who have brought forth as good Scribes instructed for the Kingdom of Heaven out of the good treasuries of their hearts things both new old the Learning of the ancient Fathers Councills and Historians set off with later Experiments and Improvements of all spirituall operations and gracious comforts the forgetting I say of these Ministers cannot be worthy of that pious gratitude which becomes noble-minded Christian How meane uncomely and much below you must it needs appeare to all wise and sober Christians in the present age and all posterity if you suffer their holy orders to be despised their spirituall offices to be neglected their divine authority to be usurped their primitive orders and constant succession to be interrupted their persons to be abused and shamefully treated their support as to double honour to be so abuted that their maintetenance shall be very small sharking and uncertaine also their respect and esteem none at all especially among the common people whose civil and religious regards are much measured either by the bag and bushell or by the examples of their betters their Landlords and Governours The wilfull dividing debasing discrediting disordering and discarding of the ancient Clergy as to their Ordination Government Ministry Authority and succession in England which was most Christian Catholick and reformed must needs be as the sin and shame so the great injury and misery of you and your posterity being the ready way to bring in First a scrupulous unsatisfiednesse and unsetlednesse as to our former Religion as if either not true or not reformed Secondly next it raiseth a jealousie and suspicion of any Religion under the name of Reformation as if it would not long hold and had no bottom or bounds Thirdly after this followes a lukewarmenesse coldnesse and indifferency as to all Religion whatsoever as Reformed and as Christian Fourthly then will there creep in by secret steps a generall Apostasie at least from our pristine wise Reformation and happy constitution of Religion to the Roman errors superstitions and usurpations which wait for such a time and temper in England whereby to make their advance upon peoples mindes wildred and confounded when they shall see the shamefull retreates recoilings and variations made in England by the Reformed Religion upon it self whose disorders disgraces and deformities necessarily following the contempt of their Ministers or the change and rupture of their Ministeriall descent and succession will make most if not all men in time to recede from it and rather adhere to its grand Roman rival its implacable enemie Popery whose policies will bring you and your posterity by the contempt and want of true Bishops to have no Pastors or Ministers of any uniforme validity of Catholick complete and most undoubted authority If any man may be a preacher that listeth to pirk up into a Pulpit certainly in a few yeares you shall have no Preachers worth your hearing no Ministers of any reputation and authority either among the Idiots and vulgar or among the more ingenious and wiser sort of people who are not naturally either very solicitous or industrious in the concernments of Religion or the choise of their Ministers If neither God nor good men have any further pleasure in their servants the ancient Clergy of England if they really are as uselesse and worthlesse as they have been made vile and reproched by some mens tongues and pens if they have deserved to be thus tossed in an eternall tempest of factious divisions vulgar depressions and endlesse confusions beyond any other order or rank of men if this be their evill fate and merit after all their studies and paines after all their Praying Preaching Writing and Living to the honor of this Nation and the great advantages of the Reformed Religion if to have equalled at least if not exceeded the Clergy of any Church in any age since the Apostles departure be the unpardonable fault of the Reformed Bishops and their Clergy in England if their very sufferings as the vipers seizing on St. Pauls hand make them appear to barbarous and vulgar minds as sinners therefore despicable because they are so much despised and so thought fit to be destroyed if this lingring and shamefull death of being thus Crucified is that by which the Clergy of England must glorifie God if this bitter cup must not passe from them truly it will be a mercifull severity to hold them no longer in ambiguous calamities but rather wholly to expose them to the last outrages of Fanatick Popular and Schismatick fury the Lions that hunger and roare to have these Daniels wholly cast into their dens and jawes that so your eyes may no longer see your poor despised distressed and miserable Clergy many of whom both Bishops and Presbyters are forced as you know to embrace the dunghil being destitute of order honour and estate some of them having neither food convenient nor any abiding place nor any fitting employment that so that Episcopall Clergy now rendred so odious who under God formerly redeemed you and your fore-fathers out of the bondage and darknesse of Egyptian superstition may by an Egyptian Magick and fate be drowned in the Red-Sea of vulgar contempt popular confusion and inordinate oppressions that thus the new Jannes and Jambres may not onely resist but wholly prevaile by their inchantments against your Moses and Aarons But if your Consciences O worthy Gentlemen who are the Beauty