers weavers and coblers by taylors tinkers and tapsters any mean and mechanick people whose parts and spirits are onely fit for those trades to which their breeding and necessities have confined them Not that I despise or reproch these honest though mean employments but I highly blame their insolence and other mens patience to see these usurp upon the dignity of the Ministry Certainly such proud poor wretches may to some men possibly seem fittest Ministers in a disordered State and decaying Church as factors for Satan and Antichrist setters for Ignorance and Superstition turning Faith into Faction but they will never prove after that fashion of preparing and admitting either able or faithfull or fruitfull Ministers of Christ or his Church seeming themselves and making others despisers of Christ with the blasphemous Jews while they so look upon him and treat him as under the notion of the Carpenters son as their equall or inferiour in some handicraft forgetting his divine glory and majesty as the onely-begotten son of God to whom all power is given in heaven and earth who hath executed this power most visibly in sending forth his Ministers to teach and baptize all nations out of which to gather and govern his Church in his name They rudely slight Christs ministerial authority in such as are truly excellent and duly ordained Ministers that they may proudly challenge it to themselves without any reason or Scripture law or order command or example either from Christ or his Church These men who say they are Apostles Prophets and Preachers and are not will be in the end and already are found liars against God and their own souls deceitfull workers false Apostles Mock-ministers Pseudo-pastors disorderly walkers authors of infinite scandall and confusion of scorn and contempt to Christian and Reformed Religion both here and elsewhere many of them serving their bellies and gratifying their carnall lusts and momentary wants much more than designing to advance the glory of God the Kingdome of Christ or the eternall good of mens souls which are not to be carried on save in Gods way that is by fit abilities and with due authority both are required as necessary for a true Minister the first though reall is not sufficient without the second For as the meer outward materiall action cannot be a divine sacramentall or ministerial transaction more than every killing of an Ox was a sacrificing so nor are meer naturall or personall abilities sufficient to acquire any office or authority much less this of the Ministry which is divine or none any more than every able Butcher was presently enabled to be a Priest Any mans ability fully to understand or handsomely to relate the mind of his Prince makes him not presently an Embassador or Minister of State unless there be a commission or letters of credence to authorize the person The blessed Apostle S. Paul who was extraordinarily converted called and sent of God as a Christian a Minister or Apostle yet we see did not take upon him the exercise or office till first Ananias had by Gods speciall command laid his hands on him and he became endowed with the ministerial gift or power of the holy Ghost which were afterward in like sort solemnly confirmed and increased by the express command of God when Paul and Barnabas were separated and sent upon special service with fasting prayer and laying on of the hands of some Prophets and Teachers in Antioch where the Apostle had formerly preached in the Church a whole year among much people This same Apostle oft blames and bids Christians beware of false Apostles not onely false in their doctrine but in their ordination and mission as the Prophets of the Lord did of old the false Prophets whom God had not sent yet they ran The Spirit of Christ commends the Angel of the Church of Ephesus where as Irenaeus and others tell us S. John lived long and left the most pregnant examples of Ecclesiasticall order Episcopall power and Ministeriall succession for trying those that said they were Apostles and were not for finding esteeming and declaring them as liars no way listning and adhering to or communicating with them as being Falsaries and Impostors enemies at once to the truth order and peace of Christs Church For 't is seldome that a bastardly generation of Preachers doth not bring forth some false and base doctrines for it is observable in this as in civil Histories that Bastards in nature and so in office are commonly most daring and adventurous spirits Certainly the late illegitimate Ministers or spurious Preachers of new and strange originals in England have in less than fifteen years brought more monsters of opinions and factions in Religion than have arose in so many hundred years before in any one Church I know some Christians are prone to gratifie their curiosity as those do who sometime go to see monsters in making some triall and essay of these pretended Preachers that once knowing their ignorance and insolence they may upon juster grounds ever after abhor them If this be tolerable for some persons of able and sober judgements yet it is no better than a snare and dangerous temptation for others that are weak and unstable nor may the venture be oft made by the more steddy Christians lest they seem thereby to countenance and encourage so great a confusion innovation usurpation and scandal in the Church of Christ besides the abetting of that high profanation of holy duties and mysteries which ought not to be transacted but in the name power and authority of our God and Saviour Certainly good Christians ought not at any hand to communicate with such usurping intruders in any sacramentall action nor ought they to own any thing more of a Minister of Jesus Christ in them than they would of a King or Magistrate in a Stage-player Doubtless as no good Christian so least of all those that profess to be Ministers of Christ ought to live as sons of Belial disorderly refractory unruly after the arbitrary rude and presumptuous dictates of their own wills The spirit of true Ministers and Prophets will be subject as it ought to that rule order and custome which in all ages hath been the canon measure and commission of all Evangelical Ministers and Pastors of Christs Church As naturall and morall endowments are no plea to invest any man into any office military or civil much less into any power and authority Ecclesiastical The pretenses of new and extraordinary calls of missions immediate from God are not in any reason expectable nor in Christian Religion credible where the ordinary power and commission was continued and might duly be had as it was and yet is in the Church of England
which I am sure give all the seeing world in this point so clear so perfect so full a light and so uniform a testimony that no learned impartiall and conscientious Christian can desire more nor can they but acquiesce in these unless they dare to doubt and deny the veracity and fidelity of all authors that have given us account of any Ecclesiasticall Catholick affairs and customes since the Apostles times in all which no one point or practise hath less doubt or dispute less variation or diversity than this of Ecclesiasticall order both as to the Ministry and government of the Church What the ignorant vulgar who are the bran and courser sort of people may endlesly fancy and affect or what others of better parts but as base passions may cunningly pretend I know not the better to bring in their new modelings of Ministers and Churches but I am sure it will very ill become you O noble Gentlemen who are the best and finest flower the beauty and honour the strength and stability of this English Nation who are the choice and chiefest sons of the Church of England it ill becomes you to suspect all those burning and shining lights both Bishops and Presbyters Fathers and Historians single and sociall in their Closets and in their Councils even in the first innocent ages when the Church was most pure and persecuted as if they had all been either grosly ignorant of or supinely negligent in following the mind of Christ and methods of the blessed Apostles as to these great affairs of the Church which were openly uniformly universally both preached and practised by the Apostles also delivered to and received by their successors as in other things so most indisputably in this which so much concerned not onely the right ordering and well-being and polity of the estate of the Church militant but it s very being and Essence in Doctrine Ministry Duties Discipline and Government Can it I beseech you without great uncharitableness and pervicacy unworthy of any ingenuous soul be imagined that from the beginning during the life of some Apostles and their scholars the whole Church and the most eminent persons in it Ministers Martyrs and Confessors did all conspire to delude themselves and to deceive all posterity in so clear great and sacred concernments as those of the Churches Ministry and Polity were ever esteemed The incomparable and unanswerable Mr. Rich Hooker who is not to be read without admiration nor named without veneration long ago urged this Absurdity against the then more modest Sticklers for their Disciplinarian Innovations in the Ministry and Polity of the Church of England Sure saith he it were a very strange thing that such a Discipline meaning the Presbyterian as ye speak of should be taught by Christ and his Apostles in the Word of God and no Church hath ever found it out nor received it till this present time or contrariwise that the Government of the Church against which you bend your selves should be observed every where through all generations and ages of the Christian world and no Church ever perceive it to be against the word of God We require you to find out but one Church upon the face of the earth that hath been ordered by your Discipline or that hath not been ordered by ours that is Episcopall government for ordination and jurisdiction since the times that the blessed Apostles were conversant upon earth This unanswered challenge did that excellent person heretofore make in order to prevent if possible these innovations and mischiefs which are now grassant in England to the hazard of quite overthrowing all that ancient Order Ministry succession and Government which had been conserved in this Church conform to all parts of the Catholick Church If your other employments and studies have hindred you from being so well acquainted with the authentick works and authoritative testimonies of the ancientest writers of Church-affairs as those grand Authors deserve and your ingenuity cannot but desire yet far be it from your prudence piety and charity to derogate from the honour and credit of your own Countrey-men who have in the Histories of England both Civil and Ecclesiasticall to which you cannot well be strangers sufficiently shewed from the originall of these British Churches what Ministry and Orders they had If you are yet strangers to those eldest ages times and authors of your own and so cannot maturely ground your judgements upon their testimony yet what think you of the learning piety honesty and courage of those later and reall and renowned Reformers of this Church whether Clergie or Lay-men who lived in your fathers memories whose blood and ashes as Martyrs and Confessors against Papall innovations and corruptions is still warm and precious These did not lay new foundations of a Christian Church a true Religion or an authentick Ministry here in England but they onely repaired the decayes of the old and lightned them of those either erroneous or dangerous superstructures with which long ignorance and superstition had over-laded them and not so much built upon them as almost quite buried them These Heroes these worthy men I say who were worthy of the name of Christians English-men and Reformers did not ever design or go about to broach new fountains nor to cut new channels nor to lay new pipes by which to convey the Ecclesiasticall order and Ministeriall authority here in England but they cleansed the foulness they removed the obstructions they sodered the ruptures of the former Catholick way which was very good as well as very old yet not the antiquity but the veracity and divinity of it attested both by Scriptures and by the Catholick usage of all Churches made those blessed Reformers now an hundred years ago cheerfully subscribe to that polity Ministry and authority Ecclesiasticall which they mended but changed not these they recommended to all estates in this nation by whose Parlamentary votes and sanction they were established as the best means to preserve this Church both Christian and Reformed After these famous Fathers of England's happy Reformation whose judgement is manifest in the point of ministeriall power and holy order to be carried on by Bishops and Presbyters can you suspect that their later successors in office and judgement I mean all those learned grave and godly Ministers of England whom your eyes have seen and your ears have heard heretofore with great respect love and admiration dispensing the word of God and holy mysteries to you who till the divisions and deformities of these last and worst dayes have baptized instructed and guided both you and your hopefull posterity in the way to heaven and happiness in truth and peace in faith and repentance in humility and holiness in all graces vertues and good works powerfully set forth to you by their excellent Sermons and fervent Prayers by the blessed Sacraments and worthy Examples they have communicated to you can you I say suspect that all these together with the
who are set up by them as the great rivals and Antagonists of the Ancient Catholick and Apostolick Ministers of Christ and Vastators of the whole frame of the Church of England Can you O worthy Gentlemen or any sober Christians who are not strangers to the prayings preachings and writings heretofore brought forth by the worthy Ministers Bishops and Presbyters of the Church of England can you think that either the godly Ministers or the Christian people in England were ignorant of or strangers to those spirituall influences those inward powers and secret experiences of Religion till these new Pedlers of piety began to open their packs or till these rare Rabbies turned their shops into Synagogues and their Conventicles into the onely true spiritualized Churches of Christ Did we never know before these new Illuminates and Spiritaties rose up what belonged to the humble seeking the happy finding and holy acquaintance with God by the union and communion of Gods Spirit working and witnessing with ours Had we neither the root nor the fruit of true Religion till these new planters sprung up Were we utterly strangers to Faith Repentance Charity and good works or to that joy love peace blessed hopes sweet satisfactions evident sealings sincere sanctifyings and undoubted assurings of the holy Ghost which are wrought by and conform to the Word of God first casting the Christian into that holy mould and then filling him with such comforts as are unspeakable and glorious whose nature is rather to be humbly enjoyed modestly owned and tenderly treated in a gracious soul than vulgarly discovered and vapouringly ostentated in a rude and vain-glorious fashion The brightest lustre of Gods Jewels is rarely shewn and hardly seen being most glorious within the richest wares are least set upon the stalls or shop-boords These Arcana magnalia sublimia Dei secrets of the Lord these whisperings of the blessed Spirit these oscula Christi kisses of Christ as S. Bernard calls them these aromata gratiae perfumes of his soft breath these glowings of grace in the heart these holy fervours and heavenly raptures of humble devout meditative fervent souls who the more they believe the more they love and the more they love the better they live more humanely and more divinely more justly more charitably and more orderly these real pregustations of glory and anticipations of heaven blessed be God were long ago known and experimentally set forth in the Prayers Sermons writings and actions of thousands of good Christians both Ministers and others long before these novell and exotick masters began to lisp out the Soboloths of fine phrases before they dared to assault and not onely cry but beat down this and all National Churches all Clergie of the ancient and right order all Universities and Nurseries of good learning together all Tithes all Liturgies all studied Sermons and premeditated prayers all wholsome forms and sober compendiums of religious duties and devotion as if all these were meerly carnall literall formall and superficiall naturall and papall meer husks and shells the rind and out-side of Religion Yea we had the comfort and God the glory of his grace in the Ch. of Eng. long before either Anabaptists or Familists or Seekers or Quakers or Ranters or any other spawn of Libertinism and Independency of Schism and Separation had amused the silly vulgar as S. Austin tells us by his own experience the subtill but sordid Manichees were wont to do with their new motions and strange expressions of being Godded with God Christed with Christ Spirited with the Spirit and the like affectations which are either barbarities and simplicities or blasphemies insolencies and impossibilities of speaking for no sober Christian ever did or in Religion ought or in true reasoning can understand that by a believers being partaker of a diviner nature through Christ he is presently Deified that is personally invested and plenarily possessed with all the infinite Attributes essence and glory of God which are incomprehensible by any finite understanding and personally incommunicable to any creature excepting Christ Jesus the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Immanuel God Incarnate who onely may without robbery be equall with God esteemed called and adored as God So that they can religiously mean no more by all this pomp of their words than what was long ago far better understood and expressed in more humble wholsom and intelligible words also better enjoyed by sober meek just and quiet-spirited Christians who well knew the glorious priviledges of every gracious and sincere Christian which is to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ to whom being related by faith they are in some sense united to God As the eye that sees the suns light and glory by its beams is in some sense truly enlightened by it united to it partaker of it not as to the vastnesse of its Globe essentiall glory which is far too big and too bright for the eyes small capacity but as to its pleasing influences in like manner the Christian that is illuminate and regenerate by Baptism instructed by the Word of God and sanctified by the Spirit of God is so drawn to Christ by the sweet attractions of the cords of his love and engraffed in him that he is not now his own but Christs not enslaved to his own sinfull and depraved nature but endued with the new powers and principles of an holy and heavenly nature which is truly and soberly that divine nature of which S. Peter speaks which while we behold by true faith and obedience we are changed into the same image from Glory to Glory CHAP. XVI IF then a wise and serious Christian who is not so idle or impudent as to play with Religion to trifle in holy things or to mock with God if such an one will lose so much time as to sift all that these new masters vent that these vapouring Prophets say or write as rare and precious spirituall and heavenly beyond all the fleshly forms learned ignorance and litterall darknesse under which they say we other Christians and Ministers in England have lain long and laboured all night in vain if he will do himself and them so much right as to winnow away the chaff of their affected language their bumbast tearms their insolent expressions drive them from the refuge and confidence they have in the sillinesse of their Auditors the easinesse of their Disciples and the sequaciousnesse of their followers who most admire when they least understand this done he shall find that either nothing remains that is wholsome and good in their swoln heaps of new notions and expressions which are many times the gildings of some of their pills the palliations of their poysonous opinions the daring-glasses or decoyes to bring men into the snares of their dangerous or damnable doctrines or at best all this froth and swelling this noise and ratling of their Novellizings is reducible into a few drops a
zelotries Anarchicall furies deformed reformings and desperate hypocrisies by which some men have like very foul chimneys not onely taken fire themselves according as their own lusts kindled them but they have sought to set this whole house of God the Reformed Church of England on fire under pretence forsooth of cleansing the soile and soot of it which appear now to have been more in their own hearts than any where else Have we not had enough of insolent railings bitter calumnies odious indignities and endless divisions brought upon this Reformed Church of England upon its Apostolick Ministry and all its Evangelical Ministrations as invalid superstitious Popish Antichristian abominable Besides the tragick depressions and undoings of many sober Ministers in their persons credits and estates who were justly esteemed by good Christians for very pious painfull and peaceable men yet have the storms of times not onely faln heavily upon them during the paroxysme of our civil wars but even since that tempest hath been allayed many poor Ministers beyond all other men have been afflicted with the strifes of tongues with schismatical despites with opinionative and disputative besides operative persecutions so far that many a grave and godly Minister hath not known whither to flie not so much for employment as for his safety or quiet that he might in any corner or cottage of the land be free from the molestations of those importune wasps those ill-natur'd Factionists who are his eternall Antagonists who first separating from him at length they preach or prate against him against his office orders and function counting themselves as a new swarm of Teachers sent of God to be to the former stock of Preachers like the hornets sent against the Canaanites that driving all the ancient orthodox duly ordained and well-learned Ministers out of the employment and communion of the Church this Canaan of England this good land this famous Church may wholly be in their possession Have we not had enough and too much of petulant practises scurrilous expressions and blasphemous insolencies cast even upon that God that Saviour that holy Spirit that blessed Trinity whom we adore and admire besides the neglects contempts and profanations cast upon our Sacraments our Sermons our Prayers I need not to adde and repeat the diminutions and indignities under which many worthy Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters do lie together with that whole Evangelical order and office which planted preserved and reformed this Church of England How many have questioned others derided a third sort divided from and not a few have utterly denied and as much as in them lies destroyed them all Hence many are grown to esteem all our Religion all our Reformation all Christian duties all Worship and Devotion no better than meer politick frauds specious fables popular fallacies cunning captivities witty mockeries and delusions of the people Yea that nothing might be wanting which malice can invent or act there are some so fierce and cunning enemies of the Church of England that to bring our Reformation into further defiance and disgrace among Papists Atheists and profane livers they dare to impute even their most putid errours their most extravagant fancies their most factious and flagitious practises either to reforming principles or to Gods Spirit and divine impulses O what astonishment what stupor what a lethargie what a dumbnesse what searednesse what deadnesse must needs possess the spirit of any Nation so Christian so Reformed so knowing and enlightened as the people of England sometime was to hear with patience yea with silence yea with connivence yea with smiles and seeming approbation such insolencies such extravagancies imputed to their Religion yea to their Reformation nay to the Spirit of their God and Saviour horrid and black enormities which deserve to be expiated with teares of blood as Gregory Nazianzen speaks of some abuses of Religion in his times O blessed God stir up such a pious shame sorrow and abhorrence in the generality of the people that these fedities may not become the sins of the nation Have we not had enough and too much of scepticall disputes and unedifying contests of unhealing questions and uncharitable quarrellings of bitter strifes and bloody contradictions of evil eyes and envious emulations prevailing like gangrenes or cancerous distempers even among those that profess to be godly and contend for the superiority of Sanctity By all which as S. Hilary passionately complains after the Arian fury had poysoned the Church in his times not onely unkind distances but mutuall defyances and damnings the Christian Reformed Religion sometime setled uniform and flourishing with verity charity decency divine authority and publick majesty in the Church of England is now made an annual menstruall and diurnall Faith or Religion as S. Hilary aptly deplores All things are either so snarled and intangled by infinite doubts and scruples or so wire-drawn by popular and petty disputes or so broken in sunder by factious divisions or so horrid by reciprocall Anathemaes like thunder-bolts cast on all sides in each others faces that the common sort of people know not what to make of Christian or Reformed Religion nor to what Ministers or Ministry to apply themselves with comfort and conscience The solid masse of pure gold which was the highest riches and honour of this nation the true and invaluable treasure of your souls while Religion as Christian and Reformed was carefully preserved as a precious and holy depositum this well-refined gold is now so dim and embased with dross or so malleated and beaten thin by perverse disputations that most men use Religion onely as leaf-gold to tip their tongues or gild over the superficies of their conversation withall or to set off as S. Austin observed of old in the crafty Manichees and others both Hereticks and Schismaticks of his time with the shew and lustre of Christian Religion all the new fancies projects policies and opinions of severall parties which are presently by their authors and abettors cryed up as the pure Ordinances of Jesus Christ the perfect mind of the Spirit the true meaning of the Scripture Gospel-truths hidden treasures Evangelick rarities yea that nothing might be thought to have been Christian Catholick clear and constant setled and indisputable as to Religion in this or any other Church of any other frame and fashion some men have sought not onely to shake and batter but to demolish and utterly overthrow the whole house of wisdome beating down all the grand and goodly pillars on the one side of faith repentance charity good works on the other side of Scriptures Ministry Worship and Sacramentall Mysteries as to the validity authority majesty sanctity solemnity and saving efficacy of them all Upon which the Catholick Church was every where anciently built even then when it was by the hands of the Apostles their successors the Primitive Bishops Presbyters Martyrs Confessors hewn out of the rock of heathenish barbarity idolatry polished by
S. Paul tells Philemon as to whatever they can rightly pretend of the true honour priviledge and power of Christiany What is less Saintly than to cry up novell partiall and factious Reformations to magnifie uncouth and exotick wayes of Ministry and Christianity Church-fellowship and Communion while in the mean time they ungratefully despise and cruelly crucifie their proper Mother the Church of England together with those whom they sometime justly esteemed as their Fathers in God and brethren in Christ What is less Saintly than to endeavour to rob God in a land of peace and plenty to expose his servants and service after the order of Christs Evangelicall Priesthood to as great contempts deformities and diminutions in all points both for order and authority learning and maintenance as ever Julian the Apostate did design with great impudence crying down the rare and indeed incomparable Ministers of the Church of England who had been liberally treated and honourably maintained that they may with vulgar easiness and credulity by a penurious covetous and sacrilegious sophistry cry up some cheap new-fashioned Teachers as rare Angels that had no stomachs and would preach gratis who I believe are found in many places as greedy and voracious as Bell and the Dragon in the Apocrypha Nor can I think them other than Apocryphall Preachers so far from Angels of light sent from God to comfort the Reformed Religion in its bloody sweat and agonies that they seem rather as Messengers of Satan sent to buffet this Reformed Church and the renowned Clergie of England whose fame and flourishing whose piety and prosperity whose honour and unity whose Catholick order and authority heretofore was so conspicuous by the rare indulgence of Gods providence by the generous munificence of pious Princes and by the moderation of wise and worthy Parliaments that God it seems saw it in danger as S. Paul to be exalted above measure by reason of those excellent endowments and enjoyments both spirituall and temporall which were bestowed upon it All which are prone to threaten themselves by their excess the usuall temper of humane frailty being such that it is never so fixed sweetened and seasoned by any temporall blessings in the best of men but it is subject to warp to sowre or to putrifie if it stand too long in the warm sun of prosperity However it becomes all holy and humble Ministers to bless God with holy Job though he take what he once gave it is his mercy that he chuseth rather by impoverishing of us to correct us than to leave us wholly to that crookedness and putrefaction which we were ready of our selves in peace and plenty to contract it is better for any Church any Clergie any Christians to be healed by the sharpness of Gods corrosives and vinegar than too much softned by the suppleness of his oyles and lenitives I hope the health and soundness of the Church and Clergie of England are Gods last designs that his blessings to both shall in due time be restored and enjoyed again when being better prepared to use and value them we shall be less subject to abuse and loose them CHAP. XX. MEan time while many grave and excellent Ministers are faine patiently to hang their harps upon the willowes while they and other sober Christians daily weep over the waters of Babylon our sad confusions a generall astonishment hath seised upon all sober and serious wise and worthy men true lovers of this Church and Nation who with sad hearts and moistened eyes do hear and see the more then childish petulancies the rude insolencies the impudent familiarities the irreverent behaviours which in many places the common sort of people are grown to affect and presume to use even in our religious duties and sacred assemblies expressing less outward respect or reverence in the presence of God when his Ministers and his people assemble to worship him than they are wont to use either for fear or civility or shame before the Steward and Jury of a Court Leet or the meanest Justice of Peace and his Clark in the countrey From the rude examples and daring indulgences of some men whose years and education might have taught them better manners there daily growes up a numerous generation a rustick heady and impudent fry of younger people who carry no more regard to any duties of Religion or respect to the Ministers of them than the fourty children did to the Prophet Elisha when they mocked him and were for their ill breeding and irreligious rudeness torn in pieces by the she-Bears to teach both parents and children better manners towards Gods Prophets as was of old observed Yea there are some grown so clownish and Cyclopick Christians that their very Religion consists not a little in their morose undecent uncivil untractable spirits and demeanour if others have their heads reverently uncovered in the presence and service of God these must have their hats on not to relieve the tenderness and infirmity of their heads but to shew the liberty and surliness of their wills and spirits If others testifie their inward veneration of the divine Majesty by their outward comely gestures as either standing or kneeling according to the variety of duties these by all means affect to fit or loll after such a lazy and neglective fashion that easily discovers and openly proclaims neither much fear of God nor reverence of man yea some people are not satisfied thus to express their sullen tempers by their churlish and unconformable gestures as to our religious duties and decencies in case they vouchsafe to be present but they must be railing and reviling prating and opposing cavilling and disputing in publick What eare not wholly uncircumcised can bear the vain bablings the unprofitable unpleasing and profane janglings of such sophisters the unharmonious noise of such Low-bels whose sound is neither with verity certainty harmony nor gravity yet do they every where seek to drown or confound the sacred concent of Aarons bells and that sweet musick which was wont to be in Gods sanctuary in our Churches here in England when good Christians did orderly and reverently meet together with their lawfull Ministers in one place with one accord with one heart one mind one mouth to serve the Lord and to edifie one another in truth and love with all modesty humility decency and solemnity CHAP. XXI WHich comfort honour solemnity and blessing of Religion formerly enjoyed in most Congregations of the Church of England how many of later yeares have dared not more with rudeness than profaneness to exchange for a kind of Sibylline ravings Bacchinal raptures They obtrude upon poor people sudden correptions licentious rantings ridiculous quakings fanatick ravings senselesse vapourings and such like rallieries or gallantries in Religion which seek to turn Christianity to a kind of buffoonery If these corrept corrupt extasies or extravagancies be not permitted to such fanatick triflers troublers of travagancies be not permitted to such
