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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44334	The works of Mr. Richard Hooker (that learned and judicious divine), in eight books of ecclesiastical polity compleated out of his own manuscripts, never before published : with an account of his life and death ...; Ecclesiastical polity	Hooker, Richard, 1553 or 4-1600.; Gauden, John, 1605-1662.; Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.; Travers, Walter, 1547 or 8-1635. Supplication made to the councel.	1666 (1666)	Wing H2631; ESTC R11910	1,163,865	672

and the coherance it hath with those things either on which it dependeth or which depend on it 8. The case so standing therefore my Brethren as it doth the wisdom of Governors ye must not blame in that they further also forecasting the manifold strange and dangerous innovations which are more then likely to follow if your Discipline should take place have for that cause thought it hitherto a part of their duty to withstand your endeavors that way The rather for that they have seen already some small beginnings of the fruits thereof in them who concurring with you in judgment about the necessity of that Discipline have adventured without more ado to separate themselves from the rest of the Church and to put your speculations in execution These mens hastiness the warier sort of you doth not commend ye wish they had held themselves longer in and not so dangerously flown abroad before the feathers of the Cause had been grown their Error with merciful terms ye reprove naming them in great commiseration of minds your poor Brethren They on the contrary side more bitterly accuse you as their false Brethren and against you they plead saying From your Brests it is that we have sucked those things which when ye delivered unto us ye termed that heavenly sincere and wholesom Milk of Gods Word howsoever ye now abhor as poyson that which the vertue thereof hath wrought and brought forth in us Ye sometime our Companions Guides and Familiars with whom we have had most sweet Consultations are now become our professed Adversaries because we think the Statute-Congregation in England to be no true Christian Churches because we have severed our selves from them and because without their leave or licence that are in Civil Authority we have secretly framed our own Churches according to the Platform of the Word of God For of that point between you and us there is no Controversie Also what would ye have us to do At such time as ye were content to accept us in the number of your own your Teaching we heard weread your Writings And though we would yet able we are not to forget with what zeal ye have ever profest That in the English Congregations for so many of them as be ordered according unto their own Laws the very Publick Service of God is fraught as touching Matter with heaps of intolerable Pollutions and as concerning Form borrowed from the Shop of Antichrist hateful both ways in the eyes of the most Holy the kinde of their Government by Bishops and Archbishops Antichristian that Discipline which Christ hath essentially tied that is to say so united unto his Church that we cannot account it really to be his Church which hath not in it the same Discipline that very Discipline no less there despised then in the highest Throne of Antichrist All such parts of the Word of God as do any way concern that Discipline no less unsoundly taught and interpreted by all authorized English Pastors then by Antichrists Factors themselves At Baptism Crossing at the Supper of the Lord. Kneeling at both a number of other the most notorious Badges of Antichristian Recognisance usual Being moved with these and the like your effectual discourses whereunto we gave most attentive ear till they entred even into our souls and were as fire within our bosoms We thought we might hereof be bold to conclude That sith no such Antichristian Synagogue may be accounted a true Church of Christ ye by accusing all Congregations ordered according to the Laws of England as Antichristian did mean to condemn those Congregations as not being any of them worthy the name of a true Christian Church Ye tell us now it is not your meaning But what meant your often threatnings of them who professing themselves the inhabitants of Mount Sion were too loth to depart wholly as they should out of Babylon Whereat our hearts being fearfully troubled we durst not we durst not continue longer so near her confines lest her plagues might suddenly overtake us before we did cease to be partakers with her sins for so we could not chuse but acknowledge with grief that we were when they doing evil we by our presence in their Assemblies seemed to like thereof or at leastwise not so earnestly to dislike as became men heartily zealous of Gods glory For adventuring to erect the Discipline of Christ without the leave of the Christian Magistrate haply ye may condemn us as fools in that we hazard thereby our estates and persons further then you which are that way more wise think necessary But of any offence or sin therein committed against God with what conscience can you accuse us when your own