Strength and Honour of this Nation do on the other side tell you not with faint and dubious whispers but by loud and manifest experiences proclaiming to all the world that the ancient Clergy of England have generally deserved better of you by their Learning Preaching Praying Writing and Living what I beseech you can be more worthy of the Wisdome Justice Piety Honour and Gratitude of this Nation than to assert with their publick love and favour the dignity of their worthy Divines the honour of their Clergy the Sanctity of their Religion and Reformation against that plebeian petulancy and insolency which hath so pressed upon them and daily depresseth all their Authority not onely by reason of some Lay-mens folly and insolency but even by their variations and inconstancy who presumed to be Preachers and challenge upon what score they please a share or lot in the Evangelicall Ministry Truly it is high time to redeeme the Sacred Orders the Divine Authority the Catholick succession the ancient and authentick dignity of the Evangelicall Ministry in the Church of England from the obloquies contempts and oppressions of ignorant and unreasonable men who are great enemies to the piety and prosperity of this Nation and but back friends to the Reformed Religion being at so deadly a fewd against the ancient Clergy and Catholick Ministry of this Church whose totall extirpation both root and branch Bishops and Presbyters they have so resolutely designed and restlessely endeavoured that they long for nothing more than the natural death of all the reverend Bishops and all Episcopall
well as in a triumphant Chariot Ambitious vanities are never seasonable or comely for any humble Christians and least for the Ministers of Christ who ought to be crucified to the world and the world to them Gal. 6.14 especially at my years and in my condition 'T is honour and grandeur enough for Me if I may next the advance of Gods glory promote Your and my Countries common good which I must tell you doth not a little depend upon the good order unity and government the honour peace and safety of the Reformed Religion duly established in this Church and Nation of England Of whose festred scratches and deep wounds since I cannot but have a great sense both of Grief and Shame and toward whose healing since I am indeed very ambitious to drop one drop of soveraigne balsome before I die I have here endeavoured to seek Your face and to recommend Her distress to Your compassions It is for Her sake and for Yours in Her that I again adventure for truly it is an adventure and no small one in this age thus to appeare in publique possibly with more forwardnesse and zeale than prudence and discretion in some mens censure Who it may be have not so much charity or courage in them as to own an afflicted friend an impoverished father or a distressed mother Yet to justifie my discretion this may be said That nothing seems to me in Policy as well as Piety more rationally and religiously necessary than a publique tender regard to the state of the Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation To me Noblemen and Gentlemen Citizens and Yeomen all sorts in their private and publique capacity seem if not to want yet to expect something in this kind from some of us Ministers of the Church of England which might handsomely excite to honest industry those sparks of piety and generosity which heretofore flamed in their Fore-fathers liberall breasts toward this Church of England as Christian and as Reformed Nor are they I presume quite extinct in yours who now succeed them whom I doe not arrogantly instruct as if I thought you ignorant but humbly provoke to doe what you know when opportunity shall answer your abilities and good will Not but that I have also pleasing speculations many times of that silent safetie and secure latencie in which I see others my betters or equals hug themselves I know there are men otherwayes of good worth and parts who dare not speak one good word either of or for the best Bishops the best Presbyters or the best Nationall Church in the world as this of England was These over-bred and too much Gentlemen may consider That a good man may be more wary than wise more fearfull than faithfull more cautious than consciencious The Prophet Jeremie resolved by reason of the danger and ingratitude of the Jewes to speak no more to them in the name of the Lord but the word of God was as fire in his breast he could not hold his peace and keep peace in his soule I could as easily wrap my self up in silence and privacie as some others doe if I did not feare sins of omission as well as commission which was the jealousie a most learned and godly person had of himself lately dying who yet had been an earnest intercessor for the relief of many distressed Ministers in England I would also covet the reputation of a wise man by keeping silence in an evill time if I had not many and great stimulations while my life is declining and my death approching to give what further constant and comely proofs I may to this and after-ages of my zeal for God of my love to my Saviour of my communion with his Catholick Church of my particular respect to this noble part of it The Church of England and in this of my due observance to my Reverend Fathers and beloved brethren the godly Bishops and orderly Presbyters of this Church yea and lastly of my charitable ambition to heap coals of fire not