dashing against their Bibles and some Almanack-makers casting a generall and publique scorn upon their Ministers and Ministry imputing both unjustly and indignly the folly and ridiculous impotency of some Ministers passions and actions which may be but too true to the whole function venerable order and learned fraternity without limitation or distinction of the wise from the foolish But the badnesse of the times or madn sse rather of any men in them makes this cause never the worse Indeed it is so great and so good having in it so much of Gods glory and mans welfare that it merits what it can hardly finde in secular greatnesse a proportionate patron who had need to be one of the best men and the boldest of Christians And therefore is the addresse so generall that besides our great Master the Lord Jesus Christ the founder and protector of our order and function this work might finde some pious and excellent Patrons in every corner whither so great a Truth hath of late been driven to hide it selfe by the boldnesse and cruelty of some the cowardise and inconstancy of others This book requires not the cold and customary formality of patron-like accepting it and laying it aside but the reality of serious reading generous asserting and conscientious vindicating Who ever dares to countenance this Apology in its main Subject The true and ancient Ministery of the Church of England must expect to adopt many enemies and it may be some great ones Whom he must consider at once as enemies to his Baptism his Faith his Graces and Sacramentall seals to his spirituall comforts his hopes of heaven to his very being being a Christian or true member of this or any other sound part of the Catholick Church Enemies also to his friends and posterities eternall happinesse The means of which will never be truly found in any Church or enjoyed by any Christians under any Ministry if it were not in that which hath been enjoyed and prospered in England not onely ever since the reformation but even from the first Apostolicall plantation of Christian Religion in this Island Of which blessed priviledge ancient honour and true happinesse no good Christian or honest English man can with patience or indifferency suffer himself his Countrey and posterity to be either cunningly cheated or violently plundered Certainly there is no one point of Religion merits more the constancy of Martyrs and will more bear the honour of Martyrdome than this of the divine Institution authority and succession of the true Ministry of the Church which is the onely ordinary means appointed by Jesus Christ to hold forth the Scriptures and their true meaning to the world and with them all saving necessary truths duties means and Ministrations wherein not onely the foundation but the whole fabrick of Christian Religion is contained which in all ages hath been as a pillar of heavenly fire and as a shield of invincible strength to plant and preserve to shine and to protect to propagate and defend the faith name and worship of the true God and his Son our Lord Jesus Christ This makes the Authour not despaire to meet with some Patrons and Protectors of this Defence in Senates Councels Armies and on the house top no lesse than in closets and private houses To whom it cannot be unacceptable to see those many plausible pretensions and potent oppositions made by some men against the Divine authority and sacred Office and peculiar calling of the Ministry so discovered as they shall appeare to be not more specious and subtill than dangerous and destructive to the temporall and eternall welfare of all true Protestants sober Christians and honest hearted English men who certainly next the pleasing of God and the saving of their souls have nothing of so great concernment to themselves and their posterity as this The preserving and encouraging of a true and authoritative Ministry which is the great hinge on which all learning and civility all piety and charity all gracious hopes and comforts all true Religion and Christianity it self depends as much as the light beauty regular motion and safety of the body doth upon its having eyes to see But if this freer and plainer Defence should neither merit nor obtaine such ample measure of favour and publique acceptance in the sight of judicious Readers as it is ambitious of and at least may stand in need of yet hath the Author the comfort of endeavouring with all uprightnesse of heart to doe his duty though he be but as an unprofitable servant And possibly this great and noble Subject the necessity dignity and divine authority of the Ministry of the Church of England so far carried on by this Essay which sets forth 1. The Scripture grounds established by the authority of Christ and his Apostles 2. The Catholick consent and practise of the Church in all ages and places 3. The consonancy to reason and order observed by all Nations in their Religion and specially to the Institutes of God among the Jewish Church 4. The Churches constant want of it in its plantation propagation and perfection 5. The benefit of it to all mankinde who without an authoritative Minâstry would never know whom to hear with credit and respect or what to beleive with comfort 6. The great blessings flowing from this holy function to this Church and Nation in all kindes These and the like grand considerations and fair aspects which this subject affords to learned judicious and godly men may yet provoke some nobler pen and abler person to undertake it with more gratefull and successefull endeavours whose charitable eyes finding the sometime famous and flourishing Ministry of this Church thus exposed in a weeping floating and forlorn condition to the mercy of Nilus and its Monsters the threatning if not overflowing streames of modern violent errors may take pity on it and from this Ark of Bulrushes which is here suddenly framed may bring it up to far greater strength and publique honour than the parent of this Moses could expect from his obscurer gifts and fortunes To which although he is very conscious as being of himself altogether unsufficient for so great a work and so good a word yet the confidence of the greatnesse and goodnesse of the cause the experience of Gods and generally all good Christians attestation to it in all former ages of the Church The hopes also of Gods gracious assistance in a work designed with all humility and gratitude wholly to his glory and his Churches service These made him not wholly refractary or obstinate against the intreaties of some persons whose eminent merit in all learning piety and virtue might incourage by their command so great insufficiencies to so great an unâertaking Which is not to fire a Beacon of faction or contention but to establish a pillar of Truth and certainty Also to hold forth a Shield of defence and safety such as may direct and protect stay and secure the mindes of good Christians in the midst
whose soundness of minde and uncorruptedness of maners yet remaining hath hitherto preserved this backsliding and unsavory age from utter rottenness and putrefaction Possibly your mediation may so far prevail among all estates of men as to allay those asperities abate those animosities remove those prejudices satisfie those jealousies under which the Ministers and Ministry of this Church do now lie in many mens mindes and it may be in some of theirs who are become men of power and renown Humble Monition to those in Power In sublimitate positis tam descensus quà m ascensus perpendendus Nec minus est quod terreat quam quod placeat Ambr. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Chrys Whose eminency I hope will not be offended if I humbly put them in minde That their glory and greatness is not more evident to others who are prone to measure their hopes and fears by the beams or shadows which they cast upon them than most of all to be seriously considered by themselves since from those ruines on which they are raised and from that height to which they are exalted they may easily look down and learn in how slippery a station and how tottering a posture all humane glory and excellency doth consist That the triumphs of such poor mortals carry their own deaths after them as well as other mens before them that as bubbles they have the same principles of frailty in them by which others have suddenly disappeared who lately swelled as big and swam as high above the waters as these now do All religious experience tells the most subtile and elated spirits the profoundest projectors and the most potent actors That they can have but a short time here may have a sudden change or period and must give a severe account of all actions they do and all advantages they enjoy in this present world Of all which they shall carry no more comfort with them than they have made conscience to do the work of God according to his will revealed to mankinde in the sure and sacred Oracles of his written Word Zach. 11. It is manifest That some men have been a staff of Bonds in Gods left hand to punish the sins or exercise the Graces of many in these three Nations whether they shall be a staff of Beauty in his right hand for the support of Piety Peace Order and true Religion the event will best shew They have acted many things as Men with great policy and power it is now expected they should act as truly Reformed and wisely Reforming Christians with Piety and Charity if at least that may be hoped in the time of the Gospel which was denied to Davids zeal under the Law That such as have * 1 Chro. 22.8 Thou shalt not build an House to my Name because thou hast shed much blood upon the Earth in my sight shed much blood in Civil Wars should be instrumental to build the House of God Peradventure they maybe means if not to repair its great decayes yet to hinder it from that total ruine and utter vastation which by many and bad men are threatned but we hope by more and better men with Gods help will be prevented And truly if I knew how I might most acceptably make my Address and fairly plead my excuse with men in place and power if I understood what might most merit to Apologize before all great good and ingenuous men for the boldness of now publishing this Apology I would in the most soft words and comely terms bespeak their favor and deprecate their offence for so it becomes Candidates and Petitioners But my integrity is beyond all oratory ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Synes de Reg. The design of this Apology ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Vocat Synes and my plainness beyond all artifice or study I having no design but onely this which I take to be as pious and just so not altogether misbeseeming the station wherein God hath set me That from the Country obscurity wherein I am not wholly buried I may crave leave to use honest Christian Liberty in this one thing which relates not so much to my Person as to my Profession and Function And in this to appear in publick not as a Counseller or Dictator or Threatner but as an humble Client and Suter among those many which always attend those who have power to save or to destroy to do good or evil Nor in this am I pragmatically suggesting what I might foolishly imagine fittest to be done in State affairs from which as from Pitch and Birdlime I am most willingly a stranger but onely propounding in all humble and due respect what is by many men much wiser and worthier than my self ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Synes ad Arcad. Imper conceived as most necessary for this particular Church of God in England And wherein the fears of very many Excellent Christians are so urgent upon them that it were better to offend by speaking in love than by silence to act the part both of an Enemy and a Coward Yet in this freedom I would not willingly offend any that really are or esteem themselves my Betters and Superiors so as to exasperate them by any rash or rude expressions I earnestly deprecate all such failings in my self and such suspitions in others This restraint and caution I have not so much out of fear of men yet do I fear men as far as fear is due but rather out of that fear of God which is the beginning of Wisdom ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Pythag. and that reverence I ow to my self and my Profession as a Christian and a Minister whom nothing less becomes than the badge and livery of Passion or the jaundice of Cholerick Diffusions evident in the face of their writings I love not if they were safe affectations of Language which power may interpret Seditious Turbulent or Treasonable I have learned to be patient under hard things thankful for moderate hopeful for better Nor do I disdain to beseech mans favor whose fury God can restrain and turn the remainder of wrath to his praise and his Churches good Let others complain of their Civil Burthens which I feel as well as they Let them agitate secular Interests which never want their vicissitudes crosses and defeats My sense and address in this Apology is chiefly for those things which concern the true Ministry and the Reformed Religion established in England In which not custom and education but judgement and conscience I hope hath confirmed me by Gods grace And for those men especially whose office and duty I think it is by Preaching doing and suffering as Christian Ministers according to the Will of God to vindicate and preserve true Christian Religion and to transmit it as Reformed in an unblemished and unquestionable succession to Posterity 4. Why in way of Apology Your Virtuous Excellencies upon whose favor chiefly I have adventured this Address to the view of the supercilious and more
banishment prison captivity sickness c. Yet that Christian belief love and charity which such an one bears to Christ and to the Catholike Church of Christ scattered in many places and different in many ceremonial rites and observations These I say do infallibly invest this solitary Christian in communion and holy fellowship with the whole Church of Christ in all the World as brethren and sisters are related as near kinred when they are never so far a sunder in place which owns the same God believes the same common salvation by the same Lord Jesus useth the same seals of the blessed Sacraments Ephes 4.5 Jude 2. professeth the same ground of faith and rule of holiness the written Word of God and bears the like gracious and charitable temper to others as sanctified by same Spirit of Christ which really unites every charitable and true believer to Christ and so to every Mâmber of true Church however it may want opportunities to express this communion in actual and visible conversation either civil or sacred by enjoying that society as men or that ordinary ministry as Christians which is by Christ appointed in the Church as well for its outward profession distinction and mutual assistance as for its inward comfort and communion with himself The willing neglect of all such extern communion and the causeless separation from all Church-fellowship in Word Sacraments Prayer Order and charitable Offices must needs be inconsistent with any comfort because against charity and so far against true Religion and the hopes of salvation For those inward graces wherein the life and soul of Religion do consist are not ordinarily attained or maintained but by those outward means and ministrations which the wisdom of God in Christ hath appointed for the Churches social good and edification together In the right enjoyment of which consists that extern and joynt celebration or profession of Christian Religion which gives Being name and distinction to that society which we call The Church of Christ on Earth And this indeed is that Church properly which is called out of the World which as men we may discern and of which both in elder and later times so many disputes have been raised which we may describe to be An holy company or fraternity of Christians who being called by the Ministry of the Gospel to the knowledge of God in Christ do publickly profess in all holy ways and orderly institutions that inward sense of duty and devotion which they ow to God by believing and obeying his Word Also that charity which they ow to all men especially to those that profess to be Christs Disciples and hold communion with his Body the Catholike Church Herein I conceive That the social outward profession of Religion 7. Of the Church as a visible society of Professors believing in Christ. Ea est Catholica ecclesia quae unicam candem semper ubique fidem in Christo veram Scripturis sundatam profitetur Vân Lyrin Eph. 2.9 As Fellow-Citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God Ye are built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone c. as it is held forth in the Word of God in its Truths Seals Duties and Ministry makes a true Church among men And the true Church as Catholike yea any part or branch of this true Catholike Church whose Head Foundation Rites Seals Duties and Ministry are for the main of the same kinde in all times and places cannot but make a right profession of true Religion as to the main essence and fundamentals which consists in truth holiness and charity However there may be many variations differences and deformities in superstructures both of opinion and practise For however particular Churches which have their limits of time and place and persons circumstances which necessarily circumscribe all things in this world are still as distinct arms and branches of a great Tree issuing from one and the same root Jesus Christ and have the same sap of truth and life conveyed in some measure to them 1 Cor. 3.12 If any man build upon this foundation gold c. stâbble c. V. 15. If his work be burnt he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved Eph. 4.4 There is one Body and one Spirit one Lord one Faith one Baptism c. V. 16. The whole body is fitly joyned together according to the effectual working in the measure of every part c. Uâus Deus unam sidem tradidit unam ecclesiam toto orbe diffudit hanc aspicit hanc diligit hanc dâfendit Quolibet se quisque nomine tegat si huic non societur alienus est si hanc impugnet inimicus est Oros 7. c. 35. Joh. 15.2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit my Father taketh away 2 Pet. 2.1 2 Tim. 2.18 1 Cor. 12.25 That there should be no schism in the body 2 Joh. 9. Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ hath the Father and the Son by the same way of the right Ministry of the Word Sacraments and Spirit so that in these respects they are all of one and the same Catholike Body communion descent and derivation yet as these have their external distinctions and severings in time place persons and maners or any outward rites of profession and worship so they usually have distinct denominations and are subject to different accidents as well as proportions Some branches of the same Tree may be withering mossy cancred peeled broken and barren yea almost dead yet old and great and true Others may be more flourishing fruitful clean and entire though of a latter shooting for time and of a lesser extension for number and place yet still of the same Tree so far as they have really or onely seemingly and in the judgement of charity communion with relation to and dependance on the Root and bulk being neither quite broken off and dead by Heretical Apostacies denying the Lord that bought them or damnable errors which overthrow the Faith nor yet slivered and rent by Schismatical uncharitableness proud or peevish rents and divisions Which last although they do not wholly kill and câop off from all communion with the Church of Christ yet they so far weaken and wither Religion in the fruits and comforts of it as each Schism pares off from its sect and faction that Rinde and Bark as it were of Christian love and mutual charity through which chiefly the sap and juyce of true Religion with the graces and comforts of it are happily and most thrivingly conveyed to every living branch of the Catholike Church so as to make it live at least and bring forth some good fruit however it be not so strong fair and ample as others may be As the Church of Sardis which had a * Rev. 3.1 name to live and was dead in some part and proportion
yet is bid to watch and strengthen the things that remain which are ready to die c. 8. Of the Church as called Catholike See learned Dr. Field of the Church ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã In this point then Touching the true Church of Christ in regard of outward profession and visible communion to the touch of which part my design thus leads me I purpose not so far to gratifie the endless and needless janglings of any adversaries of this Church of England as to plunge my self or the Reader into the wide and troubled Sea of controversie concerning the Church Considering that many good Christians have been and still are in the true Catholike Church by profession of that true faith and holy obedience which unite to the Head Jesus Christ and by charity which combines the members of his Body together although they never heard the dispute or determination of this so driven a controversie As many are in health and sound who never were under Physicians hands or heard any Lecture of Anatomy Yea although they may be cut off and cast out of the particular communion of any Church by the Anathemaes and excommunicating sentences of some injurious and passionate Members of that Church yet may they continue still in communion with Christ and consequently with his Catholike Church that is with all those who either truly have or profess to have communion with Christ My purpose is onely to give an account as I have done of true Religion in the internal power of it so also of the true Church as to the external profession of Religion That thereby I may establish the faith and comforts of all sober and good Christians in this Church of England That they may not be shaken corrupted or rent off by their own instability and weakness or by the fraud and malice of those who glory more in the proselytes they gain to fanatick factions by uncharitable rendings from this Church than in any communion they might have in humble and charitable ways with the Catholike Church or any of the greater and nobler parts of it which they most impertinently deny to be any Churches or capable of any order power joynt authority larger government or ampler communion For the Catholike Church of Christ that is Ignat. ep ad Phil. Cypr. de unitate Eccl. Solis multi radii unum lumen August lib. de unitate ecclesiae Et omnes patres Eph. 1.22 Christ the Head over all things to the Church 1 Tim. 3.15 The Church of the living God the pillar and ground of truth Heb. 12.23 The Church of the first-born Tot ac tanta ecclesia una est illa ab Apostolis prima ex qua omnes Tertul. de prae ad Hae. c. 30. Eph. 3.10 21. 5.23 Christ the Head of the Church and the Saviour of the Body V. 32. Christ and the Church Col. 1.18 Christ the Head of the Body the Church 1 Cor. 12. The Body is not one Member but many c. vidâ the universality of those who profess to believe in the name of Jesus Christ according to the Scriptures That this is primarily and properly called a Church often in Scripture there is no doubt As the whole is called a Body in its integrality or compleatness of parts and organs whose every limb and part is corporeal too and of the Body as to its nature kinde or essence This Church which is called The Spouse and Body of Christ is as its Head but one in its integrality or comprehensive latitude as the Ark containing all such as profess the true faith of Christ And to this are given as all powers and faculties of nature to the whole man primarily and eminently those powers privileges gifts and titles which are proper to the Church of Christ however they are orderly exercised by some particular parts or members for the good of the whole The essence integrality and unity of this Catholike Church consists not in any local convention or visible communion or publick representation of every part of it but in a mysterious and religious communion with the same God Ecclesia in universum mundi disseminata unam domum habitans unam animam cor os abet Iraen l. 1. c. 3. Eph. 4.4 5. Jude 2. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Just M. Dial. cum Tryphone by the same Mediator Jesus Christ and to this Mediator Jesus Christ by the same Word and Spirit as to the internal part of Religion also by profession of the same Truth and common Salvation joyned with obedience to the same Gospel and holy Ministry with charity and comly order as to the external In this so clear an Article of our Faith I need not bestow my pains since it is lately handled very fully learnedly and calmly by a godly Minister of this Church of England * Mr. Hudson of the Catholike Church Tot tantae ecclesiae una est illa ab Apostolis prima dum unam omnes praebent veritatem Tert. de prae to whose Book I refer the Christian Reader 9. Of a National Church or distinct and larger part of the Catholick This name of Church being evidently given to the universality of those who by the Ministry of the Gospel are called out of the way of the World and by professing of it and submitting externally to its holy Ministry Order Rules Duties and Institutes are distinguished from the rest of the World It cannot be hard for any sober understanding to conceive in what aptitude of sense any part of this Catholike Church is also called a Church with some additional distinctions and particular limitations visible and notable among men and Christians by which some are severed from others in time place persons or any other civil discriminations of policy and society Which give nearer and greater conveniences as to the enjoyment and exercise of humane and civil so of Christian communion and the offices or benefits of religious relations 1 Cor 1.2 To the Church of God which is at Corinth Acts 13.1 The Chu ch of Antioch ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Acts 14.23 Tit. 1.5 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Rev. 2. 3. Ecclesiam apud unamquamque civitatem condiderunt Apostolâ Ã quibus traducem fidei semina doctrinae caeterae ecclesiae mutuatae sunt Tertul. de Prae. c. 20. Consuetudo est certissima loquendi norma Quinâil The Spirit of God in the Scripture gives sufficient warrant to this stile and language calling that a Church as of Rome Ephesus Corinth Jerusalem Antioch c. which consisted of many Congregations and Presbyters in a City and its Territory or Province So the Apostle Paul in his Epistles to several Churches distinguisheth them by the civil and humane distinctions of place and Magistracy and the Spirit of Christ to the Asiatick Churches calleth each a Church distinctly which were in great associations of many faithful under many Presbyters And these under some chief Presidents Apostles Angels or Bishops residing
Primatum suum non objecit Petrus nec inerrabilitatem sed Paulo veritatis assertori cesset Documentum patientiae concordiae Cyp. ep 71. for deciding controversies of Religion and ending all Disputes of Faith in the Church Catholike countervail the injury of this his usurpation and oppression Considering that nothing is more by Scripture Reason and Experience not so much disputable as fully to be denied by any sober Christians than that of the Popes Infallibility which as the Church never ye enjoyed so nor doth any Church or any Christian indeed want any such thing as this infallible judge is imagined to be in order to either Christian course or comfort If indeed the Bishop of Rome and those learned men about him would without faction flattery partiality and self-interest joyn their learning counsels and endeavors in common to reform the abuses to compose the rents and differences in the Christian World by the rule of Scripture and right Reason with Christian humility prudence and charity which look sincerely to a publick and common good they would do more good for the Churches of Christ than any imaginary Infallibility will ever do yea and they would do themselves no great hurt in civil respects if they could meet and joyn not with envious and covetous but liberal and ingenuous Reformers who will not think as many the greatest deformities of any Church to be the riches and revenues of Church-men Certainly in points of true Religion to be believed or duties to be practised as from divine command every Christian is to be judge of that which is propounded to him and embraced by him according to what he is rationally and morally able to know and attain by those means which God hath given him of Reason Scripture Ministry and good examples Of all which the gifts or graces of God in him have inabled him seriously and discreetly to consider Nor is he to rest in either implicite or explicite dictates presumptions and Magisterial determinations of any frail and sinful men who may be as fallible Magnum ingenium magna tentatio De Orig. Tert. Vin. Lirin 1 Cor. 8.7 Knowledge puffeth up 2 Pet. 2.19 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Rom. 6.17 Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you Eph. 4.15 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 2 Thes 2.10 Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved as himself For whereas they may exceed him in gifts of knowledge they may also exceed him in passions self-interests pride and policy so that he may not safely trust them on their bare word and assertion but he must seek to build his faith on the more sure Word of God which is acknowledged by all sides to be the surest director what to believe to do and to hope in the way of Religion Nor may any private Christians unletteredness that cannot read or his weaker intellect that cannot reason and dispute or his many incumberances of life that deny him leisure to read study compare meditate c. These may not discourage him as if he were a dry tree and could neither bear nor reap any fruit of Christian Religion because he hath no infallible guide or judge Since the mercy of God accepts earnest endeavors and an holy life according to the power capacy and means a man hath also he pardons unwilling errors when there is an obedience from the heart to the truths we know and a love to all truth joyned with humility and charity In order therefore to relieve the common defects of men as to the generality of them both in Cities and in Countrey Villages where there is little learning by the Book or Letter and great dulness with heavy labor the Lord of his wisdom and mercy hath appoint d that constant holy order of the Ministry to be always continued in the Church that so learned studious and able men being duly tryed approved and ordained to be Teachers and Pastors may by their light knowledge and plenty supply the darkness simplicity and penury of common people who must every man be fully perswaded in his own minde Rom. 14.5 in matters of conscience and be able to give a reason of that faith and hope which is in him beyond the credit of any meer man or the opinion of his infallibility 1 Pet. 3.15 However they may with comfort and confidence attend upon their lips whom in an holy succession of Ministry God hath given to them as the ordinary and sufficient means of Faith And however a plain-hearted and simple Christian may religiously wait upon and rest satisfied with those holy means and mysteries which are so dispenced to him by true Ministers who ought above all to be both able and faithful to know and to make known the truth as it is in Jesus Yet may he not savingly or conscientiously relie in matters of Faith nor make his last result upon the bare credit or personal veracity of the Minister but he must consider and believe every truth not because the Minister saith it but because it is grounded on the Word of God and from thence brought him by his Minister which doctrine he judgeth to be true not upon the infallibility of any Teachers but upon that certainty which he believes to be in the Scripture to which all sorts of Christians do consent And to which the Grace and Spirit of God so draweth and enclineth the heart as to close with those divine truths to believe and obey them not for the authority of the Minister but of God the Revealer whose excellent wisdom truth and love it discerns in those things which are taught it by the Ministry of man So that still the simplest Christian doth savingly believe and conscientiously live according to what himself judgeth and is perswaded in his heart to be the Will of God in his Word and not after the dictates of any man Which either written or spoken have no more authority to command or perswade belief as to Religion than they appear to the believer and not to the speaker onely grounded on the sure Word of God and to be his minde and will to mankinde And as it is not absolutely necessary to every Christian in order to Faith and Salvation to be able with his own eyes to read and so to judge of the Letter of the Scripture so it is the more necessary that the reading and preaching of the Word should be committed to able and faithful men not who are infallible 2 Tim. 2.2 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã but who may be apt to teach and worthy to be believed Of whom the people may have great perswasion both as to their abilities and due authority to teach and guide them in the ways of God We read in Irenaeus Irenaeus l. 3. c. 4. that in One hundred and fifty years after Christ many Churches of Christians toward the Caspian Sea and Eastward were very sound in the Faith and setled against
any thing we have failed as men yet we are assured the merciful eye of Heaven will look more favorably on our failings to pardon them than some Basilicks do on our labors to accept them * Jere. 1 8. Be not afraid of their faces for I am with thee to deliver thee saith the Lord. V. 18. I have made thee a defenced City a brazen Wall and an iron Pillar c. Ezek. 2.6 Be not afraid of their words though thou dost dwell among scorpions be not dismayed at their looks though they be a rebellious house who seek to destroy this Church and discourage all its true Christians and Ministers if they could with their dreadful aspects and spightful looks if they had not the defensative of Gods protection joyned to their own innocency and the favor of many excellent Christians whom I have endeavored to settle and satisfie as briefly and clearly as in so short a time I could in these many and to me very tedious and almost superfluous objections against this true Reformed Church of England these first and lesser calumnies which lay in the way of my main design I thought it my duty to remove 32. Want of Charity our greatest defect In the Council of Carthâge An. 401. The Orthodox Christians send Messengers to the Donatists ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã So after they send An. 404. Orators for unity and peace without which say they Christian Religion cannot consist Where I see in all our disputes and differences so cruelly carried on the greatest ingredient is Uncharitableness which knows not how to excuse small faults to supply lesser defects to interpret well what is good to allow others their true Christian Liberty and to enjoy its own modestly to keep communion amidst some easie differences and union with harmless varieties We have had on all sides truth enough to have saved any men and uncharitableness enough to have damned any angels Nor is it meerly a privation or want of charity but an abounding of envy malice strife wrath bitterness faction fury cruelty and whatever is most contrary to the excellency of Christians which was the excellency of Christ love and charity The want of which Basil Mag. de Sp. S. deplores ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã So Naz. Or. 12. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Naz. Or. 28. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Clem. Alex. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 5. sayes Religion as a Tripos hath three feet Faith Hope and Charity and cannot stand if any one be wanting I cannot but here deplore in a pathetick digression craving the Readers pardon since I cannot go further in answer of uncharitable objections till I have first sought for our lost charity The recovery of which one grace would end all the differences and heal all the distempers not of England onely but of all the Christian World You O excellent Christians will I know joyn with me in searching after charity as they did after Christ sorrowing Luke 2.48 In mourning for as some of the devout antients did the sad distances and wasts of Christian charity among all sorts of Christian Churches and Professors Alas we glory and swell and are puffed up one against another in the forms of being called Churches and Reformed when we lose the very power of godliness the soul of religion and the peculiar glory of Christianity which is charity Joh. 13.35 By this shall all men know that you are my disciples c. O sweet divine and heavenly beauty of Christ and all true Christians Charity Whither art thou fled from Christians brests 33. Pathetick for Charity ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Greg. Niss ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Clem. Al. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã l. 3. c. 1. Salvian complains Quis plenam vicuââ exhibet charitatem Omnes à si etsi loco non absunt affectu absunt etsi habitatione juâguntur mente disjuncti sunt Lib. 5. de Gâberna Non Albiniani non Nigriani sumus sed Christiani Hoc unum fluââââ nullarum partium fludiis âbripi Tertul. Acts 1.26 lives hearts and Churches In which was wont to be thy Nest thy Palace and thy Temple Where thou wert received welcomed and entertained by wise and humble Christians either as the Spouse of Christ in thy purity or as the Queen of graces in thy beauty or as the Goddess of Heaven in thy majesty O whither art thou gone where art thou retired Art thou to be found in the cells of Hermites in the Cloysters of Monks in the solitudes of Anchorites Probably there may be most of thee where is least of the world which like full diet begets most of cholerick and foul humors Dost thou reside among the pompous Papists The graver Lutherans the preciser Calvinists the severer Separatists or the moderater English Christians May we finde thee at Rome or Wittemberg or Geneva or Amsterdam or London Dost thou dwell in the old Palaces and Councils of venerable Bishops or in the newer Classes of bolder Presbyters or in the narrower corners of subtile Independents Alas I fear these very colours and names which are as ensigns and alarms to factions sound ill in the ears of Charity and are unpleasing to its sight which onely loves the first common title and honor of Disciples to be called Christians These faces and forms seem as if they were divided and set one against another and when they want a common adversary each party is ready to subdivide and seeks to destroy it self the hand of every faction in Religion is as Ismaels against his Brother or it self Smiting oft with the fist of violence as Factious where they should give the right hand of fellowship as Christians and strangling each other instead of embracing Or are all these divisions but the disguises of Charity and under visords of factions a meer pageantry is acted of zealous ignorance or proud and preposterous knowledge both carried on with holy partialities fraternal Schisms zealous cruelties sacred conspiracies so far onely as to destroy all other Christians That each sect alone may remain as the onely Church which then fancy themselves sufficiently built polished and reformed when they are but as heaps of rubbish in their several ruptures as unpolished lumps in their uncharitable sidings so far weak and deformed limbs as they are passionatly and violently broken from the intireness and goodly fabrick of the well compacted Catholike Church of which they were sometime a comly and commendable part Onely then in beauty safety and symmetry while in order to and in unity with the whole which is as the Body and Temple of the Lord in its various parts making but one goodly structure which was antiently the âoy and glory of the whole Earth Now nothing seems best but deformed ruines and desolate parcels of battered broken and almost demolished Churches like Hospitals in which are most-what wounded and maimed and halting Christians when of old the Foundation of one Rom. 13.10 Love is the fulfilling of
power and office of that Ministry which Christ and the Apostles had setled in the Church and to which they pretended to have a zeal Fourthly at the worst what ever they were or did regularly or irregularly as to the point of Preaching Christ crucified the Apostle so far rejoyced not as they were passionate or peevish envious disorderly c. but so far as God restrained them in any moderate bounds of truth-speaking It was some joy to see a less degree of mischief and scandal arise from their perversness and spite That they did not blaspheme that Name and preach another Gospell or corrupt this in points of doctrine with Jewish or Hereticall leaven no less than they did with those tinctutes of passions envy and defects of Charity A good Christian may rejoyce at any preparation of men to receive the Gospell In omni malo est aliqua boni mixtura Simpliciter enim absolute malum esse non potest Neque enim est malum pura negatio sed debiti boni privatio neque est cognoscibile nisi per bonum Tho. Aq. 1. q. 14. Non humane est imbecilitatis plena indagine conoscere quâ ratione Deuâ mala fieri patiatur quae non incuriâ sed consilio permittuntur Salv. l. 1. Gub. Mirandum non est quod mala exurgant sed vigilandum est ne noceant nec permitteret Deus ex surgere nisi sanctos per hujusmodi tentationes erudiri expediret Aust Ep. 141. as in the Indies tho they be first taught it in much weakness and superstition It is so far happy in the worst of times and things that there is no simple or sincere evill which hath not some mixture of good in it which it abuseth else it could not be at all and some extraction of good may be from it by the omnipotent wisdome of God causing all things to work together for the good of his Church Gods permissions not to be urged against his Precepts and Institutions But what sober Christian will urge Gods permissions against his Precepts and Institutions The rule in the Word is still right constant and divine though in the water of events providence may seem crooked and irregular Gods toleration of evill of disorders or heresies in the Church doth not justifie them in the least kind against his Word which forbids them The Apostle was glad and so may we be in evill times that things were no worse but he allows them not to be so bad Quae permittit Deus non approbat in permisso praviter agente quamvis apprâbet permissionem suam profundissimè potentissimè sapientia quae bona ex malo ducenda novit Vid. Aust Ep. 120. Ep. 159. In abdito est consâlium Dei quo malis bene utitur mirificans bonitatis suae omnipotentiam Rom. 3.8 Multa sunt in intentione operantis âala quae in eventu operis bona sunt Aquin. Praescientia praepotentia sua non rescindit Deus libertatem creaturae quam instituerat Tertul. lib. 2. cont Marcâon vid. Synes ep 57. nor would he approve the doing of evill or the envy and spightfulness in preaching that good might come thereby He only considered it in the event as to Gods disposing not in the agent or fact as to mans perverting A sober and wise man may make a good use of others madness and folly as God doth of mans and devills malice One may rejoyce that there are some poysonous creatures by which to make Theriacas and Antidotes Many venomous beasts have the cure in them against their own stings and poâsons The same Apostle might rejoyce in the supposed not decreed and absolute Necessity of Heresies There must be heresies 1 Cor. 11.19 that as in these times the constancy of judicious and sincere Christians may be made manifest It is some ease that Impostumes break Plus est jucunditatis in sapientia Dei quae bona è maâis extrahit quà m in malis molestiae Lact. l. de Ira. Respondet Epicuri quaest cur Deus permisit mala cum potens sit bonus Permisit malum ut eâicaret bonum Id. Acts 27. whereby corrupt humors are let out and spent possibly the Apostle might in some sense or notion have rejoyced in the storm he suffred and the shipwrack so far as it discovered Gods extraordinary protection to him and for his sake to those with him And so may all his faithfull Servants the Ministers have cause at last to rejoyce when the Lord hath brought them and this Church to the fair haven after this foul weather which seeks to overwhelm them But Christ is in the ship and they have a good Pilot God whose Spirit with their own bids them be of good chear The Lord can and will save his that be godly from so great a death But such joyes are the serious and sincere raptures of very godly and wise men far enough sequestred from the flashes of the world which hardly ever discern in Events what is of God from what is of man Good events in which Gods over-powring is seen are oft consequentiall not intentionall Severa res est gaudium Sen. Cl. Alex. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 4. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as to the second agents and flow not from their will or vertue but follow their work through Gods soveraign over-ruling who as St. Austin sayes would not permit any evill of sin to have been in and from the creatures pravity of free will and infirmity of power if his infinite both power and goodness had not known how to extract the good of his glory out of the greatest evill And truly this good we hope through the mercy of God The good which may come from this evill to true Ministers Phil. 1.16 both all true Ministers and all true Christians in this Church of England will reap by this envy contention spitefull unsincere and uncivill dealing of these Anti-ministeriall Adversaries who cry up their new preaching and prophesying wayes thereby thinking to adde affliction to those bonds and distresses which are upon Ministers in these dangerous and difficult times That this will make all true Ministers more study to be able for to walk worthy of and alwayes to adorn that holy profession and divine Ministration which they have upon them that so they may stop the mouths of gainsayers Tit. 1.9 Saluberrimus est malorum inimicorum usus quo illorum quadam ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã meliores vigilantiores reddamur Erasm 1 Cor. 3.1 who lye in wait for their halting and reâoyce at their fallings Also it will breed in all others that are serious sound and good Christians a greater abhorrency of these insolent and disorderly wayes in the Church the root and fruits of which are carnall not spirituall pride faction strife bitterness confusion scom of religion corruption of all true doctrine and holy manners neglect and disuse of holy duties prophaness and disposition to all
from which the best Christians study alwaies to keep themselves most free and unspotted Mat. 23.5 Confirmatur hypocrisis Pharisaei quando ampliantur Philacteria Chrys The large Philacteriâs of pretended preaching gifts which some men so Pharisaically set forth to the vulgar view who as St. Jerom saith easily admire what they hardlyest understand do not presently make them such Rabbies and teachers in Israel as they fancy and affect to be counted where there is or may be had far better supplies of such able and right ordeined Ministers as the Church of England hath brought up These are graces and gifts of the Spirit to be shewed in mens silence as well as in their speaking as he that knew how to hold his peace put in his name among the famous Orators Yea if the case of this Church were so desolate as some pretend and destitute of able and faithfull Ministers which blessed be God it yet is not yet few of these forward intruders of themselves have such sober gifts and well-grounded knowledge in the mysteries of Christian and in the ordinary controversies of the Reformed Religion as might supply the Church in its cases of necessity wherein any Christians or Churches may possibly crave and have some relief as to the teaching coâfirming or comforting part of the Ministry from the larger and golden rule of Charity Where Christian communion makes believers usefull to each other not out of Office and speciall duty but out of love and that generall relation they have to each other Which necessity thanks be to God is not yet the Case of this Church nor shaâl ever need to be by Gods blessing if Magistrates and true Ministers would do the duties which become them in their places Though the Harvest be great yet the Labourers are not few which are of the Lords sending Mat. 9.37 if they may be suffered to do the Lords work And if those sturdy gleaners and pilferers who thrust themselves into others mens fields and labours did not every where disturb and hinder them by their sharking and scrambling 10. The Churches supplies in cases of necessity When true Ministers cannot be enjoyed John 2. Lando factam de necessitate virtutem sed plus illam quaÌ elegit libertas non indicit necessitas Ber. Ep. 113. 1 Kings 17.6 1 Kings 17. Who doubts or denyes but in cases of reall not feigned affected or imaginary necessity when Christians are forcibly deprived of their true Pastors and Ministers the Lord Jesus Christ who hath speciall care of his Church by the assistance of his Spirit can turn the water of some Lay-mens weaker gifts into wine for the Instruction confirmation and consolation of scattered and desolated Christians Although those teachers are not every way exactly prepared nor fitted for every work of the Sanctuary Rather than poor Christians that hunger for the food of Heaven should wholy want refreshing Ravens shall feed them as they did wildred and banished Eliah A lay mans barrell of meal and cruse of Oyl that is his good skill and sound understanding in the main fundamentals of faith and holy practise Also in those gracious promises which God hath made to upright hearts these may have miraculous augmentations and effussions to sustain a widowed Church and Orphan Christians in time of dearth But we must not therefore suffer these Acephalists these circulators and beggars to perswade us De Acephalis Hos neque inter laicas nâque inter clericos Religio detentat divina mixtum genus est prolesque biformis Isid Hispa de off Ec. lib. 2. c. 3. that we are famished in our fathers house where we see servants are wanton with fulness of Bread meerly that they may boast how they have made us to eat of their mouldy scraps and drink of their musty bottels In the confusions of a family where violence overbears setled order removing both chief and inferior Officers those supplies are commendable which the charity and discretion of any servants can afford one the other yet without usurping any place and authority which they have not over others But in a setled and orderly family where there are Stewards and Officers appointed it is a preposterous charity for every Servant to undertake to give to the Children or Servants of the family their portions Precedents of extraodinary sustentation with Bread Wine and Oyl either by miracle or Charity are no warrant for any mens presumptions rashness and disorder in ordinary cases any more than those fore-named examples should justify any man from madness who presuming of extraordinary supplies would cut up all Vines or plant no Olives or use no tillage and Husbandry which are the wayes of Gods ordinary providence both to exercise and reward mens honest and orderly industry In like manner where the Churches or societies of Christians greater or smaller are blessed with the enjoyment of those institutions and gifts which Christ hath appointed and bestowed for the joynt and publike good of his Church in planting preserving and propagating true Religion with good order which ever was and is to be carried on by the right Ministration of the word and Sacraments and other holy Offices properly belonging to duly ordeined and authorised Ministers there no pretended liberty or affected and self-made necessity Prima est necessitas quam praecipientis Dei autoritas imponit Secunda quam permittentu providentia dispensat Tertia quam deficientis in officio negligentia cogit quam peccatum esse sui paenam credas Bern. Necessitas quod cogit defendit modo absit malum morale Eccl. 10.8 no right of common-age or levelling zeal may violate the bounds which Christ hath set and the Churches ever observed He that breaks the hedges of Religious order in the Church the Serpent of an evill conscience shall bite him All true Christian Liberties that is such as are * Libertas ut matrona decora non est honesta si non sit Gibeuf 1 Kings 8. Augustior Salomon in genua procumbens quaÌ in solio sedenâ ornatior orans quam imperans Jeron comely 11. Of Christians Liberty to use their gifts orderly and usefull are by all godly and learned Ministers allowed and encouraged in all faithfull people of whatsoever calling quality and condition Masters in their families Magistrates on their Benches Commanders amidst their Souldiers Princes among their subjects cannot appear more to their honour and advantage within their places and callings than when like Salomon they shine with that wisdom piety and devotion which becomes all true Christians on all occasions and may make them merit the honour of Princes and Preachers too in Jerusalem which liberties and abilities the humble piety of wise and modest Christians knows how soberly and discreetly to use as to any occasion of private charity or publike edification in their places yet not insolently and unseasonably to abuse it so as to disparage neglect and usurp upon the publike ordeined Ministry Every
dignitatem Amb. de dign Sacerd. c. 5. prayer and imposition of hands wherein the Spirit of the ordeiners and the Christians present with the ordeined joyn together in his behalf to God is a very great and effectuall means to indue the ordeined in some sense with an other Spirit not only as to power but as to the increase of ministeriall gifts which fit him to receive and use that authority yea and for the strengthning exciting and enlarging those sanctifying graces by which he is more fitted for and prospered in the work of the Ministry than he was before or any other can ordinarily be without this due Ordination whereby his wisdom humility charity zeal devotion industry purity exactness and constancy are increased so as are most requisite for the great work and office of a Minister 4. It binds the conscience of the ordeined more strictly to the duty and office as to discharge it so to endeavour by all holy means of study prayer conference meditation c. to preserve use and augment those gifts faculties or graces naturall acquired or infused for the right discharge and fulfilling of his Ministry to the glory of God and the Churches welfare D. Origine dicunt eum sine vocatione se ingessisse in efficium docendi inde factum est quod in tot errores prolapsus sit Chem. de Ecclesia Res Dei ab bomine dari non possunt Synod Rom. both in true peace and holiness Hence the great learning of Origen and admired gifts were thought by some less prospered and blessed of God because he presumed to do the work of a Minister before he was blessed ordeined and authorised by the Church 5. Due Ordination gives comfort countenance Quomodo valebit secularis homo sacerdotis ministerium adimplere cujus nec officium tenuit nec disciplinam agnovit Is Hisp off l. 2. c. 3. Qui infideliter introivit quid ni infideliter agat Bern. Tit. 2.15 Acts 4.20 John 10.12 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Gr. Niss de Scop. Christia Aug. Ep. ad Honorarum 2 Euseb Hist l. 6. c. 19 Origen Preached before he was ordeined Presbyter before Alexa Bishop of Jerusalem and Theod. Bishop of Cesaria for which Demet. Bishop of Alexand reproves them But they excuse it as a custom there for probation of such as they found Idoneous for their learning and gifts As common placing is in Colleges and divine courage to true Ministers as the anointing did to the Prophets of old and the solemn mission of Christ did to the holy Apostles to Preach not as popular Scribes and precarious Pharisies but as St. John the Divine having authority from Christ whose Ministry like John Baptists is not from men on earth however transmitted by men but from God in Heaven In this confidence they can rebuke with all authority With this conscience they cannot but speak in the name of the Lord They do not fear the face of men or devils in Christs way They forsake not as hirelings the flock when the Wolf comes as having no relation or tye to the flock which is not committed to those self intruders but usurped by force or invaded by stealth True Pastors in time of generall not personall persecution dare not leave their flock destitute but choose to be examples to them of suffering cheerfully for Christ expecting Christs promise and assistance in his way The righteous Minister is as bold as a Lion for he that walks uprightly in the Spirit and power and way of Christ walks seemly But all usurpers are cowards and are ready to insinuate and crouch to all wayes of mean and vulgar complyances giving the Belfry leave to swallow up the Church and Chancel too Falsely and vilely flattering the people as if ministeriall power were in them and from them And this some do purely for filthy lucre where there is a miserable dependance for maintenance upon peoples good will and chiefly to prevent any question or scrutiny which may be made by some nimbler sophisters touching their precatious usurped and beggarly authority as Ministers which is truly none This keeps them justly so in aw that those popular Preachers dare not use that just rigor and severity in cases of most apparent crying sins in people which a true Minister having good conscience and good authority knows how seasonably and discreetly yet freely and effectually to use not to his own pomp Empire or advantage but to Christs glory the Churches good and the honour of Religion though it be to his own detriment and danger as St. Chrys stom St. Basil Naz. and other holy Bishops and Presbyters oft did 6. Right Ordination preserves Order and Decorum in the Church and holy administrations also it fortifies the function of a Minister with due respect and decent regard even before men so that neither the persons nor function and office of Ministers are easily to be despised when publike Ordination is duly performed with that solemnity and holy manner as was of old in this and all true Churches and which ought to be so still It likewise conciliates in Christs name and for his sake much love reverence esteem patience and obedience toward Ministers in their places and duty from all true Christians yea and it raiseth a just veneration to duties Mat. 10.40 thus rightly celebrated among the faithfull by those of whom Christ says He that receiveth you receiveth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and him that sent me Constantine the Great alwaies treated the Bishops and true Ministers of the Church with all observance and pious respect Euseb âiâa Cââsl l. 1. c. 35. Mat. 10.14 2 Tim. 4.3 This makes them received in the name of Prophets as Apostles or Angels sent from God valued by true Christians as their right eyes This makes Christ sensible of their inâuries as his and the very dust of their feet becomes a dreadfull witness against wicked and proud rejecters of them who thinking them to be Ministers but of courtesy or civility cannot regard them with conscience and duty But imagine that they may at the pleasure of any passion lust or secuâar design be mocked despised degraded cast off and quite abolished That so their liberty may prefer a heap of teachers of their own raking and making before any of Christs sending and the Churches ordeining Such being most fit for their sinister ends who come in the peoples name and have no higher or nobler Spirit acting all things in their Levelled Ministry by the same irreverent irregular inconstant rude insolent and uncomly Spirit of popularity which is most prevalent in those that are most enemies to and afraid of the true ministeriall power and due ordination Cujus ordinatio despicitur ejus praedicatio contemnitur Ber. Those ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã creations of the people when men list are easily rejected cast off with scorn yet without any sin and shame yea they cannot be regarded or
