man in comparison seeketh after her bruise is almost incurable and her wound is very grievous There are few to plead her cause she hath no healing medicines her lovers have forgotten her since God hath wounded her with the wounds of enemies and with the chastisements of cruell ones who in her dust and captivity require of her to sing the songs of Sion commanding her to call her ruines Reformations and to account their persecutions her perfections It is time then for all that have any regard to the Church of England to cry mightily both to God and man to give them no rest till they return to be gracious to this much afflicted impoverished despised divided disordered Church It is high time for all honest English Christians to pitty her ruines to favour her dust to speak comfortably to her to put an end to her warfare to bind up her wounds to make up her breaches to repaire her losses as Jobs friends did his with their kind and munificent compassions that Posterity may not read in the sad ruines divisions and desolations of this famous and reformed Church of England pristine liberality and modern sordidnesse the bounty beauty and order of former times the deformity sacriledge and confusion of these later Who can consider without shame and regret how much more generous and large-hearted even those Ages were which had some rust and dimnesse of superstition growing upon their Religion then these are in which the English world is filled and confounded with the noise and shews of brightnings and reformations in which by new most preposterous methods some of our late unlucky Architects or Antivitruvian Builders have endeavoured with their axes and hammers to break down more good Church-vvork in twice seven years than the best master-builders can hope to repair in seventy seven I doe not mean onely as to the materiall and mechanick fabricks of goodly Churches which in many places lie sordidly wasted shamefully desolated but as to that which was the rationall politicall morall the prudentiall and truly pious structure of this well-reformed Church of England of whose ruines I shall give you afterward a more particular account But it is now time for me in order to work upon your affections to give over such tedious Prefacings and to present You with as true and lively a prospect as I can of Her sad posture There being more pathetick power in your hearing or seeing one of her own sighs and tears O what is there in her wounds than in the greatest seas of any mans oratory to stir up in You those filiall compassions which most become You to so deserving and now so distressed a Mother as is this Church of England The goodly CEDAR of Apostolick Catholick EPISCOPACY coâ—â—… with the moderne Shoots Slips of divided NOVELTIES in the Church ΔΕÎΔΡΟΛΟΓΙΑ The Embleme of the Trees explained In which is briefly set forth the History and Chronology of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency as pretenders to Church-government their first planting growing and spreading in the Christian World THe design of this Figure or Embleme is to instruct Christians of the meanest capacities who have less abilities or leisure to read large Discourses touching the due Order Way and Method of Church-union and Communion which Subject is now multiplyed to so many parties and opinions that ordinary people as in a Wood or Maze and Labyrinth are unable to disentangle themselves of those perplexed contentions and confusions which have of late so miserably divided and almost destroyed the Harmony and Happiness of the Church of England upon the disputes not so much about saving Faith and holy Life as those of a Churches right constitution in its Divine Original Apostolick Derivation Catholick Succession Regular Subordination and Brotherly Communion First most people learned and unlearned were heretofore prepossessed with the Catholick use and approbation of Episcopacy as ubique semper ab omnibus ever and onely used in this and all other Churches from the first planting of Christianity After this many weaker Christians came to be dispossessed of their former perswasions by the violent obtrusions of such a Presbytery as challengeth Church-government not in common with Bishops but wholy without them This forreign plant not taking any deep root in this English soyle was soon starved and much supplanted by the Insinuations of a newer way called Independency At last many heretofore well-meaning Christians finding such great Authorities even from Christ pretended on all sides for these diversities of Bishops Presbyters and People each challenging the right of Church-government Rule and Jurisdiction as principally due to them and from Christ immediately committed to them have by long perplexed and sharp disputes been brought to such doubtings as have betrayed them to strange indifferencies as to all Ecclesiastical Society and Order which is the very band of Christian Religion so far that they care for no Church no Christian Communion no setled Government no sober Religion By this Figure Type or Scheme every one may easily see in one view their rise growth and proportions what in the beginning was what ever since for above 1500. years hath been and what in right reason ought to be the authoritative and constant Order Polity and Government of every particular Church as a part of the universal if we regard either Scripture-direction or Christs institution or Apostolical prescription or universal practise of all Churches in all Ages and places till of later dayes wherein the factious Ambitions of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abortive and divided Novelties have either in too indulgent or in troublesome times strangely warped from or contested against uniform Antiquity either usurping upon or denying those just Interests which ought to be preserved joyntly in every well-ordered Church to Bishops to Presbyters and to faithful people who as Members of one Body and Branches of one Tree or Root ought to be but one in an Ecclesiastical harmony though they have different uses and offices for the common good The Catholick Church of Christ which all true Christians believe to be Sponsa unica dilecta the Spouse and Body of Christ one and intire as united to him the Head of all by one Faith so to one another as Members by one Spirit one Baptism one Bread and one Cup which are visible symbols or signs of that invisible Communion in Truth in Love Charity which every true Christian hath with Jesus Christ and all true Believers in all the world This Catholick one and uniform Ch. is here set forth under the similitude of one fair straight well-grown fruitful flourishing uniform Tree as the Cedar of the Lord full of sap rooted in Christ from whom it derives the spirit life and radical moisture of Grace by such outward means and Ministers as the Lord hath appointed to be workers together with him as some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for planting propagating watering
Irreconcilable differences between Reformed Truths and Romish Errors which are manifest and obstinate p. 308 CHAP. XVII Necessary separation and distance from Rome without uncharitableness p. 313 XVIII Two grand Obstructions of all Christian accommodation in these Western Churches p. 317 XIX The equity and charity of severe and sacrilegious Reformings p. 322 XX. The excuses and pleas for sacrilegious excesses answered p. 325 XXI Sacrilege a great pest to Religion and stop to Reformation p. 327 XXII The insatiableness of sacrilegious spirits unrepressed p. 335 XXIII Pleas for sacrilege answered p. 338 XXIV The Romanists discouragements as to the Reformed Religion by Sacrilege p. 343 XXV A plea for Paul's and other Churches in England p. 348 XXVI Of pious munificence becoming Christians p. 353 XXVII The main hinderances and unlikelihood of a conjunction between Protestants and Romanists p. 355 XXVIII Roman interests advanced by the petty factions of super-Reformers of Religion p. 362 XXIX The danger of divided parties in Religion as to the civil interests of England p. 370 BOOK IV. Setting forth the Sighs Prayers of the Church of England in order to its Healing and Recovery CHAP. I. THE design method of this fourth Book p. 389 II. The difficultie of repairing a decayed Church p. 393 III. Grand motives to a publick restitution and fixation of the Reformed Religion p. 400 IV. Sense of true Honour calls for the establishment of Religion p. 411 V. The hopeful possibility of restoring true Religion to unity and setledness in England p. 422 VI. Of means to recompose the differences of Religion in England p. 427 VII Of the late Associations projected by some Ministers p. 436 VIII Of civil Assistance from Lay-men to restore this Church Religion p. 442 IX A scrutiny of what is good or bad in all parties p. 447 X. The reconciling of the real interests of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency p. 452 XI True Episcopacy stated and represented to its Antagonists p. 458 CHAP. XII Objections against Episcopacy discussed p. 468 XIII Earnestly exhorting Ministers of all sides to an happy composure and union p. 479. XIV Humbly exhorting Magistrates to assist in so good a work p. 485 XV. Councils or Synods the proper means to restore lapsed Religion p. 492 XVI The method of restoring a setled Church and united Ministry p. 502 XVII Of the well-being of the Clergy or Ministry 1. In point of maintenance and support p. 518 XVIII Of meet order Government and subordination among the Clergy p. 527 XIX Several Pleas in behalf of Episcopacy p. 539 A first Plea from the Catholick Antiquity of Episcopacy p. 540 XX. A second Plea for Episcopacy from its Evangelical temper as to civil subjection p. 556 CHAP. XXI A third Episcopacy most suitable to the genius temper of the English p. 581 XXII A fourth plea for Episcopacy from their true piety and orderly policy p. 600 XXIII A Review of our late English Bishops p. 616 XXIV Bishop Usher Primate of Armagh an unanswerable vindication of Prelacy not Popish but pious p. 639 XXV Commending this Church of England with the Reformed Religion to the piety and wisdome of all persons of honour and honesty p. 651 XXVI A further Caution against Sacrilege upon the occasion of D. B his case lately published about purchasing of Bishops lands p. 665 XXVII Further commending the unity honor and support of the Religion and Ministry of this Church p. 685 The Catalogue of the Bishops in England and Wales 693 The Embleme of the Trees explained in which is briefly set forth the History and Chronology of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency as pretenders to Church-government their first planting growing and spreading in the Christian world p. 22. Revel 3.2 Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain which are ready to die Lam. 1.22 My sighs are many and my heart is faint Synes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ferreus est non fidelis non Christianus sed crudelis quem MATRIS Lacrymae non molliunt Suspiria non movent Planctus non mordent Preces non vincunt Vulnera non cruciant J. G. Ecclesiae Anglicanae Suspiria THE SIGHS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Humbly presented to my Honoured and Beloved Countrymen Persons of true Honour Piety and Prudence Who have a just Gratitude Love and Pity for HER. I Am not so ignorant of YOU Honoured and worthy Gentlemen or of my Selfe as to think That you need be put in mind by Me or any private Monitor of that Justice Moderation and Prudence which you owe to your Countrey in reference to those Civill Interests of Peace Plenty Safety Honour Liberty Settlement and the like Which I know doe usually fall under the first cares and counsels of men Momentary concernments giving us poore Mortals quicker summons and resentments than those that are eternall These being the objects of our Faith afar off Those of our senses neerer hand For the just establishing and prudent managing of which if Gods Providence either hath or ever shall give YOU any opportunity worthy of YOUR abilities and integrity I have no more to doe or say as to any of these secular accounts save onely to crave in all humility of the Supreme Wisdome and Mighty Counsellour That he would make you Repairers of those Breaches relievers of those burdens and dispellers of those feares which we owe not so much to the impotence or violence of other mens passions as each of us to our own sins and personall impieties Those importune soliciters of Gods Judgments which by a strange vicissitude and unexpected retaliation of vengeance doe testifie to our faces against the crying iniquities of all estates in these British Nations Which have provoked the just Judge of Heaven and Earth to punish some of us by sore adversities others by severe impunities justly letting us alone and smiting us no more Our Sins then becoming Gods greatest grievances when they are lesse ours as to Contrition Confession and Reformation than they should be And possibly would be if we felt their burdens in our afflictions Hence they also grow at last our greatest penalties and infelicities even then when Prosperity betrayes us most to Impenitency setting us farthest from Amendment and Remorse our earthy hearts usually most hardning when we enjoy the warmest beams of that Sun which Providence makes to shine upon good and bad the just and unjust As for those pecuniary and politick pressures which most men fancy to be their greatest grievances having a quicker sense of what pincheth their purses than what wounds or pierceth their consciences I have learned aâ—ter twice seven yeares experience to be a Christian Stoick Not utterly stupid and improvident but yet not so impertinent as to complain of any common charge or burthen which seems necessary to the present Polity under which I may have leave to live a godly and peaceable life much lesse so discontent as not to be thankfull to God and man for any moderate
bestowed on his Church in all the world who never till of later yeares knew any thing of other Church-governments besides that of Episcopacy any more than they saw new Suns or new Moons in the Heavens It may be these Parelii or Paraselenes these Meteors Comets and blazing Stars that now appear in despite of primitive Episcopacy will not be so long lasting nor so benign to this or any Church as that was though they seem to emulate yea and strive to eclipse nay quite to extinguish the shining of those ancient lights to which they owe their best light of sound Knowledge and Religion Episcopacy joyned with an orderly Presbytery Mean time what Inconveniencies yea Mischiefs and Miseries have or may attend these Fractions Diversities Divisions and Confusions upon the account of religious forms and Church-ambitions in this and other Churches between both Ministers and other sorts of Christians what spoyle and havock they may be tempted in time to make upon one another while they seek either to overdrop or to destroy each other as they have done beyond all moderation and mercy upon Episcopacy how little hopes there is that any or many or all of them can ever thrive and ascend to any height not of secular glory but of Christian proficiency in Truth and Love comparable to the pristine or modern Beauty Fruitfulnesse Usefulnesse and Goodlinesse of a right Episcopacy in England or any other Church is left to the sober judgement and prudent presages of all wise and worthy Christians that list to be spectators and Readers before whose eyes this Scheme is with Truth and Love plainly and impartially set forth as to the historick and politick Description of these several and unproportionable Figures which are lively Emblemes of the Catholick and ancient Unity and Uniformity under Episcopacy compared to moderne Diminutions Divisions and Deformities as to Ecclesiastical Polity Order and Government since Presbytery was planted in blood and Independency self-sown of late years in England whose Honor as a Church Christian and Reformed will then be most advanced together with its civil Peace when both Presbytery and Independency as to the just Interests of godly Ministers and people are re-ingrafted or re-incorporated with those of primitive Episcopacy which is beyond all dispute and ever was in the best and worst times the best Conservator as of Bishops Apostolick Authority and Succession so of Presbyters worthy priviledges and of all faithful peoples comely advantages so far as they are joyntly concerned in Ordination or Approbation of Ministers in Consecration and Communication in holy Mysteries in mutual Counsels Supports and Assistances both private and publick The just ballancing or even twisting of which three together makes Christian Churches and States at once ample honourable and happy both in Order and Unity in Strength and Beauty in Unanimity and Uniformity which are the best constitution and complexion of any Church that desires to thrive in Piety and Charity in Truth and Love which the wise and blessed God in mercy restore to us BOOK I. SETTING FORTH THE Present DISTRESSES OF THE CHURCH of ENGLAND CHAP. I. LEst any one should stumble at the very threshold of my Discourse and by their too much prejudice coynesse and easiness to take offence from Names should frustrate my whole design of doing them good by forbearing to read what I write upon such a subject I am at first as briefly and plainly as I can to assert the Name of the Church of Engl. Which Title is certainly the crown of our Country the honour of our Nation the highest holiest and happiest band of our society the surest foundation of our peace with God and men which under this name and in this relation becomes sacred as well as civil religious as wel as rational It was a very sad and bad exchange if this Nation then began to be no Ch. of Christ when it began to be a Common-wealth if it ceased at once to be an earthly heavenly kingdome which last as the Emperour Theodosius said was the greater honour of the two We eate and drink and sleep we beget our like we die or kill and devour one another as beasts we build and plant we buy and sell we rule and obey as meer men But we believe and worship the true God we professe the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ we are partakers of the gifts and graces of the blessed spirit we have an holy communion with that adorable Trinity and with one another in love and charity as Christians that is visible members of Christ our Head and of his Church which is his mysticall body our noblest life sweetest society and divinest fraternity is as we are Christians that is Emulators of the holy Angels Imitators of God children and servants in the family of Christ candidates of heaven expectants of happinesse partakers of grace and daily preparing for eternall glory All which are the dispensations capacities and priviledges of that nation and people onely which are and own themselves the Church of Christ A title of so much honour and reall advantages that in earnest no Nation or people once called and converted to be Christians and by publick vote or profession owning themselves to be such should ever be patient to be robbed or under any specious pretences and novel fallacies deprived of it since the Empire of the whole world and the riches of both Indies are not equivalent to this honour for a people to be called Gods people which were not his and for a Nation which sate in darknesse and in the shadow of death to be professedly and really the houshold of faith the Church of Christ as this of Engl. was heretofore owned to be by the solemn and publick profession of its Kings and Princes its Nobles and Peers its Parlaments and Synods its Magistrates and Ministers by the consent suffrages and submissions of all estates and degrees of people ever since its first conversion who never thought it any impropriety or barbarity of speech much lesse any disgrace to call themselves according to their joynt and declared profession of the name and faith of Christ The church of England Which Title I use according to the good old style and generall phrase of all learned godly and wise men both at home and abroad Ancient and Modern With which Inscription that excellent Bishop Jewell set forth his just and accurate Apologie ful of honest learning potent reasonings and unfeigned Antiquity besides Scripture-demonstrations which got It and this Church so great an applause both at home and abroad that all Reformed Churches and Divines admired it both this Church and that Book The more learned and modest Romanists either found they had not abilities to confute it or not confidence enough to despise it nor did any Non-conformists then boggle at this Title of The Church of England when they found it convenient to enjoy the benefit of Her shadow and protection however in some things they
