are holy Numb 16. though the hand and fire were unholy which were applyed to them Our Ministery then may be and certainly is very good holy 4. Our Ministry not from nor of the Pope and divine as well as the Scriptures and Sacraments or other holy Ministrations and duties are when duly restored to their primitive purity order and authority which go along with their right succession notwithstanding they are derived to us through or by the Romish Church or the Popes dispensation yet do they not therefore descend from them but only from Christ the first institutor of his Church and of this Ministry with a perpetuall power of succession Possunt esse pastores Lupi alio respectu Pastores in veritate quam profitentur in potestate quaÌ„ ritè obtinuerunt Lupi in erroribus quos admiscent in corruptelis morum c. ut Scribae Pharisaei in Cathedra Mosis panem veritatis proponebant sed non sine fâ—â—mento errorum officium distinguendum à persona potestas à moâ—ibus Gerrard de Minist Rev. 2.4 Jer. 3.1 Thou hast played the harlot with thy lovers yet return to me saith the Lord. Rev. 3.2 Our Lord Jesus Christ the gracious Spouse of the Church as of every Soul that truly believes and obeys though with much unbelief and frailty disdains not to own his relation to any Church or Christians though they are not so faithfull to him though they lose their first love yet they may be still his by what still remains of soundness and outward profession Yea and Christ will vouchsafe to admit us again to the communion and covenant of his love even after long wandrings and unkind absences when ever we wash our selves and return to him from our disloyall adulteries and pollutions He doth not utterly divorce any Church when the substance and essentials of Religion which are but in a few things do remain notwithstanding the many meretricious paints and disguisings which the wantoness of humane inventions may have put upon it thereby disfiguring its Primitive beauty and simplicity Mans vanity and arrogancy against God or men doth no whit abrogate either the right which Christ or any Church and Christian posterity hath to the purity and power of his gifts and institutions in the right way of his Mâ—nistry All which may remain with a blessing in the root and Seed though they be much pestered over-dropped choked and almost starved by humane additions which keep them for some time from their full glory vigor and extension Therefore the learned and godly Reformers of this Christian Church in England did not dig any new fountain of Ordination or ministeriall power as some Romanists calumniated at first and were afterward convinced of the contrary by Master Masons learned defence of the Ministry of England as to its right succession but they only cleared that which they saw was divine in the first broaching or Institution by Christ and as in the purest derivation by the Apostles however in time it became foul by humane feculencies and dregs as it passed rightly though not purely through the hands of some Bishops and Presbyters even to their dayes Nor was ever any thing required by the best Reformed Churches further to confirm and validate the Authority or power Ministeriall which any had received when he was first ordeined Presbyter in the Romish Church Contaminarunt non sustulerunt Ministerium Ecclesiae Alsted but only this to renounce not his Baptism but his errâ—rs and former superstitions to profess the Reformed Truths of the Gospell and accordingly to exercise that Ministeriall power which he had received truly as to the substance and duly as to the succession both as to the Office conferred and the persons conferring it Howsoever the sword of the Ministry had through the neglect of those to whom it was committed been suffered to contract the rust of superstitions and to lose much of its beauty and sharpness yet it was still that true and same two-edged sword which came out of the mouth of Jesus Christ Rev. 2.12 the first ordeiner of a peculiar setled Ministry in his Church Nor may it be broken or cast away when it hath been rightly delivered but only cleared whetted and furbished from its rust bluntness and dulness That Pen which now writes blottingly might be well made at first and will write fairâ—y again if once the hairs or blurs which its neb hath contracted be but cleared from it It is still Gods Field and Husbandry with good Wheat in it though the enemy hath while men slept sowen many tares Bishops and Ministers reformed may be Gods true labourers and appointed Husbandmen though they have some time loytered as the Disciples were Christs when their eyes were so heavy to sleep that they could not watch with him that one hour of his most horrid agony Mat. 26.40 It were then but a passionate scuffling with mad men a most impertinent disputing with unreasonable minds further to argue about the Popes usurped or abused Authority in any kind over Churches or Bishops or holy Ordinances and Ministry For which he had as little grounds of Scripture or reason as these Anti-Ministeriall Obâ—ectors have now against this Church of England and the function of the Ministry in it against which these cunning cavillers have not so much pretence to argue from the Popes usurpation that our Ministry and Religion are all Antichristian as they have both Scripture Reason and Experience besides the consent of all Reformed Churches to conclude them to be truly Christian if anger or envie or covetousness had not blinded their blood-shotten eyes they might easily see some of those mighty works Mat. 11.20 which have been wrought on mens Souâ—s by the Ministry of England since the Reformation and without this efficacious Ministry I believe neither these Calumniators had been so much Christian as they pretend nor so able spightfully to contend with shewes of Piety and popular falacies against the true Ministry of this Church and the best Ministers with whose Heifer they have plowed We know well that not only the reformed Churches 5. Of the Popes pretended Supremacy in England but even the Gallican and Venetian which keep communion with the Romish Church and Papall party besides the Greek Asian and African Churches do generally oppose and vehemently deny the Popes abusive usurpations both in things Ecclesiasticall and Secular And this upon most pregnant grounds not only from Scripture whence nothing was ever fairly and pertinently urged as some places are fouly wrested and yet but little to the Popes advantage but also from * Caeteri Apostoli par consortium honoris potestatis acceperunt qui in toto orbe dispersi Evangelium praedicaverunt quibusque decedentibus successerunt Episcopi Is Hisp l. 2. off Eccl. c. 5. Qui sunt constituti in toto mundo in sedibus Apostolorum non ex genere carnis ut filii Aron sed pro unius cujusque
vita merito iis c. Id. Ubicunque fuerit Episcopus sive Romae sive Eugubii c. ejusdem est merâ—ti qusdem est sacerdotii Jeron ad Evagr. Celebri urbi frigidum oppidulum opponit Eras verba Jeron Omnes Apostolorum successores sunt Id. Concil Nicaen 1. Gregory the Great oft protests against any Bishops or Patriarchs usurping and chalenging the title ofVniversalis Episcopus aut Pastor as a token of Antichristian pride Concil Hipponensc Anno 393. de primae sedis Episcopo i. e. Romano 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concil Af. pag. 119. pag. 318. can 123. They Excommunicated all that appealed beyond the Sea to other Province and Bishop Concil Chalced. anno 451. Can. 9.11.17 Nec quisquam nostrum Episcopum se Episcoporum constituat c. Quando omnis habeat Episcopus pro licentia libertatis potestatis suae arbitrium proprium ut nec judicari ab altero nec judicare possit Cyp. tom 2. in fine Hoc erant utique coeteri Apostoli quod fuit Petrus pari consortio praediti honoris potestatis Sed exordium ab unitate proficiscitur pâ—imatus Petro datur ut una ChristiÌ„ Ecclesia una Cathedra monstretur Cyp. Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis Episcopis in solidum pars tenetur Cypr. de uni Eccl. ep 27. all Antiquity after that Churches were increased and setled where the Fathers and first famous generall Councills make clearly to the Popes disadvantage as to any power or jurisdiction in point of divine authority which he claims beyond or above other Bishops and Presbyters further than the Roman Diocess first and the Patriarchate afterward extended which division and power for order sake was agreed unto by some generall Councils where other four Patriarchs of Jerusalem Antioch Constantinople and Alexandâ—ia had also a limited yet equall power in their respective Dioceses and Provinces with the Bishop of Rome Galf. monum l. 11. c. 12. See Bishop Godwin SuccessioÌ„ of English Bishops Lucius rex in Anglia conversus ad fidem Christi anno Christi 164. Thâ—ee Bishops out of England Eborius of York Restitutus of London Adolphias of Colchester were of the Councill of Arles in France eleven years before the Nicane which was anno 330. See the Letter to Austin the Monk cited before sent from the Clergy and Monk of Bangor Sir Hen. Spelman Concil Brit. pag. 108. ad an 590. Omnium provinciarum primae Britania publicitus Christi nomen recepit Sabel Enn. 7 l 5. Beda l. 2. c. 2. Nor had the Pope then for the first six hundred years after Christ any authority scarce any name in these British Churches which were undoubtedly converted by some Apostles or Apostolicall men who left after King Lucius his time a famous and flourishing succession of Bishops Presbyters and Christians long before any pretensions of the Pope over these British Churches To which the British Bishops in Wales were strangers nor would they own at that time when Austin the Monk came from Gregory the Great who sent hither more out of Christian charity than any Authority to convert the Saxons who had by war and barbarity quite extinguished Christianity with all Bishops and Ministers out of England and had forced the former holy Bishops and Ministers to fly into Wales Ireland and Scotland from whence afterwards in a gratefull vicissitude the English replanted Churches received for the most part both their Conversion and establishment by a Succession of rightly Ordeined Bishops and Presbyters for Austin the Monks Plantation and preaching extended not beyond Kent Surrey and the adjacent places as Venerable Bede tells us and our learned Country-man Sir Henry Spelman The ambitious Usurpation and Antichristian Tyranny then of the Papall power and supremacy afterward over Bishops and Ministers here in England to which the title of Christ St. Peter or the Catholick Churches establishment is poorly begged and falsly pretended we the Ministers of the Church of England ever did and do as much abhor as any of these men can who are so against the now Reformed and established Ministry which we have vindicated from Papal and superstitious additaments and asserted or restored to it Primitive and Scripturall dignity and divine authority which it never lost but only not so clearly discovered during the times of darkness and oppression Our jealousie now is lest the malice and activity of those that now dispute and act against our thus reformed and prospered Ministry should prove ere long the Popes best Engines and factors that ever he had in this Church since the Reformation if they can as they have begun and go on apace but so far prepare the way for the reintroduction of the Papall power and Romish party as to cashier all the learned reformed and duly Ordeined Ministers in England both as to their order authority and government will not this Church in a few more years of confusion and neglect become as a fallow and unfenced field fit for the Papal subtilty and Romish activity which he will plow with an Ox and an Asse together the learned Jesuit joyned to the fanatick Donatist The Seminary Priests with the gifted brethren Friers predicant with Prophets mendicant So that no wise man that loves the Reformed religion and the Church can think others than that the hand of Joab is in this matter Achitophel is in Counsell with Absalom The Conclave of Rome is wanting to its interest if it conspires strongly with this Antiministeriall faction I should be glad to be as Hushai the Archite a means to discover bâ—ast and bring to nought all those desperat counsells and machinations which are layd by any against this reformed Church and its true Ministry The happy and seasonable defeat of which by Gods blessing to this Church and Nation I do yet hope may be such In vitium ducit cuâ—pae fuga fi caret arte Hor. as shall make all Apostatising and ungratefull Politicians rather repent of their Apostacies and see their folly than follow the fate of that disloyall renegado a traitor at once to his friend and sovereign I confess I am not for such Reformations 6. Reformation ought to reverence Antiquity Maltem cum sanctis errare quà m cum sacâ—ilegis rectè sentire as too much suspect the prudence or vilifie the piety of our forefathers therby to extoll some mens after zeal and skill The errors and defects of the Antients joyned with their charity and sincerity I believe were far more pardonable with God than the late furies and cruelties of some men pretending to mend those errors and supply those defects Not that it is safe for us to return to what we now see by the word of God to be an error But we may in charity excuse their ignorance in some things of old while yet we commend and imitate that wisdom honesty order and gravity of religious profession which was in them far beyond the Modern transports of some mens
unnecessary rigors and severities may not make the Mass or lump of religion more sowr and heavy than God in his Word hath required who cannot be an enemy to the right and sanctified use of melody or Musick Psal 33.2 2 Cor. 9.7 since he commands singing to his praises and loves a cheerfull temper in his service Certainly Musick is of all sensible humane beauty the most harmless and divine Nor did I ever see any reason why it should be thought to deform us Christians or be wholly excluded from making a part in the beauty of holiness No time or abuse doth prejudice Gods or the Churches rights Quamvis ritus ordinationis in Eccles pontificia multis superstitionibus inutilibus ceremoniis fit vitiatus ex eo tamen ipsius ordinationis essentiae nihil decedit Distinguenda ordinantis infirmitas ab ordinatione quae sit totius Ecclesiae nomine distinguendum divinum ab humano essentiale ab accidentali pium Christianum ab Antichristiano sermentum a doctrina Pharisaeorum Gerard. de Minist pag. 147. Moderatia non tam virtus quam doctrix imperatrix omnium virtutum Auriga ordinâ—trix affectuum Ber. Cant. Tolle hanc virtus vitium erit Nec abligurienda sunt mala cum bonis nec eructanda bona cum malis Vetul Pravi effectus falsi sunt rerum â—stimatores All wise and excellent Christians know this for certain That mans usurpation is no prejudice to Gods dominion nor do humane traditions vacate divine Commands nor Antichrists superstitions cancell Christs Institutions Vain superstructures of mans addition neither demolish nor rase Gods foundations men do not quit their rights to estates for anothers unjust in trusion The heady invasions of one or few or many upon the Churches rights and liberties are no cause to make Christians remove the antient Land-marks and boundaries of true Ministry due order and prudent government which we find fixed by Christ continued by the Apostles and observed by the Churches obedience in all ages although not without tinctures and blemishes of humane Infirmities They are sad Physicians and of no valew who know not how to let their Patients blood unless they stab them to the heart Such are those unhappy leeches who in stead of eating off with fit Corosives the dead flesh of any part do lop off whole arms and legs Some men are too heavy for themselves and while they aim to go down the Hill of reformation they suddenly conceive such an impetuous motion as cannot stop it self till it hath carried all before it and at length dasheth it self in pieces Much more folly it is quite to abolish the use of holy things than to tollerate some abuses with it True reforming is not a starting quite out of the way as shy and skittish horses are wont to do when they boggle at what scares them more than it can hurt them with danger to themselves and their riders too not a flying to new modes and exotick fashions of religion and Churches and Ministers but it is a sober and stayd restauration of those antient and venerable forms which pious Antiquity in the Church of Christ and the antient of dayes in his more sure Word hath expressed to us 'T is easie to pare off what one great Antichrist or the many less have added and to supply what they have by force or fraud detracted from that only complete figure of Extern professional religion which Christ and his Apostles by him so have fashioned and delivered which is never well handled no not by Reformers unless Christians have honest hearts good heads clear eyes and pure hands when all these meet in any undertakers to reform the Church I shall then hope they will seriously sincerely and successfully do Christs and the Churches work as generally men are prone and intent to do their own This then I may conclude against all precipitant and blind zeal which by popular arts seeks to bring an odium on all Ministers and the Ministry of this Church meerly by using the Name of the Pope without giving any account to reason or religion of their Calumny That there is no cause in reason or religion for any Christians to cast off the Ministry of England as it stands Reformed and so restored to its primitive Power and Authority because of any Succession from relation to or communion with the Order and Clergy of the Roman Church and Bishop no more cause I say than for these Anti-ministeriall Cavillers to pull out their eyes because Papists do see with theirs or to destroy themselves because naturally descended from such parents as were in subjection to the Bishop of Rome and in communion with that Church we may as well refuse all leagues and treaties of humanity in common with Papists as all Christianity and all Christianity as all antient lawfull Ministry an holy Succession may descend and Gods elect be derived from such as were true men how ever vitious CAVIL Or CALUMNY V. Against Ministers as Ordeined by Bishops in England I Have done with the first part of this Cavill or Calumny which seeks to bandy the Ministry of the Church of England against the Papall and Romish wall that they may make it either rebound to a popular and Independent side or else fall into the hazard of having no true Christian Ministry at all from both which I shall in like fort endevour to rescue this our holy Function and Succession A second stroak therefore which I am to take is made with great Artifice and popular cunning against the Ministry of this Church as it was derived and continued by the hands of Bishops who were as Presidents or chief Fathers in the work of Ordination among their Brethren and Sons the Presbyters or Ministers within their severall Diocesses These Prelates or Bishops the Objectors protest highly against as being not Plants of Christs planting whose Authority being lately pulled up by power so that they seem to have no more place or influence in this Church or Nation the Presbyterie also and whole order of the former Ministry they say must necessarily also fail and wither which were but branches and slips derived from the stem or root of Episcopall Ordination Thus we see in a few years the Anti-ministeriall fury is cudgelling even Presbyters themselves with that staff which some of them put into vulgar hands purposely to beat their Fathers the grave and antient Bishops and utterly to banish that Venerable and Catholick Order or Eminent Authority of Episcopacy out of the Church what the Dove-like innocency of those fierce and rigid Ministers hearts might be as to their godly intentions I know not but I am sure they wanted that wisdome of the Serpent which seeks above all to preserve its head whence life health motion and orderly direction descending to other parts do easily repair and heal what ever lesser hurt or bruise may befall them It must needs be confessed that as the Events have been very