positions are That the things we observe should every of them be dearer unto us then ten thousand lives that they are the peremptory Commandments of God that no mortal man can dispense with them and that the Magistrate grievously sinneth in not constraining thereunto Will ye blame any man for doing that of his own accord which all men should be compelled to do that are not willing of themselves When God commandeth shall we answer that we will obey if so be Cesar will grant us leave Is Discipline an Ecclesiastical Matter or a Civil If an Ecclesiastical is must of necessity belong to the duty of the Minister and the Minister ye say holdeth all his Authority of doing whatsoever belongeth unto the Spiritual Charge of the House of God even immediately from God himself without dependency upon any Magistrate Whereupon it followeth as we suppose that the hearts of the people being willing to be under the Scepter of Christ the Minister of God into whose hands the Lord himself hath put that Scepter is without all excuse if thereby he guide them not Nor do we finde that hitherto greatly ye have disliked those Churches abroad where the people with direction of their godly Ministers have even against the will of the Magistrate brought in either the Doctrine or Discipline of Iesus Christ For which cause we must now think the very same thing of you which our Saviour did sometime utter concerning false-hearted Scribes and Pharisees They say and do not Thus the foolish Barrowist deriveth his Schism by way of Conclusion as to him it seemeth directly and plainly out of your principles Him therefore we leave to be satisfied by you from whom he hath sprung And if such by your own acknowledgment be persons dangerous although as yet the alterations which they have made are of small and tender growth the changes likely to ensue throughout all States and Vocations within this Land in case your desire should take place must be thought upon First Concerning the Supream Power of the Highest they are no small Prerogatives which now thereunto belonging the Form of your Discipline will constrain it to resign as in the last Book of this Treatise we have shewed at large Again it may justly be feared whether our English

dear and precious to me than that I may always remain in your Honours favour which hath oftentimes be an helpful and comfortable unto me in my Ministry aud to all such as reaped any fruit of my simple and faithful labour In which dutiful regard I humbly beseech you Honours to vouchsafe to do me this grace to conceive nothing of me otherwise than according to the duty wherein I ought to live by any information against me before your Honours have heard my answer and been throughly informed of the matter Which although it be a thing that your wisdoms not in favour but in justice yeld to all men yet the state of the the calling into the Ministery whereunto it hath pleased God of his goodness to call me though unworthiest of all is so subject to mis-information as except we may finde this favour with your Honours we cannot look for any other but that our unindifferent parties may easily procure us to be hardly esteemed of and that we shall be made like the poor Fisher-boats in the Sea which every swelling wave and billow raketh and runneth over Wherein my Estate is yet harder than any others of my Rank and Calling who are indeed to fight against Flesh and Blood in what part soever of the Lords Host and Field they shall stand mashalled to serve yet many of them deal with it naked and unfurnished of Weapons But my service was in a place where I was to encounter with it well appointed and armed with skill and with authority whereof as I have always thus deserved and therefore have been careful by all good means to entertain still your Honours favourable respect of me so have I special cause at this present wherein mis-information to the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and other of the High Commission hath been able so farr to prevail against me that by their Letter they have inhibited me to preach or execute any Act of Ministry in the Temple or elsewhere having never once called me before them to understand by mine answer the truth of such things as had been informed against me We have a story in our Books wherein the Pharisees proceeding against our Saviour Christ without having heard him is reproved by an honourable Counsellour as the Evangelist doth term him saying Doth our Law judge a man before it hear him and know what he hath done Which I do not mention to the end that by an indirect and covert speech I might so compare those who have without ever hearing me pronounced a heavy sentence against me for notwithstanding such proceedings I purpose by Gods grace to carry my self towards them in all seeming duty agreeable to their places much less do I presume to liken my Cause to our Saviour Christ's who hold it my chiefest honour and happiness to serve him though it be but among the hindes and hired Servants that serve him in the basest corners of his House But my purpose in mentioning it is to shew by the judgement of a Prince and great man in Israel that such proceeding