evidently see tokens of an angry God of a provoked justice of an armed power from Heaven which hath begun not to chastise as a Father but to consume as an Enemy nâ—â— to reform as a Friend but to destroy and desolate as an Avenger this lukewarm this Laodicean Church of Engl. with all the Antichristian pomp pride and tyranny the superstition and abomination of its whole frame and constitution In this point or centre of the England's ill-reformed nay utterly deformed and desperate state it is that these severe Censors fix'd the foot of their compasses fetching in all Bishops and Presbyters all Preachers and Professors all Duties and Devotions all Ministrations and Ministers all Liturgies and Ceremonies within the wide circle and black line of their censorious severity condemning all but themselves and their own way or parties who are called and counted by some of them in a most Pharisaick pride and uncharitablenesse the onely Saints the called Elect and precious of God All such as are dissenters from them they have set already at Christs left hand fancying it a great part of piety magisterially to judge and authoritatively to condemn all the members of the Church of England both severally and joyntly though never so holy learned wise and good more upon popular prejudices and sinister presumptions than upon any just triall and serious examination which alas few of these censorious Adversaries and supercilious Destroyers of the Church of England are able to reach in any proportion either for parts or prudence learning or experience Reason or Religion being for the most part like Mushromes of crude indigested and dangerous composition who yet think themselves capable to compare with the highest Cedars of Lebanon and fancy they are able to over-top the fairest and fruitfullest trees that ever grew upon the mountains of God in this Church and Nation Alas they puff at all that ever was accounted pious or prudent learned or religious gracious or godly comely or comfortable holy or happy in the Church of England looking upon it with scorn and triumph as David did upon Goliah when he was dejected groveling and dead an object fit for these worthies to set their feet upon and by the sharp sword of their zeal utterly to destroy that neither head nor taile root nor branch of the Church of England may remain CHAP. IX BUt here as Michael the Archangel did so must I crave leave to contend with these men about this body of Moses this carkase almost this Skeleton as they esteem it of the Church of England which heretofore was thought to have conversed with God in the holy mountain of vision whose face was heretofore not onely well-favoured but it so shined that these feeble spectators the now blind blear-ey'd or blood-shotten despisers and destroyers of it were not then able to behold its glory without envy and regret Though the Lord may seem to have slain Her with Her children yet I cannot but believe and profess that the salvation of God hath been both manifested to and received by thousands in the former order way and dispensations of the Church of England that no Christians need few ever enjoyed more means of grace and glory than were piously and prudently dispensed in the Church of England While I live I must deny what is clamorously and injustly calumniated fiercely but falsely alledged to justifie some mens advantagious Schismes profitable Separations and gainfull Innovations that our publick afflictions and miseries have sprung as to their inward and meritorious cause from the evil and unsound constitution of the Church of England as it was once publickly reformed and established in this Nation This Calumny I can no more grant than that holy Job's sores grew from some unwholsome aire or diet he used or from the unhealthful temper of his body or that Satans malice was to be justified by Job's want of any right to claim or eloquence to assert his Innocency as to his practice before man and his Integrity as to his purpose and sincerity before God amidst his bitter losses and calamities which were so passionately aggravated by the unjust censures and misinterpretations of his mistaken friends because they did not wisely consider the paradoxes of Gods providences and depths of divine judgements which many times inflict upon whole Churches as well as upon private Christians by the malice of men and Devils many sharp and sore afflictions not alwayes for penary chastisements but oft for triall of graces exercise of patience and exemplary improvements in all Christian virtues which usually grow blunt dull and rusty through long plenty peace and prosperity and so need sometimes the mercifull files and furnaces of Gods inflictions mans persecutions and Devils temptations which are rather purgative than consumptive to good Christians and oft preparative for greater splendors both of inward mercy and even outward prosperity of which the Church of England hath not yet any cause to despair because it hath a good cause and a good God It is not more necessary than comely for the Body and Members of Christ to be conform to Christ their Head in bearing his crosse and partaking of his agonies upon whom the houre of temptation foretold is still to come as it did upon the Primitive Churches and Christians with some lucid intervalls for three hundred years There may be as good an omen or prognostick in the scorns and contumelies cast upon any Church of Christ by its persecutors as there was in the dirt of the streets cast upon Vespasian by the command of Cajus Caesar as a punishment for his not keeping the streets cleaner of which he was then chief Scavenger or Surveyor it was as Suetonius tells us in the life of Vespasian thought by the wise men to portend that he should one day receive into his bosome and protection both the oppressed city of Rome and the wasted Empire which accordingly came to pass Affliction is part of Gods good husbandry and is for the Churches mendment no less than compost or manure is for the Earths Hence the Christian Oracles bid us to rejoice with exceeding great joy when we fall into divers temptations of triall when we suffer for righteousnesse sake the spirit of Glory as Gods presence to Moses is oftner seen in the bush or shrub which burns but consumes not than in the Oke or Cedar in the low and mean estate of his Church as well as in the more pompous and flourishing S. Stephen had a clearer vision of Christ in Heaven when the cloud of stones was showring about his eares than ever he enjoyed in his more peaceable profession The Lily is not less fair nor the Rose less fragrant when they grow among the thorns Affliction like Gods physick hath that in healthfulnesse which it wants in pleasantnesse Particular parts of any Church may have causticks and corrosives applyed to them when God as a wise and wary Physician intends
Trinity for the justification sanctification and salvation of Sinners in all these I never found by my reading and experience nor do I know where to seek for any thing beyond or every way equall to what was graciously dispensed in the Church of England Upon which grounds appearing to me and all the unpassionate Christian World most certain no man can wonder if I so much magnifie and prefer the Church of England that in the communion of its Doctrine Worship Ministry and Order I chuse to live in the communion of its Faith Hope and Charity I desire to die Let my soul be numbred among those Martyrs and Confessors those renowned Bishops and orderly Presbyters those holy Preachers and humble Professors whose labours lives and deaths whose words works and sufferings helped to plant and propagate to reform settle and preserve to so great a conspicuity of piety grace and glory the Catholick Church of Christ in all ages and places and particularly this part of it which we call the Church of England I am so far from envying or admiring any novel pretenders who boast of their folly and glory in their shame in their endeavours to destroy and devour this Church that I rather pity their childish fondnesses their plebeian petulancies their insolent activities their unlearned levities their ingratefull vanities who have demolished much and edified nothing either better or any way so good as what they have sought to pull down as to the order honour tranquillity beauty and integrality of a Christian Church So little am I shaken or removed from my esteem love and honour to the Church of England that I am mightily confirmed in them by all the poor objections made against it by the unreasonable indignities cast upon it which are as dirt to a Diamond but the further test and triall of its reall worth and splendor nor do I conceive that by those afflictions which are come upon us God pleads against the Church of Engl. but rather for Her against the lewd manners of her ungracious and ungratefull children for whose wickednesse He makes so fruitfull a Mother to grow barren so fair an House to become desolate so flourishing a Church to decay and wither It is no news where the lives and manners of Christians are much depraved from the holy rule of Christ evidently set forth among them to see famous Churches like the Moon in the wane or eclipse clothed with sackcloth and turned into blood to see Order subverted Unity dissolved Peace perverted Beauty deformed Holy things profaned It is no news to read of holy Prophets blessed Apostles orthodox Bishops and godly Presbyters ill treated and despitefully used by Heathens Hereticks Schismaticks No men but ignorant and unlettered can wonder at Bibles and other holy Books burned at Church-lands alienated the houses demolished and the Preachers silenced banished destroyed All Church-histories tell us it was many times so even among the Primitive Churches even then when their pious and Apostolick constitution was no doubt at best it was most violently and desperately so just before the Churches enjoyed the greatest prosperity longest tranquillity the blackest darkness usually going immediately before the welcomest break of day as was remarkable in the serenity of Constantine the Great 's time succeeding the dreadfull storm of Diocletians persecution which was looked upon and intended as an utter extirpation of Christian Religion Which distressed estate of the Primitive Churches of Christ in all the Roman world Eusebius Bishop of Caesaria who lived in those worst dayes describes with so much pious oratory and so parallel in many things to the temper of our times that I cannot but present you my honoured countrey-men with the prospect of them because the fury and darknesse of that tempest reached even to the then British Churches in England under which many Bishops and Presbyters Noblemen and Gentlemen perished and among others that famous Martyr S. Alban who as Bede tells us in his History l. 1. rather then he would deliver or discover a pious Presbyter whom he had hid in his house by whom he was either converted or much confirmed in the Christian Faith chose to offer himself in the Priests habit to the Inquisitors and owning himself for a Christian though yet unbaptized he died for that profession Hereby the world may see how much poor mortalls are prone to mistake in their calculations of Gods judgements upon any Church both as to their own sins and other mens sufferings where the greatest sufferers are commonly the least sinners and the greatest inflicters are the least Saints Having in the former seven Books sayes Eusebius set forth that holy succession of Bishops which followed the Apostles in all the famous Primitive Churches in their several limits and proportions under the various seasons and storms of times the Churches had now in the Roman Empire so great liberty serenity and quiet that Bishops in many places were much honoured even by the civil Magistrates the Temples and Oratories of Christians were every where full and frequented new Churches were every day erected more goodly costly and capacious nor could the malice of men or Devils hinder the growing prosperity of the Churches every where while God was pleased to shine upon them with his favour Afterward too great liberty and ease degenerated to luxury and idlenesse these betrayed Christian Bishops Presbyters and people to mutuall emulations and contentions these sowred to hatred and malice these brake out to fury and faction Christians persecuting each other with words and reproches as with armes and weapons murmurings and seditions of governed and governours justling against each other grew frequent arising from desperate hypocrisies and dissemblings At last being generally less sensible of their sins than their sides and factions and less intent to the honour of the Church and its holy Canons than to their private passions and ambitions the wrath of God overtook them all Then saith that Historian as Jeremy complains did the Lord bring darknesse upon the beauty of the daughter of Sion then did He cast down to the ground the glory of Israel He remembred no more the place of his footstool in the day of his wrath then did he profane the habitation of his honour in the dust and made Her a reproch to all her enemies c. then were Churches commanded to be pull'd down to the ground holy Books and Bibles to be burnt the Bishops and Pastors some banished others imprisoned tortured and killed all silenced impoverished disgraced abhorred by the Emperour with his followers and flatterers Christians were forbidden all holy meetings and duties commanded and forced to sacrifice to popular Idols and plebeian Gods upon pain of death and torture seventeen thousand Christians slain in one month an utter extirpation of Bishops Presbyters Professors Churches and Christianity it self designed enjoyned and publickly solemnized by a triumphant pillar erected in Spain with this Inscription An Imperial monument of
sacred office charge and ministration how infinitely ought you to be ashamed and regretted to see them usurped many times by the dogs of your flocks by your hinds and foot-men your grooms and serving-men by threshers weavers and coblers by taylors tinkers and tapsters any mean and mechanick people whose parts and spirits are onely fit for those trades to which their breeding and necessities have confined them Not that I despise or reproch these honest though mean employments but I highly blame their insolence and other mens patience to see these usurp upon the dignity of the Ministry Certainly such proud poor wretches may to some men possibly seem fittest Ministers in a disordered State and decaying Church as factors for Satan and Antichrist setters for Ignorance and Superstition turning Faith into Faction but they will never prove after that fashion of preparing and admitting either able or faithfull or fruitfull Ministers of Christ or his Church seeming themselves and making others despisers of Christ with the blasphemous Jews while they so look upon him and treat him as under the notion of the Carpenters son as their equall or inferiour in some handicraft forgetting his divine glory and majesty as the onely-begotten son of God to whom all power is given in heaven and earth who hath executed this power most visibly in sending forth his Ministers to teach and baptize all nations out of which to gather and govern his Church in his name They rudely slight Christs ministerial authority in such as are truly excellent and duly ordained Ministers that they may proudly challenge it to themselves without any reason or Scripture law or order command or example either from Christ or his Church These men who say they are Apostles Prophets and Preachers and are not will be in the end and already are found liars against God and their own souls deceitfull workers false Apostles Mock-ministers Pseudo-pastors disorderly walkers authors of infinite scandall and confusion of scorn and contempt to Christian and Reformed Religion both here and elsewhere many of them serving their bellies and gratifying their carnall lusts and momentary wants much more than designing to advance the glory of God the Kingdome of Christ or the eternall good of mens souls which are not to be carried on save in Gods way that is by fit abilities and with due authority both are required as necessary for a true Minister the first though reall is not sufficient without the second For as the meer outward materiall action cannot be a divine sacramentall or ministerial transaction more than every killing of an Ox was a sacrificing so nor are meer naturall or personall abilities sufficient to acquire any office or authority much less this of the Ministry which is divine or none any more than every able Butcher was presently enabled to be a Priest Any mans ability fully to understand or handsomely to relate the mind of his Prince makes him not presently an Embassador or Minister of State unless there be a commission or letters of credence to authorize the person The blessed Apostle S. Paul who was extraordinarily converted called and sent of God as a Christian a Minister or Apostle yet we see did not take upon him the exercise or office till first Ananias had by Gods speciall command laid his hands on him and he became endowed with the ministerial gift or power of the holy Ghost which were afterward in like sort solemnly confirmed and increased by the express command of God when Paul and Barnabas were separated and sent upon special service with fasting prayer and laying on of the hands of some Prophets and Teachers in Antioch where the Apostle had formerly preached in the Church a whole year among much people This same Apostle oft blames and bids Christians beware of false Apostles not onely false in their doctrine but in their ordination and mission as the Prophets of the Lord did of old the false Prophets whom God had not sent yet they ran The Spirit of Christ commends the Angel of the Church of Ephesus where as Irenaeus and others tell us S. John lived long and left the most pregnant examples of Ecclesiasticall order Episcopall power and Ministeriall succession for trying those that said they were Apostles and were not for finding esteeming and declaring them as liars no way listning and adhering to or communicating with them as being Falsaries and Impostors enemies at once to the truth order and peace of Christs Church For 't is seldome that a bastardly generation of Preachers doth not bring forth some false and base doctrines for it is observable in this as in civil Histories that Bastards in nature and so in office are commonly most daring and adventurous spirits Certainly the late illegitimate Ministers or spurious Preachers of new and strange originals in England have in less than fifteen years brought more monsters of opinions and factions in Religion than have arose in so many hundred years before in any one Church I know some Christians are prone to gratifie their curiosity as those do who sometime go to see monsters in making some triall and essay of these pretended Preachers that once knowing their ignorance and insolence they may upon juster grounds ever after abhor them If this be tolerable for some persons of able and sober judgements yet it is no better than a snare and dangerous temptation for others that are weak and unstable nor may the venture be oft made by the more steddy Christians lest they seem thereby to countenance and encourage so great a confusion innovation usurpation and scandal in the Church of Christ besides the abetting of that high profanation of holy duties and mysteries which ought not to be transacted but in the name power and authority of our God and Saviour Certainly good Christians ought not at any hand to communicate with such usurping intruders in any sacramentall action nor ought they to own any thing more of a Minister of Jesus Christ in them than they would of a King or Magistrate in a Stage-player Doubtless as no good Christian so least of all those that profess to be Ministers of Christ ought to live as sons of Belial disorderly refractory unruly after the arbitrary rude and presumptuous dictates of their own wills The spirit of true Ministers and Prophets will be subject as it ought to that rule order and custome which in all ages hath been the canon measure and commission of all Evangelical Ministers and Pastors of Christs Church As naturall and morall endowments are no plea to invest any man into any office military or civil much less into any power and authority Ecclesiastical The pretenses of new and extraordinary calls of missions immediate from God are not in any reason expectable nor in Christian Religion credible where the ordinary power and commission was continued and might duly be had as it was and yet is in the Church of England