Christians judgement or conscience in the things of Christ and true Religion which must never be either refused or accepted according as they may be ushered in or crowded out by Civil Authority Christ doth not steer his Church by that Compass Things the more divine and excellent the more probable to be rejected by men of this world At the same rate of worldly frowns and disfavours Christians long ere this time should have had nothing left them of Scriptures Sacraments sound doctrine or holy Ministrations All had been turned into Heathenish barbarity Hereticall errors or Schismatical confusions if conscience to God and love to Christ and his Church had not preserved by the constancy and patience of Christian Bishops and Ministers those holy things which the wicked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 iâ—qâ—it Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. wanton and vain world was never well pleased withall and often persecuted seeking to destroy both root and branch of Christianity Weare to regard not what is done by the few or the many the great or the small but what in right reason and due order after the precepts and patterns of true Religion ought to be done in the Church As for the Government of Bishops Episcopal power not Antichristian so far as it referred to the chief power and office of Ordeining Ministers in a right succession for due supplies to this Church of England Truly I am so far from condemning that Episcopall authority and practise as unlawfull and Antichristian after the rate of popular clamor ignorance passion and prejudice That contrarily very learned wise and godly men have taught me to think and declare That as the faults and presumptions of any Bishops through any pride ambition and tyranny or other personall immoralities are very Antichristian because most Diametrally contrary to the Precept and patern of our holy and humble Saviour Jesus Christ whose place Bishops have alwayes as chief Pastors and Fathers among the Presbyters since the Apostles times eminently supplyed in the extern order and Polity of the Church So that above all men they ought to be most exactly conform to the holy rule and example of Jesus Christ Episcipale â—ffiâ—â— a maximè oâ—nanâ— nobilitant gravitas moâ—um inâ—turitas Consiliorum actuum honest as Bern. Ep. 28. Câ—in honoâ—is p aeâ—ogativa etiam congrue â—â—â—iâ—a requirimus Amb. de dig Sa. Ne sit honor sublimis vita deformis Id. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 19. Cogito me jam Episcopum principi pastoâ—um de commissi ovibus rationem redditurum Non Ecclesiasticis honoribus tempora ventosa transigeâ—e debere Aust Ep. 203. both in doctrine and manners So withall they have taught me to esteem the Antient and Catholick government of godly Bishops as moderators and Presidents among the Presbyters in any Diocess or Precincts in its just measure and constitution for power Paternall duty exercised such as was in the persecuting purest and Primitive times to be as much if not more Christian than any other form and fashion of government can be yea far beyond any that hath not the charity to endure Catholick primitive and right Episcopacy which truly I think to be most agreeable to right reason and those principles of due order and polity among men also no less suitable to the Scripture wisdome both in its rules and paterns to which was conform the Catholick and Primitive way of all Christian Churches throughout all ages and in all places of the world Blondel Apol. pag. 177. 179. Et in praefatio ne Absit à me ut siniâ—trum de piâ—ssiâ—ae illius antiquiâ—atis consilio consensu quae Episcopalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 primum in Ecclesiam invexit mentâ— quippiam suspicer So Ego Episcopos quodam modo Apostolorum locum in Ecclesia tenere largior non munere divinitus instituto sed lâ—beâ—è ab Ecclesia collata illa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blondel test Jeron pag. 306. Which things very learned men and friends to Presbytery joyned with Episcopacy have confessed both lately as Salmatius Bochartus and Blondellus and also formerly as Calvin Beza Moulin with many others so far was ever any learned and unpassionate man from thinking Episcopacy unlawfull in the Church Indeed after all the hot Canvasings and bloody contentions which have wearied and almost quite wasted the Estates spirits and lives of many learned men in this Church of England as to the point of true Epiâ—copacy I freely profess that I cannot yet see but that that antient and universall form of government in due conjunction with Presbytery and with due regard to the faithfull people is as much beyond all other new invented fashions as the Suns light glory and influence is beyond that of the mutable and many-faced Moon or any other Junctos of Stars and Planets however cast into strange figurations or new Schemes and Conjunctions by the various fancies of some Diviners and Astrologers D. Bâ—chartus Eâ—ist ad D. Moâ—leium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat â—â—â—n in Epist Which free owning of my judgement in this point may serve to blot out that Character etiam ipse Presbyterianus added to my name by the learned Pen of Bochartus For although I own with all honour and love orderly Presbytery and humble Presbyters in the sense of the Scriptures and in the use of all pious Antiquity for sacred and divine in their office and function as the lesser Episcopacy or inspectors over lesser flocks in the Church yet not so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Ep. 62. Eccles Neocaes The holy consistory of Presbyters desires their chief or President to be among them as abhorring and extirpating all order and presidency of Bishops among them as if it were Antichristian wicked and intollerable Nor do I think that an headless or many headed Presbytery ought to be set up in the Church as of necessity and divine right in this sense that learned writer himself is no Presbyterian nor ever had cause to judge me to be of that mind I confess after the example of the best times 2. Reasons for Episcopacy rather than other Government and judgement of the most learned in all Churches I alwayes wished such moderation on all sides that a Primitive Episcopacy which imported the Authority of one grave and worthy person chosen by the consent and assisted by the presence counsell and suffrages of many Presbyters might have been restored or preserved in this Church and this not out of any factious design but for these weighty reasons Ignat. ad Antiochenos Bids the Presbyterâ— feed the flock till God shews who shall be their Bishop or Ruler He salutes Onesimus the Bishop of Ephesus Ep. ad Ephes cited by Euseb l. 3. c. 35. Hist is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. Chil. which prevail with me 1. For the Reverence due from posterity Ab Apostolis in Episcopatum constituti Apostolici seminis
also of that holy Spirit of truth and Ministeriall power which Christ gave to the Apostles and they to their chief successors the Bishops by whose learned piety and industry such mighty works have been done in all ages and in all parts of the Church and in none more I think than in this Church of England chiefly since the Reformation of Religion whereto godly and learned Bishops contributed the greatest humane assistance by their preaching writing living and dying as became holy Martyrs Can. 6. Concil Nicaeni I am vehemently for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 antient and holy customs of the Catholick Church 8. Primitive Customs how far alterable in the Churches Polity Consuetudo major non est veritate aut tatione Cyp. Ep. 73. Valeat consuetudo ubi non praevalet Scriptura aut ratio Reg. Jur. Praesracti est ingenii contra omnem consuetudinem disputare morosi nimis pertinaciter adhaerere so far as they may be fitted to the state and stature of any Christian societies Not that I think all things of external Polity discipline and government by which Christians stand tyed in relations publique to one another were at first so at once prescribed or perfected by Christ or the B. Apostles as might not admit after addition variations or completions in any Church or Congregation Christian according to those dictates of reason and generall rules of Prudence which are left to the liberty of Churches by which so to preserve particular Churches as not to offend the generall rules of order and charity which bind them by conformity in the main to take care of the Catholick Communion We are not I think tyed so strictly to all the precise paterns of primitive and Apostolicall practise which might well vary in the severall states conditions and dimensions of the Church I read no command for Presbyters to choose a Bishop or President among them and in so not doing they are defective not as to the Precepts of Scripture 1 Cor. 11.16 If any man lâ—st to be contentious we have no such Custom nor the Churches of Christ In his rebus de quibus nihil certi statuit Scriptura mos populi dei vel instituta majorum pro lege tenenda sunt Aug. Ep. 89. ad Cal. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 34. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 37. but to the rules of right reason and the imitation of usefull example in primitive times Nor do I find any Precept to one or more Presbyters to ordein others after them who yet ought to take care both of their own being rightly Ordeined and of after succession according to that patern Analogy and proportion of holy order and government which was at first wisely observed by the Apostles and the after Ministers of the Church either as Bishops or Presbyters The same Coat would not serve Christ a man grown which did fit him a Child or Youth Only it is neither safe comely nor comfortable for any Christians wantonly and without great and urging reasons next dore to necessity to recede from or to cast off the antient and most imitable Catholick customs of the Church which truly is seldom done upon conscientious and reall necessities pressing but most what upon factious humours and for secular designs carried on under the colour of Church alterations For how ever the alteration may at present please some mens activity and humour whose turn it serves yet it cannot but infinitely scandalise grieve and oppress far more and better Christians who are of the old yet good way Hence many wee see are at a loss now in England how to justifie their past religion shaken by changes as if they had had no true Ministry nor holy Ministrations and Sacraments hitherto while some mens zeal without knowledge cries down Bishops and that whole government with the Ministry for Antichristian others are extremely unsatisfied and solicitous for the future succession Not seeing any ground for any Presbyters in this Church so to challenge to themselves a sole divine power of Ordination and Jurisdiction without any President Bishops which was the antient way in England ever since we were Christians as in all other Churches And it is most sure that neither power of Ordination nor Jurisdiction was ever conferred by Bishops on any Presbyters here either verbally or intentionally as without and against Bishops Nor did the Laws or Canons ever so mean or speak Nor was it I believe in any of the Presbyters own thoughts that they received any such power to Ordein other Presbyters without a Bishop when they were Ordeined Ministers And sure though acts of state and civil Magistracy may regulate the exercise yet they cannot confer the holy power and order of a Presbyter or Bishop on any man which flows from a spiritual head even Jesus Christ as I have proved and not from any temporall Authority Ordinances of Parliament can hardly with justice or honour batter or dismount the Canons of generall Councils the Catholick laws or constant Customes of the Church If it be supposed that the two Houses of Parliament lately did but restore and the Presbyters resume that power of Ordination which was only due to them as such and deteined by Bishops usurpation from them Boâ—a consuetudo velut vinum generosum vetustate valescit Tert. It is very strange they should never here nor elsewhere have made claim to it for 1600. years in no ages past till these last broken factious tumultuary and military times If it were their right only in common with and subordinate to Bishops they needed not then to complain for they did or might have enjoyed as much joynt power as was for their conveniency and the Churches peace The eminent power at least for Order sake was even by their consents lawfully placed in and exercised by the Bishops The levity and ambition of ingrossing all to themselves without and against Bishops hath almost lost all power both of Bishops and Presbyters too since Presbytery alone is but as Pipe-staves full of cracks warpings and unevenness which will not easily hold the strong liquor of power and government unless they be well hooped about and handsomly kept in order by venerable and fatherly Episcopacy which carried a greater face of majesty and had those ampler and more august proportions which ought to be in government beyond what can be hoped for or in reason expected from the parity and puerility of Presbyters in common many of whom have more need to be governed than they are any way fit to bear any great weight of government on their shoulders however they may discharge some works of the Ministry very well 9. Calm mediations between Episcopacy and Presbytery As it hath never yet been shewen any where so it is least to be hoped for now in England that any better fruits should arise from Presbyterie thus beheaded cropped and curtayled of its crown Episcopacy which it might not stil have as formerly it
and most for religious administrations where not only the credit but the conscience of the Church is engaged and ought to be very much considered in order to the honour of Christ and of his Church It were a very blasphemous reproach I think to the wisdom of Christ for any to imagine that he had delegated the highest power of his Church to men incompetent and generally incapable without daily miracles Besides this if they were supposable to have those gifts which were fit to try and judge rightly of a Ministers sufficiency yet they cannot have power to authorise or ordein a Minister of Jesus Christ no more than every judicious man hath power to send an Embassador in his Princes name or to make such arbitrators and Judges as he thinks fit in other mens business This is a power only to be used and enjoyed by those to whom it is given from him who is supreme as in the Church Jesus Christ is in whom the grand power of Ordination which confers on man authority to dispense holy mysteries in Christs name is originally seated and from him derived and granted as a grand Charter or Commission to his Apostles first and by them afterward exemplified and delivered to others who being found fit for it were assumed into and invested with the same delegated authority as from Christ and never given to the community of the people at any time or derivable from him in any degree of power Ministeriall be their gifts and graces never so good Since this is a fruit of Christs wisdom munificence and power toward his Church an appointment full of holy order and divine polity depending on no private mens gifts or graces but upon the good will pleasure and power of Jesus Christ himself as he stands in the relations of King Priest and Prophet to his Church Now to whom Christ committed this great and sacred power of ordeining a constant succession of Ministers in his name and in what manner it was by them derived to others Pag. 143. c. in the answer to the first Objection See Dr. Hammond and Dr. Tailor of Ordination Correxerunt manus psephisma natum est Tull. I have already cleared I hope and other late writers have done it too by Scripture reason and Ecclesiasticall Catholick Custom In all which it is evident That the so much urged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly indeed signifies peoples suffragating by stretching forth of hands in publike and popular elections is not to be urged by a Criticall severity from the Ethnick sense of the word to the Churches injury and confusion Since the same word in sacred and Ecclesiasticall writings as well as in others is oft used in a sense which signifies nothing else but an appointment or designation made by any one or more to some speciall work and service to which God or Christ Jesus Acts 14.22 or the Apostles joyntly or severally or their successors the Bishops and Pastors of the Church in their severall precincts are said to ordein or appoint a part from any such suffrage or autoritative influence of the people Further than their sometimes nominating and recommending fit men to be ordeined as Acts 6.5 or else their comprobation and acceptance of those who were by the Apostles Elders and Rulers of the Church ordeined as Ministers over them and this in Christs name by a divine authority which is for the peoples good but not from them as a fountain nor by them as any fit Pipes or Conduict through which this holy stream of the Ministry Ordinationes eorum quam temerarie tam inconstantes Hodie Episcopus cras alius bodiâ— Presbyter qui cras laicus Nam laicis Sacerdotolia munera injungunt Tertul. ad Haerâ—â— c. 42. Ad hac opera blandi sub missi sunt Caetâ—rum nec suit praesidibus reverentiam exhibere naverunt Id. ubi integra non est veritas me â—â—o tolis est disciplina Tertâ—l or the pure waters of the Sanctuary are to flow So that I cannot look upon this late arrogant claim of the power of ordeining Ministers as primarily belonging to the common people or to other Laymen as other than a fashion or opinion only befitting and extremely resembling those giddy proud and preposteous fancies to which vulgar minds are subject as Tertullian tels us when once the reigns of Church Discipline are let loose or some head-strong Schismaticks get the bridle between their teeth yea and it daily confutes it self while the Authors and followers of it are continually dividing and self confounding So inconsistent is error not only with Truth but with it self easily mouldring with its own weight and weakness And no wonder if the Lord prosper not projects arising from popular pride and presumption and tending to the shame and confusion of true Religion which no right reason or order no Scripture precept or patern no Ecclesiasticall custom or learned and godly mans judgement did ever allow or can with any reason as carrying with it all manner of rusticall unreasonable and irreligious absurdities which are never wanting where vulgar passions dwell as infallibly they do in the meaner sorts of men pretend they to what sanctity they will It will soon appear in how many and great defects they come short of that wisdom gravity unpassionateness and impartiality which is necessary to manage and order publike holy actions 2 Cor. 5.20 and to confer a solemn Religious power to any in Christs name to do Christs work and in some sense to be in Christs stead Wise humble and truly gracious Christians Best Christians are most modest are of all men most remote from such bold and unsuitable undertakings whereto having no call from God or the Church they can never expect blessing on their adventures and rash endeavours It satisfies them that they have as much influence in the ordeining and choosing of Ministers as they are capable of and is best for them and the Church Yet if it will please these Christians to fancy that they have some degree of power even in making their Ministers here in this Church they may consider Ministers in England ordeined with the peoples consent that neither Bishops nor Presbyters in England made any Ministers without the peoples generall consent expressed by those Laws and civill sanctions which confirmed here that divine order and constitution which they saw Christ had setled and the Church alwaies followed in ordeining lawfull Ministers by that wisdom and authority which from the Apostles was derived in a constant succession of Bishops and Presbyters who were for gifts of knowledge and judgement best able and for lawfull power only able by examination benediction and imposition of hands to consecrate any man a Minister and confer the power of Holy Orders on him who yet did and doe this as Delegates for the Church but from Christ If the power of choosing and ordeining Ministers were wholy left in