fanatick triflers troublers of Religion which no sober Christian can tolerate in their publick and religious meetings they presently meditate the most desperate separations they instantly fall to set up new Churches and Pastors after their own heart their full revenge must be had not onely by dividing themselves but by seducing and poysoning other silly people as much as may be withdrawing them from that good esteem they had and respect they formerly bare to the Church of England and their lawfull Ministers Then the followers of these pragmatick Preachers are taught to bear with patience as horses are the noise of drummes and trumpets all manner of scurrilous railings against the Church and Clergie of England At last they are by troops brought up in front to charge them with such insolency of speech and behaviour of writing and acting as sufficiently discovers their evil hearts to be like mines or Petars full fraught and charged with all kinds of bitterness contempt and animosity against them in order to destroy them utterly as soon as they have power and opportunity to do it In the room of whose orderly beauty learned gravity sober sanctity and exemplary piety so famous conspicuous and prosperous heretofore these bold extirpators and bitter Antagonists have hitherto produced as the eructations of Aetna and earth-quakes are wont with much swelling noise and terrour nothing but darkness smoke and thick vapours full of sulphureous obfuscations Sure their executions and conclusions must be full of mischiefs subversions confusions desolations to the Reformed Religion because there is not one dramme or iota that ever I could observe of sound knowledge of usefull piety of gracious effects of holy patterns of Christian principles to be found in them any way comparable to those proportions of wisdome and good understanding of justice and charity of meekness and moderation with all which the English world was heretofore well acquainted by the learned industry and exemplary piety of its reverend Bishops and other godly Ministers who were ever highly honoured passionately loved and worthily treated by pious Princes peacefull Parliaments and unpassionate people long before either tumultuary rabbles or schismatick agitators or the Scotch sword or the Smectymnuan juncto or a sifted sequacious Assemblie or covenanting Houses or Committee-Consistories or Military Superintendents undertook by an unwonted authority and severity not onely to catechise but to chastise the Church and Clergie of England even all the Bishops and most of the Presbyters among whom many one person might be found whose learning and worth every way might modestly be put into the balance against all that any or all those parties can pretend to or ever yet discovered to the wiser and better world who have been and are the most rigid exactors severest censurers and sorest enemies to the Reformed Clergie and Church of England Whos 's more crafty rivalls and cruellest persecutors finding themselves as heretofore so still vastly exceeded and infinitely out-done as to all reall endowments commendable practises and visible sufficiencies for learning knowledge utterance prudence for praying preaching writing and living they are now of late after the way of those old fanaticks who called themselves the pure elect inspired and spirituall ones flown to the retreats and refuges of their inward graces to more secret and spiritual perceptions to hidden and unseen acquaintances with God Which are as I formerly touched the old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of elect Manichees and paraclete Montanists meer shifts and sleights blinds and evasions where the light of mens works and gifts shines not to the glory of God as our Saviour speaks for these are a nemo scit as easily denied as they are rashly affirmed being indiscoverable and incommunicable to any but Gods and a mans own spirit The hidden manna the white stone the new name which none can read but he that hath it these if meant of Graces are best asserted or most confuted by mens works No man is of God who doth not the will and works of God as they are revealed in his Word in all righteousness and holiness with meekness and humility with sobriety and good order in all which if any the best of these Novellers do at any time come neer to the parts graces and merits of those that were and are dutifull sons and servants to the Church of England yet I am sure they cannot without intolerable impudence pretend to exceed them so far that no fair quarter may be allowed to the former Preachers and Professors in this Church that no place or naile should be left them in Gods sanctuary here in England CHAP. XXII INto which as I have by many instances evinced some mens folly or fury hath of later years sought to bring so much filth and confusion that they have almost made this Church an Augean stable so that it is an Herculean work to cleanse it of all those debordments and debasements faln upon Christian Religion of those fedities and deformities brought upon its reformed profession of those disorders and undecencies which have invaded Ecclesiastick duties and mysteries all which necessarily follow the invasions and usurpations of popular libertie in Religion which though already full of squallor and sordidness yet are still eagerly challenged loudly clamoured and fiercely asserted by the common people and their parasites the most plebeian spirits Who not capable to comprehend or not willing to understand the gracious beauty the holy modesty and divine majesty of true Christian liberty which most excludes all base licenciousnesse as the brightest light doth all darkness and the perfectest health all sickness have excessively doted in later years upon this Image of imaginary liberty as if it had newly come down from heaven in a whirlwind of Civil war and Schisme whereas in good earnest the most vociferant vulgar who most cry up this their Diana like the riotous rabble at Ephesus do least know what the matter is nor what true Christian liberty means which undoubtedly puts the severest restraints that may be upon it self as to doing any thing offensive to God or injurious to its neighbour in private and single much more in publick and sociall respects in civil much more in religious relations which as men and Christians we bear to one another True Christian liberty is as far as heaven from hell from any thing that looks like incivility rudeness barbarity inhumanity frenzy fedity disorder deformity Rationall and religious liberty is not the freedome of an untamed heifer of an unbridled horse of a mad dog or an unyoked hog which will ramble and wallow and bite and root up where they list which seeks to subvert not whole houses onely but famous Churches to infect as many as they can with the plague and contagion of mens own evil hearts It is not Christian liberty but an earthly sensuall and devillish lazinesse or licentiousness for men and women that have been baptised in the name of Christ and so
it self both as to the actors and permitters If such inordinate liberty which naturally men affect and which imposeth on mankind the necessity of having publick laws and magistratick powers above all private mens fancies if it be so pestilent in civil and secular regards that the indulgence of it is no more to be permitted by wise and good men for one moneth or one day than a fire may be left to its freedome for one hour in any private cabbin or chamber to the endangering of the whole ship and house how I beseech you can it be convenient or profitable to the common interests of Religion or the honour of any Nation that desires to be called Christian to let every man pick and chuse their severall doctrines opinions forms and fashions of Religion as they best fancy or to suffer them to set up to themselves what Prophets Pastors or Preachers what Churches Congregations Conventicles they most affect one being of Paul another of Apollos a third of Cephas one Episcopall another Presbyterian a third Independent a fourth owning no Ministers no Religion at all Specious names and godly pretensions may be very pernicious to the peace of the Church the honour of Christ and the good of mens souls as the blessed Apostle there observes through the folly and factiousness of people Better the most deserving names how much more the most flattering Novellers in the world should be buried in eternal oblivion than they should be set up in the Church of Christ as so many apples of contention so many wedges of division so many rivals to the glory of Christ so many moths to religious unity and the Churches beauty so many Molechs or Idols through whose fires your posterity as Christians that are not yours onely but Gods children and as it were Christs seed and off-spring should be forced to pass with popular noyses and incondite acclamations of liberty onely to drown the sad cries of those poor souls who are to be tormented in those flames those Tophets of uncharitable novelties and factious liberties Christian liberty as vulgar spirits commonly use it is but a corroding salve spread on a silk plaister it is a confection of carnal projects wrought up with spirituall mixtures it is poyson presented in a gilt cup the Devils rats-bane mingled with sugar The sad effects already upon us in England and further threatning us do promise nothing upon this account but envies wraths strifes jealousies animosities whisperings swellings tumults seditions oppressions and mutual persecutions with every evil work among us as men and Christians CHAP. XXVI NOr are these mischiefs only rife among Lay-men or ordinary people whose ignorance meanness and discontent are prone to tempt them to any thing but even among those who desire to be called the Ministers Teachers Pastors leaders of the people for even these in many places either mis-led by the people or sadly misleading them are very much bitten and infected with this epidemicall disease of mistaken corrupted and abused liberties in matters of Religion both as to Doctrine and Worship as to Ecclesiasticall order and Ministeriall authority many of these otherwise men of worth for soundness and integrity no way unfit for the work or unworthy to have the honour of being Ministers of the Gospel yet are miserably tainted with these divisions distractions and deformities even among themselves Which contagion among the Pastors as well as the Flocks as a farther sad and evident instance of the grand causes or occasions of this Churches present miseries and of the great decayes of the Reformed Religion I crave leave without offence to any of my worthy and deserving Brethren in the Ministry of what name or title of what stamp or metall soever they are a little to insist upon that I may by further discovering the rise and progress of our mischiefs the better make way for such remedies as your wisdome O my noble Countrey-men shall see fittest for the recovery of health strength and beauty to this deformed Church and the remnants of Reformed Religion in it As all experience tells us poor mortalls that our greatest enemies are many times nearest to us and oft lie in our own bosoms so the greatest mischiefs that have or can befall the Christian Reformed Religion in England do chiefly arise from some Preachers or such as would be accounted the Ministers of Christs Church under severall notions and formations Vulgar reproches plebeian contempts the injuries of Lay-men yea the persecutions of great and mighty men the Clergie or true Ministers of Christs Church in England might possibly have born with patience constancy comfort and honour though much to their outward diminution if they had had the grace wisdome and understanding to have kept among themselves that harmony constancy and integrity in judgements practise and affections which became men that should be both wise and warm prudent as serpents and innocent as doves if they had as Christs Disciples loved one another though the world hated them if they had as one man held together like a well-turn'd Arch surely they might at once have upheld themselves and easily sustained any pressures laid upon them by the levity violence and ingratitude of other men the Clergie being as the cable and anchor of Religion which firmly twisted together and fraternally combined in truth and love will in time bring the people to quiet and calmnesse in Religion however they may have their storms and tossings sometime partly by innate fluctuancy as the rollings and tidings of the sea and partly by outward winds and tempests What Nation hath there been so barbarous what heathens so truculent what persecutors so inhumane whom godly Bishops and other Ministers have not by their exemplary faith patience unity and charity with Gods blessing in time softened and sweetened convinced and converted to be Christians while they all spake the same things carried on the same interests of Christ as it were with one shoulder These once broken in their orderly and uniform methods varied in their Catholick succession and authority divided in their fraternall concord and harmony the peoples minds soon grow distracted and are violently driven as ships from their anchors and cables upon a thousand dangers When primitive Pastors and people were most cordially united though they were most cruelly persecuted yet Christianity spread and prospered what the fury of men pull'd down that the care and charity of their Ministers built up twisting what others ravelled either as Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks which reparations of Religion were easily effected while the sheep knew their true shepherds following them or flying to them in case of any danger when the people knew their proper Presbyters and orderly Presbyters owned those Bishops to whom they were duly subordinate when all ranks and orders in the Church of Christ as parts in the body kept their stations and ranks their orders and correspondencies their proportions and duties either in
filiall subjection or fatherly inspection when no good Christian was to seek what Pastors what Preachers he should apply to nor any Deacon or Presbyter did doubt to what Bishop he owed a respect as to his Superiour in Ecclesiastick eminency order and authority This this blessed harmony this Catholick and in primitive times undoubted as well as uniform and constant order did then keep up or recover by Gods blessing the majesty of Christian Religion the love together with the honour and authority of the Evangelical ministry amidst the heaviest distractions and persecutions and so no doubt it would have done in England amidst all plebeian insolencies and popular prostitutions But alas though all this evil be come upon us Ministers of all sorts and sizes from without from civil warres and unhappy publick differences in secular interests which spare no men as also from the private covetousness inconstancy malice revenge impatience ambition and ingratitude of some vulgar people not onely to the great injuring of many Ministers persons credit and estates but to the menacing of an utter subversion even to the whole tribe office and function as it was founded on Divine Institution built up by Apostolicall Tradition and preserved by Catholick Succession yet in our distresses and afflictions many Ministers as Ahaz have sinned more and more and as if it were a small matter that plebeian spite and petulancy could ambitiously inflict upon Ministers themselves have added much fewel to their fires encouraging their malice by wretched complyings with them flattering of them in the very abuses of their liberties in their rude arrogatings and usurpations upon the Ministry infinitely to the disgrace of their holy calling to the disparagement of their own judgements and to the prostrating of their due authority which is as I have proved divine or none at all that I mention not Ministers betraying of their own honest interests and enjoyments as to this world in point of profit honour and reputation All which the gulf of secular avarice and the Abyss of Lay-mens sacriledge daily gapes to devour after the pattern which some Achans and Ananiasses of the Clergie have set them the poor remainders of which as they are already forfeited by the sordid and shamefull debasing of themselves to the humouring of people in their lusts and licentiousness so they will in a few years be utterly lost and confiscated by the advantages which will be given to peoples covetous cruelty through those mutuall animosities jealousies distances and varieties which are now maintained by the severall sides and sorts of Ministers in England all pretending to be Preachers of the Gospel under reformed and super-reforming names What infinite swellings disdains envies and pertinacies are open to all mens observations even among those men who would be thought grave wise learned holy and every way able to teach and rule the vulgar How have their innovations mutations levities and divisions so clearly manifested their weaknesse folly and factiousnesse that as it cannot be hid from vulgar eyes and censures so it is already many wayes confuted and sorely punished not onely by the palpable frustratings of some of their novell designs but by their being generally debased far below their former station and extremely worsted in all points as to that handsome if not honourable condition which they might in unity and order as heretofore have enjoyed in England If once the Ministers of any Church who are as the walls and sea-banks do make cracks and breaches upon themselves or suffer the moles and water-rats of the people so to do no wonder if the high tides of vulgar insolency and rapine soon break in upon them make their ruines not more deplorable than irreparable CHAP. XXV YEt after all this sharp and sad experience which hath rendred the profession of Ministers on all hands contemptible their ordination disputable their enjoyments miserable their necessities irreparable their dependences poor plebeian almost sordid by their mutuall and unhappy divisions yet still many who glory to be called Ministers of whatever odde ordination or new edition they are do fancy it a great part of their piety to be pertinacious in those new opinions wayes and factions which they have adopted yea much of their sanctity is made to consist in their scorning all antiquity and of all Reformation heretofore in the Church of England If they can find nothing else to quarrel at in the old Clergie of England whose doctrine was found whose ordination most Catholick valid and unquestionable by Bishops whose learning and lives were most commendable yet they must find fault with their very clothes and rather than not differ they must disguise themselves from the gravity of Gowns and Cassocks of black caps and black clothes to military clokes to Scotch jumps to white caps and all mechanick colours in which posture being as Preachers once got into a Pulpit then both they and the silly people fancy they see great Reformations of Religion more looking at the gay and strange colours of a foolish bird than minding how it speaks especially if these new Ministers do gratifie the plebs of the Laity and the plebs of the Clergie with any influence or stroke in their ordination and consecration to the office of the Ministry if they have highly cried up popular rights and liberties in making and marring in electing and rejecting in ordaining and deposing their Pastors if they have gently condescended to such popular transports and real novellizings in England as are contrary to all practises of ancient and best Churches O what an high mountain do these new Masters and their new Disciples fancy they are ascended to what a glorious transfiguration do they imagine themselves to be changed what a new heaven and new earth do some of them either more silly or more subtill than others glory they have created in their godly corporations their rare associations and blest ordinations how strange novell and disorderly soever they are as to all ancient customes of this and all Churches Nor do they think it worth considering how much they deviate from all Antiquity how much they desert yea reproch the wisdom of this Church and all estates in this Nation ever since it was either Christian or Reformed how much they go beyond the duty they owed to the civil peace of this Nation as also that modesty humility ingenuity reverence and subjection which by the lawes of God and man by all sanctions civil and Ecclesiasticall they owed to the Governours and guides Pastors and Preachers the peace and wellfare of this Church of England besides that prudence and policy which they ought to maintain in order to the honour and respect which is indeed due to their calling and authority when it is truly ministeriall and authentick What sober and impartial man doth not see how the despites arrogancies and insolencies first expressed in tumultuary heats and furies against all Bishops whatsoever though never so learned
very good graceful having the honour of ancient venerable and gray-headed Episcopacy upon it that they might the better induce Christianity which is now above 1500 years old to put on and wear a la mode the new peruques either of young Presbytery or younger Independency rather than Religion should go quite bald and be ridiculous by its deformity and confusion though the pristine polity peace purity majesty severity sanctity and solemnity of Religion as Christian and Reformed in England be infinitely baffled and abased by the petulancy of those that affect licentious liberties and unsaintly extravagances though all these evils as Daemones meridiani are pregnant and every day proclaimed by the loud Herauld of Experience which themselves declaime against and deplore as well as other men Yet many Ministers in other respects not to be despised or much blamed do still as to the point of Church-order discipline government and polity which is the outward centre of unity and visible band of peace passionately desire and solicitously endeavour that those wild oats and tares which some men have of late years sown watered and cherished while the Nation and Church were not aware as being engaged in war and blood during whose heats great wounds of Religion are little felt might for ever grow up spread and shed abroad like thistle-down yea and succeed to after-generations in this nation that so England might be more famous for variety of parties and opinions in Religion than either Poland is or Amsterdam How few nominal or real Ministers that have been either Authors or great sticklers and abettors not of any modest just and sober Reformations but of needless endless innovations schisms deformities and defections in the Church of England can yet find in their hearts meekly to retreat by any humble ingenuous and happy wayes of Christian meekness and wisdom to a sweet accord from their first heady extravagances and unhappy transports in which the heat and passion of mens spirits as is usual in all quarrels made even at first the differences jealousies and offences far greater than the real injury or inconvenience indeed was which is most clearly evident now not onely by our comparing the former happy estate of this Church and of the Reformed Religion here besides those comforts which the generality of all good Ministers and sober Christians in former times enjoyed in England under Episcopacy but further by our serious considering those fair offers those great moderations those self-denials and Christian condescentions with which all worthy and wise Bishops with all Episcopal Ministers were and are ready to gratifie the peace of this Church and the desires of all good Christians even of those who have been most their enemies and destroyers whom they forgive the more readily because they believe most of them as the crucifiers of Christ did it ignorantly ignorant of the laws of this Nation and of the good constitutions of this Church ignorant of the customes practise and judgement of all ancient Catholick Churches ignorant of that equity and charity which they owed to others ignorant of that honest policy and discretion which they owed to themselves and their order lastly ignorant of that pious grateful and prudent regard they should have had of the honour peace and prosperity of this Church both at present and in after-ages But however the exorbitancies of some ignorant men at first might be so far venial as they were led on by the pious and specious pretences of others rather than their own principles yet they are less excusable now since the sad events have so fully confuted all those prejudices and pretensions since popular looseness avarice and madness hath as a rude broom swept away all the fine-spun and speciously spread cobwebs of Reformation either as to the state of this Church or the Reformed Religion professed here in England or as to the promised amendment of the Ministerial order and office either for ability duty authority or maintenance Ministers first tearings and rendings of themselves asunder are not yet sewed together yea Religion it self is faln to rags and preachers are become as so many pie-bald patches of several colours and antick figures which wretched division and fundamental deformity in Religion cannot but daily grow as a Gangrene to greater maladies mischiefs and miseries which will be bitterness in the later end For as no City so no Church can prosper that is divided against it self neither grace nor peace can advance where Preachers of Religion are mutual persecutors where while Ministers teach people to believe to love and to live Christ crucified they are daily crucifying one another It is a deplorable and desperate state of any Church where as in Babels building the builders tongues heads hands and hearts are divided yea the very builders are self-destroyers mutually ruining themselves under pretence of zeal to build or repaire the Church of Christ what one rears with the right hand another pulls down with the left when they frequently leave their trowels and fall to their pick-axes and ponyards when they fling lime and sand in one anothers eyes when they build or dawb rather with untempered mortar when every one is ambitious to be a Master-builder a new modeller of Religion of Churches of Ministers and of Ministry contrary to the wisdome and piety of such a Church and Nation as England was Leaving poor people mean while infinitely amazed jealous unsatisfied perplexed as to Religion Some are sadly grieved others are quite confounded many are zealous for the newest fashion others are for the good old way a third sort is glad of the occasion to cast off all Religion while they see those Ministers cut the Catholick cords of charity and unity in sunder in order to bind Christians up to new parties and factions or to private interests and opinions which like Sampsons wit hs will not serve to bind the lusts or consciences of men to their good behaviour These these are the sad effects which follow those deformities of Preachers turning Pioneers of Ministers being underminers and demolishers of one another and their Mother-Church when those that should be Gods Ambassadours forgetting the majesty of their mission and sanctity of their errand fall to railing and reproching calumniating and declaiming against one another like so many eager Baristers and mercenary Lawyers who are resolved being once fee'd to defend their cause and their client whatever the merits of them be because they have once undertaken them without any regard to that justice honour wisdome gravity charity meekness harmony joynt counsel and ingenuous correspondency which ought to be preserved in all fraternities and honest callings or mysteries but chiefly among the Ministers of Christs glorious Gospel Preachers should be of the highest form of Christs Disciples the most exemplary in all piety meekness and prudence in all gravity equity and charity for want of which even as to matters of outward polity order civility and ministration they are and ever
will be the more blamable before God and man by how much nearer they profess to come to one another in the harmonies of faith and confessions of the same reformed and true doctrine which would soon unite their hearts and studies if they had on all sides less of easiness credulity popularity peevishness obstinacy small ambitions and juvenilities The removing of which distempers from all Ministers new and old and from my self as well as any other is one of my chief designs and endeavours to be carried on in the fourth and last Book of this discourse At present it sufficeth to have shewed as an evil branch of abused Liberty in Religion this to be none of the least causes or occasions of the Church of Englands distempers decayes and miseries that Ministers are after Mundane and machiavellian methods so sharply divided from and eagerly opposite against one another so hardly perswaded by any retreats and principles of piety charity prudence which honest policy publick necessity self-preservation or care of future succession invite them to which may make for an happy close and Christian accommodation Upon some Ministers pride and peevishness not any one nay not all these considerations together can so far prevail I fear as to induce them to any terms or treaty of equable accord but they still carry themselves as young men high in their own conceits coy and elate in their parties opinions presumptions prejudices animosities and disdains especially against the former Ministry of England which was not more Episcopal than Catholick Primitive Apostolicall and truly Christian Few novell Ministers ever lay their hand on their heart and ask what evil have I acted occasioned or not hindred to this Church of England CHAP. XXVI THat I may a little further open the eyes of all my Brethren such as either are or deserve or desire to be Ministers of the Gospel and of all other my Countrey-men both as to their own private interests as Ministers and as to the publick concernments of the Christian Reformed Religion in this Nation I shall yet more particularly and as pathetically as I can endeavour to shew them the true state and posture in which their persons their livelihoods their credits their worldly comforts their calling at present and their succession for the future now seem to stand in England what scratch'd faces what deformed aspects how deplorable conditions all of them either feel or may justly fear and expect by reason of that inordinate liberty which people in England have lately carried on to such intolerable petulancies insolencies and licentiousnesse against Ministers whereto they have been highly animated and encouraged not more by their own lusts and malapertnesse than by those unkind indiscreet and unchristian dissentions which have broke out among Ministers themselves against one another while forgetting that gravity constancy modesty and equanimity which they owed to themselves and to each other they either rowed down or suffered themselves to be carried down this foul stream and torrent of vulgar liberty out of principles of facility or faction popularity or pride covetousness or cowardise ignorance or sequaciousness which have so blinded some Ministers otherwise of very good abilities that like men drenched over head and ears in water they cannot suddenly or easily see what deformities are upon them what dangers threaten them both as men and as Ministers Whatever title order original badge or discriminating character of their Ministry they bear and wear in the world whatever principles they profess whatever party they patronize adhere to or adopt new or old this I am sure if they be not purely plebeian praters of the very scumme lees and dregs of people which have no sense of sin shame or honour if they are persons of any learned latitude of any ingenious capacities and abilities of any tenderness in honour or conscience if they be painful pious or prudent men in any degree they cannot but see that no mens condition in England or almost under heaven of whatever calling and quality they are is more mean and miserable more tattered and scambling less honourable or less comfortable no profession order or fraternity of men is more divided dubious distressed forlorn despicable as to all civil and secular interests for profit peace respect and reputation both for the encouragement of their present ministration and for the hopes of an able future succession none of which things wise and worthy Ministers ought supinely sordidly sluggishly or simply to neglect Their own and all mens eyes that are open and clear may easily see the sad prospects of Ministers dejections diminutions debasements distresses in all those points all of them are under the scorn of some opposite party or other most of them live in a low and mean estate many of them to my knowledge contend with extreme difficulties and all manner of necessities not a few of them which I have been oft an eye-witness of have been and are reduced to a morsel of bread and are driven even to beg alms for the support of themselves and their distressed families How many of their cryes have I heard how many of their tears have I seen with what pallor and dejection with what squallor and horrour with what astonishment and despair do many of them wander from one village city and countrey to another for relief untill being weary and wasted sunk and oppressed by their daily distresses and remedilesse tragedies they go to their graves with sorrow to the shame and sin I believe of the Age in which they have thus lived and died Ministers of the Gospel and very worthy ones too if it be any merit to have constantly deserved well of the Church of England by their godly preaching and living over whose sad ruines I know the enemies of this Church and the Reformed Religion both at home and abroad do infinitely triumph and seriously rejoyce Nor is this hard fate befaln those Ministers onely who were and are of the Episcopal persuasion and most constant to the love and duty they owe to the Church of England but even those Ministers have been shrewdly singed who most eagerly sought to heat the fiery furnace of popular wrath and revenge against all Bishops and the Episcopall Clergie the thumbs and toes of many of those great Adonibezeks have been cropt off who most joyed in the like executions done by popular revenge and vulgar fiercenesse against all of the Episcopall order and ordination even those Preachers who filled their sails most with the peoples breath are now either becalmed or come aground or very leaky or quite dashed in pieces as to their former great influence and reputation among the people nor have they made either such a fair port or such a prosperous voyage as might any way answer their former presumptions their high ostentations and their flattering expectations This I am sure that the ambitious wantonnesse of many Ministers lusting to tast of the forbidden fruit of government beyond their