scorching and consuming but melting and refining even upon the heads of those who still professe to be remorslesse enemies to my calling and to the whole Church of England who seem to me as if they sought totally to debase the Clergie of England yea utterly to destroy the ancient Catholique order and government succession and authority of the Evangelicall Ministery in this Reformed Church while they endeavour to remove able ordained and autoritative Teachers into corners and to obtrude I know not what volâ—ntiers new and exotick intruders into that holy function These will certainly in a few years make the Sun goe down upon England at noon-day bringing upon this Nation the shadows of the night Superstition ignorance profanenesse irreligion and confusion leading Posterity to Popery by the way of popularity poverty parity despiciency and Anarchy falling upon the Ministery and the Reformed Religion of this Church In which blacknesse of darknesse debasings and disorders the Seers of this people will in time grow blind the guides unguided the teachers will be untaught the Pastors unbred the flock unfed by a mushrome and novell Ministery multiforme miserable mechanick Grows-up neither duly ordained nor decently maintained nor much deserving either of them being crest-faln in themselves and contemptible to others I cannot be satisfied in Reason or Religion in honour or conscience in policy or piety how it can be happy for You your Posterity and this whole Nation to live after a vagrant loose and indifferent way of Christian administrations and profession according to every mans private fancy choice and humour without any such Nationall setling and combination such publique Ecclesiasticall union as hath in all Ages and Nations best edified and fortified counselled and corrected excited and increased both gifts and graces in a most comely and most Christian order with such harmony unity majesty and authority as best becomes the Disciples and Churches of Christ I confesse I am ashamed to see and heare any Gentlemen of honour or other persons of commendable qualities of good estates of ingenuous parts and breeding poorly and meanly to forsake the waters of Siloah and to follow the brooks of Teman to discountenance at least if not quite discard their learned grave godly and experienced Ministers who are of the true metall and stamp too which a Minister of the Gospel ought to be that is really enabled and duly ordained or authorized to that great work And this most what not out of any serious advice and consciencious choise becoming Christians in so great a concernment but rather out of easinesse levity curiosity popularity or some pittifull complyances with novell upstarts and rude intruders into that Sacred office Among whom if they doe save their purses which is by some deserters of their lawfull Ministers much looked after yet I am afraid they too much venture their souls I am sure they lose much of their credit both in present and after-ages
me very sore yet heal me O my father and I shall be healed save me and I shall be saved for thou art my praise O be not thou a terrour to me who art my hope in the day of evil CHAP. V. THus may the Church of England be heard in every Closet and in every Congregation where devout souls either retire or meet sighing out its Sorrows and deploring its great Miseries sufficient to move the compassions of all those who have any filiall and gratefull respect to Her upon whose welfare as to the unity peace and prosperity of the true Christian and Reformed Religion all sober English-men may easily foresee that their own and their posterity's happinesse spirituall temporall and eternall under God doth chiefly depend It is the infinite grief of all good Patriots and true Protestants to see this sometime so famous and flourishing Church of England in danger to be eaten up not by a Sea-monster like Andromeda or by that over-grown Leviathan of Rome which takes his pastime in great waters and rules over many Nations People and Languages but by small vermine by a company for the most part of creeping and corroding Sectaries home-bred and home-fed like that tame Lizard or Dragon as Suetonius calls it which Tiberius Nero kept at Capreae which was eaten up with ants or pismires to the Emperour 's great grief and astonishment as an unhappy presage of his own fate by the fury of the multitude or like the Lions in Mesopotamia who are destroyed by gnats their importunity being such in those paludious places that the Lions by rubbing their eyes grow blind and so are drowned as Ammianus Marcellinus reports in his History of Julians wars If nothing else yet as Sir Henry Wotton glories in his sentence the very itching scratching of Christians eyes the scrupulous doubtings the vexatious disputings and endlesse janglings about Religion in England both as Christian and as Reformed already hath and daily will bring down such a Rheume and blood-shottennesse into mens eyes that unlesse some soveraign eye-salve be timely applied the most people will in a few years be onely fit to play at blind-man-buff in Religion taking what heresie or fancy comes next to hand and changing it the next day rather groping at all adventure in the dark than clearly discerning and conscientiously chusing the weighty matters of Religion which are hardly discovered when the blind lead the blind and â—s hardly either embraced when once practising is turned into