unworthily or unduly Ordeined are like sleight and ill built ships which endanger the loss of themselves and all those that are embarqued in them and put to Sea with them Miscarriages in the matter of ordination of Ministers are to the unspeakable detriment and dishonour of Religion as unskilfull cowardly or perfidious Officers are to Armies I shall never hope to see the Church flourish or truly reformed untill this Point of right Ordination of Ministers be seriously considered of and duly restored to its Pristine honour and excellency when to Ordein Ministers for the service of the Church Oâortet Ecclesiae Epis ministrum Christi esse formam justitiae sanctimoniae speculum pietalis exemplar veritatis doctorem fidei defensorem Christianorum ducem sponsi amicum cui ille irascitur Deum sibi iratum non hominem sentiat Bern. ad Eng. l. 4. was not to prefer men to a Benefice so much as to recruit Christs regiments to strengthen his forces to fortifie the Church and true Religion with most vigilant Watchmen and valiant Champions whose care was on every side to defend the Flocks of Christ against all enemies which were to be as the Cloud or Pillar of fire both lights and guards to Christians upon all occasions who made conscience to live with to suffer with yea and to dy for the sheep as good Shepheards Such men only are fit to be Ordeined Ministers such Ministers ought to be prayed for highly prised and perserved in the Church by all that desire to transmit any thing of true Religion to Posterity nor was the Church of England or yet is destitute of such Ministers both duly and worthily ordeined to the service of Christ and this Church To abolish this order or to usurp to undue hands or to contemn this Sacred and right Ordination which sends forth able Ministers in Christs way can be no other but a most cruell and detestable sacrilege far worse than that of robbing the Church of its maintenance for such Ministers Cyprian reproves Novatus a factious Presbyter Quod Felicissimum satellitem suum diaconum suum constituit neâ sciente nec permittente me sola sua factione ambitione Acts 8.18 All undue Ordination is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. profanum detestandumque ludibrium Bâs both as preaching and ruling well wich yet is a sin of so deep a dy that no Niter can cleanse it being seldome ever pardoned because seldome repented of so as to make a âust restitution without which repentance is never true Yea for any Laymen in a brutish violence and meerly by Ppular insolency to arrogate this power where it is not or to abrogate it where truly it is is a sin of a more heynous nature than that of Simon Magus was who had so much of civility justice and good manners as to offer money for a part of the miraculous and Ministeriall power It is indeed no other than a Cyclopick fury and unwonted barbarity ill becomming any sober or civilized Christians thus to wrest the keys of Gods house out of the hands of those Stewards with whom the great Master Christ hath specially intrusted them for the right Oeconomy and dispensing of all holy Mysteries and Institutions And when such rude and unruly fellows have thus insolenced these Officers of the Church and bound their hands how comly will it be to see the keyes of the kingdome of heaven Ischyras ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Self-ordeined or only by Rolâthus a Persbyter Hence Athanasius Apol 2. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. Pro. 20.23 managed or committed as it were to Boyes to Pages and Laquies to weak mean mechanick ignorant dissolute and riotous wretches who not conscious to any true Ministeriall power or just authority in the Church can never make conscience of doing any holy Ministerial duty to which they are most unfit never caring how prodigall they are of the truth and honour of Religion of their own or other mens souls It being a sport to such proud and spitefull fools to do wickedly to speak prophanely and to live disorderly in the Church And not content to commit a rape upon true Religion and the holy orders of Christs Church as Absalom did on the house-top before the Sun and all Israel they will further in time justifie the flagitiousness of their villanies as if the zeal they had for true Religion provoked to such outrages these pestilent pandars for errors and all licentiousness with their followers who must presently all turn preachers though never duly Ordeined nor fit ever so to be yea their arrogancy makes them ordeiners too of whom they please to set up to minister to their extravagant lusts and follies which makes them many times much fitter for the flocks or cages than for the pulpits These will surely come at last as much short of the happy effects of true Ministers as they are far from that holy power of right Ordination which I have proved to be from Christ and the Blessed Apostles rightly derived to us by the constant Custome of this and all Churches and this not as a cypher or meer formality but as of sacred Institution so of reall and excellent efficacy and divine vertue in the Church where duly used and applyed Which was that I had to prove against the scurrillous objections of those that seek to despise and destroy the whole Function Ordination and divine authority of the Ministry of this Church Reader the Reason why the Folios of this Book do not follow is because the Copy for Expedition was divided to two Printers Of speciall Gifts of the Spirit pretended beyond Ordinary Ministers ANother great Calumny 3. Calumny or cavill That the Ministers of England have not the Spirit to which their Adversaries pretend highly urged by their Adversaries against the true Ministers of the Church of England whose due and right Ordination I have vindicated to be as Divine so both Necessary and Efficacious is as a forked arrow sharpned with Presumption and Prejudice On the one side an high esteem and confidence which they have of themselves and a very low despicienty of all Ordained Ministers on the other side even in that which is the highest honour of Man or Minister while these Anti-ministeriall Adversaries pretend That the Ordained Ministers have not the Spirit of Christ nor can or ever doe Pray Preach and administer holy things by the Spirit which these new Modellers challenge in such a plenary measure and power to themselves that they justifie their want of ordinary abilities and endowments by their needing none Excusing their not studying or preparing for what they utter by their being specially Inspired Colouring over their well known idlenesse ignorance illiteratenesse and emptinesse by the shews of speciall Illumination sudden Inspirations and spirituall Enablements Which they say they have far beyond any Ordained Ministers And this by the Spirit of Christ which is extraordinarily given to them which suddenly leads them into
with all judicious and sober Christians leave Potius vetera tuta quam periculosa nova sectemur Tac. to passe by the Idoll of their new dressed Spiritually and Sanctity without any admiration devotion or the least salutation Nor can we at all consider private spirits warped from and bent against the publique Spirit of Christ in the Scripture in the practise of the Catholick Church and in the most eminent Christians both ancient and modern We shall content our selves with that plain and pristine holynesse and manifestations of the Spirit True holinesse and true Saints Sanctitas est scientia colendorum deorun Tul. de Nat. D. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Plato in Eutyp which are expressed in the Word deposited in the Church preserved in an holy Ministry exemplified in all true Christians and most eminently in Jesus Christ and his Apostles the great and famous Founders Teachers and Establishers of holy Truths holy Duties holy Sacraments holy Orders and holy Ministry in the Church And this with divine Power and Authority not onely personall but successionall without which the instituted Service and Worship of Christ had ere this failed These being ever since Christs time in all the world imployed in Teaching Gathering Baptizing Governing Feeding Preserving and Perfecting the Body of Christ which is his Church We know not and so we cannot desire other holinesse than that by which we beleived the Truths obeyed the Commands feared the Threatnings observed the Duties preserved the Institutions continued the Orders reverenced the Embassadors joyed in the Graces hoped in the Promises and were led conformably to Christ by that Spirit which Jesus Christ had given to his Church long before these new coyners had graven the stamps or set up their Mintâ We are glad and blesse God when we attain unfaignedly to that Spirit of Holynesse which hears the Word of God with fear and trembling from the mouth of those able and godly Ministers which are the Messengers or Angels sent from Christ by the Churches Ordination Which teacheth us to pray with understanding constancy fervently and comelinesse to receive the pledges of Gods love in Christ from their hands duly consecrating the holy mysteries with reverence preparednesse and thankfulnesse That holinesse which loves with sincerity gives with cheerfulnesse rejoyceth in well doing suffers with patience lives by Faith acts by Charity is holy with order contentednesse and humility without any fury faction or confusion That holinesse which hath nothing in it novell or praeterscripturall nothing fancifull verball tumultuary violent ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Plat. Euâyph Sânctum est quod deo gratum schismaticall disorderly partiall pernicious or injurious to any which chuseth to be a Martyr for Charity and Unity as well as Verity in the Church rather suffering much than giving scandall or making a schism according to the pious and excellent couâsâll of Dionysius to Novatus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Dionys Epâst Auâea apud Eusch l. 6. hist c. 38. That holinesse which is old as the Ancient of dayes reall rationall demonstrative from the Word of God and exemplified in the lives of former Saints Which is meek courteous charitable humble just to all men abounding with all righteousnesse and the fruits of righteousnesse peace and establishment both to private consciences and publique Churches That holinesse which hath nothing in it supercilious calumniating defamatory insolent bitter or burthensome to any true Christians true Churches and true Ministers which know how to reprove what is amisse without rejecting all that is well to reform the crooked without ruining what is right That holinesse which as the Sun-beams is always like it self like the Father of spirituall light uniform and constant in all true Saints in all ages and in all administrations Divine either immediate or mediate as to its rule the Will and Word of God as to its end the glory of God in Gods way as to its Epitome or sum the love of God and its neighbour as to its happy fruits and effects the good of mankinde chiefly of the Church of Christ These have ever been the same for kind however differing in degrees according to the measure which God hath given to his true Saints and servants who never differed from God or the Word or one another as they were holy and spirituall however as men and carnall in part they had their crookednesse unevennesses and dissentings These are the fruits of Gods Spirit this that true Holinesse for which we pray of which we dare not boast These are the Saints whose shadows we count Soveraign whose presence a blessing whose wayes unblameable whose joyes unspeakable whose works most imitable whose conversation most amiable heavenly and divine who chuse rather to suffer than any way to act in cases dubious as to secular dissensions which have much of the Beast somewhat of the Man and little of the true Christian The worth of these Pearls is infinitely beyond some mens counterfeit forgeries whose lustre is chiefly from worldly glory and secular advantages who out of ashes are melted up to the shining and bricklenesse of glasse by the fervour of some spirits who think it enough to glister with novelties and to boast of Inspirations fancying all is reformed which is but changed though much to the worse who are forced to set off themselves by the soil of severe censuring of others Fearing nothing so much as a true light and those discoveries which are made of them by serious and judicious Christians who judge not by mens lips and appearances but by their lives and practises compared to the Word of God For which true Ministers most eminently and impartially holding forth to the discovery of all mens deformities are of all men most abhorred by these pretenders who at a true and full view will not onely not appear to other such gifted men and spirituall as they pretend but they will be ashamed of their arrogance and despite against those good Christians and those true Minisers whom they have so much vilified and contemned The common mistake of proud weak or fancifull men 8. Vulgar mistakes of spirituall influences Luk. 9.55 Impudentiam pâo pietate jactitant quasi eo sanctiores essent quo verbosiores Bern. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Thucid. hist l. 1. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Bas de Sp. s. whose tongues are onely tipt with Sanctity and the name of the Spirit is this That they know not indeed of what Spirit they are as to Profession Nor consider of what Spirit they ought to be as to temper if they will be truly Christs Disciples Contenting themselves with light and airy presumptions in stead of serious and searching examinations of truth comparing themselves with themselves they fancy they grow holyer as they grow bolder in their opinions or actions Hence they are easily flattered into high Imaginations and cheated with strong Presumptions as if some common gifts of knowledge some Scepticall quicknesse some volubility of utterance
to cover with the painâ and palliatings of Christian liberty Which being a pure and spotlesse Virgin the highest beauty which a Christian can here be inamour'd of and which he courts with all modesty purity and respect on earth hoping to have the full fruition of it in heaven disdains above all things to be abused by those bold and filthy ravishers who like the inordinate monsters of Gibeah Judg. 19. will never think their licentious lusts satisfied untill they have killed the Levites concubine Destroying indeed all true Christian liberty which is preserved onely by good order and government both in the Church and State while they prostitute truths duties institutions Ministry and Magistracy to all manner of insolencies and confusion Assistentem in omni munditia Angelum dicebant invâcâbant Hanc esse aiebam perfectam operatiorem sine tremore ri tales abire operationes quas ne nominare quidem fas est Irenae l. 1. cap. 35. de Cainitis Jâdaitis Ophitis as if Christians were never free enough till they were without all sense of sin and shame till they neither feared God nor reverenced man till they had broken all the bands of civill justice and cast away the cords of all religious discipline from them as the Cainites Judaites Ophites Adamites and others of old Which most inordinate liberty is no more to be enjoyed or desired by any good Christian than that of the Demoniack who being oft bound with chaines and fetters Luk. 8.29 yet brake them all and was driven of the Devill into deserts among the graves often dashing him against the stones and casting him into fire and water Such will be the sad fate of every Christian Church and State which either affects or tolerates any such impious fanatick unlawfull and unholy liberties contrary to that purity equity order and decency which is necessary to that religion which they professe as Christian Therefore no wonder if the Lord by his word and his true Ministers daily rebukes this unclean spirit and seeks to cast out of this Church such an untamable Divell which hath already got too much possession in many mens mindes Act. 19.27 who are prone to deifie every Diana as an image come downe from heaven if it be but set up in the silvershrine of this popular goddesse Liberty which of all puppetly Idols lately consecrated to vulgar adoration I can least of all Idolize as that which I see to have least of divinity or humanity in it either as to piety equity purity or charity Yet is no man a more unfained servant and votary of that true and divine Liberty which becomes Christians which preserves truth peace order and holinesse among men both in private and publique regards both in Church and State and in this I wish all men my rivalls in the ambition and sharers with me in the fruition which will then be most when we get our hearts most freed from that heavy bondage wherewith errour pride passion self-seeking and the like cruell task-masters under the great oppressing Pharaoh Aegyptiaca est illa servitus sub jugo Pharaonis Diaboli fiunt lutea opera terrena sordida dissoluta ab ipso dantur paleae i. e. leves malae cogitationes quae delectatione accenduntur inde actione coquuntur lateres consuerudine indurantur Ber. p. Ser. 34. Extremà est dementiae in infima servitââe vilissima captivitate de libertate gloriari quasi cloacarum fordibus immersus totus foedus inquinatus de pigmentisââuis fragrantia juctitâres Erasm the Divell doe seek to enslave the soules and consciences of men by so much the baser slavery by how much they fancy their slavery to be liberty their freedom to sin to be that freedome from sin which Christ hath purchased which dangerous mistake makes them love their bondage to bore their eares and to be most offended with those who seek to shew them their desperate errors and divellish thraldom which is the greatest severity of divine vengeance in this world upon men by giving them over to Satan or up to their own hearts lusts Yet this false and damnable liberty is by some men earnestly contended for and imperiously claimed in the way of publique toleration 7 Some mens impudent demand of an intolerable toleration that they or any men may professe as to Religion what they list being prone through pride and ignorance to think that no opinion they hold or practise they doe is irreligious profane blasphemous or intolerable nor ought by any just severity or penalty bee restrained or punished Carpocraâiani Valentiniani et Gnostici c. portentosas quasque libidines non licitas tanâam statuebant sed tanquam gradus aliquos quibus in coelum ascendatur Iren. l. 1. Gratâ revigilantibus ââiâ ea molestia quae non patiââ ãâã tanquam mortifeâd sââno veternoso morbo in terire Aust Whereas Christians truly blessed with tender Consciences and meeknesse of wisdome are most willing to be kept within Christs bounds and loathest to take any liberty either in opinion or manners beyond what in the truth of the Word or in charity to the publique peace and order is permitted Humble knowledge makes Christians most tractable yea and thankfull to those either Ministers or Magistrates whose love and fidelity to them will least tolerate any error or sin in them without reproof and just restraint Others whom ignorance makes proud and pride erroneous and both unruly are ready to esteem all they hold or vent or dare to act especially under colour of religion for in civill affaires they are afraid of the sword to be so commendable at least tolerable that they merit Tunc ei plârenetico utilissimus misericordissimus cum et adverâissimâs molestissimus videtur Aust Ep 48. de coere Haeret. if not concurrence and approbation from all men yet at least coânivence and toleration nor may they be touched or curbed by any authority in Church or State be their extravagancies never so pernicious and blasphemous but presently they make huge outcryes of persecution as if all were persecutors who helped to ââinde a mad man or to put a roaring drunkard into the cage which measure of healing them is best both for them and for others too and is not to be used to any but those that are truly such disorderly and distempered spirits I conceive it most clear and certain both in right Reason and true Religion that the prudence piety and charity of Governors in Church and State ought to move in that middleway between tolerating all differences and none in matters of Religion wherein men are variously to be considered according to that profession which they own and make of Religion Sure none are to be tolerated in blaspheming or insolencing that religion which is established by publique consent or laws ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Rom. 2.1 Tit. 3.11 and which they professe in common with others being in
made the beauty of his works to consist and to be evident in those distinctions which he hath set upon every thing both in the species and individuall God I say cannot be displeased to see mankinde on whom is the beauty of Reason or Christians on whom is the beauty of Religion to use such order distinction and decency in all things which becomes them both as men and Christians after the examples of the Apostles and Christ himself Matth. 9 35. who went about all the Cities and Villages teaching in their Synagogues and preaching the Gospell of the Kingdome which also befits and adorns Christians as to extern profession which is all that appears of any mens devotion or Religion to the eye of man setting forth in comely sort that duty relation and service which we publiquely professe to owe and pay to God who abhors sordidnesse and confusion as much as profane vastators love it Necessity indeed admits no curiosity of place nor affects any elegancy Aegrotantium amicorum sordes toleramus non item valentium Sidon but excuseth that which in plenty and freedome is esteemed sordidnesse and sluttishnesse Religion requires externally no more than God hath given of extern power and opportunity where these are wanting and by providence denyed a sick bed a Barn a Lyons den a Dungeon a Whales belly is as a Temple or Church consecrated by the holy duties which any devout soul there performs to God But as the Church of Christ considered in its extern communion or profession is visible and Christians are exemplary to each other and to the world it is warrant enough for Christians to build and to set apart to those publique holy duties some peculiar places upon Gods and the Churches account which grant we have in that great Charter and principle of Church policy which like a common rule 1 Cor. 14.40 measures all things of extern sociall Religion Let all things be done decently and in order Both which fall not properly under the judgement of Religion but of Reason not of Scripture but of Nature not of piety but policy or society nor need we other command to doe them than the judgement and consent or custome of wise and holy men which we have for this use of locall Churches thus peculiarly applyed to holy services ever since Christians had either ability to build them or liberty to use them which is at least 1400 years agoe If humane or Romish superstition used or affected or opined any thing in consecrating Churches which is beyond true reason and sound Religion yet we do not think that to be a Leprosie sticking so to the wals of the buildings that they must be scraped all over or pulled down else they can't be cleansed No But as places are not any more than times capable of any essentiall gratious or inherent holynesse which is onely in God Angels or Men so neither are they capable of inherent unholinesse The superstition is weak on either side weighs little but the worst is on this side to which these men so incline which tends more to profanenesse supinenesse and slovenlinesse in the outward garb of Religion which is not either so Cynical Sacerdoti maxime convenit ornare Dei templum decore congruo Amb. off l. 1. c. 21. or so tetricall as these men would make it What ever there is reall or imaginary of Superstition in the places or rather in mens fancies of them who possibly ascribe too much to them it will as easily recede and quit them when they come to be consecrated by the Churches reall performing of holy services or publique religious duties in them as dreams doe vanish when one awakes or as the dark shadowes of the night depart from bodies when the Sun comes to shine on them or into them if these poore objectors mindes and spirits could as soone be freed from those profane superstitious and uncharitable tinctures with which they are as with a jaundise deeply infected against those places and against those that use them with the decency becoming duties done to the Majesty of God and in the presence of the Church of Christ as those places justly called Churches may be freed from all misapprehensions of their name of their dedication If the former were as easie as the latter both locall and rationall materiall and mentall Churches both places and persons might long stand and flourish Psal 74.6 Both which some furies of our times seek utterly to break down and demolish that there may be neither Christian Congregations nor decent Communion in any publique place beyond the beauty of a Barn or Stable But these men have so much tinder and Gunpowder in them against Ministers 22. Answer to other quarrels against Ministers publique duties that whatever they enjoy say use or doe in their function be it never so innocent and decent yet they kindle to some offensive sparkes or coales and flames against them As if all the Ministers of this Church knew not what to doe as they should till these new masters undertook to School and Catechise them If any Minister prayes publiquely with that gravity understanding and constancy either for matter words or method which best becomes a poore sinfull mortall on earth when he speaks to the God of heaven It is they say but a form and a stinting of the Spirit If they preach with judgement weight exactnesse and demonstration of truth it is not by the Spirit but of study and learning If they read the Scripture 't is but a dead letter and meer lip-labour If they celebrate the Sacraments with that wisdome reverence and decency which becomes those holy mysteries they quarrell at the place or time or gesture or company or ceremonies used Not considering that Ceremonies in Religion are like hair ornaments though not essentials and ought to be neither too long lest they hide and obscure it nor too short lest they leave it naked and deformed Since the end and use of them is no more but to set forth piety with the greater comelinesse and auguster majesty to men If they name any Apostle Evangelist or other Christian of undoubted sanctity with the Epithet of Saint they are so scared with the thought of the Popes canonizing Saints that they start at the very name so used as if it were an unsanctified title and not to be applyed to the memory of the just which is blessed but onely arrogated to some persons living who frequently and ambitiously call themselves and their party 2 Tim. 1.13 The Saints If they use the ancient Doxology giving glory to the Father Son and holy Ghost which all Churches Greek and Latin did the Socinian and Arian Ears of some men are highly offended at it as if Christians must ask them leave to own the holy Trinity and to give solemne publique glory to the Creator Saviour and sanctifying Comforter of the Church If Ministers use those wholesome forms of sound words which are
Vipers Act. 28.5 which out of the fire of some mens spirits now seise upon them with poysonous calumnies of factious covetous seditious c. If there be still upon the true and able Ministers of England those Characters of divine Authority those gifts of the holy Ghost in all good understanding knowledge utterance zeal courage industry and constancy which fits them with power for that holy function and carries them through it with all fidelity and patience not only to serve but to suffer for the Lord Jesus and his Church If they have been just Stewards and faithfull dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ to his houshold this Church how can they without infinite rudenesse and unchristian insolence be shamefully used and driven out of their places and Offices If they have been spirituall fathers to many soules and as tender mothers to them not disdaining to bear with the manners of childish Christians in many places who turned their respect into peevishnesse and their love into scorn how unnaturall will it be for Christians to become patricides murtherers of their spirituall fathers to whom in some sense they owe more Legatis vim aut âontumâliam inferre nefas Reg. Iur. Jus Legatorum cum hominum praesidio munitum tum etiam divino juâe est vallatum Cic. de Arus resp than to their naturall If Ministers be Embassadors they ought not to be violated by the Law of Nations behaving themselves as becomes the honour of their Embassy and sender how much more if from God sent by Christ in his and his Fathers Name and that with a message of Peace and reconciliation from heaven to poore sinners The greatest and proudest of them being but wormes meat may not safely despise injure or turn away the least of the servants and Messengers of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ which speak in his Name that is both his Truth and by his Authority which can be no where else in any ordinary Ministry but in those who are dayly ordained in this holy descent and succession If they have been watchfull Shepheards over their severall flocks for good and not for evill how barbarous must it be for Sheep to turn Wolves and devoure those Pastors who have fed them as Jacob did Labans flocks Gen. 31.40 with all care and diligence day and night leading them by the purest waters and in the safest pastures Nor is there now any more cause to change the wages of these Shepheards of soules which is alwayes like to be to their losse than covetous Laban had against honest Jacob. If none other can authoritatively and as of Office and duty in the name and by the mission of Christ bring the message of peace and reconciliation to sinners which hath besides the Word sacred and mysterious seales and other holy actions of power and authority to be performed by peculiar fit and appointed Ministers how beautifull ought their feet to be and their steps welcome Rom. 10.15 which flow with truth and peace grace and mercy How farre should they be from being trodden under the feet of proud covetous and envious men who first casting dirt in their faces after with much dust and clamour seek to stir up not onely the people Act. 21.36 but the powers against them as if they were burthens of the earth not fit to live But wisdome is justified of her children Matth. 11.19 I cannot be so injurious to my countrey and countreymen 5. Ministers expect better things from good Christians as to think that to persons of such worth standing in such relations between God and man invested with so holy authority managing it with such divine power and efficacy crowned with so great successes recommended to all worthy Christians with so many publique merits both to Church and State as the true and duely ordained Ministers of the Church of England are either men of purity or of power can be so wanting to or so shrink from their duty to God their love to Christ their zeal for the reformed Religion their care of their countrey of their posterity and of their owne soules as not to dare to speak or appear for them or not to endeavour in all fair wayes to improve the interest they have in the publique by which to preserve so many good and righteous persons as to mans tribunall from poverty contempt and ruine yea to preserve themselves and their dearest relations from most irreligious infamy of ingratefull deserting and oppressing so deserving men Men cannot but be unholy that can be so unthankefull 2 Tim. 3.2 And if Ingratitude be in all other relations and merits among men justly esteemed as the most detestable disease and inhumane deformity in the soul shall it onely seem beauty health and a commendable quality when it is offered by Christians to their Ministers Such as may with equall modesty and truth plead their own innocency and protest against the immanity of their enemies malice For setting aside the idlenesse and pragmatick vanity of some Ministers in later and more licentious times whose either insufficiency or lazynesse or inordinate activity or abject popularity hath made them the staine and shame of their holy function and whose burthen is too heavy for my pen to discharge them of if we looke upon those learned laborious sober and venerable Ministers who have been and still are the glory and crown of their function of this Church and Nation in their severall degrees and stations * Godly Ministers not injurious but meritorious to the publique I may lowdly proclaim with Samuel this protestation in their behalf Behold the * 1 Sam. 12.3 Ministers of the Lord and of this Church O you unthankefull Christians and causlesse enemies witnesse against them before the Lord and before his people whose Oxe or Asse have they taken whom have they defrauded or oppressed whose hurt or damage have they procured whose good have not they studyed and endeavoured whose evill of sin or misery have they not pitied and sought to relieve what is the injury for which so desolating a vengeance must passe upon them and their whole function What is the blasphemy against God or man for which these Naboths must lose their lives 1 King 21. and livelyhoods wherein have they deserved so ill of former or later ages that they should be so used as Ahab commanded of Micaiah and the Jews did to Jeremiah to be cast into prisons into sordid and obscure restraints or to be exposed to Mendicant liberty for to be fed onely with the bread and water of affliction if they can obtain so much What necessary truth of God have they detained in unrighteousnesse what error have they broached revived or maintained what superstition have they nourished what licentiousnesse in sin have they incouraged what true Christian liberty which alwayes containes it selfe in bounds of Gods and mans laws have they denyed to or defrauded the people of unlesse all things of publique
of England which I have proved to be the onely true succession of divine authority or else wholly to remove it and to set Religion upon some other basis For neither the reformed Religion nor its Ministry can either long or safely or comfortably stand in so tottering and mouldering a posture like the wals of some great old fabrick or ruinous Cathedrall swelling out and threatning to fall It were better to take it down than to hazard its dangerous breakings and precipitious tumblings Scratches in Religion doe soon fester and easily turn to Gangrenes which must either be speedily healed or discreetly cut off It were high proesumption for one to advise who professeth his ignorance in State Policies yet common prudence shewes this to be the high way and most compendious passe to publique peace Namely 1. The setling of the reformed Religion in this Church of England and its publique Ministry in comely government competent maintenance and holy succession 2. The confirming and if need be explaining or enlarging the Articles of the Church of England in the main fundamentals of Religion as Christian and reformed both in things to be believed and practised 3. The restoring of that holy power and ancient exercise of Discipline to the Church both in privater Congregations and in publique associations which may both carry on true knowledge piety and charity in Ministers and people Also recover the sacred Ordinances of Christ and publique duties of Religion to their primitive purity and dignity which have been infinitely abased by Laymens policies Ministers negligences and vulgar insolencies These would keep a fair course and form of Christian peace and holinesse in the publique a midst lesser differences and no lesse satisfie than oblige every sober minded Christian whose good examples have great influence on the generality of people But if the vulgar rudenesse deformity and inconsistency be once taught by being tolerated to slight and scorn their Ministers and in them all holy things and true Religion Either beleiving as they are prone to doe that their Ministers are not invested by any due and divine authority in that Office and Ministry any more than themselves are nor are assisted by any speciall grace and blessing from God if they suspect that civill Powers doe set Divines at nought and regard them no more than as so many pretenders ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Naz. Celeusio judici None can make conscience of humane laws who disregards divine falsaries and intruders How willingly will the mindes of common people whom nothing but Conscience or the Sword keepes in aw and order embrace any thing that makes towards laxation of duty to God and observance to men No water is more easily diffused or more naturally strives by its fluid nature to overbear what ever bounds pen it up or restrain it from wasting it self Nor are such tempers slack where occasion tempts them to revenge by their riots all former restraints cast upon them by any men that sought to set limits either of power or piety to their lusts and passions To avoid which rude and irreligious extravagancies of common people 14. Christian Ministers of all merit most publique protection and favour all * wise Governours have still countenanced the publique exercises of that Religion which they owned and established as best * Rex sacrificiis Templis omni cultus Deorum moribus legibus praeerat Pomp. Laet. de mag Rom. Apud Aegyptios ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Stâb in Reg. So Plato ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Adding all civill reputation favour and authority to the use of it and chiefly to those who were its prime professors and Ministers who were ever * Caesar âel Gal. l. 6. Magno apud eos sunt honore Druides Nam fere de omnibus controversiis publicis privatisque constituunt Plaut Rudent Quis homo est tanta confidentia Qui sacerdotem audeat violare At magno cum malo suo fecit herclè Liv. dec 1. l. 2. Sacrificus Rex sacrorum dicebatur Constantine the Great alwayes received the Orthodox and godly Bishops and Presbyters with all respect and veneration Euseb in vita Const Ministry of the Gospell was called Dei ficus ordo Amb. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Clem. Al. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 1. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Naz. or 1. Reverenda ipsis Angeliââs spiritibus Ministeriâ Ber. Columna Ecclesiae Id. Honor sacerdotii firmamentum imperii Tacit. de Judaeis hist 4. unviolable in their publique officiatings generally esteemed as sacred both for the protection they had from men and the institution from divine power and wisdome Which policy was not more wisely carryed in all false and feigned religions than justly and most conscientiously to be observed as it ever hath been by all worthy and noble minded Christians either Princes or States in that which we hold to be and professe as the onely true Christian and reformed Religion whose Oracles Doctrines institutes offices authority and ministery have their originall not from man but from the onely wise and true God who first sent his Prophets and servants after that his Son the Lord Jesus Christ to be not onely a fulfiller and establesher but also a Preacher of righteousnesse to mankinde whose preaching Prophetick or Ministeriall office as to extern and visible administrations the holy order and due succession of Ministers doe supply and in the same power succeed by his speciall mission and appointment in the Church Whose most sacred Mysteries for infinite wisdome for inestimable mercy for unparalleld love for holy precepts for divine examples for precious promises for ancient and undoubted Prophesies for exact fulfillings for apt institutions for sutable Ministry for beautifull order for blessed comfort for sweet peace and mutuall charity which are or ought to be among the true professors of it infinitely exceeds all the wisdome designes desires and thoughts of all those that ever pretended to any Philosophy Religion vertue sanctity or felicity All which come far short as of the inward comfort of mens consciences so of that outward beauty peace and order which doe most blesse humane societies which bonds of publick tranquillity all true and unpragmatick Ministers of the Gospell of peace doe most effectually lay in Christs Name upon men In which regard of all ranks of men and orders they deserve best of mankinde where ever they live while they keep within those Evangelicall bounds that holy and humble temper which becones them and which is proper to the Spirit of the Gospell Constantine the Great writes Euseb Eccl. hist l. 10. c. 5. The greatest safety or danger to any State comes by Religion if the reverence of it be weakned and honour abated dangers attend if by Lawes and authority it be setled and preserved great blessings follow c. So that no men seem more to fight against their own peace than those that suffer the ancient Ministry and true Ministers of Christ to be destroyed or disregarded
obeying of this holy Gospell though applyed to them in the best and winningest matter that humane abilities can attaine Nature and Reason teach there is a God and no miracle was ever wrought to convert Atheists but the mystery of Salvation by Jesus Christ crucified is by no light of nature or reason attainable and needed both miracles at the first planting and a constant Ministry for the continuing of it in the world If then men be naturally so much aliens from the life of God and so much enemies to the crosse of Christ it is not like they will ever be so good natured as seriously to undertake the constant taske care and toile of preaching to others especially when they have no call to it but their owne or others pleasure no conscience of it as a divine Office and duty no promise or hope of divine assistance or blessing in it no thankes for it or benefit by it either from God or man Alas these warm fits and gleames of novelty curiosity popularity pride wantonnesse self-opinion and self-seeking which seem to be in some men who count themselves gifted prophetick specially cald The valour of cowards and the vertues of hypocrites are in the eyes of their Spectators and inspired these will soon damp to coldnesse and deadnesse when once either their design which is bad or their weaknesse which is great or their folly which is grosse shall be * 2. Tim. 3.9 manifest to themselves and to others as it is already to very many good Christians who finde that all the frolick and activity of those men is but helping forward the pragmatick policies of those who study to ruine this and all reformed Churches For if once true and able Ministers be cryed down cast out and cut off as to right succession the true Religion as Christian and reformed too cannot without a miracle continue but must needs be overrunne with brutish ignorance damnable errours and barbarous manners which are already prevailed much in many places partly for want of able Ministers and partly by the peoples supine neglect of publique duties and despising their true Ministers under pretence of engraffing to new bodies and adhering to new gifted Teachers and Conventicles which we find breed up few or none in knowledge or piety but onely transplant proficients out of other mens labours and nurseries the mean time the younger sort generally runne out to ignorance and the elder to what liberties they most affect for want of that setled Ministry order and government which ought in Religion and reason of State to be both established and incouraged For my owne particular 19. The Authors integrity I have obtained all I designed by this defense if I may but put all excellent Christians and those chiefly whom it most concerns in minde of that which I thinke they cannot forget or neglect without great imprudence as well as sin nor will any man be excuseable who doth not with his best endeavours promote it No private ends or sinister passion of envy covetousnesse or ambition no fear or contempt of any mân hath any ingrediency in this piece Animi directa simplicitas satis se ipsa commendat Amb. however in other things no man is more prone to discover how weak and sinfull a creature he is without Gods grace I have nothing of private interest for profit or honor to crave or expect from great or good men Indeed they have little or nothing left to tempt men with I have more then I can merit or well account for yea I have enough through the bounty of God Satis habeo si res meae nec mihi pudori nec cuiquaum onâri fârent Hortalus apud Tacit. An. 4. and the blessing of one to me Inestimable Jewell whose virtuous lustre both beautifies and enricheth my life to an honorable competency and a most happy tranquillity whose every way most over-meriting merits have deserved as much as can be to be consecrated by my pen to an eternity of gratitude and honour I have seen so more than enough of the worlds vanity madnesse and misery that I doe not desire any thing more than to spend the remainder of my life in a contented privacy to the glory of God the honour of this Church and the welfare of posterity If I were offered the choice of all wishes and the fulfilling of them in this world I would desire nothing next that justice which is the conservatrix of all civill peace and society but this That such as are able would so far consider the honour of God and the welfare of the Church of England as to become Patrons and incouragers of good learning and the reformed Religion and to this purpose that they would establish that holy Discipline right order ancient government and divine succession of able Ministers which ought to be in the Church of Christ In reference to the generall function and fraternity of whom I cannot but intreat and offer thus much at least as I have done which cannot be to any good mans detriment or the Publiques injury For it is not a pleading for a restitution of those honours lands jurisdictions and dignities which were by pious donation and devout lawes appropriated to that profession I know how vain and unseasonable a motion it were to crave the restoring of honors goods and estates of those who are now almost reduced to petition for their liberties and lives It is nobler since God will have it so for Clergy men to want those blessings with content than to enjoy them with so much envy and anger as in this age seems inseparable from Bishops and Ministers in any worldly prosperity Nor is it a challenging of those immunities Primum Ecclesia Dei jura atque immunitares sum habeto inter Leges Edgari and priviledges which the lawes Imperiall and Nationall every where among Christians indulged to the Clergy we must learn to think it freedom enough if we may have leave but to preach and practise the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is our duty and dignity we must esteeme it a great priviledge now to be but exempted from vulgar rivalry and mechanick insolency which dares not onely to intrude into Ministers Pulpits but to pull them out by unheard of outrages not suffering the Church to be their Sanctuary We claim not exemption from civill Magistrates Court-censures and jurisdictions as was of old in many cases our aim is so to doe all things as shall feare no men to be spectators nor our enemies to be our judges Nor can we have so full and desirable a revenge on our enemies as to doe well who are never more sory than to see any true Minister live unblameably and commendably We dare not crave to be eased of publique taxes either in whole or in part Notwithstanding for the most part our charges are great our livings small and but for life yea and but the wages for our war and worke while we
fallacious or pernicious novelties to which the breath of some politick or passionate spirits had raised them so much above the ordinary mark of true Christian religion as to drown or threaten to carry away all those many happy enjoyments of truth peace order government and Ministry which formerly they enjoyed Not wholly it may be without but yet with fewer and more tolerable grievances which humble Christians ought to look upon in any setled Church and State rather as exercises of their patience duty and charity than as oppressions of their spirits Knowing that impatience usually punisheth it self by applying remedies sharper than the sufferings easily and hastily running down the hill as from health to sicknesse from peace to war from good to bad from bad to worse but very slowly returning from evill to good or recovering up the hill from worse to better It is true the Ministers of the Church of England of all degrees seem now to have an harder part to act for their honor and wisdome than ever they had under any Rulers professing to be Christian and reformed But they may not therefore weakly disclaim or meanly desert their Ordination and holy function nor may they despair of Gods if they have not mans protection who can soon make their very enemies to be at peace with them and stir up many friends unexpectedly for them It may be through the Lords mercy this winters floud shall be for their mendment or fertility and not for their utter vastation and ruine This fire shall not consume them but refine them this winnowing will be their purging and this shaking their setling As oppositions of old gave the greatest confirmations and polishings to those Truths which were most exercised with the hammer or file of heriticall pravity or schismaticall fury If it be the mending and not the ending the reformation and not the extirpation of Ministers which their severe censurers and opposers seek for why should not time of triall be given and all honest industry used to improve these well grown and flourishing fig trees before they be hewed down and stubbed up which heretofore have not been either barren or unfruitfull to God and man If either Papall or Anabaptisticall and Levelling enemies must at length after severall windings and turnings be gratified with their utter ruine and destruction which God forbid yet while Ministers have leave and liberty to pray to preach to print to doe well and worthily God forbid they should so farre injure God good men and so good a cause as not Christianly to endeavour its defence which at worst is to be done by comely suffering And who knows but that when these witnesses both against superstition and confusion in the Church shall seem to be slain cast out and buryed they may live again to the astonishment both of friends and enemies But if the sins of this Nation and the decrees of divine Justice doe indeed hasten an utter overthrow here of the reformed Ministry and the reformed Religion If Ministers of the ancient Ordination lawfull heirs of the true Apostolick succession are therefore accounted as sheep for the slaughter because they are better fed and better bred than others of leaner soules and meaner spirits If they are therefore to the men of this world as a savour of death unto death because they hold forth the Word of Truth and Life to the just reproach of a lying dying and self-destroying generation If we must at last perish and fall with our whole function and fraternity after all our studies charges labours and sufferings Yet it is fit some of us and the more the better lest our silence may argue guilt give the world both at present and in after ages some account why and how in so learned valiant wise and religious a Nation as this of England hath been wee as Ministers have stood so long what pious frauds and holy arts we had whereby to impose so many hundreds of years upon so many wise Princes so many venerable Parliaments so many pious professors of Christian and reformed Religion And lastly upon so quick and high spirited a people as these of England generally are neither so grosse as to be easily deluded nor so base as patiently to suffer themselves in so high a nature to be abused That so at least if the world can lesse discern for what cause the Ministry and Ministers are now to be destroyed they may see upon what grounds of piety or policy they were so long preserved in peace plenty and honour And for what reasons they now seek as their pious predecessors did to maintain not their persons so much as their office and function in its due order and authority that so they might have transmitted it in an holy and unblameable succession to posterity as that which in their consciences they verily think to be a most divine and Christian Institution Beneficiall for the good of the Church and of all mankinde which in former ages was ever esteemed the glory and blessing of this or any other Nation The setter forth of the light wisdome power and love of the eternall God in his Son Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinners and which thousands of Christians in all ages and places have experienced and approved to be to their soules the Savour of life unto life the mighty power of God to salvation The Author easily observes the present face of our heavens which are much darkned by those black and lowring clouds which chiefly hang over constant true and faithfull Ministers heads menacing them above any rank or calling of men Nor is he ignorant of the touchinesse and roughnesse the jealousies and timorousnesse of many mens spirits in these times whose highest pretentions to piety are set forth either by fierce oppositions against the Ministry or by such a weak pleading for and wary owning of their succession and ordination their calling and persons as ra-rather invites opposition contempt and insolency than any way gives credit or countenance to them and their function whose remaining branches of Presbytery will hardly thrive by the watering of those hands which have been and are destroyers of its root the Primitive Apostolicall Episcopacy they are pitifull defenders of that who are passionate opposers of this who of all men have given the greatest advantages to those that seek to abrogate the whole function and calling or to arrogate it to vulgar ignorance and impudence The grim and sad aspect on all hands upon Ministers makes the Authour out of charity to himself and others as willing to give a fair account of his profession so loath to offend any sober and judicious Reader or to contract the enmity of any others of ruder tempers by any rash stroke or inconsiderate dash of his pen to which he may be subject and for which he begs pardon both of God and man if any have escaped which yet may be so far venial as its innocent sharpnesse aims at no mens person but onely