nature and in regard of the offer of Evangelick grace by Christ as much need and as much capacity of Baptisme as the Jewish children had of Circumcision so far as both those initial Sacraments betoken the taking away of sin the supply of righteousness and other benefits attainable by sinners young or old through the covenant made in the blood of J. Christ between God and his Church both Jewish and Christian Only they put in these three popular barres against Infants partaking of those benefits which they need and are otherwayes capable of by Christ but not as the Anabaptists say in the way of Baptisme at that age in which they have no right or capacity to be baptised because First They alledge there is no precise or nominall command in the New Testament to baptize any Infants by name Secondly Baptisme is limited to such as are first taught and professe to believe which must ever exclude Infants Thirdly There is no one expresse and nominall instance of any one example where Christ or his Apostles baptized any infant which if they could finde they confesse they should then with us interpret all places in favour of infants as contained under the expression of all nations and whole housholds and you and your children c. since they confesse the tenour of the Gospel the extent or proportions of Evangelicall mercies the sufficiencie of Christs merits and the sinfull state of infants by nature yea their damnable estate unlesse they be washed and saved by the blood of Christ all these make much for infants enjoying the Sign and Seal as well as the Thing signified Grace and Glory too if they had but one example or could be convinced that ever any Apostle did baptize any one infant CHAP. VIII THis in brief is the whole strength as I conceive of the Anabaptists whereto they so pertinaciously hold meerly as to the literall silence of the name Infant in the point of Baptisme and at the same rate they may deny many other points of Christian doctrine and practise which yet I suppose they do not which not having the express and individual letter of the word for them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the generall tenour and inclusive command namely the reason of the Scripture and Analogie of Faith to justifie them besides the constant practise and judgement of the Catholick Church whose fidelity is not to be questioned by any sober man upon such slight and captious pretensions of the Scriptures silence in point of particular enumerations when yet it is full as to generall and comprehensive expressions which are many and valid foundations on which to build Infant-baptisme no more to be justly overthrown by the most subtill Anabaptists in the world than the Saducees might deny and overthrow the resurrection against Christ or the Psychopannuchists the souls immortality or the Antidominicarians the Lords day or the Antiscripturists the received Scriptures or the Antitrinitarians the Trinity or the Arians the coessentiality of the Son with the Father as God because none of these are as the Arians urged in those very words names and syllables so set down as possibly cavilling Sophisters would require or else they will not believe The silence or not express naming of Infants is no more to be urged against them in this case than the silence of Christ as to the partakers of the Lords Supper who gave it onely to the twelve Disciples with command to them to do it c. without speaking of any Women or Lay-men yet were not these hereby excluded from the Communion as to matter of fact before it was so recorded in the Acts as an History The Church of Christ alwayes understood the latitudes of Baptism expressions as well as graces to include Infants of Christians no less than the institution of the other Sacrament did Lay-men and Women which were neither present at first institution nor are nominated in any particular command of Christ As for the condition limiting persons baptizable which is actual believing this also the Church of Christ understood in a limited temporary sense as reaching only to those who were the first fruits or plants of the Christian Church who were first as Abraham to be taught the nature of the covenant duty and seal before they could reasonably receive the sign or communicate it rightly to their children who come to their claim and priviledge as of Circumcision so of Baptisme not by vertue of their personal knowledge and faith which Abraham and men grown but not their children first had and so the first called and converted Christians as parents ought to have but by that federal relation which they have even in their ignorance and infancy to believing parents and by them to God as his people part of his flock and Church And this not by a naturall or civil right which yet descends to and upon children when they know nothing but by an Evangelicall right as to that covenant made by God in the blood of Christ with his Church both of old and of late with Jews and Christians inclusive of children yea even Infants of eight dayes old as is evident in Circumcision which signified the same grace under another signe or ceremony as the Apostle declares it at large Rom. 4. Leaving therefore the cavilling and pervicacious insistings of the Anabaptists about the letters names and syllables which they must have or they will not believe Infant-Baptism more than Thomas Christs Resurrection till he felt his wounds although we grant what they alledge as to the nominal silence of the word Infants wrested by their perverse disputations yet nothing is abated as to the right and use of Infant-baptisme which is grounded upon so many grand reasonings and right deductions from Scripture-sense which being explicite and clear in many places ought to over-rule that silence of the name Infants and seeming but misunderstood limitation of taught and believing which is all the force upon the point that ever the Anabaptists could muster together against the Churches Catholick judgement and practise conform to the whole tenour of Gods mind and will his love and mercy Christs grace and merits dispensed to his Church by some initiall Sacrament including Infants as well as the adulti of riper years That you may better see upon what little mole-hills the Anabaptists stand so on tip-toes as of late they have done in England pretending to over-top the mountain of the Lord which hath been established in all lands I mean the judgement and practise of the Catholick Church I will briefly set down as in a matter largely handled by many others both late long since what are the grand deductions and Scriptural reasonings upon which the Church of God hath as I conceive alwayes maintained the right priviledge and comfort of Infant-baptisme and this without any scruple or dispute for 1500 years not but that the Anabaptists objections from the silence of
Austin as a most setled and Catholick practise owned by S. Chrysost Athanas Ambr. Paulinus Gregory Nazian S. Basil Epiphanius so before them by Origen and Irenaeus Of whose testimonies I shall not need here to make more particular mention or repetition for they are in many books of late duly cited which have wrote in English and in Latin of this subject nor can any Anabaptists teeth so gnaw that chain and series of successive Infant-baptisme in the Church of Christ as to break any one link of it or instance in any one author or century where it appears to have been otherwise in the judgement or practise of any one Church or famous person 13. Which Catholick custome of the Church so fully consonant to Scripture and the evident mind of Christ set forth in all his Evangelicall dispensations both general to all men and specially to infants in the Church no judicious sober humble and charitable Christian can either doubt with any shew of reason or dispute against with any shew of modesty Considering that as the custome of the Churches of Christ is stamped with the authority of a law silencing all contradiction and suppressing all novelty by the Apostle S. Paul so Christ himself bids us to heare the Church which if it hold good in lesser censures and determinations of private Congregations how much more is it our duty to be attentive to and observant of the Churches directions which are Catholick whose authority is very great and sacred as the pillar and ground of Truth holding it forth by doctrine and example by Scripture and practise Nor do I doubt that Christ and his Apostles left many things as to the outward polity practise and ministration of Religion lesse clear and expresse in the letter of the Word that thereby the credit and authority of the Catholick Church might be more conspicuous and venerable with all peaceable and orderly Christians who may safely defer this honour to the Catholick Church and to every particular Church agreeing to it as to acquiesce in a conformity to its judgement and practise no way contrary to the Word of God from which it cannot be presumed that the Catholick Church of Christ from the beginning or in any Age did vary either through ignorance or wilfulnesse however particular Churches and Teachers might 14. The Catholick testimony of the Church of Christ is more than a bare humane or historick witnesse it is so sacred so divine so irrefragable that it is more to be valued than an Angels from heaven and therfore ought in all reason and conscience to end such controversies lately raised in the Church and so it would have done long ago if humane passions and interests had not swayed more with some men than matter of conscience and Religion or if the Baptisme of infants were the onely thing that some Anabaptists have an aking tooth at or a mind to pull down No that cannot much hurt them nor doth any mischief or inconvenience follow that pious custome either to parents or children yea much good and comfort accrues to both Religion never thrived but with it no point of faith is prejudiced by it no Evangelicall truth or mercy is diminished or over-stretched but rather asserted and magnified to its due and divine extent Yet Infant-baptisme must be still crucified between the policy of the Anabaptists and their partiality their partiality urgeth one or two limited places against many pregnant and large ones their policy I fear would attain something beyond and more to the advantage of their popular spirits and designes which have in many places been discovered as far from equity and charity in civil regards as they are in this of Baptisme far from verity modesty and antiquity scornfully slighting the testimony of the Churches of Christ in all ages for which undoubtedly they had sufficient warrant from Christ and his Apostles even before the letter of the New Testament was written or the Canon setled Nor did they either need or expect a more explicite commission of baptizing of infants of believing parents than that which was sufficiently expressed as in the generall command to make Disciples in all nations baptizing them so also by the particular words and actions of Christ toward infants not without check to his Disciples also by his requiring all to be born again of Water and the Spirit who pretend to be of the Kingdome of Heaven that is the visible Church and lastly by the former parallell-dispensations of Gods mercy in the Covenant of grace by Circumcision to the members of his Church as children of faithfull Abraham both young and old men and infants 15. Contrary to all which for a few new men spitefully peevishly and everlastingly thus to contest and indeed onely cavill I conceive is not onely a great irreverence and scorn put upon the Church of Christ which we should respect love and honour as the mother of us all but it is an high affront to Christ to his Word Truth and Promise to be ever with it even to the end of the world by his Spirit leading it into all Evangelicall Truths for precept and duty as well as promise and comfort also keeping it from all Catholick Apostasies into any errour destructive to the foundation If they that reject or despise any one of Christs Messengers despise himselfe and his father how much more they that disbelieve despise and discredit so many of his Messengers and Ministers who in all ages have by uniforme word and practise declared to us the mind of Christ as to this point of Infant-baptism By which unhappy Controversie as by many other the strange but just judgements of God have of late in full vials of wrath been poured upon this Church of England by the Anabaptistick spirit chiefly after so much light and truth peace and unity grace and piety poured forth upon us by Gods former munificent mercy sanctifying and sealing with his Spirit and grace in due time that Sacrament of Baptisme which thousands had received in their infancy to their parents comfort to the infants happinesse dying and living also to the great glory of God in this as other Churches in all ages Nor is there to this day after so many bickerings and contests so many publick heats and flames kindled upon this and other accounts any way of wisdome and meeknesse publickly used by which to quench these flames of wild-fire which threaten not onely to scorch but utterly to consume this Reformed and truly Catholick Church with all its true Ministers and holy ministrations in which the Anabaptists are highly subservient to the Papists grand projects and designs which is to deface disgrace and quite overthrow all the frame of Reformed Religion and the face of any either uniform or reformed Church in England CHAP. XII FOr my part I freely professe that if the administration of Baptisme in point of age and time
were in it self free and indifferent so as men might be baptized when they will and so baptize their children sooner or later as they please deferring it as some of old did even to their decrepit age and death-beds because they would not sin after it if this were left to an indifferency which I doe no way think it is any more than all other duties of the Lords Supper prayer hearing the Word preached c. are which have no precise measure and limited time set because they oblige alwayes as opportunity is offered Gods favours and indulgences import mans duty to accept and use them as soon as the Lord offers them to us and ours though Baptisme be not as S. Cyprian tells Fidus confined to the eighth day after infants birth nor yet to the eighth year yet when it may be duly had in the way of Gods providence it may not be delayed to the death of the child unbaptized without a great detriment to the infant so dying and crime to the parents or guardians so delaying and by their sottish negligence depriving the child of that visible means of grace which God hath allowed in his Church both to parents and their children which is the judgement of Gregory Nazianzen one of the ablest Divines that the Church ever had As a due debt unlimited to any day of payment is every day due so the favours of God and priviledges of his Church not precisely confined but daily offered us and not accepted contract upon us a great sin either of unbelief under the means or affected negligence undervaluing and ingratitude toward Divine Mercies sins under which no Christian of a truly tender conscience will dare to lie seven yeares no nor seven dayes meerly upon the delayes and scruples of his own or other mens both foolish and sluggish hearts As that soul among the Jews was precisely cut off from the Church of God both parents and children who was not unlesse in Gods connivence and speciall dispensation as in the fourty yeares pilgrimage in the wildernesse circumcised the eighth day so may those among Christians justly seem to be cut off from the Church of Christ here and hereafter which do presume to slight neglect and so not at all use Baptisme to their children according as God gives them in the uncertainties of life both opportunity and conveniency Gods leaving some things to our choice discretion and ingenuity must not be any remission but an excitation to speedy duty especially in setled Churches where daily at least weekly opportunities are offered which if denied by hot persecutions the delay is more excusable and it may be in some cases commendable where parents have just cause to fear lest their baptized children shall never attain by their paternall care such education as is correspondent to their Baptisme In which cases I conceive it was of old deferred not because it was thought either unlawfull or undesirable in it self to baptize infants born in the Church but for feare of the mischiefs attending persecution and sometimes the parents were cold and negligent in their duty If I say the time of Baptisme were left to our freedome which it is not as I have shewed yet still the black brand and grosse impudence of such a reproch contempt and errour as the ruder and spitefuller sort of Anabaptists cast upon this and all other Christian Churches is most intolerable while they dare to re-baptize such who have been once duly baptized if it be indifferent when in their infancy which re-baptizing of such as were once duly baptized in the Church was ever judged as much a monster and most insolent in all Christian Churches as it would have been to renew or repeat circumcision among the Jews which was not so much in expresse letter of Scripture forbidden as made indeed impossible in nature nor is repeating of Baptism so expresly forbidden in the Word of God where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Baptisme is mentioned which place the Hemerobaptists or daily dippers slighted as indeed it is and alwayes was excluded by the interpretation tradition and practise of the Catholick Church which no more allowed any to be twice baptized in Religion or twice ordained to the Ministry than twice born in nature yea this fancy heresie and novell insolency was looked upon as the setting up of a new Gospel another Jesus and more Gods than one as the ancient Councils and Fathers alwayes determined even in the case of S. Cyprians candid errour Against whose judgement for invalidating and so repeating Baptisme where administred by Hereticks and obstinate Schismaticks the Councils both of Africk Europe and Asia determined upon the ground of Scripture and Primitive custome both as to the use of Infant-baptisme and the not repeating of that or any other true baptisme once received Both which being such Catholick determinations of the Church it is with me not in the least degree disputable whether I should chuse to conform to the Churches universall testimony constant practise and primitive tradition in this and other modern disputes as that of the government of Churches in larger distributions by Bishops above Presbyters and Deacons so the use of the Lords day instead of the Judaick Sabath c. which are conforme to the generall scope tenour and direction of Scripture or rather comply both sillily and shamefully with those modern captious novelties and perverse disputings of some private spirits of yesterday who dare to cast so great jealousies blame and dishonour upon the Catholick Churches of Christ in all ages and places as not onely to suspect but to proclaime them both socially and singly to have been either grosly ignorant or most basely unfaithfull as to what the Apostles had delivered to them for the mind and will of the Lord either by Epistle word or Example No I had far rather with humility and charity though in infirmity and ignorance conform to the Catholick Church in errours and mistakes not fundamentall or immorall of which it never was guilty nor will be rather I say than by proud and pernicious curiosity or by scepticall and schismaticall novelty either blemish the Churches Integrity or break its Unity Both which the Anabaptists ever have done and ever will doe since their first eggshell and spawning in Germany by their endlesse and peevish litigations touching Infant-baptisme which though to some it seem but a small and circumstantiall businesse in point of time yet the scorn contempt and abhorrency of the Sacrament as applied to infants is an errour as I have shewed of so spreading a venome and dangerous consequences that it tends to overthrow all that is or hath been of religious polity and power too of essence and order in this and all true Churches of which we have any record in Scripture or other Writers CHAP. XIII BEsides this poysonous and now so swoln errour of the Anabaptists in Engl. against Infant-baptism is further sowred by other seditious principles
as to question the usual and approved practise of it from all times which S. Austin so vehemently affirmes that in his Epistle to Volusia he sayes The custom of our Mother the Church in baptizing Infants as it is not to be neglected as superfluous so nor would it have been either practised or believed unlesse it had been so delivered by the Apostles as their undoubted sense and practise which Pelagius did not yea could not with any colour deny as S. Austin observes though it had much served his design about original sin if he could in that point have baffled the credit custome and authority of the Catholick Church which S. Cyprian who lived in the second Century so beyond all cavill or scruple so industriously and fully sets down that if there were no other testimonies of the Ancients that alone would satisfie any sober man being written not upon any heat of dispute but calmly and clearly as of a matter ever done and never under dispute in the Church to his dayes But I have in this part done more than I designed in order to advance not strifes and further contention but Christian peace and charity on all sides in this Church and Nation as to those religious differences which are a great occasion of our miseries CHAP. XIV FRom the Deformities Divisions and Degeneration of Religion also the Falsifications Usurpations and Devastations which of later years have been made by the violent sort of Anabaptists and other furious Sectaries against the Unity and Authority the Sanctity and Majesty of the Church of England destroying its Primitive Order and Apostolick Government its Catholick Succession its holy Ordination its happy and most successfull Ministry to the great neglect and contempt of all holy ministrations and duties of Religion I cannot but further intimate to your piety and prudence O my honoured Countrey-men that which is most notorious and no lesse dangerous both in religious and civil respects namely the great Advantages Applauses and Increases which the Roman or Papal party daily gain against the Reformed Religion as it was once wisely honourably and happily established professed and maintained here in England which is now looked upon by the more subtill superstitious and malicious sort of Papists as deformed divided dissolved desolated so conclamate for dead that they fail not with scorn to boast that in England we have now no Church no Pastors no Bishops no Presbyters no true Ministry no holy Ministrations no Order no Unity no Authority no Reverence as to things Divine or Ecclesiastick Insomuch that we must in this sad posture not onely despair of ever getting ground against the Romanists by converting any of them from the errours of their way to the true Reformed Religion but we must daily expect to lose ground to the Popish party and their Proselytes there being no banks or piles now sufficient to keep the Sea of Rome from over-flowing or undermining us in order to advance their restlesse interests which have been and still are mightily promoted not by the reverend Bishops and the other Episcopal Clergie who are men of Learning Piety Prudence and Martyr-like constancy as some men with more Heat than Wit more Spite than Truth have in their mechanick and vulgar Oratory of late miserably and falsely declaimed but by those who have most done the Popes work while they have seemed most furiously to flie in the Popes face as popularly zealous against Popery and yet at the same time by a strange giddinesse headinesse and madnesse they have risen up against that Mother-Church which bare them and those Fathers in it who heretofore mightily defended them and theirs from the talons and gripes of that Roman Eagle and this not with childish scufflings or light skirmishings to which manner of fight the illiterate weaknesse and rudenesse of our new Masters and Champions hath reduced those Controversies but with such a Panoply or compleat Armour of proof such sharp Weapons such ponderous Engines such rare dexterity of well-managed Powers raised from all Learning both Divine and Humane that the high places and defences of Rome were not able to stand before them heretofore when they were battered by our Jewels our Lakes our Davenants our Whites our Halls our Mortons our Andrews and the late invincible Usher who deserved to be Primate not onely of Ireland but of all the Protestant Forces in the world All these were Bishops Worthies of the first three seconded in their ranks by able and orderly Presbyters as Whitakers Perkins Reynolds Whites Crakanthorps Sutliffs and innumerable others while our Regiments were orderly our Marchings comely and our Forces both united and encouraged Whereas now there is no doubt but the mercilesse mowing down and scattering of the Clergie of England like Hay with the withering and decay of Government Regularity and Order in this Church these have infinitely contributed to the Papall harvest and Romish agitations the gleanings of whose Emissaries will soon amount to more than the sheaves of any the most zealous and reformed Ministers in England By the Papall interests and advantages I doe not mean the Roman Clergies preaching or propagating those Truths of Christian Doctrine Duties which for the main they profess in common with us and all Christian Churches if any of them be thus piously industrious I neither quarrell at them nor envy their successes but rather I should rejoyce in them with S. Paul because however Christ crucified is preached by some whom common people will either more reverence or sooner believe than they generally doe the decayed despised divided Ministers of Engl. who seem to have many of them so small abilities and carrying so little shew or pretence of any good authority for their work ministeriall nor can they be potent or esteemed abroad who are so impotent and disesteemed at home But I mean that Papall Monarchy or Ecclesiasticall Tyranny by which the Church or rather the Court of Rome by such sinister Arts and unjust Policies as were shamefully used and discovered in the Tridentine conventicle seeks to usurp and continue an imperiall power over all Churches and Bishops as if there had been but one Apostle or one Apostolick Church planted in the world also to corrupt abuse that ancient Purity Simplicity and Liberty of Religion which was preserved among Primitive Churches and their coordinate Bishops Further without fear of God or reverence of man opposing some Divine Truths and undoubted institutions of Christ also imposing such erroneous Doctrines and superstitious Opinions upon all Christians to be believed and accordingly practised as become not the severity and sanctity of true Religion adding to that holy foundation which was indeed first laid by the great Apostles and continued happily for many hundred years by the successive Bishops of Rome those after superstructures not of ceremonies onely which are tolerable many of them like feathers making but little weight in Religion but of corrupt Doctrines and
lesse safe in some respects for the Lay-people to receive the Cup or Wine and Blood of Christ apart as he instituted and the Church of old even the Roman constantly practised as do the Greeks at this day according to what Christ commanded and in what sense he gave it and called it reall Bread and Wine for such he took such he brake such he blessed such he gave to the Disciples when he said that is this Bread is my Body this cup is my Blood such S. Paul understood them to be and so declares this the mind of Christ as he had received it immediately from Christ The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ For we are all partakers of that one Bread So whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup unworthily Let a man examine himself before he eat of that bread Certainly either the Apostles expressions must be affectedly very dark and his meaning different from his words or he was quite of another mind than the Papists are at this day who durst in the all-daring Council of Trent damn all those who follow Christs example use his words and are of the Apostles judgement expressing their sense of the blessed Sacrament in his words which we think much safer to follow both in the use of Sacramentall Bread and Wine communicated to all Receivers and in the perswasion we have of our receiving true Bread and Wine yet duly consecrated and so Sacramentally united to the reall Body and Blood of Christ which we faithfully behold thankfully receive and reverently adore in that blessed Mysterie according to the ancient Faith Judgement Reverence and Devotion of the Church of Christ void of sacrilegious novelties and incredible superstitious vanities If we Christians of the reformed Church of England had no other wall of separation to keep us from the Papall communion than these two so palpable and gross opinions with their consequences so rigidly enjoyned upon all Christians under pain of Gods eternall curse yet both so dissonant from and opposite to the example of Christ and the words of the Apostle these were sufficient to keep sober Christians at an eternall distance from them lest knowingly partaking of their sins and abetting their wilfull and obstinate sacriledge we also partake of their punishment who in vain serve God after the commandments and traditions of men contrary to the Divine Word and Prescription Nor will the silly shifts and pitifull salvoes serve here which are used by some Romanists whose Learning Wit and Sophistry are all set on work to take off the aspersion odium and envy of these grosse and rude Innovations How childish ridiculous is it to talk of the Popes imaginary infallibility or the Roman Churches usurped Supreme Authority in cases expresly contrary to the Institution of Christ and the Apostles explication from whom the Church of Rome professe to derive their Religion Nor may they with any foreheads or modesty becoming good Christians so rudely vary from them if they desire to have the name and merit of faithfull and good Christians whose greatest Liberty Duty and Honour is if they love Christ to keep his commandements and neither for pride nor policy to warp from them and after clear remonstrances to refuse to return in case of straying to a conformity with them which obstinacy makes little for the Pope's infallibility or Rome's supreme Authority never challenged by Popes or owned by any other Bishops in the Church for 600 yeares after Christ nor by Pope Gregory the Great who as an holy and humble Bishop abhorred the title and pride of that name Universal Bishop as appears in his works and others of the Ancients of whom I gave a particular account in my Hieraspistes p. 249. Yet these two are the main hinges on which the unhappy disputes of Christendome do turn and the chief anvils on which the animosities between Protestants and Papists are now hammered as otherwhere so here in England The ruine of which famous Church is the greatest prize which the Romish party hath gotten since Luther's dayes who began not without his passions and infirmities that pious Apostasie which being found just and holy moved as other Churches so this of England not to forsake the communion of the Church of Rome so far as it was or is a Church of Christ but onely so far as it seemed to have been oppressed with a Synagogue of Satan deformed with such sinfull deformities and sottish fedities besides their Court-tyrannies as became no Christians to endure who were either not in the dark and so could see the need they had to get out of such a dungeon full of mire and darknesse or were at their own dispose as was the state of the Nation and Church of England depending on none nor subject to any but God alone These so oft recocted Crambes of Popish controversies as I delight not to aggravate so I am forced here to touch some of them to shew you my honoured Countrey-men as what cause the Church of England had to reform her self with what prudence she did it so how inconsistent it must be with good conscience for us in Engl. to revert to the Popish Communion being of so different perswasions from them which wretched Apostasie being the grand design and agitation of Roman Counsels will in time draw this Nation away from Gods rectitudes to mans obliquities if the Roman furnace and bellows be so plied and advanced for them by these operators of severall sects and factions whose end will be whatever their aime is quite to melt down the former fashion of the Church of England and its well-reformed state of Religion that it may by degrees run into the Roman mould and form CHAP. XVII NOt that I repeat these differences in order to encrease or continue uncharitable bitternesses among any good Christians whose hearts are honest though their judgements may be erroneous the blessed God who is both light and love knoweth that I have not any design to widen the sad breaches of Christendom or to hinder the charitable closings of them so far as may stand with good conscience and Catholick truth whose rule and ground ought to be the Word of God rightly understood which is its own best interpreter and plain in those things of Duty and Perswasion of Faith and Devotion which are most necessary to salvation I confesse I cannot but vehemently approve being now past juvenile heats and popular fervours in Religion the pious and learned endeavours of those excellent men who after Melanchthon Cassander Saravia Wicelius Thuanus Grotius Casaubon and others have not onely seriously deplored the sad rents and wounds of Christian Churches but sought to pour in Wine and Oyle of wholsome and unpassionate counsels not palliating apparent errours yet not aggravating needlesse jealousies nor inflaming mutuall angers in order to gratifie either the sacrilegious policies of Princes or the pride of Popes or the