foot by the very beasts of the people Hence it is that the Christian and Reformed Religion appears to many great spirits and young Gentlemen not as a matter of eternal truth of infinite weight and highest concernment to them not as having the Catholick testimony of the wisest and best of mankind in all ages the expectation of the Patriarchs the prediction of the Prophets the preaching of the Apostles the signatures of Martyrs and characters of Confessors by their bloodshed and sufferings which they chose rather to endure than the least abnegation Apostasie or swerving from so great so holy so constant so necessary so divine principles as the Christian Religion is grounded upon Many good wits of later years in England look upon Religion with a supercilious eye with a squeamish coynesse with a nauseating and huffing aspect so far are they from fear and trembling as if they did God a good turne to own him in any fashion or Religion were beholden to them if they were but civil to it not considering the majesty of Miracles the admiration of Angels the accomplishments of Prophecies the manifestation of the Messias the expresse image of Gods grace and glory mercy and truth upon it in the holiness of the precepts in the honour of the examples in the preciousness of the promises in the astonishing love compassion wisdome and goodness of God contained in it laying out gracious and glorious methods of reconciling and saving sinfull mankind by such a way of propitiation satisfaction and merit as no whit blemisheth or diminisheth his justice but every way advanceth and magnifieth his mercy All this divine beauty majesty glory and extasie of true Religion so highly valued heretofore in England by Princes and Peers by Noblemen and Gentlemen of all degrees is now looked upon by many as a mimicall play a popular pageantry a business so scepticall and litigious so mutable and various so childish and impertinent so trivial and plebeian that many think it a point of gallantry and greatnesse of mind totally to undervalue all Religion as a meer fabulous flourish set forth with some pomp and solemnity heretofore now with specious liberties and indulgences in order either to amuse and over-awe or to please and gratifie common people whose brutall strength and refractory rudeness is found to be such by all wise Governours in all ages that nothing can over-awe or bridle the populacy so much as the opinion of some Religion derived from a Deity whose power being represented as omnipotent can onely give either terrour and check to vulgar presumptions or fixation to their everlasting revolutions Which volatile temper of common people some cunning men of later years having observed how in nothing of received Religion they were setled they have flown anew to the old craft of those heathenish Legislators to pretend Nymphs and caves to dreams and visions to extatick grotts and groves to converse as Sibyls with Demons or Spirits and to keep immediate intelligence with God himself by special inspirations beyond any thing of traditionall Religion anciently received and constantly delivered by this or any other Church of Christ Nor doth this sorry artifice fail to take some simple birds that are more silly and incautious who hardly ever get out of these snares and lime-twigs of pretended new Religion till they lose their feathers much of their time and estates besides the hazard of their souls and consciences But others of more bold and robust tempers are from these temptations and scandals of snarled and entangled or loose and unsettled or arbitrary and nulled Religion betrayed to down-right Atheism from thence they are carried down the stream of all sensuall debaucheries without any stop or check of conscience as to God or any Religion by which they stand obliged and responsible to a Divine power above them All which comes to pass by reason that they fell into such unhappy times as to their Religion education and imitation as offered them for many years very little but novelties and in them nothing worthy of the name of true and solid Religion as to any publick certainty harmony unity or authority Nothing must be owned as the uniform piety of this Nation or the consent of the Church either as from wise men or good Christians nothing fixed as becomes the majesty of a glorious God and a gracious Saviour an immutable goodness and unerrable truth held forth by the most idoneous and credible witnesses in the Catholick Church through all ages and successions but as if all Christians had been either ignorant or impostors in this and all Churches as if no Christian Princes no Presbyters no Bishops had had either wit to discern or grace to retain true Religion so have many people on all sides run up and down to pick and chuse to begin and invent to contrive and cut out what they listed to call their Religion yea many rigid Reformers and most severe pretenders to Religion upon new accounts as schismatizing in or separating from the Church of England even these are daily found either split upon the rocks of uncharitablenesse or beating upon the quick-sands of change and uncertainty not onely their several factions but the same persons having as many faces successively of Religion as Proteus had shapes The stakes and cords of that Christian and Reformed Religion which was fixed in the Church of England these are pulled up quite ravelled and broken into pieces by many Nor are these new modellers such as made modest trials and essayes of truth but they are generally fixed to their unsettled fancies constant in their inconstancy pertinacious in their extravagancies and hardly ever to be perswaded by any experience of their own folly to recant or repent of their apparent and imprudent transports much less to return from their exotick novelties and fanatick inventions they have lately chosen to that solemn sacred uniform and majestick primitive and Catholick posture of Religion in which it was for many years illustrious in the Ch. of Engl. and in all other famous Churches CHAP. IV. THe very light of nature and common reason commands mankind to be serious and setled grave and reverent in the publick service and veneration of their God to which end they added as Varro Tully and Isidore Hispalensis tell us not onely many Ceremonies to adorn their Devotion but a publick consent and sanction to authorize and confirm and fence their Religion against all those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that affected to be rude or dared to be profane For right reason tells us that Novices strangers or beginners in Religion must be miserably betrayed to all manner of irreligion where they see all things of Religion presented to them like a kind of Matachin dance or counter-skuffle full of fraction and novelty of change and contradiction of intricacy and incongruity of emulation and faction of strife and envy of hatred and enmity of contempt and confusion debased to meanness and prostituted to vulgarity
Divisions and intestine Quarrels in others being like the Birds called Ruffs ever brusling and pecking against each other may make them seem at present not so dangerous or pernicious in regard of civil Troubles and Seditions as they have been to the Ecclesiasticall Uniformity Beauty and Honour yet later as well as former experiences may not onely admonish but assure you that besides the Roman advantages which are greatest and last the private Passions and various Interests even of these lesser Factionists and Sticklers will not seldome nor a little hazard your civil peace when once their severall parties and opinions can get numbers capable to set up their pretensions under any specious name either of Anabaptistick Repentance or special Calls and Inspirations or a Fifth Monarchy or Christs Kingdome in this world or any Saints reigning upon earth for a thousand years more or lesse according as they can get and hold power over mens bodies and souls and be supreme to all intents and purposes both civil and religious I make no great doubt but these men will be found as rigid cruell and implacable in their heights and soveraignties as ever those bloody Papists were whose principle was to destroy all they count Hereticks and the others to destroy all they count not godly Saints because forsooth not of their respective parties either Papists or Schismaticks England at severall times beside other Countreys hath had terrible Essayes what such spirits aim to doe and they will out-doe their own aimes when their rude hands should be able to keep pace with their giddy heads malicious hearts and extravagant tongues How have they sometime threatned to destroy not onely Church-men and Ministers but all Gown-men and Lawyers yea all others in any power or capacity above them if incompliant with them You cannot be ignorant how the pulse of such people beates when they have tasted of severall Religions and sipped of many Reformations which like variety of Wine so strangely intoxicate common men and women that of friends they grow most insolent enemies against those Churches and Christians which they first despise then forsake at length divide and at last destroy as farre as lies in their power Thus desperately disdainfull unaffable and intractable grew the Donatists Novatians Arians and others in St. Austins time superciliously refusing all offers of Christian conference and charitable accommodation with him and other holy men of the Catholick Communion yea some of them unprovoked as St Austin tells us put Catholick Christians and Ministers to exquisite tortures casting unslaked lime with vinegar into their eyes to burn them out that they might be as blind in their bodies as their persecuters were in their soules railing most bitterly as Rossidius in the life of S. Austin tels us against that holy man and his fraternity of Bishops and Presbyters because he did mightily discover and render detestable their hypocriticall madness for which these impudent wretches and impious pretenders to religion called him a carnall man a formall Professor a rotten Christian an execrable person not fit to live thus for the comfort of many unjustly despised and untruly reproched Bishops and Presbyters of the Church of England was he treated by these fanatick Factionists who was one of the most excellent lights for learned humility charitable industry and modest constancy that ever God raised up to his Church since the Apostles dayes I will not odiously repeat to you the well known yet infamous seditions and rustick tumults raised in Germany by the Anabaptistick and other Spirits to the destruction of above an hundred thousand poor people Other attempts were made by such Zelots upon other Provinces and Cities sufficient to tell the world what good stomachs some men have to devour all things civill and sacred when once they can be Masters of mis-rule Their despite is not onely against the learning livelyhood and lives of Bishops and true Ministers of Churches either Reformed or Roman that stand in their way but all is fuell that comes under their flaming Fingers They long to be sharers and Masters of the Estates Lands Places Profits Honours Powers and Wives of Magistrates Noblemen Gentlemen Merchants Citizens Yeomen and Tradesmen whose barnes or shops or houses are better furnished than these Reformers yet are Whosoever they or their Prophets Parasites should decree as John of Leiden did to be Reprobates because not complying with their wild opinions and holy ravings presently they were branded for ungodly next they were voted as enemies to Jesus Christ at last they were devoted to Poverty Prisons Banishments and Deaths unlesse they chose a voluntary Confiscation and banishment to escape other mens inordinate fury Who can marvaile that these abominable desolaters in their Principles and Practises should not be very sparing of those Supports which men have for their bodily lives and temporall welfare where they see them to be such prodigall and pittilesse wasters of all those Ministers and meanes which might most contribute to make mens soules eternally happy in Piety and Charity of which the Devil never makes greater havock than when he obtrudes excessive needlesse and endlesse Reformations as his grand Impostures which like violent torrents not fill but trouble and confound all those purer streames and fountains of Religion which had much more of Christian purity and constancy in them though not so much of the overflowing fury and muddy inundation How can you O worthy Gentlemen or your posterity expect other effects in the sacred or civill concernments of this Nation when inordinate liberty naturally begets licentiousnesse in Religion licentiousnesse variety variety animosity animosity fury and fury force the usuall Climax or gradation of all popular and irregular motions in Religion In which common reason and naturall Divinity much more Christianity possessing men that there can be for the main but one true Religion as there is but one true God and his holy will but one every man is prone first to presume that he is in the right next he growes so partiall to his own perswasions as to imagine this above all others best and onely pleasing to God then he concludes all other wayes of Religion are as displeasing and offensive to God as to himself Hence he kindles to a zeal in Gods behalf both to decry all other and to cry up his own Religion after this he hath potent impulses to propagate his own and extirpate all others as an acceptable service and sacrifice to God This he first doth by words disputing writing rayling reviling If these methods of converting and reforming the wicked world will not serve he concludes them as his and Gods opposers to be obstinate then he flies to the sword first in vote then in use so soon as he and his party can get number and power sufficient to act with probable safety such an opportunity he counts a call of God an hand of providence inviting and directing what to do in order to
Priests and Preachers If others like no locall Churches as Superstitious Popish Jewish Heathenish who had all such like grosse and materiall Temples which are needlesse to those that are themselves living Temples of the holy Spirit and need not that any men should teach them in Piles of Wood and Stone or out of Desks and Pulpits down down even to the ground with these Steeple-Houses these Hornets and Wasps nests the rubbish if it will not sell will at least mend the high-waies to Markets and spare the Town or Country Charges of digging gravel the Bels Stones and Timber will turne to good money the Common-wealth may need them they will save taxes a while Thus will some men boldly dare if they might have their will to take away both the Foal and the Asse with Dominus opus habet or rather Dominus opus non habet the Lord of Heaven needs not these things so much as some that long to be our Lords on Earth Last of all that I may search this Fistula to the bottome if any that are young and lusty full-fed and frolick shall dislike to have any lazy poor people to be maintained as Moths and Leeches Teeks or Vermine gratis upon the publick Almes and Charitable Foundations presently as if they quite forgat that themselves might be so Aged Poor and Feeble that they might be glad of such constant relief or as if they did not remember how many of their Fathers and Mothers their Grandsires and Grandames have lived and dyed either in some such Almes-House and Hospitall or have been kept at the Town Charges away with all the Lands and Houses of Almes-Houses and Hospitalls those drones nests where they neither have dayly service of God nor frequent Prayers Sermons and Sacraments as Cathedral Churches had which either are most-what demolished or in a faire way to drop down and be destroyed Whither I beseech you will not this Gangrene of covetous and sacrilegious Humor spread Who will give any thing living or dying to any good work of durable Piety or Charity when he shall see nothing is like to be secure Were it not high time to examine what the Sin of Sacriledge is whether there be any such Sin since so many holy and learned men affirm it in word and yet so many others of godly pretentions in deed own no such thing If it be found to be a Sin it must needs be a dreadful Monster like Python or Hydra with a very great paunch and many wide mouths a Gigantick Sin that fights against God defies Heaven devours things sacred dares to rob the Poors bellies and starve their souls It is not to be checked or stopped but by some publick Censure Decree and Detestation declaring it to be a Sin injurious to God reprochful to any Religion as Heathenish Jewish Christian and Reformed dishonourable to any Nation desolating to the Church destructive to Ministers and people to Piety Charity Learning and Industry No Bank or Rampart is sufficient to keep out this black and dead sea when once it hath undermined the common principles of Gratitude Reverence and Worship toward God of Justice and Righteousnesse toward Men which it is very like to do when I find D. B. a man of my own Coat and Calling a profâ—ssed Presbyter or Minister heretofore according to the Ordination of the Church of England who hath the character of holy Oders by Bishops hands still upon him unrenounced when I say such men come to be proctors and promoters patrones pleaders and solicitors in any case for alienating of those Church-lands which belonged to the Bishops Deans and Chapters the issue indeed of difficult distressed and turbulent times which it may be Necessity rather than choise drove some men to yet this in cool blood must be applauded by a grave O that so he a late purchaser may have part of that blâ—ssed Corban which he knows did sometime belong to his Mother this Church and to his Fathers the Bishops of it whose right to keep what they had by Law was I suppose once undoubtedly as good as any that thisor any man can plead for what it seems he never yet had possession of Sure it was as just for those to have kept their Estates as it can be for him to get part of it he cannot strengthen his own private and purchased Title but he must justifie their 's more who had received and enjoyed them as publick Ministers Governours and officers of the Church upon a publick both civil and sacred Title First from the pious Donors who doubtless had as St. Peter tells Ananias a power to give what was their own as they did to God and his Church by valid Acts in Law and such deeds as exprest their last Will and Testament which St. Paul tells us no man ought to disannull Secondly especially considering in the next place that what was so given was no way to the prejudice of the publick Thirdly yea by publick Permission Approbation Confirmation and Acceptance Fourthly wherein the whole Nation Church and State hath a publick right and common interest as things given for the good Order and Honor of the Nation as it is Christian Fifthly and lastly adde to the personal right of the Donors and Possessors also to the publick right of the whole Nation that highest right paramount which all learned and impartial men have ever judged to be in God either in such things as he is pleased precisely to demand of us as he did the First-born the First-fruits many Sacrifices and Oblations besides the Tithes of all and some Cities with their Suburbs for his Ministers of old or in those things which he hath left in our free Will and Gratitude to Vow Offer Give Dedicate to his Service or to his Son Jesus Christ as the wise men at first did their Myrrh Gold and Frankincense which certainly no men would have taken from that holy Babe who would not with Herod have taken away his life By which holy Liberalities we Christians may honor our God and Saviour with our substance and not serve them only with that which costs us nothing nor is God in these to be mocked if once we have vowed and devoted them to him as we ought to pay our Vowes so we ought not to break and frustrate either our own or others Dedications to God who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Asylum of all not to be violated in the least kind Who ever doubted but that God accepted and owned as his peculiar those things which any men consecrated as means fitting to advance the good ends of his Glory and publick Service in the right Teaching Ordering and Governing of his Church in instituting and supporting his Ministry and in relieving his Poor All which being so very necessary for the Church and so agreeable to the Word of God they must needs be strangely avaritious who think it superstitious for any man to give of his Lands or other Estate to