of straying backsliding and Apostatizing times wherein many seek to weary God his Ministers and all men but themselves with their variating wickednesse The weight and worth of this great Subject the Ministry of this and so of all true Churches in which as in Noahs Ark all that we call Religion all that is sacred Christian and reformed is deposited and embarqued would have indeed required a more proportionate assertor who might out of the good treasure of his heart have given more strength and ornament to so divine and necessary an Institution But who sees not the methods and choices of Gods wisedome and power who oft-times makes his light and glory to shine clearest through the darkest Lanternes He appears in a bush when he purposed the great redemption of his Church out of Egypt The skilfull hand of God can write as well with a Goose quill as with a Swans or Eagles The self-demonstrating beams of sacred Truths need no borrowed reflexions By soft and easie breathings the Lord hath oft dispelled the grossest fogs and blindest mists which rose in his Church His fair and most orient pearles are frequently found in rough and unpolished shels The excellency of his heavenly Treasure and power doth best appeare in earthen vessels The plain and main Truths of Christian Religion among which this of an holy ordained Ministry is one like soverain and victorious Beauties lose nothing by the meannesse of their dresse or unaccuratenesse of their habit it is enough if they can but freely appeare like themselves This fashion of writing by way of Apology which requires a diffused and pathetick stile was indeed judged the best and fittest as for the Subject and the times so also for this Author considering the little leisure the short time the great variety of other businesse and distractions upon him besides the terror and precipitancy of the ruine daily threatning the Ministry and Ministers if God by the justice wisdome and piety of some men did not defend them and divert that mischief For the preventing of which some others have wrote in vindication of the Ministry after a more succinct and Syllogistick way of argumentation But the Antiministeriall disease having seised not so much the heads as the hearts of men and depraved affections having swerved many from the judgements it was thought necessary to apply some remedy at once to both setting Christians in the Truth and exciting them to such a love of it and zeal to it as may best encounter the heady boldnesse of those which oppose it If the Authour have in this larger way done any thing worthy so excellent a Subject it must be first imputed to Gods gracious assistance and the blessing of prayers more than of studies wherein it may be the charitable flames of many worthy Christians have greatly helped his infirmities Next it must be ascribed to the sacrednesse dignity and amplenesse of the matter or Subject handled which as Orators of old observed like rich soile and good ground raiseth to generous productions the weaker spirits of any thing sown or planted in them It is true the Authors ambition is in nothing more than to excell in the discharge of his duty as a Minister of this Church that he might finish his course with joy and also to have equalled with height of abilities and industry the excellency of this Cause which is of so high concernment to the glory of God to the honour of his Saviour to the salvation of so many soules to the happinesse of this Church to the blessing of this Nation to the preservation of so many worthy men his Fathers and Brethren of the Ministry who make conscience not onely to discharge their duty but also to preserve the divine authority and holy succession of their heavenly calling as Christian Ministers whom the blessing of God hath as much honored and confirrmed in this Church of England as in any other under heaven having made them in every place where they were planted as the trees of knowledge and of life bringing the desolate and barren wildernesses to become as the garden of God by their good husbandry their learned and godly industry which meriteth all incouragement and protection of all good men to whose vindication and assistance if this Author hath come in either too late or too weak it will be his great grief And if he have not been able to adde any strength or honor to this cause which some others before him have either fairly touched or somewhat fully handled yet he may adde to the number of the witnesses who have or shall give testimony to this great Truth holy Order and happy Institution of Jesus Christ who must not cease to prophecy though they be clothed in sack cloth Revel 11.3 To conclude Nothing seemed in honor and conscience to him more vile and uncomely than to see this Reformed Church of England which hath brought up so many learned and valiant sons which lately was so much praised and extolled by them in her prosperity to be now so much deserted by many of her children both Ministers and others in this day of her great agony and calamity wherein ignorant mechanick and meritlesse spirits think it not enough to endeavour to strip her of her ornaments to rob her of her garments to deprive her of her dowry to divorce her from her best friends and faithfullest servants but they must also cast dirt in her face spitefully scratching her wanonly rending her cruelly wounding her and most scornfully destroying her as if she were an impure prostitute a most abhorred Adulteresse when indeed shee was and is a fair Daughter of heaven and the fruitfull Mother of us all Iustly esteemed by all learned sober and godly men both at home and abroad as wise grave chast and venerable a Matron as any in all the Christian or reformed world Nor doth shee cease to be comely though she be now black and scorched There appeares beauty amidst her ashes and lovelinesse amidst her scratches the Spirit of glory shines through her Sackcloth still meriting and therefore not despairing of the love favour pity and protection of all worthy persons who are considerable either for counsel or in power and commendable either for honesty or Religion Suffering indignities and dayly fearing more from none but those that are enemies as to all learning order and religion so to all honesty modesty and humanity Her sad deplorable fate and by such men threatned if this Author cannot hinder or help to recover yet he shall with Jeremie heartily pity deeply lament and most passionately pray for her and her children so long as he lives as thou wilt O Christian and compassionate Reader if thou beest of his minde who bids thee Farewell HIERASPISTES OR A DEFENCE BY WAY OF APOLOGY FOR THE Ministry and Ministers OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Humbly Presented To the Consciences of all those that excel in Virtue I Am neither afraid 1. The Address Dan. 6.3 nor
dubious in their rise and prone to be exorbitant in their progress and most injurious in their success have most of Love Patience and Christian Charity which are indisputably commendable in the Christian Psal 15.4 though they be to the mans own hinderance It will not be asked of Ministers of the Gospel at the last account who fought and slew and spoiled c. but who fasted and prayed and mourned for the sins and judgements on the Nation and Church nor will they easily be found in Gods Book of Martyrs who died upon disputable quarrels in Civil Wars while they neglected the indisputable duty of their Office and Ministery Levit. 10.19 Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed Incongruam non probat mixturam Deus bonitate simplicissimus simplicitate optimus August Ministers never reap less crops of love or respect from men than when they sow that forbidden mislane the Tares and Cockle of passionate novelties unproved opinions and civil dissentions among the seeds of Religion and essays of Reformation From which mixtures those Ministers whose gravity wisdom and humility have most withheld or soonest withdrawn their hearts and hands are the likeliest men by their piety moderation patience and constancy in holy and justifiable ways to recover and restore the dignity of their Calling Who in the midst of those great and wide inrodes which have much broken down the fence and occasioned the letting in all sorts of wilde beasts upon the Lords Vineyard of this Church while others like dead stakes formerly making a great shew in the hedg are found rotten weak and unsound These are evidenced to all true Christians to be as living standards well rooted in their pious principles and not easily removed from that stedfastness and meekness of their practises in ways of judicious constancy which they have hitherto with patience maintained in the midst of those tempests which have not so utterly overwhelmed them but that in many places they appear fixed and unmoved in their pious integrity and patient charity which makes them looked upon with some eye of pity love and honor by all ingenuous spectators while yet they generally reflect with scorn and laughter on many others who in the publick storm thought themselves gallant sailers and skilful steersmen yet having made great waste of their patience obedience and discretion they seem also much crackt in their conscience credit and reputation For seeking inconsiderately to pull down or to possess themselves of others Cabins who as Pilots had a long time safely steered the Ship they have almost split and sunk the whole Vessel wherein they and others were embarqued Nor will they any way be able to buoy it up again or stop the daily increasing and threatning leaks till forsaking those soft and shameful compliances with factious novelties and immoderate ways of vulgar reformings they return to that primitive firmness and indisputable simplicity of the Antient which were the putest and best formed Churches both as to Doctrine Discipline and Government which no learned and unpassionate man needs go far to finde out either in Scripture paterns or in the Churches after-imitation by which the dignity of the Ministry and Holy Mysteries of the Gospel always preserved themselves amidst the hottest persecutions both in the love and obedience of all sound and sober Christians So that in my judgement who know how hard it is to play an after-game in point of Reputation and who have no design but a Publick and Common good writing thus freely as under the favor so without the offence I hope of any good man The Ministers of this Church will never be able to stand before those men of Ai their many adversaries who are daily scattering them into many feeble factions and pursuing them every where so divided with scorn and afflicting them with many affronts and injuries until having taken a serious review of their late extravagancies and making a serious scrutiny into their consciences and finding as they needs must if they be not wilfully blinde or obstinate some accursed thing some Babylonish garment and wedg of Gold something wherein proud or ambitious or covetous or revengeful or injurious emulations or other more venial errors have tempted tââ ãâã to offend they cast them quite away and so humbly re'ally themselves to that Primitive Harmony that Excellent Discipline Order and Government wherein was the honor beauty and consistency of the Church and Christian Religion even when least protected and most opposed by secular powers Of whom Christian Bishops Ministers and People never asked leave either to believe in Jesus Christ or to live after that holy form and publick order wherein Jesus Christ and the blessed Apostles after him established and left them which obtained universal imitation and use in all Churches for many hundred of years from true Christians both Pastors and People in the midst of persecutions 14. Jere. 6.16 Thus saith the Lord Stand in the ways and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk therin and ye shall finde rest for your souls Out of which old and good way of Primitive Vnity Order Government Discipline and holy Ministrations if those immoralities be kept as they may most easily to which we see the lusts and passions of men are prone to run even in all * Non datur reditus ad unitatem nisi per veritatem nec ad veritatem nisi per vetustatem Quum illud est antiquissimum quod verissimum Cypr. novel forms and inventions pretend they never so much at first to glorious Reformations Nothing can be a more present and soverein restorative for this Church and the true Reformed Religion to settle with truth and peace among us both to the comfort of all able Ministers and the satisfaction of all sober Christians who study the truth and unity of the Faith not the power and prevalency of any faction We need not go far to seek the root and source of our miseries present or impendent which have brought forth so bitter fruits whereby God at once would shew and satisfie vain men with their own delusions * Isai 66.4 In which heady and high-minded men trusting more to their own wits or tongues and to the * Jere. 17.5 Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord. arm of flesh in politick machinations than to the living God in holy and humble ways of truth and peace have soon found them to be both vain and cursed things As it is evident at this day in the sad fate which some Ministers folly presumption and precipitancy together with other sinful frailtiles and excesses have brought upon themselves and their whole Function in this Church Who first despising then destroying the Antient and Catholike conduits of their Order and Ministry which derived from Christ by his Apostles went on in an after constant succession of true
the able godly and painful Ministers but the whole Ministry it self and all holy Ministrations rightly performed by its Authority despised invalid decryed and discountenanced In many places affronting some vexing and oppressing others menacing all every where with total extirpations For they who pretend to have any man a Minister that lists intend to have none such as should be As they that would have every man a Master or Magistrate mean to have none in a Family or State but onely by specious shadows of New Teachers and Prophets they hope to deprive us of those substances both of true reformed Religion and the true Ministry which we and our Forefathers have so long happily enjoyed and which we ow to our posterity 28. The great and urgent causes of complaint Nor is this a feigned calumny or fictitious grief and out-cry Your piety O excellent Christians knows That the spirits of too many men are so desperately bent upon this design against the Function of the Ministry that they not onely breathe out threatnings against all of this way the duly ordained Ministers but daily do as much as in them lies make havock of them and in them of all good maners and reformed Religion while so many people and whole Parishes are void and desolate of any true Minister residing among them I leave it to the judgements and consciences of all good Christians to consider how acceptable such projects and practises will be to any sober and moralized professor to any gracious and true Christian to any reformed Church or to Christ the Institutor of an authoritative and successional Ministry or last of all to God whose mercy hath eminently blessed this Church and Nation in this particular of able and excellent Ministers so that they have not been behinde any Church under Heaven That so exploded Speech then Stupor mundi clerus Anglicanus The Ministers of England were the admiration of the Reformed World had noâ more in it of crack and boasting than of sober Truth if rightly considered onely it had better become perhaps any mans mouth than a Ministers of this Church to have said it and any others than believers of this Church to have contradicted and sleighted it Since to the English Ministers eminency in all kinde so many forein Churches and Learned Men have willingly subscribed as to Preaching Praying Writing Disputing and Living On the other side How welcome the disgrace of the Ministry will be to all the enemies of Gods truth of the Reformed Religion and of all good order in this Church and State it is easie to judge by the great contentment the ample flatterings the unfeigned gloryings the large and serious triumphings which all those that were heretofore professed enemies to this Church and our Reformed Religion either such as are factious and politick Factors for another Supremacy and Power or such as carry deep brands of Schism and Heresie on their foreheads or such as are professedly Atheists profane idle and dissolute mindes discover in this That they hope they shall not be any more tormented by the prophecying of these witnesses Revel 11.10 They that dwell on the earth shall rejoyce over the dead and unburied bodies of the witnesses and make merry because these two Prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth the true and faithful Ministers of the Church of England Than whom none of that order in any of the late Reformed Churches and scarce any of the Antients have given more ample clear and constant testimony to the glory of God and the truth and purity of the Gospel by their Writing Preaching Praying Sufferings and holy Examples Living and Dying which I again repeat and justifie against those who swell with disdain and are ready to burst with envy against the real worth and undeniable excellency of the Ministers of the Church of England All which makes me presume That you O excellent Christians can neither be ignorant nor unsatisfied in this point of the Evangelical Ministry both as to this and all other Churches use benefit and necessity as also to the divine right of it by Christs institution the Apostles derivation and the Catholike Churches observation in all times and places as to the main substance of the duties the power and authority of the Function however there may be in the succession of so many ages some Variation in some Circumstantials The peculiar office and special power were seldom as I have said if ever questioned among any Christians until of late much less so shaken vilified and traduced as now it is by the ungrateful wantonness and profane unworthiness of some who not by force of reason or arguments of truth but by forcible sophistries armed cavilings violent calumnies and arrogant intrusions have like so many wilde Bores sought to lay waste the Lords Vineyard Pretending That their brutish confidence is beyond the best dressers skill Psal 80.30 The Boar out of the wood doth waste it and the wilde Beast of the field doth devour it Et atroces insidiatores aperti grassatores Ecclesiam divastare contendunt tam marte quà m arte Aug. Matth. 9.38 Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into his harvest Matth. 8.32 The whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the Sea and perished in the waters Immundi illi Ministâi inordinati Doctores per ignorantiae temeritatis superbiae praecipitia feruntur in ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã profunditates Satanae Apoc. 2.24 in errotum blasphemiarum confusionum omnium abyssum Chemnit that their irregular rootings are better than the carefullest diggings that their rude croppings and tearings are beyond any orderly prunings or wary weedings that their sordid wallowings and filthy confusions are before any seasonable manurings that there needs no skilful Husbandmen or faithful Laborers of the Lords sending the Churches ordaining or the faithful peoples approving where so many devout swine and holy hogs will take care to plant water dress and propagate the Vine of the true Christian Reformed Religion to which the hearts of men are naturally no propitious soyl Nor is the event as to the happiness of this Church and its Reformed Religion to be expected other without a miracle if once those unordeined unclean and untried spirits be suffered to possess the Pulpits and places of true and able Minishers than such as befel those forenamed cattel when once Christ permitted the devils to enter into them All truth order piety peace and purity of Religion together with the Function of the Ministry will be violently carried into and choaked in the midst of the Sea of most tempestuous errors and bottomless confusions 29. Absurdities The impious absurdities enormious bablings and endless janglings whereby some men endeavor to dishonor and destroy the whole Function of the reformed and established Ministry in this Church and to surrogate in their places either Romish Agitators or a ragged Regiment of new and necessitous
futility a pueril vanity scarce a venial madness so much the worse in them by how much the contagion of their folly is prone to infect all that look upon them Non solum ipse cùm malè agit dignè perit sed alios secum indignè perdit Ambr. de Sa. dig Praepositorum vitia imitari obsequii genus videtur ne scelera ductoribus ex probrare viderentur si pie viverant Lact. Inst l. 5. for the plague and leprosie of a Ministers life cannot be kept within his private walls There is nothing more delicate and abhorring all sinful sords than the Ermine of Christian Religion and its true Ministry which sets forth the Lamb of God without spot or blemish who came to take away the sinful stains of mens souls by the effusion of his pretious blood The care of all good Ministers is so to live as shall not need the impotent severities of those Reformers who joy as much to finde faults in others as to mend none in themselves and are always eloquent against their own sins in other men Allow us onely to be as Ministers of the Gospel for the Churches good we desire no indulgences farther than the duty and dignity of our Calling doth allow and the strictest Conscience may bear No men shall more welcome mens favors than we shall do their just severities nor do we desire greater testimonies of mens loves to us than such as we use for the greatest witness of ours to them by never suffering them to sin through our silence or flatteries Let the righteous smite us and it shall be a kindness let them reprove us and reform us and it shall be a balm which shall not break our heads Psal 141.5 but our prayer shall ever be That we may not taste of the new dainties of those supercilious censurers and envious reformers of Ministers who are their enemies because they tell them the old truths and make them offenders for a word Isai 29.21 because they will not forbear to reprove their wickedness who heretofore seemed to hear them gladly till they touched their Herodiasses Mark 6.20 The less scandalous Ministers are the more that Hypocritical generation who have set themselves against them are bent to destroy them I intercede onely for such whose greatest offence is Eò acriores sunt odii causa quò magis iniquae Tacit. An. 1. That they give lest offence to any good Christians and do most good to this Church preserving still the purity and honor of their Calling and the Reformed Religion against the many policies of those who lie in wait to destroy it who are honored with and are an honor to the Function of the Ministry whose competent and in some excellent learning and holy lives Eò gratiori lumine quò spissiores tenebrae Tert. makes them still appear like bright stars in a dark and stormy night amidst the thick and broken clouds of envy and calumny which rove far beneath them however they are sometime darkned by their interposing If as to these mens holy Function Ordination and Authority I may be happy to give you O excellent Christians or any others any satisfaction as a Calling useful and necessary to the Church as of Divine Institution and Catholike practise in all setled Churches I shall then leave it to any men of good conscience to infer how barbarous and Antichristian a design it is how bad and bitter consequences it must needs produce by any arts and ways of humanâ power and policy to destroy and exautorate these men and their Ministry in whose lives and labors the glory of God the honor of Jesus Christ and the good of mens souls are so bound up that theâ cannot without daily miracles be separated or severally preserved And for the persons of the Ministers which I plead for I hoââ to make it appear That for their casting thus into the fiery furnace ãâã mechanick scorn and fanatick fury or into the Lyons den of publick odium and disfavor there will be found by impartial Readerâ of this Apology Acts 4.18 Gal. 4.16 Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth no more cause than was against Daniel or the threâ children no more than for beheading John Baptist or stoning St. Stephen for beating and imprisoning the Apostles and charging them to speak no more in that Name of Jesus or for the Galatians hating St. Paul or the Beasts slaying the witnesses or the Jews seeking to stone and after crucifying the Lord Jesus Christ 33. Ministers infirmities do not abrogate their Authority or Office Not but that the very best Ministers of this Church own themselves still to be but poor sinful men and so not strangers to the common passions and infirmities of humane nature Men must not be angry that Ministers are not Angels or such Seraphins and flaming fires as admit no dross or defects incident to sinful mortality Though they oft fail as men yet have they not forfeited the Authority of their Calling as Ministers though they have dispenced the Gospel in weakness as earthen vessels yet hath the Treasure of Heaven and Power of God been manifested by them and in them Take them with all their personal failings yet they will hardly be matched or exceeded by any order of men or any Clergy in any Church under Heaven for they have not been behinde the very chiefest of true Ministers and far beyond any of these new pretenders Insomuch That I have oft been ashamed to see the necessity of this Apology Pro desensione samae licita est laus proptia Reg. Jac. 2 Cor. 12.11 and such like Vindications of the Ministry which ungrateful and impudent men extort from the Ministers of England when indeed as St. Paul pleads for himself instead of thus being compelled to an unwelcome yet just glorying they ought rather to have been commended and encouraged by others Truly it is to me a great trouble to finde out by any of their confused Pamphlets and obscure Papers what these Modellers of a new Ministry would be at in any reason of piety or prudence more to the advantage of this Church or the Reformed Christian Religion than hath been heretofore and may still be effected and enjoyed by the true and antient Ministry Would they have better Scholars in all kindes of good learning Acuter Disputants in controversies Clearer Interpreters in Commentaries upon the Sacred Texts Better Linguists More solid Preachers More pathetick Orators more fervent Prayers higher Speculatists in all true Devotionals Exacter Writers in all kindes of Divinity Would they have more grave comely prudent and consciencious dispencers of all holy Mysteries Or nobler examples of all piety and virtue than those which have every where abounded in the Ministers of the Church of England according to the several measures of their gifts and graces No I finde their enemies envy is more than their pity Non laudabisi pietatis aemulatione
sed improba virtutis invidia feruntur qui virtutem aspiciunt intabescuntque relicta Casaub For one century of scandalous Ministers which I fear was not so made up by exact sifting the pretioââ from the vile but that it hudled up and kneaded some finer flowre with some bran How many hundreds were there then and are still of unblamable of commendable of excellent and most imitable Ministers in this Church As weighty as fair and as fit every way yea far beyond what any new stamp is likely to be for all holy admistrations But I finde it is not any new Truth or Gospel or Sacraments or Gifts or Graces or Virtues or Morals or Rationals or Reals which these new Ministers require or can with any forehead pretend All is but an affectation for the most part to have the same things in a new and worse way which because it is of their own invention they so eagerly quarrel at the former order maner of our Church and Ministry Many would have the same meat else they must starve Multi novitatis amore in veritatis odium praejudicium feruntur Quum illud pulcherrimum quòd verissimum id verissimum quòd antiquissimum Tert. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Eurip. Hel. or feed upon the wind onely it must be new dressed and dished up to the mode of Familistick hashes and Socinians Quelques choses Keckshoes by more plain and popular hands than those of the learned Ministers They would have a generation of Teachers rise up unsown out of the dust whose father should be corruption and whose sister confusion More vulgar submiss precarious facile dependent Preachers who should more consider an act or ordinance of man than a command of Scripture or dictate and stroke of Conscience be more steered by the events and various successes of Providence than by the constant precepts and oracles of Gods written Word Whose common places of divinity must fit any Eutopian Common-wealth what ever any power and policy shall form to their new fancies and interests whose Preaching and Praying shall make Christ and the Scriptures and the Sacraments all holy things and the Ministry it self of the Church meanly servile and compliant to any State design and secular projects Just as the sorry Almanack-makers do who command the Sun and Moon and Stars and the whole host of Heaven to assist any party whom they list to flatter or hope to feed upon Such planetary Preachers all true Ministers abhor to be and such their enemies deserve to have or to be who observing the winds of worldly and State variations Eccles 11.4 shall never sow the good seed of true Religion nor ever serve the Lord while they slavishly and sinfully serve the times Not but that all good Ministers know as wise and humble men how to be content in what Staââ soever they are and to be subject to civil powers in all honest things Phil. 4.11 Rom. 13.5 with gratitude and due respect yet not so as to prostrate God to level Christ to subject Conscience to debase the glorious Gospel its due Reformation and its true Ministry and divinâ Authority to the boundless lusts and endless designs of violent and rest less mindes Against all which and chiefly against those plots and practises which aim to overthrow the Reformed Christian Religion of this Church and its Ministry I desire this Apology may be as a Pillar and Monument to posterity of my perfect abhorrency That when I am dead âf it hath any spark in it of an immortal spirit or living genius it may testifie for me and my Brethren the Ministers of my minde Luke 23.50 in after ages that as Joseph of Arimathea we neither gave counsel nor consent to those wilde or wicked projects which the ages will afterward see attended with most sad and deplorable effects either of Atheism Profaneness Ignorance and Barbarity or of Popish superstitions Heretical oppressions and Schismatical confusions which will follow the alteration and rejection of the antient true and Catholike Ministry of this Reformed Church which cannot but be attended with the subversion of many souls as to all stability or soundness in true Religion with the unsatisfaction of many and with the unspeakable grief and scandal of all those good Christians who love and wish the prosperity of this Church which I shall now endeavor to prove to be of a most Christian and Evangelical constitution chiefly by answering what is alleged by those who look upon both Church and Ministry as reprobate and would fain have power to damn them both without redemption And this they endeavor with as much justice and truth as Satan accused Job Job 1. and would have provoked God to destroy him without a cause OBJECTION I. That we have no true Ministry because no true Church-way in England I Finde there are many and great things objected by the Antiministerial party through ignorance weakness mistake or malice not onely against the Ministers and the peculiar office of the Ministry but also against the whole frame of our Religion especially as to the extern social maner of our holy Administrations Some of them deny us to be any true Ministers because not in any way of a true Church not having any true Religion owned or established and exercised among us in any right Church-way as they call it So that it is not onely the main pillars of Christianity the learned and godly Ministry which they would change But the whole model of our Church and frame of our Religion is that which these men would remove either pulling it down by force or undermining by fraud Therefore I have thought it necessary in the first place to countermine against these Moles and to establish against these Shakers and Subverters of the very foundations of our Church and Religion Here I must crave leave of you Answ 1. to whose favor I have dedicated this work whose highest excellency is your Christian Reformed Religion who esteem it your greatest glory with the Emperor Theodosius That you are Members of this Reformed Church and in this of the true Catholike Church to give these fanatick and cavilling disputers against our Ministry some account of that Religion which we profess and of that so much disputed and by some despised Church-way wherein we take our selves to be as upon surer grounds of divine truth so with much more order and decency as to antient patern and prudence than themselves That so as good Christians may be comforted and confirmed in their holy Profession so the world may see That we are neither ignorant our selves nor willingly deceivers of others in so great a matter as Religion is Of true Religion Vera est religio quae uni vero Deo animas nostras religat Aug. de Relig. Micah 6.8 James 1.27 which we publickly have professed and preached in this Church both with science and conscience with judgement and integrity First then We esteem True Religion to be the right
performance of those duties which we ow to the One onely true God or to any Creature for his sake That is upon such grounds to such ends and after such maner as God requires them of us in the several relations wherein we stand obliged to him or them Internal Lux est religionis in conscientia lumen in conversatione Bern. 1 Cor. 2.11 1 John 1.3 3.19 Nec deest Christus ubi est fides nec ecclesia ubi Christus nec societas ubi charitas nec templum ubi cor sanctum Cypr. This Religion is discharged by us first Internally in the Receptions and Motions of an enlightned and sanctified Soul to which none can immediately be conscious but onely God and a mans own spirit Herein we conceive the very soul life and quintessence of true Religion doth consist so far as it is to be considered apart from all outward expressions visible Form Society or Church Communion onely as having spiritual inward converse and fellowship with God and Christ by the graces of the holy Spirit although Christians should be in desarts dungeons prisons solitudes and sick beds amidst all forced sordidness disorders and dissolutions of any shew and profession of Religion as to the outward man This sincerity wants nothing of extern fashion or ornament to compleat its piety but is satisfactory both to God and a mans own conscience by that integrity of a judicious holy and devout heart which hath devoted all its powers and faculties to the knowledge meditation adoration imitation love and admiration of God according as he was pleased in various times and maners to reveal himself to it Heb. 1.1 As partly yet but darkly by the light of reason in rational and moral principles seconded with fears and strokes of Conscience which is a beam and candle of the Lord in the soul of man Prov. 20.27 Lucerna Domini Scintillans in intellectu radians in voluntate ardens in affectu fumans in desiderio flammans in amore scrutans iâ conscientia exhilarans in virtute torquens in facinore Bern. 2 Tim. 3.16 2 Pet. 1.19 Matth. 10.26 Gal. 6.1 Et solidè fundanda ad amussim Scripturâ aedificanda veritate stabilienda charitate consummanda religio August Eò pulchrior est anima quo ad summam Dei pulchritudinem propius accedit Bradward ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Greg. N. s but more clearly by supernatural manifestations in dreams and visions in audible voices prophetical revelations or angelical missions By all which religious light was onely occasional and traditional but now most evidently compleatly and constantly in that declaration of his will to mankinde which is contained in the lively oracles of his now written and perfect Word the onely infallible rule of a good Conscience and foundation of true Religion According to which onely we measure it both as to its internals which are summarily comprehended in the love of God and its externals which are compleated in that charity which for Gods sake we bear and really exercise toward all men but chiefly to the houshold of faith that is the Church or Society of those who profess to believe in Jesus Christ as the onely Saviour of sinners This well-grounded and well-guided Religion as it is then an Internal Judicious and Sincere devoting of the whole soul to God as the supreme good offered us in Jesus Christ We esteem the highest honor and beauty of the reasonable soul the divinest stamp or character on mans nature the noblest property and capacity of the immortal spirit in us demonstrating not onely its common relation to the Creator which all things have but the Creators peculiar favor and indulgence to man whom he teacheth to fear enableth to serve and encourageth to love him above all As also mans capacity to attain that knowledge of the divine wisdom and that fruition of the divine love which onely can make it truly and eternally happy For true Religion thus seated in the soul of man 2. True Religion not barely speculative but also practical is not barely a speculative knowledge of God according to what his wisdom hath revealed of himself in his works and word As that he is what he is not as to any defects what he is in all positive excellencies in himself which yet is a great and divine light shining upon mans understanding from experience and from the historick parts of the Scripture But further it also shew us what God is to us in Nature Grace Law Gospel Works Word Creation ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Niss de prof Chrâstians and Christs Incarnation what we are to God in Christ for duty and dependance what all things are to us as they are in God that is in his wisdom will power providence c. either making or preserving or disposing them for our good and his glory According to which light we come to desire to love to enjoy God in all things Eph. 1.23 and all things in him that is within those bounds of honor order and those lesser ends which he hath set in reference to the great ends of our good and his glory which are as a lesser circle in a greater having both the same centres At length God becomes the joy life beauty exaltation and happiness of the believing soul by it s often contemplations of him and sincere devotions to him whence we come to have an humble sight ingenuous shame penitential sorrow and just abhorrence of our sinfulness vanity deformity vileness and nothingness compared to God and apart from him After this our wills come to be enclined to him as the most excellent good and perfecting Beauty drawn after him and duly affected with him to fear him for his power and justice to venerate him for his excellent majesty and glory to admire him for incomprehensible perfection to love him for his goodness in himself in all things and in Christ above all in whom his love grace and bounty is most clearly discovered and freely conveyed to us We come to believe him for his veracity or infallible truth in his Law and Gospel to be guided by his unerring wisdom and directions which are discerned in the mandates of his Word to us and agreeable motions of his Spirit in us which are always conform to each other Virtus Spiritus sancti in mâtibus veritas verbi in mandatis suavissiââ inseparabili nexu conjuncta sunt nec magis ab invicem distrahi possunt quà m calor solis à nativo lumine Quum à Spiritu sit veritas ut inveritate sit Spiritus necesse est August We come also to obey him in all things for his soverein Empire and Authority to trust in him at all times for his faithfulness and immutability to hope in him and to wait patiently for the consummation of his rich and pretious promises 2 Pet. 1.4 both in grace and glory All which we believe upon the divine testimony of the written
in the prime or Mother Cities where Christianity was first planted end from whence it spred to the Territories or Provinces about One would think besides common speech among all Christians which is sufficient to justifie what word is used to express our meanings to others That this were enough to confute the simplicity or peevishness of those who to carry on new projects dare aver That they know no such thing as a National Church 1 Pet. 2.9 Ye are an holy Nation a peculiar people may be said of any Christians and with much coyness disdain to own or understand any relation of order duty subordination or charity they have to any such Church Of which they say they know no virtue no use no necessity no conveniencies as to any Christian and Religious ends Which so wilful and affected ignorance was never known till these latter and perilous times had found out the pleasure of Paradoxes by which men would seem wiser and more exact both in their words and fancies than either pious antiquity or the Scriptures Hoping by such gross and unexpected absurdities which would fain appear very shie and scrupulous in language to colour over Shismatical and Anarchical designs and under such fig-leaves to hide the shame and folly of their factious agitations and humors which makes them unwilling to be governed by any in Church or State without themselves have an oar in the Boat and a share in the Government This poor concernment of some mens small ambitions makes them disown any Church but such a conventicle or parcel as some men fancy to collect and call which they infect with the same fancies of sole and full Churchship and separate Power Whereas the Lord Jesus Christ always first called men by his Ministers to his Church and by Baptism admitted them and by meet Governors whom he sent and ordained ruled them as his flock in greater as well as lesser parties Gen. 32. as Jacob did his distinct flocks in the hands of his sons By the same Cynical severity these men may deny they have relation to any other men being themselves compleat men or at most that they are to regard none but their families where they live and so cast off all observance to any greater Societies in Towns or Cities or Commonweals yea and all sense of humanity to the generality of mankinde whom they shall never see together or be acquainted with Who doubts notwithstanding this morose folly but that as in all right reason equity and humanity every man is related by the common nature to all mankinde so also to particular polities and societies of men greater or smaller according to the distinct combinations into which providence hath cast him with them either in Cities or Countreys With whom to refuse communion and disown relation is to sin against the common principles of society order and government which are in mans nature which God hath implanted Reason suggests and all wise men have observed for the obtaining of an higher and more common good by the publick and united influence of the counsel strength and authority of many than can be obtained in scattered parcels or small and weaker fraternities In like maner to be in and of the Church is not onely to be a true believer which gives internal and real union to Christ and to all true Christians in the Church Catholike Ecclesia una est quae in multitudinem latius incremento facunditatis extenditur Cyp. de Eccl. unit 1 Cor. 2.11 What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him of which no man can judge because he cannot discern it save onely in the judgement of charity But it implies also to have and to hold that profession of Christian Religion in such external polities and visible communion with others as the providence of God both offers and requires of us according to the time place and opportunities wherein he sets us so as we may most promote the common good Which study and duty we own in humanity as men and more in charity as Christians to any Church or society of Christians To whom our counsel and power or our consent and subjection may adde a further authority a more harmonious and efficacious influence than can be from small or ununited parcels So that a National Church that is such a Society of Christians as are distinct by civil limits and relation from other Nations may not onely own and accordingly act as they are men related in things civil but also as Christians they may own and wisely establish such a Church power relation and association in matters of Religion as may best preserve themselves in true Doctrine holy Order Christian peace and good maners by joynt counsel and more vigorous power The neerness which they have affording greater opportunities to impart and enjoy the benefit of mutual counsel and charity and all other communicable abilities to a nobler measure and higher proportion than can be had in lesser bodies or combinations This joynt publick and united authortiy of any Church in any Nation or Kingdom is so far from being slighted as some capricious mindes do that it is the more to be venerated and regarded by all good Christians who know that duty enlarges with relations and a greater charity is due from us to greater communities both of men and of Christians Odia quo iniquiora eo magis a cerba Tacit. The greatest vexation of these new Modellers is That they have so little with truth modesty or charity to say against this famous National Church of England and its Ministry For they daily see notwithstanding all their specious pretensions and undefatigable agitations the more as winds they seek to shake and subvert well-rooted Christians the more they are confirmed and setled in that Christian communion 9. Charity necessary in any true Church and Christians ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Camer de Melan which they have upon good grounds both of Reason and Religion Polity and Charity with this Church of England as their Mother Which blessing all wise Christians and well ordered Churches ever owned and enjoyed among themselves as parts of the Catholik in their several distinctions and society In these points of the true Church and true Religion however I covet to be short yet I shall be most serious and as clear as may be writing nothing to other mens Consciences which I do not first read in mine own and of which I know account must be given by me at Christs tribunal And truly I am as loth to deceive others as to erre my self in matters of so great concernment Nulla erroris secta sam contra Christi verit atem nist nomine cooperta Christiano ad pugnandum prosilire audet August ep 56. as true Religion and the true Church are Both which every Sect and Party of Christians chalenge to themselves and those no doubt with most right and truest comfort who do it
which sanctifies reason to serve God and the Church in all comely ways may not use those principles and rules for order unity peace and mutual safety of Christians in their multiplied numbers and societies which we are taught and allowed to use in all civil associations Yea and not onely allowed but enjoyned to observe in Ecclesiastical polity and Government by that great and fundamental Canon of the Apostle 1 Cor. 14.40 Let all things be done decently and in order which must hold not onely in private and lesser parcels but in the more large and integral parts of the Church of Christ But Reason then and Religion sufficiently discover the vanity and impertinency of those novel fancies which are obtruded as necessary for all private Congregations when indeed they are and ever have been and will be destructive to the more publick and general good of the Church whose tranquillity honor and safety consists in such dependencies and subordinations which may be furthest remote from those fractions and disunions which arise from that Church-dividing and Charity-destroying principle of Independent Congregations Rom. 16.5 Greet the Church which is in their house 1 Cor. 16.19 The Churches of Asia salute yâu which was never used in any times of the Church further than the minority and infancy of the first planting while either Christians were not encreased much in number or not enlarged in place But when the first small company of believers multiplied from a Church in one Family to a Church in many Congregations which could not now with conveniency all meet together in one place they yet as branches still continued both united to the root Christ Jesus 14. The Church of England not blamable for its National communion and also to the main body and bulk of the visible Church by union to that part whence they descended and to which they related and they were not as Colonies or Slips so transplanted and separated as to grow Independently of themselves apart from all others Of which there is no example in Scripture or Antiquity It follows then That what was setled in this or other like Christian Churches was no whit blamable as any thing of meer humane invention or any superfluous and corrupt addition to any precept patern or constitution either of Christs or the Apostles who never prohibited the ordering of Churches in larger associations or Governments extending to Cities and their Territories to great Diocesses Provinces and Nations Since there is no precept or practise limiting Churches power and society to private and single Congregations Yea there are such general directions and examples in the Scripture as command or at least commend rather than condemn those analogous or proportionable applyings of all orderly and prudential means for union and communion according as the various state and times of the Church may require which still aym at the same end the peace and welfare of the Church both in the lesser and the larger extents which are justly so carried on by the wise Governors and Protectors of the Church according to the general principles and rules or paterns of pious and charitable prudence set down in the Scriptures beyond which in this case of the Churches outward order and polity there neither is nor needs other directions no more than on what Text and Subject or in what method and place or how long time and how often a Minister must pray or preach and people must hear Sermons or attend holy duties That antient and excellent frame then of this Church in England which in a National union by civil religious and sacred bonds was so wisely built and for many ages compacted together and which hath been lately so undermined so hackt and hewn with passionate writings and disputings and actings that it is become not onely a tottering but almost a quite demolished and overthrown frame This Church I say hath suffered this hard fate rather through the iniquities of times malice of men and just judgements of God on the Governors and governed who we may fear improved not so great advantages of union order power peace and protection to the real good of the Church and furtherance of the Gospel rather I say by these personal failings than for any either mischief deformity defects or Antichristian excess in the way and frame it self as to its grounds and constitutions Which were setled and long approved by very wise holy and learned men carrying with them as much as any Christian or Reformed Church did the lineaments feature beauty and vigor of those famous Primitive Churches which in the midst of heresies and persecutions kept themselves safe as to truth and charity not by the shreds of Independent Bodies but by the sutures of Christian Associations in Provincial National and Oecumenical enlargements Such ample and noble platforms of religious reason and sanctified wisdom as not ambitious policy but Christian charity and prudent humility embraced which as our new models and projections will never mend so they much commend those antient happy models and paterns by those multiplied mischiefs ensuing inevitably upon the presumptions of posterity which have rashly adventured thus to remove and change the antient limits marks and orders of the Church which Primitive Fathers and Apostles had recommended and setled 15. Seekers thence The Eutychian Hereticks refusing to subscribe the Catholike Faith confirmed by the Council of Chalcedon called themselves ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Ambigentes Dubitantes and after run out to all corrupt opinions Aug. de Haere Nobis qui sam credimus aliud non quaerendum Si enim semper quaerimus nunquam inveniemus nunquam credemus Tert. de Praes ad Hae. c. 10. Quemadmodum Atheorum pars maxima non tam credunt quam cupiunt non esse Deum M n. Fael Non facile invenient veram ecclesiam qui illibenter quaerunt Melancth Which temerity of thus mincing and crumbling or tearing any Church National being the issue of no Synod or Council in the Church but onely of private fancies and most-what mechanick adventures hath we see made some poor souls turn Scepticks and Seekers after true Religion and a true Church being wholly unsatisfied either with the abolition of the old way or the various inventions of new ways These profess whether out of weakness pure ignorance passion or policy God knows That they are Christians no further than to see that all Christian Churches are now and have been ever since the Apostles times adulterous impure deformed and Antichristian That they are wholly to seek for any true ground or way of Christian Religion Church and Ministry even among so many Christians Ministers and Churches That is they cannot see wood for trees nor light for the Sun at noon-day And this may easily be either by reason of wilful blindness or for want of that charity and humility which keeps the hearts and eyes of Christians open and clear or from that darkness and blear-eyedness which prejudice and