these new trafiquers intend to trade for nothing but the Apes and Peacocks toyes of new opinions Shall Noahs Ark the Churches purity which is the Conservatory of Christs little flock of the holy seed of a Christian succession both for fathers and children be broken up or dashed in pieces against the rocks of sacrilegious envy and policy for these Antiministerial projects will never be the mountaines of Ararat on which the Church or true Religion may rest * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. l. 4. Ep. 210. Shall this Island whose safety consists so much in the guard of the Seas be lesse carefull to guard the coasts of the Church and the reformed Christian Religion whose narrow frete or strait runs between the rocks of Atheisme and Superstition of Parity and Profanenesse of Heresie and Schism of Tyranny and Toleration Will ever these new dwindling Divines the Propheticall pygmies of this age which oppose the able Ministers and true Ministry of the Church of England will they ever bring forth for the service of God 7. Eminent Bishâ—ps and Presbyters of former days in the Church of England or for the maintenance of the true Christian reformed Religion such a race and succession of mighty men of excellent Ministers of incomparable Heroes worthily renowned in their own and after generations whose workes yet praise them in the gates of whom none but evill tongues can speak evill such as this later age or century hath brought forth to looke no further back to those excellent men of former and obscurer times Can you expect Crammers Latimers Bradfords Ridleys Hoopers Grindals Whitgifts Fletchers Sands Elmers Jewels Kings Abbots Lakes Bilsons Babbingtons Andrews Feltons Fields Cowpers Whites Davenants Potters Prideauxes and Westfields with many others now at rest in the Lord all venerable in their Episcopall order and eminency as fathers of the Church and as elder brothers among their brethen the other Ministers whose humility disdained not to be subject to those reverend Bishops although some of them might be equall to them in eminent gifts Animi nil magnae laudis egentes Virg. Aen. Such as were Gilpin Fox Knewtubbs Perkins Whitaker Reinolds Willet White Richard Hooker Vmphry Overall Greenham Rogers Dent Dod Heron Bifield Smith Bolton Taylor Hildersham Crakanthorp Donne Stoughton Ward Holsworth Shutes Featly and Doctor Sibs which last fragrant name I may not mention without speciall gratitude and honour due to the memory of that venerable Divine not onely for the piety learning devotion and politenesse of his two genuine writings The bruised Reed and Soules conflict but also for that paternall love care and counsell by which hee much oblieged mee to him in my younger yeares Indeed that holy man I found altogether made up of sweetnesse and smoothnesse oil and honey As his actions so his gifts and graces were set in a kinde of Mosaick work admirable for that meeknesse and humility which while they sought to conceal and shadow over his vertues they gave the greatest lustre to them Besides these there were an innumerable company of other immortall Angels but yet Ministring spirits to this Church of England who are now made perfect and whom nothing would so probably afflict in heaven as to see the degenerate succession both of Ministers and Christians now likely to follow in this age Many of these and other Worthies of this function in former times as now living and dying in countrey obscurities were buried in those sepulchers which they had made in the Gardens that is those Dioceses or Parishes which they had planted or diligently watered and disposed by pious industry to a pleasant peaceable and happy fertility Men however different in some externall lineaments as may be among Brethren yet all of excellent features and some of the first three both in beauty and strength for piety learning judgement acutenesse eloquence depth devotion charity gravity industry and a kinde of Angelick majesty at once both amiable and venerable both in their preaching writing and practice These great men and greater Ministers have indeed left us behinde them Ministers of the present age Nos ingentium exemplâ—rum parvi imitatetes Sal. ad Agr. a generation far inferiour to them for the most part more feeble and unable to work or warr having more enemies enjoying lesse incouragements scarce any now considerable as to this world bearing greater crosses and heavier burthens every way for charge duty and reproach who are oft forced to lay out in publique taxes a great part of that little they have to buy themselves bookes or bread Who have onely this advantage of our troublesome envious and evill times that we may learn to be more humble in our selves more diligent in our duties more charitable to others and more valiant for the Truth hoping that while we have after the primitive pattern nothing left to glory in but the Crosse of Jesus Christ both our afflictions and infirmities may prove opportunities to exercise discover and increase the graces of God and true Ministeriall gifts in us whose power can perfect it selfe and us too in the midst of our infirmities and support us under the many unjust oppressions which threaten us There are indeed yet left through Gods mercy in the field or forest of this Church and Nation some goodly old Trees both venerable Bishops and worthy Presbyters here and there Some shrewdly battered and strangely neglected which yet retain something that is very goodly and gracefull amidst their battered tops and shattered arms being yet stately monuments or reliques of that former benignity which was in this English soil toward Churchmen and Ministers many of whom grew to so tall a procerity as of learning and worth so of wealth and honour in some degree answerable to their worth and becoming that reall dignity which was in them far more usefull and considerable by wise men than any bare descent of titular honor These I must be so civill to as not to name any of them that I may avoid suspicion either of envy or flattery two most detestable distempers in mens spirits and full of malignity Indeed I need not name some of them for although they are left as cottages in a wildernesse and as beacons on a hill yet they are still such burning and shining lights as cannot be quite hid Some of whose fame is in all the reformed Churches and their eminency renowned in all the learned world being indeed the beauty and glory of these British Nations the pillar and honor of the Protestant party the grand examples of pious Prelacy learned humility holy industry the great lights of this Northern climate Which alone might serve to fulfill Which wonder in heaven occasioned the learned studies of Ticho Brahe and did as he sayes foretell extraordinary light of learning and Religion Tich Brahe Astro Restius what the Cassiopeian flames did portend by that new star in the year 1572. Shall this age be not onely guilty spectators
persons countries or Churches It is hard to discerne the Star of Prophecy so over any one man or place or time as that was over the house where Christ was in Bethlehem Hence many meteors falling Stars and fatuous fires are frequently discovered in the writings of fancifull and factious men as if all they did or desired or approved were evidently foretold and commended in the Revelation In whose Visions one sees this Princess another sees that learned man a third that State or Kingdome a fourth that Commander and Conqueror c. according as men list to fancy themselves or flatter others whose sparks are far extinct and their glory presently vanisheth as no way proportionable to that fixed light and ample glory which the spirit of prophecy holds forth chiefly to the Christian world in opposition to Heathens Jews or Antichrists After the way of these Prophetick fancies and passionate methods of some mens misinterpreting and misapplying Prophecies great Religion we see hath been placed by small mindes in pulling down and extirpating the ancient order and government of Episcopacy which was in all Churches as here in England from the first plantation of Christianity Also in setting up the supremacy of an headlesse Eldership and Presbytery or in dashing both of them into sheards and small pieces by the little stone of Independency How doe some glory in their dividing and destroying the ancient goodly frames of Churches that they may new modell them to their popular way of calling chusing and ordaining of Ministers Many boast much in their forsaking the calling and communion of all former Ministers and religious assemblies in their despising and demolishing the very places of publique meeting to serve God which not conscience of any divine particular precept but common reason and civility have presented Christian Religion withall for its honour and its professors conveniency Some here with us in England a place whose Genius much disposeth people to prophecies novelties and varieties are as Pygmalion with his Image so inamoured with their Corpusculo's the little new bodies of their gathered Churches that they deny any Nationall Church in any larger associatings of Christians by harmonies of confession and peaceable subordinations yea and many will allow no Catholick Church nor any religious sense to that article of our Creed denying any true Church at all to be now in the world Some place all Church power in paucities in parities in popular levellings and Independencies others contemn all those broken bodies as schismaticall slips having nothing in them of that goodly beauty stature strength and integrity to which the Church of Christ was wont to grow and wherein it flourished and continued conspicuous so many hundred of years before these novelties were broached or brewed either in England or any other countrey The height of some mens Religion and Reformation is to have neither Bishops nor Ministers of the ancient authority succession and ordination Others refuse these also of the new Presbyterian stamp which is not much older here in England than the figure and superscription of the last coin A third will have no Minister but such as the common people shall try chuse consecrate and judge Some will have no Minister at all by office or divine mission others will have any man a Minister or Prophet that lists to make or call himself one In like manner some will allow Baptism to no Infants others to none but such whose parents they judge to be Saints a third baptize the children of all that professe they beleive the truth of the Gospell a fourth sort deny the use of any water Baptism at all By a Catabaptisticall boldnesse or blindenesse magisterially contradicting and sophistically disputing against the expresse letter of the Scripture against the command of Jesus Christ against the practise of all the Apostles and against the custom of all Christian Churches Pretending as a rare and warm invention that the Baptisme of fire and of the Spirit which they now at last hold forth will both supply and explode that colder ceremony of sprinkling or dipping in water It is strange these Rabbies and Masters in Israel should be so silly as not to know that long before their brain brought forth any such blasphemous brood against baptizing by water all judicious Christians ever esteemed baptism by water to be an extern sign and meanes by which the wisedome of Christ thought fit to administer to his Church on earth not onely that distinctive mark of being his Disciples but also the representation of his bloud shed for their redemption and the obsignation of that Baptismall grace which his Spirit confers on those that are his by the cleansing of the conscience and renewing of the inward man 1 Pet. 3.21 Christians must not after the short and more compendious methods of their fancies therefore neglect the sign or ceremony because they presume of the thing signified but rather with humble obedience doe the duty and use the meanes divinely instituted that they may obtain the grace offered On the same grounds all outward Ministrations among Christians may be despised and abolished by those that pretend to the Spirits inward efficacy which is never in any man that doth not obey the Gospell in its outward mandates as well as the Spirit in its inward motions Proud idle and ignorant fancies are dayly finding shorter wayes to heaven than the wisdome of Christ hath laid out to his Church in following of which no good Christian can judge that there is either piety peace or safety Some boast much of their popular and plausible gifts for knowledge utterance prayer c. others slight all but inward grace and the Spirits dwelling in them Some dote much upon their select fraternities and covenanting congregations others are onely for private illuminations solitary seekings sublime raptures and higher assurances Some admire themselves in their tedious strictnesses and severer rigors by which they gird up the loins of their Religion so strait that it can hardly take civill breath or the air of common courtesie others joy as much in the Liberty they fancy themselves to have attained both of opinions and actions Some make every thing a sin and errour which they like not others count nothing a sin to which they have an impulse and are free as they call it Some tolerate all wayes of Religion in all men till it comes to be private Atheisme and publique confusion others crack all strings which will not be wound up to their pitch damning and destroying all that are not of their particular mode and heresie though never so novel and differing not onely from the Catholick practise of the primitive Churches but also from the expresse rule of the Scriptures Whom would not these monsters of novelties varieties and contradictions among Christians in their Religion as it is Christian and reformed too even amaze and greatly astonish ready to scare all men from any thing that wee in England call Religion Reformation Church or Conscience
this was chiefly done by the able and accurate pens of the godly and learned Ministers who needed in those times no other defence on their part either for order government maintenance Ministry or doctrine All which were then preserved from vulgar injuries and insolencies by the same power and sword which defended those civill sanctions and lawes which established and preserved all things of sacred and Ecclesiastick as well as of civill and secular concernment Untill these last fatall times which pregnant with civill wars and dissensions have brought forth such great revelations and changes in Church and State wherein Scholars and Churchmen in stead of pens and bookes have to contend with swords and pistols Which weapons of carnall warfare were unwonted to be applyed either to the planting propagating or reforming of Christian Religion onely proper to be used for the preservation of what is by law established from seditious and schismaticall perturbations For it was not the vinegar but the oil of Christian Religion not its fierinesse but its meeknesse not its force but its patience that ever made its way through the hardest rocks and hearts And by these strange Engines these new armes of flesh we have hitherto onely seen acted and fulfilled with much horror misery and confusion those things in this Church and Nation which were foreseen and foretold by two eminent and learned persons yet of different opinions as to the extern matters of Ecclesiasticall polity Mr. Richard Hooker and Mr. Thomas Brightman the one in the preface to his Ecclesiasticall polity the other in his comment on the third chapter of the Revelations Who many years agoe in times of peace and setlednesse in this Church of England foretold not by any infallible spirit of prophecy for then the later of them would not have been so much mistaken in the fate of his dear Philadelphia of Scotland but meerly out of prudence conjecturing what was probable to come to passe according to the fears of the one and the hopes of the other in case the then spreading though suppressed differences and parties in Religion which they then saw made many Zealously boldly discontented came to obtain such power as every side aims at when they pretend to carry on matters of Religion and Reformation wherein immoderation being usually stiled Zeal and moderation lukewarmnesse it was easie for sagacious men to foresee and foretell what excesses the transports of inferiours would in all probability urge upon superiours if ever these managed power so weakly and unadvisedly that any aspiring and discontented party might come to gain power in a way not usuall which at the very first rupture and advantage would think it self easily absolved from all former ties of obedience and subjection to governours in Church or State without which liberty and absolution it is not possible to carry on by force any Novelties and pretended amendments of Religion contrary to what is established in any Church or Nation Indeed we see to our smart and sorrow that the deluge foretold would break in hath so overflowed this and the neighbour Churches that not only Mr. Brightmans blear-ey'd Leah his odious Peninnah his so abhorred Hierarchy the Episcopall order and eminency but even his beloved Rachel his admired Hannah his divine Presbytery it self yea the whole function of the Ministry feels and fears the terror of that inundation which far beyond his divination hath prevailed not only over his so despised Laodicea which he made to be type of the Church of England truly not without passion and partiality as I think with far wiser men He not calmly distinguishing between the constitution and execution of things between the faults of persons and the order of places between what was prudentiall and what is necessary what is tolerable and what is abominable in any Church as to its extern form and polity but also over his darling and so adored Philadelphia which he makes to answer to the Scottish Palatinate or Geneva form of Presbyterian government and discipline as if that Church of Philadelphia in its primitive constitution under the presidency and government of its Angell had any thing different from or better than the other neighbour Churches which is no way probable nor appears either in Scripture or Ecclesiasticall histories However it might be commendable in its Angell or President for its greater zeal and exacter care to preserve that doctrine discipline and order which it had lately received from the Apostles and which no doubt was the same in each Church who had their severall Angels or Overseers alike which all Antiquity owned for those Pastors Presidents or Bishops to whose charge they were respectively committed As for that evomition or Gods spewing this Church of England out of his mouth which Mr. Brightman so dreadfully threatens It must be confessed that the sins of all sorts of Christians in this Church and of Ministers as much as any have made them nauseous and burthensome to the Divine patience both in their lukewarm formalities and fulsome affectations of Religion in their empty pompes and emptier popularities So that Gods patience once turned into just fury hath indeed terribly powred out his vengeance on all degrees and estates in this Nation by suffering flouds of miseries and billows of contempt to overwhelm for a time the face of this Church as of old wars heresies and schisms wasted the Asiatick African and Latin Churches not more it may be upon the account of Ministers weaknesse and unworthinesse than upon that of peoples levity pride and ingratefull inconstancy which hath been a great means to bring on and continue these overflowing streams Which nothing but the mighty power of God by the help of good and wise men can rebuke and asswage so that the face of this Church and its Ministry may yet appear in greater beauty and true Reformation after it s so great squallor and deformity which is not to be despaired of through Gods mercy yet in a farre other way than ever Mr. Brightman foresaw But when and by what means this shall be done the Authour of this Apology doth not as a Prophet undertake to foretell onely he observes the usuall methods of Gods Providence in the midst of judgement to remember mercy and after he hath sorely afflicted to repent of the evill and return to an humble penitent people with tender mercies so that we may hope his wrath will not endure for ever nor that he hath quite forgotten to be gracious or shut up his loving kindenesse in displeasure Also hee considers the wonted vicissitudes of humane affairs arising from the changes incident to mens mindes who weary of those disorders and pressures necessarily attending all forcible changes in Church or State and long frustrated with vain expectations of enjoying those better conditions in things civill and religious which are alwayes at first liberally promised and expected at last they are prone with the same impetuosity to retire as the ebbing Sea from those
