Conformity ACCORDING TO CANON JUSTIFIED AND THE New Way of Moderation REPROVED A SERMON Preached at EXON in the Cathedral of St. Peter at the Visitation of the Right Reverend Father in God Anthony by Divine permission Lord Bishop of EXON BY WILLIAM GOVLD LONDON Printed by A. Maxwell for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty and are to be sold by Abisha Brocas Bookseller in Exon. MDCLXXIV To the Right Reverend Father in GOD Anthony by Divine permission Lord Bishop of Exon. Right Reverend Father in GOD and my ever-Honoured Lord IT were an unpardonable affront to your Lordship to publish to the World that you have laid a command upon me to be thus publique for I must declare that I had not the same injunction to Print this Sermon that I had to Preach it but it was partly done to gratify the importunity of the Regular Sons partly to stop the mouths of the malicious enemies of the Church of England The one zealously pretended it might be someway useful to recover and promote that indisputable Obedience which is due to our Ecclesiastical Constitutions the other cried it down with noise and clamour and calumnies which with men of their Character and Complexion drowns all the force of reason and demonstrations not to mention the moderate Conformist who had two impregnable arguments against the following Discourse the preheminence of Diotrephes and the interest of Demetrius But my Lord however this Sermon be entertained I am happy in the opportunity of thus openly professing my self your Lordships most humble and obedient Servant William Gould Kenne Devon Sept. 28. 1674. Conformity according to Justified c. 1 COR. 14.40 Let all things be done Decently and in Order THAT men pretending a tender Conscience should have Estrich-stomachs and digest Iron rather than Obedience esteem a Surplice more criminal than Schism and Sedition less culpable than Ceremonies plead for compassion from the weakness of their Brains when they have a stubbornness in their Necks which will not bow to any Regular Constitutions This is at once so ridiculous and mischievous an Impiety as puts all Hyperboles to a nonplus Who but a Refractory Non-conformist One who adheres to his own Conclusion in defiance to all Premisses could ever declare by his publique practice That the Whore and the Beast are more nearly allied to the Order and Decorum of my Text than Sacriledg to the late thorow godly Reformation or Witchcraft to Disobedience But these are not the only persecutors of this best of Reformed Churches We have a sort of men who are neither for Liturgy nor Directory Canon nor Covenant part Churchmen and part Schismatical having one Leg for a Tub and another for a Pulpit one Hand subscribing to separate Worship and the other to the Church of England such who conform to the Benefice not to the Canons and Pope-like cancel all their solemn Obligations to the Laws and give themselves a pardon and dispensation for their barbarous Irregularity against the Ecclesiastical Constitutions Ex animo in their Subscription signifies Lukewarmness and Neutrality an unfeigned Assent and Consent is a deep Hypocrisie Decently is a compliance with a faction and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to moderation and too frequently according to contribution Now we have not the Title of precious Soul-searching Ministers unless we sell Divine Worship to accommodate our Interests and add a precious breach of all our promises and engagements to the utmost height of all Sacriledg and Prophaneness He is your only Man of Moderate Principles whose Conscience is a Composition of Five precious Ingredients the Pride of Diotrephes the Interest of Demas the Treachery of Judas the Hypocrisie of the Pharisees and the Disobedience of Devils Such with whom to pray by the Purse is to pray by the Spirit who expose to sale their Duty and the Laws at the despicable pension of a few Ignorant Zealots who call themselves Saints before they are Christians and are Heirs of Heaven without the Civility of Heathens or the Morals of Infidels These are your blessed Episcopal Covenanters Canonical Comprehenders Clergy Merchants and Regular Renegadoes whose very Character is Nonsence and Contradictions It is from their Indevotion Irreverence and wilful Omissions as if some offensive vapours did ascend from our excellent Devotions that the people seldom enter some of our Oratories till the Air be first purged and cleansed and made clear and free to breath in by the Ravishing Meeter of Sternhold and Hopkins These are your powerful men of God described by Tertullian of old Tert. depi script cont Haeret Qui simplicitatem volunt esse prostrationem disciplinae cujus apud alios curam lenocinium vocant The Church hath a Custom to prescribe the Laws of Order relating to Divine Worship and these have a Custom that they be not observed Their Religion consists in the overthrow of Church-Discipline and Goverment and their Moderation is a wilful Omission of the Rites and Offices of the Church of England It is with these men as with Servilius in Rome Medium se gerendo nec plebis vetuit odium nec apud patres gratiam iniit Thus these please neither