prating and the power of godlinesse into pragmatick pomp or popular contempt Such is the sad and shamefull fate of the Church of England now like to be which heretofore never wanted nor yet doth such champions as durst undertake her defence against any who bring arguments not arms strong reasons and not long swords Scripture-demonstrations and not Scepticall declamations pious Antiquity and not partial Novelty But now It hath not the honour to be opposed or overcome by any such Antagonists whose learning wit and eloquence speciously managed would lessen the disgrace but She is in danger to be over-born by such petty parties such obscure animals such mechanick pieces and for the most part such illiterate wretches that it is not onely a grief but a shame to see so comely a Matron crowded and as it were stifled to death by a company of Scolds and Shrews a generation of men and women extremely unbred of passionate rude spitefull and plebeian spirits many of them the very abjects of man-kind viler then the earth as Job speaks whose manners are much baser then their fortunes which embase no good man who owe most of their stickling activities to their worldly necessities and conscious to their want of reall worth and abilities they seek to revenge their grosse defects either by their sacrilegious flatteries of others or by a rusticall fiercenesse of their own against the Church of England as if flailes and fannes and shovels and spades were the fittest instruments to thrash and purge such a Church or to discusse and ventilate the weighty matters of Religion as to a sober Christian Reformation O happy England who art of late bless'd with so cheap so easie so inspired so rare Reformers who get more skill in one dayes confidence in one nights dreaming or one hours quaking than modest Scholars either Divines or other Gentlemen can obtain in twice seven years study O how fruitfull is Faction how spreading is Schisme when they are fitted with soile and season These new-bred Creepers which are now so numerous and noxious in England are generally but the spawn or fly-blowings of those elder Sects and Factions which a long time have been buzzing and breeding in the bosome of the Church of England under the name of Disciplinarians whos 's first Authors long ago made some Essayes for their desired Innovations by modester indeed yet very popular wayes of remonstrances and supplications well knowing that it is ever welcome to the vulgar to see any fault found with their betters or any project of subjecting their superiours under any more Plebeian rigours and severities The next and worse abettors pejor aetas tried how far they might by scurrilous pamphlets railing reviling like Rabshakeh unravel the cords of all government both the majesty of the Civil and the authority of the Ecclesiastick After such biting Petitions and Satyrick Pasquils worthy of such Martonists came open menacings of Princes and Parlaments Priests and People too as Mr. R. Hooker observes in his Preface to his Ecclesiastical polity At last words came to be turned into swords many both at home and abroad having evil will at the Sion of England making their advantages of our unhappy differences in civil affairs and taking fire from those flames have sought by the licentiousnesse riot and rudenesse of infinite Sects and Factions as by so many trains and barrels of gunpowder utterly to blow up the whole frame and constitution of the Church of England Which unchristian practises and cruell designs that they might the better justifie or palliate to their credulous followers they every where as boldly as falsly affirm that both in the matter constituted and the form constituting a true Church in ordinances duties priviledges members ministrations Ministry communion and all comforts necessary for Christians there were few things in the Church of England tolerable most were blameable and many most abominable to their more sanctified senses yea some men clamour that there was nothing sound or constitutive of a Church of Christ but the whole head was sick and the whole heart faint that not onely Schisme is commendable but absolute Separation is as necessary from the Church of England as the going of Gods people out of Babylon These are the poysons with which some Serpents have sought to infect the minds of common people and to envenom even the better sort with their biting and bitter invectives against the purity and peace of the Church
both their cure and the preservation of the whole which may be still sound and entire as to the vitall more noble and principall parts I well know that it is not meet for the Church of England or the most deserving Member of it to dispute with Divine Justice nor is it either safe or wise to contest with his Omniscient and Almighty power but rather to lay our hands upon our hearts to put our mouths in the dust and to abhor our very righteousnesse than to quarrel with Gods judgements which are alwayes just though they are deep and dark past our finding out I think it an high presumption in the sawcy Criticks of these times who pretend to read the hand-writing upon the wall and to have such skill in sacred Palmestry as to know the mind of God by the operation of his hands conceiting both vainly and wickedly That God is such an one as themselves delighted with the spoiles and deformities the plunder and confusion of Churches they boldly interpret the meaning of all