factiousness of people I have no Antipathies in me contracted by any Education Custome or Acquaintance against the Learned Wise and Worthy Romanists or any others either as men or Christians in both respects I love and esteem them for their many excellent parts and works which are worthy of commendation and imitation To them and their pious predecessors with whom we in England once were in full communion we thankfully owe under God as did our fore-fathers the successive honour and happinesse of our being baptized and admitted to the priviledges of Christs flock and people to them we owe that conservation for the main of true Religion as Christian although it were wrapped up in some either rotten rags or unhandsome clouts as Christ in the Manger for many years the substance of which our Reformation in England no more changed than the Angel did the person of Jehoshua the high Priest when he bid take away from him the filthy garments wherewith he was clothed and to put on him change of fair and goodly garments We owe to the Romanists though ill husbands of Religion in later ages that Word and those Sacraments which they conserved and transmitted like candles put into a dark lanterne by which when we came to open the light side we saw both our and their deviations from the good old way which is Gods right way to which we rather chuse to return under the name of pious novelty and just reformation than obstinately to continue with them in their pristine aberrations and inveterate deformities Though they were our Fathers in Nature and Religion yet we think it not onely lawfull for us but our duty without any brand of disobedient children to cure that leprosie or Hereditary disease which we had contracted from them our lesse healthfull parents especially when themselves have preserved for us and afforded to us that receipt of Gods Word which teacheth and alloweth us the proper medicine and cure The successfull use of which is not more comfortable to us than commendable in us notwithstanding our Progenitors obstinacy to continue in the same deformed maladies after they have seen the happy experiments of its Vertues and Remedy upon us who never gloried in or designed any new Christian Religion but onely the just Reformation and recovery of the old from those crazy distempers and dangerous diseases which by ill times and ill orders it had contracted I well know how little all Religion signifies without charity that next to grosse Ignorance Immorality Unbelief and Impenitence Uncharitablenesse is the pest and poyson of the Soul which infects beyond the Antidote of Gifts good works and Miracles I consider that many imperfections and failings are veniall with true charity which covers a multitude of sins of infirmitie but no perfections are acceptable to God or available to the enjoyer of them if destitute of charity that the measure of a Christian is more by his heart than his head by his humble and honest affections than his high and puffing speculations that in the bosome of the Church as many perish by the rock of uncharitablenesse as the flats of ignorance Therefore however I see the Papists are most-what so supercilious and high in the in-step that they not onely deny us Protestants of all sorts even the most noble sober and moderate which were in the Church of England their charity but they despise all our charity to them yet I cannot think it my duty to requite evil with evil or uncharitablenesse in them with the like unchristian passion in my self but rather to requite evil with good to commend what is good in them to own with thanks any good from them to pray for them to be ready to do all offices of Christian love to them to keep all inward Christian communion with them and to be cheerfully disposed to exercise all actual communion with them in all such holy Doctrines and Duties of Christian Faith Worship as agree to the Word of God and the mind of Christ which are the centre and circumference of all Ecclesiasticall union that as the guilt and fault of Schisme and Heresie is retorted on both sides so I trust it will onely be charged there where wilfull Errour and Uncharitablenesse are found but not on the Integrity and Candour of those who are onely driven and forced so farre from visible communion because they doe withdraw from what they saw to be grosse Errour Idolatry or Superstition according to the rule of Christs Word and triall of his Institution evidently cleared by the Apostles and Primitive Churches Contrary to all which unlesse we will even this whole Church of England wholly comply with the Popes Interests and Roman Errours they loudly excommunicate us renouncing all communion with us as with Schismaticks and Hereticks fitter for fire and faggot than Christian fellowship This notwithstanding on the Romanists part yet I think it my part and all true lovers of Reformation and Christian Union not to slacken or abate that Charity and Christian good will which is due to all men and especially those that professe to be Christs Disciples of the Houshold of Faith where the Sick and Lame and Blind are parts of the Polity and Members of the Oeconomy or Family to pray night and day impartially that God would remove out of his Church on all sides whatever doth offend his pure eyes and any good Christian that he would give both Protestants and Papists grace unpassionately to consider from whence the one are falne by humane policies and to what the other transported by popular zelotries that whatever pride and peevishnesse is on either side might be composed and laid aside by such Generall Synods Free Councils and Christian correspondencies as might bring forth some happy accord and harmony among Christian Churches that those sad and superstitious principles of everlasting Schisme might be removed by which on one side they think because in many things they were right therefore in nothing they could erre on the other side because in some things men have mistaken and erred therefore they can be in nothing right for to this height both Papall and Antipapall Christians are come that each thinks their greatest piety consists in perfect and implacable Antipathies that their most commendable zeale for Religion is that which is farthest from moderation Christian temper or Charity that where they like not all they must loathe all that nothing is afterward with good conscience to be used which hath once been abused that all things must be popularly cried up either upon the account of their Antiquity or Novelty without regard to that verity and charity which are the life and quintessence of true Christianity Although I shall by Gods gracious assistance keep that station and distance from Popish Errours where my judgement and conscience guided by Gods Word hath set me yet to leave the Romanists without excuse as much as in me lies I doe most earnestly desire and should
was heretofore rather invaded and challenged by them and connived or winked at by others than ever given or granted to them by any power of lawfull donation or concession yet this cannot hold good by any former subtilty on their part or simplicity on the part of this or any Nation and Church to the prejudice of that fundamental Liberty and Honour which are inseparable from the free people of this Nation and Church as men and as Christians untill the Roman power hath made them Vassals again as a conquered Nation and dependent Church upon that Scepter and Mitre too which thing as yet was never done since Rome was Christian and I hope never will be How much more worthy of the Learning Prudence Antiquity Gravity seeming Piety and affected Majesty of that Roman Church were it for them to glory in nothing so much as in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and him crucified in conforming all things of Religion to his Word and example which hath the truest Antiquity onely Infallibility and eminency upon it yea and where they see as by the light of the Sun at noon-day there hath been either aberration from or addition to the rule and pattern of Christ through the ignorance or errour or policy of former Ages and Persons there to return with such holy and handsome Reformations to a conformity with Christ and the ancient Roman purity as will make no lesse for the glory of the present Church of Rome than it was some eclipse and diminution to their predecessors to suffer so much tares to be scattered among Christ's good wheat which by Apostolick hands was first sown and watered to mighty increases for many hundreds of year The misery is when knowing and learned men grow wilfull and serve their own and other mens secular interests more than that of Christ and mens souls they chuse rather to over-load the foundation of Religion than to lighten it of needlesse superstructures How little could it hurt them honestly to restore the cup to the people as was sometimes done to the Bohemians at the importunity of the Nobility and Clergy and offered to Queen Elizabeth as Sir Roger Twisden proves provided she would acknowledge the Popes Supremacy where as Luther urged against Eccius if the Blood of Christ as is pretended by Papists be given Lay-men by concomitancy with the Bread or Body sure they are as capable of the Cup in Christs method as in mans novelty and variation What could it lessen the Romanists if Christians being on all sides taught the reall presence of Christs Body and Blood with the benefits of them in the Sacrament truly offered and reverently received by every worthy Communicant the modus of the Presence were left undefined uninforced upon any Christians belief after the primitive freedome which rather admired and adored that Mystery than disputed it or determined precisely of it So in other things as praying to Angels and Saints worshipping before Images praying and offering for the dead in order to mend their condition how would it no way abate Christian verity or comfort or charity to lay these Superstructures of straw and stubble aside when we all believe that we have by Faith in Christ accesse to the Throne of Grace besides men would more take care to live and die holily when they lesse expect other mens devotions to relieve them after death These and many other humane and impertinent because unprofitable additionals to Sacraments and holy Duties how easily might they be spared without any losse to Religion as with great advantages to Christian and Catholick Communion Nor should these just Reformations prove any diminution to the estates or honours of the Roman Church-men if I might have any vote or influence in so happy an agreement which last jealousies and feares in matter of Honour and Estate are I believe the great wall of partition and terrour that keeps off and scares the wary Romanists from any thought of Reformation since they see the Deformities Uncertainties Beggeries Ruines and Vastations which at last follow some mens Reformations of Religion of Churches and Church-men if they be suffered to run on as far as popular humours have a mind to gratifie their passions with the Spoyls and Scorns of Religion and Church-men This indeed is in my judgement the second great bar the unmovable obstruction and unexcusable scandall which lies in the way of any Reconciliation faire Accommodation and Christian Communion among these Western Churches which in all probability might by Gods blessing have much advanced ere this time not onely just Reformations of what was really amisse but happy Unions in stead of those Rents and Separations which are now every where predominant if those of the Roman party had seen those sober bounds that Christian moderation and those uniform fixations among Reformers in their Doctrine and Manners which did become so good a work as Reformation is Nor were the most sober learned grave and impartiall of the Romanists so much against such a discreet and setled Reformation as they saw flourished in England beyond any Church in all the world in which due regard was had to Primitive Order and Catholick Antiquity to the just rewards and dignities of Church-men together with the sanctity solemnity of true Religion until they discovered that immoderation violence unsatisfiedness tumultuariness giddiness and transport which long ago even here in Engl. murmured and mutinied against the Happinesse and Honour of this flourishing Church and State mens Prejudices Passions and private Interests tyrannizing over their Reason Religion Charity Obedience and Consciences still clamouring for further Reformation and threatening violence if they might not every one set up their fancies in Religion under the name of through-Reformation and bring in intolerable licentiousnesse under the colour of Christian Liberty talking so much of the pattern in the mount till they have laid this Church and its Religion in the valley of death and shadow of darknesse so eager not to have an hoof left in Egypt that they have engaged themselves and this whole Church into a red sea and brought it to an howling wildernesse nor is it easie to be seen without multiplied miracles how they will ever bring Christian Religion to any land of Canaan a state of rest or due Reformation either here in England or other-where Which we must ever despair hereafter to see make any progresse among the Romanists either as to private mens perswasions or whole Churches Reformations especially since the late terrours of some English Super-reformers have given so loud an alarm to all wise Princes and sober People especially to all prudent Church-men assuring them that there is neither bottome nor bounds of some mens preposterous reformations their spirits are the black Abyssus of immodesty injustice disloyalty cruelty sacriledge inhumanity barbarity their teeming fancies are everlastingly spawning with new inventions their restlesse humours are alwayes like a Sea ebbing and flowing casting up mire and dirt their
any Church-men in England had by their misdemeanour legally forfeited their use and enjoyments of such holy things as they had in Gods name and as the Churches servants yet certainly the whole Church and Nation had not lost their right in them Posterity could not consent to be deprived of those advantages of Learning and Religion and I am sure Gods title to them can never fall under any forfeiture or escheat whose speciall patrociny those Demesnes were In the Goods and Lands belonging to the Ministry and Church of Christ for the Service of God for the Education and Maintenance of his Ministers for the well-ordering and Government of the Church and Relief of the Poor who ever presumes to impropriate them by meer Power or purchase them to his private Estate had need have either a very good penniworth of them for they will destroy more than they bring or a better title than Ananias had to what was once his own or than God himself hath to them when once devoted and given to him yea they need more power to preserve such Estates to their use and their Posterities than God hath to blesse or curse both them and theirs I have read it as an observation made out of many Authors that the holy vessels of the Temple which were taken from Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian and tossed up and down to many Countreys and Cities in Europe Asia and Africa did as the Ark among the Philistins carry alwayes a storm and calamity with them with such a sacred horrour that no man durst melt them or divert them to secular uses or private benefit untill they were at last brought out of Africa from Carthage as I remember to Constantinople and there dedicated by a Christian Emperour to the service and honour of Christ in the goodly Church of Sancta Sophia which Constantine the Great built and endowed with many goodly both Vessels and Revenues as Eusebius tells us yea and commanded all goods taken from Christian Churches in former times to be restored Sacriledge what fair face soever it carries hath the taile and sting of a Serpent nor can any man die with peace or hope for the prosperity of his Family after him who knowingly is guilty of that Sin Modest and Honest Christians will not no not in their extremities take from God and his Church so much as a shooe-latchet to make them rich David would have been famished I believe rather than by force have taken the Shew-bread or Priests portion from them which was a work onely fit for Doeg who durst take away their lives CHAP. XXIII I Know it will be pleaded by some that are more politick than pious Religionis trapezitae 1. That civil Polities have the absolute supreme power over all things of civil Rights and secular Enjoyments to dispose of them as seems most for the publick Safety Profit and Honour 2. That whatever is acted passed and possessed by such Authority seems valid and unquestionable 3. that those Lands and Revenues which nourished Bishops Deans and Prebends were superfluous if not superstitious as to the point of Christian and Reformed Religion 4. That if there be any fault in any mens first invading and alienating things sacred yet private possessors either by gift or purchase of them are afterward in no fault as having the highest civil Right to what they so enjoy 5. Besides divers Princes and States have disposed as they pleased of Church-Revenues To all these pretensions every mans own reason and conscience will first and best give answer if it be not partiall and bribed by its own private gain but to open the eyes of such as are willingly blind I must tell them in words of sobernesse and truth with all due respect to whatever powers are ordained of God as supreme among men 1. No man as to his own private civil Estate to which he hath a good right in Law would think it just without any fault done by him or proved against him to be deprived of it and turned out of all by any reason of State How then can he think it just as to any Church-mens Ecclesiastick Estates that they should be outed of their Estates to which they have both a civil and religious Title both Gods Right and Mans Donation No Christians should offer that measure to Christ and his Ministers which they would not have offered unto themselves 2. Though civil polities mâ—y have the supreme power over particular mens Estates among men yet 't is a power sub graviore regno subordinate to Gods Soveraignty and ought to be subject to those rules of Reason Justice and Religion which he hath given mankind and especially Christians the greater any mens Power is the more strict the Piety and Equity of it should be for they are subject to erre and to sin no lesse than private men and are no lesse punishable by Divine Vengeance both singly and socially whole Nations may rob God and be accursed of him 3. Civil polities in their due conjunctures are indeed justly counted supreme upon earth being as they ought to be free and full when all Estates called convened and concerned in publick Counsels and Transactions have liberty to plead and vote deny and grant to hear and argue to judge and determine according to the conscience of all and not according to the prevalency and bias of any one party nor exclusive of any mens consent which ought to be had in such cases either as to the right of Enjoyment or as to the joynt legislative and supreme power which onely can make a legall alienation of any civil rights 'T is evident that the most united and excellent Parlaments in England for Piety and Peace did abhor and avoid Sacriledge as a sin against God his Church and all good men The Kings of England were bound by Oath to preserve the State and Rights of the Church nor were Peers and People lesse bound in duty and gratitude to God and man than if they had been sworn 4. It doth not appear by any Law of God or Man in Reason or Religion that any humane or civil power hath any authority or jurisdiction to the prejudice of Gods Rights and Interest whose the Estate and Revenues of the Church are in Fee as chief Lord being dedicated to his Service Worship and Glory and are indeed in no mans property however in Church-mens use as Gods Tenants The acts of power and will may prevaile among men and hold good in Westminster-Hall in foro soli humano but they cannot give a right in foro coeli conscientiae before Gods Tribunall or in a mans own Conscience which regard not actuall and arbitrary Power but internall Right and Equity which forbids any injury to be done to any man and specially to those that are the Ministers or Servants of Christ and his Church whose injuries redound to God himself Good Christians must consider not quid factum valet among
plat-forme of so-disciplined Churches but not therefore any way the more or better reformed For these are rather as Cyphers adding some number traine and company to the Ministers than signifying ought of themselves further than prudence policy may make use of them But certainly no Religious necessity commands them as a duty and of divine Institution there being an impossibility to find them in every parochial congregation where there is seldome any one man of the Laity who is meet in any kind to be joyned with the Minister in any such authority which claimes to be Sacred and Divine for which God ever provides fitting instruments where he commands to have any use of them God gave the word and great was the company of Preaching Elders Bishops and Presbyters in all ages but of Lay-Elders and Ruling onely we read so little so no use in any Church or age that we may conclude God gave no such word for them The wise God abhors unequall mixtures such as the plowing with an Ox and an Asse and such seems the joyning of Preachers with these Lay-Elders in the discipline and government of the Church the Asse both disgracing and overtoyling the laborious and more ponderous Ox who hath more hindrance than help from so silly and sluggish an assistant Motly and unsociable conjunctions in sowing mislane or wearing linsy-wolsy garments are also forbidden by the Lord as emblems of his abhoring all things that make any uncomely and unsociable confusion which ought chiefly to be avoided in Church-affaires that order solemnity ability and prudence might keep up the Majesty of Religion the Churches venerable discipline and the Ministeriall divine autority even there where no civill Magistrate would own it Yet if any Presbyter be so wedded to these Lay-Elders that he will never be reconciled to Primitive Episcopacy if he be wholly divorced from his dear Elders for my part he shall have my consent to enjoy them upon a politick and prudent account where he may conveniently have use of them For I do not think the outward Government of the Church to be made of such stuffe or fashion which will not in any case either stretch or shrink as those garments might do on the Jewes bodies when they ware them forty yeares in the wildernesse provided all things be done decently and in order with due regard to the maine end and the best examples But if any contend for these Elders upon a divine and strict account of Religion my answer is with St. Paul we had no such custome in England nor the other Churches of Christ in the world for 1400. yeares who were fed and ruled by Bishops and Presbyters as the onely Elders Pastors and Presidents in Ecclesiasticall Government This is sure Presbytery was at first so confident of its sure standing in England where it never yet had any footing since Christianity was planted that it doubted not to make use of such a wooden leg or crutch as Lay-Elders are to support its new Government and discipline which was hereby rendred very popular and specious to many Ministers and other men of vulgar Spirits who were more ambitious of any small pittance of Church-Government to passe through their fingers than judicious to measure and design the true proportions of it or themselves which certainly ought to be most remote from a Democratick temper Church-Government depending not upon many strong rash and rude hands but upon wise heads and holy hearts of which no great store is ordinarily to be found among common and Country-people upon which crab-stocks neverthelesse this graft of Presbyterian government was to be every where grafted on the one side not without mighty applause and great expectation from the meaner-spirited people of England in every parish some of which were to be found not onely among the very Mechanick and Rustick Plebs onely but among some Citizens Gentlemen and Noblemen too who began to have very warme and devout ambitions to enjoy the title of a ruling Elder as a divine honour added to their other civill honours gently submitting their and their posterities tamer necks to such a yoke as neither they nor their fore-fathers ever knew by which one little Minister with two or three of his Elders might be impowered to excommunicate a King and all his Councell as King James expresseth in his sense of their arrogancy But while the common people of Engl. were every where preparing themselves to admire adore or dread yea to entertain and feed with double honour which was required for its due this new and strange beast of Presbytery which rose out of the sea of Scotish broyles and English troubles being as was thought adorned with seven Heads and ten Horns coming forth conquering and to conquer in the midst of so great glory swelling confidences and superfluity of successes behold a little stone of Independency cut out by no hand of Authority riseth up against the great mountain of Presbytery as its Emulator and Rivall This in a short time hath so cloven it in sunder that it hath quite broken its hoped Monopoly of Church-government and Independency having never had any Patent from any Christian King or people heretofore pleads a Patent as doth Presbytery from Christ Jesus which hath been it seems dormant and unexecuted these 1640 years This some more grosse and credulous spirits do easily believe though they never saw the Commission Only as the more acute and nimble Independents besides the more profound and solid Episcopalians eagerly dispute against the usurped Authority of Presbytery alledging that Classicall Provinciall and Nationall Presbyteries are to them much more Apocryphall than Deanes and Chapters Bishops and Arch-bishops so do both of them no lesse urge a pure Novelty besides the fractions and parcellings of Government against Independency tokens of weaknesse imprudence and inconsistency in Government Yet amidst all this stickling the puny of Independency which enjoyed at first the smiles and cajolings of Presbytery counting it an harmless and innocent Novelty because yet unarmed grew up by strange successes and unexpected favours of power to such a stature procerity and pertness that it not onely now justles with Presbytery but it makes it in many places glad to comply yea to curry favour with and to truckle under Independency which challengeth Seniority before Presbytery with much more probability than Presbytery can alledge any authority for its rejecting Catholick Episcopacy it being more evident that particular Congregations were first governed by one sole Apostle Pastor Teacher Bishop or Presbyter present among them than that many Presbyters ever governed the large and united Combinations of Christian Congregations and Churches without some one Apostle or eminent Bishop as chief President among them to which all Church-history consents without any one exception in all the world Thus hath Independency as a little but tite Pinnace in a short time got the wind of and given a broad-side to Presbytery which soon grew a slug when
modes who do not follow their colours and are not ready to fight under their banners To be sure they all bandy against the poor Church of England agreeing in this one Antipathy how disagreeing soever in other things they study to divide her Unity to break her solid Intireness to enervate her Authority to infatuate her Wisdome to weaken her Strength to spoile her Patrimony to destroy her very Being and to render her Name odious with great coyness and disdainfull smiles looking upon any man or Minister that shall but speak of the Church of England and counting him presently as their common enemy if he profess a filial Regard Duty Love Pity Adherence and Subjection to it Mean while each of these Agitators for their severall parties and interests fancy to themselves a great power resident in them a Divine Liberty and Authority derivable from them to begin new Churches to beget their own Fathers to lead their Shepherds to teach their Teachers to ordain their Pastors to celebrate all holy Mysteries to consecrate Sacramentall Symbols thus arrogating all that is Divine or Ecclesiastick to themselves in their severall methods and capacities Sometimes the Pastor begets a Flock for himself otherwhile a Flock begets a Pastor to themselves It is no wonder that they are so greedy and vigilant to shark what they can from the Church of England and its Ministry which they cry down as defective as contemptible as uselesse as pernicious as null crying up their Novelties in opinion or practise beyond all that was ever used or known by the Church of England or any other ancient Church Thus animated by confidence of themselves and instigated by contempt of others specially of the Church of England they daily and zealously labour to make Proselytes to their respective parties so to increase their numbers then to enlarge their quarters though their hands have hitherto been joyntly chiefly against the Church of Engl. yet they are ready as occasion shall serve like Ishmael to be against one another counting every one against them who is not for them In fine what doth any of them want but Strength and Opportunity to set up themselves and their parties to lift up their Standards to display their Ensigns to inscribe on their Flags of mutuall defiances the names of their severall Factions to advance their distinct divided and now discovered interests and designes presented under some specious notion or name of Reformation of Christs Kingdome or Throne or reign with them and by them as soon as they can begin and as long as they can continue that sacred Empire which must it seems begin in England for no where else in the world mens Heads are so busie mens Hearts so divided their Wits so frantick their Religion so fancifull their Pride so insolent their Wills so wilfull their Consciences so loose their Charity so partiall their Unity so broken their Liberty so licentious their Christianity so self-crucifying their Reformations so rude so ridiculous so ruinous both to their common Mother and to each other As for the Church of England there is not one of these fierce and flagrant Novellers but they look upon her with such an eye as ungracious children use to do upon their aged weak bed-rid and impoverished Mother whom they think never like to get upon her legs again much less to be able to assert her self to recover her Strength Authority Reputation and Estate from their unnaturall and rapacious invasions Her they have devoted to utter destruction without any remaining sparks of Honour Love or Pity for her they conclude her as condemned to perpetuall Desolations each of them resolves to make their advantages by her Ruines as some do by the Decayes of our Cathedrals and this upon no other quarrell that I could ever see but because she was as much elder so much wiser and better than any than all of them as to all Learning Wisdome Order Gravity Gifts Graces Charity Constancy Unity these new modes of Religion and Reformation consisting more in breaking than binding in taking than giving in pulling down than building any thing that might be a remarkable Instance and Monument either of pious Magnificence or munificent Piety Possibly they may out of principles of policy and self-preservation keep some fair quarter to each other and pretend a correspondency as brethren in discontent or iniquity while they either are curbed by a potent and prudent hand as to that civil predominancy and liberty they affect or while they have some jealousie of the England's recovery their sore and just enemy in their esteem when indeed it is their truest friend and least their flatterer but when they fancy her to be irreparable and each of themselves in such potency as can bear no competitor they will certainly justle each other for more elbow-room Their spirits are too big to be confined when once blown up with confidence of numbers and successes neither their herds nor herdsmen can feed longer together like Cocks of the game when they have sufficiently crowed over the Church of England they will fight with one another Their Principles are and so will their Practices be Mahometan as well as Christian rather to be active than passive to follow the crescent rather than bear the cross They are for rule and empire rather than for Christian patience and subjection those were superstitious or necessitous rather than religious Principles and Practices of primitive silliness more than simplicity and innocency as they count them the Serpent in them will devour the Dove as soon as it growes great enough that it may be no longer a creeping but a flying fiery Serpent Late experience too much gratifying even to a glut and excesse the various licentious factious and cruel Novelties of some men hath thus far manifested the Folly Ingratitude Inordinatenesse Ambition and Madnesse of their Principles Practices and Spirits that I see some men can never be content with moderate blessings in Church or State nor satisfied with any thing unlesse they may be their own carvers they are so eager to catch at the shadows of Novelty and whimsies of Reformation that they are blindly zealous to lose the substance of Religion and deform the best Reformations in the world the issues of their Counsels are the issues of Death and their paths tend either to Romish darknesse or Atheisticall indifferencies From all which true observations of mens tempers and activities presages of future sad events I cannot but with grief of soul justifie what many mens immoderate zeal is loth to believe the wise observations of S. Austin and many others who were set beyond juvenile heats and popular fervours That Novelties in any well-ordered Church and Religion though seemingly yea and really as to some degrees for the better yet usually perturb the Church and State of Religion more than they profit them No private mens reformings end without their greater deformities if perhaps they adde to the Purity and Verity they take
lustre for Learning Honor Order Estate and Unity How much lesse are they now to be exercised by poore pusillanimous and petty Preachers with their pittifull Lay-Elders Yet amidst all the obstructions either in Doctrine or Discipline which either the pride and policies of men or the subtilties of devils have hitherto put amidst the peevishnesse of Schismaticks and the spite of Romanists amidst all the damps and dispiritings that this Church of England and the worthy Clergy thereof have long found and felt from all sides that were factious and had evill eyes or evill wills against them yet even then did the Lord of his Church so highly exalt them and this Nation in the eyes of all the world to such degrees of Piety Learning Peace Plenty Honor Love and all prosperity that could blesse any Christian Church or Nation that in good earnest there was no need any of these new patches should be put as deformities to that old garment which was so goodly and gracefull for true Christian Religion and due reformation that no novelty from private heads or hands could mend it especially when obtruded as a rent or forcibly pinned upon it as rags and hangby's of Religion by every petty Master whose fingers itch to be medling and innovating in Church affaires without any publick and impartiall counsell and authority Such preposterous endeavours no way worthy of the honor of this Nation nor contributive to its happinesse God hath already soon all sides blasted that they have been not onely unprosperous but many waies pernicious dishonourable ridiculous divine vengeance at once discovering their follies and confuting their confidences which instead of further setling or better Reforming Religion as was on all sides vapored and pretended have as much as in them lyes reduced a famous and flourishing a well-reformed and united Church almost to ruinous heaps and sordid confusions to the great shame and dishonour of this Nation both reproching your pious progenitors and you their posterity as if for this last hundred yeares none of them or you had served God as they and you should have done with holy and acceptable service because neither they nor you did permit every man or Minister to choose what Religion he would broach what Opinions he liked or to use what Discipline he pleased or beget what Churches and Pastors he fancied best and this after every free-man had either in Person or by his Proxy consented to that religious establishment which bound all men either actively to obey or passively to submit with silence and patience because it was of his own appointing being the result of all Estates in this Nation who without doubt were much more able to consider and conclude what was best for the publick Piety Peace and Honour of this Church and State than any private man could do whose self-overvaluing and overweening is generally the first step of their own and other mens undoing yea many times from these practises which at first are not much regarded much mischief accrews to the publick as the plague is thought to begin first in private alleys and by-lanes or from some one man or woman that hath a foul body or a very stinking breath which easily poysons the ambient ayre in which they walk especially when disposed to putrefaction and so diffusive of the Infection to others The stop and cure of which Epidemick pestilence which beginning from some mens ill lungs or lives hath now seised upon Religion it self and this whole Nation by your applying seasonable Antidotes and safe defensatives is a work most worthy of the Wisdome and Honor of this Nation which can be in no point more concerned or conspicuous than in this of true Religion so setled and maintained as best becomes both the Majesty of Religion and the renowne of the Nation Fourthly to which great and good work you stand obliged not onely in duty to God in love to your Saviour in charity to posterity and in just respects to your selves all which are great ingredients in true Honor but further give me leave to tell you something of Gratitude and just retribution lyes upon you as to the ancient Clergy or Ministry of this Nation who have faithfully served God and his Church you and your forefathers for many yeares in all Ecclesiasticall duties and religious offices If you and your Forefathers most honored Gentlemen and beloved Countrymen did well and worthily in a grave and orderly way of publick consent and by due Authority purge this Church and redeeme this Nation in its Doctrine and Duties its Ministry and Worship its Discipline and Government its just Liberties and immunities from the drosse and druggery of Romish errors and superstitions of Papall Tyrannies and Usurpations reserving or restoring that Purity Decency Authority Order Uniformity of Christian Religion which became the wisdome and honor of this Church and Nation by the exactest conformity with the Catholick Church in its purest and primitive constitution If you have effected and enjoyed this happinesse by Gods blessing chiefly upon the pious Counsells devout Prayers potent Preachings and learned Writings as of the first reformed and reforming Bishops and Presbyters subordinate to them so of their worthy Successors in the same Orders Offices and Functions who have many thousands of them confirmed their Doctrine sealed their labours asserted and authorised their Ministry by their holy lives and comfortable deaths yea some of them with their patient sufferings and Martyrdomes If the Clergy of this Reformed Church in their severall stations and degrees have by the Divine assistance ever since preserved this holy depositum of the true Christian Religion duly Reformed according to the Primitive gravity and Scripturall verity for above one hundred years to your and your forefathers inestimable honor and happinesse and this as with great Learning and all sorts of holy abilities so with no lesse industry and fidelity though not wholly without humane frailties and personall infirmities which God in mercy will pardon and man in charity ought to passe by where there was so much integrity and proficiency so much of commendable worth and constant excellency as to the maine If you cannot deny the many signall testimonies which God hath given of his being well-pleased with this Churches Reformation with the Ministry Worship and publick Profession of Religion in this Nation not so much by that long peace plenty and prosperity which you and your pious predecessors have to a wonder enjoyed at home besides the great Honor and renowne abroad nor yet by those nationall and signall deliverances from deep designes and imminent dangers which threatned the utter subversion of Church and State these preservations and lengthnings of our tranquillity being then surest signes of Gods favour and approbation of our waies when they are honestly obtained thankfully received and modestly enjoyed but beyond these conjecturall fruits of common providence we have those speciall tokens and testimonies wherein the Lord hath as I conceive evidenced