standeth not with the Lavv of God and in a Princely Pattern to shew it to be a noble part of an honourable Counsellour not to allow of indirect dealings but to allow and affect such a course in Justice as is agreeable to the Lavv of God We have also a plain rule in the Word of God not to proceed any otherwise against any Elder of the Church much less against one that laboureth in the Word and in teaching Which rule is delivered with this most earnest charge and obtestation I beseech and charge thee in the sight of God and the Lord Iesus Christ and the Elect Angels that thou keep those rules without preferring one before another doing nothing of partiality or including to either part which Apostolical and most earnest charge I referr to your Honours wisdom how it hath been regarded in so heavy a Judgement against me without ever hearing my Cause and whethe● as having God before their eyes and the Lord Jesus by whom all former Judgements shall be tried again and as in the presence of the Elect Angels Witnesses and Observers of the Regiment of the Church they have proceeded thus to such a sentence They alledge indeed two reasons in their Letters whereupon they restrain my Ministry which if they were as strong against me as they are supposed yet I referr to your Honours wisdoms whether the quality of such an Offence as they charge me with which is in effect but an indiscretion deserve so grievous a punishment both to the Church and me in taking away my Ministery and that poor little commodity which it yieldeth for the necessary maintenance of my life if so unequal a ballancing of faults and punishments should have place in the Common-wealth surely we should shortly have no Actions upon the Case nor of Trespass but all should be Pleas of the Crown nor any man amerced or fined but for every light offence put to his ransom I have credibly heard that some of the Ministery have been committed for grievous transgressions of the Laws of God and men being of no ability to do other service in the Church than to read yet hath it been thought charitable and standing with Christian moderation and temperancy not to deprive such of Ministry and Beneficency but to inflict some more tolerable punishment Which I write not because such as I think were to be favoured but to shew how unlike their dealing is with me being through the goodness of God not to be touched with any such blame and one who according to the measure of the gift of God have laboured now some years painfully in regard of the weak estate of my Body in preaching the Gospel and as I hope not altogether unprofitably in respect of the Church But I beseech your Honors to give me leave briefly to declare the particular reasons of their Letter and what Answer I have to make unto it The first is That as they say I am not lawfully called to the Function of the Ministry nor allowed to preach according to the Laws of the Church of England For Answer to this I had need to divide the Points and first to make answer to the former wherein leaving to shew what by the Holy Scriptures is required in a lawful Calling and that all this is to be found in mine that I be not too long for your weighty affairs I rest I thus answer My calling to the Ministry was such as in the calling of any thereunto is appointed to be used by the Orders agreed upon in the National Synods of the Low-Countreys for the direction and guidance of their Churches which Orders are the same with those whereby the French and Scotish Churches are governed whereof I have shewed such sufficient testimonial to my Lord the Archbishop of Canterbury as is requisite in such a Matter whereby it must needs fall out if any man be lawfully called to the Ministry in

those Churches then is my Calling being the same with theirs also lawful But I suppose notwithstanding they use this general speech they mean only my Calling is not sufficient to de● in the Ministry within this Land because I was not made Minister according to that Order which in this Case is ordained by our Laws Whereunto I beseech your Honours to consider throughly of mine Answer because exception now again is taken to my Ministery whereas having been heretofore called in question for it I so answered the matter as I continued in my Ministery and for any thing I discerned looked to hear that no more objected unto me The communion of Saints which every Christian man professeth to believe is such as that the Acts which are done in any true Church of Christs according to his Word are held as lawful being done in one Church as in another Which as it holdeth in other Acts of Ministery as Baptism Mariage and such like so doth it in the calling to the Ministery by reason whereof all Churches do acknowledge and receive him for a Minister of the Word who hath been lawfully called thereunto in any Church of the same Profession A Doctor created in any University of Christendom is acknowledged sufficiently qualified to teach in any Country The Church of Rome it self and the Canon law holdeth it that being ordered in Spain they may execute that belongeth to their Order in Italy or in any other place And the Churches of the Gospel never made