untractable World are not ignorant what noble Precedents may be alleged for my writing in this maner of Apology which is or ought to be a * Apologeticum scribendi genus est mixtura quaedam oratoris disputantis Dialectici deprecantis Eras twisting of Logick and Rethorick together a Checquer-work of Arguments and Oratory studying to cloth the Bones and Sinews of Syllogisms with the smoothness and beauty of Eloquence seeking at once both to convince the Understanding and to excite the Affections For besides those lesser and obscurer pieces recorded by the Antients of Aristides Melito * Quadratus ApostoloruÌ„ Discipulum Aâ—heniensis Pontifex Ecclesiae Adriano principi librum pro Christiana Religione tardidit Et tantae admirationis omnibus fuit ut persecutionem gravissimam illius exellens sedaret ingenium Cant. 2.2 Jeron ad Mag. de Aristide aliis doctis Christianis Quadratus Apollinaris Methodius Johannes Gram. Themistius and Apollonius this last being a Roman Senator wrote and recited in the Senate his Apollogy for the Christians and was after crowned with Martyrdom We have also extant those famous Apologies of Justine Martyr who dedicated his first to the Roman Senate and his second to Antoninus Pius Augustus also that of Tertullian who in the time of Severus the Emperor seeing Christians persecuted onely for the * Vel solo nomine ex praejudicio domnantur Christiam Ter. Apol. Name as a sufficient crime as many Ministers now are by some men wrote his Learned large and accurate Apology dedicating it to the Emperor and his Son Saint Hilary also wrote a Defence for the Orthodox against the Arrians presenting it to Constantius the Emperor And of later times in its kinde inferior to none is that Apology of the Learned Pious and incomparable Bishop Jewel * Bishop Jewels Apology The former wrote their Learned Modest and Eloquent Apologies for Christian Religion as it then stood like the Lilly among the Thorns baited persecuted and condemned on all sides by the Heathen who wanted neither numbers nor arts nor power to oppress yet was it boyed up and preserved by Gods blessing on the learned Courage and industrious Constancy of those and other Holy Men This last our Renowned Countryman vindicated the Reformed Churches and particularly this of England for their not complying with and submitting to the Councel of Trent and for their necessary receding from the Church of Rome so far onely as this did in Doctrine or Maners from the Scripture Rules and from the Primitive Judgement Canons and practise of the Fathers the first Councils and the Primitive purest Churches That excellent Prelate no doubt would have then fully asserted as he did other points then in dispute the Order Honor Office and Authority of the Ministry of the Church of England if either the ignorance or malice of those times had been so far guilty and ingenious as to question or oppose it which some men now do who dare any thing but to be wise honest and humble I know my self unworthy to bring up the rear of so gallant a Troop of Worthies in all Ages 5. Why by this Author nor is it from the ignorance of my own Tenuities or other mens Sufficiencies that I have thus far adventured to list my self in the Army of Christian Apologists or to march under the Banner of this Apology Onely in some respects I seemed to some men if not to my self to be signed out by providence to this duty or endeavor at least in as much as I may be thought redeemed somewhat beyond the ordinary from that grand prejudice which is like a beam in many Readers eyes or like a dead Fly ready to viciate the sweetest Confections made by any Minister in this kinde As if all were done onely for that livelihood and estate which their Church-Livings afford them that any Ministers so stickle and contend to uphold their Function and Ministry either by speech or writing Few men stand freer from the dashes of this suspition than my self in regard of either present benefit or future expectation by any imployment in the Ministry which is such as neither an idle man would undertake the work nor a covetous man much envy the reward Yet I thank God I want not either abilities or opportunities to exercise Piety and Charity among a company of poor for the most part yet good and orderly people whose love respect and peaceable carriage to me in these times hath merited that I should prefer the good of their souls before any private advantages so long as I am over them in the Lord. I thank God I have far less temptations of private interest than would be required to put any discreet man upon so rough an adventure in a tempestuous Sea where silence with safety were to be chosen rather than publickness with peril if I did not consciously and charitable look much more upon the publick where taking a general view of the state and condition wherein most of my Brethren the Ministers either are or are like to be in this Church if some men may have their wills I cannot but with shame and sorrow behold in all corners of the Land to how low an ebb not onely their persons but the whole profession of the Ministry now is or is like to be brought for Government Maintenance Reputation Authority and Succession in these Churches through the dissentions of these times And truly in the midst of our dust and ashes we the Ministers of England must confess That with no less justice than severity the Lord hath poured upon us this shame and confusion of face as well as upon other ranks and orders of men since our many great spots and foul stains both in Doctrine and Maners could not but be the more remarkably offensive to God and man by how much in the sacredness and eminency of that Calling more exact holiness was expected from us and pretended by us 1. Whence the lapse of Ministers in the love and reputation they had And here I hope I shall not give any my Betters or my Brethren any offence while I humbly prostrate my self in the Porch and Threshold of this Apology giving glory to God and taking shame to my self as well as others Not by an uncharitable censuring of any man but by a penitential searching and discovering the true cause for which I think the Lord hath poured this contempt upon the Ministers of this Church Herein to begin aright with God and our own Consciences may best relieve us with men the disburthening of a ship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. orat 15. Quicquid defisit pietati aut charitati confessionis humilitas suppleat Bern. 2 Sam. 12.13 is half buoying it up when sunk or a ground Ingenuous confession is a good part and a great pledge of future amendment Some diseases are half healed as soon as well searched and discovered It may be we may finde the same readiness both
so poor and feeble an engine as this of private compacts and covenantings by which they threaten with severe pens and tongues and brows to batter and demolish the great and goodly Fabrick and Communion of this and all other National Churches which are cemented together by excellent Laws and publick Constitutions so as to hold an honorable union with themselves and the whole Catholike Church That we rather wonder at the weakness and simplicity of those inventers and abetters who in common reason cannot be ignorant that as in civil respects and polity so in Ecclesiastical no private fraternities in families nor Corporations as in Towns and Cities can vacate those more publick and general relations or those tyes of duty and service which each Member ows to the Publick whereof it is but a part and it may be so inconsiderable an one that for its sake the greater good of the publick ought not in Reason or Religion to be prejudiced or any way neglected No more ought it to be in the Churches larger concernments for Peace Order and Government Nay we dare appeal to the Consciences of any of those Bodying Christians whom charity may presume to be godly and judicious Whether they finde in Scripture or have cause to think That the blessed Apostles ever constituted such small Bodies of Covenanting Churches when there were great numbers and many Congregations of Christians in any City Province or Country so as each one should be thought absolute Independent and no way subordinate to another Whether ever the Apostles required of those lesser handfuls of Christians which might and did convene in one place any such explicite Forms or Covenants besides those holy bonds which by believing and professing of the Faith by Baptism and Eucharistical communion were upon them Or Whether the blessed Apostles would have questioned or denied those to be true Christians and in a true Church or have separated from them or cast them off as not ingrafted in Christ or growing up in him who without any such bodying in small parcels had professed the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ in the due use of Word Sacraments and Ministry who endeavored to lead a holy and orderly life themselves and sought by all means which charity order or authority allowed them to repress the contrary in others No doubt the Apostles wisdom and charity was far enough from the wantonness and uncharitableness of some of these mens spirits who do not onely mock our Church and its Ministers 2 Kings 2.23 as the children did Elisha the Prophet but they seek to destroy them as the she-bears did the children Sure enough the Apostles instead of such severe censures peevish disputes and rigorous separations would have joyned with and rejoyced in the Faith Order and Vnity of such Churches such Christians and such Ministers where-ever they had met with them in all the World without any such scruple or scandal for their not being first broken into Independent Bodies and then bound up by private covenantings which are indeed no other than the racking distorting and dislocations of parts to the weakning and deforming of the whole VVe covet not a better or truer constituted Church than such as we are most confident Col. 2.5 Joying and beholding the order and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ the wisdom and charity of the Apostles would have approved in the main however in some lesser things they might gently reprove and reform them as they did divers famous and flourishing Churches And such a Church we have enjoyed in England by Gods mercy before ever we knew those mens unhappy novelties or cruelties who seek now to divide and utterly destroy us unless we conform to their deforming principles and practises And however we have not been wholly without the spots of humane infirmities yet we have professed Jesus Christ in that truth order purity and sincerity which gives us comfort and courage to claim the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 privilege of being true Christians and a true Church that is a very considerable famous and flourishing part branch or Member of that Catholike Church which professeth visibly or believes savingly in the Name of Jesus Christ the Head of the whole Body and of every part to whom we are united by the same common Faith and by Charity to one another Certainly the best Churches and Christians were antiently like the goodly bunches of Grapes Numb 13.24 which the Spies brought between them as an emblem of Christ crucified hanging on a staff so fair so full so great and united clusters From which no small slips did ever willingly divide or rend to Schism but presently they became not as the fruit of Canaan but as sowr Grapes fit onely to set mens teeth on edge wheting them to bite and devour one another For the maner of each particular holy Administration in our Church to answer all the small cavils which men list to make 23. The great shield of the Church of England is to encourage too much their petulancy and to make them too much masters of sober mens time and leisure Onely this great and faithful shield * See those Reverend and Learned Writers Bishop Bilson Bishop Cowper Doctor Field Master Richard Hooker Master Mason and others Learned men heretofore have and we do still hold forth to repel all their darts and arrows That both in the Ordination of our Ministers and in their celebration of holy things and in its Government Order and Harmony the Church of England hath followed the clearest rules in Scripture and the best paterns of the antient Churches onely enjoying those Christian liberties of prudence order and decency which we see the gracious wisdom of Christ hath allowed his Church and which particular Churches have always used and enjoyed in their extern rites and customs with variety yet without blemish as to the Institutions of Christ or to the soundness in the Faith or to any breach of Charity or any prejudice and scandal to each others liberties in those things So that those busie flies upon the Wheels of this Chariot the Reformed Church of England in which the Gospel of Jesus Christ hath hitherto been carried among us for many years with great triumph and success have stirred up very little dust so as might blinde any eyes that are not full of motes and beams or blood-shotten from seeing clearly and evidently a true Christian Church a true Ministry and truly religious Administrations among us Blessed be God though these sowr Momusses finde or make some faults and flaws in lesser matters the mending of which they most oppose and hinder yet their strength cannot shake the foundations of our Jerusalem which are of pretious pearls and solid stones nor can their malice overthrow our grand and goodly pillars the true and able Ministers and their holy Ministrations of Word and Sacraments among Professors of the Faith who do as unquestionably constitute a true Church as a reasonable
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 Oâ—â—eâ—â—i 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 Apostoloâ—um successioneâ—â—piscoporum 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 Saâ—â—aments 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 â—am quae est in unoquoque lâ—ci 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
are transported with ariseth from the like ground as was in the hearts of Tobias and Sanballat Nehem. 4. Solatiam est malorum bonos Ca pere Ieron ut improbi suo malo delectantur ita invidi alienâ— bonâ— terquentur Amb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amb. and that scornfull crue against the Jews that by their means this Church of God as the Temple is built repayred clensed reformed That by their valiant courage learned skill and vigilant Industry the truth faith holy Ordinances and good manners of this Reformed Church are asserted vindicated preserved and restored from those ruines rubbige sords and demolishings by which erroneous ambitious covetous and licentious minds seek to waste infest and quite abolish the Reformed Religion both in England and every where else In order to which grand design the Anti-ministeriall Adversaries are not wanting to bring all manner of rayling accusationâ— and indign Calumnies against both the Ministers and Ministry of this Church Some of which I think it a shame for me by reciting of them to pollute either my Pen or the purer eyes of those readers who excell in Civility as much as those evill Speakers do in insolency and scurrility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 27.34 both for carriage and language against the best Ministers in England But it is no wonder if they give us the gall and vinegar of bitter reproaches to drink when they intend shortly to crucifie us All is less than was sayd and done to Christ himself It is part of our honour and blessing to have men speak all manner of evill of us Mat. 5.11 if we can but make it appear to be most falsly and and injuriously as well as most indignly and ungratefully Such manner of speaking becomes no mens mouths but those whose hearts abound with so much malice against the best Ministers who ought to be the best of men and generally are the best of speakers In honour to whose many reall and excellent gifts becomming the dignity of their holy place and function as also in charity to all others chiefly those who most despise and hate the Ministers of this Church I shall endevour to let all men see in the following part of this Apology the malice futility and falsity of those evill speakings wherewith some men please themselves the more because they think they please some others whom they fancy to have a very evill eye and an heavy hand toward such Ministers as most study to please God and to preserve the Reformed religion in this Church of Christ CAVIL or CALUMNY IV. Against the Ministry of England as Papal and Anti-Christian THe fourth Cavil or Calumny then wherewith the office and function of the Ministers of England is battered and defamed among the credulous weak and vulgar minds is this That if there be such a peculiar order and office of the Ministry established in Scripture by a Divine Institution and so continued in the Church by a right Ordination for some times of Primitive purity to a holy succession yet the present Station Calling and Authority of the Ministers of England is apparently Antichristian as derived from Episcopall Ordination and that descended from the Papall or Roman authority which was but of late years abolished as that of Episcopie they think now is neither of them seeming to them to be of Christs appointment or according to Scripture-rule and patern So that if it be necessary to have peculiar Ministers by office it is also necessary to cast off the former order and standing which is degenerated and to begin upon some new account which shall appear to be neerest to the pattern of Divine Institution and primitive practise how ever it may fail of a constant succession for above these 1600. years from Christ during all which time it is evident indeed that Bishops have had a chief place and influence in the Ordination of Ministers and for 1000. the Pope hath chalenged something of Supremacy and Jurisdiction in these Western Churches over all the Clergy both Bishops and Presbyters None of which are fit to serve in Gods house as Ministers while they are not clensed from that leprosie which they have contracted from the Pope and Prelates Answ I will first endevour to take off from the face of our Ministry this scandalous visard of the Papall authority 1 The Papal Usurpation no prejudice to the true Ministry of England more than to all other Christian Institutions which scares some people so very much that they are afraid to medle with any thing that ever passed the Popes fingers except only the lands and revenews of the Clergy Having removed this veil or covering which was sometime over these Western Churches we shall easily see the face of the holy Ministry no less than of other Christian Institutions restored without any Disfiguration or Essentiall change by any such mask as might sometimes be upon it through the policy and folly of many It were a very weak and injurious Conâ—ession no less prejudiciall to the Reformed Churches than pleasing to all the Romish party if the Pope could perswade us Protestants and other Christians to cast quite away and utterly abhor what ever the Papall usurpation hath abused or the Romish devotion hath used in matter of Christian religion Sure then we must seek for other Apostles and Saints other Scriptures and Sacraments another Gospel and Messias than Jesus Christ no less than other Bishops and Ministers For over all these the Popes of Rome have spread the skirts of their usurped authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ep. 67. Plato All things handled by men are subject to be sâ—yied 2 Thes 2.4 Antichristus ChristuÌ„ mentitur turpitudinem vitae falso nominis honore convestit Jerom. ad Geront Amara erat Ecclesia in nece martyrum amarior in conflictu haereticorum amarissima in moribus domesticorum Ber. â— 33. in Cant. Petri CathedraÌ„ occupat tanquam Leo paratus ad praedam bestia Apocalyptica cui datum est os loqueus blasphemias bellum gerere cum sanctis Ber. ep 125. Maâ— 21.13 Christus Templum Dei cauponibus latronibus deturpatum non diruit aut penitus detestatur sed purgamenta ista faeces ejiciendo Dei domum in diviniorem usum asserit hoc modo in pristinum honoram restituit Chem. Mat. 23.2 Mat. 15.6 their impure mixtures their corrupt doctrines and superstitious manners Who as far as they are Antichristian that is go in any wayes contrary to the holy rule and humble patern of Jesus Christ yet might yea and ought to sit in the Temple of God as all Antichristian spirits indeed do who cannot properly be but where there is a Profession of Christianity yet it doth not follow that the Catholique Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail so as to extinguish the name of Christ was either wholly ruined by Antichristian superstructures or that the whole fabrick of it must be pulled down
sad so the advantages have been great which the Anti-ministeriall party have gained by the preposterous zeal of some Anti-Episcopall spirits which transported them not only beyond and against all bounds or rules of Reason Order Scripture Ecclesiasticall Custome and Laws here in England but even contrary to their own former and some of their present judgements touching Episcopall Presidency which they never did nor do yet hold to be unlawfull in the Church how ever it might be attended with some inconveniencies and mischiefs too not arising from the nature of that Order and power which is good but from the corruption of those men that might manage it amiss This makes many of these Ministers have now so much work to take off that leprosie from their own heads which they told the people had so much infected the Bishops hands by the Imposition of which they yet own their Ministeriall power and holy Orders to have been rightly derived to them in that Ordination by Bishops which was used here in the Church of England as in all antient Churches It is never too late to rectifie and repent of any mistakes and miscarriages incident to us as poor sinfull mortals Although Primitive Episcopacy which ever was as a grand pillar of the Churches Ministry Order and Government hath been much shaken and thrust aside by mans power or passion to the great weakning and indangering of the whole Fabrick and Function of the Ministry together with the peace and polity of this Church yet wise men may possible see after these thick clouds and dust of dispute what is of God in true Episcopacy yea and they may be perswaded to preserve and restore what is necessary and comly in it however they pare off what is deformed superfluous and Combersome in the behalf of which I am neither a pleader nor an approver It is now no time in England either to flatter or fear the face of Episcopacy or sinisterly to accept the persons of Bishops There is nothing now can be suspected to move me to touch with respect those goodly ruines from which the glory of riches and honour are now so far removed but only matter of conscience and the integrity of my judgement And therefore I here crave leave without offence to any that are truly godly either Ministers or others who may differ from me in this point freely yet as briefly as I can to discover my judgement touching this so controverted point of Episcopacy in which from words men have faln to blows and from wasting of ink to the shedding of blood I see that other men of different sense daily take their freedom to vent themselves against all Bishops and all Episcopacy some of them so rudely and unsavorily as if they hoped by their evill breath to render that venerable name and order ever abhorred and execrable to Christian minds which to learned and sober Christians ever was and still is as a sweet Oyntment poured forth nor doth it lose of its divine and antient fragrancy by the fractures of these times which have broken it may be not with devotion and love so much as with hatred and passion that Alabaster-box of civill protection and Sanction in which it was here for many hundreds of years happily preserved from vulgar insolency and Schismaticall contempt Why may not I presume to enjoy my freedome too yet bounded with all modesty and sobriety without any prejudice or reproach reflecting upon the Counsels or actions of any men my Superiours whose power and practise as to secular mutations neither can nor ought to have any influence on mens opinions and