Religion For I have found by experience that no men have proved move factious affected and fanatick than those men and women who have been most conscious to their youthful Enormities They presently apply to the gentlest Confessors and easiest Repentance which is rather to quarrel with and forsake the Religion they have most violated than seriously to repent and amend without which severities Papists and Separatists think their Converts sufficient if they do but turn to their side and party The second Novellers will be content with any meer fancies or factions in Religion The third the Jesuited Papists with no pure united and well-reformed Religion among us And the fourth the Devil will be content with any Religion that is called Catholick Reformed and Christian so it be not true or not pure or not well-reformed or not orderly setled and uniform or not charitably united or not authoritatively managed and governed Any of which will in time very much unchristen any Christians and unchurch any Church by deforming and dividing them from the Beauty and Communion of the Church Catholick Take heed of betraying your selves and your posterity to Atheisticall licentious immorall and irreligious courses by your Apostasies from and despiciencies of the Learning and Piety Gifts and Graces Ministry and Ministrations Order and Government which were happily setled in the Church of England Go over all the world search all successions of the Church from the Apostles to our daies you shall not find any thing more worthy your Love and Esteem your Veneration and addiction Have you found any thing comparable to it in all the new vapours and florishes of Reformations in any new Inventions Conventions Associations Separations Distractions Distortions Confusions Which may make you giddy by turning you round but they will never make you any progresse in Wisdome or Piety or Charity The Church of England was a most rare and Paragon Jewel shining with admirable lustre on all sides First in its Doctrine or Articles of Religion which were few cleare and sound Secondly in its Sermons or Homilies which were learnedly plain pious and practicall Thirdly in its Liturgy or Devotions which were easie to be understood very apt pathetick and complete Fourthly in its paucity and decency of ceremonies which adorned not incumbred Religion or over-laid the Modesty and Majesty of a comely Reformation Fifthly in the Sanctity and Solemnity of its publick duties which were neither excessive nor defective Sixthly in its Ministry which had good Abilities due Ordination and divine Authority Seventhly it its good Government and Ecclesiasticall Discipline where good Presbyters and good Bishops had leave and courage to do their duties and discharge their consciences whose Fatherly Inspection Catholick Ordination and Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction being wisely managed by worthy men in their severall stations did justly deserve the name of an Hierarchy an holy Regiment or happy Government when it was exercised with that Authority yet Charity and discretion which were ever intended by the Church for the common good of all those Christians that were within her bosome and kept her Communion If others do forget her through fatuity or faction covetousnesse or ambition pride or petulancy as undutifull and ungratefull children yet you may not you will not you cannot so far neglect your own and your posterities happinesse or forfeit your own honor or violate your consciences as to neglect the relief and recovery of your Spirituall Mother But if you of the better sort of men and Christians from whom all good men expect all good things should slight and neglect Her after the vulgar rate which God forbid yet must I never so far comply with you or all the world as to call her former light darknesse or her present darknesse light Pretious with me must the name of the Church of England ever be whose record is in Heaven and in all gracious hearts who were Born and Baptized Instructed Sanctified and Saved in her To this Church of England as I owe with many thousands so I returne with some few the Charity of a Christian as to all Christian Churches the duty of a Son as to a deserving parent the order of a part or member as united and devoted to the whole the obedience of an Inferiour as to a Superiour the gratitude of acknowledging Her Worth and Merit the love of adhering to her unity the candor of approving and conforming to her decent ceremonies the modesty of preferring her Wisdome before my own or any other mens understanding the Humility of submitting to her Spirituall Authority and Governours the Piety and Prudence of relieving and restoring as much as lies in me Her Catholick Order Polity Peace and Government all which I believe were allowed of God and I am sure have been approved by as Learned Wise and Holy men as the world affords I am deeply sensible of the many and great obligations which I have to this Nationall Church and to its Ministers and Bishops for my Baptisme Instruction Confirmation Communion and Ordination not onely as a Member but as a Minister which I account my greatest Honour notwithstanding the great depression of the times in which I have late ward lived I am ambitious to do not onely what becomes my private station but to preserve and expresse the publick respects which are due to this Church whose Despisers and Destroyers have never appeared to me with any Remarques of Beauty or Honour for Learning or Grace for Modesty or Charity for Prudence or Policy comparable to those that were the first Founders Reformers Defenders and Preservers of this Church I must ever professe that I find nothing like her Adversaries nor any thing exceeding her friends in all that was commendable in Catholick and true Antiquity In behalf of this Church having offered many things to the consideration of all good Christians which are my worthy Countrymen I hope as my infirmities may exercise their Charity so my integrity may expiate my infirmities if I have in any thing expressed my self lesse becoming the honest and holy designe which I undertook and have now by Gods help finished which was to set forth First the Teares and Sighâ— of the Church of England Secondly the originall of her Disorders and Distractions Thirdly the dangers and distresses if not remedied Fourthly the probable waies of cure and recovery by Gods blessing to such Order Honour Unity Purity and Peace as becomes so famous a Church and so renowned a Nation whose greatest Crown was Christianity I know there will be many who cannot well beare that freedom of sobernesse and Truth which either my self or others may use in speaking or writing for the Church of England and its pristine Honour Order and Government although themselves use never so great Liberties Reproches and Injuries in Speaking Writing and Acting against them For my part I appeare in this onely as wrapt my self in my Scholastick and Ecclesiastick Gown I meddle not with any civil affaires or Military transactions properly
such Those are of an other sphere and of other principles which I neither censure nor it may be understand I quarrell with no particular mens persons I encounter onely that colluvies of factions parties and novel principles which like the sewers collected from many sinks and kennells have met together to besmeare or over-beare the Church of England I despise no mans Religion so far as it is Religion deserving that holy name in any Catholick and Christian sense But I abhorre an unreasonable immodest unjust and licentious way in any I esteem and embrace with all Charity whatever of Gods Spirit of Christs Truth of Grace and Vertue of Gifts and Parts of Morall Honesty and Humanity I find in any men of any side But I am too old and serious to be abused with vaporings with affectations with popular pretentions with rude and rash Reformations I am for solid sober orderly humble constitutions or restitutions rather of Order Honor and publick encouragement to Religion the Church and Clergy No man hath justled or offended me in all these turbulent times worth owning nor have I an evil eye or an ill will against any man What I write as to my Ecclesiastick Calling Honor and the Church of Englands common concernments may possibly have something of salt but nothing of gall there may be some corrosive to mortifie and meet with the diseased and proud flesh but no venome to poyson or hurt either the diseased or the whole parts It extremely grieves me to see how far the contagion of Ignorance Impudence Profanenesse Irreligion Faction Division Levity Popularity Disorder and Uncharitablenesse hath spread among some of my brethren of the Ministry and many of my Countrymen without any present advance that I can see or future hopes I say not as to their own Honour or Profit but as to Gods glory or the publick interests of the true Christian and Reformed Religion or the good of mens soules or the improvement of any grace and vertue What any side offers as really good or convenient I allow what they partially cry down and causelesly condemn or change that I defend upon the account of this and all Churches Wisdome Honour and Happinesse If what I have written may do any good to the present or after-Ages I have my designe if not I shall by Gods help hereafter redeem this waste of time and labour by applying to studies more suitable to my Genius Spirit and Age which may more improve those graces which are least in dispute among good Christians yet in this I have not wholly lost my labour because I have hereby further discharged my own soul my conscience and reputation from any approbation of what I judge to be either the sins or imprudencies the wickednesse or weaknesse of this Age in which I do not so much live as dye daily weary that my soul finds so little hope of an happy rest or composure unity or harmony in our Church which I had rather see and enjoy before I dye than to have the greatest preferment in the world I envy no men that have wrapped up their worldly interests in their religious policies and daily gaine by the shrines of godlinesse they have made I do indeed boldly rifle their godly principles and pretentions as to their novelties for I see no reason as yet to yield to any of them no not for an hour though they seem never such pillars while they import as if the Church of England had heretofore consisted of a company of silly people and silly Priests whose either ignorance or superstition or sottishnesse or basenesse had hidden the beauties and blessings of true Religion from all peoples eyes so that neither Bishops nor Presbyters nor Princes nor Parlaments nor Convocations ever till now saw what was fit to know and do in Church-matters which are now to be taught and brought to light by the new methods of Presbytery and Independency or by Anabaptism Quakerism and other rarities of Religion untried and untamed Novelties every way as short of the Piety Prudence Unity and Majesty of the Religion and Church of England heretofore as they are wide of or beyond the true ancient bounds and Catholick grounds of Order Government Unity and due Authority I may adde and of the Blessings or Prosperities internal or external spiritual and temporal which attended Episcopal Order and Paternal Presidency which I profess to value as now it is in its rags and ruines far beyond the others in their silks and sprucenesses Episcopacy is now far from being the object of any sober mens Flattery or Ambition yet I cannot but look upon it with such an eye of pitty and reverence as primitive Christians were wont to do upon their Bishops such as Polycarpus Ignatius Irenaeus Cyprian and other Martyrs when they saw them imprisoned beaten tormented destroyed I know yet I plead for those men and for that cause which was once strong but now is weak was honourable and is now despised was favoured but is now frowned upon by many yea I fear most men of ordinary spirits yet I plead for that reverend Order and those reverend persons who have been made a spectacle to Angels and Men such as to this present hour suffer both hunger and thirst are naked and buffeted having no certain dwelling-place which being reviled do blesse being persecuted have suffered with patience being defamed do intreat and being the Glory of all Churches as to Order Unity and Government in all Ages are now looked upon by many as the filth and off scouring of all things yet am I one of those Angels which attend Lazarus on his Dunghil I have chosen to follow the clear though now more exhausted stream of Antiquity rather than the troubled torrents of any Novelties which may be as short-lived as they have been suddenly started I have looked upon all mens principles and pretensions as to Ecclesiastick affairs with what Candor Equanimity and Sincerity I could If in any thing I was inclinable to be partial it was neither for Presbytery nor Independency I confess which I never was catechized in nor accustomed to nor convinced of as to any such Piety or Policy Wisdom or Worth in them which might make me see cause to desire or esteem them but I was swayed against some things not in the constitution so much as some mens administration of Episcopacy I was originally principled to no small jealousies of Bishops actions when they were in their greatest glory and power nor do I yet think but that some Bishops might have been greater Masters of pious Arts than they have proved yet I find now that in many things people were more afraid than hurt For the main I conclude no Ministers or Governours no Superintendencies or Presbyteries in any Reformed way exceeded the Usefulness Merit and Excellency of our English Bishops and Presbyters nor is any thing as to Church-government comparable to a primitive Episcopacy which includes the just Rights Liberties or
violence wrested the staffe out of its hands Presbytery seeming like the plant called Touch me not which flies in the face and breaks in the fingers of those that presse it but Independency as the sensible plant rather yielding to then resisting any hand that is applyed to it This later and softer plant no sooner almost began to be set on foot in England about the year 1650. but it soon gained much ground of Presbytery which had been an old bitten shrub ill rooted and never very florishing or fruitfull and lesse apt to be now at last transplanted But Independency as a new slip or full-shoot springs up apace spreads its roots and branches without any noise erects its Churches as fast as Presbytery could its Consistories out of the ruines of Presbyterians Parishes as well as of Bishops Dioceses Independency hath no great line or out-work to maintain and so can do it with fewer numbers and lesse noise it desired onely in Peace to enjoy it self affecting no forced ambition or unvoluntary Rule over others as did Presbytery it professeth to aime at nothing but a nearer and greater strictnesse of Sanctity Unity and Charity among Christians in their Church-way than it thought could well be had among the larger combinations of Presbyterian or Episcopall Churches which they think are not easily managed without much labour and toile besides offence and complaint because they urge many things as of duty and by constraint when this is onely by every ones free will and consent Nothing is more soft and supple than Independency in its first render branches and blossomes nor is it other than a little Embryo of Episcopacy in a little Parish or Diocese For Bishops Presbyters and People did of old and at first so neerly correspond as Fathers Brethren and Sons of a Family when they were but few and scarce made up one great Congregation in a City where one Minister at first was both Pastor and Teacher Bishop and Presbyter who as Christians increased ordained them Presbyters to carry on the work and yet to keep a filial Correspondency with him and respect to him as became them The pomp and solemnity of Independent Episcopacy is lesse but the Power and Authority Ecclesiasticall is though broken and abrupt yet full as great and absolute as to all Church-uses and intents as ever Bishops challenged How far this willow will grow an oake more rough and robust as it growes Elder Bigger Higher and Stronger no man knowes I presume it cannot have better beginnings of Order Unity Purity Piety Charity Meekness and Wisdom than Episcopacy had in its first Institution which is owned by all learned men to be at least Apostolicall both as to the enlarged Churches made up of many Congregations and the enlarged Authority of one Bishop placed by the Apostles over many Presbyters and Congregations so gathered by them into one Ecclesiastick Society or Combination as those Primitive Churches were in the Scripture Nor can it have more specious and modest beginnings for Purity and Sanctity than some former sects have professed such as were the Novatians and Donatists of which St. Cyprian and Optatus with St. Austin and others give us liberall accounts whose procedings did not answer their beginnings either in Modesty Charity or Equity but from rending from they fell to reviling and ruining all Churches