perversness carry with them hindring Christians from discerning even those objects that are round about them yea it is to be feared That some men from Atheistical profane ranting and licentious principles seek for a true Church as Hypocrites do for their sins and cowards for their enemies loth to finde them and studying most to be hidden from them They complain of this and other Churches as defective as impure as none when indeed it may be feared they are sorry there are any such and wish there were none of these Christian societies Ministers or godly people in the world whose doctrine and examples are their restraints reproaches and torments being most cross to their evil designs and immoderate lusts They complain they cannot finde a true Church when they are unwilling so to do and satisfie themselves as the Cynick in his Tub morosely to censure and Magisterially to finde fault with all Christians that they may conform to none in an holy humble and peaceably way but rather enjoy that fantastick and lazy liberty of mocking God and man till they finde such a way of Church and Religion as shall please them Which they would not be long in finding as to extern polity and profession if they did but entertain that inward life and power of Religion which I formerly set down which by a principle of charity as well as of truth strongly flowing from belief of Gods love in Christ to mankinde and specially to the Church doth powerfully binde and cheerfully encline every humble believer 1 Cor. 14.33 God is not the Author ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of unsetledness commotion or confusion but of peace as in all Churches of the Saints Heb. 12.14 Follow peace with all men and holiness c. Rom. 12.18 If it be possible as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men to have peace and communion as much as may be with all Christians as internal in judgment and good will so external and social both private and publick amicitial and political in regard of example comfort and encouragement as also of Order Subordination and Government so far as we see they have any fellowship with Christ Jesus in those holy mysteries and duties which he hath appointed whereby to gather and preserve his Church in all Ages and places and Nations Thus we see some mens Pens serve onely to blot the face even of the Catholike Church and all parts of it in their visible order and communion affecting to write such blinde and small Characters in describing new Church ways and forms of Religion that no ordinary eyes can read their meaning either in their shrinking and separating into small ruptures of Bodies when they were related to and combined with Churches large and setled or in their Seraphick raptures strange Enthusiasms secret drawings and extraordinary impulsions which they pretend to have in their ways above and without yea in the neglect and contempt of all ordinary means and setled Ministry in any Church Their many high imaginations and fanatick fancies are no doubt above their Authors own understandings no less than above all wiser and soberer mens capacities twinckling much more like gloworms under the hedges of private Conventicles and Factions than shining with true and antient light of the judgement or practise of any Churches Therefore they need no further confutation from my Pen having so little yea no confirmation from any grounds of Scripture or arguments of common Reason or custom of Christians nothing indeed worthy of any rational godly and serious mans thoughts who list not to dance after the Jews-trump or Oaten-pipe of every Country fancy rather than listen to the best touched Lute or Theorbo These Syrens wise Christians may leave to sing to themselves and their own melancholy or musing thoughts no sober-man can understand them further than they signifie that ignorance illiterateness idleness pride presumption licentiousness and vanity which some like spiritual Canters affect The rarities which they boast to enjoy are without any discreet mans envy that I know However they carry it with a kinde of scornful indignation against others every where pitying as they say the simple diligence and needless industry of those poor Christians who are still attending on those thred-bare forms as they call them of old readings and catechisings and preachings and prayings and Sacraments c. in the publick Liturgies and orderly assemblies of Christians Despising as much the antient and true way of Ministry and Duty as they would the moldy bread and torn bottles of the Gibeonites abhorring to own any relation to other Christians or Church or Ministry or Governors in any Catholike bond of communion and subjection nor can they endure any Christian subordination or prudent and necessary restraint of just Government Jeron Ep. ad Eustoch Quibus os barbarum procax in convicia semper armatum Isid Hâspal lib. de offic eccles c. 15. Ubicunque vagantur venalem circumferentes hypocri sinusquam fixi nusquam stantes nusquam sedentes quae non viderunt confingunt Opiniones suaâ habent pro Deo Honores quos non acceperunt se habuisse protestantur c. Which makes them look very like the old Circumcelliones a company of vagrant Hypocrites of whom Saint Jerom and Isidore Hispalensis make large and satyrical descriptions The first sayes they were impudent straglers whose mouths were always full of barbarous and importune reproaches The other tells us that they every where wandered in their mercenary hypocrisie fixed no where feigning visions of what they never saw Counting their opinions and dreams for divine and protesting to have received those eminencies which they have not Impatient to be confined to any place order or way but had rather like vagabonds continue in their beggarly liberty than fix to a sober industry and enjoy a setled competency 2 Pet. 2.14 Beguiling unstable souls These unstable spirits who turn round till they are giddy and fall from all truth and charity into all error and faction who shut their eyes that they may say they grop in the dark and complain of all mens blindness but their own These I say have of all others least cause to blame the Religion and Ministry of the Church of England since they own themselves to be in no Church-way Which of all sides is most blamed and condemned and so need not to be confuted any more 16. Several quarrels against the Church of Englands frame Some others there are who flatter themselves to be less mad than these seeking fellows who glory most in this That they have broken all the former cords and shaken off all bonds of any National Government Order and Discipline whereby they were formerly restrained in this Church Which first they deny to be any Church purely and properly so called or in any way and frame of Christs institution but onely such an establishment as ariseth from meer civil polity and humane constitution Secondly These charge us that we
the publick Catechism So that a Minister in England both in the name of the Church and in the name of Christ and by the highest authority of God did prohibite denounce against and as it were excommunicate by that part of the power of the Keys which is denunciative and declarative both from the comfort and grace of the Sacrament and from the outward partaking of it every one that presumed being unworthy in any kinde to offer himself to it If after this Communio malorum non maculat aliquem participatione sacramentorum sed consentione factorum Aug. ep 152. See the Rubrick before the Communion concerning scandalous offenders 1 Cor. 11.29 He that eateth and d inketh unworthâly eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not to any other who having examined himself Verse 28. is bid to eat and drink c. See the Rubrick before the Communion The Minister may admit the penitent but not the obstinate in cases of private offences c. any one unworthy did adventure to come yet sure the Minister had done his private duty as far as God or man required it of him having both vindicated the honor of the Sacrament as to the divine Institution and intent also declared the care and order of the Church and so freed both the Congregation and his own soul from stain or blame Who so came after this prohibition unworthily came at the peril of his own soul and not at the sin of either Minister or people that were worthy whose work and duty is not by force of arms to thrust men out by head and shoulders which is a military and mechanick power but by the sword of Christs mouth to smite them and in his name to cast them out from any right to or comfort in the Sacrament which is the power properly ministerial spiritual and divine Where either ignorance or scandal were gross and notoriously known to the Minister in any that offered to come The Minister might and oft did not onely privately but publickly and personally admonish reprove forewarn And in some cases if the impudence of the offender obtruded himself the Minister might refuse to give him the Sacrament yet this not with passion and roughness as by empire but with meekness and discretion as in charity Which present denial or abstention of such an one from receiving the holy Sacrament might afterward be examined by publick and lawful authority which was setled in this Church in case that party had cause or confidence to complain as of an injury 20. Good Ministers not defective in their duty if they make not themselves Judges But where such authority is not seââed or not suffered to be exercised in any Church which might and ought to judge in such cases best The party denied and the Minister thus denying upon pregnant and to him notorious causes not upon probabilities suspiâious or general complaints from others onely There matters of publick debate requiring audience and proofs and witnesses and judge and all these due authority It cannot be expected from any private Minister that he should do more than God hath commanded and due authority empowred him which is onely to instruct admonish forbid and in some cases to deny c. according to the duty of his place and the authority he had both from the Church and from the Word of God But he hath nothing to do to assume the publick place of a Judge among his Neighbors or to deny Communion to all those that are by any accused as unworthy or scandalous Luke 12.14 Who made me a judge or a divider over you No Reason allowing or Religion commanding every private Minister or any private Christians to be Judges in those cases wherein they may be parties and through passion do injury and by faction oppress any man A right Discipline and due Authority in the Church most desirable It were to be desired indeed that such Authority were restored to the Church as might judge and decide all cases of publike scandal but while this is denied we must not deny Ministers or people to do their duty in celebrating the Lords Supper according to the Institution though there be defects in discipline as to that particular We must not forbear holy duties when we may rightly enjoy them in point of gracious disposition and claim because they are not so asserted and ordered in point of polâty and extern Discipline as we could wish and as it were convenient but is not absolutely necessary so as to exclude the Minister or others from it who desire and prepare for it by examining themselves whom no Reason or Religion can forbid to partake of their due comforts because of others faults whereof they cannot be guilty because they are no way accessary not failing in any private duty of charity wherein they stand related to another as teaching admonishing reproving forewarning c. 1 Cor. 11.28 The same Apostle who blames the unworthy receivers for not examining themselves and forbids them so to eat c. Commands others to examine themselves and so to eat c. Without regard to any others unworthiness The contagion of whose sin cannot have influence on anothers grace any more than grace can make anothers sin less What sense can there be That children should be starved because there is not power sufficient to keep away all dogs from the childrens bread Yet all men are not presently to be called or counted dogs that are not ever in actual preparedness for the Sacrament Luke 22.32 or who may fall into gross sins as Peter did whose Faith did not fail when he denied Christ after the Sacrament and since they have still relation to the Church and may be penitents I should be glad to see which I heartily pray for this Church so ordered by due order power and authority established in fitting Church-Governors and Judges in such cases Exod. 18.21 Judges ought to be able men such as fear God men of truth hating covetousness c. That none might be admitted to the Lords Supper but such as are both by the Minister and chief of the Congregation who are in the Rowl of Communicants allowed and approved for knowledge and conversation yet so as such allowance or denial may if need be have further hearing and appeal from this private Minister and Congregation which is but just to avoid the factions injuries partialities and oppressions which may fall and oft do among those Neighbors and Rivals who are seldom meet to be Judges of mutual scandals being so oft parties and besides their weak judgments have strong passions and are full of grudges and emulations against each other which if not soberly taken up by other able and indifferent Judges who have authority so to do it brings Congregations to those difficulties which the Independent bodies finde for want of this prudent and orderly remedy of grievances and offences which in a short time as the pitch and fat and hair
which Daniel put into the Dragon break them in pieces one part rending from the other as impatient to submit to their censure and so they come to Non-Communion and to make new Colonies of lesser Churches and Bodies till they break and shiver themselves to such useless shreds such thin and small shavings as have neither the staff of beauty nor of bonds among them Every one by the light of nature concluding Par in parem non habet imperium Authority supposeth an eminency That there can be no power over others where there is parity among them nor can those have authority over each other which are in an equality Nothing would be more welcome to good Ministers and faithful people than to see that just power setled in the Church as might by the wisdom gravity and integrity of such as are truly fit to govern best repress all abuses and disorders in the Church as to matters purely religious Mean time we think it better to beaâ with patience those defects which we cannot hinder or amend and to supply them what we can with private care industry and discretion than either wholly to deny our selves the comfort of this Sacrament which the Lord hath afforded us or else to usurp to our selves an absolute power and jurisdiction over others which neither the Lord hath given us nor the Church and which we see men do easily despise as a matter of arbitrary usurpation not of authoritative constitution And which is subject as to many tyrannies and abuses so to infinite private janglings and divisions which no Minister hath leisure to hear if he had abilities to compose and judge them being oft very spightful tedious and intricate yea and himself possibly a party or witness and sometimes the accused who being for the most part the ablest in a Country Congregation to judge of matters must yet himself be judged according to some mens weak Models of Church-Government and Discipline both as to his doctrine and maners by his High-shoe Neighbors which he counts his body nor may he have any appeal from them in an Independent way 21. Of the peoples judging in the Church 1 Cor. 5.12 1 Cor. 6.1 2 3 4. Do ye not know that the Saints shall judge the World and Angels How much more the things that pertain to this life To that grand Charter and Commission which some plead by which every Saint is made a Judge in all things of this life within the pale of the Church and is after to be judge of Angels I answer The wise and holy Apostle doth not give to every one in the Church any such power nor to the majority of Christians in any Congregation but rather reproves their folly that laid any judicative works on those that were least esteemed in the Church Vers 4. Whence arose that unsatisfaction as made their differences greater and drove them for remedy to go to Law before the Civil Tribunals of unbelievers V. 6. to the great scandal of Religion and shame of the Church of Corinth where being many Christians and no doubt in many distinct Congregations for conveniency of meeting the Apostle wonders they could not be so wise for their own credit and quiet as to finde out some wise and able men who might be fit to judge and end their controversies as having both real abilities internal and outward reputation in the Church also a publick consent and orderly appointment to the work aâl which makes a compleat and valid Authority to judge others which can never be promiscuous in whole bodies or rabbles of simple and mean men without both contempt and confusion which imprudent way among the Corinthians the Apostle counts both a fault and a shame Of Communicants to be admitted 1 Cor. 5.7 2 Cor. 6.15 16. What places are further urged for purging out the old leaven for not eating with such an one for the non-communion between Christ and Belial light and darkness c. They are all fulfilled by every private Christian when both in conscience and conversation he keeps himself from concurring or complying with any wicked and scandalous persons in their sins reproving and repressing them as much as morally lies in his place and power But the bare view or knowledge of anothers sin Vnumquemque alienis peccatis maculari omnes impiae seditionis autores solam causam separationis sibi assumunt Contra disputat Cypr. de unit eccl August ep 48. must not hinder him from doing his duty or enjoying his privilege and comfort by the Sacrament which depends not on what is in anothers life or heart of sin but on what he findes of grace and preparedness in his own As to the publick honor and purity or unleavenedness of the Church the special duty and care executive lies on those not who are private Christians in common but who have publick authority in special to do it by censuring restraining or casting out scandalous offenders whereto every Christian is not called because not enabled either by God or man by gift or power to discern or judge and determine cases which is a matter of polity power and order in the Church and not of private piety or charity Nor is it indeed of absolute necessity so as to deprive good Christians of any holy ordinance in case such power is obstructed or hindered or not established in the Church Neither Minister nor People then ought to refrain from doing their duty in the holy celebration of this Sacrament upon any such defects of external polity and power for well-ordering of the Church but rather with the more exactness and diligence exhort one another and prepare by inward graces for those holy Mysteries whose institution hath no such restriction either by Christ or the blessed Apostle Paul who enjoyns Ministers and Believers to do this 1 Cor. 11. holily and worthily in point of personal preparation but no word of either usurping a power to reâect others as they list which belongs not to them or else to abstain wholly from the duty for want of having their will as too many do both People and Ministers to the great grief of many good Christians and to the exceeding slighting and disuse of that holy Ordinance in this Church 1 Cor. 11.25 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã denotat ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã As oft as ye drink it which was wont to be much frequented which the words of Christ import or enjoyn to be done oftentimes in the Church For that new coyned form image and superscription of a Church 22. Of Church-Covenant that Congregational Church-Covenant which no Synod or Council but onely some private men have lately invented and in formal words magisterially dictated when yet they cry down all other prescribed forms of administrations prayer or devotion in the Church By which some men fancy they onely can be rightly made up into one lump or Church-fellowship This they accuse us in England for the want and
soul and body make a true man Essentials of a true Church in England 1 Tim. 6.3 It is well some of their charity is such that they allow us for they cannot shift it thus much First That we have the onely true ground and sure rule of Religion the written Word of God that beyond this we hold nothing as a matter of faith or Christian duty Secondly That we celebrate the holy Sacraments according to the sum and substance of the divine Institution Thirdly That our conversation aims to be such Phil. 1.27 as becomes the Gospel in all maner of holiness to the saving of our own and others souls What can these Aristarchusses carp at in the ground of our faith the Scriptures the Seals of our Faith the Sacraments the life of our Faith 1 Pet. 1.9 holy conversation and the end of our faith the salvation of our souls Is it not strange That all these sweet and fair flowers of Christs planting and watering should grow so well in that which some call Babylon in Antichrists Garden or on the Devils dunghil That it should be no true Church of Christ which owns nothing for Religious but what is according to the truth of Jesus either commanding or permitting instituting or indulging of pious necessity or of prudent liberty We should put these rigid Catoes too much to the blush for âheir unnatural ingratitude to the Ministers and Church of England if we should ask them Whence they had this privilege by which they own themselves to be Christians whence this power to cast or call themselves into Bodies or Churches as Believers which is by them presupposed whence they had till of late years their instruction for the most part in the knowledge of Jesus Christ Sure these holy leaves or fruits grow not but in the Pale and Garden of the Church of Christ not in our own rude mirdes and untill'd natures not among desolate Indians obstinate Jews oâ barbarous Turks and not often in private closets and corners which nourish a neglect and contempt of Publick Ordinances But if these men were self-taught and converted yet sure not self-baptized too nor their Teachers self-ordained too If they had nothing of their Christianity from the Ministry of the Church of Englandâ It is no wonder they prove such Scholars such Christians and such Preachers as some of them seem to be having been their own Masters Ministers and Baptizers They are indeed onely worthy of themselves and of wiser mens pity For that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the retreat 24. Of pretensions to be above any Ministry as taught of God immediately or reserve of some men by which as Eaglets they would seem to soar out of sight and to build their Nest on a Rock that is higher than our ordinary Reason Religion and Experience can reach as if they were immediately inspired specially called and taught of God baptized by his Spirit without any Minister or outward Ministry they must give us leave not to believe them upon their bare word which hath not always been so sure till they demonstrate and prove it better by Gods Word and their better maners For which we will give them time enough Mean while we are sure the best Christians among them were made such by the ordinary Ministers of this Church and these made Ministers by no other means but that Ordination derived from and ascending up to the blessed Apostles whom Christ first chose to be Disciples and after ordained and sent them as Publick Ministers not onely as to personal discharge but as to successional descent These were Eagles indeed who flew high in their knowledge and piety yet stooped low in their humility and charity Those others of a new brood are more like yong Cuckoes which devour the Bird in whose nest and by whose fostering they were hatched Some of them have knowledge I would they had more humility and charity they would not disdain to own the parents that begat and educated them even this now so poor desolated beaten torn and wasted Church of England and its Antichristian Ministers as they please to call them Be it so some mens tongue is no slander If we neither adde to nor detract from the Scriptures as Jews Papists and Euthusiasts do If we erre in no fundamentals of faith or maners if we refuse no duty divinely required if we allow no error in our selves or others if we drive on no worldly designs injuriously or hypocritically but study to approve our selves in all godliness and honesty with meekness of wisdom to all men we need no more fear the drops of peevish tongues or dashes of malicious pens as to the honor and comfort of being a part of the true Church of Christ than a cloth dyed in grain need to fear stains by the aspersions of dirt cast on it by unclean and envious hands 25. Of the power of the People in Church affairs 4. But it is objected against us in England That neither Church nor Minister of England did or do own that high and mighty principle of all Church power which some call The People Answ True indeed Although we highly love and esteem as Brethren the faithful and humble people for whom Christ hath died yet we are not of so spungy and popular a softness as to own any part or Congregation or Body of People to be the original or conduits of any Spiritual or Church power which no learned and wise men ever esteemed to be Popular or Democratical but rather an excellent Aristocracy where many able men were in Counsel and some one eminent in order and authority among them We do not dig or descend to these low valleys for these holy waters nor do we seek for the flowings of it through such crazy and crooked pipes nor do we hope to draw it forth out of such broken Cisterns which can hold no such waters We have them from higher fountains and derive them in straiter channels Matth. 28.19 and conserve them in fitter vessels than the vulgarity of even honest Christians can be presumed to be That is from the ordinary Power and constant Commission which from Christ was derived to the Apostles Matth. 16.19 Matth. 18.18 John 20.23 and from them to their Successors in their ordinary Ministry and Church power in after ages who had this peculiar power of the keys of Heaven to binde or remit ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Pascere cum imperio pastor inde ut princeps To feed and rule Revel 12.5 19.15 Acts 20.28 1 Pet. 5.2 Vulgus ex veritate pauca ex opinione multa aestimat Tul. pro. Ros Com. to gather to guide to feed and to govern the several parts of the Church in Christs stead and name orderly committed to them People may rudely wrest these keys out of true Bishops and Ministers hands but it is evident they were never committed to them by the great Master of the House Jesus Christ nor do they
scandal speedily reform abuses restore defects execute all power of the Keys in the right way of Discipline without which there is no true at least no compleat and perfect Church for these men think Christians can hardly get to Heaven unless they have power among them to cast one another into Hell to give men over to Satan to excommunicate as they see cause to open and shut Heaven and Hell gates as they think fit Must all things that concern our Church say they lie at six and sevens till we get such Bishops and Presbyters such Synods and Councils such Representatives of Learned men as are hardly obtained and as hard to be rightly ordered or well used when they are met together They had rather make quicker dispatches in Church work as if they thought it better for every family to hang and draw within it self and presently punish every offence than for a whole Country to attend either general Assizes or quarter Sessions Answ Truly good Christians in this Church at present are in a sad and bad case too as well as their Ministers if they could make no work of Religion till they were happy to see all things of extern order and government duly setled Yet sure we may go to Church and to Heaven too in our worst clothes if we can get no better nor may we therefore wholly stay at home and neglect religious duties because we cannot be so fine as we would be Both Ministers and people must do the best they can in their private sphears and particular Congregations to which they are related whereby to preserve themselves and one another as Brethren in Christ from such deformities and abuses as are destructive to the power of godliness the peace of conscience and the honor of the Reformed Religion until the Lord be pleased to restore to this Church that holy Order antient Government and Discipline which is necessary not to the being of a Christian or a true Church as its form or matter which true Believers constitute by their internal union to Christ by Faith and to all Christians by Charity but onely as to the external form and polity for the peace order and well being of a Church as it is a visible society or holy nation and fraternity of men 1 Pet. 2.9 professing the truth of Jesus Christ Yea and Christians may better want that is with less detriment or deformity to Religion that Discipline which some men so exceedingly magnifie as the very Throne Scepter and Kingdom of Christ under Christian Magistracy as they may the office of Deacons where the law by Overseers takes care for the poor where good laws by civil power punish publick offences and repress all disorders in Religion as well as trespasses in secular affairs Better I say than they could have been without it in primitive times when Christians had no other means to repress any disorders that might arise in their societies either scandalous to their profession or contrary to their principles of which no Heathen Magistrate or Humane Laws took then any cognisance or applied any remedy to them Not but that I do highly approve and earnestly pray for such good Order comely Government and exact Discipline in every Church both as to the lesser Congregations and the greater Associations to which all reasons of safety and grounds of peace invite Christian Societies in their Church relations as well as in those of Civil which were antiently used in all setled and flourishing Churches Much after that patern which was used among the Jews both in their Synagogues which they had frequent both in their own Land and among strangers in their dispersions and also in their great Sanhedrim which was as a constant supreme Council for ordering affairs chiefly of Religion to one or both which no doubt our Saviour then referred the believing Jew in that of Tell it to the Church that is after private monition tell it to the lesser Convention or Consistory in the Synagogues which might decide matters of a lesser nature or to the higher Sanedrim in things of more publick concernment both which were properly enough called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Coetus congregatio ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a Church ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Philo. Jud. calls them ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Nihil hic à Christo novum praecipitur sed mos rectè introductus probatur H. Grot. in loc Ecclesiae i. e. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Theoph. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Plato Every polity hath in it power enough to preserve it happiness Coimus in coâtum congregationem Ibidem orationes exhortationes castigationes censura divina Praesident probati quique seniores Tert. Apol. Solebant Judaei res majoris momenti ultimo loco ad ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã multitudinem referre i. e. ad eos qui eadem instituta sestabantur quorum judicia conventus seniores moderabantur tanquam praesidet Grot. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Ign. Bas in Chrys Beyond this sense none could be made of Christs words by his then Auditors to whom he speaks not by way of new direction and institution of a Soverein Court or Consistory in every Congregation of Christians to come but by way of referring to a well known use and daily practise then among the Jews which was the onely and best means wherein a Brother might have such satisfaction in point of any offence which charity would best bear without flying to the Civil Magistrate which was now a forein power When Jews turned Christians it s very certain they altered not their Discipline and order as Christians in Church society from what they used before in their Synagogues Proportionably no doubt in Christian Churches of narrower or larger extensions and communion among the Gentiles the wisdom of Christ directs and allows such judicatories and iurisdictions to prevent or remove all scandals and offences among Christians to preserve peace and order as may have least of private or pedantick imperiousness and vulgar trifflings of men unable and unfit to be in or to exercise any such holy and divine authority over others who are easily trampled upon and fall into reproach and the snare of the Devil by reason of divers lusts passions weaknesses and temptations but rather Christ commends such grave Consistories solemn Synods and venerable Councils as consisting of wise and able and worthy men may have most as of the Apostolical wisdom eminency gravity so of Christs Spirit Power and Authority among them Such as no Christian with any modesty reason conscience or ingenuity can despise or refuse to submit to the integrity of their censure when it is carried on not with those heats peevishnesses and emulations which are usually among men of less improved parts or ripened years especially if Neighbors Such a way wisely setled in the Church might indeed binde up all things that concern Religion in private or more publick respects to all good behavior in the bonds of truth peace and
relation to the Gospell of Jesus Christ did ever so much as dispute or question the power and succession ministeriall as to its calling peculiar and divinely appropriated to some men in the Church Till of later dayes in Germany and some otherwheres the pride of some mens parts and conceit of their gifts or the opinion of their raptures and Enthusiasms mixed with other lusts and secular designs tempted some weak and fanatick men of the Anabaptistical leaven to adventure the invasion and vulgar prostration of the office before ever they broached their reasons against it Confessores gloriae Christi An. 1543. When they after proved to be Pastoricidae Vilains which conspired to destroy all the Ministers of the Gospel in Germany hanging and drowning many of them casting them into wells An. 1562. Cl. Sanctesius de temp decept Irenaeus l. 4. c. 43. Qui absistunt à principali successionâ Episcoporum Presbyterorum ab Apostolis quocunque locâ relliguntur suspectos habere oportet vel haereticos vel scindentes vel elatos sibi placentes Oââeââi decidunt à veritate Sophistae verborum magis esse volentes quà m discipuli veritatis Iren. lib 3. c. 40. which presumption and disorder the Swenckfeldians who called themselves Confessors of the glory of Christ afterwards the Socinians and others intending to introduce new and heretical doctrines with their new Teachers studied to set forth with some weak shews of reason and Scripture Whereas in all former ages of the Church such as should have abrogated the antient Catholick way or have broached any new way of Evangelical power and Ministry would have been as scandalous as if he had broached a new Messias or a new Gospel and made the old one of none effect as many of those strive to do who seek to cry down the former way of Ministers right Ordination Succession and Authority Who if they had not met with a giddy and credulous and licentious age would have needed new miracles to have confirmed their new and plebeian ways of Ministry or to cashier the old one which was first began and after confirmed as the Gospel was for some years with many infallible signs and wonders wrought by the Apostles and their Successors in that Order and Function 3. What can be the design of any to go contrary or innovate What can it be then but an exceeding want of common understanding or a superfluity of malice or a transport of passion or some secular lust either to deny credit to the Testimony of the best Christians and purest Churches in all times or to go quite contrary to their judgment and practise by seeking to discredit and destroy the Authority and peculiar Function of the antient Catholike Christian Ministry in these or other Churches And since in primitive times it could be no matter of either profit or honor in the world In ea regula incedimus quà m Ecclesia ab Apostolis Apostoli à Christo Christus à Deo accepit Tertul. de Praes c. 37. Radix Christianae societatis per sedes Apostoloâum successioneââpiscoporum certa per o rbem propagatione diffunditur August ep 42. to be a Bishop or Presbyter in the Church who were the first men to be persecuted or sacrificed What motive could there be then but onely Religion Duty and Conscience to undertake and persevere in that holy and dangerous Calling that so the Gospel might be continued And since now in England it can be no great temptation of covetousness or ambition unless it be in very poor and necessitous man to be a Preacher of the Gospel upon the new account of the peoples or self-ordaining which is as none what can it be that provokes so many in a new and pitiful way either of egregious ignorance and popular simplicity to undertake to be Preachers Or in a more refined way of devilish malice and deep design to seek to level cast down and trample under foot all Ministerial power whatsoever which is none if it be common and not peculiar to some men by divine Sanction Certainly this can arise from no other aim but either that of destroying us as a Reformed Church or desolating us quite from being a Church or Christians Which our posterity will easily cease to be as to the very form as many at present are 1 Cor. 15.14 as to any power and conscience of Religion if once they cease to have or begin to think they have not had any true Ministers in this or any Church So that all Preaching of the Gospel all Saââaments all the Faith of so many Christians Professors Confessors and Martyrs in all Ages together with the fruits of their Faith in Patience Charity and good Works must be in vain Alas these poor revenues and encouragements which are yet left to the Ministers here considered with their burdens of business duties taxes and envy are scarce worth the having or coveting even by vulgar and mechanick spirits who may make a better shift to live in any way almost than now in the Ministry The design then of levelling the Ministry must needs be from greater motives such as seek to have the whole honor and authority of the Reformed Religion here in England utterly abolished or else taken up upon some such odde novel and fanatick grounds which will hold no water bear no weight or stress being built upon the sands of humerous novelty not on the rock of holy antiquity and divine verity That so this whole Church may by the adversaries of it be brought to be a meer shadow of deformed and confused Religion or else be onely able to plead its Christianity upon meer Familistick or Anabaptistick or Enthusiastick or Socinian or Fanatick Principles Upon which must depend all our Christian Privileges Truths Sacraments Ministrations Duties and Comforts Living and Dying all which will easily be proved and appear to a considerate soul as profane and null when he shall see they are performed or administred by those Agnitio vera est Apostolorum doctrina antiquus ecclesiastatus in universo mundo charactere corporis Christi secundum successiones Episcoporum quibus illi âam quae est in unoquoque lâci Ecclesiam tradiderunt Ire l. 4. c. 6â who can produce no Precept Scripture or Practise from Antiquity for their ways either of Christianity or of Ministry but onely their own or other mens wilde fancies and extravagant furies nor can they have better excuses for their errors in forsaking the right and Catholike way but onely a popular levity credulity and madness after novelties So that as to this first part of my answer touching The peculiar Function of the Ministry I do aver upon my Conscience so far as I have read or can learn That there is no Council of the Church or Synod no Father or Historian no other Writer that mentions the affairs of the Church no one of them gives the least cause to doubt but wholly confirms this
assertion That no part of the Catholike Church of Christ in any age or place was ever setled or flourished without a constant peculiar Order and Ordination of Ministers who were consecrated to the receiving and exercise of that power in the Church as from Christ although by man which have continued to this day Theodoret. hist l. 1. c. 22. De Aedesio Frumentio apud Indos dâvina Ministeria âbierunt Laicii cum erant Frumentius postea ab Athanasio ep factus Cap. 23. Captivamulier apud Iberos Evangelium praedicabet miracula edebat His Const M. Episcopos misit There are indeed three or four examples in cases extraordinary of some private unordained Christians in the Primitive times who occasionally trading to Heathens were means first to teach them the Mysteries of Christ so as they desired to be baptized which was after done by such Bishops and Ordained Ministers as were sent them upon their request from other Churches To produce particulâr testimonies out of each Author Father Council and Historian in every age to prove the constant succession the high veneration and the unfeigned love which was every where conferred upon the Bishops and Ministers of the Church also to shew forth that devout care and religious regard which the ordainers the faithful people and those to be ordained to the office had in their several relations and duties when Ministers were to be ordained and consecrated such allegations were easie being very many and obvious but I hold the pains needless considering that to learned men they are so well known and all ingenuous Christians will believe my solemn asseveration that as in the presence of God what I write is Truth As for those weak or wilful men who are in this my onely opposers I know they consider not any heaps of authorities which they account onely as humane which they cannot examine nor do they value them when convinced of the certainty and harmony of them were there never so sweet and many flowers gathered from the testimony of Antiquity and Authority of the Fathers these supercilious novellers will not vouchsafe to smell to them It is well if I can make them savor any thing well out of the Scriptures which favors the Function of the Ministry 4. Catholike custom confirmed by Scripture as to the Office of the Ministry 2. So then in the next place This Defence of the Churches clear constant and Catholike Testimony in this point of the peculiar Office of the Ministry as in any other becomes a brazen wall an impregnable bulwark able to break in pieces or to retort all engines and batteries made against it when it appears to be exactly drawn according to the scale line and measure set down in the holy Scripture which are therefore much sleighted by some who despise the Ministry because like well-planted Canons they defend the Church and its constant Ministry as on the other side the Churches fidelity and constancy are the ground-work and platforms on which the Scriptures are planted 1 Tim. 3.15 The Church of Christ bearing up as the ground and holding forth as a pillar that divine Truth Power and Authority which from God they have in them of which the Church is the Herald or Publisher but not the Author or Inditer Conferring nothing to their internal Truth which is from their revealer and inspirer God but much to their external credit and historick reception which we have tendered to us daily not as immediately from God or Angels or inspired Prophets but by the veracity and fidelity of the Church chiefly in its publick Ministry which in this point of so necessary constant and universal practise for the good of all faithful people in all Ages and Churches cannot be thought in any reason either to have had no rule divinely appointed or that all Churches have been wholly ignorant of it or knowingly have so wholly swerved from it that never any Church either in its Teachers and Pastors or in its people and believers were followers of the Scripture-Precept and Patern till these last and worst days whereas the clear and pregnant light of the Scripture is in this point of a setled Ministry so agreeing with the use and practice of the Catholike Church that as no error can be suspected in the one so no obscurity can be pretended in the other by any Christians who will allow the divine Authority and infallible Truth of those Scriptures which we call the New Testament In all which nothing is more evident Christ sent of the Father as a Minister of Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.25 Heb. 12.2 Matth. 17.5 Jâhn 4.34 5.36 6.57 7.16 Heb. 5.4 No mantaketh this honor to himself but he that is called of God as Aaron V. 5. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest but c. Matth. 3.17 and self-demonstrating beyond any cavil or contradiction than That our Lord Jesus Christ the promised Messias the beloved Son of God the Angel of the new and better Covenant the Minister of Righteousness the great Apostle the chief Bishop and Father of our souls the Author and Finisher of our Faith the supreme Lord and King the eternal and compassionate High Priest the unerring Prophet of his Church whose voice we are onely to hear and obey in all things he commands us That I say this Lord Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to a personal accomplishment of all Prophecies fulfilling of all righteousness to a visible Ministration of holy things for the Churches good That he came not in his own Name as a man to be Mediator and Teacher nor did he as a man take this honor of Prophet Priest or King of his Church upon him but had his mission or appointment from his Father God who gave evident testimonies from Heaven of him not onely before and at his birth but afterward at his solemn and publick inauguration by Baptism into the Work of his Ministry where a voice from Heaven was heard and a visible representation of the Holy Spirit was seen testifying him to be the beloved Son of God the anointed with the gifts of the Spirit above all as Head of the Church These after were followed with infallible signs and wonders while Jesus went about doing good teaching the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven instituting holy rites for the distinguishing of his Church from the world and for the comforting of the faithful in the world by those seals pledges and memorials of his love in dying for the Church and shedding both water and blood upon the Cross Christs sending his Apostles as Ministers Acts 1. Phil. 2.9 Christ having thus personally finished the suffering and meritorious part of his Ministry after his Resurrection being now no more to converse in a visible humane way of presence with his Church on Earth but ascending as was meet to that glory of the Father which as God he had ever with him as man he had
exemplo Timothei ecclesiae ordinationem custodirent Ambr. in 1 Tim. 6. not arbitrarily and precariously but as a trust and duty of necessity out of conscience and with all divine power authority and fidelity as Ambassadors from Christ for God as Heralds as Angels or Messengers sent from God as Laborers together with God in his Husbandry the Church as Woers and Espousers having Commission or Letters of credence to treat of and make up a marriage and espousals between Christ and the Church which sacred office of trust and honor none without due authority delegated to him from Christ might perform any more than Haman might presume to court Queen Esther before the King Ahasuerus During these Primitive times of the Apostles Ministry of the Gospel before they had finished their mortal pilgrimage we read them careful to ordain Presbyters in every City and Church to give them charge of their Ministry to fulfil it of their flocks to feed and guide them in Christs way both for truth and orders over whom the Lord had made them over-seers by the Apostles appointment who not onely thus ordained others to succeed them immediately but gave command as from the Lord to these as namely to Timothy and Titus to take great care for an holy succession of Ministers such as should be apt to teach able and faithful men to whom they should commit the Ministry of the Word of life so as the Word or Institution of Christ might be kept unblamable till the coming of Jesus Christ 1 Tim. 6.14 by an holy order and office of Ministers duly ordained with the solemn imposition of hands as a visible token to men of the peculiar designiation of them and no others but those to this Office and Function who must attend on the Ministry give an account of their charge and care of souls to God Thus we finde beyond all dispute for Three Generations after Christ First in the Apostles secondly from them to others by name to Timothy and Titus thirdly from them to others by them to be ordained Bishops and Deacons the holy Ministry instituted by Christ is carried on in an orderly succession in the same Name with the same Authority to the same holy ends and offices as far as the History of the New Testament extends which is not above thirty years after Christs Ascension And we have after all these the next Succession testifying the minde of the Lord and the Apostles Clemens the Scholar of Saint Paul mentioned Phil. 4.3 who in his divine Epistle testifies That the Apostles ordained every where the first-fruits or prime Believers for Bishops and Deacons Pag. 54. And pag. 57. the Apostles appointed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã distinct Offices as at present ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã That when these slept with the Lord others tried and approved men should succeed and execute their ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã holy Ministry than which testimony nothing can be more evident After that he blames the Corinthians for raising sedition for one or two mens sake against all the Presbytery Pag. 62. And exhorts at last Let the flock of Christ be at peace with the Presbyters ordained to be over it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã So after Be subject to the Presbyters c. Thus the excellent methods of Christs grace and wisdom toward his Church appear as to this peculiar Office and constant Function of the Evangelical Ministry commanding men to work the work of God that they may have eternal life John 6.29 which is to believe in him whom the Father hath sent sealed and anointed with full power to suffer to satisfie to merit to fulfil all Righteosness Also to declare and confirm this to his Church constantly teaching guiding and sanctifying it He hath for this end taken care that faithful able and credible men should be ordained in an holy constant succession to bear witness or record of him to all posterity that so others might by hearing believe without which ordinarily they cannot Rom. 10.14 15. Nor can they hear with regard or in prudence give credit and honor to the speaker or obey with conscience the things spoken unless the Preacher be such an one as entreth in by the door John 10.1 into the sheepfold such as is sent by God either immediately as the Apostles or mediately as their Successors from them and after them who could never have preached and suffered with that confidence conscience and authority unless they had been conscious that they were rightly sent of God Rom. 10.14 15. Psal 68.11 Isai 53.1 1 Cor. 1.18 and Christ At whose Word onely this great company of Preachers were sent into the world who so mightily in a short time prevailed as to perswade men every where to believe a report so strange so incredible so ridiculous so foolish to flesh and blood and to the wisdom of the world Thus far then the tenor of the whole New Testament 6. Distinct Characters and Notes of the Ministerial Office John 15.19 and that one Apostolike Writer Clemens witnesseth that as Jesus Christ the great Prophet and chief Shepherd 1 Pet. 5.4 was sent and impowred with all power from the Father to carry on the great work of saving sinners by gathering them out of the world into the fold and bosom of his Church So he did this and will ever be doing it till his comming again by ordeining and continuing such means and Ministry Mat. 28.20 as he saw fittest to bring men into and to guide them in Joh. 21.15 Feed my Lambs my Sheep Acts 20.28 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã To feed as Shepheards the flock 1 Pet. 5.2 1 Cor. 4.4 Let a man so account of us as the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God c. 2 Tim. 4.1 2. 2 Tim. 4.5 Acts 20.29 1 Tim 4.11 Mat. 28. ult Heb. 13.14 Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account c. Luke 12.43 Blessed is that servant the faithfull and wise Steward set over the house-hold whom his Master comming shall find so doing Dan. 12.3 1 Cor. 9.17 If I do this willingly I have a reward c. the wayes of saving truth of Religious orders and of holy lives Investing as we have seen particular persons whose names are recorded with peculiar power to teach to gather to feed and govern his Church by Doctrine by Sacraments and by holy Discipline Setting those men in peculiar relations and Offices to his Church as Fathers Stewards Bishops Shepheards Rulers Watchmen calling them by peculiar names and distinct titles as light of the world Salt of the earth Mat. 5.13 Fishers of men Mat. 4.19 Stars in his right hand Rev. 2.1 Angels of the Churches Requiring of them peculiar duties as to Preach the word in season and out of season to feed his Lambs and Sheep to fulfill the work of their Ministry to take care of the flock against grievous Wolves
false teachers to stop their mouths Tit. 1.11 to exhort command and rebuke with all authority Tit. 2.15 to do their work as workmen that need not to be ashamed 2 Tim. 2.15 as those that must give an account of their Ministry and the souls committed to their care and charge by God and the Church Adorns them also with peculiar privileges promises and speciall assistances takes care for peculiar maintenance 1 Cor. 9.9 19. and double honour to be given them by all true Christians 1 Tim. 5.17 and encourageth them in a work of so great pains exact care and consciencious diligence which must expect to meet alwaies as now it doth with much opposition and contradiction of sinners promising to them speciall degrees of glory and more ponderous Crowns of eternall rewards in Heaven 1 Cor. 12.29 Are all Apo. are all Prophets are all Teachers c. 1 Cor. 9.16 Though I Preach the Gospell I have nothing to glory of as superogating so necessity is layd upon me yea woe is unto me if I Preach not the Gospell By all which and many others which might be added the Demonstration is clear as the Sun at Noon day to all that are not wilfully blind That some and not all in the Church and these not arbitrary and occasionall but chosen and ordeined persons are sent in a succession from Christ in his name and by vertue of this divine mission speciall authority and ordination to the care service and work of the Ministry they are bound in the highest bonds of conscience to the glory of God and the salvation of their own and others souls under a dreadfull woe and curse of being guilty of their souls damnation who perish by their neglect to attend diligently to discharge faithfulây and couragiously as in the name and authority of Jesus Christ the Lord of glory this great and dreadfull imployment of the Ministry which Angels would not undertake without they were sent nor if sent without some horror Onus opus iâsis angelicis formidandum humoris Betn 2 Cor. 2.16 Who is sufficient for these things i. e. to speak the word of God as of God in the sight of God in Christ i. e. of sincerity 2 Tim. 2.4 2 Tim. 4.13 14 15 16. Acts 4.19.20 The Epistle of Paul to Tim. and Tit. are the constant Canons and divine injunctions for the succession of Ministerial power by way of tryal imposition of hands prayer c. To which no earthen vessels are of themselves sufficient but through the grace of God they are made able and faithfull 1 Tim. 1.12 and being such are both successefull and accepted while they give themselves wholy to this work not entangling themselves with other incomberances but devoting the whole latitude of time parts studies gifts to this business of saving souls and this not in popular and precarious wayes or only upon grounds of charity but with all just confidence of having that authority with them as well as necessity upon them which makes them bold in the Lord that they cannot but speak the things for which they have received power and commission from Christ by the Ordination and appointment of the Governours and guides of the Church who formerly had received the same power To which none can without high impudence blasphemy and impiety pretend who are conscious to themselves to have received no such authority from Christ either immediatly or in that one mediate way of successive ordination by which he hath appointed it to be derived to posterity which I have already proved cannot by any shew of Scripture no more than in any way of reason and order becomming Religion be found to have any other way than by those that are in orders as Ministers neither is it intrusted with the community of people among Christians nor left to every private mans pleasure As then some men are duly invested with power ministeriall 7. None can be true Ministers but such as are rightly ordeined both to act in this power and to confer it to others after them and these only are commanded by the rule of Christ by their duty or office and by all bonds of conscience to make a right use of this peculiar and divine power for the Churches good So are all other men whatsoever not thus duly ordeined and impowred though never so well gifted in themselves forbidden under the sins of lying falsity disorderly walking proud usurpation and arrogant intrusion of themselves into an holy office uncalled and unsent either to take this office and Ministry of holy things on themselves or to confer the power which they never received on others which neither Melchisedeck nor Moses nor Aaron nor Samuel nor any of the Prophets nor the Lord Jesus Christ nor the blessed Apostles Heb. 5.1 Every high Priest taken from among men is ordeined for men in things pertaining to God c. 4. No man taketh this honour to himself but he that is called of God as was Anon c. 5. Christ also glorified not himself to be made an high Priest c. nor any Evangelist or any true Bishop or Presbyter nor any holy men succeeding them did ever take to themselves either as to the whole or any part of that power and Ministry not so much as to be a Deacon but still attended the Heavenly call and mission either immediatly Luke 12.42 Who then is a faithfull and wise Steward whom the Lord shall make ruler over his household to give them their portion in due season 43. Blessed c. 1 Tim. 3.15 If I tarry long that thou mayst know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the house of God c. which was confirmed by miracles and speciall revelations or predictions or mediatly in such an order and method of succession as the Lord of the Church who is not a God of confusion hath appointed and to this day preserved who otherwayes would have left his Church short of that blessing of orderly Government and Officers appointed for holy ministrations which is necessary in every society and which no wise man that is Master of any Family doth omit to appoint and settle especially in his personall absence where he governs by a visible derived and delegated authority given to others as Christ now doth his Church as to the extern order and dispensation of holy things Peoples duty The duty of all faithfull people in which bounds their comforts are conteined are no less distinct and evidently confined Quomodo valebit homo secularis sacerdotis magisterium adimplere cujus nec officium tenuit nec disciplinam agnovit Isid Hisp off l. 2. c. 5. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Lay man is bound up by Lay commands to keep his rank and order Cl. ep pag. 53. Nor can saith he the Presbyters be cast out or degraded without a great sin Pag. 57. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. Exors officii exors solatii praemii Is Hisp Matth.