consciences further than way is made for them by the Haâ—bingâ—rs of Reason and Religion which are best set forth and disce ned in innate principles of Order and Polity also in Scripture precepts and precedents and lastly by the Catholick Custome and practise of the Church of Christ. Ans In my answer therefore to this Cavill or Calumny touching Bishops which many Ministers are as afraid to name or own with honour as they are to call any holy man either Apostle Evangelist Father or Martyr by the title of Saints my intent is not largely to handle that late severe and unkind Dispute in England about Episcopacy or Prelacie for this having been learnedly and fully done by others would be as superfluous so extremely tedious both to the Reader and my self Nor is it my purpose to justifie all that might be done or omitted by some Bishops in their government But my design chiefly is 1. to remove that popular odium to allay that Plebeian passion to rectifie those unlearned prejudices and to take away those unjust â—ealousies which are by some weak and possibly well-meaning Christians taken up and daily urged against all Bishops in a Presidentiall eminencie among Presbyters or above other Ministers 2. My next is to justifie that holy Ordination and Ministeriall authority which by the imposition of their hands chiefly was with probation prayer and meet Consecration duly conferred upon the Ministers of this Church according to Scripture rule and Ecclesiasticall custome in all setled Churches But before I handle the first thing proposed I must seek to remove that prejudice which sticks deep in some ordinary minds against Bishops and their Authority meerly arising from the darkness and sufferings of late so plentifully cast upon them if arguments and words could not yet Arms and Swords have they say convinced Bishops and subdued them notwithstanding all their learning Sed quid berba Remi sequitur fortunam ut semper edit â—â—mnatos Juv. their gravity their piety their protection which they pleaded from the Churches Catholick custome and the Lawes of this Church The vulgar are prone to think those wicked who are unprosperous and accursed who are punished Yet in true judgement of things those great and many impressions of worldly diminution and supposed Miseries made upon Bishops are more just arguments against the innocency of their persons place Job 1. and lawfull power than Jobs afflictions were which the Devil never urged against his integrity but sought thereby to overthrow it as God did prove and exercise it I believe there are too many that would be content there should be neither Bishops nor Presbyters but such as are great sufferers Nor yet any Word or Sacrament or holy Ministrations nor any marks of Christianity in this or any other Reformed Church But the measures of religious matters are never to be taken from the passions or prevalencies of men nor from any secular decrees or human acts and civill sanctions Godly and famous Bishops in eminency among and above the e Presbyters were many ages before any civill power protected them and so they may continue if God will in his true Church even then when as of old most persecuted and sought to be destroyed Worldly Counsells and forces which commonly are levelled to mens secular ends and civill interests signifie little or nothing indeed to a true
non Anathemate dignos fatear si qui erunt qui non reverentur summâ—que obedientia observâ—nt Hierarchiam in qua sic emineant Episcopi ut Christo subesse non recusent ab illo tanquam unico capite pendeant ad ipsum referantur ejus veritate colligati fraternam chariâ—atem colant Beza in Apoca. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quem nimirum oportuit imprimis de his rebus admoneri ac per eum cateros collegas totamque adeo Ecclesiam Pet. Mar. loc com Zanchius Hoc minime improbari posse judicamus ut unus inter multos Presbyteros praesit Epis conf c. 5. th 10. Vedelius notis in Igna. Ex actis Epistolis Apostolicis atque ex Eccl. histoâ—icis colligitur ipsos Apostolos eorum successores hunc ritum observasse ut unus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nomine Presbyterii Ministros legitimè ab Ecclesia electos per manuum impositionem preces publicas ordinareâ— Gerard. de min. p. 372. Grotius inter propriè dictas Aposto traditiones esse â—sserit Episcopalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vot propace Peter du Moulin Epist ad Episc Winto Deodate in his Epistle to the late Assembly Pâ—imis beatis illis temporibus politeia Ecclesia admirabili Aristocratia mixta Epis Presbyt plebi sua jura tribuit Alsted de min. So Gerardus pag. 232. Retinendum Episcopalem ordinem asserit Propter 8. rationes 1. Varia dona dat Deus 2. Exempla Apostolica Primitivae Eccl. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3 propter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ecclesiae 4 Naturae congruus est ordo rationi in omni caetu 5. Alit concordiam 6. repâ—imit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 arrogantiam 7. Nulli gravis ubi sit electione per suffragia Presbyterorum peragit officium 8. Tollit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Schisma seditiones For the avoyding of Scandall giving to so many Christian Churches remayning in all the world who for the far major part are still governed by Bishops in some respect distinct from and eminent above the Presbyters It is not the work of Christian prudence or charity to widen differences between us and other Churches Greek Eastern African or Western yea we owe this Charity to the Romanists and to our selves rather who seem to have gained this great advantage against us by the offence given them in utter abolishing the Antient and Catholick order and succession of Episcopacy that they will less now esteem us Christians or to be in any true Church since they will not allow us any right and compleat Ordination of Ministers and so no Sacraments and no Christianity as to extern profession and administration without Bishops yea the best reformed Churches must needs be offended who approve such a Presidency of Bishops among Presbyters where it is continued with the doctrinall Reformation many enjoy Bishops stil as we did No learned and godly men ever thought it cause enough to separate from any Church because it had Bishops Such as have them not in a constant Presidency yet count this no part of their Reformation but rather deplore it as a defect involuntary pleading the Law of necessity or some grand inconveniencies and difficulty to excuse thereby their inconformity so far to other Churches and to all Antiquity yea the most learned and wise among their Presbyterians abroad oft wish they had the honour and happiness of reformed and reforming Bishops Nor ever did heretofore the most learned and godly people in England Ministers or others any more than the Princes Nobility and Gentry generally desire the abolition of right Episcopacy however now at last they had not either opportunity to plead for it or such power and influence as to preserve it against those inundations which God hath been pleased to suffer to overflow in this Church But rocks are not presently removed when over-flown what is of God will stand and out-live the deluge Corepiscopi forbidden to ordain without the Bishops licence by the Council of Ancyra which was before the 1. Nicaene So Concil Nicaenum owns and confirms the antient custom So Concil Arelat c. 19. So Concil Laod c. 56. Presbyteri sine conscientia Episcoporum nihil faciant Blondel Test Hier. p. 255. So Jerom excepta orditatione quid facit Episcopus quod Presbyter non facit Ad Evag. Inschismatis remedium factum est quod postea unus electus est qui caeteris praepontretur ne unusquisque adse trahens Christi Ecclesiam rumperet Jeron ad Evag. Quod Alexandria post Marcum Evangelâ—stam factum est à Presbyteris quomodo exercitus imperatorem faceret Cyprian Ep. 55. Non aliunde haereses abortae aut nata schismata quam inde quod sacerdoti Dei non obtemperatur Thirdly I prefer a Primitive Episcopacy as the best way of union and happy satisfaction to all learned wise and good men especially in that so shaken and disputed a point of Ordination for the right succession and conferring of power Ministeriall which the most learned and sober Presbyterians confess not to be weakned by Episcopall Presidency And very many no less considerable men for number learning and piety as Da. Blondell among others do think the right Ordination of Ministers to be much more strengthened adorned and compleated where it passeth through the hands of the Episcopall power and order if for no other reason yet for this that it was the Apostolicall Primitive and universall way used in the Church and by which the Authority and Office of the Ministry hath ever been together with Christianity derived to us from the Apostles times It s evident that the sudden and violent receding of many men from their former judgement and practise in this point hath occasioned many great scandals scruples and schisms troubles and confusions in matters both of Church and State giving great advantages to all that list to cavil at question and despise the Ordination and Ministry of even those Presbyters yea their very Christianity as to the outward form order and profession who so easily renounced and eagerly cast quite away that order and power as unlawfull and un-Christian Triumphati magis quam victi sunt Tac. de Germ. Nehem. 11.14 22. Sciamus traditiones Apostolicas sumptas de veteri Testamento Quod Aron filii ejus atque Levita fuerint in templo hoc sibi Episcopi Presbyteri diaconis vendicent in Ecclesia Jeron ad Eva. et ad Nepotianum So St. Cyprian l. 3. Ep. 9. ad Rogationum Fourthly A right Episcopacy seems yet never to have had so free full and fair an hearing as is requisite in so great a matter so as to have been evicted to be against the Scriptures as some pretended 1. When as 't is most evident in most learned and godly mens judgements antient and modern that it hath the neerest resemblance to that
are managed by men This government then by a fatherly president or chief Bishop among Presbyters seeming to have not equall 4. The advantages of Episcopacy against any other but far superiour grounds from Scripture both as to the Divine wisdome so ordering the form of his antient Church among the Jews also by the example precept and direction evident from Christ Jesus and the holy Apostles in the New Testament No wonder that many yea far the most of godly and learned upright men do rather approve a Primitive and right Episcopacy than any other new fashion which is rather conform to secular interest than to any thing of the Churches or true religions advantages especially when 't is evident that Episcopacie hath the great and preponderating addition of the Antient sole and Vniversall government approved and used by all the Churches of Christ in the purest and most impartiall times To which neither of the other can with any face pretend for themselves nor with any truth contradict it being averred by all Antiquity in the behalf of right and regular Episcopacy which never failed to succeed the Apostles authority and eminency either by their own immediate appointment in many places even while they yet lived or by the election and Votes of the Colleges and Fraternities of Presbyters after the Apostles decease who still chose one man eminent for his faith piety zeal and holy gravity to be duly consecrated in power and place above them as a Father among sons Aust Ep. 148. ad Valeriâ—â— Jerom. ad Nepotianum Ad Evagriuâ—â— Crysost hom 3 in Act. Apost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crysost Hom. 3. in Acta or an elder Brother among brethren or as a Master or Provost in a College or as a Generall in an Army as St. Jerom himself tells us If any man ask me then what kind of Bishop I would have Vid. Synes l. 3. Ep. 21◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Epist c. Vid. Bern. ad Eug. l. 4. Opâ—rtet te esse formam justiâ—ia sanctimoâ—a speculum pietatis exemplat veriâ—atiâ— assertoâ—em fidei defensorem Christianorum ducem amicum sponsae c. I answer Such an one for Age as may be a Father for wisdome a Senator for gravity a Stoick for light an Angel for innocency a Saint for industry a Labourer for constancy a Confessor for zeal a Martyr for charity a Brother for humility a Servant to all the faithfull Ministers and other Christians under his charge I would have him venerable for those severall excellencies which are most remarkable in the antient and most imitable Bishops The devotion of St. Gregory the indefatigableness of St. Austin the courage of St. Ambrose the learning of Nazianzen the generosity of Basil the Eloquence of Chrysostom the gentleness of Cyprian the holy flames of Ignatius the invincible constancy of Polycarp That so be may come neerest to the Apostolicall pattern and resemble the most of any Christian or Minister the grace and Glory of our Lord Jesus Christ Quod in aliis sacerdotibus deest per Antistitem surpleri debet Elotus ad Aug. cp August ad extremam senectutem impraetermissè praedicavit Possid vita Aug. Et successores incitatores Apostolorum Et zelum ac locum sortiti tam igitur ad curam quam alacres ad cathedram Bern. ser 77. Cant. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pet. l. 2. Jerom ad Heliadorum Naz. orat lat tom a. Grandis dignitaes sed grandis ruina si peccent Ieron Vt nihil Episcopo excellentius sic nihil miserabilius si in crimine teneatur Amb. de dig Sa. I would have him yet not I but the vote of all pious Antiquity requires a Bishop to be among men the most morall among Christians the most faithful among Preachers the most painful among Orators the most perswasive among Governours the most moderate among Devotionaries the most fervent among Professors the most forward among Practisers the most exact among sufferers the most patient among perseverants the most constant He should be as the Holy of holyes was both to the inward court of those that are truly sanctified and converted and to the outward court of those that are called Christians only in visible profession I would have nothing in Him that is justly to be blamed or sinisterly suspected And all things that are most deservedly commended by wise and sober Christians I would have a Bishop of all men the most compleat as having on him the greatest care namely that of the Church and of souls And this in a more publike and eminent inspection as one daily remembring the strictness of Gods account and expecting either a most glorious Crown or a most grievous Curse to all Eternity I would have him most deserve and most able to use well but yet least esteeming Vid. Bern. Ep. 42. Vid. Amb. tom 3. ep 82. Qualis eligendus sit Epis Quis ferat Eligi divitem ad sedem honoris Ecclesiastici contempto paupere instructiore sanctiore Aust ep 29Vt Episcopus non sit quod Libanius dixit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Res unde â—grè aliquid emolumenti eâ—â—ngatur Basil in ep 154. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Carm. 4. de Epis coveting or ambitionating the riches pomp glory and honour of the world One that knows how to own himself in Persecution as well as in Prosperity and dares to do his duty as a Bishop in both estates I do not much consider the secular Parade and Equipage further than as publike incouragements of Merit as excitations to excell as noble rewards of Learning and as catern decencies or solemnities which do much set off and Embroider Authority in the sight of the vulgar I wish him duly chosen with judgement accepting with modesty esteemed with honour reverenced with love Overseeing with vigilance ruling with joynt-Counsel not levelled with younger Preachers and novices nor too much exalted above the graver and elder Presbyters neither despised of the one nor despising of the other I wish him an honourable competency if it may be had with his eminency that he may have wherewith to exercise a large heart and a liberall hand which every where carry respect and conciliate love If this cannot be had yet I wish him that in true worth which is denyed him in wealth That his vertue and piety may still preserve the authority of his place and this in the Order Peace and Dignity of the Church That he may be the Touchstone of Truth the Loadstone of Love the Standard of Faith the Patern of holiness the Pillar of stability and the Center of Unity in the Church Nor are these to be esteemed as Characters of an Eutopian Prelate only to be had in the abstract of fancy and speculation Many such Bishops have been antiently in the Church and not a few here in England some still are such in their merits a midst their ruines and obscurings and more might constantly and easily be
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 modâ—st 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 〈◊〉 quâ—m 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
Presbyters in their due place regard and honour so that they should not have been put thus to plead for their Ordination and Ministry or to play this after game much to the hazard of their very Function and succession of Ministeriall authority The despising or abolishing of which threatens the annihilating of the very being of this reformed Church in which the right Ministry is as the Ark in Israel 1 Sam. 4. a visible token of Gods presence among Christians And though the Philistins may for the sins of this Church take it captive and detein it for a while yet I believe 1 Sam 6. the Lord will bring it back again with shame to his enemies and joy to all true Israelites In the mean time this trouble and terror may be a means to a mend the personall faults both of Bishops and Presbyters which formerly might viciate but they could not totally vacate the Religion reverence and conâ—cience which is to be had of Christs institution as to the Ministry Personall faults of Bishops or Presbyters may viciate but not vacate divine duties 1 Sam. 2.12 nor yet could they make voyd the honour of Religion nor the authority vertue and efficacy of hoâ—y Ministrations Where the persons duâ—â— ordeined did administer and the holy things themselves were according to Scripture right y administred which alwaies remain holy whatever is objected against mens persons administring as sickness lameness or deformity deprive no man of the privileges of humane nature nor his actions of rea on nor his civill interest of the benefit of the Laws Ely's scandalous sons unworthy indeed of but yet rightly invested into the Priests office did not take away the necessity and sanctity of the services and sacrifices much less of the Priestly function which depended not on the morality of the persons administring but on the authority of the Lord commanding and the right investiture into the office The miscarriages of Bishops or Ministers may take away the beauty but not the being of Religious duties or of that holy power which they duly received no more than lapses after Baptism do unbaptise any Christian No Christian thinks the series of Christs genealogy broken or blemished corrupted or interrupted stayned or maymed by the names of Tamar Rahab and Bathsheba which are links in that h ly chain which hath its verity in the history but its sanctity from Christ to whom it relates as to the holy seed So in the succession of Ministeriall order and authority we dispute not by what personall vertues it was continued but we are sure it hath been continued successively from Christ and tends to him as to the compleating of his second incarnation in his body the Catholick visible Church In which Christ is daily begotten and formed by the means of a right Ministry and duly ordeined Ministers 10. Of Ordination of Ministers Where Bishops are Orthodox and may be had Ordination cannot regularly be had without them Vbi Episcopi desunt nec haberi possent Orthodoxi Preâ—byteri in necessitate ordinare possunt Sarav de grad Mi. So Bishop Dâ—wnham Con. in Apocal. Or by the Bishops authority delegated as to the Chorepiscopi who were but Presbyters Isid Hippa de Eccl. off Whether Bishops ordeined Presbyters as Prelates in a superiority of divine power and peculiar order as succeeding the Apostolicall eminency which antiquity for the most part thought looking on Episcopacy in ordination confirmation and jurisdiction not as the only but as the highest branches of Church power lineally descended from the Apostolicall ordinary power of ruling and governing the Church or whether they did those acts of power and authority only as chief by Ecclesiasticall right in degree and order of place among the Presbyters as chosen or approved by them and placed in a precedency of place and presidency of action and inspection but still of the same intrinsecall power and order Ministeriall as to the first act or originall I need not further gratify any mans curiosity in setting down my opinion Ego vero à Presbyteris solis administrata 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regularem ad EcclesiasticaruÌ„ regularuÌ„ amussim factam non dixerim Aut in ea institutum ab Ecclesia post Apostolorum transitum ordinem per omnia servare Blondel test Hierom pag. 255. St. Pauls Epistle to Tim. and Tit. This I am sure What ever dirt and mire the restless hearts of wicked men cast up against the calling of the Ministry in England The Gospell and the holy Institutions of it appointed by Christ to be dispensed to all the world have never in any other way been derived to this long succession save only by the power of ordination which never was in ordinary cases believed or owned in the Church to be valid and effectuall in any men or from any hands but those who were formerly consecrated Bishops or ordeined Ministers Nor was this custom ever esteemed as the act of any generall Councill or Ecclesiasticall Canon but it had both example and precept and constant succession from Christ to the Apostles and from them to others with a command of continuation which was necessary for the Church and ever most conscienciously observed in the Church which never flourished better than when the modesty humility and wisdom of Presbyters joyning with and submitting to their Bishop as fellows to the Master of a College carried on that order peace and comly proportion in the Church before all the world that they were in the first century compared by Ignatius for their harmony to the strings well set and tuned on the Harp Ignat. Ep. ad Ephes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist ad Smyrn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea in an higher strain he compares them to the blessed accord between the Father and the Son Christ as man mediator and God where in the sameness of the divine nature yet there is the order and priority of relation These were the antient pipes and conduicts of Ministeriall Ecclesiasticall power which were first layd in the head and fountain Christ Jesus after branched to all places by a continuall order and derivation of Ministeriall authority Where the pipe is once broken there the stream of living waters must needs fail If any foulness flows or obstructions have befaln these pipes of due ordination as all that passeth through earthen vessels is prone to do in time which Christ and his Apostles have layd to serve his Church with the living waters of grace and truth and which have flowed these sixteen hundred years to the refreshing of infinite souls yet we must not cut them off nor quite stop them or turn the waters another way as choosing rather Independent wells and broken Buckets but we ought to cleanse those pipes and repayr those conduicts which only can hold and convey that holy water as the vessels of the Temple restoring them to their Primitive use and integrity Which by Gods help is easily done where pride passion