but their own From the rise and advantages which these two new and now almost parallel plants in England Presbytery and Independency neither of which are yet any way grown up comparable to the Procerity Height and Goodliness which Episcopacy had and yet hath as in many Churches of Christ so in many English mens minds notwithstanding that both of them as notable suckers strive all they can to draw away all sap and succour from the old root of Episcopacy that it may quite wither and be extirpated every where as it hath been lately with Swords and Pickaxes terribly lopped and almost quite stubbed up in England From these two I say which have so much pleased either some Ministers or People with shewes of Novelty Liberty and share of Authority other Parties Sects and Factions have began to set up their scaling ladders and for a time staying one of their feet either on the standards of Presbytery or Independency they fall amaine with their hatchets to hack and hew down the remaines of all Episcopal order and Communion in Churches to cut off the battered stript and bare branches of that Ancient and goodly Tree which contained once the Catholick Church under its boughs and shade Thus these petty planters begin their new plantations that every one set up new Churches and Pastors after their own Hearts Opinions and Fancies making use of what seare barren and Schismatick slips or abscissions they are able to break or cut off aiming still to plant as they say further off from the root and bulk of Episcopacy as a notable character of more perfect Reformation than either Presbytery or Independency seem to have done who sometime professe they can comply with something in Episcopacy Hence first Erastians or Polititians begin to resolve all Churches into States all Ministry into Magistracy making no other origine of Church-power than that of the Common-wealth nor of any Ministers Bishops or Presbyters Authority than of a Justice or a Captaine or a Constable After this Anabaptists Quakers Enthusiasts Seekers Ranters all sorts of Fanatick Errors and lazy Libertines pursue their severall designes and interests under the notions of some new-found Church Sprigs and better plantations filling all places in England like a wood or thicket with Bushes and Briers and Thornes of Separations Abscissions Raptures Ruptures Novelties Varieties Contentions Contradictions Inordinations Reordinations Deordinations and Inordinations no Ordinations scarce owning any Church or Christians which are not just of their way and form as Optatus tells us the Donatist Bishop Parmenian and his party did All of them agreeing with Presbytery and Independency in this one thing however differing in others as in the matter of Tithes which these are reconciled to that they are enemies against all Diocesan Ruling Episcopacy quarrelling even the Honesty and Credit of Primitive Churches on that account despising all the Fathers and all the Councils and Canons of all Churches as levened with Episcopacy The reason in all of them is one and the same because true Episcopacy was a notable curb and restraint and remedy equally against all Schisms and Innovations in the Church of Christ as St. Hierom tells us And further by its venerable Authority so Famous so Ancient so Universal so Primitive so truely Apostolick it infinitely and intolerably upbraids all their Novelties and Extravagancies besides they are conscious that they shall hardly ever one for a hundred either equallize or exceed in many Ages the useful and excellent Abilities Gifts Graces and Miracles or the Benefits and Blessings which by and under regular and holy Episcopacy the Lord was pleased to bestow if ever any were
behold without seven dayes silence and astonishment like Job's friends the rufull and dismall spectacle of the Church of England which is like Job or Lazarus living indeed but almost buried in its Sores and Sorrowes not onely lying but even dying on its dunghill like the sometime lovely and beautifull Daughter of Zion now grovelling in the dust deserving another tender-hearted Jeremy who might write the book of England's Lamentations with his Teares since the History of her Fall and Ruine is written in blood Her own brood like the young Pelicans feeding upon her without any pity or remorse growing daily fiercer after they have once tasted of her flesh and more resolute as Absalom by the rapes they have rudely made upon a Matrone lately so comely chast and honourable whom Her destroyers dare now to count and call the filth and off-scouring of all Churches crying down Her holy habitations and conventions as cages and flocks of unclean birds Her holy Ministrations as impious and odious Her holy Bishops and Ministers as Antichristian usurpers and impostors Her whole Constitution as Babylonish and abominable worthy of nothing but their curses and comminations CHAP. VII HAth any Nation changed Her Gods though they are no Gods saith the Prophet expostulating with the inconstant and Apostatizing Jews who had despised the Word forsaken the Law and broken the everlasting covenant of God made with their forefathers What people that owns a God or a Saviour or a Soul immortall or any Divine Veneration under the name of their Religion was ever patient to heare their and their fore-fathers God blasphemed or to see that Religion wherein to the best of their understanding they agreed and professed publickly to serve and worship their God vulgarly baffled and contemned Was ever any part of mankind so stupidly barbarous as to behold without just grief and resentment their Oracles and Scriptures vilified and abused their solemn Prayers and Liturgies torn and burnt their Temples profaned and ruined their holy Services scorned and abhorred their Priests and Ministers of holy Mysteries impoverished and contemned In matters of Religion the light of nature hath taught every Nation to be commendably zealous and piously pertinacious esteeming this their highest honour to be very tender of any diminution dishonour or indignity offered to their Religion which reflects upon the majesty of their God whom every Nation may in charity be presumed to serve in such a way as they think to be most acceptable to their God every man being convinced that he ought to pay the highest respects to that Deity which he adores from which to be easily moved by vulgar clamours and inconstancy without grand and weighty demonstrations convincing a man of his own errour and his Countreys mistake or contrary to the dictates of conscience for any man shamefully to flatter or silently to comply with any such designs as appear first reproching their Religion next robbing their God and at last destructive to all publick Piety is certainly a temper so base so brutish so ignoble so servile so sordid so devilish that it is worse than professed or avowed Atheisme for he sins lesse that owns no God than he that mocks him or so treats him as the world may see he neither loves nor feares Him And can it I beseech you O noble Christians and worthy Gentlemen become the piety wisdome and honour of this so ancient and renowned Nation of England to behold with coldnesse and indifferency like Gallio the scamblings and prostitutions the levellings and abasings the scorns and calumnies so petulantly and prodigally cast by mechanick and plebeian spirits for the most part or by mercenary insolency upon that Christian and Reformed Religion which hath so long flourished among you and your fore-fathers and which was first setled among you not slightly nor superficially not by the preposterous policies passions and interests of our Princes not by the pusillanimity or partiality of over-awed Parlaments nor yet by the superstitious easinesse or tumultuary headinesse of the common people but upon learned publick and serious examination of every thing that was setled and owned as any point or part of our Religion There was godly grave mature and impartial counsel of most learned Divines used there was the full and free Parlamentary consent of all estates and degrees in this nation there was a strict and due regard had to the Word of God and the mind of Christ as to doctrine and duties to the faith and fundamentals of Religion without any regard to any such antique customes or traditions as seemed contrary to that rule As for the rituals and prudentials the circumstantiating and decorating of Religion great regard was had in them to the usages of pure and Primitive Antiquity so as became modest wise and humble Christians who seeing nothing in the ancient Churches Rites and Ceremonies contrary to Gods Word or beyond the liberty allowed them and all Churches in point of order and decency did discreetly and ingenuously study such compliance with them as shewed the least desire of novellizing or needless varying from and the greatest care of conforming to sober and venerable Antiquity Against all which sacred suffrages and ecclesiasticall attestations for the true Christian and Reformed Religion once setled in the Church of England now at last to oppose either popular giddinesse and desire of novelties or any secular policies and worldly designes or any brutish power that is neither rationall nor religious but meerly arbitrary and imperious altering and abolishing as the populacy listeth matters of Religion which are the highest concernments of any nation and so require the most publick counsels impartial debates and serious consent of all estates by such pitiful principles and the like unconscientious biasses for a Nation to be swayed in or swerved from the great and weighty matters of Religion once well established is certainly a perfect indication of present basenesse also an infallible presage of future unhappinesse Which I beseech God to divert from this Nation of England by your prayers and teares by your counsel and courage by your moderation and discretion who are too knowing to be ignorant and too ingenuous to be unsensible of your duty to God and your own souls of your respect and deserved gratitude to your Countrey and to this Church of England which was heretofore loved by its children applauded by its friends reverenced by its neigbours dreaded and envied by its enemies and this not onely for that long peace and prosperity it enjoyed which alone are no signs of Gods approbation but chiefly as Irenaeus observes for those rare spirituall gifts ministeriall devotionall and practicall which were evidently to be seen in Her those pious proficiencies those spirituall influences which preachers people found in their own hearts those gracious examples and frequent good works which they set forth to others those heavenly experiences they enjoyed in themselves those charitable simplicities they
wife mans censure yet even for these chiefly it is that some subtil and silly people do most bitterly inveigh against them and in them against this whole Church and Nation which must either be guilty with the Clergie or the Clergie must be free and unblameable with the Parlaments and whole people of the land who chose and by law imposed such orders upon themselves and their Ministers Secondly for the Clergies private failings and personal infirmities either immorall or indiscreet to which as frail men they may be subject in these they desire to be the first accusers and severest censurers of themselves which ingenuity is sufficient to silence the malice of the worst to satisfie the justice of the best and to merit the pity as well as pardon of all charitable Christians who are not strangers to their own excess or defects Thirdly Beyond these which are but personal and occasional so venial failings the Clergie of England do defie and challenge their severest adversaries to charge and convince any considerable number of them either in private parties and conventions or in more publick Synods and Convocations of having at any time conspired to broach or abet any Heresy or false Doctrine any gross Errour Schisme or Apostasy any Immorality or Exorbitancy contrary to Truth Faith and good manners That liberty which some of the Clergie conceived might honestly be indulged to such people as were tired and exhausted with hard labour in the six dayes for their civil and sober recreation on the Lords day or Christian Sabbath thereby to counterpoise those Jewish severities which they saw some men began to urge and obtrude upon Christians both as to the change and rest of that day which quarrell is not yet dead in England this I am prone in charity to believe neither arose from any root of immorality in the advisers nor intended any fruits of impiety in the publishers who were not ignorant how far in such a Toleration they did conform to the judgement and practise too of some forreign reformed Churches and to the chief instruments of their Reformation who neither did nor do even in Geneva abhor avoid or forbid modest honest and seasonable recreations to servants and labouring people on the Lords day Although for my part I confess I approve rather according to the Doctrine of the Church of England in the Homily of the time and place of prayer that holy strict observance generally used by the most cautious Christians in England which yet doth allow such ingenuous relaxations of mind and motions on that day as are neither impious nor scanlous being at once far removed from Judaick rigours and from Heathenish riots which medium was the sense and practise too of the best and most of the Clergie in England as to that one point of the Christian Sabbath or Lords day which Justin Martyr calls Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so sharply objected against some of them So then as to any reall enormities of opinions or scandalous practises in Religion the Clergie of England taken in their polity and integrality neither are nor ever were guilty since the Reformation either in Doctrine Worship Discipline or Manners which justification is as clear as the noon-day's light if not our selves nor our home-bred enemies but the Reformed Churches abroad or the ancient and Primitive Churches might be our Judges None but Papists and Separatists or Anabaptists and Schismaticks have ever condemned or suspected the Church or Clergie of England of any corruption in Doctrine of any flaw in the Foundation of any fraud in holy Institutions of any allowed licentiousnesse in our Conversations of any undecency in our Devotions of any superstition in our religious Administrations in all which according to the directions of Gods Word by the assistance of Gods holy Spirit through faith in the merits and mediation of the Son of God our onely Saviour Jesus Christ we worshipped the onely true God who is blessed for ever As to the point of Church-Discipline wherein some men were so clamorous and importune as if there had been no health in this Church because it did not take their physick which it needed not as the laws had not enjoyned all those ancient severities and strictnesses of penances because neither the temper of the times nor mens spirits would bear them so the wise Bishops and discreet Ministers under them did so manage this point of Church-discipline for many years by their care and vigilancy their good doctrine and exemplary lives their fatherly monitions and charitable corrections as far as the laws gave them leave that they happily attained to the reall use and best end of all Church-discipline which is the Churches peace and preservation in purity and honour in sincerity and conspicuity of true Religion whose interests might possibly have been carried higher as to the point of Discipline if the Clergie of England had been furnished with such a latitude of power as Primitive Bishops and Presbyters both enjoyed and exercised which the softness and delicacy of this Age would hardly endure especially when once the passions novelties ambitions of men were carried on under the pretexts of Reformation and new Discipline in which some men resolved never to be satisfied till all things fell under the tuition and gubernation of their own factions unless all Church-power be in some mens hands no Church-government is worth a button Not but that the remissness of some Church-governours and the rigours of others according to their private tempers judgements and passions might sometime by their excesses or defects possibly displease more calm and moderate men as warping too much on either hand from that medium and rectitude of charity discretion legality and constancy which the Canons of the Church intended Its constitution health and peace required especially in the peevishness and touchiness of those times when many Philistins and Dalilahs lay in wait to betray and destroy the Church of England Yet amidst these seeming exorbitances of some Church-men it may with truth be affirmed and is by all experience confirmed that the state of Christian and Reformed Religion for doctrine manners and government for piety charity and proficiency was far better both in England and in Wales than it now is or is ever like to be under those sad effects to which some mens fury faction and confusion seek to reduce this Church So then the male-administrations truly charged upon some Church-governours heretofore had not so bad an influence upon this Church and the Reformed Religion as the later want of able and fit Governours after the ancient way of Church-government hath now produced every where For the defects and inordinacies of some private Ministers which can be no wonder where there were above ten thousand of them I neither approve nor patronize them in the least kind onely I plead in behalf of the whole order and function as it stood in this Churches constitution that a few Ministers faults ought not in