wisely than to enjoy pompously superciliously luxuriously and idly others are brought almost to utter consumptions of Religion by their own Calentures and those Hectick fevers which have so long afflicted themselves and as contagious or spotted sicknesses infected others Some of all sides and sorts have suffered I am sure all are threatned because each party hath by their passionate transports rather studied to advance their private opinions parties and interests than the common and publick good of this Church and Nation mutuall sufferings which have taken from all sides the confidence of their innocency have so wrought upon all men of serious piety and honest purposes as by this fiery triall to purge them from their drosse of common infirmities and to refine them for some further service to this Church and State Nor do I doubt but as other wise and good men so particularly Ministers of parts and piety could they once amicably and authoritatively meet confer and correspond together would sincerely and cheerfully by Gods blessing agree upon some expedient to recover the truth order honour peace uniformity and authority of the Reformed Religion and its Ministry in this Church and Nation that neither they nor you nor your posterity may be ever thus possessed distorted torne and tormented with evill Spirits which sometimes cast us into the waters of cold and Atheisticall irreligions otherwhile into the fires of intemperate zealotry and contentions For so hath the Church of England passed through all the poetick racks and tortures which if not remedied will be the portion of your posterity one while rolling Sysiphus his restlesse stone of endlesse Reformation whose recoilings and relapsings sink the true Reformed Religion to lower deformities than ever it was in after this they must be put upon Ixions wheel tossed up and down with continuall circulations and giddinesse of Religion as every mans whimsicall braines list to turne it round whereas Religious orderly motions ought to have as their due bounds and circumference of truth so their fixed centre of Christian unity and publick communion both which would in no long time by Gods blessing be regained in England if some mens private policies and sinister projects did not as wedges still hinder the closing and agreement of honest and impartiall men in such waies as would restore Religion to its just honor Authority and consistence from the enjoying of which after all the specious pretences made on all sides we are still as far remote as Tantalus was from eating those fruits or drinking those waters which onely deluded but never satisfied his famished soul Yet many good grapes and some faire clusters are still left upon this battered vine of the Church of England in which I hope may be a blessing which neither the little foxes of peevish Schismaticks have much bitten nor the greater bores of Romish seducers have wholly subverted Many well-meaning people and not a few Preachers too who formerly had their Midsummer-fits and shorter Lunacies as to their religion are now so sober in their senses and well recovered to their right wits that having once tried that vanity and vexation that froth and futility of Spirit which attends all factious inquietudes and exotick innovations obtruded upon a well setled Church they are resolved ever hereafter to avoid and abhorre them as being no better than specious poysons delicate delusions spirituall debaucheries and religious lucuries which growing from plethorick tempers in mens soules especially where they are high fed with duties do easily tempt them that are lesse cautious and moderate both to wandrings and wantonnesse in Religion first to simple fornications and at last to grosse and foule adulteries to which men otherwise of commendable strictnesse and purposes are easily betrayed if as Dinah they give way to the temptations of novelty curiosity popularity and ambitious vanity in Religion there where it hath been well and worthily setled by publique counsell and joynt consent yea and hath been happily enjoyed for many Ages with almost miraculous I am sure very marvellous prosperities so as it was beyond all dispute here in the Church of England The inconsiderate ruflings and disorderings of whose religious constitution many men of all sorts are now ready to recant and expiate if by any honest endeavours they may recover the order unity beauty authority and stability of Religion in this Nation To whose Ecclesiastick communion I perceive many heretofore more warme than wise more credulous than considerate are now cordially returned as to their judgements and consciences to which no doubt their conversation would willingly conforme if once they could see any ensigne of religious uniformity authoritatively set up in England Many Ministers would willingly recant and return from their violent and vulgar transports if they could but have a protection for their foreheads or a skreen to hide that shame and discountenance which they feare hangs over them for their levity from the common-peoples censures and scorns Not a few Ministers sometimes orderly and regular enough would fain get free from those popular lime-twigs which have too long held them if they did not feare to lose some of their feathers either as to their reputation or maintenance who flying from that good sense which was heretofore set in the Church of England for their defence would needs light on that bare hedge for their refuge and perch which proves to most of them no better than the beggars bush fuller of gins and snares than of berries or food O how glad would hundreds of popular preachers and preaching people be to be commanded by superiours to make not verball but reall retractations of their errors seductions surprises schismes and apostasies that so their variablenesse in Religion might seem to arise not from their private innate levities but from either fatall or soveraigne necessities which are alwaies good salvo's and go for current excuses among common people either to plead for their extravagancies or to justifie their changes especially when they are reduced to the better Many Ministers of Presbyterian and Independent practises rather than perswasions or principles now together with their followers who formerly were highly a-gog even when they were yet in their downe pin-feathered and scarce fledge in those fine speculations and rare projects which they had fancied for erecting new models of Church-work after the formes of Consistories and Elderships Classes and congregations of Corporal Spiritualties Spirituall Corporations which were to be reared out of the ruinous nay out of the most intire parts of the Reformed Church of England which was by them to be wholly ruined though it were by the Lawes of God and man by constitutions Ecclesiasticall and Civill both wisely formed and happily fixed in the Primitive and Catholick form of order and dependency yet even these men and Ministers of destruction not edification with their late Chappels of Little-Ease would I am confident be now very glad to be handsomely sheltered under the protection of some such Episcopall
and tyrannies of some Bishops as if all were to be blamed none to be commended and highly magnifying the zeal themselves have for a through Reformation that is that they might freely and fully gratifie their own and peoples ambitions by setting Episcopacy and all Bishops quite beside the saddle on purpose to make way for themselves who are for the most part as fit to governe Churches alone as apes are to build houses I crave leave in order to promote a faire and firme accommodation with all ingenuous freedom and candor to make some more particular application of my desire and designs to those Ministers of the Presbyterian and Independent waies who have opposed their faces sharpned their tongues or pens and hardened their hearts most against all Episcopacy even in the most innocent usefull regular and moderate constitution of it I meane that Primitive order and paternall residency which was universally acknowledged to be eminently in one President as Bishop or chief Pastor over many Presbyters in his Diocese after the pattern of the 12. Apostles who were by Christs appointment above the 70. and so their declared successors as Timothy Titus Archippus those others who are called the Angels of the 7. Asian Churches with many others to whom they derived not onely their example and practical constitution but their Authority and Power Ecclesiastical as is evident by the Canons and Rules set forth not onely in ancient Councils but in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus for the setling and managing of Church-order Discipline and Government in such a way as clearly gives not to any consistory or company of Presbyters and people but to one man a Paramount Authority as Bishop or Superiour both in Ordination and Jurisdiction above others as his inferiours and so subordinate to his spirituall power so far as to reprove examine censure reject c. All which being to me immoveable and immutable foundations for the establishing of Episcopall presidency as the onely succession of that ordinary Apostolick power and authority which is necessary to be alwaies in the Church of Christ they do make me dayly by these considerations more restive and lesse compliant to any new waies or Associatings than perhaps otherwise I should be both by the sociablenesse of my temper and my earnest desire for another way of happy union among Ministers of worth and moderation This uncorrespondency to which I am upon those grounds compelled is with the greater regret to me because I know the learning the industry the zeal the piety the ingenuity the potency of some of those my dissenting brethren in their preaching writing praying and living I am charitably perswaded of many of their sincerity in aiming at Gods Glory and at the purity of holy Ministrations I do not see wherein many of them differ from the best Episcopall Divines ancient or modern as to any main matter of Religion in doctrine or duty Nor can I find any reason yet alledged by any of them sufficient to justifie that pertinacious distance and defiance which of later yeares onely they have taken up against Episcopacy meerly upon the account of jealousie and impatiency to choose and admit a learned grave and worthy Bishop as a fixed Father or constant Governour and Grave Moderator authoritatively to preside among them in their severall grand distributions or Dioceses after that order and eminency which were most comely for them and most unquestionable as to the fixing and completing of Church-order and Government to all sober Christians satisfaction I will not tax or suspect the soberest of my Presbyterian or Independent brethren of such pride and arrogancy as can endure no superiour or chief among them I rather conceive it was a Sympathethick impulse at first from those Scotish motions and pretentions which swerved them not onely from the former good constitution of the Church of England to which they heretofore very orderly and happily submitted but also from their conformity to the Catholick Church in that point to which I believe their judgement heretofore ahd inclination now may incline and lead them as apparently best for their publick and private interests Some are prone to suspect that the best of them did not heretofore submit so humbly and heartily to their Lawfull Superiours and Governours in the Church as in duty and conscience by the lawes of God and man they ought to have done others challenge them for want as of piety and honesty so of Christian charity yea and of common humanity or compasâ—ion for their forwardnesse and fiercenesse to undoe all Bishops and all dignified Clergy-men at least for their ready consent to their utter ruine holding the garments of those that stoned them to death never so much as praying heartily for them while they were in power nor yet pittying them in their miscarriages or calamities no nor so far interceding for or listning to any just moderation which was oft proposed and offered as might have been not more happy for the Bishops than for themselves as Presbyters yea for this whole Church and all Christian people in England I am willing to hope that many Ministers mutations began with good affections and were carried on at first with principles of sincerity and zeal though not with that knowledge meekness and wisdome which was requisite But to many of them that are now the most haughty stiffe and obstinaâ—e against all accommodating with Episcopacy I cannot but still appeale whether they do not in their consiences find that either at first or afterward some secular advantages and private hopes did not a little warp and sway their inclinations to novelties whether they felt not the secret but dissembled strokes of discontent anger envy revenge popularity ambition feigned jealousies inordinate affectations of liberty exciting and animating them to the utter extirpation of Episcopacy whether they did not by a self-conceit generally imagin themselves not onely jointly but severally as fit and able to govern the Church in the whole or in parcels as any yea all the Bishops in England whether any of them do believe the case of Episcopacy to have ever been fully heard freely discussed and impartially stated by the peaceable wisdom and piety of this nation whether many of these Ministers as Politicians and Statesmen did not rather comply with the streame and vogue of times running fiercely against Episcopacy than with their own clear convictions in reason law scripture antiquity conscience whether they kept that equanimity and moderation in all things of this nature which became wise and good men of an Evangelicall Spirit and temper or were not biassed yea transported by something that was popular and sinister whether they do not think that the violence and precipitancy of some of their examples was beyond all solid arguments to drive many well-meaning Ministers and People to such heady and hot petitionings against Episcopacy and to such pittilesse Antipathies against all the most excellent Bishops which were then and still are England
would be established and the tranquillity of the Nation highly setled and confirmed upon the best foundation of peace that can be among mankind In all which things we have and do on all sides so far extremely suffer as we differ by such unreasonable distances and uncharitable defiances first among Ministers which are presently followed with all disorder lukewarmenesse irreligion profaneness arrogancy Atheism Affectation and Faction among the people in England chiefly as I conceive upon this account The needlesse variating shifting and changing of that Primitive plat-forme that Apostolick and Catholick order and succession of Ecclesiasticall Authority and Ministeriall power in this Church which hath ever been owned with religious reverence and conscience in Engl. ever since it was Christian preserved as sacred by the most pious Princes honored as Divine by the most Religious and reformed Parlaments prospered by the speciall benignity and grace of God peaceably enjoyed by all devout judicious and humble Christians to the unspeakable comfort of their souls living and dying when they knew who were their Bishops Pastors and spirituall Fathers owning them with all due respect and love as in Christs stead submitting to them for conscience sake as to the Lord and receiving from them good instructions just reproofes holy comforts and heavenly Mysteries not as from man but God after the rule of the Scriptures and the example of the best Christians in all ages who looked upon Episcopacy or the Government of the Church as fixed completed and exercised chiefly by Bishops assisted with worthy Presbyters not onely as a book of a larger volume greater print and fairer binding than Presbytery or Independency that is the sole power of Presbyters or people by themselves but they looked upon the Episcopall eminency as having more in it of Apostolick power and Ecclesiasticall Authority both in point of ordination and jurisdiction than is either in Presbyters or people by themselves Bishops and Presbyters being as the eyes and hands which are not more members of the body than the leggs and feet yet they are the more noble parts and have more of publick use and virtue as to inspection direction and operation for the common good of all parts in the body No wonder then if the honor of all Religion be much abated if the renown of this Reformed Church be thus abased no wonder that Presbytery it self is so baffled and Independency despised no wonder that all the Office Power and Authority of Ministers together with their persons be reduced to such a low ebb and almost quite exhausted when Bishops the grand Cisternes and chief Conduites of all Ecclesiasticall Orders and Ministeriall Authority as derived from Christ and his Apostles are not onely bruised and crackt but utterly broken cut off and cast away whom yet no Presbyter or Independent of any learning or forehead can deny actually to have been in all ages used and esteemed as the constant successors and immediate substitutes of the Apostles first invested with that power by the Apostles themselves after their decease chosen by the Presbyters and after consecrated by other Bishops to be as the prime receptacles conservators and conveyers of all Ecclesiasticall Power and Ministeriall Authority not onely as Teachers of Divine truths preachers of the Gospell and dispensers of holy Mysteries in common with Presbyters but as chief Fathers Pastors and Rulers of those larger flocks which constituted those famous ancient Churches which were not limited to the bounds of one family or one congregation or one little parish in which one Preacher or Presbyter may in ordinary duties suffice but they extended to such ample combinations as contained large Cities and their Territories in which were many thousands of Christians many congregations and many Presbyters who all made but one Church or polity Ecclesiasticall under one chief Pastor or Bishop residing with the Presbyters at first in the chief City afterward these were fixed to particular parishes or villages by the care of the Bishops Without whose authority and consent nothing of consequence was done by any in the publick managing of Religion without the just brand and censure of Schismaticall arrogancy it being ever judged that Bishops had derived to them an higher degree of Apostolick power and Church jurisdiction than ever was or could be in any one or many Presbyters or people without them who could not regularly nor never did unblamably ordaine of themselves or by their own sole Authority any Ministers or exercise the censures of the Church in a plenary and absolute jurisdiction without deriving their power from their respective Bishops without whom and against whom few ever acted in any age of the Church and never any good Christian refused subjection to and communion with their lawfull and orthodox Bishops no nor did ever any Hereticks or Schismaticks proceed to such extravagancy as to reject and disclaime all Episcopall order till of later yeares whose example hath little in it to make it compared with much lesse preferred before Catholick customes and Primitive patternes of all ancient Churches what ever glosses the wit of men or their craft or their successes or their Godly and necessary pretences may put upon their variations and schismes CHAP. XII IT is not now my design either to spin out or to wind and summe up that long and tedious thread of dispute which hath been so much snarled and entangled of late yeares in England by popular pens or cleared and unfolded by more able learned and impartiall Writers Who is not weary now and ashamed of those thread-bare allegations drawn from the samenesse or promiscuous use of Names which we know vary with time and must yield to use and custome as if Apostle Evangelist Bishop Presbyter Pastor Preacher Teacher and Ruler they may adde Deacon and Servant and Minister were all one in the equivalency of their power order and authority in the Church For any one nay all these names are in the latitude of their sense given to some one man or officer in the Church yet in the more strict precise and Emphatick sense they denote different gifts orders authorities dispensations and functions as well as degrees in the Church of Christ which did never confound Deacons with Presbyters nor Presbyters with Bishops nor all with the Apostles because the chief Apostles who contained in their ample authority and commission all Ecclesiasticall powers eminently under Christ are sometimes called Presbyters Compresbyters and also Deacons or Ministers of Jesus Christ and servants of the Church deriving all these powers in their severall degrees and orders to Bishops Presbyters and Deacons after them To the first as to a lesser sort of Apostles but chief Rulers or Overseers in the Church they gave the eminent and peculiar power of ordaining Presbyters and exercising spirituall jurisdiction over them as is evident in the power that Timothy and Titus had given them by Commission from the great Apostle St. Paul who certainly in this was conforme to
all other Apostles in their severall Bishopricks or Distributions To the second as Presbyters or a lesser kind of Bishops and Apostles over private and particular congregations they gave power to preach the Gospel administer Sacraments and assist their chief Pastor or Bishop in governing the Church according as they were required and appointed to their severall duties and charges But no where in Scripture that I see do we find either the sole or chief power of ordaining Ministers or of exercising any Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction over them by correption or rejection given to any one or more Presbyters as such unlesse men list for ever to play the children and cavill with the identity or samenesse of the names used of old which calls Apostles Presbyters as a word of honor and Presbyters Bishops as overseers and all of them Deacons as servants to Christ and the Church and all may be called Apostles too in some sense as sent by Christ on his work Which Crambe is so fulsome a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cavilling about words to confound all good sense and order that all sober men are now weary of it when they clearly see that all ages and actions of the Catholick Church have sufficiently declared beyond any fallacy of identity as to Names and titles the reall and actuall differences of persons and duties or offices to which words may at first be indifferently applied without implying any such confusion of places and powers in the Church any more than when the name of ruler is applyed to supreame and subordinate Magistrates or when the name of Officer is given to Corporalls Lieutenants Captaines Colonells and Generalls or that of Alderman to such as are so by age or office or estate just as if one should obstinately maintain that the petty Constables of every parish the High Constables of every Hundred and the Lord high Constable of England or France were the same things as to office power and honor because the same name of Constable is applyed to all of them It may with as much reason be urged that every Master of Arts in a Colledg and the Master of the Colledg are the same in office place and power or that every one who is called Father by nature age affinity adoption merit or relation either Domestick Civil or Ecclesiasticall presently may challenge the same Authority over us and the same Duty or Obedience from us as our naturall parents have and do expect because all are called Fathers So we shall have many Gods and Lords to justifie the Polytheisme of the heathens because there are many that are in Scripture called Gods and Lords as the Apostle tells us These Sophisticall equivocations from names and words have been indeed the bushes or thickets the borrowes and refuges a long time of those men who aimed to bring in all factions innovations and confusions into this and other Churches onely under such empty colours and fallacious pretentions out of all which they have been lately so stripped ferreted by many learned unanswerable assertors of Episcopacy in its just presidency and authority that they are now naked and ridiculous to all sober spectators who see that all the judgement and practice of antiquity besides the Scriptures analogy is so clear and distinct against all their petty cavillings and popular levellings that the reall differences of the powers orders degrees and offices in the Church as begun by Christ exercised by the Apostles also continued in that method and series through all ages are not lesse evident than their peevishnesse and pertinacy are who list to urge the first indifferency or latitude of words against the after and evident distinctions of things declared and confirmed by the constant judgement and practice of all Churches which is in my judgement the best and surest interpreter and distinguisher of what ever seems wrapped up or any way obscured and confused in Scripture-expressions otherwaies we must with the Papists own as many Sacraments and Mysteries as these words are applyed to in Scripture either in the Greek or Latine Presbyters might well enough be then called Bishops in a generall and lower sense when there were so many Apostles as chief Bishops above them which Name of Apostle the modesty of after Bishops refusing they contented themselves with the peculiar title of Bishops and confined that of Presbyter to that second order or degree of Clergy-men as that of Deacon to the third which yet in their latitude are applyed to Bishops and Apostles themselves I know there have been many things speciously urged for Presbytery and odiously against Episcopacy all which have been so abundantly answered that it is time they were forgotten and all enmity buried with them My aime in this pacificatory addresse to all worthy Ministers is not to revive the cavils and disputes but to reconcile all interests to compose all differences and to satisfie all demands Onely because I know there is no closing or glewing of pieces together with firmnesse where there is not first made an evennesse and smoothness on all sides for their apt meeting I shall here further endeavour fairly to take away some remaining roughnesse swelling and protuberancy which possibly may be still in some sober mens minds as great hinderances of the desired closure and composure of all sides I know it is further urged by some that every Presbyter singly and much more socially that is in a joynt body and Associate fraternity may be rationally thought to have the full power and divine authority of a Bishop to all ends offices and purposes since it is well known in all antiquity as St Jerome tells us and it is confessed by all Episcopall men that Presbyters as such primitively chose their respective Bishops as at Antioch Jerusalem Alexandria from S. Marks time in other places so that Bishops may seem primarily to receive all their authority and eminency from Presbyters who certainly can conferre no more upon any of Bishop than is radically seminally and eminently in themselves as a superiour Magistrate that nominates an inferiour or a Corporation that chooseth a Major or chief officer or as Fellowes of a Colledge who choose a Master or President over them or as an army which is St. Jeromes instance who choose their Imperator or Generall From this ancient and well-known priviledge of Presbyters to choose their respective Bishops many conclude their joynt power at least to be equall to any Bishops yea superiour to them as causall and efficient insomuch that they may if they please exercise it apart from and wholly without any Bishop by choosing none to be over them or among them but serving their occasionall meetings with a temporary Moderator rather than a constant Superintendent To this it is easily answered That however Presbyters of old did and of right as I conceive ought by the leave and permission of Christian Princes to choose and appove the persons of their Bishops as being the fittest men in
the Church to judge of a Bishops sufficiencies for that place and charge yet it no way followes that any Bishop hath his Spirituall or Ecclesiasticall power from them as the originall of it any more than of his temporall Barony and revenues to which he is admitted by the Presbyters election of him but only he is by their election and comprobation duly admitted and regularly enabled to exercise that power whose roote as that of Presbyters rise and foundation is from a far higher principle and greater authority Just as the Fellowes of a Colledge choose the Master President or Warden at least they admit and accept of him to the possession enjoyment and use of that power which is not in them joyntly or singly without their Master nor yet is it derived from them to the Master but he hath it from the first Founders Will and the Statutes or Customes of the Colledg In like manner the chief Magistrate of any City or Corporation though he be chosen by the Commons or Fraternities in it to his chief place and office yet his power and jurisdiction is not from them but from that Charter or Grant which gave the first constitution to that power and polity So in an Army Officers may choose their Generall to a power above them which he enjoyes and exerciseth beyond what any one or all of them hath right unto or any capacity to use yet doth that power accrew to him from those principles of Right Reason Order Polity and Authority which is derived and vested in him by the suffrage or consent of many who have right and reason thus to advise for their common order and safety by preferring one above themselves by whose suffrages and consents as by the Suns beames united in the centre of a burning-glasse a greater heat and luster of authority is raised than is in any one or many beames scattered and divided By vertue of which principles of reason order and polity as these other civil instances which act by their severall Charters and Statutes are neither left at liberty to choose or not choose any to be their chief Magistrate or Governour nor yet may they in right reason or law exercise that paramount power without him but they are bound in conscience and duty as well as by custome and charter to choose such a chieftane and so to invest him in that power paramount above them yet do they not give the power to that elect person but the person to that power which was setled before them So in the Church of Christ Presbyters of old did freely choose indeed their Bishops at least they consented afterward to accept of him whom the Prince or possibly the people in some cases nominated as a worthy and deserving person yet neither people nor Prince nor Presbyter did conferre upon any Bishop that power Episcopall or that eminent Ecclesiasticall Authority which he had properly in himself to use and exert it after he was thus chosen consecrated and installed No he had it from that grand Charter and Catholick Custome which was in the Church of Christ by which the first Apostolick Canons or Scripture-Statutes and Institutions not only founded but derived this Authority as received from Christ and by the Spirit of Christ conveyed it to their Successors the Bishops in the name and power of Christ for the orderly governing of his Church in all places which hath been and I think ought where God hinders not to be continued in the Churches of Christ by the like successive choise or approbation of Presbyters in the want and vacancy of their Bishops Nor do I doubt but Ministers are sinfully wanting to that duty which they ow to Christ and his Church when they cease to do as much as in them lies what they ought in this point to do might do if themselves did not hinder their choosing and having their lawful Bishops as well as people their Presbyters according to the Primitive rule and Catholick pattern which hath the force of a law it being no lesse necessary for the Church to be orderly governed and thus united than to be taught and communicated to in holy things Nay those two or three Bishops which after the great Nicene Councill were required to joyne in the more solemn consecration and investiture of every Bishop did not impart of their own power but solemnly declared and blessed as good and worthy the choise and investiture of him that was first duly elected by the Presbyters and then further confirmed by their publication and benediction which benediction was never that I read done by any Presbyters as being now inferiours to him whom their consent and suffrages had chosen to that Episcopall degree and eminency above them who as Presbyters might choose their Bishops but yet not depose him this work requiring their appeal to the higher power of a Council or Synod of many Bishops who were in that joynt capacity above any one Bishop and so onely capable to be his judges upon the complaint of Presbyters or people against him As Presbyters have their Office and Authority by Bishops ordination as conduits but not from them as fountaines of it there being but one spring of it which is Jesus Christ so Bishops have their power by Presbyters election as instruments or mediums but not from their donation as the source and originals of their power and authority which is Christs Thirdly Some Presbyters and Independents do with great brow and confidence urge that Bishops are wholly superfluous because Presbyters and any ordinary Preachers two or three or more of them are very able and willing every where to beget their like every petty Presbytery is become a seminary or spawner to ordain Ministers and conferre all degrees of holy orders for which they think themselves no lesse fitted than for preaching and administring Sacraments which they say are employments requiring greater abilities and no lesse authority yea many Country-Presbyters have made themselves and one another of late Chorepiscopi or Country Bishops ordaining Ministers when where and how they list without any Bishop among them And this they say with very good success and acceptance to Country-people who besides the pleasure they take in any daring novelty and insolency in Religion protest to find no lesse judgement discretion and gravity than was heretofore pretended to be in Bishops for that service Nor is it to be doubted say they but the ordination authority and Commission of such Presbyters is as valid as that done by Bishops since these Godly Ministers do so try and examine such as come to be ordained that they commonly pose the best Schollars and soberest men that come to them Further they pray and preach as well as most Bishops did yea they very gravely exhort and charge the ordained brother with as great weight and severity both for gifts and graces Ministeriall as ever the Bishops did though it may be not with so much pomp and formality Hence they deny