the Church nor the Schismatick not the Last because not wholly Irregular nor do they act according to the Canonical Precepts of their Mother because all things are not done decently and in order Calvin who with some is of more Authority than all the Fathers calls the Text the Canon of Canons giving life and efficacy to all our Ecclesiastical Constitutions Regula est ad quam omnia quae ad externam Ecclesiae Politiam spectant exigere convenit The Learned Dr. Hammond observes That upon these Two all Uniformity is built rendring the first according to Custom Custom being the Rule of Decency and the other words according to Appointment viz. of the Governours of the Church of God The Learned Bp. Davenant on Col. 2.5 where we have the same word for order as in the Text tells us It is a Military Term implying the Church is a well Marshal'd Camp wherein the strictest Discipline is observed and exercised It is an Army with Banners Cant. 6.9 and so where this requisite Order of Offices Distinctions Ranks and Files and Postures are not observed it 's in an Army of Souldiers non Ecclesiastica Disciplina sed politia Cyclopica est saith the Reverend Prelate upon that Text. The Church then is not all Head nor all Body no Roman Monarchy nor Disciplinarian party no Familistical Community nor Anabaptistical Anarchy but a well-compacted Army of Voluntiers who have listed themselves by their Baptismal Covenant to live and dye Christs faithful Souldiers and under the Banner of the Cross to follow the Captain of their Salvation the Eternal Jesus The Lord-Marshals under this victorious General are the Sovereign Christian Princes and in the next degree of Eminence the Reverend Fathers and Pastors of the Church who are especially to provide that the God of the
Moderate Clergy can make it probable that in the solemn and set Assemblies of Christians constantly observed a Presbyter was ever allowed to utter any thing of his own or others composing premeditated or extemporary without the approbation of his Bishop first had in the matter of Prayer which we now are discoursing of It is an impudent and untrue Assertion I wonder it could ever enter into any Mans mind that Ministers may of themselves curtail or add to the Service prescribed or modify the Worship of God But on the contrary as Baxter in his Cure of Church-Divisions doth well note no Man questioneth but some Form of Prayer was imposed on the Jewish Ministers of old and a Form of Prayer taught the Priests Joel 2.17 To which I add since the Word of God hath given us Forms of Worship of Praise and Prayer in the House of God If we will allow the Composers of those Forms to be of Gods own appointment which cannot be denyed we have in Scripture too in concurrence with the Ancient Church found out some appointed to make Prayers for other Pastors and Churches to offer up unto God And we find Titus for this purpose left in Creet to set in order what was wanting ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Grotius Pertinet and Timothy is charged with this Office as Bishop 1 Tim. 2.1 an Order is there given him touching the substance of Publick Prayer to be setled in the Assemblies of his Jurisdiction as Master Thorndyke notes and proves in his Treatise The Service of God in publick Assemblies in Timotheo mandata dat Episcopis so Grotius Again in the Imposition of orderly Rites attending on the publick Worship it was the stile of old Si quis praesumsâ—rit si quis contumaciter fecerit Anathema sit which is well Englished in our 34th Article by Laws established Whosoever shall through his private Judgment openly and wilfully and purposely break the Rites of Decency and Order enjoyned shall be censured c. Such therefore who are in profession Sons of the Church of England whose Imposition of a Liturgy and decent Rites is thus prudentially primitive and moderate and do wilfully and studiously violate the Orders prescribed by robbing God and the People of any parts of the publick Worship or Rites thereof upon the account of Preaching or the free Prayers of the Pulpit they do very wickedly I leave their own Consciences to condemn them till God himself doth which he will certainly do without a more honest and zealous adhesion to the Regular Constitutions It would be Ridiculously arrogant in me to prove out of Antiquity that the reading of the Litany the observation of the Feasts and Fasts Catechizing visiting the Sick and giving them their viaticum the Cross in Baptism the Rites of Decorum and the Decent Habits of the Clergy-men and many other Canons which this present Audience sufficiently knows to be truely consonant to the ancient Canons and primitive usage But you must give me leave to say that these are so far omitted not out of a prudential but schismatical Compliance Pudet haec opprobria nobis is too mild a reproof like that of Eli to his Sons It is no good report ye make the Lords People transgress Too meek a reprehension to such Sons of Corah or Diotrephes who by a barbarous disobedience to the Laws indeavour to bring into this Church tot schismata quot Sacerdotes Consider we again under this head of the Fathers and Councils the Authority