so eloquent no pen so pathetick as to be able sufficiently to express eye no so melting as to weep enough no heart so soft and diffusive of its sorrows as worthily to lament when they consider that wantonness of wickedness that petulant importunity that superfluity of malice that unsatisfied cruelty of some men who have endeavoured to cast whole cart-loads of injust reproches vulgar injuries and shameful indignities upon the whole Church of England seeking to bury with the burial of an Asse either in the dunghill of Papall pride and tyranny or popular contempt and Anarchy all its former renown and glory its very name and being together with the office order authority distinction and succession of its Ancient Apostolick and Evangelical ministery which hath been the savour of life unto life the mighty power of God to the conversion and salvation of many thousand souls in the Church of England Whose sore Calamities and just Complaints having thus far presented to Your consideration and compassion it is now time for me to enquire after the causes and occasions of its troubles miseries confusions and feared vastations in order to find out the best methods and medicines for Her timely cure and happy recovery if God and man have yet any favour or compassion for Her The end of the first Book BOOK II. SEARCHING THE CAUSES AND OCCASIONS OF THE Church of England's decayes CHAP. I. BUt it is now time most honoured and worthy Countrey-men after so large and just so sore and true a complaint in behalf of the Church of England and the Reformed Religion heretofore wisely established unanimously professed in this Nation to look after the rise and originall the Causes and Occasions of our Decayes and Distempers of our Maladies and Miseries which by way of prevention or negation I have in the former Book demonstrated to be no way imputable to the former frame state or constitution of the Church of England but they must receive their source from some other fountain The search and discovery of which is necessary in order to a serious cure for rash and conjecturall applications to sick patients are prone as learned Physitians observe to commute their maladies or to run them out of one disease into another but not to cure any turning Dropsies into Jaundise and Feavers into Consumptions The greatest commendation of Physitians next their skill to discerne is to use such freedome in their discoveries and such fidelity in their applyings as may least flatter or conceal the disease In this disquisition or inquiry after the Causes and Occasions of our Ecclesiastick distempers I will not by an unwelcome scrutiny or uncharitable curiosity search into those more secret springs and hidden impulsives which proceed as our Blessed Saviour tells us out of mens hearts into their lives and actions such as are wrathfull revenges unchristian envies sacrilegious covetings impotent ambitions hypocriticall policies censorious vanities pragmatick impatiencies an itch after novelties mens over-valuing of themselves and undervaluing of others a secret delight in mean and vulgar spirits to see their betters levelled exauctorated impoverished abased contemned a general want of wisdome meekness humility and charity a plebeian petulancy and wanton satiety even as to holy things arising from peace plenty and constancy of enjoying them These spiritual wickednesses which are usually predominant in the high places of mens souls being Arcana Diaboli the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stratagemata Satanae the secret engines depths and stratagems used by the Devil to undermine the hearts of Christians to loosen the foundations of Churches and to overthrow the best setled Religion being least visible and discoverable for they are commonly covered as mines with the smooth surfaces and turfs of zeale sanctity reformation scrupulosity conscience c. these I must leave to that great day which will try mens works and hearts too when men shall be approved and rewarded not according to their Pharisaick boastings popular complyings and specious pretensions but according to their righteous actions and honest intentions Onely this I may without presumption or uncharitableness judge as to the distempers of our times and the ruinous state of the Church of England that many men who have been very busie in new brewing and embroyling all things of Religion would never have so bestirred themselves to divide dissipate and destroy the peace and polity of this Church if they had not been formerly offended and exasperated either by want of their desired preferment which S. Austin observes of Aerius the great and onely stickler of old against Bishops or by some Animadversion which they called persecution although it were no more than an exacting of legal conformity and either sworn or promised subjection as to Canonicall obedience Many men would have been quiet if they had not hoped to gain by rifling their Mother and robbing their Fathers Some at the first motions might perhaps have good meanings and desires as Eve had to grow wiser but they were soon corrupted by eating the forbidden fruit by the unlawfulness of those means and extravagancy of those methods they used to accomplish them But God and mens own consciences will in due time judge between these men and the Church of England whether they did either intend or act wisely or worthily justly or charitably gratefully or ingenuously This I am sure if they have the comfort of sincerity as to their intent they have the horrour of unsuccessfulness to humble them as to the sad events which have followed preposterous piety CHAP. II. THe chiefest apparent cause and most pregnant outward occasion of our Ecclesiastick mischiefs and miseries as I humbly conceive ariseth from that inordinate liberty and immodest freedome which of later years all sorts of people have challenged to themselves in matters of Religion presuming on such a Toleration and Indulgence as incourageth them to chuse and adhere to what doctrine opinion party perswasion fancy or faction they list under the name of their Religion their Church fellowship and communion nor are people to be blanked or scared from any thing which they list to call their Religion unless it have upon it the mark of Popery Prelacy or Blasphemy of which terrible names I think the common people are very incompetent judges nor do they well know what is meant by them as the onely forbidden fruit every party in England being prone to charge each other with something which they call Blasphemy and to suspect mutually either the affecting of Prelacy or the inclining to Popery in wayes that seem arrogant and imperious in themselves also insolent and injurious to others each aspiring so to set up their particular way as to give law to others not onely proposing but prescribing such Doctrine Discipline Worship Government and Ministry as they list to set up according to what they gather or guess out of Scripture whereof every private man and woman too as S. Jerom tells of the
Nation to the flourishing of the Christian and Reformed Religion when men knew what it was to have and to honour Gods Ministers and to be good Christians that is judicious humble honest charitable orderly and constant in the true Religion CHAP. XIV BUt suppose in very deed it were true that you the Nobility Gentry and Commons of England did find an irreparable decay and dotage now grown upon the ancient Clergie and that you might now be cheaper and better served by these new-sprung Gourds which are but of yesterday like Mushromes the sons of a night yet since the ancient race and stock of Apostolick Bishops and Presbyters is not onely of so venerable an age as 1600 years in the Catholick and this Church of Christ which is a great plea of priority honour and prepossession against any novell intruders and pretenders since they and their predecessors both before and since the Reformation even from the first plantation of Christianity in this Island have done their best to deserve well of you and your fore-fathers who this last century especially in your own memory greatly rejoyced in the lustre of these burning and shining lights justly and gratefully esteeming the learned ability industry and piety of the English Clergie a great crown honour and rejoycing to this Nation since they have thus far premerited of you in their former age strength and vigour truly it must needs be not more their grief and misery than your shame and eternall dishonour if you should use your ancient Clergie and Ministers as you would your old dogs and harrased horses casting them off to seek new masters or turning them into the high wayes to graze upon what alms they can pick up among their timorous and ungratefull friends or their supercilious and disdainfull enemies Surely it were but charity and humanity in you to provide rather some Almes-houses and Hospitalls for your cast and decayed Ministers as well as you do for your veterane and unserviceable Souldiers who have in their time and station been valiant faithfull and orderly that at least the prouder Jesuits and the less charitable Papists besides other pestilent enemies of the peace and piety of England may not too much triumph to see so many so venerable Bishops and other worthy Ministers of this Reformed and sometimes flourishing Church of England either begging or starving which if it be not as I fear it is I am sure it would be the sad fate of many of them if God did not stir up some mercifull Obadiahs to relieve them not that they want ability or industry but either such liberty or such opportunity as their adversaries presume to enjoy But against all this that I plead of Justice and Mercy for the English Clergie some mealy-mouth'd and hen-hearted men are prone secretly to object Alas there is now no hope to recover the pristine honour either as to reputation reverence or revenue of the Ministry of England neither to Bishops nor Presbyters Alas they have been and still are so vulgarly slighted and abased We see these new Teachers have most-what got the upper hand they are brisk and bold young men who have disgraced displaced and baffled many of the old stock they have decried affronted and over-awed in a manner all of them the new-fashioned Ministers ride on the fore-horse and are fancied by many wary and wise men to be most useful advantageous and conform to the present state of civil interests and affairs so that men are prone to think they had better rest satisfied with these new Preachers upon any account if they be but tolerable speakers and livers rather than go about to restore much less to prefer the former Ministers and Ministry which grow daily more antiquated and exautorated both as to their persons and pretensions among the common sort of people besides many others who are their friends yet look upon the very names of Bishop and Presbyter of ordination and succession as terms extremely unpopular unpleasing and growing out of fashion in England Well much good may these new Ministers do to these new-fashioned Christians these wary men and their posterity 'T is well however if Christ be preached whether of envy or good will whether in truth or in pretence onely Yet I cannot forbear in an honest and Christian freedome to offer this to the judgement of you and other Gentlemen who are of more noble minds and more prudent spirits Do but foresee and consider I beseech you what pitifull Ministellos what pigmy Presbyters what plebeian Preachers this Nation in after-ages is like to have if the Ministers of the glorious Gospel of J. Christ your Saviour must ever grow up live under such vulgar scamblings contempts insolencies obloquies molestations intrusions confusions which are and ever will be as so many nipping frosts and horrid discouragements to all able ingenious grave and godly men when they shall see under the pretence of Novelty and Christian liberty not only themselves very much impoverished curbed despised and depressed as to that order dignity office and authority which they claim and exercise upon grounds Divine Catholick and Ecclesiasticall but they shall further behold all sacred solemn and venerable mysteries as well as offices of the Evangelicall Ministry and Christian Religion exposed to such plebeian insolencies such petulant extravagancies such fanatick fancies such fulsome affectations such empty pretensions such uncharitable janglings such miserable manglings and such proud usurpations under any notions and pretensions which common people please to call their Christian Liberties CHAP. XV. WHich are indeed little else than novell vanities opposing pious Antiquity weaknesse vaunting it self against strength ignorance darkness and confusion boasting against sound knowledge true light and holy order folly crying it self up for wisdome the rapes and stuprations of Religion styling themselves rare Reformations melancholy ravings are cried up for divine Revelations schismatick conventicles voted for the onely pure and organized Churches of Christ being bodies as Tertullian accurately observes so homogeneous similary and inorganick that it is hard to discern which is the head or tail hand or foot Pastor or people like earth-worms they crawl with either end forward all are Prophets inspired all grow Seers Teachers Elders and Rulers of the Church If they can but light on some new notions some strange fancies some odde and unwonted expressions they are presently set forth for rare and spiritfull discoveries when indeed they are but old and rotten errours protrite and putid opinions of the ancient Gnosticks or Valentinians or Manichees or Montanists or Circumcellians or Donatists who affected either to invent poetick fancies or to darken and bury plain and wholsome Truths by words without understanding And such are for ought that ever I could discern those Seraphick Anabaptistick Familistick Hyperboles those proud swelling words of vanity and novelty with which those men use to deceive the simple and credulous sort of people
who commonly were most imperious when the Church had most peace and civil prosperity but the Presbyterian thunder and Independent lightning urged most upon all Bishops and all Episcopall Ministers then when they were most scared pillaged and harrased by a civil war when most tossed by those sad storms and almost overwhelmed by the impressions of those sad dissentions Then then was it that Bishops and other Episcopall Ministers whose consciences were guided in their judgements by the wisdome of this Church and Nation together with all other Christian Churches in all ages having lost their clokes in the wars must be deprived of their coats also chiefly for their innocent opinion and honest adherency to Catholick Episcopacy then was it that where Episcopacy had at any time and that by special command from their Governours silenced or sequestred refractory or turbulent Ministers by tens or hundreds possibly Presbytery and Independency inflicted either those mulcts or terrours at least upon thousands of Ministers dissenting from them not as to the Religion established or Laws in force in England but meerly as to their private opinions and principles about Church-government Hence so many learned pious and painful Preachers since the civil digladiations ceased had been condemned to chains of everlasting darkness to remediless distresses both they and their families if there had not been some more generous mercy and connivence shewed than those mens spirits intended or can well bear Through which miseries and terrours many Ministers gray hairs have been brought down with sorrow to their graves After all which dreadful severities either intended or executed against the Episcopall Clergie yet as far as I can see the condition of any sort of Ministers now in England is not any whit better as to the generality nor comparable to what the Clergie enjoyed in former times who in my judgement might well have born the yoke of Episcopacy with as little disparagement and with as much ease and honour every way as they have for some years done the examination and inspection the rebukes and frowns the terrours and jurisdictions of Major Generals or Countrey Committees not onely in secular and military but even in religious respects among which few I believe were to be found equal or exceeding such Bishops and other grave Divines as England afforded both able Preachers and excellent Governours much more fitted in all respects except their swords to be the superintendents of Ministers being of the same education office and calling than most of those men can be who are generally so much Heteroclites different from learned men both in their breeding learning studies and course of living that even from hence they have sometimes secret Antipathies even against all Ministers or Clergy-men as persons of another genius of more refined minds and if men were impartially weighed of greater worth and merits As then I cannot find that Ministers of any new name form title and extractions whatsoever have much mended their condition by that great alteration they have made or sought in this Church and State so I am sure their mutual enmities and divisions do very much heighten their common afflictions and add exceedingly to that general darkness and diminution in all respects civil and sacred which is come or coming upon them as upon wicked men in the strict account of Gods justice or as weak men in the vulgar process of mans severity Indeed the worst of Ministers miseries they generally owe to themselves who in piety and prudence above all men should by united counsels and cares avoid them because it is sport to the most and worst of men to see those men together by the ears hating despising biting and devouring one another who are esteemed the severe censurers of other mens sins and follies sharp curbs to the childish petulant and licentious humours of people Ministers scufflings and contests with one another is beyond any Cock-fighting or Bear-baiting to the vulgar envy malice profanenesse and petulancy In the midst of all which sufferings first from Divine Justice which calls upon every one to examine the plague of his own heart next from humane ingratitude and insolency though every sober and prudent Minister cannot but see that precipice and gulph of irreligion irreverence and contempt to which the Reformed Religion and the whole office of the Ministry is now falling in England through the endless capricios and extravagances chiefly of some Ministers though most Ministers on all sides that have any learning worth or abilities for that office do generally agree in the same Scriptures and Sacraments in the same Faith and Salvation in the same God and Saviour in the same Graces and Vertues in the same Doctrine for morals and Mysteries in the same Precepts and Promises in the same holy duties and blessed hopes yet even these Ministers which is a thousand pities are sharply and for ought I can see unless God work miracles upon some of their spirits and tempers resolutely and eternally divided by those wedges of differences touching external Church-order and Discipline the manner of worship and power of managing of Church-government so that the way of peace few have known nor are they patient to learn contrary to their presumptions To recant their errours they are ashamed remit their rigour they must not lest they abate their parties and followers exchange their animosities as men for moderations becoming brethren and Christians they will not lest their credit decay and their factions abate lest those shews and shadows of popular empire vanish which they have seemed or fancied themselves to enjoy upon these accounts of rare inventions and new models of Reformation Ministry c. All which must by some men be kept up though all things else do fall to the ground though the Church of England lies languishing and sighing weeping and bleeding though the Reformed Religion is deformed decaying dying though both piety and sincerity be much dispirited though they cannot but see Ichabod wrote upon all their foreheads though all Ministerial order office employment and authority as to mens inward respect and consciences no less than in their outward reverence and obedience is infinitely slackned and in many places as well as in many hearts quite dissolved though the Catholick Character or Christs cognizance of Christians which is sincere charity be much defaced the Devils badges of factious confederacies be much worn though the purity and simplicity the warmth and worth the words and works of true Religion be much out of fashion giving way to fanatick follies and impudent vanities daily vented in every place though the beauty serenity of the true Christian Religion as of old and of the well-reformed Religion as it was of later years well established in Engl. be much hidden defaced disguised by many hypocritical masks new dresses though the palpable cunning of some men hath taught them to abuse this credulous age by shaving off the hair primitive ornament of this Church which was