the necessity and use of Bishops yea they deny any flaw or defect to be in their new Presbyterian and popular ordinations for want of any other Bishops but themselves who are as pert in their novelty as ever any Prelates were in their antiquity That these Heteroclite or equivocall ordinations have of late been acted in England with much self applause and popular parade by meer Presbyters I well understand but quo jure by what right from God or man by what authority civill or Ecclesiasticall I could never yet see yea I am sure no law of God or men heretofore ever was thought to give any such power to meer Presbyters without yea against their lawfull Bishops insomuch that many learned and sober men have much blamed at least suspected these Presbyterian transactions for Schismaticall presumptions these ordinations for disorderly usurpations at least in such a Church as England was where there were and still are venerable Bishops of the orthodox faith reformed profession and ancient constitution willing and able to do their duty in the point of ordination Which in all ordinary cases appeares to have ever been their peculiar right specially derived to them as Bishops from the Apostles through all successions of times and Churches without any interruption except when some factious and insolent Presbyters ventured to be extravagant and usurpant whom all the learned Fathers venerable Councils and good Christians in the Church every where condemned as most injurious because usurping that Authority which no Apostle no Councill no Bishop ever gave to any that were meer Presbyters in their Ordination and Commission no more than the Lawes or Canons of this Church and State Nor is there as far as I can perceive any one place in Scripture that by any precept or example invests either one or more simple Presbyters with the power of trying and examining of laying on of hands of giving holy orders as from themselves alone of committing or transmitting what they had received to other faithfull men that should be able to teach All which were given to Timothy and Titus as chief Bishops The Pope of Rome indeed animated by those flatterers which would make him the sole Bishop by Divine right and all other Bishops as surrogates to him dependants upon him and derived from him as if there had not been 12 or 13 but onely one â—â—sion â—lick Chaire or prime seat of Episcopacy hath some â—eath given power of ordination to such as were but Presbyters as â—nd read of some Abbots and Priors but it was alwaies to the great scandall of the best Bishops and Presbyters of the Church as contrary to all ancient Orders Canons and Customes of the Church unlesse he first made them as Chorepiscopi or suffragane Bishops But in earnest it is hard to judge whether Popes or Presbyters be most enemies to Catholick Bishops As for the pious pomp and the specious apparences the formall dressings and verball adornings which they say are used by Presbyters in their late Ordinations in England though I never saw any of them yet I have heard and read so much of them as gives me to judge far less to be in them of authority true complete and valid than ought to be For besides the persons not impowered or commissionated to that office there is as I heare no transmitting and so no receiving of the holy Spirit as to that Ministeriall Order and Power which is thereby derived to Ministers as from Christ whatever there may be of godly solemnity and plausible formalities which are usually more studied and affected to please the people there where men are most conscious to the defect of authentick reall and righteous power But all these saintly shewes to wise men signifie nothing no nor the personal abilities either of the ordainers or ordained who cannot by their personall power knowledg virtues graces or private gifts make any Officer in State or in Armies in War or in Peace much lesse in the Church and Ministry of Jesus Christ Alas no private capacity in any man can make the least petty Constable or Bailiffe or Corporall or Serjeant without they first have a publick and lawfull Commission from the fountains of Authority to give them an Authority far beyond any private arrogancy and presumed sufficiency of their own Possibly extraordinary cases may in time be their own excuses in such Churches where Bishops may be all dead or banished or where such as are Orthodox cannot be had and they that are will not ordain any Presbyters without imposing upon them such things as are erroneous and unlawfull but nothing can be pleaded that I yet see no nor doth the candor and charity of Bishop Usher know how to excuse such Presbyters from being Schismaticks factious presumptuous and disorderly who first cast off and forsake such Bishops as are of the same faith and reformed profession worthy and willing able and ready every way authorized by Church and State to do their duty The contempt and rejecting of such Bishops is I fear a great sin before God I am sure a great grievance to such Churches as first suffer those distractions And no doubt it is as a great so a needlesse scandall to most Churches and the best Christians in all the world nor can it be other then a foule reproach and scorn cast on all pious antiquity nor will it prove other than a lasting misery to any Church and Nation that wilfully continues that guilt and defect upon themselves and their posterity especially when God â—s them sufficient meanes to remedy that mischief to supply thâ—â—fects and to compose those differences which are ever followâ—â—he waâ— much more the needlesse expulsion of Primitive Episcopacy For whose power and authority while either Presbyters or people are scrambling they do but make Religion a May-game bring as we see both themselves and their Ministry into contempt for no Presbyters or people can while the world stands ever stamp such an honor and Authority Ecclesiasticall upon themselves as was in all ages and by all Churches consent besides the Scripture-Character and Apostolick signature set upon Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which ever united centred and confirmed power in one man not over all which the Pope affects but over their Dioceses or Provinces A 4 th Objection much flourished by some popular Preachers against Bishops and all Episcopacy in any Authority and eminency above Presbyters is that Episcopacy is the root of Popery that Prelates were the parents of Antichrist that every Bishop hath a Pope in his belly and that the Pope is no other than an overgrown Bishop that to rout all Popery and raze the foundations of Romes pride all Prelacy or Episcopacy must be stubbed up My answer to this is that this objection sounds as little of truth as it savours much of malice especially in any Presbyters of any learning and ingenuity who well know the abasing of Bishops is the design and hath
desire may be extended to themselves The contentions and confusions in Religion must needs be endlesse if they be left to the naturall passions of most men Then they may find happy conclusions when those that are Rulers and Teachers of others and so not onely more learned but more prudent unpassionate and composed as Magistrates and Ministers ought to be beyond any men when I say these men do apply the utmost of their Piety Power Parts Zeal and Discretion by fit meanes to compose all controversies among themselves which will then soon decay and dye among the common people The Spirits and reputation of Ministers are commonly the chiefe sparks and bellowes that first kindle and after increase to publick flames the fires of dissentions and disaffections both among themselves and the people once extinguish or moderate these enormous heates among Ministers there will be no such conflagrations of Religion among ordinary people which have of late been more like the black and confused eructations of mount Aetna than the sweet and holy fires of mount Sion or the flames and perfumes of Gods Altar and Temple Which that I might be some meanes to restore to this Church and Nation I have thus made my amicable humble and Christian addresse as to all good men so chiefly to all my Brethren and Fathers of the Ministry in England who are persons of any competent abilities and considerable worth as to the duty and dignity of that great and holy that dreadfull Angelick Divine employment I confesse I cannot but passionately deplore as other mens so my own solitude for these many yeares by reason of that uncorrespondency as to any fraternall meeting with any of them in any publick way being hereby deprived of that great Comfort Improvement Joy and benefit which might be had by those excellent abilities and graces which are in many of them It is great pitty good and able Ministers should be longer severed whose brotherly union and frequent convenings in orderly and publick meetings would not onely set a greater edge and brightness on their studies and parts which alone and confined onely to Country-auditors and associates grow rusty flat and dull but they would highly advance the progresse of the Reformed Religion both in profession and power giving hereby a mighty check as to the encrease of profaneness atheism so of Popery and superstition mightily conducing also to the generall peace of the Nation by allaying those unchristian feuds and uncivill heates which every where so much at present affect infect and disaffect the minds both of Ministers and people But these meetings of Ministers must be authoritative not arbitrary not precarious but subpenall otherwise the restiveness laziness wantonness and factiousness of some will mar all either forbearing all meetings or perturbing them if they be not kept in some awe as well as order by their betters and superiours If I knew any Motives more prevalent any words more pathetick any charmes of love more effectuall any grounds of piety or polity more pregnant if Writing Preaching Praying Beseeching if any Words any Teares any Sighs might work upon Ministers of all sides to bring them to this blessed accord to publick friendly and fraternall meetings to grave orderly and comely conventions which would be of great use as well as honor to them I should in nothing be more prodigall of my time spirits and paines Then would Ministers be able to redeeme their Persons their Office their Orders their Sacred Authority their Religion from vulgar contempt from mechanick arrogancy from those base prostitutions and levellings to which those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 terrae filii sons of the earth vile and mâ—ane men have of late yeares debased as the holy Ministry so all heavenly Mysteries then would that rust and rusticity that plebeian Spirit and ungenerous temper which possesseth many Ministers out of feare and flattery be removed then would that scurfe and mosse that barrenness and canker which is now upon Christian and Reformed Religion be taken away and that floridness with fruitfulnesse that beauty with holinesse be restored which Tertullian so excellently sets forth among Primitive and persecuted Christians in their assemblies In which were highly conspicuous a reverentiall fear of God a modest and mutuall regard to each other a most intentive diligence to duties a most solicitous care of themselves and others a most prepared and deliberate communicating in holy things carried on by the most deserving eminency of some and the most religious subordination or consciencious subjection of others all parts of the Church and Clergy were happily united and God was all in all his glory the centre his love the circle or band of all their aimes and actions their hearts and thoughts The venerable piety and almost Divine Majesty of such conventions wherein Bishops Ministers and people were of one heart and one mind in the Lord advanced the reverence of their censures monitions reproofes abstentions and excommunications to so great a regard and just dread that no good Christian great or small disdained the authority of the Bishop or slighted the judgement of the Clergy which judged and declared the mind of the whole Church because according to the mind of the Lord Christ and of God himself Then was it that lapsed and scandalous sinners were soonest brought to be penitents in so humble yet comfortable a manner that as St. Jerom saith of Fabiola and St. Ambrose of others They furrowed their faces with sorrowes and plowed their cheeks with teares they paved the Churches with their prostrate bodies which were so penitently pallid and deplorable that they seemed only living corpses and breathing carkases So few Christians did then entertain their sins with smiles or laugh at those Teachers that reproved them or schismatically separate from those Orthodox Bishops with the Clergy that justly censured them as obnoxious to Gods judgements and unworthy of Christian Communion till they amended no man or woman ever lived or died in peace of conscience whose soul was justly wounded with these arrowes the censures of the Church they either drank up their sensuall and proud Spirits and brought them to repentance or they sank them into a desperate state both of obstinate sin and eternall horror Such holy and happy Assemblies of Ministers consisting of authoritative Bishops and orderly Presbyters were farre more to their honor and comfort more befitting their breeding and learning their labours and industry their parts and worth their sacred function and dignity than to be pittifully scared and over-awed by Country-Committees and a new sort of Tryars where grave Ministers are oft catechised chastised and contemned by such men as are some of them at least of very moderate that I say not meane abilities except their estates be instead of all reason and Religion all learning worth and wisdome very incompetent judges God knowes of the Doctrine and Manners of Ministers unlesse in matters of civill misdemeanors for which there
the new fry of any Factionists or Enthusiasts were known in the English or Christian world Then will the honor of the Reformed Religion recover take root flourish and fructifie again in England when it is by due authority and just severity cleared of all that rust and canker that mossy and barren accretion which of later yeares it hath contracted chiefly for want of those Ecclesiasticall Councils sacred Synods and Religious Conventions which being called and incouraged by civill authority will best do this great work of God and the Church freely and impartially solidly and sincerely learnedly and honestly discussing all things of difference disorder or deformity in Religion These these would by Gods blessing and your encouragement remove in a short time all that putid matter from which the scandals offences and factions do chiefly arise and by which they are nourished in the licentious hearts and lives of some men who dare do any thing that they safely may against Religion These as the ablest and meetest Judges of Religion would soon discerne between the vile and the precious and separate the wheat and the chaffe in Christs floore wisely using the flaile and fan of his word and Spirit CHAP. XV. THerefore is our Religion so miserably lapsed and decayed through the ignorance negligence and impudence of men because it hath not for these many yeares been under such hands as are most proper either for its care and preservation or its cure and recovery Courts of Princes and Councels of State the Spirit of Armies and the Genius of Parliaments are not alone apt agents or instruments for this work though they may be happy promoters and authoritative designers and contrivers of it Saint Ambrose and others of the Ancients observe that it never went well with the sound part of the Church when the disputes of Religion as between the Arrians and the Orthodox were brought into Princes Courts and determined by their Counsellors and Courtiers It was not more piety and modesty than prudence and generosity in Constantine the Great when he had conquered Licinius with other enemies and entirely obtained the Roman Empire when he had power absolute and soveraign enough to have made what Edicts he listed for Religion yet that he then called the Bishops of the Church throughout the Roman world and other venerable Teachers attending them to discusse the differences in Religion to compose the breaches to allay the jealousies to reforme the disorders to search and establish the true faith to confirme the ancient Government to adde vigor to the just Discipline of the Church and due authority to its true Pastors or Bishops All which were happily done by the wisdome piety and moderation of the famous Nicene Council in which Constantine himself was oft present as to his person and Counsell though he never voted or determined any thing of Religion among the Fathers of that glorious Assembly lest he should seem to over-balance or over-awe the truth by his authority or to eclipse the Church by the State This this was that Primitive and Catholick way of Ecclesiasticall Councills and Synods used first by the Apostles and after by all their successors the Martyrly Bishops and Pastorly Confessors of the Church which endured the fiery trialls of heathenish and hereticall persecutions who had Ecclesiasticall Councills and Synods of Church-men for their reliefe and remedy before they had the favour of Christian Princes for their refuge or defence To this proper method for Reforming of any Church and restoring Religion all Princes that were true Patrons and Protectors of the true Church have applied their powers and counsels for the repairing of decayes rectifying disorders condemning heresies vindicating fundamentall truths composing differences and restoring peace in the Church of Christ calling together such Synods and conventions of the Clergy as did beare most proportion to those inconveniences or mischiefes which they sought to remedy either in greater or lesser circuits according as the poyson and infection of Heresie or Schisme had spread it self The welfare of Religion and healing of the Church of Christ was never heretofore left to every private Christians fancy or to particular Presbyters nor yet to single Bishops to act according as their opinions passions and interests might sway them nor was it ever betrayed into the hands of onely secular men either Civill Magistrates or Gentlemen or Tradesmen who are as fit generally for Church-work as Clergy-men are to marshall Armies or to manage battels The building of Gods Tabernacle and his Temple required men of extraordinary gifts and excellent Spirits proper and proportionate to those works As the Leviticall Priests of old did judge not onely of plagues and leprosies but of all controversies about the Law and Religion to whose determination all men were to submit under paine of death And as Aaron standing between the living and the dead stopped the spreading of a plague and mortality among the people even so hath the Lord ordained the Evangelicall Ministers to be as shepherds feeders defenders and rulers in his Church also as Physitians and Fathers of the flock of God whose lips ought to preserve knowledge so as to discerne both the contagion and the cure applying as their duty is such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sound Doctrine and Discipline as are both wholesome food and healing physick Certainly all other Lay-undertakers and tamperers with Reformation and Religion are but as Empiricks and Mountebanks having neither that ability nor that authority which is requisite in Religious undertakings But after much paines and charge they alwaies leave Reformation and Religion Church and Clergy more unsearched and unsound unbound and ulcerous than they found them God never following those with the blessing of the end who disdaine to use those orderly meanes which his holy wisdome hath directed them to who lay the Ark of God upon the cart and think to draw it by the beasts of the people when it should be orderly and solemnly born by the shoulders and hands of those that are consecrated to that holy service as the Priests of the Lord which method is not onely more for the honor and solemnity of Christian Religion than for the glory of the blessed God that his name might be sanctified even before the world in the managing of true Religion not flightly or slovenly not with unwashen hands and preposterous confusions but with that holy respect and humble reverence which is due to the Majesty of that God and Saviour whom Christians professe to worship T is ridiculous for Princes and States-men to have the best Musitians for their pleasure the most learned and experienced Physitians for their bodily health the most able and renowned Lawyers for their secular Counsels the gallantest souldiers for their military officers the best Mathematicians for their Engineers and the best Mariners for their Pilots that so these things might succeed to their worldly honor and happinesse and yet in matters of Religion
to common peoples grosser minds might be prescribed than those are of loose rambling arbitrary and diffused preaching where after twenty yeares preaching yea and with great applause many times as well as good paines yet poor people are most-what very ignorant or raw as to the very first and maine principles of Religion which I humbly conceive might be drawn up into so many short discourses and cleare Summaries as might every Lords-day take up one quarter of an hour or little more before and after noon in the Ministers distinct reading some one of them to the people in such a constant order as once in every half year might finish the whole series of them which might be printed for the use of such as can reade and for others that cannot reade this frequent inculcating and constant repeating of those main points so set forth could not but much improve the sound understanding of plainer people in the doctrines mysteries graces and promises precepts and duties of true Religion which now they learne either not at all in some necessary points or so rawly raggedly loosely and confusedly that it comes far short of that judicious and methodicall solidity which they might attaine if they were clearly uniformly and constantly taught so as they could best beare and heare understand and remember Nor would this be any hinderance to preaching praying or catechizing but a great furtherance to them all what ever people had beside from the meanest gifted Minister they might be sure to have every Lords-day one or two heads of good Divinity well set forth to them yea and one or two chapters of the Bible well explained to them till the whole were gone through Which would be a great meanes to prevent the odd idle and addle senses by which silly or pragmatick-spirited people pervert and corrupt the Scripture not onely by their private and weak but by their ridiculous erroneous and blasphemous interpretations the variety and loosenesse besides the easinesse and flatnesse of most mens preaching doth rather confound than build common people in Religion all which by constant Synods might be amended If the Church of England were so barren of godly able learned and honest Ministers that a good and safe choice of fit members cannot be made every time such venerable Synods and usefull Assemblies should meet if we of the Clergy are all so degenerated as to become of late yeares either dunces and unlearned or erroneous and corrupt in our judgements or licencious and immorall in our manners or partiall and imprudent in our designes or base and cowardly in all our dealings that we are not to be trusted in the mysteries or managery of our own calling and function truly t is pitty we should be owned any longer as Ministers of Christ in this or any Church being so unfit for our own sphere and duty Nor can I understand how it should be that Mechanick Artificers Merchants Tradesmen and Souldiers should still be thought fittest to be advised with in their severall waies and mysteries of life onely the Clergy should be thought so defective in all abilities and honesty as not to be trusted with any advise or counsell in publick matters of Religion no more than with any place in any civil counsell or transactions Parlament-men they may not be while the most puny-gentry petty Lawyers and triviall Physitians while Merchants and Milleners Gold-smiths and Copper-smiths while Drugsters Apothecaries Haberdashers of small wares and Leather-sellers and while every handy-crafts-man and prentice aspire to be not onely Committee but even Parlament-men yea and it may be Counsellors of State Onely Clergy-men must be wholly excluded as Monks condemned to their beades and bellies while those lay-Masters challenge not onely all civill Counsels and Honorable employments to themselves but they further seek to engrosse even those great concernments of Religion not allowing any Ministers of what ever size their Learning Wisdome and Worth be to move in their own mystery or joynt and publick interests further than as they are impounded to their parish-Pulpits and tedered to their texts or desks Every sorry and silly mechanick dares to arrogate as great nay far greater Empire-influences and latitudes in the publick management of Religion than the best Divines in England may ever hope to attaine or adventure to use in any sphere private or publick unless there be a more indulgent and equall regard had to the worth and calling of Ministers than of late yeares hath been had O happy England whose Laity and Communalty of late hath so excelled thy Clergy or rather O miserable England who either hast such Church men as are not fit to be advised with or not trusted in Religion or which art so unworthily jealous and neglective of them as not to trust or use them in those great and sacred concernments for which they were educated and in which they were heretofore not onely thought but known to be as able as any Clergy in all the world till they were thus divided and shattered thus disabled and disparaged most of them rather by popular discouragings prejudices and oppressions than by any reall defects in themselves either of Piety Learning or Honesty I cannot sufficiently pitty and deplore thy sad and miserable fate O my Country which either abasing or abusing at least not using thy worthiest Clergy for such publick ends deprivest thy self of the most soveraigne nay onely ordinary meanes under Heaven whereby to recover thy self to the former Beauty Honor Lustre Stability and integrity of true Religion which thou didst enjoy everlasting divisions deformities and confusions wil be thy portion without a miracle if thou trustest to those Egyptian reeds the novel pretensions and usurpations of ignorant and arrogant Lay-men of inspired and aspiring Levellers which will pierce into thy hand and heart while thou leanest on them Nothing can restore or preserve the health and soundnesse of Religion but those waies which are tryed Authoritative and Authentick which have Gods Image Christs Power the Spirits Wisdome the Apostles prescription and the Catholick Churches Character upon them which may first perswade mens judgements and then oblige their consciences to obey for the Lords sake All methods used in Religion that are perverse popular novell arrogant or invasive contrary to the sacred and venerable methods of Gods direction and the Churches Catholick Custome are like sluces and banks ill-bottomed soon blown up having neither depth nor weight foundation nor superstruction to make them good Nor shall I ever think the Lawes of Parlaments more binding to obey in civill things than such Canons of Church-Councils are obligatory as to submission in religious matters where nothing is decreed contrary to Gods express will in his Word nor beyond those generall latitudes and Commissions of Charity Order Peace Decency and Holinesse which God hath indulged to his Church Certainly the Wolves Foxes and Boares Hereticks Schismaticks and heathen persecutors had long ago scattered the severall flocks of Christ into
facility as children make little babies of clouts or statues of clay as Nazianzen alludes For what I pray you will these new propagators with all their progeny of new-ordained new-fashioned new-coyned and new-commissioned Preachers signifie to the more sober sort of mankind or indeed to the very plebs and vulgar especially among people so curious so querulous so proud so pragmatick so petulant so insolent as are in England Will sober Christians ever much care for any Ministers unlesse they be commended to them as meet to be such not onely by the highest wisdome and civill orderings of this Nation but also as set over them in the Lords Name and Christs Authority by an holy and solemn Ordination such of which they have the least and indeed no cause to have any doubting or slighting thoughts which is the case onely of Episcopall Ordination English Christians of any estate worth weight or wisdome will never be contented to be taught and reproved to have their children baptized at the Font or themselves communicated at the Lords Table by such Ministers as shall have onely the petty tickets of an humane act or State ordinance No they will and justly ought to require the grand Charter of Divine Authority conferred in the way of Catholick and true Ordination That so Ministers may be able to justifie their function and actions not onely in Law but in conscience not as Emissaries from men but as Embassadors from God Commissionated by Christ and his Deputies imployed in his work and armed with his power There goes much more to make a Minister of Jesus Christ than to make a Constable in an Hundred or a Parish or to make a Captaine in a Troop or a Justice on a Bench who yet cannot expect to be owned as such unlesse they can evidence their Commission and Authority to be rightly derived from the soveraigne originall of civill power no more may Ministers unlesse they can shew the right source and course of their sacred Authority While Ministers preach and practise Baptize and Consecrate with divided tongues distracted hands and distorted heads as to this point of their Ordination they are likely to produce no better successes either to this Church or Nation than those morter-men did whose work deserved the nick-name of Babel or Confusion The essentiall forme and difference the whole life and operation the proper virtue and efficacy of a Christian Ministry and Minister depending as I have shewed upon the truth sanctity and validity of that Authority with which he is invested and by that enabled to do the work and office of a Minister without which no man hath any more to do than his meanest groom or foot-man with the acts properly Ministeriall Military or Magisteriall whatever abilities or call he fancie himself to have So that if once your Wisdome and Piety O worthy Gentlemen could find a way to put the Clergy or Ministry of this Church as formerly we were into an uniform way of sacred complete and undoubted Authority as to their Ordination then and not before will they appeare like the Angels of God ascending and descending in their orderly courses then will they be enabled and esteemed powerfully to pray to God for you powerfully to preach from God to you powerfully to consecrate and exhibit holy mysteries to you Then will they be like the Lamps of the Temple or the shafts of the Golden Candlestick which were all of the same make and fashion and supplied with holy oyle from the same source shining with a lustre more than humane in your severall congregations how much more will they appeare like Angelick and Celestiall Quires in their Ecclestastick Convocations and Synodall Conventions Whereas now Ministers are in all Places Cities and Countries wretchedly divided monstrously deformed and miserably disabled mutually accusing and clamoring against each other alwaies barking or biting or howling either tormenting or tormented as the Devils in Hell One superciliously abhorrs what another devoutly adores One vilifies what another venerates One Minister with his party pulls down what another builds up One execrates what another consecrates One nullifies what another magnifies One formally officiates who is counted no Minister and really is none another is thought to be but halfe a Minister or a kind of mungrell a third is reputed for more than an ordinary Minister as having his Commission by inspiration or conspiration One is thought superfluous yea superstitious in his Ordination because he had a Bishop with Presbyters to ordaine him another is judged defective and dwarfish for want of a Bishop a third hath neither Bishop nor true Presbyters to ordaine him but either begets a body to himself as an head or is chosen by a popular body to be their head This makes both Preachers and people at such distances and defiances in Religion that one counts that sacriledge which another boasts of as sacred One is called a mocker of God an usurper in holy offices and a contemner of the Churches Primitive and Catholick Custome another is derided as a doting Antiquary a superstitious Priest or proud Prelate who can relish no bread but what is old and moldy nor any drink but what is out of a Gibeonitish bottle Thus are all holy mysteries and duties which any Ministers performe made either very disputable or despicable to the people while all their authority on all sides as dispensers of them is so much questioned doubted divided and denyed in the great point of their mission and Ordination which is most essentiall to a Minister and most fundamentall to any Churches Peace and Polity requiring next the maine Articles of Faith to be setled in the clearest and most unquestionable way with most uniform Authority most conforme to all pious Antiquity whose ancient and Catholick patterne as to Episcopall that is Apostolicall Ordination is no more with prudence to be changed either into Presbyterian or Independent new formes than the Church hath cause to exchange Davids Psalmes for any such godly Balads or moderne Hymns as we see some Ministers with more piety I hope than good poetry have sometime commended to the harsh and unharmonious voyces of ill-tuned and ill-stringed Congregations Adde to all these not onely the inconveniencies but mischiefes which are not more uncomfortable than pernicious to the interest of the true and Reformed Religion For from the divisions of Ministers as to their rise and descent or Ordination follow not onely strangeness but strifes and emulations evil eyes and secret feudes against one another each being either jealous of or contemptuous toward another But furthermore from this difference in their Ordination they are tempted to affect to broach and to preach different Doctrines For those peeled rods which alwaies lye before their eyes as to their Orders or Characters their Ministeriall Admissions and Stations do occasion their conceiving and bringing forth a ring straked and spotted kind of Religion even as to Doctrine that by the discriminations of their opinions either in