Governours in every Church as hath been proved than if some one or more cunning fellows should perswade credulous and silly people whom they find or lead into the dark or else blind them that they were indeed stark blind and had no power of themselves to see or open their eyes but must wholly be led by their guidance without having any sight or benefit of the Sun These poor seduced men have no more to do in point of relieving themselves and confuting so gross Impostors but only to open their eyes freely and to use the light of that Sun which they easily and clearly see shining over all the world which is not more evident to sense than this Truth is to judicious Christians That the power of Ordeining Ministers hath alwayes and only been in the Pastors Bishops and Guides of the Church who both ruled well and also laboured diligently in the Word and doctrine And since true Christians in this Reformed Church of England both Ministers and people have been so happy in this Church as to be delivered from the Romish superstitions and Papall usurpations they have now no cause to be less cautious or more patient to be gulled and deluded by popular seductions lest the second error be worse than the first Inasmuch as the furies and confusions of the vulgar are more dangerous than any errors of Popes or Bishops or Presbyters are like to be as Earthquakes are more dreadfull and pernicious than Eclipses or the Cloudings of the lights of Heaven The lights of the Church may recover their lustre and vigour in due time nor do they ever shine so dark but they afford a competent light to shew the way to Heaven But popular precipitancies and licentious extravagancies of the vulgar are likest to overthrow all religion and bury all Christianity by Gothick and Mahumetan methods in Atheism Illiterateness Confusion and Barbarity For as they have least skill in them and no authority given them to order and rule Church affairs so they have most passion and unbridled violence in them least able to distinguish between the abuse and use of things between gold and dross between what is of God or of Man when once they have got power and say that they know not what is become of their Mosesses Exod. â—6â— their divinely appointed guides their duly ordeined Bishops and Ministers the first thing they do is to make themselves molten Images and contribute both their Earings and their Ears their hearts and hands to those Calves which they set us for Tamuzzes Ezek. 8.3 or Images of jealousie and abominations whereby to provoke the God of heaven to wrath to reproach the honour of Christ to affront the true Ministers and to make the Reformed religion and this Church to become an hissing and astonishment to all round about A wise man of Spain saâ—d It is better in Church as well as in places of Civill power and Judicature to prefer corrupt men than weak and foolish The one is as a thief in a Vineyard who will only take ripe grapes till he is satisfied the other as an Asse which eats ripe and green crops the Vines treads down much with his heels and when his belly is full tumbles among them But our Antiministeriall Adversaries are still ready with scorn and laughter to demand What can Ministers 13. The vertue of holy Ordination Object either as Bishops or Presbyters confer more than other Christians in the point of Ordination What vertue or charm is there in the imposing of their hands or in their prayers by which to add to any mans ministeriall gifts and graces or to invest any man in a way of Church power more than is in any other Christians whose gifts and graces may be equall or exceeding their Infirmities far less than many Ministers are What power can they have to give the holy Ghost as they express in the form of Ordination yea whence do they challenge as of right the Name of Clergy-men as peculiar to their tribe and Calling where as all the Lords people are his lot and his inheritance and God is theirs Nor ought they contemptuously as by way of diminution to be called Lay-men or the Laity Since they are all spiritually anointed and chosen of God to be Kings Priests and Prophets I Answer Answ Of the Laity and Clergy Clem. Rom. ep ad Cor. p. 53. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lay-man is bound up by Lay commands 〈◊〉 keâ— hâ— rank Igâ—â— epist frâ—quently Tertul. Hoâ—â—â— Presbyter qui cras Laicus Laicâ— Sacerdotaliâ— munera injungunt De prae ad haer c. 42. saepe alibi St. Cyprian often So Clemens of Alexand. Differentiam inter ordinem plebem constituit Ecclesiae autoritas honor per ordinis câ—nsessum sanctificatus à Deo Tertul. de exh ad Cast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Const Apost l. 3. c. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Vid. Dr. Prideaux Praelect Consuetudo certissiâ—a loquendi magistra utendumque planè sermone ut nummo cui publica est forma Quintil. Jnst l. 1. c. 6. Sermo constâ—t ratione vetustate authoritate consuctudine Id. Vetera verba majestas religio quaedam commendat Id. to this last scruple first as least being not so much a beam as a mote in some mens tender eyes which like Leahs are easily offended As for the names then of Clergy and Laity in which the Nasuter Criticks of this age sent something of pride in the Ecclesiasticks or Ministers and of despiciency toward the faithfull people who are to be animated and flattered any way against the Ministry of the Church They may know that this distinction between the Clergy and Laity hath been used in the Church from the very first Primitive times as the antient Fathers Councils and the Histories of the Churches both Greek and Latin do testifie nor was the one ever intended or upbraided for a badge of vanity to the Ministry nor the other imputed for a brand of scorn to the people The piety and charity of those times were not at leisure thus to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stumble at straws I am sure as they antiently were so they still are usuall notes of difference in point of office and duty between Ministers and people not only in our ordinary Language yea in the exacter stile of our Laws which give both reall and nominall distinctions with the greatest authority Nor are they at all against the Scripture sense and meaning if they be not just to its words since the word of Christ hath evidently placed as limits of office so Marks and names of distinction between the one and the other as Pastor and Flock Doctor and Disciple Ruler and ruled c. Yea and we may easiâ—y gather from the Scripture dialect that as the faithfull people are in generall Clerus Ecclesia the lot or portion and heritage of the Lord So the Ministers are Clerus Ecclesiae A lot heritage and portion given by
deliberation humble resolution and good experience of that gift obtained which is able so to subject nature to the Empire of grace the body to the soule the flesh to the spirit carnall and sensuall imaginations to divine and spirituall * 1 Cor. 7.7 contemplations repressing innate flames by holy servencies so as preserves the purity both of body and minde together with the title of virginity so that votaries not strict and presumptuous or peremptory and absolute but conditionate upon humble and modest suppositions of that gift and mistery which * Mat. 9.11 12. God only can give them over themselves in order to an holy Celibacy have yet power of that Liberty in some cases to be enjoyed which the great and wise Creator hath allowed to humane infirmity without any reproach either to Himself who is the God of Nature as of Grace of the Body as of the Soul of the flesh as of the Spirit also without any uncomely or dishonourable reflexion upon any of his servants who thankfully and holily use that his divine indulgence Nil predest carnem habere virginem fimente mipseris Jeron ad Heliod We like the golden chain of Celibacy when it is sincere not copper gilded over but pure gold throughout when it is as an ornament or bracelet which may be taken off if need require and not as fetters or manacles so strait so heavy and so severely sodered on as weak nature cannot bear and true Religion doth not impost There have not been wanting many learned holy and excellent Bishops and Presbyters in this Church of England since the reformation who have glorified God not in a clâ—istered and vowed but yet in an unspotted and voluntary Celibacy Pura perpetua virginitas est perseverans infantâ—a Cyp. de Bo. Pudic. as others have in an holy and allowed Matrimony Both of them abhorring those preposterous presumptions rash affectations necessitous snares and rigid impositions of a single life upon our selves or others which make many votaries like fair apples splendid to the eye but rotten at the core We find that of ten Virgins Matth. 25. Non carnis solum sed mentâ—s integritas virginem facit Amb. 1 Cor. 7.39 five were foolish Flesh will putrifie in a close cupboard as well as if it be abroad unlesse it be throughly seasoned with salt A Cloister is no security to chastity unlesse there be such a measure of grace as may keep from secret pollutions no lesse then from publique putrefactions wherein who so findes himself so frail and defective that he cannot conquer and command himself it is both wisdome and piety for him or her rather to chuse Gods Purgatory of marriage than the divels Paradise of a Monastery rather to sleep on Gods holster stuffed with thornes or hard as Jacobs stone at Bethel than to repose on the divels pillow stuffed with doun Fulnesse ease and idlenesse breeding and nourishing infinite swarms of lusts which may be hived up as so many Drones Wasps or Hornets in those receptacles which pious munificence intended only for piety and purity not onely in the title but truth of Virginity Experience of later ages hath much abated the glory of enforced Virginity and vowed celibacy restoring to Christians and to Ministers as well as others the honour and liberty of holy marriage which is by the * Heb. 13.4 1 Tim. 3.2 1 Tit. 1.6 Apostoâ—icall oracle asserted as honourable among all men and by Scripturall Canons granted to Bishops and Presbyters as well A bishop must be the husband of one wife 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 3. p. 329. Ed. Lugd. Floruit cent 2. olim discipulus Clem. Romani quem Apost Paulâ—â— salutavit as to any other Christians and so used and taught in Primitive times as Clem. Alexandr telleth us Against which by a preposterous imitation of that celibacy or single life to which the persecuting extremities of primitive times drave many holy men and women that so the Gospel in its first planting and propagating should not want among other Miracles this of holy mens and womens chastity and severer virginity in desert cels and solitudes first after that in Convents and Monastick societies some mens after zeal and emulations so superstitiously cryed up virginity as injuriously to cry down the honour of marriage especially among Churchmen Which yet was not done without much opposition and remonstrance to the contrary by many holy men in those times Among which Socrat. hist eccl l. 1. c. 8. most remarkable was that of Paphnutius a Confessor and worker of Miracles who had lost his right eye for Christs sake whom Constantine the Great the more loved and reverenced for that glorious defect He in the Councell of Nice where many holy men out of no ill minde but thinking it would tend much to the honour of Christian Religion to continue those strictnesses of Virginity in the Church in the times now of peace and prosperity which had so adorned it in times of persecution that so it might not seem a matter of necessity compelling but of devotion choosing a single life he vehemently opposed what was proposed touching making of Decrees and Canons against the marriage of the Clergy shewing by Scripture and ancient practise the lawfulnesse of marriage in Ministers of the Church and the many not inconveniencies onely but mischiefs also which would follow such prohibitions whose holy and weighty reasons then swayed the Councell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. Ep. l. 3. that they made no such injunctions touching the Celibacy of the Clergy which after times plentifully cast upon them as so many chaines and snares which proved no lesse to the dishonour and stain as of the Ecclesiasticall order so of all Christianity than the primitive freedome of virginity or marriage had advanced the honour of both In both conditions of life we think a pure and chast minde the best rule or measure Ut Ecclesia ita foemana virgo esse potest de castitate quae mater est de prole Amb. ad Mesal de virg and a good conscience the highest crown or reward We are not at all taken with gilded frames and titles of * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 16. celibacy and virginity put to ill wrought and uncomely pictures of vitiated and deformed chastity which is a double imparity and of the divels deepest dye when it is but a colour and artifice of those that speak * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Carm. lies in hypocrisie forbidding both meats and marriage Nor yet doe we any whit dispise or undervalue any excellent modern piece of * Tim. 4.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil M. ad Lap. Virg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysp Ep. 2. ad Olymp. holy Virginity wrought after those primitive patterns and pristine originals of sublime severities in holy retirements yet withall we give that due honor which holy antiquity the
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 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. l. 2. 133. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. At. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 abasâ—d 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 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stâ—b in Reg. So Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 â—el 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. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 1. Reverenda ipsis Angeliâ—â—s 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 mâ—n 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 onâ—ri fâ—rent 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
malicious designs than to see that woful day wherein this abomination which threatens to make the Reformed Religion desolate in this Church of England being set up the whole Function and Succession of the true and lawful Ministry here should be questioned cashiered triumphed over and trampled upon by the foot of Ignorance Error Popery Jesuitism Atheism Profaneness and all sorts of disorderly mindes and maners All which heretofore felt the powerful restraints the mighty chains the just terrors and torments cast upon them by the convincing Sermons learned Writings frequent Prayers and holy examples of many excellent Ministers in England before whom the devils of ignorance error profaneness schism and superstition Luke 10.18 Vera fulgente luce flaccessit fulguris coruscatio terrore magìs quà m lumine conspicua Chrysost were wont to fall as lightning to the ground from their fanatick Heavens Have all these Sons of Thunder and of Consolation too who were esteemed heretofore by all Reformed Christians in this Church to be as Angels of God Embassadors from Heaven Friends of Christ the Bridegroom of their Souls more pretious than fine Gold dearer to humble and holy men than their right eyes the beauty of this Church and blessing of this Nation Have they all been hitherto but as Mahumetan Juglers or Messengers of Satan or Priests of Baal or as the cheating Pontifs of the Heathen gods and oracles Have they all been found lyers for God and born false witness against the Truth and Church of Christ Have they arrogantly and falsly * Numb 16.3 Ye take too much upon you since all the Congregation is holy every one of them c. Wherefore lift ye up your selves above the Church of the Lord Thus Korah and his company against Moses and Aaron taken too much upon them in exalting themselves above their line and measure Or magnifying their Office and Ministry above the common degree or sort of Christians And why all this art fraud and improbity of labor in Ministers Sure with the g eater sin and shame learned and knowing men should weary themselves in their iniquity Quò minor tentatio tò majus peccatum Aquin when they had so little temptation to be either false or wicked in so high a nature Alas For what hath been and is all this pompous pains and hypocritical sweat of Ministers Is it not for some poor living for the most part for a sorry subsistence a dry morsel a thred-bare coat a cottagely condition In comparison of that plenty gallantry superfluity splendor and honor wherewith other callings which require far less ability or pains have invited and entertained their professors in this plentiful Land Judges 8.6 Are not the gleanings of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer Are not the superfluities * Merito à secularibus negotiatoribus lucro praemio superamur quum caelestia aeterna à Christo expectamus munera Jeron of any ingenuous calling beyond the necessaries of most Ministers And all this that after infinite studies pale watchings fervent prayers frequent tears daily cares and endless pains exhausting their Time Spirits Estates and Health they might through many vulgar slightings reproaches and contempts with much patience condemn themselves and their relations first to * Grave est paupertatis onus ubi deest bonae conscientiae levamen quâ sublevante gravescit nihil quâ dulcante nihil amarescit Petrach poverty which is no light burden where a good conscience is wanting or an evil one attending as in this case malice doth suppose And now at last after more than One thousand five hundred years and one Century and half since the Reformation in all which time this Nation hath more or less enjoyed the inestimable blessing for so our pious Ancestors esteemed the lights of this World the true Ministers of the Church in their Prayers Preaching Writings holy Offices and Examples they should by some men be thought unworthy of any further publick favors or imployment and to have merited to be counted as sheep for the slaughter * Rom 8.16 For thy sake are we counted as sheep for the slaughter and killed all the day long Laniâ—na diaboli Christi victima Leo. They are Christs Lambs whom the Devil delights most to â—utcher in their persons And as to their Function or Calling which was ever esteemed sacred among true Christians to be wholly laid aside and outed with all disgraceful obloquies as if they had been but pious Impostors devout Vsurpers and religious Monopolizers of that holy Ordination divine Mission Power and Authority which Christ gave personally to the Apostles and both by declared intent and clear command to their due and rightful Successors in that ordinary Ministry which is necessary for the Churches good Or at best they must be reputed but as superfluous burthensom and impertinent both in Church and State chargeable to the publick purse dangerous to the publick peace useless as to any peculiar power of holy Administrations which some think may be more cheaply easily and safely supplied by other forward pretenders who think themselves endued with greater plenitude of the Spirit with rarer gifts with diviner illuminations more immediate teachings and special anointings by which without any pains or studies they are suddenly invested into the full office and power Ministerial And as they are themselves led so they can infallibly lead all others into all truth with such wonderful advantages of ease and thrift both for mens pains and purses that there will be no need to entertain that antient form and succession of ordained Ministers as any peculiar calling or function amidst so gifted and inspired a Nation So much more sweet and fruitful do these self-planted Country Crabs and Wildings now seem to many than those Trees of Paradise which with great care and art have been grafted pruned and preserved by most skilful hands which these new sprouts look upon and cry down as onely full of Moss and Missletow In this case then O you excellent Christians such freedom as I now use I hope may seem not onely pardonable but approvable and imitable to all good Christians who fear God and love the Lord Jesus Christ who have any care of their own souls any charity to the Reformed Churches any pity to their Countrey any tenderness to the religious welfare of posterity And in a matter of so great and publick importance it is hoped and expected by all good men That none of you either in your private places or publick power and influences will by any inconsiderate and mean compliance gratifie the evil mindes of unreasonable men in order to compass the Devils most Antichristian designs who seeks by such devices first to deceive you next to destroy and damn both you and your posterity Your * Blasphemiae proximum est Christiani silentium ubi Christi causa agitur negligitur quam filendâ— aquè prodimus ac Judas salutando aut