confirming the present Canons of this Church and we shall find That also by undeniable evidence equally primitive with the Constitutions themselves We have such Canons as are treated on by Bishops and Priests but they do not with the Westminster-Conventicle of Divines meet without the Royal Call and Summons nor sit and act when the King Commands their dissolution with the Glascow-Assembly of spiritual Lay-elders but we own the Kings Power a parte ante to convene the Prelates and the Clergy-Representatives and a parte post to oblige their Subjects by their Confirmation to a Regular Obedience A clear primitive Practice assoon as ever God gave Kings to be Nursing-fathers to the Church as is admirably proved by Causabon Grotius Morney Duplessis our own Jewel Field Whitaker and others beyond all exceptions Now where King and Bishops thus joyn in Ecclesiastical Laws according to the constant Practice of Christs Church where Moses and Aaron the Oaths of Allegiance and Canonical Obedience meet together to oblige us there is not now the least pretence for a Man in Orders to despise such Rules as are truely Primitive in themselves when the Canons are treated on by the Episcopal Order which hath filled our Calendars with Saints our Histories with Fathers and Church with Martyrs and when this Order is subject to Kings and supported by Moses and both appointed of God for the Management of the Church under the blessed Jesus he is neither a true Priest nor Christian that denies obedience And here I do with all duty and submission most humbly beseech your Lordship and all under you advanced to any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to Countenance the truely-regular Clergy in their cheerful submission to the truly ancient Laws and Canons of this best of Reformed Churches When the Schismatick keeps a Faction in pay and allows Schism a Salary and gives a pension to the hollow-hearted Judas of moderate Principles to break and divide us 't is pitty the Zealous Conformist should want a Benefice whilest the Enemy thus nourisheth Vipers to eat their way through our Mothers Bowels God knows my heart I abhominate a private design when I thus speak as much as a moderation against the Rules of the Church of England I petition for a poorer sort of Brethren than my self for the Priest unbeneficed who is Ingenuous and Open-spirited Generous and Devout and a Lover of the Church of England And would not the primitive Canons of this Church be rather more than less observed If such an incarnate Seraphin had always the next Living of value in the Churches own gift If Self-interest should ever creep into a Cathedral it will first pull down the Honour and then the Walls It is not certainly for the peace or safety of our holy Mother that any Regular Conscientious Learned Priest should spend his time in a discontented Contemplation of his misfortunes whilest a barbarous Nonconformity without and Moderation within are sustained with a full and free enjoyment of all Creature-comforts in order to the ruining of the best of Churches This is I hope a pardonable digression as consonant with the Text and not repugnant to Antiquity in the Case before us as tending to increase and support the very little flock God knows of the truely zealous for our no less Ancient than Orderly Constitutions Fifthly To this Power of Ecclesiastical Superiours we have the harmonious assent also of all Reformed Churches Thete are two Excellent Books of Mr.
Durell entitled Ecclesiae Anglicanae adversus schismaticorum criminationes vindiciae and The Church of England not condemned by any other Reformed Churches both so well known to this Audience as sufficiently satisfactory in this Particular to all intelligent and unbiast persons that they spare me the Labour of any farther Discourse And indeed our Mother the Church of England is so far Justified against all imaginable rational Opposers from the publiquely-printed harmony of Confessions in which book are inserted also the Thirty nine Articles and by the publick open practice of our neighbour-nations we not condemning them nor they us that our enemies have recourse to Clamour and Noise and want only an opportunity by Swords and Pistols to encounter our Reasons and Demonstrations Club-Law must once again gain that advantage when occasion offers which they despair of by Arguments and Disputations They are not for treating like Men but fighting like Beasts Men neither to be broke nor to be softned all Anvil and Adamant and Nonconformists in all other Kingdoms and over all the Christian World as well as to the Church of England as is admirably proved by the Learned Author aforesaid All the Reformed Churches maintain this Principle That every National Church hath Power to make Laws for herself in outward things not expresly commanded or forbidden in the Word and that they may vary according to Times Places and Persons and other Circumstances and not one of them but hath acted according to this Principle in making Laws different from their Neighbour Churches I therefore pass to the last Particular not only Scriptures Reason Experience Fathers Councils and Reformed Churches