the troubles in England to be no other than this Gods anger against Bishops and Ceremonies against Steeple-houses and Common Prayer against Ordination and Ministry against the whole Polity and Constitution of the Church of England which they believe were so offensive and nauseous to God that he was forced to spue them out of his mouth justifying by this great argument of Gods providence as their chief shield and defence all their Schisms and Separations their Rapines and Sacriledges their Reproches and Blasphemies their Insolencies and Injuries committed and intended both against this Church in generall and against many most worthy and eminent Church-men in it I do not I dare not vindicate the Church of England before the most holy God whose pure eyes behold folly in his Saints and darknesse in his Angels as to the people in it either Preachers or Professors the Governours or governed the Shepherds or the Flock This is sure that where God had planted this Church as a pleasant Vine on a fruitfull hill where he had watered it with his Word as with the dew of Heaven fenced it by his speciall power and providence as with a wall expecting it should bring forth good grapes and good store there his contrary dealing with this his Vineyard taking away the hedge breaking down the wall thereof suffering it to be eaten up and trodden down to lie thus faâ— wast without its just pruning weeding and digging to be overgrown with briars and thornes commanding the clouds that they rain little or nothing upon it c. These sad dispensations and desolating experiments sufficiently proclaim Gods controversie with the Land and complaint against this Church that when he looked his vineyard should bring forth good grapes behold it brought forth wild grapes in so great a proportion that there was no remedy but God must be avenged on so unfruitfull so ungratefull a Nation which was second to none in temporall and spirituall mercies which are now become the aggravations of its sins and miseries it being condemned to punish it self by its own hands not for that it wanted the means of true Religion for what could the Lord have done more for his vineyard but for not using them yea for wantonly abusing those liberall advantages it enjoyed equall to if not beyond any Church or Nation under heaven Thus before the Bar and Tribunall of Divine Justice it is meet that we all as men and Christians confess our personall prevarications and cry out bitterly Wo unto us for we have sinned against the Lord. Yet as to mans judgement looking upon the Church of England not in the concrete or subject matter as consisting of many Preachers and Professors in many things possibly much depraved and deformed but considering it in the abstract in the reformed form and state of it in its former pious and prudent Constitution I must profess to You my honoured countrey-men and to all the World that in the greatest maturity of my judgement and integrity of my conscience as most redeemed now from juvenile fervours popular fallacies vulgar partialities and secular flatteries yea apart from the sense of my private obligations to the Church of England which are great and many I owing to it my Baptisme and Education as a Christian my office and ordination as a Minister all these laid aside and looking onely upon the consideration of its Religion as grounded upon Scriptures in the main and guided by the prudence of Primitive Antiquity I must profess that I cannot understand how the Church of England hath deserved to fall under those great reproches oppressions and miseries which the weakness wantonness and wickedness of some men hath sought to heap upon Her whose causeless malice and excessive passions against the Church of England are I think by a fatall blindness and most heavy judgement of God upon some men made the sorest punishers of their own and other mens sins their former unprofitableness ingratitude despite disorderliness and undutifulness against so venerable a Matron so good a Mother as the Church of England was at least it desired and offered it self to be so even to Her most ungracious and unthrifty children whom neither piping nor weeping prosperity or adversity she could ever move or affect with such conformities to Her or compassions for Her as she deserved of them I do here declare to the present age and to all posterity if any thing of my writing be worthy to survive me that since I was capable to move in so serious a search and weighty a disquisition as that of Religion is as my greatest design hath been and still is through Gods grace to find out and to persevere in such a profession of the Christian Religion as hath most of Truth and Order of Power and Peace of Sanctity and Solemnity of Divine Verity and Catholick Antiquity of true Charity and Martyr-like Constancy in it being farthest from Ignorance Errour Superstition Partiality Vulgarity Faction Confusion Injustice Immorality Hypocrisie Sacriledge Cruelty Inconstancy so I cannot apart from all prejudices and prepossessions find in any other Church or Church-way ancient or modern either more of the good I desire or less of the evil I endeavour to avoid than I have a long time discerned and daily do more and more since the contentions and winnowings of these times have put it and me upon a stricter scrutiny in the frame and form the constitution and setled dispensations of the Church of England No where diviner Mysteries or abler Ministers no where sounder Doctrinalls holier Morals warmer Devotionals apter Rituals comelier Ceremonials all which together by a meet and happy concurrence of piety and prudence brought forth such Spirituals and Graces both in their habits exercises and comforts as are the quintessence and life the soul and seal of true Religion those more immediate and special influxes of Gods holy Spirit upon the soul those joynt operations of the blessed