and decency but all was easily effected by the conventions of the chief heads and Fathers of the Churches the Bishops and Presbyters in any Province Patriarchate yea and in all the world which had commerce with the Roman Empire where the chief overseers of the Flock and representers of the Clergy met and so were best able to give an account of the state of the Church past and present or to advise for the future welfare of it So that many wise men think it may be sayd of Episcopall government in its right constâ—â—ution and use Platins in vita Pii 2. as Piâ—â— the second said of the marriages of Clergy-men He saw some reason why Marriage should be denied to them as to the honour of their Order and the redemption of them from secular cares c. But he saw much more reason to allow them that liberty which not only Nature Reason and Religion gives them as well as any men but even the honor of the Church required to avoyd the mischiefs and enormities which followed the contrary And beyond all dispute it appears after long dispute that if it be not necessary by Divine prescript and direction to have such Bishops among the Clergy yet there is no necessity made to appear against them either in Reason or Scripture Nor doth either Presbytery or Independency shew any so good title to divine right as Episcopacy doth which includes the good of both those and superads some thing of Order Unity and Excellency beyond them both for the good of Presbyters and people too Yea I have known some Ministers of good repute for Learning and Piety who were sometime great sticklers for the parity of Presbyterie yet they have since the mischiefs ensuing the change have confuted and quenched those former vain hopes and excessive heats confessed to me That they see nothing in an Episcopall priority or Presidency unlawfull as against Scripture or Religion only it was thought by many godly men inconvenient It may be so but those men did not foresee the after inconveniences which grow greater by many degrees So that I perceived that this long hot and bloody dispute which seemed to hold forth the question and title of Divine right for Presbytery without a Bishop was now referrable to the judgement of Prudence rather than of Conscience a matter of policie rather than piety Answer to what is urged in the Covenant against Episcopacy Tyrannicum Episcoporum regimen This calmness at last abates much of that rigor which some men superstitiously urge and impose from the Covenant against Episcopacy in any kind or form as if when Scripture and Reason and Antiquity and Catholique custome are all for a right Episcopacy it were of any force to be battered and Abolished by the Covenant the sense of which was sometime declared to be only against the Tyrannicall abusive and corrupt government of Bishops or those inconveniences which were conceived to be in the present Constitution exercise or use here in England which one that had great influence in composing the Covenant assured others was the meaning of the Composers and the Covenants intent was only to remove what was decayed in that antient Fabrick and so preserve what was sound and good in it The only lawfull and honest sense of this Covenant is sufficiently kept if the former Constitution of Episcopacy in England be so reformed as it easily may be and in reason ought to be in what ever it needed alteration or amendment However that Covenant being no infallible Oracle dictated from heaven but a politique Engine continued and carried on by a company of poor sinfull and fallible men upon whose heads we have lived to see that arrow fall which they thought to shoot only against the face of Episcopacy all its words and senses are certainly to be brought to the rules of every mans place and calling of a good conscience of right reason and of Scriptures Not may these with all Antiquity and the Fathers be forced to bow their sheafes and to do homage to that one Sheaf of humane Combination and novell Erection which holds forth as nothing for a headless Presbytery or Independency So nothing of Reason Scripture or Conscience against a right and primitive Episcopacy Against which to make a Covenant of extirpation must needs be so much a sin as it is against all reason and religion to abjure the use of any thing which is lawfull good and usefull And if it be not necessary as of Apostolike and divine Institution if there be not Precept divine commanding yet there is clear practise directing the Church that way of Episcopall government as best which some men wel knowing to have bin antiently approved and constantly followed by the Catholike Church they used in the Covenant that art against Episcopacy to soder Popery and Prelacy together thereby to bring the greater odium on Episcopacy â— Prelacy to Popery implying that they were both intollerable and inseparable whereas in truth there is nothing more ridiculously false and absurd than to think the Pope to be the Father or Fountain of Episcopacy or to affirm Prelacy to be Popery as now the word is commonly understood to signifie Error joyned with pride and superstition with tyranny There were many godly Bishops and holy Prelates in the primitive Churches which were equal or preceding in time as at Antioch Jerusalem Alexandria c. Episcopatus unus est cujus ingulis in sâ—â—idum pars temtur Cyp. de un Ecc. to any Bishop or Pope of Rome Many afterwards were equall to him in authority as to their severall Provinces Independent also as to any derivation of power from the Bishop of Rome As there are now many in the Christian world and were in the English Church both long before and ever since the Reformation Nor is the Pope by any wise men called Antichristian in any sense as he is a Bishop or Prelate of one Diocesse or Province Nor was he ever thought to be so by any judicious Protestant for then all Bishops in all the world as Bishops had ever been Antichrists and then the whole Church of Christ from the Apostles times must have had no other government ordination or Ministry but Antichristian which is a most impudent and intollerable blaspheming of God and the Lord Jesus and his blessed Spirit and of the whole Church As if Joh. 14.16 in stead of the Spirit of Truth it had received only the spirit of Error and lying in stead of Christs being alwayes with it by the Ministeriall gifts of his Spirit and the Apostles and their Successors Mat. 28.20 Ps 2.6 only Satan had presided in it by falsity and usurpation and as if in stead of all the ends of the earth given to Christ for his possession in the way of an Evangelicall kingdome and Ministry where truth and righteousness charity and order are his Throne and Scepter all had been exposed to Antichrists invasion that he
hath brought forth If the honour and order of the highest branch the Episcopall eminency had been preserved with it Not so as to over-drop and oppress all other boughs and branches which are of the same root but so as to adorn them all and to be most eminent in Christian graces and Ministeriall gifts no less than in priority of place superiority of power and amplitude of honour and estate As many Excellent Bishops both antient and modern were against whose incomparable worth while some young and petty Presbyters do scornfully declame and disgracefully insult they appear like so many Jackdaws perking on the top of Pauls steeple or like living Dogs snarling at and trampling upon dead Lions Petulantissima est insaniae paucorum malorum odio in bonos omnes dehacâ—hari Nor do indeed such impotent tongues and miserable partialities of some men tuned to the most vulgar ears and humours against all even good Bishops and against a right or regulated Episcopacy such as was for the main and substance here in England they do not in any sort become men that pretend to any true piety learning gravity or civility I neither approve nor excuse the personall faults of any particular Bishops as to the exercise of their power and authority which ought not in weighty matters to be managed without the presence counsell and suffrages of Presbyters such as are fit for that assistance The neglect of this St. Ambrose and St. Jerom and all sober men justly reprove as unsafe for the Bishops the Presbyters and the whole Church For in multitude of counsell is safety and honour too Rom. 11.14 I am sure much good they might all have done as many of them did whom these touchy times were not worthy of No wonder if the very best of them displeased some mens humours who were impatient to be kept any longer in order but like waters Hieron Communi concilio Praesbyterorum Ecclesiae regebantur Concilio Carthag 4. c. 3. Nil faciat Episcopus c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not other Concil Ancyran assisted the Bishop in government long pent up they sweld to such discontents as disdaining to pass the allowed bounds and floudgates of publick Lawes they resolved to blow up and bear away the whole head and sluce of Government Bishops had three Enemies to contend with some Presbyters ambition some Laymens covetousness and their own Infirmities And it may be Bishops faults had been less in some mens eyes if their estates and honours had not been so great I write not thus to reproach any of my Fathers or Brethren the Ministers who begin many of them no doubt to be of my mind for moderate Episcopacy if they have not alwayes been so finding that the fruit of the Summer doth not alwayes answer the blossoms of the Spring cruell frosts may nip and blast those pregnant hopes of bettering which men are prone secretly to nourish whereby to excuse or justifie their desires of change and novely In which truly I never saw any thing of right reason or religion produced for the extirpation of primitive Episcopacy The main things that pressed upon it were Forein power domestick pride the failings of some Bishops the envious angers of some Presbyters and the wonted inconstancy of the vulgar If any men Ministers or others are as loth to see and recant their excesses and errors as they were forward to run into them but still resolve to keep that partiall bias on their judgement which shall sway all their learning and other excellent Ministeriall gifts against their own true interests and this Church with all reformed Religion which consisted in due moderation and peace I shall yet with my pity of their wilfulness or weakness alwayes love and reverence what I see in them of Christ and only wish that temper and moderation from them which may most contribute in common to the vindication of the Order and Function of learned grave and peaceable ministers This they may at last easily see That every soft gratification of vulgar ignorance envy and inconstancy set forth with the forms of zeal and reformation is usually returned with vilifyings and diminutions of their betters who did vouchsafe to flatter them as if they indeed feared them I heartily wish a greater harmony a sweet moderation and Fraternal accord among all true and godly Ministers who dare to own and do still adorn their office and calling I should be glad to see the counsell and assistance of well setled Presbyters crowned with the order and lustre of Episcopall presidency which was antiently as the Jewel wel set in a ring of Gold or as a fair guard and handle to a good Sword adding to its compleatness comliness and usefulness Alas the ordinary Ministers seem now like younger brethren who sometimes lived handsomly under their Fathers or elder Brothers care and inspection so scattered and divided that they are extremely weakned and exposed to all injuries Pro. 16.18 Pride goes before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall yea many of them like Prodigall sons having riotously wasted their own and their Fathers portion begin to consider what husks of popular favour they may feed on So is Insolency the high way to indigence and arrogancy soon knocks at the dore of contempt Ministers must not wonder or repine at the measure they measured to others when offered to themselves Secundas habeat poenitentiae tabulas qui non habuit primas impeccantiae Amb. I am far from reproaching any mens defeats or Calamities wherein the Justice of divine vengeance is seen retaliating I am glad if the occasioners of our common shipwrack may have any fair planks or rafters to save themselves and the honour of their Ministry either by recanting the errors of their judgements or repenting the transports of their manners If they retein their Antiepiscopall opinion with modesty and charity yet I am not disposed to fly in any godly mans face because he is not exactly like me or to pull out his eyes Multa tolleramus quae non probamus Aust because they are not just of the colour of mine I pray to be of that Christian temper for moderation and charity which can allow many latitudes of Prudence in extern things of religion where no evident sins for their immoralities nor evident errors against the fundamentals of Christianity nor evident confusions against charity and order which is necessary for the Churches peace do appear I wish that while Ministers or other Christians differ in things of extern mode and order they may all find and walk in that holy way by which we may with one shoulder of truth and charity carry on that great work of saving Souls both our own and those that hear us that while we dispense saving truths to others we may not for want of humility and charity be cast-aways our selves More of those calming and moderating graces on all sides had no doubt preserved both Bishops and
policy and worldly interests are really separated from those of Christ his Church and mens souls Nothing were more happy than to see this sincerely done so that Christians would rather deny themselves in profit and worldly advantages than any way benefit or gain by Church Reformations than which nothing is more sordid and more to be abhorred contrary to the holy liberality of all good Christians in all times If Ananias and Saphira were smitten for dissembling how much more accursed are they who act all with a sacrilegious Spirit and hand stripping and robbing the Church instead of Reforming I shall ever pray for just and liberall Reformations while I live mean time I rest satisfied in my conscience That the ordination of Ministers as it was in England by a Bishop and Presbyters as it hath the greatest regularity so it hath the greatest validity and admits the least dispute as to the right order and succession of Ministeriall power As for the Presbytery and Presbyters I think their Ministry very valid and their authority very venerable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. ad Ep. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. ad Smyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. ad Ep. to all true Christians especially in conjunction with their Bishop Like Tortesses they were safest while they keep under that shell which some Presbyters having scornfully cast off as a burthen striped themselves of their shield and defence so that they are become very naked feeble and contemned creatures whom the foot of pride and rusticity is prone to crush and trample upon on every side That they have now no refuge or protection left but God and a good conscience which are enough if they do indeed enjoy them though with poverty and contempt from men Thus I have as well as I had leasure vindicated the Ordination of Ministers and that power which they have to administer holy things in Christs name to this Church to be no way blameable but right and commendable as derived by and with the hands of Bishops and Presbyters which is the holy and Catholick way wherein only it is ordinarily to be obteined 1 Cor. 11.16 Aust cont Don. l. 4. if any men list to be contentious for other ways my answer with St. Paul is again and again neither we nor the Churches of Christ ever had any other custom and with St. Austin so Catholick a custom 11. Of the peoples power in Ordination of Ministers so agreeable to reason and Scripture could have no beginning but Christ and his holy Apostles There is yet one Calumny more against the Ordination of our Ministers in the Church of England which pretends the neglect among us of what is by some thought most essentiall in making a Minister that is of the peoples right both in choosing and ordeining men to that office the want of which they say makes our Ministry invalid Answ For this pretended right of the people no argument is alleged so strong as that of liberty which some have taken in these times to separate themselves from the ordinary Ministry of this Church and by a mutuall call of one an other to jugg themselves like Partridges into small coveys which they call bodies or Churches even before they have any Minister which they resolve not to have but of their own choosing and ordeining that they may be sure being a creature of their own to have him after their own humour flattering themselves that they have a plenary Church power to all Offices and ends whatsoever Although I have formerly given some generall account of the folly of this imagination in the vulgar yet because it is a Gangrene not easily cured without oft lancing and opening and hath far prevailed upon some peoples minds who feed this opinion with the venemous and vulgar humours of pride self-loving self-seeking self-pleasing self-flattering and self-admiring It is not a miss to give another stroak at this high imagination which exalts itself against Christ and the holy order of his Church that the obstinacy of its arrogance and folly being pulld down it may be levelled to that obedience which becomes all Christian people People have no power Ministerial First then I must profess that I never saw or heard any thing by any man with any shew of Scripture or reason urged to proove this power of conferring the holy order and authority of a Minister of Christ to be in the people Either eminently as an executioners power is in the supreme Judge or virtually as life is in the Suns beams or formally and causally as heat is in the fire or ordinatively preceptively and derivatively as the supreme Magistrates power is to some ends Numb 16. The Preface to Korahs rebellion and confusion is the peoples sanctity v. 3. and actions in the meanest Constable or publike Officer So that it can be in them no other way than as power may be in rebels hands or as Korah and his complices if they had not been by God repressed would have had liberty and authory from their own usurpation to make Priests and Rulers instead of Moses and Aaron whom the Lord had appointed Not by Scripture For Scripture First it is evident in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divine patern of polity and extern order of Religion in the Church of the Jews we find that the wisdom of God leaves nothing of holy concernments for Priests or Ministry no nor the least sacrifice offering or ceremony to the peoples either ordering or choosing Nor is it likely or any where appears that the unchangeable wisdom of God in Christ altering only the manner externall and not the order beauty holyness Phil. 4.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 5. A multitudine abhorret maximè vera Philosophia Lact. Inst l. 3. c. 25. è Ciceron Vulgar heads like many circles have so many circumferences that its impossible to draw them to meet in one center Charron Vbi major hominum turba major plerumque est divinitatis injuria Salv. or the main end of the service and Ministry Christian which his glory and his Churches good should so much vary from the former exactness and wariness as to venture the order beauty and honour of Religion upon the rock of vulgar rudeness ignorance rashness headyness stiff-neckednes which formerly he so much avoyded and which not only the tenderness of Christian Religion which having many enemies admits least blemishes and studies most what things are comely as well as holy but even common reason and experience teacheth all wise men to avoyd as much as possible Namely those inconveniences and mischiefs attending the weak heads and strong hands of the vulgar as in all things so chiefly in those which concern Religion Who that is wise can be ignorant that the common people even among believers and professors are seldom or never qualified with those gifts of knowledge wisdom temper and discretion which are necessary for all publike