Foxes and wild Boars of Romish Power and Policy to enter in and not onely secretly but openly as occasion shall serve to destroy all the remaining stock of the true Protestants and Professors of the Reformed Religion who at first soberly protesting against Popish Errours and Deformities afterwards praying in-vain for a joynt and just Reformation did at last reform themselves after the rule of Gods Word interpreted by the Catholick Practise of purest Antiquity What without a miracle can hinder the Papall prevalency in England when once sound Doctrine is shaken corrupted despised when Scriptures are wrested by every private interpreter when the ancient Creeds and Symbols the Lords Prayer and Ten Commandements all wholsome forms of sound Doctrine and Devotion the Articles and Liturgy of such a Church together with the first famous Councils all are slighted vilified despised and abhorred by such English-men as pretend to be great Reformers when neither pristine Respect nor Support Credit nor Countenance Maintenance nor Reverence shall be left either to the Reformed Religion or the Ministry of it without which they will hardly be carried on beyond the fate of Pharaohs Chariots when their wheeles were taken off which is to be overwhelmed and drowned in the Romish red Sea which will certainly overflow all when once England is become not onely a dunghill and Tophet of Hereticall filth and Schismaticall fire but an Aceldama or field of blood by mutuall Animosities and civil Dissentions arising from the variations and confusions of Religions All which as the Roman Eagle now foresees and so followes the camp of Sectaries as Vultures and Birds of prey are wont to doe Armies so no man not blinded with private passions and present interest is so simple as not to know that it will in time terribly seize upon the blind dying or dead carkase of this Church and Nation whose expiration will be very visible when the Purity Order and Unity of Religion the Respect Support and Authority of the Ministry is vanished and banished out of England by the neglect of some the Malice Madnesse and Ingratitude of others your most unhappy Countrey-men Then shall the Israel of England return to the Egypt of Rome then shall the beauty of our Sion be captive to the bondage of Babylons either Superstition or Persecution from both which I beseech God to deliver us As an Omen of the future fate how many persons of fair Estates others of good parts and hopefull Learning are already shrewdly warped and inclined to the Church of Rome and either actually reconciled or in a great readinesse to embrace that Communion which excommunicates all Greek and Latine Churches Eastern Western and African Christians which will not submit to its Dominion and Superstition chiefly moved hereto because they know not what to make of or expect from the Religion and Reformation of the Church of England which they see so many zealous to reproch and ruine so few concerned to relieve restore or pity As for the return of you my noble Countrey-men and your Posterity to the Roman Subjection and Superstition I doubt not but many of you most of you all of you that are persons of judicious and consciencious Piety doe heartily deprecate it and would seriously avoid it to the best of your skill and power as indeed you have great cause both in Prudence and Conscience in Piety and Policy yet I believe none of you can flatter your selves that the next Century shall defend the Reformed Religion in England from Romish Pretensions Perswasions and Prevalencies as the last hath done while the Dignity Order and Authority of the Ministry the Government of excellent Bishops the Majesty and Unity of this reformed Church and its Religion were all maintained by the unanimous vote consent and power of all Estates Nay the Dilemma and distressed choice of Religion is now reduced to this that many peaceable and well-minded Christians having been so long harrassed bitten and worried with novell Factions and pretended Reformations would rather chuse that their Posterity if they may but have the excuse of ignorance in the main controversies to plead for Gods mercy in their joining to that Communion which hath so strong a relish of Egyptian Leeks and Onions of Idolatry and Superstition besides unchristian Arrogancy and intolerable Ambition that their Posterity I say should return to the Roman party which hath something among them setled orderly and uniform becoming Religion than to have them ever turning and tortured upon Ixions wheel catching in vain at fancifull Reformations as Tantalus at the deceitfull waters rolling with infinite paines and hazard the Reformed Religion like Sisyphus his stone sometime asserting it by Law and Power otherwhile exposing it to popular Liberty and Loosenesse than to have them tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine with the Fedities Blasphemies Animosities Anarchies Dangers and Confusions attending fanatick Fancies quotidian Reformations which like botches or boiles from surfeited and unwholsome bodies do daily break out among those Christians who have no rule of Religion but their own humours and no bounds of their Reformations but their own Interests the first makes them ridiculous the second pernicious to all sober Christians Whereas the Roman Church however tainted with rank Errours and dangerous Corruptions in Doctrine and Manners which forbid us under our present convictions to have in those things any visible sacred communion with them though we have a great charity and pity for them Charity in what they still retain good Pity in what they have erred from the Rule and Example of Christ and his Catholick Church yet it cannot be denied without a brutish blindnesse and injurious slander which onely serves to gratifie the grosse Antipathies of the gaping vulgar that the Church of Rome among its Tares and Cockle its Weeds and Thornes hath many wholsome Herbs and holy Plants growing much more of Reason and Religion of good Learning and sober Industry of Order and Polity of Morality and Constancy of Christian Candor and Civility of common Honesty and Humanity becoming grave men and Christians by which to invite after-Ages and your Posterity to adhere to it and them rather then to be everlastingly exposed to the profane bablings endless janglings miserable manglings childing confusions Atheisticall indifferencies and sacrilegious furies of some later spirits which are equally greedy and giddy making both a play and a prey of Religion who have nothing in them comparable to the Papall party to deserve your or your Posterities admiration or imitation but rather their greatest caution and prevention for you will finde what not I onely but sad experience of others may tell you that the sithes and pitch-forks of these petty Sects and plebeian Factions will be as sharp and heavy as the Papists Swords and Faggots heretofore were both to your religious and civil Happinesse CHAP. XXIX FOr however the feeblenesse and paucity of lesser Sects and Factions in Religion in some places their mutuall
themselves high upon the confidence of Christs Scepter Call and Kingdome which they say admits no stop delay or obstruction whenever Providence opens a door not to the Gospel which is already professed but to such a Form and way as they like to have it in as to Discipline Government and Church-Order and this if not to be had by Princes favour and consent yet by the suffrages and assistance of common people where they may be had who in such cases are not to regard their obedience to any worldly Princes or powers who stand in opposition to or competition with Jesus Christ or any thing that some godly men shall fancy to be an ordinance of his though never heretofore owned or used as such in his Church What is there so fond so fanatick so foolish so mad which such presumptuous fury will not bring into Church or State that is not of their mind That these have been the principles and in many places the endeavours or practises of many for I dare not impute them to all is not to be doubted being evident by their writings and the Histories of those who have truly told the world what their sense agencies and aimes are Nor is there any great cause to expect that other petty parties or novel sects which are generally the spawne of Presbytery should deny themselves that Gospel-Power and Liberty as they call it since every one sees it hath been affected and acted though with no very great or glorious success by their grand-fire Presbytery which both in Scotl. and in England besides other places hath not been sparing to proclaime to all the world what zeal they have for their and Christs cause for his that is their Discipline even to the consuming of their foes their friends and themselves as Penry Udal Hacket and others did in Queen Elizabeths daies of which Mr. Cambden and others give us sufficient account as Sleidan and others do of the like agitations in Germany by such as were first Schismaticks from the Church and then Rebels to their lawfull Magistrates But the true Episcopall principles are wholly Evangelical they neither preach nor practise other than what they have learned from Christ and his Apostles in the Scripture they know no voyce of Providence ever calling them to act contrary to those Rules of civil obedience and good conscience which are signall expresse and emphatick in Gods word to be subject to every Ordinance or Law of man for the Lords sake to obey Kings as supreme and all under them for conscience sake if in any thing they cannot freely and cheerfully act there they must and will patiently suffer what penalties or pressures are laid upon them Thus did all Bishops and all Presbyters of old both pray and preach obey and suffer as Tertullian tells us at large in his Apology whose example and Doctrine all good Christians followed in their constant subjection and submission to civill though persecuting powers even then when Christians wanted not power and numbers to have invited them to have asserted themselves against both persecuting people and Princes Yet still godly Bishops with all Presbyters and people subordinate to them in Religious respects followed exactly the precepts of the two great Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul yea and of their great Master and Saviour Jesus Christ rather suffering by many persecutions than breaking out to any one act or thought of sedition or rebellion No injuries ever made good Bishops forget their Duty and Loyalty to Soveraigne powers though they might have had Legions to have sided with them yet as Christ they chose the Crosse as the best refuge of Christian subjects Thus all holy Bishops both held and did in Primitive times Yea and since the later spring of Reformation in England I am confident there is not one instance of any one Bishop or Episcopall Divine that either wrote or instigated any Christian Subjects to act upon any religious pretentions contrary to the Rules of civil subjection to that Prince or State under which they lived no not to bring in or restore Episcopacy it self which hath far more pleas for it from Catholick Antiquity and Universall prescription from actuall possession in all times and places from the pattern of Christ and the practise of the Apostles from the imitation and uninterrupted succession of after-Ages besides the proportions of Gods wisdome and mans prudence in all setled polities and good Government together with its own Ancient Catholick and Nationall Rights which aggravate its injuries and exasperate mens spirits yet these are not enough to animate or heighten Episcopacy so far as to make or restore its way into any Nation Church State or Kingdom by armed power or tumultuary violence against the will of the chief Magistrate or the Lawes in force it humbly attends Gods time and the Soveraignes pleasure for its reception or restitution So false and foul are the odious aspersions of Fellonies Treasons Seditions and Rebellions which the loosenesse and choler of a Presbyterian Gentlemans Pen then more passionate and popular then now it seems hath cast upon all the Bishops of England as such in that rude immodest and uncharitable pamphlet which he then set forth by a preposterous zeal when having surfeited of an immoderate revenge against one Bishop he aymed so to disguise venerable Episcopacy and to degrade all the most excellent Bishops of Engl. with their Clergy as to expose them all to be the more cruelly baited and worried even to death by the enraged beasts of the people even then when they were to be diverted from considering the actuall combustions which then were raised by and for his Presbytery Such Declamatory and partiall papers were certainly very unbecoming a man of Learning Religion or Ingenuity especially toward such Bishops in his own Country which were men most-what his equals in all things and in many things much his betters and superiours being Peeres of the Kingdome and chief Fathers of that Church with which he held Communion vested in their Authority by our Laws as well as conforme to all Ecclesiastick ancient Constitutions being persons famous most of them for their worth every way answerable to the Piety and Learning of their best Predecessors who were great Preachers wise Governours learned Writers and valiant Martyrs as well as venerable Bishops I confesse this one instance makes me see with horror what a dreadfull tyrant and temptation passion and faction revenge ambition popularity and discontent are when once they transport men of parts beyond the true bounds of Reason and Religion of Charity Patience and Civility which is as apparent in that virulent charging of all Bishops for seditious Traytors as if one should condemn all Lawyers for corrupt and covetous for bribery and oppression as if all were Trissilians Empsons and Dudleys which were a reproch most unjust and false there having been and still are many of them men of great justice and integrity I well know it is
in storms and in calms ever since they have been beaten from and denyed Anchorage in the fair Haven of Episcopacy which ever was and ever will be the safest and best harbour both for Religion this Church and its Clergy For no men will regard those Ministers who help to make themselves undervalued Who will care to provide for or protect them that cast off so fair a portion of Estate and noble a proportion of honour as the Laws of this Land had given them under the Episcopal covering Whither now shall poor Ministers fly unless they fly from their despised and distressed calling to some more easie quiet and beneficial Mechanick profession unless they renounce their former Orders and take up a new standing either upon their own tip-toes or some Mole-hill which the Ants of the people have cast up neither of which stations is either firm or comely The vulgar favour is too flat dull and shallow for any man of Learning Worth and Wisdom to lanch into he will presently be a-ground for popular respect riseth to no higher a pitch than they see men have some publick influence of favour estate or power Go to the Palaces of such as are Princes and think themselves great persons their Courts and Families are commonly full of deep and rough rapid and dangerous motions the courtesie of country-Justices and true Committee-men is very various much as the Wind and Tide are either with or against the poor Clergy Where are there then any proper Advocates and Judges or any competent Censors and Supports of the Clergy becoming men of Learning and Worth beyond the ordinary rate of most men Whom have they of their cloth and calling that is in any eminency of Place Power or Honour who might by their favour defend a poor Minister as with a shield so as worthy Bishops did without whom the Ministry in England may I think despair of ever recovering themselves to any great value or regard while they are looked upon even one and all under a meer plebeian notion and proletary proportion permitted indeed to marry and beget children but to servility poverty and beggery Few persons of any Worth or Estate will now either make their sons Ministers or match their daughters to them or contract any alliance or friendship with them since no Clergy-men can be great they will not be much valued for being good Thus hath the fall of Episcopacy like a great and goodly Oake crushed all the Under-wood of the Clergy which was safe while those defensatives stood in our Druina nor have those escaped the brush and crush who were most industrious to fell it On all hands the honour of the Clergy is never like to revive in this Nation till something like primitive and authoritative Episcopacy be either replanted or restored the spirit of the Nation being such that it cannot be governed but by those that have some publick eminency and real lustre upon them either as to military power or civil honour or religious presidency set off with the ampleness of some estate and the authority of some fitting jurisdiction As Augustus said to the Egyptians when they desired him to visit their God Apis I worship Gods not Oxen so do the most people of Engl. in their hearts reply to all Presbyterian Independent Ministers who seek to winne them to worship their ways We were wonted to venerate grave and honourable Bishops not every petty Presbyter or Preacher as our chief Church-governours according to the custom and manner of all good Christians in all ancient Churches and in this of England ever since Joseph of Arimathaea or Simon Zelotes converted us ever since K. Lucius was baptized and the British Church had the honour of Primogeniture to any National Church in the World ever since either Palladius in Scotland or Patricius in Ireland or the latter Austin in England by the mission and commission of the devout Gregory the Great either restored or planted Christian Religion and Bishops in England the shortest of which Terms or Epoches is now above a thousand years In all which time England hath been famous for nothing so much as for the great regard this Nation had til of late years both to Christian Religion and to the Clergy which never til now were made to live without the crowns and coronets of their worthy Bishops in every Diocess which were the coverings of power and honour upon the heads of all the Clergy to whom the access of a poor Minister was short and easie his hearing speedy his tryal legal and rational his dispatch without delayes his dismission fatherly and his submission filial and comely insomuch that peaceable and good Ministers were never more blest than when they had the sight of their worthy Bishop or Diocesan who did not onely as a good Shepherd oversee and rule them but tooke care to feed and defend them with Order Plenty Peace and publick Honour blessings of so great price in our mortal pilgrimage that they had need be very pretious Liberties indeed that are to be purchased by parting with them or exchanging them for the dry Martyrdoms of Poverty Contempt and daily Confusion CHAP. XXII IN the last place I do with the more courage and confidence recommend the cause of Venerable Episcopacy to my honored Countrymen because no Nation or Church under heaven ever had more ample and constant experiences of that excellent worth which hath been in their Bishops or of that excellent use which hath ever been made of a regular Episcopacy both in respect of true Piety and Orderly Policy I know it will at first dash with full mouth be here replyed how many Bishops have been superstitious sottish luxurious tyrannous persecutors and what not especially before the Reformation till their wings were so clipped that they could not be so bad as they would yet some of them were bad enough My answer is I do not undertake to justifie every thing that every Bishop hath done in any Age late or long since though I am charitably modest to palliate the shame or uncomliness of my Fathers yet I am no Mercenary Orator or veneall Advocate to plead for their enormities which are in no men lesse tolerable or expiable There were no doubt among Bishops as well as other men of all sorts some weak some wicked as Ezekiels figs some very good some very bad yet take them in the generall view and aspect even in the darkest times I am sure they were in England ever esteemed and employed both in Church and State as Primores Regni men of the greatest abilities and best repute for Learning Wisdome Counsel Piety Charity and Hospitality in all the Nation nor were many of them in those times inferiour by birth and breeding to the greatest Noblemen in the Land I do not censoriously rifle mens personall or private actions but I consider their publick influence and aspect It sufficeth to my designe if I demonstrate by induction