Trinity for the justification sanctification and salvation of Sinners in all these I never found by my reading and experience nor do I know where to seek for any thing beyond or every way equall to what was graciously dispensed in the Church of England Upon which grounds appearing to me and all the unpassionate Christian World most certain no man can wonder if I so much magnifie and prefer the Church of England that in the communion of its Doctrine Worship Ministry and Order I chuse to live in the communion of its Faith Hope and Charity I desire to die Let my soul be numbred among those Martyrs and Confessors those renowned Bishops and orderly Presbyters those holy Preachers and humble Professors whose labours lives and deaths whose words works and sufferings helped to plant and propagate to reform settle and preserve to so great a conspicuity of piety grace and glory the Catholick Church of Christ in all ages and places and particularly this part of it which we call the Church of England I am so far from envying or admiring any novel pretenders who boast of their folly and glory in their shame in their endeavours to destroy and devour this Church that I rather pity their childish fondnesses their plebeian petulancies their insolent activities their unlearned levities their ingratefull vanities who have demolished much and edified nothing either better or any way so good as what they have sought to pull down as to the order honour tranquillity beauty and integrality of a Christian Church So little am I shaken or removed from my esteem love and honour to the Church of England that I am mightily confirmed in them by all the poor objections made against it by the unreasonable indignities cast upon it which are as dirt to a Diamond but the further test and triall of its reall worth and splendor nor do I conceive that by those afflictions which are come upon us God pleads against the Church of Engl. but rather for Her against the lewd manners of her ungracious and ungratefull children for whose wickednesse He makes so fruitfull a Mother to grow barren so fair an House to become desolate so flourishing a Church to decay and wither It is no news where the lives and manners of Christians are much depraved from the holy rule of Christ evidently set forth among them to see famous Churches like the Moon in the wane or eclipse clothed with sackcloth and turned into blood to see Order subverted Unity dissolved Peace perverted Beauty deformed Holy things profaned It is no news to read of holy Prophets blessed Apostles orthodox Bishops and godly Presbyters ill treated and despitefully used by Heathens Hereticks Schismaticks No men but ignorant and unlettered can wonder at Bibles and other holy Books burned at Church-lands alienated the houses demolished and the Preachers silenced banished destroyed All Church-histories tell us it was many times so even among the Primitive Churches even then when their pious and Apostolick constitution was no doubt at best it was most violently and desperately so just before the Churches enjoyed the greatest prosperity longest tranquillity the blackest darkness usually going immediately before the welcomest break of day as was remarkable in the serenity of Constantine the Great 's time succeeding the dreadfull storm of Diocletians persecution which was looked upon and intended as an utter extirpation of Christian Religion Which distressed estate of the Primitive Churches of Christ in all the Roman world Eusebius Bishop of Caesaria who lived in those worst dayes describes with so much pious oratory and so parallel in many things to the temper of our times that I cannot but present you my honoured countrey-men with the prospect of them because the fury and darknesse of that tempest reached even to the then British Churches in England under which many Bishops and Presbyters Noblemen and Gentlemen perished and among others that famous Martyr S. Alban who as Bede tells us in his History l. 1. rather then he would deliver or discover a pious Presbyter whom he had hid in his house by whom he was either converted or much confirmed in the Christian Faith chose to offer himself in the Priests habit to the Inquisitors and owning himself for a Christian though yet unbaptized he died for that profession Hereby the world may see how much poor mortalls are prone to mistake in their calculations of Gods judgements upon any Church both as to their own sins and other mens sufferings where the greatest sufferers are commonly the least sinners and the greatest inflicters are the least Saints Having in the former seven Books sayes Eusebius set forth that holy succession of Bishops which followed the Apostles in all the famous Primitive Churches in their several limits and proportions under the various seasons and storms of times the Churches had now in the Roman Empire so great liberty serenity and quiet that Bishops in many places were much honoured even by the civil Magistrates the Temples