have a name to * Revel 3.1 live by the Spirit and covet to be called spirituall who are dead in their lusts and walk after the flesh * Prov. 30 12. They seem pure in their own eyes and yet are not washed from their filthinesse Yea there is a generation O how lofty are their eyes yet are their teeth swords and their jaw teeth as knives Nothing is more cruell than supercilious hypocrisie * Ioh. 18.28 They were forward to crucifie Christ who were shy of being defiled by entring into the Judgement Hall They are most zealous to destroy the true Ministers yea the very function and succession who seem most devoted to be Teachers Prophets and Preachers of a new Spirit and form Many seem rich in gifts and increased in spirituall endowments thinking they need nothing of Christs true Ministry Revel 3.17 when they know not that they are poore and naked and blind and miserable Ephes 6.12 There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirituall wickednesses usurpant in the high places of mens soules as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more sordid and swinish spirits that dwell in the lower region of mens lusts It is expresly stigmatized on the foreheads of some pretenders to the Spirit Iude 19. which was the glory of those first and purest times that they are sensuall not having the Spirit Irenaeus l. 3. c. 1. of the Gnasticks andValentinians Gloriantur se â—mendatores esse Apostolorum perfectam cognitionmen non habuisse Apostolos cap. 2. Dicunt se non tantum Presbyteris sed Apostolis sapientiores sinceram invenisse veritatem So the Circumcelliones Quae non viderunt confingunt opiniones suâ—s habentes pro Deo honores quos non habuerunt se habuisse protestantur Isid Hisp de off Eccl. l. 3. c. 15. Vain and proud ignorance as we see in primitive times is not onely content to be without the true wise humble and orderly Spirit of God but they must also study to cover their follies disorders and hypocrisies with the shews of it as if it were not enough to sin against its manifest rules and examples in the Word which have alwayes been observed in the Church unlesse they impute also to it their simplicities fondnesses impudencies filthy dreams extravagancies and confusions Counting it no shame to ascribe those unreasonable and absurd motions speeches and actions to Gods most wise and holy Spirit which any man of right reason and sober sense or common ingenuity and modesty would be ashamed to owne Our humble prayer is that these new modellers and pretenders to the Spirit may learn not to blaspheme not to grieve resist and doe despite to the Spirit of God which hath been and still is evidently manifest in the true Ministers of this Church and our earnest study shall be that we may be truly endued with such gifts graces and fruits of the Spirit of Christ that we may both speak and doe and suffer as becomes good Christians and true Ministers after the example of holy men and of our great Master Bishop and Ordainer Jesus Christ That so the judicious Charity of those that excell in vertue wisdome faith and humility may have cause to say the Lord hath sent us in the power as well as in the order and office of the Ministry to which we were rightly ordained On the other side we fear that the great earthquakes in the Church and darknesse over the Reformed Religion which may follow the true Ministers being set at naught and crucified by the malice and wantonnesse of men may in after times give too much cause to those Mat. 27.54 that now neglect us or afflict us to say as the Centurion did of Christ Doubtlesse these were the messengers of the most high God the true Ministers of Jesus Christ and of his Gospell to this Church While we have any liberty and leave to live as Ministers it will become us not to be so discouraged by the impotent malice of any enemies as to desert this holy calling whereto the Lord by a right ordination in this Church hath duly called us Not to look back to the world having once put our hands to this plough to consider our persecutors no further than to pity them and pray for them notwithstanding all the injuries and blasphemies not against us so much as against God while they fear not to ascribe the great and good effects which the Lord hath vouchsafed to work by his Ministers upon the hearts of thousands in England to Beelzebub Mat. 12.24 to the spirit of Antichrist or to any thing rather than to own the Spirit of Christ among us which hee hath promised should ever be with his true and faithfull Ministers in an holy succession of authority and power to the end of the world Scandalous inconstancy of Professors Indeed the greatest grief to the Soules of all godly Ministers and which hath brought the greatest scandall and dehonestation on their Ministry next to some of their own grosse failings is this when the world sees so many of those who seemed to be baptized with water and with the Spirit to have been illuminated and sanctified by their teaching to have tasted of the heavenly gift Heb. 6.5 and the powers of the world to come that is of the authority and efficacy of the Evangelicall Ministry which was to come after the Leviticall and Aaronicall order Many who seemed to have rejoiced for many years in those burning and shining lights of this Churches Ministers to have by their Ministry been well instructed reformed washed and escaped from the pollutions of this world That I say some of these like Jesuruâ— should thus lift up the heel and thus kick against the Ministers and Ministry like Demasses thus to forsake them like Judasses thus to betray them whom lately they kissed and followed as Disciples like Swine that they should thus turn and revile those that cast pearl before them returning to the wallowing in the mire and dirt of unjust covetous ambitious erroneous seditious licentious perjurious malicious and sacrilegious courses No more now ashamed of their lusts then those unclean beasts are of their filthinesse in the midst of the fairest Sun-shine day and when they are neerest to the most pure and Crystall streams But the light which they will not see in this their day shining on them and discovering the frauds and evill of their wayes they may after see in that darknesse to which they are hastning and to which they seem even of God to bee condemned But to conclude my answer in this particular 15. Conclusion and resignation of our Ministry if c. wherein the Antiministeriall adversaries pretend to such spirituall gifts and speciall calling beyond the ordained and setled Ministry if any excellent Christians or any of those that have either wisdome to discern or power to dispose of things to the advantage of this Church and State if they doe in
reformed Church and that true Religion which the Ministers of this Church have professed and preached in many years And this not upon light and unexamined presumptions not upon customary traditions and the meer ducture of education not upon politick principles and civill compliances with Princes or people but upon serious grounds as solid and clear demonstrations as can by right and impartiall reasonings be gathered from the Word of God and in cases of its obscuritie or our own weaknesse from that light which the consent and practise of the primitive and purest Churches of Christ hath held forth to us in points of Faith doctrine and in all good orders or manners becomming Christians either in their private moralities or their publique decencies In this integrity innocency and simplicity which neither men nor divels can take from us we are sure to be destroyed if it must be so and to be delivered from an ungratefull generation of vipers Matth. 3.7 who think it enough to destroy those who have been a means of their being and life as Christians if our injuries and bloud could be silenced with us yet the very dust of our feet Matth. 1◠14 will be a testimony against such men at the last day of judgement when it shall be more tolerable for any Christian people under heaven than for these in England since among none clearer truths have been taught or greater workes done or better examples given than have been here by the Ministers of this Church Where hath there been under heaven more frequent Ministers merit of this Nation and more excellent preaching where more frequent and yet unaffected praying where more judicious pious and practicall writing where more learned and industrious searching out of all divine truths where more free and ingenuous declaring of them so as nothing hath been withheld or smothered where more devout holy and gracious living where more orderly harmonious and charitable agreeing than among those that were the best Bishops the best Ministers and the best Christians here in England Adorned with these ribands fillets and garlands of good words good works and good bookes must the Ministers of England like solemn victimes and piatory sacrifices be destroyed onely to gratifie some mens petulancy insolency covetousnesse and cruelty who list to be actors or spectators in so religious massacres 2. Considerations touching the Ministers of England humbly propounded But O you excellent Christians of all ranks and proportions If there be yet any ear of patience left free to hear the Ministers plea and apology if calumny hath not obstructed all wayes of justice or charity if slavish feares have not so imbased your piety and zeal for the Christian reformed Religion that you dare not seem no not to pity the Ministers of it if the separations and brokennesse of Religion in our unhappy times have not wholly blinded your eyes and baffled your judgements so that you have lost all sight both of true Church and true Ministry here in England I humbly desire that before the true and ancient Ministers be cashiered and quite destroyed these things may be considered 1. Whether it be a just proceeding to impute the personall failings of some men to the whole function and profession whether at that rate all Judges Magistrates and Commanders may not be cryed down as well as all Ministers Since where there are many there are alwayes some that are not very good 2. Whether it be fitting to condemne and destroy any men in any of their rights to which they pretend either of office or reward and that by Laws both divine and humane without a fair and full hearing what can be said for them or whether any man would have such measure meted to themselves 3. Whether Pride in some Lay-men of their gifts Envy in others against the welfare of the Ministers of Christ Covetousnesse in others as to their maintenance Profanenesse in others against all holinesse Ambition in others to begin or carry on some worldly ends and secular projects Licentiousnesse in others against all religious restraints Impatience in others to see any govern without or besides themselves Malice and spite in others against this as all other reformed Churches Hopes in others by our confusions to introduce their superstitious usurpations Whether I say these and the like inordinate lusts and motions in mens hearts as their severall interests lead and tempt them may not be great causes and influentiall occasions of these violent distempers which break out thus against the generality of the Ministers and the whole calling of the Ministry in this Church Yea what if all odious clamours and calumnies against them and their calling have no more of truth in them than a Jewell hath of dirt in it when filth is cast upon it whose innate firmness preserves its inward and essentiall purity What if nothing be wanting to the innocency and honour of the Ministry of this Church but onely patient and impartiall Judges pious patrons and generous protectours which was all St. Paul wanted when he was accused of many and grievous crimes by the cruell and hard-hearted Jewes which were his Countrey men and for whom he had that heroick charity as to wish himself Anathema from Christ that they might be saved Whether ever any Ministers of learning honesty and piety that had done so much for the religious welfare of any Christian Nation as the able Ministers of England generally have done for many ages were ever so rewarded by Christians or whether ever it entred into the hearts of religious men so to deal with their Ministers as some now meditate and design It were good for men how metald and resolute so ever they seem to be in carrying on their designs to make some pause and halt before they strike such a stroak as may seem to challenge Christ Severissimè punit Deus cum paenalis nutritur impunitas Aust and fight against God whose stroakes against men are heaviest when they are least visible and his wounds sorest when men have the least sense of their contending against him The perswasions and confidences of men may be great in their proceedings * Act. 26.9 Act. 9.4 as was in Saul persecuting when yet their zeale is but dashing against the goades or thornes and a meer persecuting of Christ himselfe which will in the end pierce their own souls through with many errors What if notwithstanding many personal failings in Ministers as men their function calling and Ministry be the holy institution and appointment of Jesus Christ transmitted to these times and this Church by a right order and uninterrupted succession as to the substance of the power and essence of the authority The talents or gifts were Christs and from Christ delivered to his Servants the Ministers of the Church though some of them might be idle and unfaithfull whose burying them in the earth or wrapping them up in a napking at any time was no wasting or imbezling of
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 aâ—d 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 Iâ—s 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 Objâ—ction 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 sâ—me 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
supplied to the Churches good order peace and honour If Reason and not Passion Religion and not Superstition Judgement and not Prejudice Calmness and not fierceness Learning and not Idiotism Gravity and not Giddiness Wisdome and not Vulgarity Prudence and not Precipitancy impartiall Antiquity and not interessed novelty may be the judge of true Episcopacy I think nothing further from a true Bishop Vid. Bern. ep 28. 152. 42. ad Ep. Senonum Aug. ep 203. in Ecclesiasticâ—â— honoribus tempora ventosa transigere c. Amb. de dig Sacerd. Cum honoris praerogativa etiam congrui merita requirimus c. than Idleness set off with pomp than Ignorance decked with solemnity than Pride blazoned with power than Covetousness guilded with Empire than Sordidness smothered with state than Vanity dressed up with great formalities Bishops should not be like blazing Comets in their Diocesse having more of distance terror and pernicious influence than of light or Celestiall vertue But rather as fixed Stars of the prime magnitude shining most usefully and remarkably in the Church during this night of Christs absence who is the only Sun for his light and Spouse for his love to the Church yet hath he appointed some proxies to woo for him and Messengers to convey love tokens from him among whom the holy Bishops of the Church were ever accounted as the chiefest Fathers next the Apostles when they were indeed such as evill men most feared good men most loved Schismaticks most envied and Hereticks most hated Right Episcopacy is so great an advantage to the Churches happiness and so unblamable in its due constitution and exercise that it is no small blemish to any godly mans judgement not to approve it and nothing as to imprudence is I think more blame-worthy than not to desire esteem love and honour it Since such Prelature is as lawfull as it is usefull and it is as usefull as either Reason or Religion polity or piety can propound in any thing of that nature which if not absolutely necessary yet certainly most convenient for the Church and commendable in the Church so far as it stands in a visible Pâ—lâ—â—y and society being no way either sinfull in it self or contrary to any positive Law of God any more than it is for Christians in civill governmenâ— to have Maiors in their Cities Colonels in their Armies Masters in their Colleges Wardens in their Fraternities Captains or Pilots in their Ships or Fathers in their Families Nor is indeed the venerable face of true Episcopacy so deformed by some mens late ridiculous dresses and disguises but that wise and learned men still see the many reverend and excellent lineaments of it not only of pious and prime antiquity but of beauty order symmetry In plebe nec veritas nec judicium inter saedam potentium adulationem praceps prostratorum odium inanibus studiis inconditis motibus omnia miscent Tacit. and benefit such as flow from both humane and divine wisdome if popular contempt and prejudices in some of the vulgar be any measure of things or any argument against any thing in Religion or in the Church of Christ it will serve as well to vilifie and nullifie all Presbytery and all Ministry as all Episcopacy Indeed neither of them can preserve their honor use and comliness if they exceed their proportions and either dash against or incroach upon each other contrary to those bounds and methods which primitive wisdom observed between power and counsell Order and Authority Community and Unity It is very probable that a few years experience of the want of good Bishops will so reconcile the minds of sober and impartiall Christians to them that few will be against them save only such who think the best security for some of their estates to be the utter exploding and perpetuall extirpation of Episcopacy A thing which one of the wisest of mortalls so much abhorred and for which he was able to give so good an account in Reason Piety and true Polity that it appears to have been not pertinacy and interest but judgement and conscience that so long sustained that unhappy Controversie which I have no mind to revive but only if possible to reconcile which is no hard matter where clear truths meet with moderate affections and peaceable inclinations For I find by the proportion of all Polity and Order that if Episcopall eminency be not the main weight and carriage of Ecclesiasticall government yet it is as the Axis or wheel which puts the whole frame of Church society and communion into a fit order and aptitude for motion especially in greater associations of Christians which make the most firm and best constituted Churches This being then the true figure of a learned grave godly and industrious Bishop there need not more be sayd to redeem Episcopacy from prejudices or to assert it against those triviall objections which are not with truth and judgement so much as with spight and partiality made against it Those light touches which are by some men produced from the antient Writers in the Church for the countenancing of the power of Presbyteries without any Bishop and President or for the Independency of power in Congregations are indeed but as the dust of the balance or drops of a full bucket compared to those full and weighty testimonies which they every where give for the use of Episcopacy unless men be allowed the confidence and liberty to bastardise the works of the Fathers as they list and by a new purgatorian Index tâ— antiquate all Records after 1500. years legitimation by the consent of all Churches as one lately hath endevoured to do D. Blondell a person indeed of great reading and learning but in this not of equall candor and impartiality who endevouring to find some foundation whereon to build his Presbyterie seeks to cast away as rubbidg and trash all the Epistolary writings of holy Ignatius Ignatius called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who if he had wrote nothing yet the fame of his piety and sufferings made him sufficiently renowned in those Primitive times and after ages both for a Bishop and a Martyr his seat Episcopall being at Antioch and his grave at Rome But his writings being never so far questioned by Antiquity By Euseb Clem. Alex. Jerom. Phâ—tit bibl See the Lord Prim. of Arm. edition of Ignatius as to reject those Epistles which we urge in this point of Episcopacy for genuine and which are oft mentioned with honour and in part the very words which we now read so that it seems a passion and boldness too servile to the cause which that learned man undertook so to endevour at once to expunge those testimonies and remains of Ignatius which indeed are very weighty and many for the distinction of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons even in the first century after Christ which our learned and industrious Country-man Dr. Hammond hath lately as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a valiant