removed from the real power of Godlinesse which mortifies all inordinate lusts moderates all passions brings the thoughts words and deeds of Christians to the exact conformity of true Holiness Justice and Charity Who are more vain bablers and endless janglers who more unholy unjust uncharitable unmerciful implacable immoderate in their passions presumptions and revenges than many of those who have most stript themselves as to their Religion of their clothes and coverings that they may prophesie with Saul quaking and naked enjoying what immodest and insolent freedoms they list to use and call Christian Liberties and Simplicities Certainly the power of Godlinesse is most seen when men having most power in their hand to do good or evil do chuse the good and refuse the evil No men were more gracious and spirituall none did more good than many of the Bishops of England in their prosperity both publickly and privately yea no men have suffered more evil in their adversity with more silence and patience They onely once cryed out when they durst not go to the Parlament by Land and going by water they were with St. Stephen assaulted on the shore with a showre of stones and could not land with safety of their lifes Since that time though fleeced and flayed yet they have held their peace under the shearers hands both singly and socially as far as ever I have heard or read It is no great sign of the power of Godlinesse that men can endure no power civil or Ecclesiastick but in their own hands and think no power is of God which other men lawfully enjoy Since Bishops and Episcopacy and Liturgy and Ceremonies and constant Catechizings and all uniform celebration of Sacraments are discarded since nothing but Ministers private breasts and brains must serve the Church with their formed or informed constant or extemporary conceptions Praying and Preaching and Celebrating is the power of Godlinesse as to true grace or the fruits of the Spirit much advanced Is there more constant hearing of sound Doctrine Is there more of sober and setled Knowledge Is there more Modesty Humility Equity Charity Obedience Unity Proficiency Patience Love and Fear of God or Reverence of Man or Conscience of Duty to both than was formerly If these Antiepiscopal men who so much pretend to the bare sword of the Spirit that they scorn to wear any scabbard of Form or Ceremony have with Saul utterly destroyed the Amalekites of Immorality and Hypocrisie what means the bleating crying complaining biting and devouring of one another which are among us what mean the factions divisions envies animosities among both Ministers and People what means the contempt of the Word of God of all publick Duties and of the best Ministers who are most able most humble and most constant what means the Uncatechisedness the Sottishness Profaneness Impudence and Irreligion which are so much spreading and prevailing How many rich and poor people neither have nor care for any Preachers at all No Sermons no Prayers no Catechises no Sacraments no Morals no Civilities almost are left among them All the Religion of many is resolved into disputing and denying Tithes into paying their Taxes into the fear of Souldiers the Sword and Laws the Prisons and Gallowses or Men lastly into enjoying what liberties or loosness in Religion they fancy best as far and as long as they list But are there in earnest generally more or better Scholars or Ministers or Christians now than there were under Bishops I trow not scarce the half part for number scarce the half part so able for Learning as they were heretofore as our Timber for great Oaks so our Ministry in England for grave Divines is much wasted Whatever the matter was and is I am sure if it was not the Wisdom and Piety of Bishops it was the undeserved Blessing of God that made the power of Godlinesse in sound Knowledge Humility Faith Repentance Love of God Justice and Charity to men in unity amongst Christians in good Lives and good Works appear much more to me and others under Episcopacy than ever it hath done since its dissolution Undoubtedly true Religion both as to its profession and power as Christian and as Reformed as opposite to Profaneness and to Popish Superstition did among the generality of the Nation both Nobility Gentry and Commons thrive better when it fed on the pults and water as some esteemed of the Liturgy good Catechizing sound Preaching frequent Communicating and orderly Governing under Bishops than since it hath fed of other mens dainties who left a lean Church and Clergy while they have been filled with Kings and Bishops portions The garden of Christs Church was much safer and better among those Ceremonious Briars and Thorns as some count them yet good senses of religious Order and Honour under Episcopacy than since it hath been laid so open and wilde without ancient boundaries or defences Alas poor Ministers even all upon the point have no authority among the Common-people but what is precarious and despicable which people contemn cast and kick off as they list unless so far as a Souldier may perchance smile upon a Preacher But to avoid these just Ironies and retorted Sarcasmes the more grave and modest Antiepiscopall Spirits do now professe That their fierce wrath was intended onely against such Prelates as were indeed Persecutors Proud Idle Superstitious Imperious Luxurious Court-Complyers and Flatterers c. I reply first as to persecution First Many Bishops were blamed as too remisse and indulgent by some of their own Order who drove more furiously Secondly all were not equally such persecutors in their enemies sense yet all of them equally complaine of being no lesse persecuted For their Court-Complying they had been very ingratefull men if they had not owned with all loyall respect and service the fountaine of their Honor and Estates yet good men could not love their King without loving their Country nor their Country without their King which all godly and honest Bishops did if any others did not why did not Justice separate between the good and the bad the precious and the vile Why should good Bishops yea and good Episcopacy it self suffer As Abraham said to God Gen. 18.25 so doth God say to every good mans conscience Far be it from thee to destroy the righteous with the wicked Why should not all Presbyters yea Presbytery it self as well suffer a finall and totall extirpation which some men have designed and desired since no doubt there were and now are many yea as many nay more for the number of insufficient preachers and unworthy Presbyters as there were of Bishops and few if any of them so able so worthy so well-deserving of the publick both Church and State as some Bishops were Why should Presbytery be preserved alive and Episcopacy which is the elder be slaine Since Episcopacy in all Ages hath preserved Presbytery why should Presbytery ingratefully extirpate Episcopacy Was it not because Episcopacy was
Priviledges both of Presbyters and People I neither dispute nor deny any mens Morals Intellectuals Devotionals or Spirituals further than they seem much warped and eclipsed by their over-eager Heats and injurious Prosecutions against their Antagonists the Episcopal Clergy and Church of England but I absolutely blame those Ministers want of politicks and prudentials who by their Antiepiscopal transports have so far diminished not onely themselves and their Order as Ministers but the whole state of this Church as to its Harmony and Honour its Peace and Plenty its Unity and Authority In whose behalf since all wise and worthy men are highly concerned I cannot conclude with words of greater warmth and weight than those of the blessed Apostle St. Paul who was not more sollicitous to plant Churches in truth and purity than to settle and preserve them in Order and Unity If there be therefore any consolation in Christ if any comfort of Love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels of Mercy Let us all fulfill the Apostles joy this Churches joy the Angels joy yea Christs joy in being like-minded and of one accord in having the same Love in doing nothing through strife or vain-glory but in Lowliness and Meekness looking every man not onely to his own things but also to the things of others that the same mind may be in us which was also in our Lord Jesus Christ. That in the expectation and experience of holy wise and united hearts and hands on all sides the Church of England from whose head the Crown is faln from whose eyes Rivers of teares do flow while she lies weeping under the Crosse may take up the words of Zion in the Prophet Therefore will I look to the Lord I will wait for the God of my salvation my God will hear me Rejoyce not against me O mine Enemie when I fall I shall rise when I sit in darknesse the Lord shall be a light unto me I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him untill he pleas my cause and execute judgement for me he will bring forth my light and I shall behold his righteousnesse To the King Immortal the onely wise and blessed God Father Son and Holy Ghost be all Glory for ever Amen In Oratione Constantini Magni ad Concilium Nicenum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mihi quidem omni bello pugnave gravior atque acerbior videtur intestina in Dei Ecclesiâ seditio quae plus doloris quà m externa omnia mala secum affert THE END The Names of Books written by Dr. Gauden and printed for Andrew Crook at the Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard HIERASPISTES 1. A Defence of the Ministry and Ministers of the Church of England in Quarto 2. The Case of the Ministers maintenance by Tithes in Quarto 3. Three Sermons preached on publick occasions in Quarto 4. Funeralls made Cordialls in a Sermon prepared and in part Preached at the solemn interment of the Right Honorable Robert Rich heire apparent to the Earldom of Warwick in Quarto new A CATALOGUE OF THE NAMES Of all the ARCH-BISHOPS and BISHOPS of England and Wales ever since the first planting of Christian Religion in this Nation unto these later Times With the year of our Lord in which the several Bishops of each Diocese were Consecrated CANTERBURY Arch-Bishops 1 AUGUSTINE the Monk A. D. 596 2 Laurence A. D. 611 3 Melitus A. D. 619 4 Justus A. D. 624 5 Honorius A. D. 634 6 Adeodatus or Deus dedit A. D. 655 The Sea vacant 4. yeares 7 Theodor. A. D. 668 8 Brithwald A. D. 692 9 Tatwin A. D. 731 10 Nothelm A. D. 736 11 Cuthbert A. D. 742 12 Bregwin A. D. 759 13 Lambert A. D. 764 14 Athelward A. D. 793 15 Walfred A. D. 807 16 Theogild A. D. 832 17 Celnoth 18 Atheldred A. D. 871 19 Plegmund A. D. 889 20 Athelm A. D. 915 21 Wulfelm A. D. 924 22 St. Odo Severus A. D. 934 23 St. Dunstan A. D. 961 24 Ethelgar A. D. 988 25 Siricius A. D. 989 26 Alfric or Aluric A. D. 993 27 St. Elphage A. D. 1006 28 Living or Leoving A. D. 1013 29 Agelnoth alias Aethelnot A. D. 1020 30 St. Eadlin A. D. 1038 31 Robert Gemeticensis A. D. 1050 32 Stigand A. D. 1052 33 St. Lanfranck A. D. 1070 The Sea vacant 4. yeares 34 St. Anselm A. D. 1093 35 Rodolph A. D. 1114 36 William Corbell al. Corbois A. D. 1122 37 Theobald A. D. 1138 38 St. Tho. Becket A. D. 1162 39 Richard the Monke A. D. 1171 40 Baldwin A. D. 1184 41 Reginald Fitz-Jocelin A. D. 1191 42 Hubert Walter A. D. 1193 33 Steph Langton Card. A. D. 1206 44 Ri Wethershed A. D. 1229 45 St. Edmond A. D. 1234 46 Boniface of Savoy A. D. 1244 47 Robert Kilwarby Ca. A. D. 1272 48 John Peckham A. D. 1278 49 Ro Winchelsey A. D. 1294 50 Walt. Reynolds A. D. 1313 51 Simon Mepham A. D. 1327 52 John Stratford A. D. 1333 53 Th Bradwardin A. D. 1348 54 Simon Islip A. D. 1349 55 Si Langham C. A. D. 1366 56 Will Wittlesey A. D. 1367 57 Simon Sudbury A. D. 1379 58 Will Courtney A. D. 1381 59 Tho. Arundell A. D. 1396 60 Hen Chicheley Car. A. D. 1414 61 Jo Stafford Car. A. D. 1443 62 Joh Kemp Car. A. D. 1452 63 Tho Bourcheir A. D. 1454 64 John Moorton Card. A. D. 1486 65 Henry Deane A. D. 1502 66 Will Warham A. D. 1504 67 Tho Cranmer A. D. 1533 68 Reginald Poole Car. A. D. 1555 69 Matth Parker A. D. 1559 70 Edm Gryndall A. D. 1575 71 John Whitgift A. D. 1583 72 Rich Bancroft A. D. 1604 73 George Abbot A. D. 1610 74 William Laud. A. D. 1633 Beheaded on Tower-hill Jan 10. 1644. S. ASAPH 1 Kentigern A. D. 560 2 Saint Asaph and after him many hundred yeares 3 Geffrey of Monmouth A. D. 1151 4 Adam a Welshman 5 Reiner A. D. 1186 6 Abraham A. D. 1220 7 Howel ap Edneuet A. D. 1235 8 Anâ—anus I. A. D. 1248 The see vacant 2. yeares 9 Anianus II. of Schonaw A. D. 1268 10 Lewellin of Bromfeild A. D. 1293 11 David ap Blethin A. D. 1319 12 Ephraim 13 Henry 14 John Trevaur I. 15 Lewellin ap Madoc ap Elis. A. D. 1357 16 Will. of Spridlington A. D. 1373 17 Laurence Child A. D. 1382 18 Alexander Bach. A. D. 1390 19 John Trevaur II. A. D. 1395 20 Robert A. D. 1411 21 John Low A. D. 1493 22 Regin Peacock A. D. 1444 23 Thomas A. D. 1450 24 Rich Redman A. D. 1484 25 Dav ap Owen A. D. 1503 26 Edm Birkhead A. D. 1513 27 Henry Standish A. D. 1519 28 Will Barlow A. D. 1535 29 Robert Parfew alias Warton A. D. 1536 30 Tho Goldwell A. D. 1555 31 Richard Davies A. D. 1559 32 Thom Davies A. D. 1561 33 Will Hughes A. D. 1573 34 Will Morgan A. D. 1601 35 Richard Parry A. D. 1604 36 John Hanmer A. D.
22.22 Grand motives to a publick restitution and fixation of the Reformed Religion 1. Reason from the glory of our God and Saviour Lib. 2. c. 4 5. 2. Reason from prudence and civil policy Euseb l. 8. hist cap. 1. Sense of true Honour calls for the establishment of Religion Sense of gratitude invites to restore and establish Religion The hopefull possibility of restoring true Religion to unity and settlednesse in England Of meanes to recompose the differences of Religion in England 1. From Ministers or the Clergy Anno 1527. Revel 3.2 Jude 3. 2 From Magistrates and Lay-men Mr. Fullers History of the Brit. Church History of the Church of Scotland by Sâ—otswood Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews Of the late Associations projected by some Ministers Acts 27.17 Concil Chalcedon Can. 29. Of civill assistance from Lay-men to restore this Church and Religion Act. 16.9 Euseb in Vita Const Tit. 3.10 A scrutiny of what is good or bad in all parties 1. The best and worst of Episcopacy 2. Triall of Presbytery 3. The Triall of Independency The reconciling of the reall interests of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency Of Sacramentall scrutinies to be used Cypr ep 10. 26. Prosanâ sacilitate Sanctum Christi corpus prosanare 1 Cor. 2.10 1 Joh. 4.2 13. Rom. 10. 9 10. Acts 8.13 1 Sam. 6.7 Facies singuloruÌ„ videmus corda scâ—utari non possumus dâ— his judicat occuliotum scrutator câ— to venturus de arcanis cordis jud catuâ—us Cyp. ep 53. True Episcopacy stated and represented to its Antagonists Phil. 4.5 * PostquaÌ„ comperisset Presbyterialem statum citra Episcopalem in iis ecclesiis coâ—sistere non posse c. Vide Salmâ—siii vitam p. 50. Consulebat Episcopos non omnino tollendos c. Objections against Episcopacy discussed 1. Object From the samenesse of their Names Bishop and Presbyter signifying but one office and power 1 Cor. 10. Obj. Secondly that Presbyters did chuse and impower their Bishops of old Ans Obj. 3d. That Presbyters are as able and willing to ordain as any Bishops Ans 2 Tim. 2.2 Obj. 4. That Episcopacy was the root of the Papacy Ans Obj. 5. That Bishops are prone to be severe and tyrannick Ans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. Concil Carth. 4 can â—3 Consessus honorem cum Episcopo habent Presbyteri Cyp. ep 46. 55. saepealibi Communi Presbyterorum consilio regebantur Ecclesiae â—en Epist ad Euag. Obj. 6. The jealousie lest Bishops should recover their lands Ans Earnestly exhorting Ministers of all sides to an happy composure and union 1 Cor. 3.3 4. Sacerdos plebe praesente sub omnium oâ—ulis deligatur dignus atque idoneus omnium publico judicio ac testimonie comprobetur Cyp. Ep. 68. Tertul. de praes c. 43. Ubi metus in Deum ibi gravitas modesta diligentia attonita cura solicita communicatio deliberata promotio emerita subjectio religiosa ecclesia unita Dei omnia Hier. ep 36. Amb. de poen .1 c. 16. Sulcarunt lacrim's genas vultum fletibus exarabant mortis speciem in spiranti corpore praeferebant Num. 16.3 Humbly exhorting Magistrates to assist in so good a work Isa 40.2 Zech 3.3 4. Jer. 38. Sueton. in vita Aug. Councâ—ls or Synods the proper means to restore lapsed Religion Euseb vit Const Of Ecclesiastick Councils called by Christian Princes Deut. 17.8 to v. 14 Numb 16.48 1 Sam. 6.7 c. Mark 15.16 17. Luke 23.11 Mat. 2.9 Act. 15.22 ver 28. The great use of Nationall and frequent Synods The method of restoring a setled Church and united Ministry The essentials of a true Ministry 1. The Subject matter of the Ministry must be able and apt men 2 Cor. 2.16 2 Cor. 4.7 Secondly The essential Form of a true Minister right Ordination Ordinatos suisse Presbyteros à solis Presbyteris nullo exemplo nulla authoritate probari potest Sarav Cont. Bez. de grad Min. c. 22. Heb. 6.2 Eph. 4. Mr. Mason Preface to his Defence c. Tertul. l. de Praes adv Haer. l. 32 34. Cont. Marci l. 4. c. 5. Euseb hist l. 5 6 7. Irenaeus l. 4. c. 6. lib. 5. c. 20. Cyp. ep 52. passim Which authorities are afterward at large cited in this Book Veritatis praedicatorem unius diei spatio velut è luto statuam fingunt Nazian Of the well-being of the Clergy or Ministry 1. In point of maintenance and support 1 Tim. 5.17 1 Cor. 9.6 Act. 4.34 35. Gen. 14.18 Num. 18.20 21. Deut. 10 9. 1 Cor. 9.14 Gal. 6.6 Heb. 7.9 Mat. 10.42 Eccl. 9.15 Theod. hist l. 4. c. 4. Of meet order Government and subordination among the Clergy 1 Cor. 11.16 Episcopatus aemulatio sâ—hâ—smatum mater Tert. de Bap. c. 17. Reperiemus veteres episcopos non aliam regendae ecclesiae formam voluisse fingere ab eâ— quam verbo suo Deus praescripsit Calv. Inst l. 4. c. 4. Sect. 4. Act. 6. 1 Tim. 3.8 Deacons Presbyters Bishops Act 1.20 1 Ep. to Tim. cap. 3. 5. and Ep. to Tâ—tus cap. 1. Episcopi quos Apostoli successores relinquebant ipsis suum magisterii locâ—m tradentes Irenae l. 3. c. 9. Habemus enumerare eos qui ab Apostolis constituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis successores corum usque ad nos Irenae l. 4. c. 6. lib. 5. c. â—0 Ordo Episcoporum ad originem recensus in Johannem stabit Authorem Tertul. adv Marc. l. 4. c. 5. Sicut Smyâ—naeorum ecclesia Polycarpum à Johanne colloâ—atum refert sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordinatum edit perinde utique caeterae exhibent ecclesiae quos ab Apostolis in Episcopatum constitutâ—s Apostolici seminis traduces hubent Tertul. lib. de praesc adv Haer. c. 32. 34. De Johanne Apost Clâ—mâ—ns Alexandrinus narrat post mortem Domiâ—â—anâ— reditum suum à Patmo in Ephesum in vicinas gentes abiit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Episcopos constituens Ecclesias in ordinem digerens Lib. de Div. Sal. Origeni falsò ascripto ex judicio cl Usserii Armachani Jampridem per omnes provincias urbes ordinati sunt Episcopi c. Cyp. ep 52. Successiones Episcoporum qui Apostolos sequuâ—i sunt 7. libris descripsimus Euseb l. 4. hist cap. 1. So. Theod. hist l. 5. c. 27. * Calv. Inst l. 4. c. 4. Sect. 4. (a) Apud nos Apostolorum locit tenent Episcopi Hier. ep 54. Ut sciamus traditiones Apostolicas sumptas de veteri Testamento quod Aaron filii ejus Levitae in Templo erant hoc sibi in ecclesiis vindicent Episcopi Presbyteri Diaconi Hieron ad Euag. (b) Episcopus ecclesiis regendis unicus praepositus est qui pluâ—ibus unius ecclesiae presbyteris praeesser Bono fine hoc institutum esse nemo negat quum optima ratio fuerit ita instituendi Salmas Walo Messal pag. 413. (c) Neque enim Hieronymus quum diceret ecclesias initio fuisse communi presbyterorum consilio