and Oratories of Christians were every where full and frequented new Churches were every day erected more goodly costly and capacious nor could the malice of men or Devils hinder the growing prosperity of the Churches every where while God was pleased to shine upon them with his favour Afterward too great liberty and ease degenerated to luxury and idlenesse these betrayed Christian Bishops Presbyters and people to mutuall emulations and contentions these sowred to hatred and malice these brake out to fury and faction Christians persecuting each other with words and reproches as with armes and weapons murmurings and seditions of governed and governours justling against each other grew frequent arising from desperate hypocrisies and dissemblings At last being generally less sensible of their sins than their sides and factions and less intent to the honour of the Church and its holy Canons than to their private passions and ambitions the wrath of God overtook them all Then saith that Historian as Jeremy complains did the Lord bring darknesse upon the beauty of the daughter of Sion then did He cast down to the ground the glory of Israel He remembred no more the place of his footstool in the day of his wrath then did he profane the habitation of his honour in the dust and made Her a reproch to all her enemies c. then were Churches commanded to be pull'd down to the ground holy Books and Bibles to be burnt the Bishops and Pastors some banished others imprisoned tortured and killed all silenced impoverished disgraced abhorred by the Emperour with his followers and flatterers Christians were forbidden all holy meetings and duties commanded and forced to sacrifice to popular Idols and plebeian Gods upon pain of death and torture seventeen thousand Christians slain in one month an utter extirpation of Bishops Presbyters Professors Churches and Christianity it self designed enjoyned and publickly solemnized by a triumphant pillar erected in Spain with this Inscription An Imperial monument of
These good and warm men to whose martyrly courage much might be indulged while yet Reformation was an Embryo in the formation and birth were in time much worn out men afterward began more coolely to consider the nature of the things no less than their own fears or other mens prejudices especially after they saw those things three times solemnly determined and setled by the publick wisdome and authority both of this Church and State The few remains of the old stock of pious dissenters which in my time I have known were grown so calm and moderate as to the Ceremonies of the Church of England that I never found they perswaded others against them As for Liturgie and Episcopacy I am sure they justly asserted them as to the main as wishing onely some small sweetning of the first as to a few darker expressions and the softening of the other as to some more equable regulations which were as far from extirpation of either of them as wiping the eyes is from pulling them out and washing the hands from cutting them off Yea I know by long experience that when the graver and more learned sort of Non-conformists perceived how mightily the Reformed Religion grew and prospered in England amidst the Liturgie Bishops and Ceremonies against which some fiercer spirits had so excessively inveighed when they saw what buds and leaves blossoms and ripe fruit Aarons rod brought forth what eminent gifts and graces God was pleased to dispense by Bishops and Presbyters that were piously conformable to the Church of England they wholly laid aside their former heats and youthfull eagernesses which sometimes fed high and were kept warm by the hopes and flatteries of those who expected that party should long agone have prevailed yea many of them now aged both repented of and recanted their more juvenile and indiscreet fervours advising others now beginners to conform to the good orders and to study the peace of the Church of England which they saw so blessed of God as none in the world exceeded Her Nor did I ever hear of any sober Christian or truly godly Minister who being in other things prudent unblameable and sincere did ever suffer any penitentiall strokes or checks of conscience either upon his death-bed or before meerly upon the account of their having been conformable to and keeping communion with the Church of England nor did they ever find or complain of Ceremonies Liturgie or Episcopacy as any damps to their reall graces or to their holy communion with Gods blessed Spirit At last both good Ministers and people generally submitted themselves in all peaceableness for many years to the order and uniformity of the Church of England untill the late Northern Earth-quake scared many by a Panick fear from their former stedfastness in practises and judgements which had been taken up by many Ministers not suddenly and easily but after serious and mature deliberations against which nothing new hath as yet been alledged to alter their minds onely old rusty arguments have been wrapped up in new furbished arms the strongest sword it seems makes the best proofs and impressions on some mens consciences even in matters of Religion Which vertigo excusable giddiness in the vulgar but shamefull inconstancy in some men of parts and learning is no news to wise men since as the most renowned Isaac Casaubon observes the native mutability of mens minds is such That they precipitantly run by sholes