16.18 Eph. 2.20 Heb 6.2 in the order of Christs Church which are diligently to attend humbly to obey Heb. 13.17 thankfully to own respect love esteem and honor 1 Cor. 9.11 1 Thes 5.12 13. liberally to requite the doctrine and labors of the true and faithful Ministers 1 Tim. 5.17 who are thus over them in the Lord in a right way and succession of Ministeriall Office divinely instituted and constantly derived authority In the perpetuating of which to so many centuries of years since Christs Ascension by lawfull and uninterrupted succession in his Church the power and providence of God is not less remarkably seen than in the preservation of the Scriptures amidst all persecution confusions and variations of humane affairs Also the love and care of Christ to his Church the fidelity of his promise is evident being no less made true to the Ministry than to the whole Church to be with them to the end of the world and by the Ministry that is made good to the whole Church that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the foundations of the Church which are laid upon the writings and by the labours of the Prophets and Apostles and after them still layed and preserved by able faithfull and ordeined Ministers The consecrating or ordeyning of whom by the Imposition or laying on of hands in a continued succession for the good of the Church is reckoned by the holy Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews among the principles and foundations of Christian Religion joyned with doctrines of Faith Repentance Baptism Resurrection and eternal judgement for other meaning of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Imposition of hands I find not by Scripture practise or the Church afterward so clear and constant as this in Ordination to an holy Ministry Nor can Confirmation be rightly done to the Baptised and Catechised but by those who are ordeined That to deny the Ordination and due succession of Ministers by which to carry on the work of Christ in his Church or to seek to overthrow it in any Church is all one as if men should deny those grand and fundamentall points of Faith Repentance Resurrection and judgement to have been taught by Christ or Baptism to have been instituted that to overthrow and abolish the constant Ministry and Office in the Church can be the design of none but those who care not to turn Infidels and to live in all Atheistical profaness If then there be any force or authority from Scriptures as the Oracles of God to prove by precept institution or example the religious necessity of any peculiar duties or holy Offices and divine Ministrations by which men are made Christians and distinguished as the Church of Christ from the world if the Preaching the word of life the teaching of the histories the opening of the mysteries the urging the precepts the denouncing of the terrors the offering the promises the celebrating the Sacraments the binding to wrath and shutting up to condemnation all unbelievers and impenitents the loosing of penitents and opening Heaven to them by the knowledge of Law or Gospell if these or any other holy ministrations be necessary not to the well-being only but the very being of a Church Christian Sure there there is as I have shewed no less strength pregnancy and concurrent Scripture clearness to convince and confirm the peculiar office divine power and function of the Evangelicall Ministry Without which all those ministrations must needs have ceased long agoe as to any notion or conscience among men of holy divine and Christian that is the appointments institutions messages or orders of Jesus Christ which could never carry any such marks of divine credit and authority meerly from vulgar credulity and forwardness of reception or from generall common talk and tradition among men if there had been no peculiar men appointed by God in his name and by his Commission to hold forth to the world this great salvation to convince or convert or leave men without excuse As there can be no valid message autoritative Embassie credible assignment or conveyance of truth promise command duty comfort bounty or love to others where there is only a generall fame and unauthorised report without any speciall Messenger Embassador Assigner and Conveyer to the authority of whose speech and actions or conveyances not any mans own forwardness nor others easiâess and credulity doth suffice but some peculiar characters Seals and evidences by letters of credence or other sure and known tokens of a truly assigned and really derived authority do give ground to believe or power to validate what any man so performeth not in his own name or for his own interests but to an others who principally employs him and who only can make good what he so far promiseth or declareth or sealeth as he hath commission and authority from another so to do No man that speaks or negotiates in anothers name especially in matters of great consequence of as high a nature as life and death can expect to be believed by wise and serious men and that they should accordingly order both their affections and all their affairs unless they saw the marks of infallible authority far beyond the confidence of a trivial talker and a bad orator In this point then of a peculiar office and function of the Ministry Evangelical which is divinely instituted in which some men are solemnly invested by which all Religion is confirmed and preserved to the Church We have not onely full measure from Christ himself and heaped up by Apostolical precept and example evidently set forth in the Scriptures and pressed down by after Histories of the Church in a constant succession but it is also running over by those necessary accumulations which all right reason order and prudence do liberally suggest both in the Theory and the Practick 8. The peculiar Office of the Ministry confirmed by Reason For first no man by any natural capacity or acquired ability as a reasonable Creature is bound in conscience to be a Minister of the Gospel and holy Mysteries to others for then all men and women too ought to be such or else they sin Secondly Nor yet by any civil and politick capacity as living in any Society or City can any man be obliged to direct and guide others in the things of God since that relation invests no man in any civil power office or authority until the supreme fountain of civil power calls him to the place and endues him with such power much less can it put any into an authority which is divine spiritual and supernatural to act as in Gods and Christs name and to higher ends than humane 3. Nor thirdly doth any rel gious common capacity as a believer or a Christian or as endued with gifts and graces furnish any one with Ministerial power and lay that duty on him for then every Christian great and small yong and old man and woman 1 Cor. 12.25 29. Are all Apostles are
abilities and willingness would make a Minister of Christ which they will not Certainly no men are so good natured of themselves without hopes of gain or some benefit as of their own good will to undertake and constantly to persevere in so hard and hazardous besides so holy a service as this of holding forth to a vain proud carnal hypocritical Vera cruce digni qui crucifixum adorant Insana religio Cecil Exitiabilis supeâstitio Tacit. Annal. l. 15. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Julius Imp. ep 7. 1 Cor. 2.14 Exitiabilis superstitio Author ejus Christus qui Tiberio imperantâ per procuratorem Pontiuâ Pilatum supplicio affectus Tac. l. 15. Annal. Miranda etiam pudenda credit Christianus cujus fides impudens esse debet Tert. de Bapt. Sacra sacrilegiis omnibus tetriâra Cecil de Christian ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Euseb hist l. 4. c. 14. Else Christian Religion would have failed Multi barbarorum in Christum credunt sine charactere vel atramento scriptum habentes per spiritum in cordibus suis salutem veterum traditionem diligenter custodientes quà m Apostoli tradiderunt iis quibus committebant ecclesias cui ordinationi assentiunt multae gentes Tren l. 4. c. 4. persecuting and devilish world so de picable and ridiculous a doctrine as this of a crucified Saviour at first was and still seems to the natural or onely ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã rational man unless there were by the wisdom and authority of Christ such ties of duty and calling laid upon some mens consciences as onely the mission and mandate of God can lay upon men who are not naturally more disposed to go on Gods errand than Moses or Jeremy or Jonah were And however now the peace warmth and serenity of times hath made the Ministry of the Gospel a matter of covetousness or popular ambition or curiosity or wantonness to many of these new Preachers who with rashness levity and a kinde of frolickness undertake that work which the best men and Angels themselves would not without much weeping as Saint Austine that day when he was ordained a Presbyter or with fear and trembling undertake yet the rigor and storms of primitive times it is very probable would have quenched the now so forward heats and flashes of these mens spirits When to Preach the Gospel and to preside as a Bishop or Presbyter in the Church was to expose a mans self to the front of persecution to stand in the gap against the violent incursions of malicious men and cruel devils To be a Minister of Jesus Christ was presently to forsake all and to take up the Cross and follow Christ to adopt with holy orders famine and nakedness banishment prisons beasts racks fires torments many deaths in one so that unless there had been divine authority enjoyning power enabling and special grace assisting the Ordainers in the Name of Christ sending and so in conscience binding together with gracious promises of a reward in Heaven incouraging the ordained doubtless the glorious Gospel of mans salvation had ere this been buried in oblivion none had believed that report nor heard of it if none had dared to preach it and none would of his own good will have been so hardy or prodigal of all worldly interests honor liberty safety estate and life as to adventure all needlessly and spontaneously on such a message to others so unwonted so unwelcome so offensive to the ears and hearts of men unless he had been conscious to a speâial dâty laid upon him by divine authority which was always derived in that holy and solemn Ordination which was the inauguration of Ministers to that great and sacred Work This indeed gave so great confirmation and courage to the true and ordâined Ministers of the Gospel that believing what they preached of a crucified Saviour and knowing whose work it was in whose Name they were ordained by whose power they were sent to how great ends their labors were designed even to save souls they willingly bare the Cross of Christ Acts 5.41 and counted it a crown and honorary addition to their Ministry to be thought worthy to suffer for the Name of Christ that what any of them wanted in the power of miracles was made up in the wonder of their patience when no Armies no State favored them and both opposed them when they had no temptations of getting a better living by preaching than any other way but rather losing of what they had when they expected few applauders of their boldness and forwardness many persecutors and opposers of their consciencious endeavors to do the duty which Christ by the Church had laid on them when they might not grow restive and lazy and knock off when they pleased but a wo and a necessity and an heavy account to be given to the great Pastor of the Church Christ Jesus always founded in their ears and beat upon their mindes These put them upon those Heroick resolutions to endure all things for Christs sake 2 Tim. 2.10 I endure all things for the elects sake c. 2 Cor. 11. 12. Phil. 1. Tit. 1.11 1 Tim. 6.5 Rom. 16.17 I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them Vers 18. For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple 1 Cor. 4.1 2. John 10.1 2. and the Churches sake and the good of those souls committed to their charge Nor did they remit their care or slacken the conscience of their duty in preaching diligently the Gospel because of the forwardness and seeming zeal of those that were false Brethren and false Apostles who out of envy or spight or for filthy lucre or any vain-glory among Christians set up the trade of preaching upon their own stock of boldness without any mission from Christ or those to whom he had delegated that power to ordain fit and able men Their seeming good will and readiness to preach did not free them from the brand of false Apostles and deceitful workers Satans ministers and messengers sent to buffet not to build the Church Wolves in sheeps clothing serving their bellies and not the Lord Christ or the Churches good whose order and authority they despise Nor can they be faithful to Gods work unless they keep to his word both as to the truths delivered and the order prescribed and the duties enjoyned and the authority established Christ doth not onely provide food for his family but stewards also and dispensers of it who may and must see to give every one their portion in due season rightly dividing the Word of truth There is not onely plenty but order and government in Christs house nothing less becomes the servants of Christ than this sharking and scrambling way of these new men who will snatch and carve for themselves and dispence to others what when
tenderness and indulgence of a Mother the caution and courage of a Commander the vigilancy of a Watchman the patience of a Shepheard the zeal of a lover the diligence of a woer the gallantry and honour of an Embassador who as he gives no cause so knows not how with patience to see his Master or Message affronted or neglected The wisdom and discretion of a Counsellor The constancy and resolution of a Pilot whom no storm must drive from the Steerage whom it becomes to be drowned with his hand on the helm For a true Minister who is enabled by God approved by man ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã vocat Socrat in Pl. Apol. Patârnum est docendi munus Heb. 2.12 I will declare thy name among my brethren c. 2 Cor. 6.1 We therefore as workers together with God and Christ c. 2 Cor. 5.10 All things are of God i. e. ordered by him who hath reconciled us to himself by Christ Jesus and hath given to us the Ministry of reconciliation V. 20. As though God did beseech you by us and so duly sent and ordeined by both to the service of Christ in the Church hath upon him not only something of the honour and authority but of the duty and care of Parents and that right of primogeniture which from Christ is derived to them as from the elder among many brethren which is to teach instruct provide for direct and govern in the things of God the younger succession of the family of Christ Yea more every true Minister hath part of the work of God assigned to him having a Deputation or Lieutenancy from Christ to fulfill what he hath graciously undertaken not as to meritorious satisfaction which Christ alone hath perfected but as to Ministeriall instruction and pastorall government teaching mankind to know the will of God how he is to be served and how they may be saved yea and ruling them that are Christs with his Scepter Furnished as the Ark with the Law with Manna and with Aarons rod to convince men of sin to comfort them with promises and to keep them in holy bounds by just authority and Christian Discipline So that true Ministers stand as in Parents so in Gods and Christs stead as to the visible means and outward work of divine institution 1 Cor. 4.7 which the Lord hath chosen to dispense by such earthen vessels that as they have some reflexions and marks of divine authority and honour more than humane upon them in their work and Commission so they may have as they had need more than ordinary divine assistance to carry them through the discharge of this work as it ought to be done In reference to which great and sacred imployment the Lord Christ fasted Luke 6.12 and prayed a whole night in a mountain the day before he chose ordeined and sent his twelve Apostles to the work of publike Ministry among the Jews yea and after they had enjoyed his holy society and instruction for some years yet before they were to go forth to the Gentiles conversion knowing what difficulties they should encounter what beasts and men and devils they were to contend withall besides how strange and incredible a message they went withall to convert a proud vain luxuriant covetous and crueâ word he would not have them go from Jerusalem Acts 1.8 till they were endued with power from on high by the holy Spirit their teacher and comforter ãâ¦ã the ântients had of the Ministry of the Gospel and with what spirit they undertook it 8. And according to this so emn both institution and preparation of the first Ministers of the Goâpell which Christ sent in whose power and after whose patern as neer as may be all others ought to succeed in âhe Church all holy wise able and humble Christians have alwaies looked not without horror trembling and amazement upon the Office and work of the Ministry untill the pride and presumption of these times Antiently the worthy Bishops and Ministers were both before and after their Ordination to this Office still asking this question in their souls who is sufficient for these things and what shall I do being a Minister to be saved still jealous lest while they Preach to others themselves prove castaways 2 Cor. 2.16 1 Cor. 9.27 De propriâ anima negligens in alienâ esse non potest solicitus Jeron However now youthfull confidences or rusticall boldness or vain-glorious wantonness or ambitious ostentations or covetous projects or secular interests or friends importunities or fortunes necessities and stimulating despairs to live any other way these God knows are too often the main motives which put many men upon the work of the Ministry Yet Those grand and eminent men of old whose gifts and graces far exceeded our modern tenuities came not to this holy Ordination nor undertook this service of God to the Church either as Bishops or Presbyters without infinite reluctânce Naz. Or. 29. Reproves that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Importune aking tângues that know neither hâw to speak nor to be silent Such Preachers he calls ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Aâter he shews how much caâe is to be used before and after the undertaking that holy Office P. 48. 7. c. Eph. 6.12 1 Cor. 9.22 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Is Pel. grief dread and astonishment They had a constant horror of the worth and danger of mens souls which only Christ could redeem with a valuable price the losse of which a whole world cannot countervail also of the terrors of the Lord to slothfull and unfaithfull servants in that work also of the strictness of accounts to be given at Christs tribunall They had before their eyes that boundless Ocean of business into which a Minister once ordeined lancheth forth and is engaged to study to preach to pray to fast to weep to compassionate to watch-over to visit to rep oove to exhort to comfort to contend with evill and unreasonable men deviâs and powers of darkness to take care of young and old to temper himself to novices cathecumens to confirmed to lapsed to obstinate to penitent to ignorant and erronious to hereticall surlyness to schismaticall peevishness to become all things to all men to gain some The work indeed requires saith St. Chrysostom ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Crysost in Act. 3. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. Synes ep 105. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã âd 2 Cor. 11.29 Who is weak and I am not weak who is offended and I burn not ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a most ample and enâârged soul lest any under our charge be ignorant by our neglâct be misled by our errors justly scandaâized by us and hardned against us lest any saving truth be wasted or concealed any soul woundâd any conscience or faith shipwracked lest any weaker faith faint any stronger fall lest any be tempted and seduced by Satan or his Factors In fine lest any poor soul should be damâed by our default which is
is among us not so much a famine as a surfet of the Word and knowledge which hath here been as the waters of the Sea Hab. 2.14 disdains those shores of order office and duty which the Lord hath set for its bars and bounds in his Church Christians in many places having had great fulness are come to great wantonness and the enemies of the Ministry The greatest enemies of Ministers make them most necessary and Reformed Religion in this Church are not such as have been kept meager and tame with emptiness and ignorance but such as have been pricked with provender high fed by an able and constant Ministry These are grown to such ferocious spirits like pampered horses whom no ground will hold daily neighing after novelties rushing upon any adventures and impatient to bear those Ministers any longer by whose bounty they have been so liberally nourished with all means of knowledge preaching conferring and writing These now affect high racks and empty mangers subtilties rather than solidities and novelties more than nourishment yea they are become the rivals of their Ministers and und rtake like Balaams Beast to teach their Masters not onely speaking with them but against them yea seeking to cast them quite off lifting up their heel against them and trampling their feeders under their feet Thus having either got the bridâe between their teeth or having cast quite off their neck the reigns of Order Government and Discipline in Religion Psal 32.9 they are become like Horse and Mule without understanding without gratitude civility and common humanity so far they are from sober piety Running furiously without their guides wantonly snuffing up the wind and proudly lifting up themselves in their high crested opinions and presumptuous fancies of notions gifts prophecyings and inspirations Glorying in this riotous liberty and mad frolicks of Religion which all wise humble and holy Christians know are not more unworthy of and uncomfortable to all good Ministers who taught them better than they will be most dangerous destructive and damnable to those men themselves who proudly affect those ruder and dangerous follies in the Church of Christ who cannot either they or their posterity be ever so safe as in Christs way at his finding and under his custody where with holy and just restraints becoming Reason Order and Religion there are also the most ingenuous liberties and the most liberal fruitions Wandering prodigals in Religion who forsake the order and regularity of their Fathers house which is full of bread will soon be reduced to a morsel of bread And we see already such as have in their pride and disdain most forsaken the true Ministry are come by their riotous courses to feed on husks and from the harlotry of their wanton and fine opinions to consort with swine having hired out Luke 15. and enslaved themselves to all rude unjust and profane designs or else wallowing in filthy and sensual lusts which makes them sin against Heaven and Earth and be no more worthy to be called the sons of God or the children of this Christian Reformed Church So that we evidently see That those men fight against God against Christ Jesus against the Reformed and Christian Religion against the Word of God which is the standard of Religion against the Unity Order and Cathol ke conformity of the Church of the Christ in all ages against the future Succession of Religion against their own souls against their posterity against the common good of all mankinde and all such as may want and enjoy the inestimable blessing of the Gospel who ever fight against the holy office divine authority necessary duty sacred dignity and constant succession of the Evangelical Ministers and Ministry without which the Church of Christ like a Field or Garden without diâigent and daily Husbandmen and Gardiners would long ago have run to waste and been over-run with all maner of evil wââd which grow apace even in the best Plantations if God in his wisdom and mercy to mankinde and to his Church had not appointed some men as his Ministers to take care from time to time that the field of the Church be tilled in every place that the Garden be weeded and the vineyard fenced and this especially for their sakes who are the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã most of men whose cares and burdens of life or whose dulness and incapacity or whose wants and weakness or whose lusts and passions would never either move them to or continue them in any way worthy the name of true Religion if God had not sent and ordained ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Cryers 1 Tim. 2.7 Praecones vel Caduceatores Heralds and Ambassadors to summon invite and by pious importunity even compel men to come into the ways of true piety and happiness which being not onely far above sinful flesh and blood but quite contrary to them had need have a Ministry whose authority for its rise assistance and succession should be beyond what is of humane original and derivation which who so seek to oppose destroy or alter will certainly bring upon themselves not onely the guilt of so high an insolence against Christ and injury against this Church but also will stand accountable to Gods justice for those many souls damnation whom their vanity and novelty have perverted and destroyed both in the present age and after generations for want of true Ministers These first weapons then which the Adversaries of the peculiar Calling of the Ministry hoped to finde in the Armony of Scripture or Right Reason whereby to defend their own intrusion and to offend that holy Function and divinely instituted Succession are found I think to have as little force in them to hurt the Ministry or to help the enemy 1 Sam. 17. as Goliahs Shield Helmet Sword and Spear had either to injure David or secure himself yea we see those smooth stones those pregnant and piercing Authorities of many clear and concurrent Texts of Scripture both for precept and example which I have produced according to right reasoning from Jesus Christ and the blessed Apostles To which the Catholâke practice and custom of all Churches in after times is as a sling directing them more forcibly and firmly against the brazen foreheads of those Anakims that oppose the Ministry All these together are sufficient to prostrate to the ground their proud height and to put to flight that uncircumcised party who have defied and seek to destroy the hoây Ordination of Evangelical Ministers whose poor and oppressed estate although it may now seem but as little David with his Scrip and Staff in the eyes of self-exalting adversaries who despise and curse them in their hearts yet these may finde them to come in the Name and Power of the Lord sent by Gods mission furnished with Christs commission and appointed by the Churches due Ordination to be Leaders Rulers and chief Officers in the Church Militant under His Excellency the Lord Jesus Christ
Heb. 2.10 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã who is the Generalissimo chief Captain and Prince of our Salvation who having in former times delivered his Servants the true and faithful Ministers from the paws of the Lions and the Bears Heathenish force and Heretical furies will also deliver them out of the hands of these uncircumcised Philistims who having received from their Ministry what ever honor and privilege they can pretend to as Christians yet now carry themselves as if they were aliens from the Israel of God and had never had relation to or blessing from this or any other true Church where hath been a constant Ministry not more famous for Learning and Industry than blessed with all Evangelical excellencies and happy successes To which now the Lord is pleased to adde this crown of patience under great tribulations and of perseverance in suffering much evil discâuragement wheâe it hath deserved so well CAVIL III. Or Objection about Christian gifts and exercising in common as Preachers or Prophets ALl impartiall spectators may hitherto behold the salvation of God how the insolent opposers of the Ministeriall function the men of Gath are in their first encounter so deeply smitten and woun ed that they ly groveling on the ground The remayning motions which they may seem to have Inconditi morientium motus invalidi expirantium conatus Sym. are but the inordinate strokes of hands and heels the last batteries and weak struglings which attend impotent revenge and exspiring malice It will be no hard matter to set my foot upon their prostâate power and to sever their Heads from their Shoulders that they rise up no more by the means of that two edged and unparalleld Sword of the Scriptures rightly applyed which hath both sharpness weight and brightness the clearest reason potentest conviction and divinest Authority with which they thought to arm themselves against the peculiar Office of the Ministry Yet there are some seconds and recruits who seem to have less fury and malice against the Ministry who seeing the chief Champion of the Antiministeriall faction thus Levelled come in either as to the spoyl or rescue as Ajax to Ulysses holding before them the shield of manifold Scriptures Alleging That notwithstanding there may be granted some peculiar Office and Institution of the publike Ministry yet as to the power of preaching or liberty of prophecying the promise is common to all believers Joâl 2.28 cited Acts 2.17 for the powring out of the spirit upon all flesh in the later dayes for the Annointing from above which shall lead every believer into all Truth so that they shall not need any man should teach them 1 Joh. 2.27 Rom. 12.6 1 Cor. 14.1 1 Thes 5.19.20 1 Cor. 12.7.39 Acts 18.26 being all taught of God That the manifestation and gifts of the spirit are given to every one for the good of the Church in teaching exhorting prophecying c. Which every one is to covet and may communicate to others for their conversion or confirmation as Aquila and Priscilla did to Apollos and other Christians in Primitive dispersions exercising and employing their talents received if not as Ministers in Office and ordeined yet as Prophets and gifted Brethren if not as Pastors yet as Teachers 1 Per. 4.11 In like sort Christians now find their gifts of knowledge and utterance to great and good that they cannot smother them nor suffer them to be restrained and oppressed by the Ministers encroachment and Monopoly Thus they who would seem to be somewhat more civill and equanimous to the calling and Office of the Ministry Answ 1. Gifts in others no prejudice to the Office of the Ministry nor warrant to any man publike arrogancy My Answer first in generall is That all these and the like small shot which Infaustus * Socinno lib. de Eccl. Socinus * Osterâd Inst c. 42. Osterodius * Smaltzius de Ord. Ecc. Smaltzius * Radeccius de Eccl. Radeccius * Theoph. Nicolaides defens Socin c. 1. Acts 14 23. When they had ordained them elders in every Church Acts 13.2 Separate to me Paul and Barnabas 1 Tim. 4.14 5.22 Acts 18.28 Heb. 14.17 2 Tim. 2 4. 1 Thes 5.12 13. 1 Tim. 5.17 1 Cor. 12.18 c. 1 Cor. 14.32 V. 33. 40. Rom 16 17. 2 Thes 3.6 2 Tim. 4.3 Primitive prophecying what 1 Pet. 1.19 Prophetae Scâpturacum interpretes erant maximè propheticarum obscurarum Ambr. Theoph. Chrysost Prophetarum munus erat mysticum Scripturarum sensum ad salutem auditorum explanare Erasm in 1 Cor. 14. 1 Cor. 4.30 1 Cor. 14.29 c. Nicolaides and others of the revived Arians have afforded these Semiant iministeriall adversaries have been oft discharged and received without any hurt as to the divinely established Office of the Ministry Having been either satisfied with all ingenuous concessions as far as order modesty and charity will carry them or refuted with just replyes against all vanity arrogancy and confusion by those learned men who formerly or lately have given very sober solid and liberall satisfaction to any pleas urged or scruples alleged out of Scripture which will in no sort maintain idleness vanity pride and confusion in the Church under the specious names of liberty gifts and prophecying There are indeed many places exciting Christians to labour to abound in every good gift and work but yet as many to keep them within due order and holy bounds becomming the honour of Religion All those ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã gifts were never more eminent and common in the Church of Christ than in those times when the Ministeriall power was by peculiar marks ceremonies and duties distinctly and undoubtedly conferred on some peculiar persons as the Apostles and 70. Disciples on Timothy Titus and others who were separated and ordeined by fasting praying examination and imposition of hands to be Bishops or Presbyters in the respective Churches as they came to be capable of setled order and Ministry And notwithstanding the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit which were then conferred upon many not yet ordeined Ministers we see the Office and honour of the Ministry was never more clearly asserted as divine being set over the flocks by the Lord so to be owned and esteemed as distinct from secular intanglements as an retire and compleat imployment even for the best and ablest men to which they should once ordeined wholy give themselves and attend on it Never was order and peace and proportion in the Church more enjoyned and duly observed never were disorderly and unruly walkers false Apostles self-obtruders house-creepers heaps of teachers who caused divisions more severely repressed than in those Primitive times when believers enjoyed most eminent gifts and graces for some ends either in miracles or toungs or prophecying which was not that eminentest sense of prophecying that is foretelling things to come but the opening and applying the places of the Prophets in the old Testament which was then
horrid and abominable liquors whose venom hath so stupified their consciences that they are past all feeling and sense of either sin shame or sorrow Nor is there ever any of these new Rabbies who can content himself with either the orders of this Church or the Articles of Sound doctrines or Catechisticall foundations and principles which it hath embraced and propounded upon very grave and good advise as most safe and necessary for Christians They must ever have some new fangle either of opinion or practise to make them remarkable 7. Gifts alone make not a Minister nor furnish him with true Ministerial power and authority But if I should yield which I cannot do with truth or only suppose some of these men to have even ordinary Apostolicall gifts as they vainly and falsly pretend yet even these would not make them beyond or better than fals Apostles unless they had the call mission and authority which true Apostles had immediatly from Christ and which false Apostles untruly pretended to who though they taught the truth yet with falsity pretended they had seen the Lord Jesus and were sent as other Apostles by him Nor will those common gifts make them ordinary Prophets or Ministers in the Church unless they have the ordinary call and mission which Christ hath setled in the Church A Serpent of gold would not have brought those healing effects which the brasen did at Gods appointement Gifts of knowledge and utterance alone are not qualifications sufficient for men to challenge the right of Ordination to publick Ministry for the moralls and practiques of men as well as their intellectuals are much to be considered the Priest might be able and the Levite lusty for service when they were unclean and so unfit for the Temple The levity haughtiness rudeness boastings and inconstancies observable in some mens looks gesture habit and carriage as St. Ambrose guessed at the mine and garb of two Presbyters who afterward proved stark naught makes them less fit to be ordained Ministers in the Church than many who have weaker gifts but discover more prudence gravity meekness humility and diligence Autoritas Charismata praesupopanit at Charismata autoritatem non ponunt Gerard. de Minist Qualis ordinatio talis successus Luth. 1 Cor. 3.3 A stock and gifts and parts either naturall or acquired though never so thrifty and spreading is of it self but as a crabstock and can of it self bear no other than sour fruits of Factions Schisms Emulations and carnall confusions in the Church till it is grafted with holy ordination by that due ministeriall power which is in the Church As there are formally or truly no true Sacraments where the same Elements and words materiâlly are used unless there be also a right Minister of holy things who acts and consecrates not in any naturall or civill capacity as from his own mind or other mens will but by delegation and appointment from Christ nor can there be a right Minister In actionibus tam sacris quaÌ civilibus id validum quod legitimum Reg. Ju. or Officer from Christ as I formerly proved where there is not a right patent divine power and commission given in his Name by due ordânation as it is but treason and rebellion for the abâest States-man or Lawyer to undertake and act the part of an Embassadour or Judge untill he be made such by those in reference to whose will and work such power and employment only can be conferred That cannot be done in anothers name which is not done by his consent Quo meliores eo deteâiores Verulam de Jesuitis and according to his declared will Men of the greatest gifts if they are disorderly in the Church are but as Wens in the hodâ the greater the worser the more they swell beyond the modell and true proportion of the bodies features the more deformity and inconvenience they bring to the whole body nor hath any man any cause to boast of them for it is not the greatness but fitness of parts which makes them handsome or useful to the whole who knows not that great wits and parts are oft-times great temptations as was said of Origen Magnum ingenium magna tentatio Vinc. Lyrin de Origine Tertul Gen. 3. whose frequent Preaching in the Church of Alexandria before he was Ordeined Presbyter gave great offence to grave and godly men imputing his after errors and fall to his too great forwardness and presumption The Serpent which was subtiller than other beastâ is chosen by the Devill as a fit organe for to convey his temptations Proud and presumptuous gifts in men are no better than those inordinate excrescencies which exceed mens noses or blind their eyes or somtimes swell bigger than their heads nor will their fate be better at last than that of the Giants was who presuming of his vast limbs 1 Chron. 20.6 and the extraordinary number of his fingers and toes which were twenty four in all yet there wanted not of Davids worthies who slew him when he defied the Church of God 2 Cor. 10.12 If men be left to measure themselves only by thems lves as most of these overwise-men do which of them but is prone to think very highly of himself and like the Apes in the fable fancy they can build as brave Houses and Cities and Churches as the ablest man but when they come to the Wood thây have not so much as Sawes or Axes or any tools to begin the work withall But these over-forward men usually reply with great sadness and severity against Ministers Monopolising of the duty and office of Preaching the Gospell That Paul rejoyced if any preached Christ Phil. 1.18 8. Of St. Pauls rejoycing that any way Christ was preached Phil. 2.21 Acts 17.11 though of envy and evill will though not Ordeined c. I answer first It doth not appear but those men might have due Ministeriall power to preach the Gospell and yet through passion or faction they abused this power seeking their own things and not the things of Christ Or secondly It may be their preaching was but privat domestique and charitative Instruction or confirming of others repeating as the Bereans what they had learned of St. Paul or other Apostles which is not denyed to any sober Christians but only required to be kept within those bounds of Order and humility so as it neither becomes rivall to or opposer of nor yet a despiser and at last an abolisher of the office of the publique Ministry which is the design of the presumptuous and pretenders against the Ministers Thirdly If those whom the Apostle speaks of were not Preâââers by office but only by their own little motives of applause or profit or Envy and the like they were moved to preach the Gospell of Christ yet they did not like ouâ modern Intrudârs and Usurpers boâst of Extraordinary gâfts and call nor did they deny or seek to overthrow in others the ordinary
bill of Divorce to the humble and usefully gifted Christians Liberty Only finding by experience that like Dinah it is prone to gad abroad run out through wantonness pride or weakness to much disorder vanity and confusion besides foolish and corrupt opinions and of late to a petulancy contempt and emulating of the publike Ordinance of the Ministry the wisdom of the Church in all ages for ought I can see did think fit to keep it within those safe and privater bounds of families or at most within such friendly meetings as are short of publike solemn Church assemblys Nor was the modesty of any humble Christian ever grieved that his abilities should be so wisely restrained While yet it had all private freedom and due encouragements And in publike far better and more orderly supplies from Gods rich treasury than from its own purse and penury As for the publike use of that Liberty and gifts of prophecying which that Gentleman so much crys up and magnifies I do not think him so much a puny in discretion but that he must needs see it will be incumbred with many and hardly evitable inconveniences Inconveniences attending that prophecying of the people on the Lords Day so that it will be easy for a wise man to see the Quare impedit For first most good Christians are commonly well satisfied with those solemn publike exercises and duties upon the Lords-Day as praying oft reading oft expounding the Scriptures Catechising many times and twise Preaching alwaies besides the ceâebrating of one or both Sacraments All which are the blessings which the bounty of God hath plentifully provided for Christian people and powreth on them every Lords Day by the Labours of their faithfull and able Ministers whom Christ and the order of the Church have undoubtedly set over them in the way of Divine Authority And to whom all serious Christians attend as of duty and conscience affording means sufficient by Gods blessing on their devout attentions judicious understandings retentive memorys fervent affections and suitable conversations to save their souls For whom it were infinitely better to have every where such a Minister duly setled and competently maintained by those Revenews which are in all Law both divine and humane due as given for this service of God and the Church than for Christians to be fobbed off with new projects of Prophets gifted Brethren and modern Itinerant inconstant and Mendicant Preachers which will amount to nothing but mischief however they may make a shew for a while as if there needed no constant resident Ministers or other setled and ordeined Ministry That so a way may be made to ignorance superstition Atheism and profaness First And in time that sacred Revenew which is given to God for the maintenance of his publike service and Ministry may be turned to some secular uses and come into private purses It is most evident that what prophecying exercise is by any gifted Brethren added in publike on the Lords Day to this sufficiency of the Ministry will for the most part come very short of that weight worth and Authority which usually is in the Ministers learned pains So that it will seem but as a Churl upon the Gentleman as tedious and nauseating as small Beer and Water after men have drank well of the best Wine Or as the scraps of coarse and plain Country fare after men have been filled with a feast of marrow and fat things Besides this exercise of prophecying which that Gentleman so pleads for will hardly find any convenient time or temper in Christians minds on the Lords Day either among or after the publike duties of the Ministry It must needs seem as unseasonable flat and tedious Cavenda vel maxime in sacris ne sit satietus Ne minimum devorando fastidiosa sit regurgitatio cibi Cui digerendo vacare debes ut salubriter nutriare Greg. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Cl. 41. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 6. Solonis dict ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Naz. Instantur potius ad morbos vanitatem quam superfluis ferculis nutriuntur ad sanitatem vires Ber. Amarat nimietas quod poterat condire mensura Chrysost p. 125. Pro. 27.7 The full soul loathes the Hony comb Mal. 2.7 Heb. 13.7 as all superfluities and excesses in matter of Religion easily do when they border never so little upon the Nimiety or too much It is great wisdom to keep people short from a surfet of holy things and to leave them with appetites and give vacancy for digestion rather than to cram and cloy them with matters either of superfluity or curiosity when indeed men do scarce with chearfulness and intention bear the holy duties of clear divine use and most absolute necessity In all which common people by this super-addition of a prophecying exercise on the Lords Day will be but hindred from that profitable Meditation and carefull remembrance of what they have already plentifully heard from the Minister whose lips ought to preserve knowledge and on which the people ought to wait as those that must give account of their souls It will then be neither convenient nor usefull as it is not necessary to bring up Prophesying thus in the rear of preaching as to the common peoples capacities or occasions yea rather it will be to the injury and hindrance both of Minister and godly people on the Lords day unless you be sure to provide the people seldom any Minister and none constantly resident or else such weak and short-winded Preachers that they may be sure to give time and room enough to these eager Prophets and to be only as foyls to set off their fresh and more glistring gifts or as an antepast of coarser meats to whet on the appetite for that more delicate fare which these prophets will pretend to bring forth we see already many of them stickle for the Pulpits and are smart rivals against the Ablest Ministers whom either small maintenance or some factious and ingratefull people have almost quite dis-spirited Upon whom the Cryers up and admirers of these new prophetick gifts look but as the forlorn hope which is to make way all this while for the main body of those gifted prophets Many of whom have so great an activity and confidence joyned with their weakness Ignorantiae imbecilitati proxima est Temeritas that they had need be very well-disciplined and kept carefully in their due ranks and posts or else they will soon rout all order and honour of Religion in this or any Church Notwithstanding all the good hopes all the soft bespeakings of esteem and gentle insinuations for their acceptan for made by that Charitable writer who hath so largely pleaded ce them at the common peoples bar And who merited indeed to have bestowed his pains so publikely upon a subject that had a better title in the Scripture and the Church than this of peoples prophecying seems to have Besides this which I have alleged for inconvenient