but our Nonconformists and very Dissenters by their Confessions and Practices own this Power in Ecclesiastical Superiors however refractory to our present Constitutions And first I cite Calamy in his Convenant-Sermon who tells us That the Covenant is to be taken standing the head uncovered and the right hand bare must be lift up which are emphatical Cermonies sayeth the Man of God and Significant that we call God to witness c. Here I note that there are as many Cermonies in this unlawful Oath as the Church of England hath in her whole Worship legally authorized and the Ceremonies are significant too as well as ours 2. I cite the preface to the Directory where the thorough-Reformers thus conclude We are resolved to lay aside the Common prayer-book and set up the Directory instead thereof where we hold forth what is of Divine Institution in every Ordinance and other things not of Divine Appointment we do hold forth according to the Rules of Christian prudence consonant with the general Canons of the Word of God But now I demand By what Law of God or Man have you the Sole Priviledg of thus holding forth Why may not the Church of England use the same liberty of her Christian prudence agreeable to the Rules of the Word dic Quintiliane colorem If this Priviledg be granted to a Directory without Law set up why not to a Liturgy legally established and if granted the Church of England hath thus proceeded in the Liturgy prescribed viz. by Christian prudence and the Canons of the Word 3. I cite a not unlearned-Treatise of the Presbyterian entitled An Alarum by way of answer to the last warning-peice where the Authors tell us That no Man endued with right Reason but will say there is a necessity of a Government if of a Government then of an Vniformity else it will be confused therefore there is a necessity that every man should observe such Orders Time Place and Gestures as the Parliament and Assembly but why not as the King Bishops and Clergy shall appoint Very sound and good It follows No man that hath any use of Conscience in any thing but he will acknowledg that he is bound in Conscience to obey the Laws of the Land in things indifferent and deserves Censure for being turbulent even in matters of Worship But now the Case is altered the Nonconformists being not in Throne of Government it is false Doctrine at present in the Church of England 4. I cite Mr. Baxter who writing to his Brethren Brandon and Caryl cleaves a hair Let me be bold to tell my Brethren of the Ministry That though I deny them to have any Authority against the Word yet so great is their Authority as Guides and Governors of the Church in things agreeable to and but generally determined in the Word that the want of the knowledg of this Truth hath been the occasion of all the Schisms and Confusions in England And till we have taught even our godly people what Obedience is due to there spiritual Guides the Church of England will never have any good or established Order I say again we are broken for want of the knowledg of this Truth and till it be better known we shall never be bound up and healed To which if you add the formal Covenant of the Brethren of New England for admission of Members even these precious Saints will condemn themselves or must justify this best of Reformed Churches Thus I have by Scripture Reason Experience Fathers Councils Reformed Churches and the Confessions and Practices of the Nonconformists themselves plainly proved a Power in Church-governors to make Canons and decree Rites for the external Solemnity and Decorum and Order of Divine Service to which all Priests and People are to yeild Obedience under their Government and Jurisdiction quod erat demonstrandum From the preceeding Discourse I do as a zealous Brother reprove my Brethren of moderate Principles as Commentators as Casuists and as pretenders to the Politicks And so with a brief Exhortation to all my reverend Brethren shall conclude the Discourse 1. They are abominable Commentators They shall always sign the Infant baptized with the Cross that is to say the Children of Conformists but the Canon says not it must be done to the Seed of the righteous Not marry without Banes or Licence at uncanonical Hours or prohibited times or without the consent of their Parents or Governors that is The Minister shall not do it gratis but if soundly payd it is no Disobedience against the Canon of the Church He shall not diminish the Prayers of the Church on the account of Preaching or any other respect that is to say unless it be to increase the Salary or to lengthen the Sermon for to make way for the freely conceived Directory-way of canting in the Pulpit He shall read the Letany on Wednesdays and Fridays every week Antiphrasis voces tibi per contraria signat Canonical Obedience in omnibus licitis et honestis that is as far as the new Saints will permit upon whom they depend for a Maintenance The confirming their Doctrins by Scripture according to Exposition of the Fathers and their Mothers own Articles Populo ut placerent quas fecissent fabulas Whensoever they officiate to wear the Surplice that is if their precious Benefactors do not account