and troops upon changes which are for the worst but scarce one man of a thousand is to be won by the sense of his own and other mens miseries or by the most importune and strongest reasons in the world to retract his popular transports or to revert to the better by holy and happy Apostasies Changes to the worse like sicknesses are easie and sudden recoveries to the better like health are slow and difficult Irregular zeal and popular tumults like storms and tempests easily drive men from their anchors into dangerous seas but they seldom bring them back into safe harbors The first is the work of the many but not the wise the second of the wise who are but few and who during the paroxysme or first impression of vulgar violence must a little yield themselves either to be carried away or oppressed by the rage and precipitancy of such mutations which divers sober men no doubt have rather suffered of late years than approved here in England who humbly pray to recover that happy port or station wherein the Reformed Religion was once like a well-built well-ballasted and richly laden ship safely anchored in the Church of England where the ceremonies were but as the wast clothes flags and streamers no part indeed of its precious lading but yet not uncomely ornaments much less such dangerous burthens or blemishes as merited the utter sinking and over-setting of so fair a vessel which seems to have been the delight of some men though I do not think it was or is according to the desire of the most sober modest Non-conformists no more than it was or is agreeable to the mind of the chief Magistrate nor of the best Nobility the wisest Gentry the learnedst Clergie or the better sort of Commons if they were left to their free votes and untumultuated suffrages Certainly all pious and prudent persons who ever owned the Church of England having now more leisure and clearer light to discern things than when the clouds and storms first began cannot but continually deplore their own credulity some mens cruelty and most mens inconstancy in religion which have left this Church in so broken and calamitous a condition while some oppose Her many forsake Her and few assert Her Especially when they finde as they do every where by experience that those eager agitators against the Church of England upon the old account of Ceremonies Liturgie and Episcopacy doe yet as grand Masters and most authentick Dictators take to themselves and their respective parties a most plenipotentiary power to teach ordain rule over-see guide correct and excommunicate such as they can get into their severalls divided or new-erected Churches whose divine authority power and jurisdiction in things Ecclesiastick they cry up for absolute Supreme Divine Thus they make or at least fancy themselves mutually Kings and Priests in the majesty and soveraignty of all Ecclesiastick jurisdiction amidst their small conventicles who wholly deny any such authority to the Grandeur number magnificence of the Church of England that is the joynt consent united influence and combined interest of all good Christians in this Nation who publickly agreed with one mind and in one manner to serve the Lord. Yet in the manner of their Communion ministrations or worship who sees not that every one of these new Masters affects to be author of his own Liturgie perswading people to pray to and praise God to consecrate and celebrate holy mysteries rather after such a form as they shall either suddenly conceive or more soberly provide
Christian can deny his assent if he hath ever made use of their excellent lives or labours to which as I formerly touched God himself hath set to the broad seal and great witnesse of his own Spirit upon the hearts and consciences of many thousands both still living and long ago dead These at the grand Assize or day of Gods righteous judgement will I am confident highly justifie before men and Angels the Church of England and its Clergie or Ministry as blessed means of their salvation these will convince the gainsayers enemies blasphemers and destroyers of this Church and its Ministry of their envy partiality blindness unthankfulness and malice also of their unreasonable lusts and injurious passions for nothing but such black and hellish clouds could ever hinder men after an hundred years experience from seeing owning esteeming and enjoying so great and glorious a light of grace and mercy truth and peace as hath shined in the Church of England ever since the Reformation while the golden Candlesticks were unbroken the beautifull order and proportion of their branches unconfounded the burning lamps of Bishops and Presbyters in them either not wholy extinguished or not snuffed so close as might put them quite out in respect of that pristine beauty and lustre love and honour which they formerly enjoyed and deserved in this as all well-composed Christian Churches What wise and gracious Christian comparing as the builders of the later Temple former times with these doth not with sadness of soul see and confess that the generall state of this Church the visible face of the Christian Reformed Religion the tempers of mens hearts and the praâ—â—ses of their lives were heretofore both as to truth order and peace to piety morality and charity incomparably beyond what now they commonly are or are like to be while so much emulation faction and confusion prevail among us which are the dry nurses of ignorance