Mendacia mendicabula and slow to teach as St. James adviseth As for those Histrionick Players and vaporing Preachers who with a Theatricall impudence in many places seek to fill the world with meer noise and clamor crying down all the antient Ministry as Antichristian and the Ministers as no way called sent or authorised by God or the Church turning all either into spirituall or new prophetick gifts to which they highly pretend certainly their vanity can move wise Christians no more than those cheats and wanderers do who swear they have found out and can sell you the true Elixar the Philosophers stone which will turn baser metals into gold while yet poor men their raggs sords and beggery sufficiently confutes their rare skill proclaiming to all but fools their lying and proud beggery which more needs anothers charity than is any way able to relieve any mans necossities If this Gentleman be in good earnest for a duty and office of prophecying besides and not against the order of the Ministry let him study how to restore to us the reall and usefull gifts of primitive Prophets Of the primitive prophetick gifts in the Church which may serve worthily to demonstrate beyond what is already done by excellent Writers the true sense of the Scriptures as to the great mysteries of Jesus Christ the Messias God forbid such should not have a primitive use and esteem in the Church But let us not be abused with such triflers as shall either darken what others have well explaned or shall only produce old protrite and stoln notions of other mens works as if these were the rare and new fruits of their own private prophetick gifts Possibly with this Gentlemans good leave the Church of Christ neither hath now nor needs any such prophetick gifts as were primitive and may truly be so called No more than it doth tongues miracles Chrysost orat 88. Gives reasons why Miracles are now ceased in the Church So Isid Pel. l. 4. Ep. 8. Rev. 2. and healings which it had and wanted too in those first times and dispensations when the Gospell of Christ was strange and new to the world and to the Churches which were but newly planted or in planting which now it is not specially in England after the Church hath enjoyed those plentifull diffusions of Evangelicall light from Christ and the Stars in his right hand for many hundred of years so that knowledge hath abounded as the waters of the Sea It is very probable the Churches in ages succeeding the Apostles gave over the form of the exercise of prophesying when once they saw the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or speciall gift ceased I remember no mention of this Prophecying among the publique officers duties or privileges of the Church No Councill no Father that I find regulates it or reckons upon it nor doth this Gentleman produce any one testimony for it out of the Churches after-practice in Ecclesiastick Histories and antient Records which may best distinguish for us Tacito omnium consensu per desuetudinem abrogantur Blond what things were of temporary what of perpetuall use in the Church It is evident that all things that were primitive and occasionall are not therefore to be made perpetuall or after long cessation to be restored many things used in the infancy and minority of some or all Churches have soon after been disposed as the collections on the first day Those collections for the poor on the Lords day Cyp. calls Gazophylacium and Corbona de Eleemos And St. Chrysost endeavoured to restore them in Constantinople See Bero. Ann. Anno Christi 44. In Tertul. time Christians abstained from blood Nec animalium sanguinem in esculentis habemus Apol. c. 9. yet in St. Austins time they did not abstain from blood or things strangled Aust cont Faust l. 3. c. 13 Mat. 2.20 1 Cor. 16. So the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Agapae or love feasts 1 Cor. 11.20 were by divers Councills forbidden when they degenerated from the Primitive simplicity and purity Jude 12. Spots in your feasts feeding themselves without fear So the Holy Kisses or salutings Rom. 16.16 1 Thes 5.26 The common stock of goods Acts 4.32 publikely dedicated to the relief of the Church in which the poorest believer had as much interest in what was given though they contributed nothing as he that gave most of his estate So the annointing of the sick James 5.14 So the Celebration of the Lords Supper every Lords day The peoples Amen 1 Cor. 14.16 which Jerom sayes was in his time as a Clap of Thunder such consent lowdness and alacrity was in that voice of Christian Assemblies The observation of the Jewish Sabbath with the first day of the week The abstinence from blood and things strangled and the like Nothing is more ridiculous in Religion than as some fond or fraudulent Papists do their exercisings and shews of daily Miracles to continue the ordinary use of all those things in the Church which we read were practised in Primitive times upon some extraordinary account either of necessity or charity or speciall gifts then only conferred Which when they were at the highest tide among professors yet were never wont to ouerflow the constant banks of the divinely established calling of the Ministry but still were kept within those modest holy and humble bounds which became the Christian flocks toward those Guides and Pastors which were to be constantly over them in the Lord with whom Christ promised to be as by his Authority and blessing so by his Spirit and assisting gifts to the end of the world As for this Gentleman whose devotion and charity hath raised him to so good hope and expectation of finding or making fit Prophets among the common people truly if he can bring forth any Gentlemen either Lawyers or others of so pregnant parts so ready in Scriptures and of so good utterance as in him appears together with so much gravity candor and equanimity as for the most part he expresses to the Ministry as a peculiar Calling and divinely instituted office such Prophets will be so far welcome as they shall be usefull to the Church Both Ministers and others wouâd be gâad to see the Inns of Court or Chancery come in like Zilpah and Bilhad to supply the feared barrenness and decayes of Rachel and Leah Gen. 30. the two Universities which were wont to be the fruitfull Mothers and carefull Nurses of the true Prophets and Ministers Nor would it be a less acceptable wonder to all true Christians and Ministers to see such Zenasses 2 Tim. 4.10 devout Lawyers run cross to Demas his steps and forsaking this present world to follow after St. Paul than once it was to see Saul also among the Prophets 1 Sam. 19.24 Talis cum sis utinaÌ noster esses Ages ad Farnabasum inimicum ac mobilem Men that can write I presume speak too after so serious and Spiritual a way as that
by us and all parts of it made Nehustan in stead of cleansing repayring and reforming which is not a novelty of nvention but a sober restitution of all things in Religion to the primitive mode and pattern which is authorised and ordained by Christ Who did no more himself as to the outward restoring of Religion and worship of God Chalenging Gods right to his own House of prayer when covetousness had made it a den of theeves The priesthood of old failed not by reason of the immoralities of the Priests among the Jews nor did the Didacticall or Teaching authority cease from Moses his Chair and succession because the Scribes and Pharisees who were men of corrupt doctrine and hypocriticall manners sate therein and taught the Traditions and inventions of men mixt with the commands of God No more did or doth the Evangelicall Ministry and Sacraments cease by reason of any Papall arrogatings or other human additions Inordinatio aliqua non invalidam reddit ordinationem vitio âelicto rem ad legitimum modum revocarunt Alsted sâppl Gerar. de Reform Luther owned no other call or Ordination as a Minister but that which he had as he was made a Presbyter in the Romish communion Gerard. de Ministerio pag. 70. Ab Episcopo suo ordinatus Lutherus anno 1507. Nec aliam quaesivit ordinationem Gerard 147. Multum d ssert inter causam culpam inter statum excessum Tert. l. 2. adv Marc. Non negandum est bonum quod remansit propter malum quod praecessit Aust Ep. 48. Therefore the wisdome and piety of the learned and godly Reformers of these Western Churches especially here in England contented themselves with casting out what ever corrupt doctrines impure mixtures vain customes and superstitious fancies the Papall vanitie and novelty had built upon those divine and antient foundations of Christian religion which were layd by the Apostles and Primitive master-builders all over the world Whose Canon the Scriptures together with sound Doctrine holy Ministry comly Government Sacramentall seals and other Christian duties of prayer fasting c. they restored with all gravity moderation and exactness with due regard both to the clear sense of Scriptures and the Catholick practise of Churches Conforming of all things either to the express Precepts and Institutions of the word of God or to those generall directions which allow liberty of Prudence and difference in matters Circumstantiall in all which the Primitive Church had gone before them Herein they were not so weak and heady as to be scandalized with and insolently to reject all things that the Papall or Romish party had both received and retained in religious uses from former and better times either as Christians or Bishops or prudent men for so they had very sillily deprived themselves and all the Reformed Churches of all those Scriptures Sacraments holy duties Order rites and good customs which the Pope and Romish party had so long used not as Popes by any Antichristian policy power and pride but as they were Christians having received them in a due succession at first though after much depraved from those holy Predecessors which had been Martyrs and Confessors in that famous antient Roman Church No judicious Protestant or truly reformed Christian 2 How far necessary and safe to be separated from the Romanists Ad quamcunque Ecclesiam veneritis ejus morem servate si pati scandalum aut facere nolitis Aug. Ep. 86. responsum B. Ambrosii whose conscience is guided by Science and his reforming zeal tempered with true charity either doth or ought to recede farther from Communion with the Roman Church than he sees that hath receded from the rule of Christ and the Apostolicall Precepts or binding examples expressed in the Scriptures so far as concerns the true faith in its Doctrines Seals and fruits of good works In matters of extern and prudentiall order every Church hath the same liberty which the Roman had to use or refuse such ceremonials as they thought fit and to these every good Christian may conform In many things we necessarily have communion with the Pope and Papists as in the nature and reason of men In some things we safely may as in rules and practises politick civill just and charitable as Governours either Secular or Ecclesiastical In many things we ought in conscience and religion to have communion with them so far as they profess the truths of Christian religion and hold any fundamentals of faith And however they do by mis-interpretation of Scriptures or any Antichristian additionals of false doctrines of impious or superstitious practises seem to us rather to overthrow or bury the good foundations than rightly and orderly to build upon them for which superstructures and fallacious consequences we recede from them and dispute with them yet we do not renounce all they hold or do in common with us as Christians In the Lords Supper 1 Cor. 11.27 Whosoever shall eat this Bread 28. So let him eat of that bread Sâlet res quae significat ejus res nomine quam significat nuncupari hinc dictum est Petra erat Christus Aust Q. 57. in Levit For instance it being not now a place to dispute them We cannot own as the Catholick sense of Christ of the Scriptures or the Primitive fathers that sense which they in later times have given of the words in the Sacramental Consecration of the Lords Supper by which they raise that strange doctrine of Transubstantiation unknown to the first Fathers And which seems to us 1. contrary to the way of Gods providence both in naturall and in religious things which changeth not the substances and natures of things but the relation and use of them from naturall and common to mysticall and holy 2. Contrary also to the usuall sense of all Scripture phrases and expressions of the like nature where things are mystically related by religious institution and so mutually denominâted without essentiall changes 3. Contrary to the common principles of right reason 4. And contrary to the testimony of four senses sight taste smelling and hearing which are the proper organes by whose experience and verdict of things sensible we judge in reason what their nature is 5. Contrary also to the way and end that Christ proposed to strengthem a Christian receivers faith which is not done by what is more obscure and harder to be believed than the whole mysterie of the Gospell as recorded to us in the Scripture There being nothing less imaginable than that Christ gave his Disciples his own very body each man to eat him whole and entire and so ever after when he was then at table with them and is now by an Article of faith believed to be as man in heaven These and the like strange fancies of men which draw after them many great absurdities and contradictions both in sense and reason and the nature of things being no way advantageous to the religious use end and comfort of the
might rule and reign in Christs stead It is upon other accounts than this of being a Bishop or Prelate in a part of the Church that the Pope is by many charged with the odious character of Antichristian namely in reference to that ambition pride and usurpation which by fraud and force the Bishops of Rome have obtained and chalenge or exercise over all the world and specially over these Western Bishops and Churches in later times Greg. in Epist. 32. Mauritio 600. years after Christ namely since Gregory the greats dayes who was an humble devout and holy Bishop and had many pious martyrs his Predecessors as Popes or Fathers in that See of Rome who abhorred the name of Universall Bishops affirming they were Antichrist who ever arrogated that name of Universall Bishop Also for those gross abuses errors tyrannies superstitions and persecutions which many Popes have made in the Churches of Christ contrary to the word and example of Christ and the Canons of generall Councils From all which we had a Church and Ministry happily reformed even by the care and constancy of many holy and learned men who were Bishops and Martyrs in this Church of England As then we do not abhor to be men or Christians because the Pope is a man and professeth to be a Christian So neither may we dislike Bishops because the Pope is one nor Presbyters and Deacons because there be many of that title and office in the Church of Rome True Epispacy may consist without secular and civil advantages But in the last place if primitive Episcopacy and Apostolicall Bishops now poor and devested of all secular power and ornaments of honour and estate and in this conform to their Predecessors in primitive and persecuting times may not in reason of state with publick honour be restored and established in this Church of England yet it may be hoped that the Indulgence and liberty of times will give so much tolleration That those whose judgements and consciences bind them either to be so ordeined Ministers or to receive the comfort of divine Ministrations only from such as are in holy orders by the safe and antient way of Episcopall Ordination may have and enjoy that liberty without perturbing the publick peace which both Presbyterians and Independents doe enjoy in their new wayes For nothing will savour more of an imperious and impotent spirit whose faith and charity are slaves to secular advantages and interests than for those who have obtained liberty for their novelties to deny the like freedom to other mens Antiquity which hath the Ecclesiasticall practise and precedency of 1600. years besides the preponderancy of much reason Scripture and holy examples All which to force godly grave and learned men Ministers or people to renounce or to comply with other wayes against their judgements or else to deprive them of all holy orders employments and ministrations in the Church as Christians cannot but be a most crying and self-condemning sin in those men who lately approved that antient and Catholick way and after dissenting at first desired but a modâst tolleration Since then the Pope as a Bishop is not Antichristian as I have proved neither can it be affirmed with any sense or truth that either Episcopacy it self or Bishops Pastors and Governours in the Church are Antichristian It will easily appear to sober Christians how poor popular and passionate a calumny that is which some weak minds please themselves to object against the Ministry of the Church of England as if it were Antichristian because the Ministers received their Ordination and Induction both to the office and exercise of their Ministry by the hands and authority of Bishops with those Presbyters assistant who were present which was the Universall practise of all Churches antiently in Ordeining Presbyters and is at this day of most This false and odious reproach of Antichristian Ministry many Presbyters preposterously seek to wipe off from the face of their Ministry as they are Presbyters while yet with the same hand they make no scruple to besmear the faces of Bishops and Episcopacy Not considering that while they poorly gratifie the vulgar malice of some men against all Bishops they still sharpen their spitefull objections against themselves as Presbyters As then this solemn and holy Ordination of Ministers by Bishops herein England by prayer fasting and imposition of hands 7. Bishops in England ordeining Presbyters did but their duty according to law was Antient and Catholick no way against Reason or Scripture yea most conform to both in order to Gods glory and the Churches welfare which I have already demonstrated So I am sure in so doing Bishops did no more than what their place office and duty required of them here in England according to the Laws established both in Church and State which had the consent of the whole Church and Nation both Presbyters and people as well as Prince and Peers No wise man may blame that act Aequum est ãâã quâm feceris susserisve legem feras Reg. Jur. or exercise of government and authority in an other which he was invested with did enjoy and acted in by publick consent declared in the Laws wherein each mans particular will is comprehended nor may that be sayd to be a private fault which is done in obedience to a publick Law Bishops then duly ordeyning Ministers in the Church of England had the approbation of this Church and State no less than of all Antiquity and of all the Modern forein Churches even those that have not Bishops who yet ever commended and applauded that Venerable Order here in England As for Scripture which some pretend against Bishops and for other wayes I never read any place commanding any one or two or more Presbyters to ordein or govern in any Church without a Bishop Nor do I find any place forbidding a Bishop to ordein and rule among and with the Presbyters According to that appointment of Timothy and Titus which is of all most clear for investing both Ordination and Church jurisdiction at that time eminently though perhaps not solely in one man and if that Constitution in the Churches of Ephesus and Crete carry not a Precept or binding exemplariness with it to after-times which Antiquity judged and followed Universally yet sure it redeems true Episcopacy sufficiently and all good Bishops in their right and moderate government of the Church especially in this point of Ordeining Ministers from being any way Antichristian to which we may be sure the blessed Apostle Paul would never have given any such countenance or patern as that Jurisdiction and power given to Timothy and Titus must needs be Nor are indeed the reproaches of popish and Antichristian added by vulgar ignorance or envy to Episcopacy any other than devillish false and detestable Calumnies invented by wicked men to the reproach and blasphemy not only of so many holy and worthy Bishops in all ages and Churches as well as in England but
turn all the solidity of Truth the certainty of History and the Sacredness of the mystery of Jesus Christ ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Naz. Or. 23. de Trinitatis Myst. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Naz. Heb. 11.1 Faith is the evidence of thângs not seen c. Nemo ââdicet hâmano modo quod diviâo geâitur sacramento nemo mystââia caelestia discutiat ratione humana Crysâ S. 148. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Bas in cp 43. God manifested in the flesh into nothing but Familisticall whimseys empty notions and sublimity of nonsense As if there were more light of Religion in their modern Meteors and gross illuminations than in the Sun Moon and Stars in Scripture Ministers and Christians of old whereas the same holy and humble faith by which true Christians do believe Jesus to be the promised Messias the Son of God and only Saviour of the world notwithstanding all that blind Jews or proud Gentiles object against him doth also teach them to receive with all humble thankfulness and religious reverence all those holy orders duties and Institutions in their plainess poverty and simplity which Christ hath setled in his Church and which the Church hath continued according to his word in all humble fidelity Nor doth the meaness of outward appearance or any naturall and civill disproportions which appear to humane sense or reasonings any way prejudice or weaken the faith devotion duty and obedience of those who live by faith and look with the eye of faith and act with the hand of faith in all those holy offices and Ministrations which are grounded on the word of Christ To judge of Christian Mysteries or Ministries by common sense or carnall reasonings as Sarah did of the Promise is to make Christian Religion most ridiculous mean and insignificant whose vertue and efficacy as the faith of Abraham depends not upon any naturall morall or politique powers faculties habits abilities or actions that are in or flow from the persons acting in them and dispensing of them nor the Elementary sensible natures of the things used in them But meerly upon that divine vertue and power of Christ Instituting such holy things as duties to be done to such a religious end by such men and means in such a manner and no other ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Just Ma. de sid Tota ratio sacti est potentia facientis Aust Greg. N. s Vita Mosis Carnem agni licuit comedere ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Ossa vero non confringendâ credenda non curiosius discutienda sunt dei mysteria c. 2 Cor. 2. In mullis scientia Pauli à disputatione tranâit in stuporem cujus tanta erit praesumptio ut disserendo existimet aperienda potius quà m silentio miranda Amb. voc l. 2. 1 Cor. 1.27 and all this in his Name that is meerly as an Institution of his divine power and wisdome and whence they have their efficacy and also authority not indeed among affected Novelists curious speculatists proud hypocrites or contentious worldlings but among humble devout and true believers who are also doers of the will of God in all things holy just and morall who knowing what belongs to the life and obedience of Faith disdain not to submit themselves to any way and order seem it never so weak and simple that Christ hath appointed to them and his Church who alone can make weak foolish and contemptible things to be powerfull and effectuall through the concurrence of his Spirit and grace to those great and holy ends for which they are by him Instituted in his Church So that it is not any Magick charm or Enchantment as these prophane minds scornfully deride which makes the common elements to become Sacraments by that solemn Consecration which is rightly performed by one that is from Christ appointed as a minister of holy things No more is it any fantastick and imaginary power which of a common man makes a Minister of the Gospel by due Ordination which is a setting apart of some fit and worthy men from the ordinary capacities comon relations and humane affairs of the world either as naturall or civill and Consecrating them by prayer and imposition of hands and power of the Spirit to the peculiar service of Christ and his Church in the holy Ministry Pantomimi sunt in religione Hypocritae quo minus sancti sunt co magis simulant ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã studentes non ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã And this not to be done by any one that please themselves to be at once both apes and hypocrites in religion to act a part and make a Stage-play of holy Ordination by a popular presumption but only by such as Christ hath fitted with gifts and enabled with power of his Spirit to Consecrate and Ordein a succession of Ministers to the service of the Church being themselves formerly ordeined and so invested with that great and holy power of order So that it is the powerfull Word and Spirit of Christ In ordinatione Deus est causa principalis homo instrumentatis Deus vocat primario Ecclesia mediante declarante quem à Deo vocatum praesumit Gerard 2 Cor. 10.5 as the King and Prophet of his Church which commands the duty establisheth the Order and gives the blessing as in other so in this of Ordination In obedience to which true and excellent Christians willingly captivate all their high imaginations and subdue every thought which exalts it self against the rule of faith the word of Christ pulling down all the strong holds of proud and humane reasonings Submitting to every holy Ministration and true Minister in his office for Christs sake from whose grace Spirit and promise they expect and find that blessing comfort and inward peace which is only to be had in Christs way which depends meerly on his divine will and power which changeth not the nature of things but their relation and use to an higher and spirituall end requiring faith humility reverence obedience and thankfulness in every believer or worshipper 17. Right Ordination Efficacious relatively and spiritually not physically So that although Ordination of a Minister to the peculiar service of Christ and the Church by such as have the right and power by uninterrupted succession duly derived to them and to be derived orderly from them in all ages do not add to the Naturall Morall or Spirituall gifts and indowments of men as they are personall and inherent any more than the office of Embassadour or Judge or Commander doth in Civill or Military employments confer any thing to the inward abilities of the man yet that honour and authority rightly derived to any one invests him with a relative Idem valet deputati ac deputantis autoritas in quantum depâtatur Reg. jur yet reall power qualification and capacity of doing or declaring the will of another to the same validity as if the principall himself did it by whose authority alone any other is sent
and enabled to effect those things which none other can presume to perform without vanity sin and presumption who hath not that gift power or authority consigned to him The right Ordination then of Ministers in the way of an holy succession in the Church of Christ hath in Religion and among true Christians these holy uses and clear advantages peculiar to it 1. 1. It confirms the truth of the Gospel 2 Cor. 8.23 First as to the main end the Glory of God and the saving of mens souls by their believing and obeying this testimony of all true Ministers that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of the world Nothing gives a more clear and credible testimony to the glory and honour of Jesus Christ and to truth of the Gospel than this uniform and constant succession of Ministers Multi barbarârum in ChristuÌ credunt sine charactere vel attramento scriptam babenter in cordibus sum per spiritum salutem et veterum traditionem diligentes custodientes quam Apostoli tradiderunt iis quibus committebant Ecclesias cui ordinationi assentiunt multa gentes c. Iren. l. 3. c. 4. by a peculiar Ordination and authority even from Christ himself in person who at first began this Ministry and sent some speciall men as his messengers to bear witness of him in all the world that so men might believe not only what is written in the word before it was or as it is now written but also as that glorious truth hath been thus testified every where and in every age by chosen and peculiar men as a cloud of most credible witnesses whom thousands at first did and to this day do hear preaching and see them Celebrating the holy mysteries of Christs Gospell who never had or used any written word nor ever read it and for the most part believed before ever they saw any part of the Bible which the constant Ministry of the Church hath under God hitherto preserved chiefly upon the testimony and tradition or record of those that were ever thought and alwayes ought to be most able and faithfull men specially appointed by Christ in his Church as a perpetuall order and succession of Witnesses to testifie of him and to minister in his Name to the end of the world This walking Gospel and visible Ministry consisting as it ought of wise and worthy men Minister est verbum visibile ambulans Evangelium who have good reputation for their piety learning and fidelity running on to all generations is as a continued stream from the blessed Apostles who were the first witnesses immediatly appointed by Christ to hold forth his name and Gospell to the world Acts 1.8 which though never so far off in the decurrence of time from the fountain yet still testifies and assures all wise men that there is certainly a divine fountain of this ministeriall power and so of Evangelicall mysteries and truth which rose first from Christ and which hath constantly run as may appear by the enumeration or induction of particular descents in all ages in this Channel of the Apostles and their successors the Bishops and Presbyters of the Church for the better planting confirming and propagating of the Gospell to all Nations and times As a duty charge or office injoyned by divine command to some men and lying ever as a calling on their consciences Hereby evidently declaring the divine wisdom and Fatherly care of Christ for the good instruction and order of his Church in his personall absence In that he hath not left the Ministry of the Gospell and his holy Institutions which he would have alwaies continued for the gathering edifying of his Church to a loose and arbitrary way among the rabblâ and promiscuous heards of men which would soon have made Evangelicall truths seem but as vagrant fables and generall uncertain rumors which run without any known and sure authority in the common chat and arbitrary report of the vulgar by which in a short time both the order beauty honour purity and credit of Truth is easily lost among men This holy and successionall ordination of the Evangelicall Ministry gives great proof and demonstration as of Christs personall presence as chief Bishop and Minister of his Church so of the fulfilling of Christs word and the veracity of his promise Mat. 28. after his departure to be with them that were sent and went in his name to the end of the world That the gates of hell neither yet have nor ever shall prevail against the Church While it carefully preserves a right succession holy order and authority of true Ministers the devill despairs of ever overthrowing Christian Religion in its reformed profession in any Country Down with the order Mat. 16.28 and sacred power and succession of the Ministry and all will in a short time be his own 2. 2. Evidenceth the Churches care Agnitio vera est Apostolorum doctrina antiquus Ecclesia status in universo mundo charactere corporis Christi secundum successiones Apostolorum quibus illi eam quae est in unoquoque loco Ecclesiam tradiderunt Scripturarum sine fictione custodita tractatio plenissima lâctio sine salsatione secundum scripturas expositio legitima diligens sine periculo sine blasphemia Irenaeus l. 4. c. 43. In Ecclesia Catholica bacte nus inviolabili observatione tenetar qua potissimum Catholici ab Haereticis discriminantur nimirum ut cujusvis meriti atque praestantiae âir fuerit non sua sponte praedicationis munus suscipiat sed expectet donec ab Ecclesia mittatur ab eaque sacris functionibus initietur siâque initiatus praedicationi Evangelii mancipetur Baronius An. Anno Christi 44. It is also a notable evidence of the Churches care and fidelity in all ages not only in the preservation of the oracles of the word which it hath done but also of a constant holy Ministry to teach and explain them Also to celebrate those holy mysteries which are divinely annexed to the word as seals to confirm the faith of Christians And lastly to exercise that wholsome discipline for terror or comfort the power of which is chiefly in the Pastors and Rulers of the Church As it is then for the honour of the wisdom of Christ in the originall to have instituted such holy mysteries and such a Ministry so it is for the honour of the Church in the succession of all ages to have thus preserved them and it self in that order which becomes the family of Christ which had come far short of any well ordered family if the Father and Master of it Jesus Christ had left every servant to guess at his duty and all of them to scramble what part they list of employment aliment and enjoyment but the Lord Christ as every wise Master doth hath appointed and his Church hath preserved to this day constant Stewards and dispensers of holy things in his house-hold whose duty t is to
sincere amendment of them hence it brings to a quiescency and comfort in no way but such as is conform to the Word of Christ burning with an unfaigned charity toward all men most fervently to the Churches service and welfare with an * In humili spiritu pura mente spaciose habitat immensus Deus high esteem of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ his Institutions and Ministry his Word and Spirit and Grace with a gratefull value and high respect of those * Phil. 3.7 1 Thes 15.12.12 13. Heb. 13.17 by whose Ministry they have been called baptized taught converted and are still guided in the paths light and breathings of the Spirit to the hopes of salvation the blessed expectation of which in Christs way raiseth them up many times to high yet holy resolutions to deny themselves and suffer any thing for Christs sake and the testimony of the Truth These and such like I conceive are the best fruits of Gods Spirit which are not the lesse excellent because they are common Gods children are not oft entertained with novelties and never pleased with such new toyes and ratles or hobbey horses in Religion which some men bragge of The wandering clouds which some mens fancies exhale of spirituall Motions and Manifestations beyond plain and ordinary Christians either for private comfort Iude 12. or for publique benefit are for the most part without water they darken but moisten not the Church or the soul they have so much of earthy or fiery exhalations in them that they have little of the dew of heaven with them Nor may they without great injury and high indignity be imputed to the Spirit of Christ Nor doe such sorry flowers which grow in every dunghill adorn the Garden of God the Soul or the Church not justly crown any with the most honourable name of holy or spirituall Which titles vain men much affect and boldly challenge sober and humble Christians do earnestly desire and seriously endeavour to merit Being an honour so farre above the naturall capacity of sinfull mortality that nothing but a Divine bounty and supernaturall power can conferre the Truth of that Beauty which is in holinesse and the right to that glory which is in every True Saint who are often hid as orient Pearles in rough shels in great plainnesse lowlinesse and simplicity which makes such as are truly Saints and spirituall as ashamed to challenge the name as they are afraid to come short of the grace Studying not applause and admiration from men but the approbation of a sincere and good conscience 2 Cor. 1.12 Iam. 1.17 Him they look upon as the father of every good and perfect gift the sender of the blessed Spirit by the due Ministry of the Word into mens hearts The searcher also of all hearts and tryer of the spirits of men far beyond what is set out in paints and outward appearances of extraordinary gifts of the Spirit under which mask and disguises Achitophel Heb. 4.13 and Jehu and Judas and Simon Magus and the sons of Sheva and Demas and the self-made Prophetesse Jezebel and Diotrephes all false Christs false Prophets and false Apostles all true Antichrists and true Ministers of Satan grievous Wolves studied to appear and did so for a while till the Lord stirred up the Spirit of discerning in his true Ministers and true Saints Which Spirit of Wisdome teacheth us to measure and judge of spirituall gifts and true holinesse 6. Reall power of the Spirit how discerned 2 Tim. 3 5. not by bare and barren forms but by the power and practise of godlinesse not by soft-expressions and gentle insinuations or melancholy sowrenesse and severer brows not by Ahabs sackcloth or Jehus triumphs or Pharisaick frownes Not by bold assertions lowd clamours confident calumnies ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã teâico aut tristi vulus vultuosi Pharisai Simplicissima est spiritus sancti virtus sine suco sine fraude omnia agit nulli gravis piis suavis omnibus utilis Ber. Nil tamâ metuit quam ne dubitare de aliqua re videretur de Vellcio Quomodo certissimi esse possunt quum nihil certius est quam certos illos non esse de salute Ber. Certi non sunt qui solliciti non sunt Cyp. Sola integra fides secura esse potest Tertul. de Ba. precipitant zeal audacious adventures successefull insolencies Not by heaps of Teachers popular Sermonings long Prayers wrested Scriptures crowds of Quotations high Notions Origenick Allegorizings Not by admired Novelties vulgar satisfactions splendid shews of Religion empty noises of Reformation Nor yet by arrogant boastings uncharitable despisings confident presumptions hasty assurances proud perswasions pretended Revelations fanatick confusions All these either in affected Liberties or Monastick rigors oft bear up mens fancie of the Spirit and sanctitie like bladders meerly by their emptinesse Nothing being more prone to dispose a vain mind to fancy strongly that it hath Gods Spirit than the not having it indeed * 2 Tim. 3.13 Deceiving and being deceived To make men presume they are Saints than the not serious considering what true holinesse is Splendore magis quam fervore delectantur hypocritae Ber. Dum fallunt maxime falluntur and the way of the Spirit of Christ is In its infallible rule the Scripture in its noblest pattern Jesus Christ in its foundation Humility in its beauty Order and Symmetry in its perfection Sincerity in its glory Love and Charity in its transcendent excellency the Divine Nature The Devils Piracles are made as much by the frauds and fallacies of hanging out Gods colours the flags of the Spirit Hypocritae sanctitatis tineae cui adhaerere videntur v stâm tu piter viciant remedia in morbos sanctitatem in crimen vertunt Chrysost and shews of holinesse as by the open defiances of persecution and batteries of profanenesse Delusions in Religion as Dalilahs charms on Samson are oft stronger than the Philistins force against the Church Else our blessed Saviour would not have so carefully fore-warned and fore-armed his little flock against those grand Impostors whose deceit is no lesse than this * Luk. 17.21 Loe here is Christ and there is Christ As if he were no where in England or in all the former Catholick Church but only in the corners and Conventicles of new Donatists Loe here is Christ a most potent and plausible pretention indeed able by its native force and mans credulous frailty to deceive even the very Elect Mark 13.22 whom would it not move and tempt strongly to hear of a new Christ in New lights and new Gospels new Church wayes new Manifestations new Ministry and new Ministers Yea to heare of a Christ without means above means beyond the Scriptures deadnesse the old Sacramentall forms the Ministeriall Keyes and Authority Christ in the Spirit risen from the grave of dead duties of expired Ordinances and from the Carkuses of ancient Churches A
a miracle as Jerom saith in the Greek monuments defends against Appion the Jewish Church which was the old stock out of which the Christians are swarmed Hieron Ep. ad Mag. So Philo the Jew very learned and an eloquent assertor of the Jewish religion G. Nissen in vita Thaum ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã vit Th. Miltiades Hyppolitus Apollonius senator Rom. doctiss opuscula Chr stian relig contra Philosophos propugnabant Titus Bostrensis Amphilochius Philosophorum sententiis fuos libros refarciâbant Id. Hieron Ep. ad Magnum So Dionysius Bishop of Corinth and Tacianus who refuted the errors of Origen Shewing ex quibus fontibus philosophorum emanabant Hieron So Pantaenus Stoicus doctiss Christianus in Indian missus ut Brachmanis praedicaret Id. and others famous Bishops and Presbyters of most eminent learning piety and courage who undertook the defence of Christian Religion against the proud heathen the pestilent hereticks and the importune schismaticks of those dayes Which made Julian the Apostate elder brother to this illiterate fraternity the despisers and destroyers of good learning to become the Ravilliak the Faux of his times Theodoret l. 3. cap. 8. Propriis pennis configimur a Galilaeis inquit Julianus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in Bibliotheca Georgii Episcopi Alexand. quam Julianus sibi exacte conquiri jubet Epist ad Porphyrium 36. the prime Assasinator and grand conspirator who sought to stab and blow up all Christian Religion by overthrowing all the nurseries of learning and suppressing the Schooles of the Church forbidding any Christians children to be educated in humane and ingenuous studies which he saw were become as the outworks to the citadell of Christian Religion which sometime indeed needed not these humane guards and defences while the terrible and miraculous gifts of the Spirit were like a pillar of fire and cloud round about Christian Religion during its wandring in the wildernesse of persecution no more than the * Exod. 13.21 Israelites needed trenches for their camp when the more immediate presence of Gods salvation was among them beyond all wals and bulworks or then * 2 King 1. Elias wanted a troop of souldiers when he was armed with fire from heaven against the ruder Captaines and their fifties Those extraordinary dispensations ceasing when the Lord brought his Church to the land of Canaan to a condition of worldly peace and tranquillity through the Imperiall favour and secular protection under which Halcyon dayes Christians had liberty to attend those improvements which are to be attained by study and learning in all manner of ingenuous as well as religious education But when the Dragon saw he could not by open persecuting power destroy the * Revel 1â woman and her child he then turned to other shifts seeking by the flouds of corrupt doctrin to poison those streams which he could not stop And so to furnish out his new modelled Militia with the better train and ammunition he stirred up learned adversaries against the Churches true and ancient faith not only without as * Origen answered Celsus and Methodius Eusebius and Apollinaris wrote with great strength and dexâerity of learning against Po phyrieâ who was one of the most eloquent in his time and wrote against Christian religion 15. books Suidaâ St. Jeâom St. Ambrose and Prudentius answered Symmachus his Oratory against Christian Religion Celsus Porphyrie Proclus Symmachus and others but even from within as Arius Nestorius Apollinaris Macedonius Eutyches Pelagius Donatus and others very many This master-piece he carryed on with most powerfull suggestions and successes sometimes knowing well what force Error hath as well as Truth when it is charged and discharged with skill and learning In so much that he not onely overthrew the Faith of many ordinary Christians but robbed the true Church in part and turned at last upon the Orthodox party those whole Canons great and incomparable pieces of all learning both divine humane Tertullian and * Vincent Lyrin lib. 1. Immortale Origenis ingentum Jeron in Ep. ad Tit. In Origene adeo praeclara adeo fingularia adeo mira extiterunt ut omnes pene multum longéque superavit Vin. Lyr. c. 23. So of Tertullian c. 24. Quid illo doctius quid in divinis atque humanis exercitatius Apud Latinos nostrorum omnium facile princeps ut Origenes apud Gracos Origen the converter of St. Ambrose who formerly had by their accurate and learned labours both in preaching and writing bravely asserted Christianity both by demolishing the old remaining forts of heathenish Idolatry and prejudice as also battering the new rising works of heresies and schisms So that our moderate illiterate factors for an old crafty Daemon doe not or will not consider that there ever hath been still are and ever may be learned adversaries opposing or Apostatizing from the true Christian Religion both in its fundamentalls and its reformations There are very learned Jesuites and other Papists of all orders there are learned Socinians renewed Palagians revived Arians and others who want not learning against whom the learned Ministers of this and other reformed Churches are often put upon necessary though uncomfortable and unhappy contests Not for any malice envy or displeasure against any of their persons for learned men cannot but love and esteem whatever is good and excellent in others but onely from that Conscience of Truth which the Ministers of this and other reformed Churches doe conceive upon Scripture grounds and by the consent of the primitive and purest Churches of Christ they ought in all duty to God to their own and other soules yet with charity to their Adversaries to maintain And although the warne in Christian Religion ought to be managed by learned men on all sides with all possible fairnesse candor and civility such as the honour of the Christian name and profession requires for the more illiterate men are the more rudely they bray and rail against one another if it were a great sin to be supine and negligent in so great an engagement which we think to be for Gods cause the truth of Christ and the good of soules for which we ought to be prudently vigilant and honorably valiant It would ill become us while we see the adverse partie daily arming themselves with all possible compleatnâsse in languages arts and sciences in Fathers councels and histories for us to fit still in our lazy and unlearned ignorance expecting either miraculous illuminations and assistances as idle vain and proud mindes do or else most inevitable ruine and certain overthrow of that truth and reformed Religion which we professe to maintain which in honour and conscience besides the bonds of nature humanity and charity we are bound to transmit to posterity if not much improved by our diligence and studies yet at least not sottishly impaired to a just impeachment of waste against us in this age from those that in after times may succeed us who will have no great honour or happinesse by