pitty being tenderly severe and most compassionately cruell when it is compelled to exert the sharpest authority doing all things according to the word example and Spirit of Christ Jesus in Meeknesse of Wisdome not to the destruction but edification of the Church in truth and faith in charity and unity To these Presbyters Bishops and Christian people are Deacons subordinate and servient in all things necessary for decency conveniency charity and carrying on of the Churches Autority both in private congregations and more ample conventions part of whole office we see time and custome had devolved upon our Church-Wardens and Overseers for the poor These ends and meanes this order and proportion this constitution and execution of Churchâ—Government by Episcopacy as far as it is conform to Catholick Antiquity and setled by the consent of any Christian Church and Nation by its Synods and Parlaments I do in no sort conceive to be arbitrary precarious or mutable as to the maine however it may be reduced and reformed in its deviations except in cases of invincible necessity which may dispense with Sabbaths Sacraments and all publick externall duties of Polity yea of Piety so far am I from judging it any part of prudent Piety or true Reformation for men rudely to baffle and despise wholly to abrogate and extirpate it because I cannot but look upon it as Scriptuall and Apostolick sacred and binding Christians consciences to due approbation obedience and subjection to it for the Lords sake who undoubtedly intended the right constitution and constant regulation of his Church with Order and Honor no lesse than that of States and Common-weales for whose peaceable Polity the Gospel hath set so many bounds and bonds of subjection Sure neither Church nor State can be honestly or handsomely governed in any way of parity or popularity where every one thinks himself fit to command and so disdains to obey according to those innate passions which are in all men and oft in good men and in good Ministers too who being many are as prone to run into many distempers and dangerous exorbitances if they be left to themselves As Mariners are without a Pilot or sheep without a shepherd or souldiers without a Commander or people without a Prince even so are Christians without ordained Ministers and Ministers without Authoritative Bishops exposed to all manner of Schisms Disorders Factions and Insolencies Which must necessarily follow where the Clergy is either not at all governed by any Grave and Worthy Ecclesiasticall persons or by such Ministers as have none but a popular and precarious Authority or where Ministers are onely curbed and crushed by the imperiousnesse and impertinency of meer Lay-men yea and of such as are not fit to be Judges or Rulers in the least civill affaires much lesse over Learned men whose Place Office and Concerns are properly religious as they stand related to God and his Church Nor can the Clergy be in much better case when they are by a Democratick or Levelling spirit cast into such spontaneous Associations and Confederacies as give to no Minister that orderly and eminent power respect and due authority which is fitting for the Government of the Churches nor yet teach common people that modesty and submission which are necessary for such as desire to be well and worthily governed When all is said and tried that can be in point of Church-Government I doubt not but it will be found true as Beza expresseth it in the happy State of England that Episcopacy is singularis Dei beneficientia Gods singular bounty and blessing to this and any Church which he prayes it might alwaies enjoy where it may be rightly enjoyed and religiously used which the Augustane Confession and all Reformed Churches with their most eminent Professors did desire to submit unto as a most speciall meanes to preserve the Honor Unity and Authority of the Church and its Discipline which as a great River growes weak and shallow when it is drawn into many small channels and rivulets How suitable and almost necessary a right and Primitive Episcopacy is for the temper of England I shall afterward more fully expresse at present it may suffice to shew how easie the restauration of it would be if all sides would sincerely look to the Primitive pattern of Church-Government First if the Diocese committed to the presidential inspection of one worthy Bishop were of so moderate an extent as might fall under one mans care and visitation and be most convenient both for the private addresses and dispatches also for the generall meetings of the Clergy in some principall place of it it would much remedy the great grievance of long journies tedious expectation and many tims frustraneous attendance at Westminister to which all Ministers are now compelled to their great charge and trouble many times for a small Living and sometime for a meer repulse Such Counties as Norfolk Suffolk Essex Kent Middlesex with London may seem proportionable to make each of them one Episcopal distribution greater Counties may be divided and lesser united Secondly if the generality of the Clergy or the whole Ministry of each Diocese might choose some few prime men of their Company to be the constant Electors chief Counsellors Correspondents and Assistants with the Bishop to avoid multitudinous tedious and confused managings of elections Ordinations and other publick affaires Thirdly if in case of Episcopall vacancy the generality of the Clergy meeting together might present the names of three or four or more prime men out of which number the Electors should choose one whose election should stand if approved by the Prince or chief Magistrate if not they should choose some other of the nominated Fourthly the person thus chosen and approved on all sides should be solemnly and publickly consecrated by other Bishops in the presence of the Ministers and people of the Diocese By these meanes as there will be no crowd or enterfering among the Clergy so there will be great satisfaction to Prince and people without any clashing between the Civill and Spirituall power which must be avoided considering that not onely the exercise of all Church-power must depend on the leave of the Prince in his dominions but also the honorary setled maintenance of the Bishops as of all the Clergy is but Eleemosynary in the originall from the pious concession and munificence of the Prince or State who as they will not in conscience or honor deny competent allowances to all worthy Ministers of the Gospel so no doubt they will not grudge to adde such Honorary supports to every Bishop or President as may decently maintaine that Authority Charity and Hospitality which becomes his Place Worth and Merit for certainly no men can do more good or deserve better of their Nation and Country than excellent Bishops may do as by their Doctrine and example so by their wise and holy way of governing the Church with such Honor and Authority as became them which could
ownes as the badg or bond of his admission into Communion with Christ and his Church both Catholick and congregationall generall and particular This it seemes must now not at all be owned or slighted nulled and forgotten by the superfetation of a new form of Christian confederation more solemn sacred and obliging as they fancy to Christian duties than that was which was solemnly made in the presence of the congregation ratified in the blood of Jesus Christ and testified in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost yea and after this the poor Episcopall Divines if they will gently comply and for feare Associate must quietly permit either the community of the people or the parity of the Presbyters in their severall lesser bodies and congregations or in their greater classes and conventions to challenge to themselves the plenary sole absolute perfect and unappealable power of not onely ordination which of old they never had as St. Jerom confesseth but of all Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and Discipline and this under the conduct and auspicious management of onely some Diurnall Dictator some temporary prolocutor or extemporary moderator who is forsooth to have the Image of a superficiall Bishop and the shadow of a short-liv'd superintendent a thing meerly occasional and unauthoritative as to any office or power inherent in him or of right to be challenged or exercised by him enjoying onely an horary arbitrary and humane presidency for fashion and civility sake without any Ecclesiasticall eminent or constant Authority residing in him as derived from Christ the Apostles or their successors or any Churches custome designation and consent in former times Such as was ever committed to owned in and used by the Bishops of the Church as regularly succeeding to the Apostles in that ordinary eminency of power which was necessary to keep both Presbyters and all Christian people and Churches good Order Peace and Unity which blessings they never more enjoyed or more happily than under a right Episcopacy Whose cause however of later yeares it hath been run down and trampled in a hurry under foot by some men in England Scotland and Ireland yet hath it suffered no reall diminution as to the true Honor of its Apostolick Authority its Primitive Antiquity its Catholick succession its high descent and its holy Originall which was never denyed or much disputed by any men of any considerable Learning and Piety till these later Dog-dayes in which not onely some single Stars of nebulous and dubious light but whole Constellations of them like Sirius or the Canicular Juncto erected under the new name and figuration of Smectymnuus to calculate the Nativity of a new Reformation became Lords of the Ascendent being filled contrary to their former Conformity and declared submission with a very unbenigne that I say not malignant influence not only against Episcopacy but in effect against the whole visible Constitution of this Church in which as Goods in a sunk ship all things are much wasted and abased by the ruine of Episcopacy Their destructive fires kindled from the colder parts of this Island first flamed into strange Logomachies thredbare cavillings and triviall strifes about Words and Names as if after sixteen hundred years all the Christians and Ministers of England its Princes and Parliaments its Synods and Councels yea all the Christian world elsewhere were to be Catechized by a few petty Presbyters in comparison and their Scot-English Assembly what the names of Bishop and Presbyter of Pastor and Teacher of Elder and Ruler of Helps and Governments of Apostle and Evangelist of Ecclesiastical Stars and Angels did mean which not onely all Writers but all times and practises of all Churches had sufficiently interpreted and cleared from the first promiscuous use of some general names which called the chief Apostles Prophets Evangelists Bishops Presbyters Elders Ministers and Deacons too in whose offices authorities and duties there were real and great differences to more proper and peculiar distinctions according to the several ranks degrees orders offices and powers then established in the Church After the Squibbs and Crackers of paper had been lighted and cast in the face of venerable Episcopacy at last as the manner is things came to dreadful Chiromachies such scufflings and fightings with hands and arms of flesh against that Government which is as the Ancient of dayes that they looked more like that Gigantomachy the Giants assaulting Heaven and the Gods than that Good fight of faith which ought to contend earnestly onely for that which was once uniformly delivered to all true Saints and received by all true Churches of Christ in doctrine order and government among whom all lesser disputations and differences circumstantial rising among good Christians were wont to be fairly debated and determined in lawful Assemblies in Ecclesiastical Synods and National or general Councils from which Christian and Orthodox Bishops were never either terrified or excluded but principally called and admitted as the chief Fathers of those holy Oeconomies or Christian Polities Nor was Episcopacy ever condemned by any of those Councils Synods or Assemblies in any Age of the Church much less was it ejected and extirpated as uselesse unlawful and abominable no not by any Synods and confessions of any Protestant and reformed Churches of note notwithstanding they could not conveniently enioy the blessing of it for so they accounted it either by reason of the petulancy of people or the impatience of civil Magistrates or the Sacrilegious humours and designes of all against the Clergy After all these prepossessions and just presumptions thus challenged to the cause and state of Episcopacy in point of its venerable and undeniable Antiquity I cannot but offer to its still scrupulous or implacable Adversaries these following Quaeres 1. How sad I beseech you and wretched how confounded and astonished must the awakened Consciences of those men be who have been the chief Authors and Fautors of our late troubles variations and miseries chiefly upon the account of their Antiepiscopal Antipathies if after all these combustions perturbations and plunderings of Religion which have rather pleased mens private passions and opinions than any way profited the publick welfare of this Church or State if I say these great sticklers against Episcopacy should be either grosly mistaken or malitiously perverted from the right path that good old way of which former Ages can better inform us then those that are but of yesterday and can know nothing but by their light 2. What if it should be as true as it is most probable because generally so believed in all Ages parts and places of the Church that the cause of Primitive Episcopacy is indeed the cause of God of Christ and of the whole Church the cause of all the Apostles of all Primitive Bishops their immediate successors yea the cause of all true Presbyters and all true Christians a cause in which the glory of God the wisdome of Christ the honor of the Apostles the fidelity of their successors the
credit of the Church Catholick the comfort and authority of all true Ministers the surest test and Character of due Ordination the peace and unity of all good Christians are bound up and mainly concerned 3. What if these new masters these sharp censors and imperious dictators whom perhaps not Piety so much as Policy not Religion but Reason of State not reforming severities but needlesse jealousies and imaginary necessities have put upon such violent sticklings against Episcopacy and reprobating all worthy Bishops what if they have been deceived themselves and deceivers of others in that point which is much more veniall to think and say of the very best of them than to passe any such censure or suspicion of error or ignorance upon all Churches even in their purest and Primitive Antiquity when one spark of Martyrly zeal which was as holy fire from Gods Altar had more divine light and heat in it than all the blazes and flashes of Moderne Zelotry 4. I do in all Christian candor demand of the severest Presbyterian and sharpest Independent whether when they ask of the generations of old and enquire of all Ages from the beginning of Christian Churches whether ever they find any Christians or congregations at any time either Christening or Churching themselves either by their own vote choise and authority or by separating from their ordained Presbyters and Bishops which were sound in the faith and regular in their administrations who had duly taught baptized confirmed and ruled them in the Lord. When did any Presbyters or Ministers ever pretend to ordaine themselves or one another without some Apostle or Bishop When where and by whom was the first Schisme Rupture or Chasme of Ecclesiasticall parity as to Mission and Commission begun When and where was the first intrusion or encroachment upon the pretended authority of Presbytery made by Episcopacy Did not all Presbyters owe ever own their legitimate birth breeding to their respective Bishops whose Authority was ever as much above meer Presbyters in degree and office as it was before them in the order of nature and causality no lesse than in time and antiquity 5. If then all the novel presumptions pretentions and objections of either Presbytery or Independency against Primitive Catholick and Apostolick Episcopacy should in earnest be nothing but passionate false and frivolous mistakes arising from ignorance and error carried on by envy and arrogancy in many men O what needlesse troubles what heedlesse angers what inordinate furies what dreadfull disorders must they all this while have been guilty of what causelesse contentions innovations confusions vastations have they brought into the Churches of Christ what cruell and uncharitable contentions have they raised as elsewhere so in this famous and flourishing Church of England without any just cause God knowes and beyond the merits of Episcopacy even in its greatest defects declinations and deformities to which as all holy Institutions may in time be subject so they ought to be humbly wisely and moderately reformed by the prayers teares counsels honest and orderly endeavours of all sober Christians of all sorts and sizes in their places and stations with due regard to the first pattern and originall But certainly as the whole order and office of Presbytery which may have had its personall depravations also so the ancient and venerable Authority of Episcopacy as to its Primitive Institution and Catholick succession ought not on any hand to be utterly ruined rased and extirpated root and branch by any tumultuary rashnesse or popular precipitancy which can never become any Church of Christ or any wise and godly Christians nor can such methods of sharp and soure Reformations ever end in the peace or comfort of good men who if they find themselves guilty of excesses so dangerous and destructive to the true Church true Religion and true Reformation have nothing lesse to do than to persevere in their extravagancies or pertinaciously to assert their former transports yea they have nothing more to do speedily and conscienciously than humbly to recant seriously to repent and effectually to amend as much as lies in their power the affronts and assaults the breaches and wasts they have made of the Churches Peace and Unity Power and Authority by returning to that duty which they owe to God and that obedience they owe to their spirituall Governours and that reverence which they owe to uniform antiquity which so fully commends the presidentiall authority of Apostolicall and Primitive Episcopacy Their first errors may be weaknesse but their obstinacy must needs be wickednesse who still sin when they are convinced silenced and afflicted 6. What if after all this dust and noyse which hath so blinded and deafned the eyes and eares of many Presbyters and people that they cannot and will not see the Truth and Testimony of Antiquity which is no lesse cleare for the presidentiall authority and eminency of Episcopacy than for the subordination counsel and assistance of Presbytery what if it should be the mind of God the order and Institution of Jesus Christ the designation and direction of his blessed Spirit evidently signified and setled in and by the blessed Apostles in all Primitive Churches and so continued to this day according to the measures of Divine Wisdome and Order though not without mixtures of humane infirmities and disorders incident to all holy Institutions 7. What if after all these seditious and schismaticall distempers in Ministers and people the Lord should say to these refractory and irreconcilable spirits against Episcopacy as he did to the Jewes when they revolted from Samuels Government They have not rejected you O my faithfull servants the Bishops whom I have constituted and used in all ages as vigilant Over-seers and wise Rulers of my flock but they have rejected me who in this point of Episcopacy have so sufficiently declared my will and pleasure to all the world that no Church was ever ignorant of it or varied from it being manifested from heaven First in the evident instances of divine wisdome among the Jewish Church and Priests yea as it is an orderly and gubernative method in all societies where right reason and so true Religion necessarily command and commend superiority and subjection Secondly in the paterne and Rules of Ecclesiasticall Polity set down by my Son Jesus Christ and followed by his Apostles who setled all Churches in such an orderly subordination Thirdly in the constant custome and Catholick testimony of all succeeding Churches whose joynt suffrages and uniform practises in cases of any darkness dispute or difficulty where Scripture-precepts may seem lesse clear and explicite ought by all sober Christians to be esteemed as the safest measures of conscience and surest rule of religious observance especially as to things of outward Polity Order and Government nor may any novel inventions or pretentions never so specious be put into the balance against the Authority of the Catholick Church which is the pillar and ground of Truth the great
can be proper to usher in true Christian Religion and Reformation these methods have made them so stunted and ricketly that they are come to a stop-game so that in these last and worst Ages of the world there hath been little or no progresse made to the true propagating of the Gospel among any heathen Nations or of any Reformation among the decayed Christians because Religion is every where even among many Christians and Reformers too much managed as the Spaniards did among the West-Indies with force and fraud with covetousnesse and cruelty with faction and ambition with regard to worldly interests of men more than to the true precepts and holy concernments of Christ and his Church Who is there that will entertaine Christianity or any Reformation when it comes in like Turcisme and Barbarisme with fire and brimstone with swords and canons pretending to convert and save soules but to be sure it will first pervert the Lawes ravine mens Estates and destroy at last mens lives if they do not submit even against their consciences as well as the Lawes to strange Innovations Truly these are engines onely fit to be used by such spirits as are Antichristian who know not of what Spirit Christ and his Apostles with their successors the Primitive Bishops and Presbyters were Nor did the Popes of Rome ever more staine the honor of that Apostolick See and the glorious name of Catholick Episcopacy than when they forgot to follow their pious predecessors holy and humble Bishops of that famous Church for 600. yeares who were Martyrs or Confessors or true Professors of the Gospel and betook themselves to such arts of secular policy and power of sedition and ambition as made some after-Bishops of Rome seem rather Monsters of men as their own writers confesse than Ministers of Jesus Christ imitators of Sylla Marius and Caesar more than of St. Peter or St. Paul or St. Clemens when they sought by Hildebrandine arts to exalt themselves above all that is called God in civil Magistracy which justly claimes under God and from him as did the Kings of Judah that supreme visible power which within their respective dominions doth orderly and duly manage all ministrations Ecclesiasticall as well as Civil for the publick peace and welfare Certainly since Christianity it self in its grand Articles Ministry and Mysteries must not thus be brought in by head and shoulders by force and affronts upon any Prince or State whatsoever much lesse may any Reformation never so desirable and just As for some little defects or veniall deformities they ought not in any sort to be so urged as should carrie Religion beyond good manners or Reformation to rudenesse Not persecuting but persecuted Bishops and Presbyters are the ablest preachers and aptest propagators of the Gospel such as while they lift up their voyce like a trumpet not to give the alarmes of war but to tell Judah of their sins and Israel of their transgressions do also lift up holy hands and pure hearts to God in prayer for all men but chiefly for Kings and all in Authority In the greatest depressions of Christianity and Episcopacy for they ever went together as Truth and Order Ministry and Authority both of them being necessary for the being or well-being of any Church never any godly Bishop or orderly Presbyter who were still the foremost and stoutest Champions for Religion did make any seditious appeales scurrilous libels or declamatory invectives against the powers that were by whatever meanes they either obtained or held or exercised their soveraignty They never thought it their duty as Christians or Ministers to stir up the spirits of any men great or small many or few to any unlawfull commotions and so they esteemed all to be which had not the consent and Commission of those in civil dominion who were supreme and the present Powers ordained of God When any of those holy Bishops and Presbyters were necessitated not out of revenge or anger but out of charity and pitty to their persecutors to bring forth their strong reasons by way of Learned Grave and unanswerable Apologies for their Religion as many of them did hoping thereby to buoy up the cause of Christianity not onely from unjust persecutions but from false prejudices they did write them indeed with an heroick kind of freedom yet with all due respect dedicating their writings by way of humble supplications or cleare yet comely Remonstrances to the Emperours or Senates to the Princes and supreme Magistrates themselves so did Justine Martyr his first Apology to the Senate of Rome his second to the Emperour Antoninus Pius so Tertullian his to the Emperour Severus and his Son so Quadratus Bishop of Athens to Adrian the Emperour and in like manner did others But never any Primitive Bishop or Presbyter did use any Satanick Stratagems or such seditious practises as were to advance Religion by any thing that tended to or intended popular tumults and rebellion no impudent libellings and scurrilous pamphletings to make either the persons of Princes odious or their Government infamous Episcopacy never used any such conjurations as would either bring down fire from heaven or stir up Earth-quakes neither exciting the Optimacy and Nobility nor the Populacy and Communalty against any either supreme or subordinate powers they never made the waters above the firmament and those under it so to meet by breaking up the great deeps of subjection or by opening the fountains of plebeian Liberties as to bring in terrible inundations upon Kingdomes or Common-wealths No they alwaies by the word and Spirit of Christ which were their onely swords and these two as Christ said to St. Peter were enough for that work set bounds to the proud waves of that raging Sea the tumultuating people and rather repaired the banks and breaches that others rashnesse as the Circumcellions and Euchites somtime made than either assisted or countenanced those horrid deluges of sedition They never wrested the Revelation or any other places of Scripture so as to animate the earth that is the common and meanest people to help the Woman that is whatever some list to call their Church and Religion in its agonies that by their unlawfull motions they might bring forth something that faction lists to call Reformation a word that is never out of the mouths of John of Leiden and his complices though far from their hearts Godly Bishops and Presbyters never either taught or thought those practises to be any helping of the Lord against the mighty No they ever judged and preached after St. Pauls St. Peters and our Blessed Saviours Doctrine and example that such inordinate motions upon pretexts of Religion are cursed and damnable resistings of those powers which God hath ordained by the civil Lawes and customes of any Church or State The Lord and true Religion are onely to be helped by laudable and lawfull actions the measures of which are not to be sought in every mans private breast and
Darknesse Truth and Falshood Error and sound Doctrine between the Institutions of Christ and the sacrilegious Inventions of Men between the infallible Rule and Oracles of Gods Word in the Scripture and the variable Canons of poor men between the Catholick Custom of pure and Primitive Churches and the particular practises of later Usurpations brought in in the twilight of dark and depraved times These diametral distances ought ever to be preserved by all godly Bishops who may not come neerer to Popery than Popery is neer to Christianity or then Antichristian policies may correspond in some things with Christian piety Which just bounds as far as ever I could understand our pious Bishops in England from the first Reformation till now have religiously observed not one of them much less all deliberately or openly owning any communion with the Church of Rome where they saw the Church of England had made a just clear and necessary separation yea the learned Bishops of England have generally so fully confuted the Falsity Injury and Indignity of that calumny both by their Preaching Writing Living and Dying that men must be blind with despite mad with malice or drunk with passion when they vomit out so foul calumnies against all Bishops and Episcopacy in England as if they were Pandars for Popery and Pimps to the Whore of Babylon for this is the language of some mens oratorious Zeal against our Bishops and all Episcopacy which will in time much more agree with Presbytery and Independency I fear than ever it did with Episcopacy But it wil be demanded of me whence then arose this smoke of Jealousie which was so popular and spread abroad that it made so many pure Eyes to ake and smart yea to grow watry and blood-shotten not onely among the vulgar but even among our greatest Seers and Overseers Was there no fire where there was so great a smoke My Answer is these jealousies of some Bishops and other Ministers who most imitated them being Popishly inclined never had so far as ever I could discern any farther ground than this Some Bishops pleased themselves beyond what was generally practised in England with a more ceremonious conformity than others observed first to the Canons and Injunctions which they thought were yet in force in the Church of England being not repealed but onely antiquated through a general disuse next being aged and learned men and more conversant in the Antiquities of the Church than younger Ministers they found that such ceremonious Solemnities in Religion were then very much used without any sin or scandal no godly Bishop Presbyter or other good Christian ever making scruple of using the sign of the Cross in Baptism and at other times of Bowing Kneeling Prostrating himself or of putting his mouth to the ground and kissing the Pavement when he came to worship God or to celebrate holy Mysteries expressing thereby that Humility Faith Fervency sense of his own sinful Unworthiness and that unfeigned Reverence which he bare in his heart toward God and his Service This I suppose made some of our Bishops hope that they might with the like inoffensivenesse add such Solemnity to Sanctity and such outward Veneration to inward Devotion and yet be as far from Popery or Superstition as the ancient Christians were yea as those Ministers and others now pretend to be who make so much of lifting up their eyes and hands in Prayer or who are pleased to be uncovered in Praying Preaching Singing or Celebrating the Sacraments Besides this many Bishops found a secret genius of Rusticity and Rudenesse of Familiarity and Irreverence strangely prevailing among Country-Preachers and People so far that they saw many of them placed much of their Religion in affecting a slovenly rudenesse and irreverence in all publick and holy Duties loth to kneel not onely at the Sacrament but at any Prayers or to be uncovered at any Duty enemies to any man and prejudiced against all he did if he shewed any ceremonious respect in his serving God They saw some were grown so spiritual that they forgot they had bodies and pretending to approve themselves to God onely as to the inward man they cared not for any thing that was regular exemplary orderly comely or reverent as to the outward celebration in the judgement and appointment of the Church of England Hence some men grew to such great applaudings of themselves as if this were the onely simplicity of the Gospel that they thought every man went about to cut the throat of Reformed Religion who applied any Scissers or Razor to pare off rudeness and rusticity or to trim it to any decency in the outward Ministrations according to what seemed best to the Church of England Many Bishops thought that Religion would grow strangely wild hirsute horrid and incult like Nebuchadnezzars hair and nails if it were left to the boysterous Clowneries and unmannerly Liberties which every one would affect contrary to the publick appointment of the Church If some Bishops pleased themselves in using such outward and enjoyned Ceremonies beyond what was ordinary to some men yet certainly a thousand decent and innocent Ceremonies such as those enjoyned by the Church of England were declared to be do not amount to one Popish Opinion nor are they so heavy as one popular erroneous Principle which tends to Faction Licentiousnesse and Profanenesse Ceremonies may possibly be thought superfluous because not of the substance of the Duty but they are not to be charged as superstitious where the Devotion of the heart is holy and the Duty is sincerely performed for the Essentials of it as it is instituted by Christ enjoyned by the Word of God who hath left the ceremonious part of Religion more or less very much to the prudence of his Church according to the several forms and customs of civil respect and decency used in the world which St. Austin and St. Ambrose with all the Ancients declare placing no further Religion in any Ceremony of humane invention and use than it served aptly to excite or express inward sincerity of Devotion and an outward conformity to the decent customs of any Church Which keeping to the Truth Faith and holy Institutions of Christ for the main were not blameable for that variety of Ceremony which was and might be observed without any damage to Truth or breach of Charity As to the maine charge then that Bishops in England were Popish that is warping from the Reformed Doctrine of the Church of England as it was and is stated opposite to the Romish errors and corruptions I do believe that the Bishops of England were in all Ages since the Reformation and in this last as much removed and as free from Popery as the most rigid censors of them who dare accuse every man for Popish who is not boyled up to the same superstitious height and Ceremonious Antipathy with themselves or who do not presently adopt every mans new fancy opinion and form of Religion though private