any question of it which if they shall now begin to make doubt of and deny such to be lawfully called to the Ministry as are called by another Order than our own then may it well be looked for that other Churches will do the like And if a Minister called in the Low-countries be not lawfully called in England then may they say to our Preachers which are there that being made of another Order than theirs they cannot suffer them to execute any Act of Ministry amongst them which in the end must needs breed a Schism and dangerous divisions in the Churches Further I have heard of those that are learned in the Laws of this Land that by express Statute to that purpose Anno 13. upon subscription to the Articles agreed upon Anno 62. that they who pretend to have been ordered by another Order than that which is now established are of like capacity to enjoy any place of Ministry within the Land as they which have been ordered according to that which is now by law in this case established Which comprehending manifestly all even such as were made Priests according to the Order of the Church of Rome it must needs be that the Law of a Christian Land professing the Gospel should be as favourable for a Minister of the Word as for a Popish Priest which also was so found in Mr. Whittingham's Case who notwithstanding such Replies against him enjoyed still the benefit he had by his Ministry and might have done untill this day if God had spared him life so long which if it be understood so and practised in others why should the change of the Person alter the right which the Law giveth to all other The place of Ministry whereunto I was called was not Presentative and if it had been so surely they would never have presented any man whom they never knew and the order of this Church is agreeable herein to the Word of God and the antient and best Canons that no man should be made a Minister sine titulo therefore having none I could not by the Orders of this Church have entred into the Ministry before I had a Charge to tend upon When I was at Antwerp and to take a Place of Ministry among the People of that Nation I see no cause why I should have returned again over the Seas for Orders here nor how I could have done it without disallowing the Orders of the Churches provided in the Country where I was to live Whereby I hope it appeareth that my Calling to the Ministry is lawful and maketh me by our Law of capacity to enjoy any benefit or commodity that any other by reason of his Ministry may enjoy But my Cause is yet more easie who reaped no benefit of my Ministery by Law receiving onely a benevolence and voluntary Contribution and the Ministery I dealt with being Preaching onely which every Deacon here may do being licensed and certain that are neither Ministers not Deacons Thus I answer the former of these two Points whereof if there be yet any doubt I humbly desire for a final end thereof that some competent Judges in Law may determine of it whereunto I referr and submit my self with all reverence and duty The second is That I preached without License Whereunto this is my Answer I have not presumed upon the Calling I had to the Ministery abroad to Preach or deal with any part of the Ministery within this Church without the consent and allowance of such as were to allow me unto it my Allowance was from the Bishop of London testified by his two several Letters to the Inner Temple who without such testimony would by no means rest satified in it which Letters being by me produced I referr it to your Honours wisdom whether I have taken upon me to Preach without being allowed as they charge according to the Orders of the Realm Thus having answered the second point also I have done with the Objection of dealing without Calling or License The other Reason they alledge is concerning a late Action wherein I had to deal with Mr. Hooker Master of the Temple In the handling of which Cause they charge me with an Indiscretion and want of Duty In that I inveighed as they say against certain Points of Doctrine taught by him as erroneous not conferring with him nor complaining of it to them My Answer hereunto standeth in declaring to your Honours the whole course and carriage of that Cause and the degrees of proceeding in it which I will do as briefly as I can and according to the truth God be my witness as near as my best memory and notes of remembrance may serve me thereunto After that I have taken away that which seemed to have moved them to think me not charitably minded to Mr. Hooker which is Because he was brought in to Mr. Alveyes Place wherein this Church desired that I might have succeeded which Place if I would have made suit to have obtained or if I had ambitiously affected and sought I would not have refused to have satisfied by subscription such as the matter them seemed to depend upon whereas contrariwise notwithstanding I would not hinder the Church to do that they thought to be most for their edification and comfort yet did I neither by Speech nor Letter make suit to any for the obtaining of it following herein that resolution which I judge to be most agreeable to the Word and Will of God that is that