such small stuffe as thâse Antiministeriall Teachers intend to brew whereby to keep all Christians as they pretend in a sober simplicity which project is among their other weak and silly conceptions For the fames and âentâsities arising from ignorance emptinesse and want of good sustenance may more trouble the brain with giddy whimseyes and dizinesse than can ever be feared from competent repletions unlesse men have very foul stomachs or hot Livers Wise men know to keep the mean between the riot and the want of learning There are faith Plato two diseases of the Soul of man ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã madnesse and ignorance Plato in Timaeo Madnesse is from the abounding with pride and passion Ignorance from the want of knowledge and instruction Ignorance is but a tamer madnesse mad men have lost their wits and ignorant men never had them Learning and Religion cure both The highest and most incurable madnesse is an ungracious hatred of learning and an irreligious love of ignorance We see by sad experience That true Religion is as subject to be drowned by inundations of barbarity and deluges of unlettered people fit to be followers of Goths and Vandales or listed with Jeek Cade and Wat Tylar or subjects to the titular King of Sion John of Leyden as it is to be scorched by the hotter beams of those Phaethons who unskilfully manage the chariot of the Sun that is make an ill use of good learning Which is as the light of the world wherein Christian Religion is most honourably and most usefully enthroned when it is guided aright neither depressing reason too low by fanatick novelties nor exalting it too high by intricate subtilties Medio tulissmus ibis Ovid. but keeping the middle way of the necessary plain and most demonstrable verities of Religion which the Compasse of right Reason measures exactly by the scale of Scriptures 9. Object Many unlearned have been holy c. But these Objectors tell us That many holy and excellent Christians of the common and unlettered sort of men have been Worthies in grace and godlinesse who never found any want of Sââls armour those * ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã great incumqrances great volumes nor those perplexed studies in pestred libraries That the * Nulla aconita bibuntur Fictilibus tunc illa time cum pocula sumas Gemmatas c. Iuv. poysons of opinions are seldomer drunk or pledged in these earthen vessels than in those of gold or silver That their simplicity was contented to enjoy that one book necessary The Scriptures All other bookes they would have been contented as these men now to have them sacrificed to Vulâan an heathen god and meriting such heathenish oblations Answ No doubt but many very good Christians have been happily instructed Answ setled and preserved in saith and holinesse who never were learned in any book but that of the Scripture * L. 1. de Doctr. Christian S. Scripturas memo ia tenuit intelleâit sine scientia literaâân S. Austin tels that Anthony the Hermite who could not read had all the Scriptures by heart and understood them well yea many who never âead any word in the Bible yet have been blest by the Ministry of the Gospell to beleive and obey the truth of it which is indeed the life of religion and the quintessence of all learning Yet it was the happinesse of those honest Christians that they never met with such pragmatick depravers of all good order piety and learning and Ministry as these now are for certainly they had never learned from such as these despisers of learning and Ministers are either the letter or the true sense of the Scriptures which they attained by the learned labours of their Ministers chiefly both reading translating and interpreting and preaching the Scriptures to them They were happily freed from such praters whose pride and folly is heavier than any lead or the sand of the Sea Pro. 27.3 whose ungratefull humour would have taught them first to have cast off all their true Ministers and Teachers next to despise them and lastly to destroy them by a most pious madnesse and spirituall ingratitude They are not only blind but mad men who wanting eyes themselves would have all their guides see no more than they do that so both might fall into the ditch Whereas the humility of all sober Christians was ever such as equalled their piety exceeded their knowledge and compensated their illiteratenesse so as to be farre enough from thinking themselves equall to or above the first three their lawfull Pastors and learned Ministers by whose faithfull endeavours and studies those saving truths and holy mysteries were prepared for them and set before them So that however they did indeed eat clean food the finest of the bread of life yet they could not but consider whose plowing and sowing and gathering whose thrashing and winnowing and grinding whose kneading baking had provided and prepared those savory and wholesome victuals for them which their own blindnesse and feeblenesse like Isaacks could never have provided or catered for themselves That they did alwayes blesse those Ministers and that God who sent such Josephs to provide and distribute the food of heaven to his otherwayes destitute and famished Church which alwayes consisted for the most part of that plebs or community of faithfull and poor Christians who were alwayes happy in this that although they had not provision of learning in their own storehouses and cisternes yet still they might have recourse to and make use of their Ministers fulnesse and store whose lips ought to preserve knowledge and to dispense it without envy or grudging who rejoyced most when their fountaines were most flowing forth to the refreshing of poor soules The abilities of learned Ministers have alwayes been like Jacobs and Moses his strength Gen. 29.10 a means to rowl away the great stones Exod. 2.17 which lie on the wels mouth the Scriptures which are too heavy for ordinary shoulders and to protect feebler Christians from insolent opposers So that as the Eunuchâââked how he should understand Act. 8.31 without an Interpreter to guide him Ministers are therefore set by Christ in his Church for lights that each might enjoy them as much as if each had their sufficicencies As the meanest part of the body hath as much use of the eye Exod. 16.18 as if it were an eye it selfe That as it was in the Israelites gathering Manna so it is in the Church of Christ when setled and flourishing He that gathered much had no overplus and hee that gathered little had no lack So those honest Ideots and Lay-Christians who have little or no learning beyond that faith and plain knowledge of the mysteries of Christ and the holy duties belonging to a Christian yet have no want of learning And learned Ministers who have attained most eminent skill in all sorts of good learning by Gods blessing on their studies have no
Iur. Illud decitum quod logibus definitum Reg. jur is not true and vertuous liberty but inordinatenesse and excesse Yea and in some cases of severer restraints Prudenter aliquando liciâa prohibenâtur ne si permitterentur eorum ocââsâââe ad illicita perveniatur Reg. Iur. Ioh. 8.30 Free Indeed Libertââ verâ Christianae ââferââ aut extrinsecus spoliari nescit quum non minus parâendo quam agendo exercetur Aust by which Governors doe indeed trench upon those rationall or religious liberties which God hath allowed to men and Christians yet in these cases a true Christian onely wraps himself up in that liberty of patience which knowes when and how to suffer without injury to the publique tranquillity or to his private peace of conscience still keeping a * 1 Pet. 3.4 meek and quiet spirit with the love zeal and profession of that which he conceives to be the truth of God these are the fruits of that * 2 Cor. 3.17 free Spirit of Christ in Christians which appeared most eminently in Christ which makes us free to all things but not to sin in thought word or deed Looking upon sin as the great * Eo sumus liberiores quo a peccato ââââââniores Gibeuf tyrant usurper and waster of the true liberty of every man and Christian It is then as farre from Christian liberty 4. Divels Liberty as sicknesse is from health madnesse or drunkennesse from sobriety rottennesse from beauty or putrefaction from perfection for any Christian to beleeve what he lists though it be a lye or to disbeleeve and deny it Libertas omni servitute servilior Ber. Ep. 47. though it be a truth of God to take up what opinions and wayes of religion he most fancies and to refuse what ever he please to disaffect upon light popular and untryed grounds or openly to speak and dispute what ever he lists ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Cl. Al. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 2. and publiquely to act according as his private perswasions passions lusts or interests or other mens tempt and carry him wherein neither right reason nor common order nor publique peace nor conscience of duty nor * 1 Pet. 2.17 reverence of men nor fear of God have any such serious and holy ties upon men as are necessary for the common good In which regard private Christians are never so free as to have no yoake of Christ upon them Haretica conversatio quam futilis quam terrena quam humana sine gravitate sine autoritate sine disciplina cujus penes nos curam lenocinium vocant pacem cum omnibus miscent dum ad unius veritatis expugnationem conspirant Tertul de praes ad Hae. c. 41. no exercise of patience self-denyall mortification meeknesse charity modesty and sobriety together with that comelinesse and decorum which beseemes Religion and a Christian spirit beyond which the most transporting zeal may not expatiate For that is no other than such freedome as water enjoyes when it overbears and overflowes all its banks and bounds or as fire seising on the whole house Such as drunken men in their roarings and mad men in their ravings contend for such as wild beasts and untamed Monsters struggle for yea such as the envious and malicious divels affect and are most impatient not to enjoy In whose nostrils and jawes the mighty * Ezek. 38.4 Esa 37.29 wisdom and goodnesse of God who is Potentissimum liberrimum agens the fountain of all true rationall morall religious and divine freedome hath his hooke of power and bridle of terror not of love Such are those liberties which those * As St. John called Corinthus who was of this sect of Libertines Irenae l. 1. Congredere mecum ut te ad principem deducam vox lascivientium Gnosticorum Nicolaitarum aliorum Haeret. Iren. l. 1. primogeniti Diaboli prime birds of the Divels brood ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Gr. Nis v. M. some impudent Libertines and dissolute wretches now as of old aim at who have cast off all sense of justice order shame and humanity while they clamour and act for liberty that is that their blasphemies profanenesses impudicities scurrilities impudencies and violences against all publique civill peace as well as against all religion order and Ministry of the Church of England may be tolerated if not countenanced notwithstanding they professe to hold with us some common grounds of Christian Religion and stand responsible to civill duties and relations True Christians should be as fearfull to enjoy the divels freedome not which he hath but which he desires that is to will and to doe whatever he lists And as they should be zealous for their own true holy and humble liberties which lead them quietly to doe or suffer Gods will in Gods way so they should bee tender of encroaching upon those publique liberties which are by right reason order and Scripture granted to some men as Magistrates and Ministers for the generall good of Christians Men must not so please themselves in any thing they fancy of liberty as to injure others No mans liberty may be anothers injury Nullius emolumentum jure nescitur exalterius damno injuria Reg. Iur. since no mans right can consist in the detriment or damage of anothers rights or dues As then no man rationally can think it a liberty denyed him when he is forbid upon idle visits to goe to infected houses or being infected with the plague to goe among others that are sound or to drink poison and propine it to others no more can any Christian religiously plead for a liberty to broach and publish to others any opinion he pleaseth or to invade any place and office he hath a minde to or to disturb others in their duties and power or to contemne with publique insolence or violently to innovate against established laws and orders in Church or State much lesse hath he any freedome openly to blaspheme or disturb that religion and way of devotion wherein sober and good Christians worship God by that authority and order which is setled in publique according to their consciences and best judgements Here neither Christian Magistrates 5. True Liberty and good government in Church and State agree well together nor Ministers are to regard such pleas for private Liberties as overthrow the publique order and peace nor are they to regard those clamours against them and the Laws as persecuting when they doe but oppose and restrain such pernicious exorbitancies nor are they in this infringers of the peoples freedome but preservers of Liberties which are bound up onely in the laws nor are they oppressours of others mens consciences but dischargers of their own duties * Leges sunt corporis politici nervi sine quibus luxata infirma fient omnia membra Verul and consciences which they bear to Gods glory and the publique good whereto as they stand highly related by their place and power so
mens fight may easily discover folly in the purest Angels of his Church many spots in the brightest Moones and much nebulousnesse in the fairest Stars Yet God forbid that any men of justice honour or conscience should charge upon all Ministers and the whole function the disorders of some when as there are many hundreds of grave learned wise humble meek and quiet spirited men whose excellent vertues graces endowments and publique merits may more than enough countervaile and expiate the weaknesse or extravagancies of their brethren Ministers as well as other men except those whose opinions and fancies are so died in graine that their follies will never depart from them have learned many experiences both in England and Scotland that an over-charged or an ill-discharged zeal usually breaks it self in sunder with infinite danger not only to its authours but to its abettors assistants and spectators And however at first it might seem levelled against enemies yet it makes the neerest friends and standers by ever after wary and afraid both of such Guns and their Gunners of such dangerous designes and their designers Nothing is more touchy and intractable than matters of civill power and dominion in which we have neither precept nor practise from Christ or his Apostles for Ministers to engage themselves in any way of offense which their wisedome avoided They were thought of old things fitter for the hands of Cyclops who forged Jupiters thunderbolts than for the Priests of the Gods Great and sad experiences shewing how rough and violent with bloud and ruine all secular changes are how unsutable and unsafe to the softer hands of Ministers these have added wisdome to the wise and taught them very sober and wholesome lessons of all peaceable and due subjection both to God who may govern us by whom he pleaseth and to man Psal 75.7 who cannot have power but by Gods permission Dan. 4.17 which at the best and justest posture is not to be envied so much as pitied by prudent and holy men who see it attended with so many cares Habet aliquid ex iniquo omne magnum exemplum quod contra singulos utilitate publica rependitur Tacit l. 14. An. Liceat inter abruptam contumaciam deforme obsequium pergere iter ambitione periculis vacuum Tac. An. l. 4. feares and horrours infinite dangers and temptations befides a kinde of necessity sometime in reason of State to doe things unjust and uncomfortable at least to tolerate wayes that are neither pious nor charitable So that the humble peaceable and discreet carriage of all wife and worthy Ministers which only becomes them may justly plead for favour and protection against this calumny of pronenesse to sedition faction or any illegall disturbance in civill affaires even in all the unhappy troubles of the late yeares the wisest and best Ministers have generally so behaved themselves as shewed they had no other design than to live a quiet life in all godlinesse and honesty to serve the Lord Christ and his Church peaceably if they might in that station where they were lawfully set if they could not help in fair wayes to steer the ship as they desired yet they did not seek to set it on fire or split and overwhelm it If in any thing relating to publique variations and violent tossings ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Pind. they were not able to act with a satisfied and good conscience yet they ever knew their duty was humbly to bear with silence and suffer with patience from the hands of men the will of God Rom. 11.33 whose judgements they humbly adore though dark deep and past finding out If some mens dubiousnesse and unsatisfiednesse in any things as they are the works of men who may sin and erre be to be blamed as it is not in any righteous judgement yet it is withall so far to be pitied and pardoned by all that are true Christians or civill men as they see it accompanied with commendable integrity meeknesse and harmlesse simplicity which onely becomes these doves and serpents Mat. 10.16 which Christ hath sent to teach his Church both wisdome and innocency to walk exactly and circumspectly in the slippery pathes of this world not onely by sound doctrine but also by setled examples Which excellent temper would prevent many troubles among Christians and much evill suspicion against Ministers who could not be justly offensive or suspected to any in power if they saw them chiefly intentive to serve and fearfull to offend God always tender of good consciences and of the honor of true Christian Religion which was not wont to see Ministers with swords and pistols in their hands but with their Bibles and Liturgies not rough and targetted as the Rhinoceroes but soft and gently clothed as the sheep and Shepherds of Christ There is not indeed a more portentous sight than to see Galeatos Clericos Ministers armed with any other helmet than that of Salvation or sword than that of the Spirit or shield than that of Faith by which they will easily overcome the world if once they have overcome themselves whose courage will be as great in praying preaching and suffering with patience meeknesse and constancy as in busting and fighting which becomes Butchers better than Ministers to whom Christ long ago commanded in the person of S. Peter to put up their swords Mat. 26.52 nor was he ever heard to repeal that word or to bid them draw their swords no not in Christs cause that is meerly for matters of Religion who hath Legions of Angels Armies of truths gifts and graces of the Spirit to defend himself and his true interests in Religion withall which are far better and fitter weapons in Ministers warfare 2 Cor. 10.4 The weapons of our warfare are not carnall than such swords and staves as they brought who intended to betray to take and to destroy Christ Let secular powers forcibly act as becomes them in the matters of Religion so farre as they are asserted and established by Law whose proper attendant is armed power It is enough for Ministers zeal to be with Moses Exod. 17. Aaron and Hur in the Mount praying when Joshua in the justest quarrell iâ fighting with Amalek that is the unprovoked and causelesse enemies of the Church If at any time they counsel or act matters of life and death they must be so clearly and indisputably just and within the compasse of their duty and relation as may every way become valiant men humble Christians and prudent Ministers Object 4. Of the Engagement But to confute all that can be said for the Ministers of England their adversaries are ready to object that many of them scruple the taking of the Engagement This they think is a pill which will either choak their consciences if they swallow it or purge them out of their livings if they doe not For contrary to all other Physick this operates most strongly on those that never take it
constant spirited preacher of righteousnesse will as he should in Gods way and Word with all religious freedome yet with all civill respect tell even the greatest Princes and Potentates of their sins as resolute Eliah and honest Micajah did Ahab as Nathan did David as Jeremiah did the Princes and people too as John Baptist did Herod as St. Stephen did the Jews Non par est ut deceptus splendore purpurae ignores imbecillitatem corporis quod hac regitur Amb. ad Theodos Theod. l. 5. Eccles hist c. 1â and as St. Ambrose did Theodosius the Emperour who for that Christian courage loved him the better professing that no man was worthy the honour of a Christian Bishop or Minister but he that knew how to own and use such pious and resolute constancy as he had done Yea what will you think of the freedome used by Menis Bishop of Chalcedon to Julian the Emperour telling him that he was an Atheist and Apostate Being blinde and led to the place where they were sacrificing Julian with scorn asked him why the Galilean did not open his eyes Sozom. l 5. c. 4. The old man answered he thanked God he wanted eyes to see so wicked a person It is certain no men are better subjects in any time or under any State than such plain dealing Preachers although oft times none are lesse esteemed by such men who had rather enjoy the fruit of their sins with peace than hear of them to repentance But Ministers who are Gods Heralds must not consider what voice pleaseth those to whom they are sent but what he commands that sends them It were better that hundreds of them were sequestred plundered imprisoned banished or burnt at Stakes in Smithfield Vitámque impendere vero Nec propter vitam vivendi perdere causam Juv. Nihil turpius sanctis parasitiÌs after the example of many holy Martyrs than that their votes and suffrages as more sollemn parasites should ever flatter men either great or many in their sins or * Isai 5.20 call evill good and good evill or speak good of that and blesse those whom they think * Psal 10.3 God abhorreth who is as far from approving as from commanding any immorality or injustice in any agents whom he suffers to act and doe great things in the world when yet he so far approves strange events as he permits them in his unsearchable yet alwayes ãâã just wisdome which knows how to make good use of evill men aâd manners ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Bas M. de Sp. 5. c. 21 God can make Bathsheba to be the mother of a Solomon whom he loved when yet he never allowed the sin of * 2 Sam. 12.14 David or Bathsheba in their first coming together the fruit of which the Lord destroyed It justifies as St. Austin saith Gods omnipotent goodnesse and wisdome but not mans impotent passion and folly when he brings his glory or his Churches good out of their evill Yet this just and necessary freedome ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Demost which Ministers of the Church in all duty to God charity to men and fidelity to their own souls ought always as they have fit occasion to use must not amount to bitter rude importune and unseasonable reproofes not to publique raylings seditious reproaches and popular invectives against any mens persons or actions * Nobile plane ac generosum est vincendi genus alios humilitate praeoccupare ut vincamus Sal. Ep. 5. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Is Pel. l. 4. ep 139. There must be meekenesse with zeal humility with courage modesty with freedom gravity with constancy and prudence with innocency If those that are at any time in Power doe not like or will not protect and incourage such Ministers in all such religious freedom of speaking as becomes the Word of God if they presently make those offenders for a word and looke on them Isai 29.21 as enemies of their power who only tell them and all men of those sins which the Scripture reproves equally in all men and God will mightily punish in the mighty If they resolve to destroy all those Preachers which are loth they should be damned Impatientiam reperhensionis sequitur peccandi impudentia unde impoenitentia desperatio damnatio Ber. Truly such men deserve to have no Ministers but those that are not worth the having Teachers after their own hearts and not after Gods None are worthy the name of Christs Ministers who suffer Christians to sin securely others may heap up and feed on * Mellei sacharati doctores sweet Teachers for a while but they will finde them like * Rev. 10.10 St. Johns book in the belly bitter and miserable comforters in the end None are so worthy of Christian Magistrates protection as those that fear not to tell them of their sins yet in a fair way too Not in a Cynicall severity but in a Christian charity not so as to diminish their power which Temperanda est reprehensio ut non tam corrosores quam correctores videamur emendare studentes non mordere Ber. Ep. 78. Veritas dulcis est amara quando dulcis pascit quando amara curat medicamen animo pabulum Aust Ep. 210. is Gods more than mans but vindicate true piety What good Christian wil not be glad of sanative wounds rather than * Prov. 27.6 Quantum âdit peccatum tantum diliget fratrem quem sentit peccati sui hostem Aust Ep. 87. Ioh. 18.37 For this end came I into the world that I should bear witnesse to the truth Sapienti grata sunt vulnere senantia Ieron poysonous kisses to hear of those faults in a fair way which he hath cause to be sorry that ever he committed and of which he must repent even to a restitution of injuries or at least an agnition if ever he have pardon True Ministers are to consider not what will please poore sinfull mortals but what will profit mens soules not what may seeme good to them but what will doe them good and however they may not transgresse the laws of honour and civility by a rudenesse of Religion yet they must take that * Ezek. 2.5 liberty of speaking which the word of God allowes and conscience requires whether men will hear or forbear 6. Ministers quiet subjection merits protection If then Christian Religion be not in England grown a meere fable as the Ministers of it are too many become a reproach and a by-word a burden and a song If modern-policies hath not quite eat up all that piety which was sometime professed in privater and obscurer stations If Mammon hath not justled God out of the throne of great and strong mens hearts If Belial have not deposed Christ If the enjoyment or catching at the shadowes of temporall power and possessions have not made men foolishly let goe the care to get and to hold fast eternall life If Arms have
the substance of them nor any lessening of Christs right to them And for this I have produced not weak opinions not light conjectures not partiall customes not bare prepossession 3. A summary of what makes for the function of the Ministry not uncertain tradition not blind antiquity not meer crowds or numbers of men much lesse do I solemnly alledge my own specious fancies devout dreams uncertain guessings Seraphick dictates and magisteriall Enthusiasms But 1. evident grounds out of the Word of God for a divine Ordination and institution at first 2. Scripture history for succession to four generations actually 3. Promises and precepts for perpetuity of power Ministeriall and assistance which was derived by the solemn ceremony of the imposition of hands by such only as had been ordained and so enabled with successionall power till the coming of Christ 4. This primitive root and divine plantation of the Ministeriall office and power we finde oft confirmed by miraculous gifts besides the innocency humility simplicity piety and charity of those Apostles primitive Bishops and Presbyters set forth in the holinesse of their lives and the glorious successes of their Ministeriall labours converting thousands by preaching the Gospell and by their Ministeriall power and authority planting Churches in all the then known and reputed world oft crowning their doctrines and Ministry with Martyrdome 5. After this I produce what is undenyably alleadged from authours of the best credit learned and godly men famous in the Church through all the first ages shewing the Catholick and uncontradicted consent the constant and uninterrupted succession by Bishops and Presbyters in every City and Countrey which all Christians in every true Church owned received and reverenced as men indued with such order and power Ministeriall as was divine supernaturall and sacred as from Christ and in his Name though by man as the means and conduit of it This is made good to our dayes in the persons and office of those Ministers who were and are duely ordained in this Church 6. Next I plead with the like evident and undenyable demonstrations the great abilities in all sorts of ministeriall gifts the use and advancement of all good learning the vindicating of true Christian and reformed religion the manifold discoveries of sound judgement discreet zeal holy industry blamelesse constancy and all other graces wherein the Ministers of England have not been inferiour to the best and most famous in any reformed Christian Church and incomparably beyond any of their defamatory adversaries 7. I add to these as credentiall Letters the testimonies and seales which God hath given of his grace and holy Spirit accompanying the Ministry in England upon the hearts of many thousands both before and eminently since the Reformation by which men have been converted to and confirmed in Faith Repentance Charity and holy life the tryall of which is most evident in that patience and constancy which many Ministers as other Christians in this Church have oft shewen in the sufferings which they have chosen rather then they would sin agaist their Conscience and that duty which they owed to God and man 8. Last of all if any humane consideration may hope for place in the neglect of so many divine the civill rights and priviledges which the piety of this Nation and the Laws of this Land have alwayes given to Ministers of the Gospell by the fullest and freest consent of all Estates in Parliament that they might never want able Ministers nor these all fitting support and incouragements These I say ought so far to be regarded by men of justice honour and conscience as not suddenly to break all those sacred sanctions and laws asunder by which their forefathers have bound them to God to his Church and Ministers for the perpetuall preservation of the true Christian Religion among them and their posterity Furthermore 4. The fruits of Ministers labours in England if the godly Ministers of this Church of England whom some men destine to as certain destruction and extirpation as ever the Agagite did the Jews if they be the messengers of the most high God the Prophets of the Lord the Evangelicall Priests those by whom Salvation hath been brought and continued to this part of the world If they have like the good Vine and Figtree been serviceable to God and man to Church and State If they have laboured more aboundantly and been blessed more remarkably than any other under heaven If they have preached sound doctrine in season and out of season if they have given full proof of their Ministry not handling the Word of God deceitfully nor defrauding the Church of any Truth of God or divine Ordinance If many of them have fought a good fight and finished their course with joy and great successe against sin errour superstition and profanenesse If they have snatched many firebrands out of hell pulled many souls out of the snares of the divell If they have fasted and mourned and watched and prayed and studyed and taught and lived to the honour of the Gospell and the good of many soules If they have like Davids Worthies stood in the gap against those Anakims and Zanzummins who by lying wonders learned sophistries and accurate policies have to this day from the first reformation and coming out of Egypt sought to bring us thither again or else to destroy the very name of Protestants and reformed Religion from under heaven If almost all good Christians and not a few of these renegadoes their ungratefull enemies doe owe in respect of knowledge or grace to the Ministers of England as Philemon to St. Paul even their very selves If they have oft in secret wept over this sinfull Nation and wantonly wicked people as Christ did over Jerusalem and as Noah Daniel and Job oft stood in the gap to turne away the wrath of God from this self-destroying Nation If now they have no other thoughts or practises but such as become the truth and peace of that Gospell which they preach and that blessed example which Christ hath set them whom in all things they desire to imitate in serving God edifying the Church doing good to all men praying for their enemies and paying all civill respects which they owe to any men If all true and faithfull Ministers have done and designe onely to doe many great and good works in this Church and Nation for which of these is it that some men seek and others with silence suffer them to be stoned as the Jews threatned Christ and the inconstant Lystrians acted on St. Paul who after miracles wrought by him among them and high applauses of him from them was after dragged as a dead dog out of their City by them Act. 14.19 supposing him to be dead If all true and worthy Ministers being conscious to their own Integrity a midst their common infirmities after their escaping the late stormes in which many perished are easily able without any disorder to them to shake off those
profane licentious and Atheisticall spirits who jointly combate against the truth of Christian and reformed Religion that they should fight neither against small nor great but chiefly against the reformed Ministers and the very Ministry it selfe of this Church Take heed that these smite you not 1 King 22 34 as those did the King of Israel between the joints of your harnesse between your conscience of duty to God and your civill complyance for safety with men between your love of Christ and the love of your relations between your fear to offend God and your lothnesse to displease men between your holding your livings and keeping good consciences between your looking to eternall necessities and your squinting on temporall conveniencies Navigare necesse est non item vivere Appian As Pompey said when he set to Sea in a storm against the advise of the timerous Pilot and Mariners so I to you It is not necessary to live but it is necessary to preach that Gospell which hath been committed to your care 1 Cor. 9.16 It is not necessary to be rich and at ease and in liberty and in favour with men but it is necessary to witnesse to the Truth of God and to that office authority and divine power of the Ministry of Christ in this Church against a crooked and perverse generation against the errours pride falsity ignorance and hypocrisies which are in the world What if Christ cals us in this age to forsake all Matth. 19.22 Age vero qui relinquere omnia pro Christo disponis te quoque inter relinquenda arnumerare memento Ber. de dil and follow him Shall we goe away sorrowfull Truly the world will not treat you much better when you have forsaken Christ to follow it For having once drawne you from your consciencious constancy and judicious integrity and pious reserves it will the more despise you and with the greater glory destroy you as Ministers Our * Ioh. 4.34 meat and drink must be to do the will of our heavenly Father as it was the Lord Christs our great sender and first ordainer Better we live upon almes and beggery than thousands of soules be starved or poysoned by those hard fathers and terrible step-mothers who intend to nurse Religion with bloud in stead of milk and feed the Church of Christ after a new Italian fashion commanding stones to be for bread and giving it Scorpions in stead of fishes mixtures of hemlock and Soulesbane with some shews of hearbs of grace of wholesome truths and of spirituall gifts Let the envyous penurious sacrilegious and ungratefull world see that you followed not Christ for the loaves Nor as Judas therefore liked to be his Disciples because you might bear the bag Let no Scribes or Pharisees Priests or Rulers outbid your value of Christ or tempt you to betray him and his holy Ministry on you by any offers unworthy of him and you Piorum afflictio non est tam poena criminis quam examen virtutis Aust de S. Iobo Act. 27.14 Shew your skill and courage in the storm wherein you are like for a time to be engaged Serener times made you carry slacker sayles and a looser hand now your eye must be more fixed and your hand more strong and steddy in steering according to cart and compasse the Euroclydons or violent windes of these tempestuous times will bring you sooner to your Haven Hitherto you have for the most part appeared but as other men busie as other ants on your molehils conversing with the beasts of the people in the valley of secular aimes and affaires now God cals you with Moses up to the Mount ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Chrysâst in Act. ap hom 3. Matth. 17.3 and with Christ to a transfiguration where you shall see the meeknesse and charity of Moses with the zeal and constancy of Elias appearing with Christ in which great Emblemes your duty your honour and your comfort will be evident when you come to be stoned with St. Stephen the form of your countenance will be changed and you will then most fully see Christ and most clearly be seen of men as the Angels of God Act. 6 17. C. 7. 56. Nothing hath lost and undone many of us Ministers so much as our too great fear of losses and of being undone our too great desires to save our selves by complying with all variations even in Religion nothing will save us so certainly as our willingnesse to lose our lives and livelihoods for Christs sake and this not now for one great truth which is worth 1000 lives but for the pillar and ground of all truths the office and very Institution of the true Ministry whose work is to hold forth and publish the Truth of the Gospell to the world in all ages by a right and perpetuall succession Despair not of Gods love to you For Comfort Viro fideli magis inter ipsa flagella sidendum Ber. Ep. 356. Euseb hist l. 2. cap. 5. as Philo said to his countrymen the Jews at Alexandria when he returned from the Emperour highly incensed against them Be of good courage it is a good Omen that God will doe us good since the Emperour is so much against us Possibly you may as St. Paul be stoned cast out and left for dead yet revive again as is foretold of the witnesses It may be your latter end shall be better as Jobs than your beginning The experience of the sad effects * Act. 14. 19. which attend sacrilegious cruelties against the true Ministers and the want of such in every place * Rev. 11.11 may in time provoke this Nation by a sense of its own and of Gods honour to more noble and constant munificence which is not so much a liberality as an equity to able and faithfull Ministers It may be this Church Gal. 4.15 which hath so much forgot the blessednesse shee spake of in having learned able and rightly ordained and well governed Ministers Revel 2.4 which seems to have forsaken her first love and honour to the Clergy when Religion was as in all times preserved so in these last reformed and vindicated by the labours writings lives and sufferings of those excellent Bishops and Presbyters who were heretofore justly dear and honoured to this Nation so as no worthy minde envyed or repined at the honors and estates they enjoyed Possibly it may remember from whence it is faln and repent and doe its first works which were with piety order charity true zeal and liberality without grudging or murmuring against the honour or maintenance much lesse the office and function of the Evangelicall Ministers whose pious wisdome casting off onely the additaments and superstitious rags of mans invention yet retained with all reverence and authority the essentiall institutions of Jesus Christ The disguised dress and attire had no way destroyed the being and right succession of holy things but only deformed it to a fashion
Church under heaven The want of that great benefit and those many blessings which the Churches of Christ both in primitive and postern times have enjoyed by the learning wisdome authority care circumspection and good example of excellent Bishops whom no men will want more than the commonalty of Presbyters may in time according to the usuall methods of humane folly and passions late and costly repentings make men the more esteeme them and desire their just restauration Servil de Mirand The ancient Persians are reported when their King dyed to have allowed five dayes interregnum during which time every man might doe what seemed good in his own eyes That so by the experience of those five dayes rudenesse riot injuries and confusions wherein rich and poore suffered they might learn more to value the necessity and benefit of lawfull orderly and setled government Want doth oft reconcile men to those things Carendo magis quaem fruendo de bonis recte judicamus which long use hath made nauseous and so offensive to them when wanton novelty hath glutted and defiled it self with its pudled waters possibly it may grow so wise by an after wit as ashamed of it selfe to returne to the primitive springs and purer fountaines where was both farre more clearnesse and far wholesomer refreshings Your charity forgiving and pitying your enemies and your humility digesting your injuries and indignities offered you by any men will invest you in more than all you ever enjoyed or lost as to reall comfort and gracious contentment By how much you now have lesse to be envyed of secular splendor the more you will be now and in after ages admired for your meeknesse and contentednesse in every estate Primitive poverty of Bishops will but polish and give lustre to your Primitive piety Humane disgraces are oft the foils and whetstones of divine graces The highest honour as of all good Christians so chiefly of godly Bishops and Ministers is not onely to * ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Is Pel. l. 2. 133. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Cl. At. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã preach and rule but to suffer also as becomes the eminency of their places and graces Christ is for the most part on the suffering side and oftner to be found not onely in the Temple but in the furnace and wildernesse than in Courts and Palaces I may not I hope I cannot flatter any of you so as to tempt you to boast of your Innocency to glory in your merits or your crosses before God His exactnesse findes drosse in the purest vessels and defects in the weightiest shekels of the Sanctuary shewing the most innocent and meritorious persons as to men so much of sinfull infirmity in themselves as may both justifie Gods inflictings and provoke the afflicted to true repentings either for any excesses to which they might be transported as men or defects whereto they might be subject as Bishops and chief Ministers in the Church of Christ whose holy industry and pious vigilancy before God ought to be proportioned to those eminencies which they enjoyed above others in the eye of the world All that I aim at in this Paragraph is by this touch of Christian sympathy to expresse a sense of duty gratitude honour and love which I owe to God and for his sake to your Paternity Also to deprecate any offence which I either really have or may seem to have given any of you To whose hands chiefly I owe what I count my greatest honour my being duely ordained to be a Minister of the glorious Gospell of Jesus Christ in this Church of England You are still your selves and not to be lessened by any mutations of men or times while you possesse your learned and gracious soules in patience Ad coelestia invitamur cum a seculo avellimur Tertul. l. 3. advers Marc. Your sufficiency hath lost nothing while you enjoy God and your Saviour in faith and love your friends in charity your enemies in pity your honours in knowing how to be * Phil. 4.12 abasâd and your Estates in knowing how to want as well as to abound You have by experience found the Episcopall throne and eminency to be as * ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Naz. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Greg. Nis de Greg. Thaum Gregory Nazianzen and Nissen call it a sublimity fuller of envy and danger than of glory and dignity A dreadfull Precipice hard in the ascent laborious in the station hazardous in the descent of which Chrysostome expresseth so great an horrour that he thinkes few men fit for it and few saved under it the charge is so great the care so exact and the account so strict * Chrysost in Act. hom 3. Nor doth he think it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a preheminency so much as paines rather a burthen and oppression than any honour or exaltation And indeed to great and excellent mindes there was nothing in your former height and splendor truly worthy of your ambition or others emulation save onely the larger opportunities they afforded you not of being better in your selves but of doing more good to others Of which conveniencies being now deprived as you will have lesse to account for to God so the noblest revenge you can take of the present age is by patience under so profuse afflictions by your prayers for your most unjust and unplacable enemies by your constancy in studious industry and holy gravity to let the world see how impossible it is for true Christian Bishops not to be doing or desiring good while they live to all men and even to those from whom they have suffered much evill without a cause Your experienced piety knows better how to act than I can write as to true contentment in the world contempt of the world triumphing over the world and expectations above the world your storms and distresses though decumani great and vast cannot be long And to be sure will never be beyond your Pilots skill who looks on you as sufferers if not for the fundamentall saving Truths yet for the comely order and ancient government of his Church Many of you are already in prospect of that fair and happy haven of eternall tranquillity To which I beseech our God and Lord Jesus Christ the chief Bishop of his Church safely to conduct you by the wisdome and power of his Spirit As for your fatherly solicitude and Christian care of this Church and posterity God will relieve you by assuring you that he hath so vigilant and tender care as will cause all to work together for good Nor shall the insolency of enemies forain or domestick who are pleased with your disgraces and enriched with your spoiles alwayes triumph in the ruines of the Bishops Ministers and this Church of England Since then nothing is more apposite than the words of one of your own degree and order Gregory Nazianzen famous for his piety and learning zeal and patience I crave leave with all