same Faith Spirit Power and Authority was it that made the just and valid sentence of Excommunication in Primitive times so terrible and that of absolution so comfortable to all good Christians even as the sentence of Jesus Christ at the last day which Tertullian Cyprian the first Council of Nice and others tel us of Because it was no private spirit of any Christian or Congregation or Church or Presbyter or Bishop or Metropolitane or Patriarch that properly did excommunicate but it was the Spirit Power and Authority of Jesus Christ given to diffused among and shed abroad in his whole body of the Catholick Church and in that name dispensed by the particular Bishops and Pastors of it in their severall Stations or Places as the visuall and audible powers or faculties which are in the soul are exerted and exercised onely by the Eyes and Eares Hence was it that whoever was by any one Catholick Bishop with his Presbyters and his people excommunicated was thereby cast out of that and all other Churches Communion in all the world nor was it lawfull as the Nicene Councill and African Canons tell us for any Bishop Presbyter or Christian people to receive into Church-fellowship or to the holy Communion of the Eucharist any one that was thus secluded Then did this great and weighty Thunderbolt of Excommunication seemingly lose its Primitive virtue and value not really for it holds good still according to the Originall Commission when lawfully executed in binding or loosing in opening or shutting as Christ deposited it with his Apostles and their successors when Factions or Schismes being risen in the Church contrary sentences of Excommunication were on all sides passionately bandied against each other not from that unity of the Spirit which kept the bond of Truth and Love but from the private Passions Presumptions Prejudices and Opinions of such as either openly deserted or occasionally declined from that Catholick Community and Unity of one Faith one Lord one Baptisme one Spirit for gifts and graces for the Authority and Efficacy of Christs holy Ministry After these preposterous and partiall methods not onely many particular Christians but some Presbyters and Bishops yea whole Synods and Councils have sometimes passed the sentences of Excommunication both as to declaring the guilt and merit of it also to the act and execution of it very precipitantly partially passionately and uncharitably even against such Doctrines Practises and Persons as were orthodox and peaceable really in Communion with Christ and with the Catholick Church of which one early great and sad instance was that in the second Century of Victor Bishop of Rome who in the case of Easter grew so zealously exasperated against the Greek and Eastern Churches as Quartadecimans that he thought them worthy to be excommunicated in the name of all the Latine Churches notwithstanding that many grave and Learned Bishops with their Churches testified that in observing the fourteenth day of the month they followed the Primitive Custome and pattern delivered by the Apostles to them wherein St. Irenaeus according to his name with greater Moderation and Charity sought not onely to appease but to represse the inordinate heats of that Pope and his adherents who had a zeal but not according to Charity breaking Christian Communion while he urged too much conformity in all outward things beyond the liberty which was granted and had been long used in the Church concluding that difference of times or daies not divinely determined in the observation of the same duty ought not to make any breach of Catholick Unity Christian Charity but rather assert exercise that Christian Liberty which may in Circumstantialls as to outward Rites be in the severall parts of Christs Church untill all think fit to agree in that Circumstance of time as well as they did in the substance of the duty which was the Eucharisticall Celebration of Christs Blessed Resurrections which was the reviving of the Christian faith and hope After this example did St. Cyprian in Africa excommunicate those that would not rebaptize or did communicate with such as Hereticks and Schismaticks baptized herein being contrary to the sense of the Catholick Church At length these and the like passions or surprises even of some Orthodox Bishops were made patterns and encouragements to any pragmatick Hereticks and arrogant Schismaticks These as they grew to any bulk and number like Snow-balls by rouling ventured to handle this hot Thunderbolt of Excommunication when they had most cause to fear it because their Petulancy Obstinacy and Contumacy against the true and Catholick Churches Judgement and Communion most deserved it if their first error did not Hence Excommunication was at last every where reduced and debased to private spirits full of pride revenge and partiality the Catharists or Novatians the Donatists and Arrians feared not by their Pseudoepiscopal Conventicles and Schismatical Assemblies to denounce these Terrors and Anathema's and to use the sharp sword of spiritual curses against the soundest parts of the Church as some dared to do against Athanasius and all the Orthodox both Bishops Presbyters and People This made in after-times all Excommunication very much slighted and despised while it either served to little other use than to execute the Popes wrath for many hundred years of great Darkness and blind Devotion or afterward in times of more Light and Heat it was uâ—ed as Squibbs are rather to scare and smut than much to burn or blast those who either used it or abused it rather to gratifie their own private spirits than to execute that publick power and Authority which Jesus Christ hath committed with his Spirit and Word to his Church and the Rulers of it by which who so was justly cut off cast out and given over to Satan was looked upon as separate from the comfort of Communion with Jesus Christ and the true God as well as the true Church in all the World Nor was this onely a declarative act as to the merit of that fearfull doome and state confirmed by the consonant suffrage of all the Church as damnablâ— without Repentance and Reconciliation of which every private Christian might easily make a verbal report and oral denunciation but it was an authoritative and effectual act executive of the just and deserved judgement of God so as to be ratified in Heaven according to the original tenor and validity of Christs Word and Commission without Repentance just as what is by virtue of their Office done by any publick Judge Notarie or Herald is not onely declarative but also executive of the Will and command of the Prince specified in the authentick Commission or mandate under the Broad seal which is not onely the voice of the King and his Councel but of the Law and publick Justice it self yea of the whole Republick or Community as every man lawfully condemned by any Judge or cast by any Jury is virtually cast and condemned by the Will suffrage and consent of the Body politick
this Venerable resolver of No Sacriledg in selling Bishops Lands O! but this he tels us freely and with some earnestnesse as concerned had been horrid Sacriledg because of those he hath a good share those he hopes to enjoy together with his Bishops Lands Thus this irrefragable D. resolves that to rob the lesser Gods is Sacriledg but not to rob the greater Bishops were but Egyptians whom the Presbyterians as true Israelites might strip and spoyle So it were a sin to take any thing from an ordinary Citizen and common souldier but not from an Alderman or a Colonel It is lawfull to deprive Governours in Church or State of what they have but not the Governed Presbyters must jure divino have meat and drink and clothes to maintaine them that they may eate and preach but they need no Over-seers or Church-Governours to take care they preach no strange Doctrine nor live scandalously They must have victualls as beasts but they need no Government as Men Christians and Ministers O thrifty project O Blessed Paradox If it hold in all societies Civil and Military as well as Ecclesiastick it will spare the State many thousands of pounds upon the Civil account as it hath got it many upon the Church-account by taking away Bishops and their Revenues there being no need of such Governours and such Maintenance of Honor in the Church no more will there need any Judges in the Law nor Captaines and Colonels in the Army their places their pensions their pay may be spared if these be necessary why were not Bishops so for Order and Honor and Government and Judgement among the Clergy But he fancies that himself and other doughty Presbyters can do the work and govern without Bishops Possibly he may do it the better not onely for his grave carriage and reverend fashion of Living for his moderate meek and quiet Spirit for his great Learning and rare Endowments for the high Esteem that is had of him but especially because he is rich and hath a good part of the old Bishops Lands it may be a Spirit of government may go with them as a Spirit of prophesie did with the High-priests Office in Caiaphas but as for other poorer Presbyters and petty Rulers of his brethren the Antiepiscopal Ministers how fit they will be to govern in common how well they have managed Phoebus his Chariot since they undertook to drive it I leave to all wise and sober men to judge But it may be this purchaser is not against Bishops but against landed and Lorded Bishops he would have primitive and Apostolick Bishops which had no Revenues or Lordships or Lands or Palaces How sad is it that so good a man should have so evil an eye against the good hand of God and the bounty of good Christians onely as to their munificence to the Bishops and chief Pastors of Christs Church But why so blind and partial against Bishops when it is as primitive and Apostolical for Presbyters to have no Tithes or Glebes or Livings These were the setled blessings of the Church after the glory of Constantines time whom the Revelation seems so much to set forth to the Beauty Rest and Honor of the Church If this Pleader will be honest and impartial let him conform himself a Presbyter as well as Bishops to the primitive pattern They have not left but forcibly lost all let Presbyters leave also their Livings let this great Example begin let him turn sportulary Presbyter as well as he would have beggarly Bishops let him and others depend upon the Basket of Charity and the Bishops Distribution as was of old both for occasional contributions of Decimal Oblations and Imperial pensions of which Presbyters at first had no parochial portion or right which now this Pleader so much challengeth as if it had been his purchase or penny-worth and not the Alms of the Nation excited hereto chiefly by the piety of primitive Bishops and other Ministers in imitation of Gods ancient portion which they thought still the right of Jesus Christ Lord of all as to his merit and priestly portion to be kept in his Churches possession for his Ministers enjoyment especially since it hath by the devotion of the Nation been legally dedicated to his service and the support of his Servants which may be as well said of Bishops and other Church-lands as of Presbyters little Livings unless this Pleader think that those were too much for Christ and any of his chief Ministers to enjoy or that there was less of Law and publick consent as well as of private gift in them than other Donations or lastly unless he fancy there is not as much need of Government Order and Discipline and consequently of meet Bishops as chief Pastors or Shepherds for Christs flock as there is of pasture It seems he is more for the Bag Scrip and Wallet than for Crosier Crook or Shepherds staff O! but his blessed Tithes his rich Glebe his fat Parsonage these these he challenges as his right in Gods name as patrimonium Crucifixi Christs patrimony the Presbyterian Churches Dowry the Priests portion the Levites wages the Labourers hire the most holy things and utterly unalienable even Impropriations seem to him sacrilegious Alienations derived from no other title than the Popes Usurpation annexing them to Monasteries and by a continued succession of Sacriledge given to the Crown and so at last become Lay-fees Thus he seems to make Princes and Parlaments guilty at the second hand of this foul sin of Sacriledg which onely lies against Tithes Glebes and Parsonage-Houses the onely preferment it seemes that this plaintiffe hath been capable of or now aspires to O how far is reason from some mens Religion and justice from their Consciences And what I beseech all wise sober and upright men were Bishops Houses and Revenues but greater Glebes and Livings given to men of the same calling for the same holy and good ends for the service of God and the Church though to some higher degree of Duty and Dignity of Office and Authority not onely to preach the Gospel and administer the holy Sacraments in common with Presbyters but further to preserve a right succession of Ministers and to dispense the power of holy Orders by a Catholick Ordination which ever was Episcopall also to manage duly that Ecclesiasticall Discipline and Government which ought to be carried on as by men of greater Age Gravity Ability and Authority than ordinary Presbyters use to be so with a proportionable conspicuity for Honor and Estate for Hospitality and Charity all which are as lawfull just and becoming a Bishop or chief Governour among the Fraternities of Ministers as a greater pay or Salary is to Judges Colonels and Captaines not for their doing more drudging work and duty than common men or souldiers may do but for that eminent worth and prudence and sufficiency which they are presumed to have in order to Rule and Command others who are men equall as themselves and
Religion For I have found by experience that no men have proved move factious affected and fanatick than those men and women who have been most conscious to their youthful Enormities They presently apply to the gentlest Confessors and easiest Repentance which is rather to quarrel with and forsake the Religion they have most violated than seriously to repent and amend without which severities Papists and Separatists think their Converts sufficient if they do but turn to their side and party The second Novellers will be content with any meer fancies or factions in Religion The third the Jesuited Papists with no pure united and well-reformed Religion among us And the fourth the Devil will be content with any Religion that is called Catholick Reformed and Christian so it be not true or not pure or not well-reformed or not orderly setled and uniform or not charitably united or not authoritatively managed and governed Any of which will in time very much unchristen any Christians and unchurch any Church by deforming and dividing them from the Beauty and Communion of the Church Catholick Take heed of betraying your selves and your posterity to Atheisticall licentious immorall and irreligious courses by your Apostasies from and despiciencies of the Learning and Piety Gifts and Graces Ministry and Ministrations Order and Government which were happily setled in the Church of England Go over all the world search all successions of the Church from the Apostles to our daies you shall not find any thing more worthy your Love and Esteem your Veneration and addiction Have you found any thing comparable to it in all the new vapours and florishes of Reformations in any new Inventions Conventions Associations Separations Distractions Distortions Confusions Which may make you giddy by turning you round but they will never make you any progresse in Wisdome or Piety or Charity The Church of England was a most rare and Paragon Jewel shining with admirable lustre on all sides First in its Doctrine or Articles of Religion which were few cleare and sound Secondly in its Sermons or Homilies which were learnedly plain pious and practicall Thirdly in its Liturgy or Devotions which were easie to be understood very apt pathetick and complete Fourthly in its paucity and decency of ceremonies which adorned not incumbred Religion or over-laid the Modesty and Majesty of a comely Reformation Fifthly in the Sanctity and Solemnity of its publick duties which were neither excessive nor defective Sixthly in its Ministry which had good Abilities due Ordination and divine Authority Seventhly it its good Government and Ecclesiasticall Discipline where good Presbyters and good Bishops had leave and courage to do their duties and discharge their consciences whose Fatherly Inspection Catholick Ordination and Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction being wisely managed by worthy men in their severall stations did justly deserve the name of an Hierarchy an holy Regiment or happy Government when it was exercised with that Authority yet Charity and discretion which were ever intended by the Church for the common good of all those Christians that were within her bosome and kept her Communion If others do forget her through fatuity or faction covetousnesse or ambition pride or petulancy as undutifull and ungratefull children yet you may not you will not you cannot so far neglect your own and your posterities happinesse or forfeit your own honor or violate your consciences as to neglect the relief and recovery of your Spirituall Mother But if you of the better sort of men and Christians from whom all good men expect all good things should slight and neglect Her after the vulgar rate which God forbid yet must I never so far comply with you or all the world as to call her former light darknesse or her present darknesse light Pretious with me must the name of the Church of England ever be whose record is in Heaven and in all gracious hearts who were Born and Baptized Instructed Sanctified and Saved in her To this Church of England as I owe with many thousands so I returne with some few the Charity of a Christian as to all Christian Churches the duty of a Son as to a deserving parent the order of a part or member as united and devoted to the whole the obedience of an Inferiour as to a Superiour the gratitude of acknowledging Her Worth and Merit the love of adhering to her unity the candor of approving and conforming to her decent ceremonies the modesty of preferring her Wisdome before my own or any other mens understanding the Humility of submitting to her Spirituall Authority and Governours the Piety and Prudence of relieving and restoring as much as lies in me Her Catholick Order Polity Peace and Government all which I believe were allowed of God and I am sure have been approved by as Learned Wise and Holy men as the world affords I am deeply sensible of the many and great obligations which I have to this Nationall Church and to its Ministers and Bishops for my Baptisme Instruction Confirmation Communion and Ordination not onely as a Member but as a Minister which I account my greatest Honour notwithstanding the great depression of the times in which I have late ward lived I am ambitious to do not onely what becomes my private station but to preserve and expresse the publick respects which are due to this Church whose Despisers and Destroyers have never appeared to me with any Remarques of Beauty or Honour for Learning or Grace for Modesty or Charity for Prudence or Policy comparable to those that were the first Founders Reformers Defenders and Preservers of this Church I must ever professe that I find nothing like her Adversaries nor any thing exceeding her friends in all that was commendable in Catholick and true Antiquity In behalf of this Church having offered many things to the consideration of all good Christians which are my worthy Countrymen I hope as my infirmities may exercise their Charity so my integrity may expiate my infirmities if I have in any thing expressed my self lesse becoming the honest and holy designe which I undertook and have now by Gods help finished which was to set forth First the Teares and Sighâ— of the Church of England Secondly the originall of her Disorders and Distractions Thirdly the dangers and distresses if not remedied Fourthly the probable waies of cure and recovery by Gods blessing to such Order Honour Unity Purity and Peace as becomes so famous a Church and so renowned a Nation whose greatest Crown was Christianity I know there will be many who cannot well beare that freedom of sobernesse and Truth which either my self or others may use in speaking or writing for the Church of England and its pristine Honour Order and Government although themselves use never so great Liberties Reproches and Injuries in Speaking Writing and Acting against them For my part I appeare in this onely as wrapt my self in my Scholastick and Ecclesiastick Gown I meddle not with any civil affaires or Military transactions properly
to the Counsel Communion and conjoyned Authority of those integrall and maine or nobler parts which made up the Catholick visible Church and sometimes convened in generall Councils Of all which rights blessings priviledges and advantages both for direction and protection which are best preserved in and vigorously derived from these ample combinations of Churches which are commended by the Apostolicall wisdome and spirit which was Christs for any Christian or Congregation needlesly to deprive themselves or to withdraw divide others from them must needs be First their Infelicity exposing and betraying solitary Christians and small separate parties of them to many dangerous temptations and disadvantages of weaknesse contempt subdivision animosities among themselves also injuries and indignities from others and at last dissipations and utter desolations still dividing to Atomes and mouldring themselves to nothing All which like continued ploughes and harrowes make long and fruitlesse furrowes of deformity upon the backs and faces of such Congregations and such Christians who foolishly forsake or refuse those remedies and assistances which arise from the larger combinations of Churches which are easily had when as whole Cities Provinces and Nations professe the faith of Christ and resolve to assert it Next it is their great sin called in Scripture by the odious name of Schisme Concision Sedition Separation withdrawing from forsaking and dividing of the Churches unity judged by the Apostle to be the works of the Flesh and of the Devil when they arise from and are carried on by wilfull weaknesse ignorance pride arrogancy popularity levity animosity despight study of revenge covetousnesse ambition uncharitablenesse or any other base lust unholy distemper inordinate passion sinister interest and secular designe under never so specious pretensions of Church Reformation of setting up Christ in greater power and purity which I am sure is not yet done in Old England nor like ever to be effected by such strange methods of new churching men and women which begins the first step with spurning at the mother that bred them and the fathers that begat and nourished them laying the first stone of their new building in the ruine of that Churches both Superstructures and Foundations out of which Quarry they were hewen and to whose Fabrick they were once orderly and handsomly conjoyned for many years as many thousands of good Christians still are whom they endeavour to scare and seduce with all the scandalls they can cast before them upon this Church of England Which they having once learned boldly to reproch and abase they must make good their words with deeds that their schisme may not savour of malice or ambition but conscience and Religion Hence mâ—â—y have fallen to tear themselves quite off from any communion with or relation to the Church of England and from all resemblance in the point of polity with any other ancient or modern and reformed Churches of any renown making not onely rents in them and objections against them but total ruptures and abscissions from them and the Catholick form of all Churches no less than from this of England not modestly forbearing the use of some things in which at present they are less satisfied but haughtily forsaking yea wholly disdaining communion and subordination in any things or Ecclesiasticall order and holy ministration And all this credulous Christians must needs do with the more confidence when they are furnished by potent Orators with such Apologies as may either silence their own consciences when they accuse them or plead as they think their excuse before Gods tribunall when they shall be there charged for the scandals defamations discouragements deformities divisions and vastations made or occasioned by them in such a Christian Reformed and united Church as England sometime was It is not amiss to hear the ground of their plea which is with as much reason as if the hand or foot should think themselves not to be of the body because in a fit and humour they so say and fancy I find the tenour of their Apology runs thus I am by many men of seeming gravity learning and piety accused of the sin of Schisme but very unjustly because very falsely I did not I do not make any division or rent in the Church of England which is properly and critically the sin of Schisme but I have totally chopped quite lopped my self off from it by Abscission or rupture I never troubled my self to reform or abstain from what I thought offensive and amisse in the old but I have wholly erected a new Church I was not as a wedge to cleave a little but as a saw to cut all quite in sunder past all closing with any such society as the reputed Nationall Church of England was which I do not so much as account to be any Church but rather a Chaos or colluvies of titular Christians out of whose masse I have by a new percolation of Independency extracted some such pure materials as are formable into a new and true Church-way Yet have I not made any formall Schisme for my work was not to rend the coat or scratch the skin of Christs Spouse but to break her very bones and quite dismember that so diseased and deformed body which pretended to be a nationall Church in its severall overgrown Limbs or Dioceses on each of which I saw a Bishop or Prelate sitting and presiding which I took to be a mark of the Beast and denoting a limb of Antichrist which I know should have no place or influence in any true Church or body of Christ So that to become a perfect Christian I became a perfect Separatist I hung by no string sinew ligature skin or fibre to the so-cryed-up Church of England no I aimed not to divide it but destroy it my design was not to weaken its integrity and unity but to nullifie and abolish its very name and being its polity ministry pâ—â—r and Ecclesiasticall authority if at least these amounted to any thing more than the Chimaera fancy and meer fiction of a Church However I chose rather to deprive my self of all the good in it than to bear with what seemed evil I did not carry my self to that Church in which after a superstitious fashion I was indeed Baptised and educated a Christian as became a son to his sick mother much lesse as a servant to Christs Spouse which might have her faintings But I counted her when I came to misunderstand her and my self as a deadly enemy I treated her as an Adulteresse I proclaimed her a putid Strumpet I withdrew from her as from a dead and noysome carkase which had long layen dead and buried in the old grave of Episcopacy these thirteen or fourteen hundred yeares even from her very nativity therefore I condemned and abhorred Her with all her Scriptures and Sacraments her Bishops and Preachers her Tithes and Universities her Books and Learning her Fathers and Histories her Languages and Sciences her seeming Gifts and specious Graces her Religion
the due celebration of holy mysteries the high Doxologies or exaltations of the glorious Trinity the joynt testifications of Christians mutuall charity harmony and communion All these I say were carried on and consummated in the Churches publick worship which was excellently improved heightened and adorned by the use and recitation of those Summaries of Religion amidst the congregations of Christians to which they assented with a loud and cheerfull Amen Yet which of them is there now that is not openly not onely disused but disdained disgraced and disparaged by some men as nauseous crambe which their souls abhor so far as they from reverent attending or hearing when any Minister reciteth them that they scarce have any patience or can keep within those looks and postures of civility which become them yea they endure not to have their children taught them as the first rudiments of Religion the seminaries of faith and nurseries of devotion which being rightly planted and duly watered by catechising may in time by Gods blessing bring forth the ripe fruits of wisdome and holiness of faith and obedience both to power and order to an uniformity and constancy of Godliness The ancient Christian writers as Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian Ruffinus Jerome Austin and others sufficiently tell us That these compendious forms of duty faith and devotion the Decalogue Creed Lords Prayer and Doxologies were highly valued and solemnly used in Christian Conventions as the gracious condescendings of our God and Saviour to the weakest memories and meanest capacities some of them being of their express and immediate dictating according to which pattern the blessed Apostles and the Churches of Christ after them took care that both those and other forms like to them should be used among Christians that so by frequent repeating and inculcating those excellent summaries of Faith and Catholick principles of Religion all sorts of Christian people young and old learned and ideots might be either catechised or confirmed in the very same things to be believed prayed for and practised in order to their own and others salvation Which great work can never be safely built upon Seraphick sublimities and Scholastick subtilties much less upon imaginary raptures childish novelties idle dreams and futile whimseys which of late do seek very impiously to justle out of all Churches use and out of all Christians memories those wholsome solidities and holy summaries which have in them both the warmth of Christian love and the light of Divine truth in comparison of which all novel affectations are dark and cold dull and confused silly and insipid Yet what sober Christian doth not see that of late years this popular liberty in England is risen to such a nauseating niceness and curiosity of Religion as hath not onely infected the simpler sort of common people with an abhorrence of all those usefull and venerable forms which the prudence piety of this or any Church commended to them in their publick celebrations but to the great incouragement and advance of ignorance Atheism and profaneness uncharitableness and insolence among the vulgar many persons of very considerable parts and good quality are shrewdly leavened with these Novellismes and Libertinismes Yea which is worst of all many Ministers especially of the Presbyterian and Independent parties yea and some of the ancient order and Catholick conformity of the Church of England even these as S. Peter was over-awed to a dissimulation misbecoming the freedome and dignity of so great an Apostle by too great fears and compliances with the circumcised Jews have been so carried down this stream of plebeian prejudice and popular indifferency more than liberty to say or silence to do or omit what they list that they have not onely much neglected all the devotionall set forms of this Churches prescription which in my judgement merited a far better fate and handsomer dismission than they found from many mens hands but some have wilfully disused and so discountenanced even all those sacred formes which have either Divine or Apostolick or Catholick characters of honour antiquity and Religion upon them How miserably are many publick Preachers either afraid or ashamed solemnly to recite so much as once every Lords day the ten Commandements or the Apostles Creed or any other of those ancient Symbols yea when is it that some Ministers dare use either so much courage or conscience as to use the Lords Prayer either by it self or in the conclusion of their own voluminous supplications before or after their Sermons in which neither much regard is had to the method nor the matter of the Lords Prayer which they pretend is the use of it but it is made to stand like a meer cypher silent and insignificant while men love to multiply the innumerable Logarithmes of their own crude inventions and incomposed devotions when as that Prayer which the wisdome of our Lord Jesus twice taught his Disciples upon severall occasions and in them all his Church both in a doctrinall and devotionall way as a method matter and form of Prayer is in it self and ever was so esteemed and used by all good Christians not onely as the foundation measure and proportion but also as the confirmation completion crown and consummation of all our prayers and praises to God Instead of which and wholy exclusive of it how many poor-spirited Preachers of late more to gratifie and humour some silly and self-will'd people than to satisfie their own consciences yea highly to the scandall of many worthy Christians and the dishonour of the Reformed profession are become not onely strangers but almost enemies to that and all other holy forms of Religion contenting themselves with their own private composures or their more sudden conceptions in all publick celebrations and solemn worship not having so much modesty and humility as to consider what is most evident to wise men that no private mans sufficiencies in point of publick prayer and celebrious duties can be such for method comprehensiveness clearness weight solidity sanctity and majesty as may compare much less dispense with and neglect yea utterly reject those sacred summaries and solemn formes which have been divinely instituted whose foolishnesse is wiser then the wisdome of men and whose shortness is beyond the amplest prolixity and largest spinnings of humane lungs and invention there being more spirit in one drop of Christs Prayer as in cordiall and hot waters than in whole seas of vulgar effusions which at best having much in them very flashy insipid and confused had need to have at last the sacred infusion of Christs prayer added to them to give them and us that sanctity spirit life completeness comfort and fiduciary assurance of acceptance which all good men desire in their service of God Certainly they seem much to overvalue their own prayers who wholy disuse or despise the Lords nor do I see how a Minister of Christ can comfortably discharge his duty to the flock of Christ if while he professeth to