men I must needs offend as to their distemper I did designe it I ever shall offend them if I will defend this Truth It is my duty and charity by displeasing them to doe them good Apoplectick diseases are incurable till sense be restored some men are benummed and past feeling I cannot live or dye in peace if I should hold my peace when I ought to rebuke and with all authority Ephes 4.19 because with Truth and good conscience in the name of Christ and of all my brethren the intolerable vanity ignorance pride arrogancy and cruelty of those who have set up themselves above and against all those that are the ordained reformed and faithfull Ministers of this or any other Christian Church In whom they list to finde nothing but faults and insufficiencies while they boast of their own rare accomplishments which are no where to be found but in their proud swelling words by which they lie in wait to deceive the simple and unstable soules I could no longer bear their insolent Pamphlets 2 Pet. 2.18 their intolerable practises their uncharitable projects against the glory of Christ and the happinesse of this reformed Church and Nation It grieved me to see so may Shipwrackt soules so many tossed to and fro who are floating to the Romish coast so many overthrown faiths so many willing and affected Atheists so many cavilling Sophisters so many wasted comforts so many scurrilous and ridiculous Saints so many withered graces so many seared consciences so many sacrilegious Christians so many causelesse triumphings of mean persons over learned grave and godly Ministers I was troubled to behold so many fears yet so much silence so many sighes and sorrows yet so much dejection and oppression of spirits such over-awings in those men whom it becomes in a spirituall warfare to encounter with beasts and unreasonable men as being sure to overcome at last Therefore among others I desire this apology may be a monument of my perfect abhorrency and publique protestation against all evil counsels and violent designes used against this reformed Church its Religion and Ministry when posterity shall see the sad effects of some mens agitations I expect no acceptance from any men further than I may doe them good Such as refuse to be healed by this application probably their smart will provoke them to petulant replyes which as I cannot expect from any sober and serious Christian so to the wantonnesse of others who are wofull wasters of paper and inke ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Plato in Crito I shall never have leisure to attend I have better imployment whereto I humbly devote the short remnant of my pretious moment even to the service of Christ of this Church and of all those excellent Christians in it to whose favour this sudden Apologetick defence is humbly dedicated in the behalf of the Ministry of this Church of England by their humblest servant in the Lord I. G. FINIS A Table of the chief heads handled in this Defense of the Ministery of the Church of ENGLAND THE Addresse pag. 1. The Cause undertaken p. 2 and recommended to excellent Christians p. 3 The honor of suffering in a good cause p. 4 Humble monition to those in power p. 6 Of ingenuous Parrhesie p. 7 Of Apologetick writings p. 8 The Authors integroty and sympathy p. 9 Of Ministers Lapse p. 10 Of their former Conformity p. 11 An account of Mr. Chibalds two books touching Lay Elders p. 13 Weak conjectures at the causes of Ministers Lapse p. 14 Of true Honor. p. 17 The main cause of Ministers lapse or diminution p. 20 Of Ministers as Politicians Pragmaticks Polemicks p. 24 What carriage best becomes Ministers in civill dissensions p. 25 Of Ministers indiscretions and inconstancies p. 28 The way of Ministers recovery p. 29 Vulgar insolencie against Ministers p. 30 Antiministeriall malice and practises p. 34 Ambitious and Atheisticall policies against them p. 35 The joy and triumph of the enemies of the reformed Religion p. 39 The Ministers of the Church of England neither Vsurpers nor Impostors p. 40 The sympathy of good Christians with their afflicted Ministers p. 42 Their plea for them against Novel and unordained Intruders p. 44 The right succession and authority of Ministers a matter of high concernment to true Christians p. 48 Who are the greatest enemies against the Ministry of this Church p. 49 Matters of Religion most considerable to Statesm n. p. 50 The just cause godly Ministers have to fear aâd complain p. 52 Ministers case unheard not to be condemned p. 55 The character of a good Minister such as is here pleaded for p. 58 Ministers excellencies are some mens greatest offence p. 61 Ministers infirmities viciate but not vacate their Authority p. 62 I. The first Objection or Quarrell of the Antiministeriall faction against the Ministers of England as being in no true or right Church way p. 65 Answ Vindicating the Church of England p. 66 1. As to Religion internall Ibid. It s power on the heart p. 67 Iâs ground and rule as to holinesse p. 68 Of fanatick fancies in Religion p. 69 The Souls true search after God and discoveries of him p. 71 Of the Souls Immortality p 73 Mans improvement to the divine image p. 74 True Religion as internall estates in Christ and in the true Church p. 76 II. Of true Religion as externall or professionall in Church society p. 77 Of the Church as visible and Catholick p. 78 Of a Nationall Church p. 80 The order and charity which befits Christians in all sociall relations p. 82 Papall and popular extreams touching the Church p. 84 The Romane arrogating too much p. 85 Of Infallibility in the Churches Ministry p. 88 Of Churches reduced only to single Congregations or Independent bodies 91 The primitive way of Churches and Christian communion p. 92 The National communion or polity of the Church of Eng. justified p. 95 The mincing or crumbling of the Churches pernicious p. 96 Of Religion as established and protected by Civill power p. 99 Of the subject matter or members of a Church p. 101 Of Parochiall congregations p. 102 Of Communicants p. 103 Of Ministers duty to Communicants p. 104 Ministers in each Parish not absolute Judges but Monitors and Directors Ibid. Good Discipline in the Church most desirable Ibid. Of Jurisdiction and Judicatories Ecclesiasticall p. 105 Of the common peoples power in admitting Communicants p. 106 Of a Church Covenant its Novelty Infirmity Superfluity p. 110 The essentials and prudentials of a true Church in England p. 112 Of being above all Ordinances Ministry and Church society p. 113 Peoples incapacity of gubernative power Civill or Ecclesiasticall p. 115 Of Magistrates and Ministers p. 117 Of the Plebs or peoples judgment in matters of doctrine or scandall p. 119 Tell it to the Church in whom is power of Church discipline and censures p. 121 Of Synods and Councels p. 126 Of prudentiall Liberty and latitudes in Church polity p. 127
The rash and injurious defaming of the Church of England riseth from want of judgement humility or charity p. 129 A pathetick deploring the losse and want of charity among Christians p. 131 II. Grand Objâction against the Ministry as no peculiar Office or distinct Calling p. 143 Answ The peculiar Calling of the Ministry asserted 1. By Catholick testimony both as to the judgement and practise of all Churches p. 144 The validity of that testimony p. 146 2. The peculiar Calling or Office of the Ministry confirmed by Scripture p. 152 1. Christs Ministry in his Person p. 153 2. Christs instituting an holy succession to that power and Office p. 154 3. The Apostles care for an holy succession by due ordination p. 155 4. Peculiar fitnesse duties and characters of Ministers p. 157 5. Peculiar solemnity or manner of ordaining or authorising Ministers p. 158 6. Ministers and Peoples bounds set down in Scripture p. 160 3. The peculiar Office of the Ministry confirmed by principles of right reason and order p. 162 4. By the proportions of divine wisdome in the Church of the Jewes p. 164 5. By the light of Nature and Religion of all Nations p. 165 6. The Office of the Ministry necessary for the Church in all ages as much as at the first p. 166 7. The greatnesse of the work requires choyce and peculiar workmen p. 169 What opinion the Ancients had of the Office of a Bishop or Minister p. 172 8. The work now as hard as ever requires the best abilities of the whole man p. 175 9. Vse of private gifts will not suffice to the work of the Ministry p. 179 10 Ministers as necessary in the Church as Magistrates in Cities or Commanders in Armies p. 180 Christian liberty expels not order p. 181 11. Peculiar Office of Ministry necessary for the common good of mankinde p. 183 12. Necessary to prevent Errors and Apostasies in the best Churches and Christians p. 185 To which none more subject than the English temper p. 186 Conclusion of this Vindication of the Evangelicall Ministry as a peculiar Office p. 187 III. The third Objection against the Ministry and Ministers of this Church from the ordinary gifts of Christians which ought to be exercised in common as Preachers or Prophets p. 189 Answ The gifts of Christians no prejudice to the peculiar Office of the Ministry p. 190 Reply to the many Scriptures alledged p. 191 Of right interpreting or wresting the Scriptures p. 194 The vanity and presumption of many pretenders to gifts p. 197 Their arrogancy and insolency against Ministers p. 199 Gifted men compared to Ministers p. 201 The ordinary insufficiency of Antiministeriall pretenders to gifts p. 202 Gifts alone make not a Minister p. 204 Of St. Paul's rejoycing that any way Christ was preached p. 205 Providentiall permissions not to be urged against divine precepts or Institutions p. 206 Antiministeriall Character p. 209 Churches necessities how to be supplyed in cases extraordinary p. 210 Of Christians use of their gifts p. 211 * Answer to a Book called The peoples priviledge and duty of Prophecying maintained against the Pulpits and Preachers encroachment p. 214 Of peoples prophecying on the Lords day p. 215 Or on the Weekday p. 218 Of primitive Prophecying p. 220 Ministers of England neither Popish nor superstitiously pertinacious as they are charged in that book p. 221 The folly of false and faigned Prophets p. 227 The sin and folly of those that applaud them p. 228 The Author of this Defense no way disparaging or damping the gifts of God in any private Christians p. 230 Ablest Christians most friends to true Ministers p. 231 Ordinary delusions in this kinde p. 232 The plot of setting up Pretenders to gifts against true Ministers p. 233 IV. Objection The first Cavill or Calumny Against the Ministers of England as Papall and Antichristian p. 237 Answ Papall Vsurpations no prejudice to Divine Institutions p. 238 The moderation and wisdome of our Reformers p. 239 What separation is no sinfull Schisme p. 244 Of Antichristianisme in Errors and uncharitablenesse p. 245 Our Ministry not from Papall authority p. 247 True reforming is but a returning to Gods way p. 248 Of the Popes pretended Supremacy in England p. 249 Of our Reforming p. 251 Of extreames and vulgarity in Reformation p. 253 The holy use of Musick p. 254 Divine Institutions incorruptible p. 256 V. Objection The second Cavill or Calumny Against Ministers as ordained by Bishops in the Church of Eng. p. 259 Answ Of ordination by Bishops p. 260 Of Bishops as under affliction p. 261 Of right Episcopall order and government in the Church of Christ p. 262 Reasons preferring Episcopall government before any other way p. 263 Vulgar prejudices against Episcopacy p. 271 The other new modes unsatisfactory to many learned and godly men p. 272 The advantages of Episcopacy against any other way p. 273 The Character of an excellent Bishop p. 273 Of Regulated Episcopacy p. 278 Bishops personal Errors no argument against the Office p. 279 What is urged from the Covenant against Episcopacy Answered p. 280 Prelacy no Popery p. 281 Bishops in England ordaining Presbyters did but their duty p. 283 Alterations in the Church how and when tolerable p. 284 Episcopacy and Presbytery reconciled p. 286 Personal faults of Bishops or Presbyters may viciate but not vacate divine duties p. 289 Ordination by Bishops and Presbyters p. 289 Of the Peoples power in Ordination p. 291 People have no power Ministeriall p. 292 Peoples presence and assistance in Ordination p. 296 The virtue of holy Ordination p. 303 Of Clergy and Laity p. 303 Right judgement of Christian Mysteries p. 305 Efficacy of right Ordination p. 308 The Holy Ghost given in right Ordination how p. 311 Of Ordination misapplyed p. 318 Insolency of unordained Teachers p. 319 VI. Object The third Calumny or Cavill Pretending speciall Inspirations and extraordinary gifts beyond any Ordained Ministers p. 361 Answ Of the holy Spirit of God in men by way of speciall Inspirations p. 363 The triall of it 1. By the Word written p. 365 2. By the fruits of it p. 369 The Influence of Gods Spirit how discerned p. 371 The vanity and folly of specious pretences p. 372 Of true holinesse and reall Saints p. 375 Vulgar mistakes of Inspirations p. 377 These Inspirators compared to Ministers p. 382 The blessings enjoyed by ordinary gifts in good Ministers p. 386 The danger and mischief of pretenders to speciall gifts p. 388 Blasphemies against the Spirit under the pretence of special Inspirations p. 391 The scandalous inconstancy of sâme professors p. 392 Conclusion resigning our Ministry to these inspired ones if they be found really such p. 393 VII Objection The fourth Cavill or Calumny Against humane learning acquired and used by Ministers p. 395 Answ The craft yet folly of this Objection p. 396 Humane learning succeeded Miracles and extraordinary gifts in the Church p. 397 The excellent and holy use of it in
its severall parts as to Chr. Religion p. 398 Ferity and Barbarity without Literature p. 400 The Devils despight against good learning in the true Church p. 401 The glory of the Gentiles tribulary to Christ p. 402. Enemies to learning are enemies to Religion both as Christian and as Reformed p. 405 Learned defenders of true Religion of ancient and later times p. 407 Illiteratenesse betrayes a Nation to brutishnesse p. 413 Of gracious Christians that are not Book learned p. 415 431 Learning in Ministers necessary p. 416 1. for the work 2. for the benefit of the unlearned Answer to the Objection that Christ and the Apostles were unlearned p. 419 The Objectors have no Apostolicall gifts p. 420 Holy men inspired yet used acquired gifts of learning p. 423 Of Books or monuments of learning their excellent use in the Church p. 425 A plea for the nurseries of good learning specially the two famous Vniversities of England p. 432 VIII Objection The fifth Cavill or Calumny Against Ministers as Incroachers upon Liberty and Conscience as Monopolisers of Religion and denyers of that toleration which is desired p. 436 Answ Of true Christian Liberty p. 437 The true Liberty of the creature how limited by God p. 439 Of false Liberty p. 441 Liberty of Superiors and Inferiors p. 442 The Devils affected Liberty p. 444 True Christian Liberty consists with and is conserved by good government in Church and State p. 445 False liberty destruct to the true p. 447. Of licentiousnesse and intolerable toleration p. 448 Coercive wayes in Civil and religious societies appointed by God p. 450 How Christian moderation differs from loose and profane toleration p. 451 Christians must not be Scepticks and unsetled p. 452 True temper between Tyranny and Toleration p. 453 A means to preserve Truth and Peace amidst different opinions p. 455 Some toleration is but a subtiler persecution p. 458 Best Christians strictest in loose times p. 460. IX Objection The sixth Cavill or Calumny Against the maintenance of Ministers setled by way of Tithes p. 463 Answ The Antidecimal spirit p. 464 Of Sacriledge p. 465 Of Tithes as given to God and his Ministers by the devotion and law of this Nation p. 466 Of Tithes as Judaical Ceremonial Typical p. 469 Of Tithes before the Mosaick Law p. 472 Of Tithes as due to Christ and his Evangelical Ministry p. 473 Tithes not Popish nor Antichristian p. 474 Of Tithes put into Lay tenure and pensions p. 476 Of Tithes as too much for Ministers p. 478 Plea for the married Clergy p. 478 Antidecimists factors for Romish Celibacy or single life of Ministers p. 479 The Romish policy to overthrow the setled maintenance of Ref. Ministers p. 483 Covetousnesse a gâeat hinderance of Reformation p. 484 True piety large hearted and open handed p. 487 Of the poverty and unsetled maintenance of primitive Bishops and Presbyters p. 489 The honest Farmer satisfied in pâint of Tithes p. 491 Sacriledge a wound to Conscience and pest to Estates p. 494 The work and honâr of the Ministry recommended to the Gentry p. 496 The burden and mischief likely to follow the taking away of setled maintenance from Ministers p. 499 The plot to starve the Reformed Religion p. 501 Of Ministers support by Mechanick trades p. 502 Sordid spirits are most against Ministers p. 503 Generosity of good Christians to the Clergy p. 504 The Jesuitick genius is Antidâcimall p. 505 The insolency of avarice it chiefly against Ministers p. 506 Worthy Ministers merit their maintenance p. 507 Ministers comfort in poverty p. 509 Their plea for their rights by law and merit is no Tithe-coveting nor uncomely p. 510 Their trust in Gods all-sufficiency p. 512 Digression Answer to scruples touching Churches locall or places set apart to holy uses p. 513 Of Ministers using some solemn forms in holy duties p. 518 X. Objection The seventh Calumny or Cavill Against Ministers as seditions turbulent factionâ p. 520 Answ Of Ministers civil conformity p. 521 Pragmatick Ministers injurious to themselves and their calling p 524 The errors of some not imputable to all p. 525 The peaceable temper of the best Ministers p. 526 A touch of the Engagement p. 528 Just protection requires due subjection in piety prudence and gratitude p. 530 The courage and freedom of Ministers in their proper sphear and calling p. 531 Ministers the lest they flatter men the more they love them and deserve to be loved and protected by them p. 535. XI Objection The eight Cavill or Calumny It is dangerous now to plead for or protect the Ministry and Ministers of the Church of England p. 537 Answ Mans cowardise in Religious concernments p. 537 Ministers submit their persons and calling to the vote and sentence of this Nation p. 538 The merits which the Ministry hath upon this Church and Nation p. 539 Eight particulars summarily alledged for Ministers p. 540 Ministers hope and expect better measure from this Nation than extirpation or oppression p. 545 Ministers infirmities beyond their adversaries strength p. 547 Eminent Bishops and Presbyters formerly in this Church p. 549 The hopefull succession yet remaining p. 550 Antiministeriall boasting and insufficiency p. 547. 552 Addresse to those of the Military order wise and valiant souldiers cannot bee enemies to the Ministry p. 553 Ministry to be preserved in reason of State p. 554 Pathetick to true and worthy Ministers in their sufferings or fears p. 556 Sympathetick with godly Bishops and Ministers p. 561 Excitation to primitive constancy and patience p. 568 Ministers ought to recant publiquely if conscientious to fraud or falsity p. 570 Exhortations of Ministers to unity p. 575 To speciall diligence and exactnesse p. 578 Peroration recommending the Ministry to publique love and protection p. 580 1. From true policy p. 582 2. From the light of Nature p. 583 3. From its excellency and necessity p. 586 Conclusion Excusing the Authors prolixity freedome and fervour p. 587 Deprecating offence and craving acceptance of all execellent Christians p. 590 FINIS Christian Reader these and some other Errata's have escaped the care used in Printing and are against the Authors and Printers will left as exercises of thy judgment and candor in reading and amending Errata in the Epistle pag. line read for p. l. r. f. 1. 12. r. distempers for enemies  28. beyond for being 5. 30. motive for motion 6. 7. outvied for outvived 10. 12. Prince f. Princesse  25. soon for far 21. 1. revolutions for Revelations 24. 23. support f. wisdom 28. 4. dele by esteem  22. gentle for great 42. 7. their for the  8. setling for setting 43. 15. wantonly Errata in the Book pag. line read for margent p. l. r. f. m. 3. m. explorant for explicant 5  Non dii f. mordii 9. 36. r. conscientiously 19. m. putredo 21. 19. Add so much as the law c. 25. 26. pathetick for politick 49. 23. formation for sumation 59. 25. piercing for pitifull   ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã f. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 62. m. Reg. Jur. f. Reg. Jacob. 107. 1. r. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã f. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 114. 23 peculiar f. popular 117. 43. body for badge 120. 41. del men 123. 7. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã f. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 223. 14. looseness f. baseness 225. 28. adultery for adulterate 233. 8. than their gifts can doe good 237. The first Cavill 236. m. m. Stob. f. Amb. 241. m. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 243. 10. their beauty 251. 6. add not strongly 260. m. turba Remi 260. 41. Add no more just arguments 274. m Imitarores f. incitatores vigiles for igitur 275. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã congrua 278. 3. add of them 279. 3. temperament for temperance 287. Prov. 11.14 f. Rom. 273 7. wrestling f. wresting  20. power Ministeriall 378. m. Artibus 384. 22. Inspiratoes 388. 9. tine weed for true weed  r. shewing for shining 400. m. cum non c. 406. 8. beleever for unbeleever 493. 3. yet it were for if it were 430 1. ashes for ages 431. 36. del not and read can be good 440. 41. sinfull bondage 463. 2. bends for binds  35 terrier  43. thifty 466. men for mention 469. 25. del with a good will and 470. 25. in piety f. impiety 477. 37. collections for customes 481. 12. impurity for imparity 492. 18. ad give him 520. 93. add most promising c. 538. 7. r. vain babling for vain blessings 539. 37. fervent prayers 541. 21. terrors for errors 547. 11. r. odde pieces 549. 35. r. mortal Angels 575. m. unity for verity  2. dele would be 577. 24. undertaking for understanding 578. 18 spread for spend 584. 16. medling f. mudling 590. 5. mee for men 593. 25. Censure f. answer 594 27. so many f. so may
superstitions licentiousness flatteries and lukewarmness as to the power of the true reformed Religion As is most evident in those places where these New-pretenders have most intrudâd themselves and extruded the true and able Ministers Sad experience will shortly teach all such as love this Church and Reformed religion Contempt of tho Ministers of the Gospel paves and strowes the Devils high-way to all impiety how much it concerned them to have endevoured great vindications and by civill Sanctions of the honour of the publike Ministry That there may be exact care in the right authority for ordination and true antient succession which conferrs the Divine power and office as also good incouragements and assistance in the due execution of it that it may not be exposed to so many affronts reproaches and disgraces of vile men and insolent manners who fear not openly to contemn such a reformed Church and it s so famous Ministry together with the whole Nation and the Lawes of it even in so high a nature and measure as this is to vilifie their publike Religion and to seek to extirpate the true Ministry of it Nulla magis illustrantur coâfiâmantur religionis Christianae dogmatâ quam quae versutissima haereticorum pravitas deturpare eradicare conabatur Chamâer Doctis medicis dant pretium medicastri ut veris Theologis insuisi impudentes Theologastri Iâsi morbi minus noxii sunt quà m medici imperiti Fernel As good Lawes oft rise by the occasion of evill manners like Antidotes from Poysons so advantages may at last accrew to the Reformed religion and to the true Ministry of it by these oppositions Nothing makes the lustre of truth to shine more clear and welcome than those clowdings and blasphemies under which it may for a time be hidden and Ecclipsâd Nothing will make able Physicians more necessary and valued than the swarms of such ignorant Quacks as are of no valew who are more dangerous than any Plague or Epidemical disease Nor is the estate of any Church as to Religion more safe by the multitudes of preaching Mouâtâbanks in stead of True and able Ministers In stead of Propating the Gospell they will every whereso corrupt it with errors so abase it with prejudices and scandals so harden men against the power of it by the rottenness and hypocrisie of their wayes that there will be more need of able and true Ministers to recover and settle the honour of the true Christian religion in this Nation than if it were now first to be converted from Paganism For the Devils strongest holds are those which are fashioned after the platforms of religion and pretend to more than ordinary piety 9. The Character of Antiministerial preteâdârs to gifts ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Naz. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Naz. Or. 1. So that when I consider the temper and form of this Antiministeriall faction in England I find that their heads by a ricketly kind of religion are grown too heavy for their weak and overburthened limbs Their self-conceit of their extraordinary gifts and abilities presuming themselves to be able to do what ever they fancy makes them more than ordinarily disabled as to any good word or work Like Narcissus they are so deluded with the flattering Ecchos of their âllâ admirers and so taken with their own fashion in such false glasses that they are like to dâat till they die and starve themselves as to all reall sufficiencies by the fond imagination of how great gifts they have and their ignorance of how much indeed they want Nothing more hinders reall abilities than too hasty presumptions of them If any of these gloriosâes have any competent gifts of knowledge as to some things of Religion yet like the Chickens hatcht by the force of Ovens in the heat of Camels-Dung as at Aleppo Damascus and other places in the East they have commonly something in them monstrous odd extravagant either defective or superfluous in opinions or practise In intellectuals or morals or prudentials Either vain or morose Humanis oculis locata Religio Crys l. 9. light or tetricall rude or proud popular or affectated Impatient of nothing so much as the bounds of that honest calling in which God and the Laws have placed them Ardeliones isti tepidos se suspicantur nisi inquieti sint nec zelantes satis se credunt nisi omnia incendiis commiscentes pulcherrima quaeque Religionis in cinâres redigentes Gerard. Phraeneticus immundus ignorantiae Spiritus Ire l. 1. c. 13. Qui custodiet ipsos custodes Tutela intutissima Unsatisfied and ever quarrelling with that sober peaceable setled way of judicious and humble piety which becomes good Christians adorns the Gospell and keeps up the honour of the Reformed Religion and of this Church of England which these mens late violent extravagancies and disorderly walkings beyond and contrary to all holy rules of Religion all modest bounds of reason Law and common order among men and Christians seek to make weary sick and ashamed of it self when it shall see it self robbed and spoyled of all its able Ministers Reverend Bishops learned Presbyters and orderly Professors and only guarded by a riotous and incomposed rabble of such whose ignorance weakness and confusions will only serve to betray and destroy the Reformed Religion but never to defend it against those many malicious crafty and well armed adversaries who do but ly in wait for opportunities to weaken dishonour disorder and quite overthrow both this and all other Reformed Churches Alas these gifted men who spread so large sayls hang out such fair streamers and seek to make so goodly a shew to the vulgar simplicity as if they were strong built well rigid and richly loaden vessels fit to endure those rough Seas and storms to which both the Truth and Ministry of the Gospell are frequently exposed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Arist de Virt. vit Audacia est stupor quidam rationis cuÌ malitia voluntatis conjuncta Aquin. Eph. 4.14 Heb. 13.9 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Synes Ep. 14. Confidentia stultorum imperatrix prudentium scurra Sido ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Naz. or 26. Temeritas inscitiae filia are easily judged by all wise and truly learned Christians to be but light keels and flat bottomed Boats by their floting so loftily by their running so boldly over any shelves and rocks of opinion by their putting into every small creek of controversy which shews they draw very little water that they have not the due ballast of weighty knowledge and sound judgement the want of which makes them so fool hardy so apt to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine so prone to grow Leaky and foul either letting in under water cunningly and secretly corrupt and brackish opinions or shipping in above-deck openly and boldly whole Seas of any sinister ends and worldly interests that are abroad in the storms and waves and confusions of civill affairs
superfluous and so far hurtfull as it is inconsistent with the ministers and peoples duty on the Lords day Tot erunt venena quot intenia tot pernicies quot sâecies to dolores quot colores as Tertul begins his Scorpiacum against the vanities and varietiys of the Gnosticks who pretended to know more and be more perfect than the Apostles Arelius flagitio corrupit artem Deas dilectâuÌ imagine pingens Plin. l. 35. 10. That Gentleman cannot but consider how many childish triflings in discourses how many triviall skirmishes in disputes how many captious bickerings in words how many uncomly thwartings are prone to arise as in Country cudgell-playing among the vulgar be they never so godly if you put them one pin above their pitch they either crack or sound like strings over-strained harshly and out of tune although they may have good gifts yet as Arelius a Painter in Julius Caesars time who had good skill in this corrupted his art that when he was to paint any Goddess he alwayes made them like some of his Mistrisses so these are prone to adorn by their gifts some error or odd opinion and set it forth as a divine truth and rare doctrine Nor can you avoid besides erroneous and fond opinions envyings evill surmisings jealousies unsatisfiedness and factious bandings among the people whose minds will soon be divided some liking others disliking some admiring others despising some attending others absenting from this unwonted uncouth exercise of Prophesying which thus confused and abased will soon appear to judicious and sober Christians a tedious and useless business like Fidlers alwayes tuning and never playing any good lesson and no way fit for a Sabbath-dayes sanctification when once the Country gaping or the gloss and novelty of it is faded So then if the Guardian of the peoples Liberty and privilege in Prophesying can find any other time on the week-dayes Of peoples prophecying on the week dayes wherein to set up this exercise of Lay-mens prophesying that so people may not at all times come short of that which he calls their duty He must be sure to provide Prophets of some competent gifts besides their discretion else he will have much adoe to perswade people that it is their duty to neglect their weekly occasions and to lose both their time and labour in attending rusticall impertinencies and ignorant triflings in religion which of all things should by wise men be avoyded among the vulgar whose affections like the poor womans wort is oft very hot in the point of Zeal when it is very small in point of judgement And is prone to run out from familiarity to contempt from contempt to down-right prophaness and Atheism in matters of Religion when made cheap and vulgar If he can indeed furnish out men or women ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Synes ep 142. ex Lyside Pythagoreo Contempt of Religion riseth from making holy things too triviall and common for they prophecied too 1 Cor. 11.15 of such prophetick gifts as are worthy to be esteemed and encouraged by sober and judicious Christians I shall promise him that I more willingly and more constantly will be their auditor at convenient times and places when I hear they do what becomes wise humble serious and modest Christians than most of these pretenders to be such gifted men and to have such prophetick spirits are hearers of the true Ministers of this Church be they never so able either on the Lords day or on any week-day Lecture For the first way that many make to bring in their Lay-prophets and gifts is with their feet trampling as it were upon the best Ministers and their faithfullest pains while they scorn to step out of dores to hear them either Praying or Preaching which pride and negligence are not the least of those vertues which recommend those Prophets To be plain the truth is so much bran filth and dross of pride popularity schism malipertness and contempt of all men that differ in any way form or opinion from them and of all Ministers above all do hitherto generally appear in the face and manners of many of those who more affect the name of gifted men and Prophets than ever the Pharisees did the title name of Rabbi Mat. 23.7 that most sober and wise Christians suspect they will hardly ever make such Loaves as may be fit for Shew-bread to be set up in any publike place of Gods house and Sanctuary If that Gentlemans piety which seems tempered with much ingenuity can sift or boult out any good meal or finer flowr that so they may be decent for Gods service and the Churches use in any publique way I know no man will hinder him from baking making and distributing his bread But let them take heed lest the Corn being ground in such a new beaten mill it prove not full of grit and gravell which hath more offence than either profit or pleasure in eating of it 13. Of the private exercise of Christians gifts that are truly good For the private Exercise of his Prophets gifts which will now serve the turn no man ever spake against it further than it frequently carried it self unseemly by neglect separation boasting against contempt and opposition of far abler gifts in the publique Ministry oft undermining and shaking those truths that ordâr and holy way of life wherein the peace of the Church and the honour of true Religion consisted And even in this I conceive I have shewed to humble Christians a more excellent way Namely in using the learned helps of other mens labours which are in every kind well composed rather than to please themselves meerly in the barrenness and rawness of their own inventions which yet they may add too if need be that so they may not seem to say nothing of themselves or be forced to break for want of vent If these so cryed up gifted men be found meet to be made publique teachers in the Church under the name of Prophets why may they not be ordained Ministers in a just and due way There is like to be want enough of men of any competent parts in the great decay and discouragement of such as are very learned and most able If they are not fit for all offices of the Ministry I wonder how they can have confidence enough to be publike Teachers in any kind which work requires greater abilities and equall authoritie to any other holy Office if they have any thing in them of modest and humble Christians sure they would be more swift to hear James 1.19 Tutior est in audiendâ quà m loquendo celeritas Non tam facile aures ac labra impingunt Male audiendo solus ipse laberis male loquendo alios tecum in ruinam pertrahis Pelarg. Tenuitatis sua maximè conscii maxima mendacissima solent polliceri Immodica enim ostentatione levâmen aliquod remedium quasi patrocinium aliorum credulitatem propâiae mendicitati quaerunt Erasmus
indifferency in the Angels of the Churches of Pergamus and Thyatira tolerating any thing and condemning nothing the one suffering those that held the doctrine of Balaam and the impure Nicolaitans who taught all libidinous impudicities to be free for Christians the other for tolerating Jezebel under the colour of a Prophetesse to seduce the servants of God The Apostle Paul commands some mens mouths should be stopped Tit. 1.11 Gal. 5.12 1 Tim. 2.20 who speak perverse things in the Church wisheth those cut off that troubled them He gives over to Satan Hymenaeus and Philetus that they might learn not to blaspheme Gal. 1.8 Denounceth a grievous curse or Anathema to any that should presume to teach any other Doctrine than the Gospell that form of sound words once delivered to the Church which is according to godlinesse 1 Tim. 6.3 1 Cor. 4.2 He tels us that there is not onely a word but a rod or power of coercion left to the Church and its lawfull Pastors or Ministers for the edification not for the destruction of the Church And however this power Ecclesiasticall which is from God Magistratick and Ministeriall power when united as that other Magistratick be wholly severed and divided in their courses while the Civill Magistrate is unchristian yet when he embraceth the profession of Christianity these two branches of power which flowed severall ways yet from the same fountaine God doe so farre meet again and unite their amicable streams ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of Magistratick and Ministeriall Civill and Church power as not to * As those of old that thought Herod to be the Mâssias Terâde pras ad Haâc 5. confound each other nor yet to crosse and stop one the other but rather to increase strengthen and preserve mutually each other while the Minister of Christ directs the Magistrate and the Christian * As Eusebius tels in Constantine the Greats time who joined with the Bishops and Ministers of the Church in good government Magistrate protects the Minister both of them with a single eye regarding that great end for which God in his love to mankinde and to his Church hath established both these powers in Christian Churches and Societies That neither the bodies nor the soules of Christians should want that good which God hath offered them in Christ nor suffer those injuries in society for the prevention or remedy of which both Magistracy and Ministry are the Ordinances of God for enjoying the benefit of both which blessings as every Christian hath a sociall capacity so every lawfull Magistrate and Minister hath according to their places and proportions a publique duty and authority upon them to see justice and holinesse truth and peace civill sanctions and divine institutions purely and rightly dispensed to inferiours for whose good they aâe of God ordained 11. In what case onely toleration of any thing in Religion were lawfull If there were indeed no rule of the written Word of God which Christians owned as the setled foundation of Faith the sure measure of doctrine and guide of good manners in religion both publiquely and privately or if there were no credible Tradition delivered by word of mouth and parents examples which men might imitate for the way of Religion revealed to them by God which was the way before the flood but every one were to expect dayly either new inspirations or to follow the dictates of his own private fancy and reason Nothing then would be more irreligious then to deny all freedom publique as well as private nothing more just than to tolerate any thing of opinion and speculation which any one counted his religion yet even in that liberty of walking and wandering in the dark when no Sun of certain Revelation divine had shined on mankinde Rom. 1.32.2 14. the very light of Nature taught men as among Heathens that some things in point of practise are never tolerable in any humane society But since the wisdome and mercy of God hath given to mankinde which the Church alwayes injoyes the light of his holy Word and a constant order of Ministry to teach from it the wayes of God in truth peace and holinesse not onely every Christian is bound to use all religious means which God hath granted to settle his own judgement and live accordingly in his private sphear without any Scepticall itch or lust of disputing alwayes in Religion But both Magistrate and Minister whose severall duties are set forth and different powers ordained over others in Scripture for a sociall and publique good must take care to attain that good of a setled Religion and preserve it in always of verity equity and charity which may all well consist with the exercise of due authority Nor is it any stinting or restraining of the Spirit of God in any private Christian to keep his Spirit within the bounds of the Word of God Deut. 29.29 wherein the things revealed belong to us and our children Nor is it any restraint to the Spirit of God in the Scripture to keep our opinions and judgements and practises within the bounds of that holy faith and good order which is most clearly set forth in the câncurrent sense of the Scriptures and explained by the Confessions of Faith and practise of holy Discipline which the Creeds and Councels and customes of the Catholick Church hold forth to them Nor is it any limiting or binding up of the Spirit of God in private men for the Christian Magistrate and Minister to use all publique means both for the information conviction and conversion of those under their charge as to the inward man and also of due restraint and coercion as to the outward expressions in which they stand related to a publique and common good But if the negligence of Governours in Church and State 12. What a Christian must doe in dissolute times should at any time so connive and tolerate out of policy or fear or other base passion if through the brokennesse and difficulties of times the sons of Zeruiah be too hard for Magistrates and good Ministers so as the vulgar fury corrupted by factious and unruly spirits are impatient of just restraits but carry on all things against Laws and wiser mens desires to a licentious Anarchy and all confusions in the outward face and publique Ministrations of Religion yet must no good Christian think this any dispensation for any private errours in his judgment or practise In maxima rerum licentia minima esse debet veri Christiani libertas Gib Lex sibi severissima est pura conscientia dei amor Ber. he must be the more circumspect and exact in his station and duty as a Christian when the publique course runs most to confusion tolerating least in his own conscience when most is tolerated by others The love of God and Christ and of the truth of Religion and the respect and reverence borne the order of the Ministry and to the Churches
honour and peace these must be to every good Christian the constant Law and severest discipline Teaching him to governe himself most strictly when others affect most a misgovernment or none at all in Religion to act nothing immorally rudely and exorbitantly to discharge all his relations and duties with the more exactnesse to bear with patience yet with sorrow the want of that publique good which he desires No way to hinder the restoring of due order and authority to the Church and honour to Religion to pray for counsell and assist the recovery of it according to the Scripture rules right reason and the custome of the best times And however the vain and mad world goes on wildly and giddily as an unâamed heifer enduring no yoke of Religion as to any publique order Government Discipline or Ministry yet must not a serious and well advised Christian delay to guide his feet in the ways of truth and holinesse nor neglect to work out his salvation in Gods way till publique distractions are composed or delay to be good till all turbulent and fanatick spirits returne to their wits or till ancient publique order and Government in the Church be so setled and Religion so fortified by civill sanctions as it ought to be for no man knowes how long the Apostle Paul may be in a storm or the Church tossed with schisms and factions and secular interests before it recover the haven of a happy setlednesse True Ministers and true piety most to be regarded in licentious times Therefore a Christian that makes it his work not to prate and dispute and to play a part or to gain by the name of Reformation and Religion but to beleive stedfastly and obey constantly that holy rule hath never more cause to prize and adhere to the true Ministry and Ministers of Christ than when he sees the greatest persecutions lying on the Church either by violence or toleration by open force or fraudulent liberty which are both the Tivels Engines to batter or undermine the Church of Christ Never should holy dispensations be more earnestly desired and diligently attended from the hands of those Ministers in whom only is the right power authority and succession than when nothing is lesse tolerated among various and violent men than a true Bishop and Minister or a right ordained Ministry which of all things is to the divell and evill men the most intolerable Satan well knowes Matth. 24 15. that if he destroy the Shepheards the sheep will be scattered When good Christians see the abomination of desolation set up profanely tolerating any thing for Religion allowing of any Mimicks for true Ministers vulgar adoring of a rotten Idol of licentiousnesse gilded over with the name of Liberty when silencing true Ministers and suppressâng good learning and crying up illiterate impudence shall be thought a means to propagate the Gospell Then let then that are seriously and soberly godly fly to the Mounteines to the true Ministers of the Church from whom God hath appointed salvation to descend to the beleeving souls Nor are they to regard what every bold and ignorant upstart boasteth and feigneth of Inspirations liberties and blessed toleration obtruding himselfe out of the promptnesse and pride of his own heart upon the credulous and silly vulgar who love to be flattered to their ruine and deceived to their destruction but hate to be truly guided and faithfully governed to their safety For all these pretenses of Liberty Toleration Inspirations c. are manifest to be but as the divels silken halters by which he hopes to strangle the Christian and reformed Religion here and elsewhere it may be seemingly and with more gentlenesse but not with lesse malice and cruelty to mens soules than with those rougher hempen cords of open persecution Propè abest à crudelitate nimia indulgentia à persecutione enormis tolerantia in tantum periculosa quantum dissoluta Melan From which such sad toleration and rude Liberties are not very far being but new expressions of Anarchy and colours of portending confusion or utter dissolutions of all Church order peace and Government into a cruell licentiousnesse which is always tyrannous to true Religion Nothing is more burdensome than some mens levities nor more fulsome and deformed than their Reformations nothing more uncharitable and untractable than their liberties nor more a plague and death to Religion than what they call health and recovery when vulgar or fanatick violence binds so much the staffe of discipline till it breaks heady men surfeit the flock by over-driving it and Wolves in sheeps cloathing scatter and tear the sheep of Christ under pretence of letting them goe whither they list in stead of being true shepheards fetching them home and feeding them in due bounds with good pasture in which wholsome and safe bounds both Christian Magistrates Sic vigilet tolerantia ut non dormiat disciplina Aust l. 17. de verb. Ap. and true Ministers should seek to feed the flock of Christ not as bare spectators of their wanderings and errours but as enabled and intrusted by God with a coercive power from Christ for the Churches good and where the Magistrate is negligent there the Minister should be the more diligent in the place where Christ hath set him who is the great Shepheard of our souls ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Thucyd Libera me a malo hoc est a me ipso Ber. beyond whose holy bounds for any Christians to affect any Liberty is to wear the divels livery while they are in Christs service Few men complain of want of freedome but they whose freedome would be their own and other mens greatest bondage Nothing is lesse desirable to a good Christian than to be left to himselfe for men are then neerest to be undone when they may doe what they list and least in safety when they are their own keepers MY next Calumniating Adversary The 6 Cavill Against the maintenance of the Ministry as setled by Law against the Ministry of England which I have to deal with and detect is possessed with a thirsty and covetous Spirit which would fain have Liberty if not to speak and act what he list in Religion without any restraint of Magistrate or Minister yet at least to pay what he list to any Minister since he is free to hear whom and when he list or none at all he would not be tyed by any law to pay any thing to their support although it be due to them and a right which none else might challenge He likes not that setled maintenance which they challenge as due This subtill and frugall churl of a Christian is a Jesuitick terrien hath many wary fetches and windings against the Ministers of the Gospell in the reformed Churches but none beyond this plot that he hopes ere long to be too hard or too cunning for them here in England while under some specious and politick pretention he shall deprive them of all setled