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
it may be their greatest enemies in their place posture and provocations would not have been much more moderate and calme than they were But let these Bishops passe who as the highest trees have suffered first and most the battery of the storms raised against Bishops These few were abundantly counterpoised by those many other Bishops both in former and later dayes whose worth and abilities every way were such that it is hard to find any of their adversaries in all things equall to them nor could they have stood before them in the combate if no weapons but bookes and arguments had been used certainly some one Bishop had been able to have chased an hundred Presbyters these last being seconded by none of the ancients the first having all antiquity on his side T is true I well know that many of the Presbyterian party were men of very fleet pace of voluble tongues pregnant parts and plausible appearances which did very well while they kept their ranks and stations but yet under favour they did not any of them attaine to the first three There were many pounds yea talents difference between a spruce Lecturer or a popular Preacher and a wel-studied Bishop whose great Learning and Experience had made him every way grave and complete there was as great a distance between some Bishops sufficiencies and the ablest Antiepiscopall Presbyterian that ever I knew as there was between their honors and revenues Take them in all latitudes for writing speaking and doing that I say nothing of their prudentials in governing wherein Bishops drove the Chariot tolerably well at all times sometimes very well during a thousand yeares and more in England and Wales But the Presbyterian wisdom and Policy hath not onely overthrown others but themselves too in a few yeares together with the unity order and honor of this Nationall Church Yea as to that part of a Clergy-man which is not more popular and plausible than profitable and commendable when well performed I meane preaching no Presbyterians exceeded the Episcopall Clergy or some Bishops in this particular if they preached oftner yet not better no nor oftner considering the Age and infirmities of body which might attend some Bishops Nothing was beyond the thunders and lightnings sometime or the gentle raines and softer dewes otherwhile which distilled from the Tongues of Learned Godly and Eloquent Bishops How oft have I heard them with equall profit and pleasure Such apples of Gold in pictures of silver such wholesome fruit in faire dishes were their sermons many of which have been printed and many hundred more never published Doubtless none of the Primitive Bishops and Fathers went beyond ours in England if we may judge of their Preaching by those short and most-what plaine Homilies or Sermons which we read Few of which were preached before great Princes and their Courts as ours oftâ—were whose Court-sermons since Queen Elizabeth began to Reigne if they could be collected together I doubt not but they would be one of the richest Mines or Magazines of Learning Piety Prudence and Eloquence in the world For those Sermons both for the present Majesty of the Prince for the curiosity of the Auditory and for the abilities of the Orator were the Quintessence or Spirits of many sermons and much study commonly as much beyond ordinary preachments as orientall pearles are beyond the Scotch Pallors of those Jewels Not but that it is the commendation of ordinary Ministers to preach plainly yet powerfully to ordinary hearers so as may most profit them For he is the best Archer not who shootes highest or furthest but neerest and surest as to that mark at which he is to aime which in preaching must be the saving of soules not pleasing mens eares Nor did the others preach lesse honestly or usefully because more elaborately at Court considering the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nauseous wantonnesse of most Courtiers and their curious expectation who needed as much as they expected sermons that savoured not onely of the Lips and Lungs but of the heart and head too For Court-hearers will never get profit unless the Preacher take paines And Queen Elizabeth very smartly once said when she heard a warme and earnest but a very plaine and easie Country-preacher who was brought to preach before her in her progresse by some of those Courtiers who then seemed to favour the Nonconformists She that had been wonted to drink strong-waters rarely distilled and compounded of many excellent spirits which were very cordiall in lesser quantities did not wel relish any drink that was very smal though it seemed scalding hot which is rather a culinary than a celestiall heat in preaching whose true warmth lies in the weight of the matter not in the noise or heat of the speaker I am not ignorant that some of our later Bishops fell under great obloquy and odium among many people specially the last Archbishop of Canterbury who being a man naturally active quick rough and cholerick enough lesse benigne and obliging than was expected from him had brought upon himself so great a weight of envy jealousie and disdain that there was no standing before it when once he was left to stand by himself he was easily over-run by a multitude being but low of stature of no promising winning or over-awing presence As for his politick or civil Demeanours upon which account he suffered death I have nothing to do with them in this place both he and his Judges are to be judged by the Lord. As to his Religion I shall afterward expresse my sense whether he were Popish or not But first I would a little consider that suddaine cloud which covered the face of many of our brightest Bishops at once confining them to prisons who were esteemed persons of great Candor Prudence and Moderation yet was their discretion much called into question when twelve of them were snared and twice committed most of them to the Tower for a Remonstrance or Protestation which they made in order to assert their ancient and undoubted priviledge to sit as Peeres in the House of Lords to which they had by writs been summoned Some State-Criticks thought they forgat what became their yeares their wisdome their dependance and the distempers of the times My answer is possibly those goodmen might through discontent and indignation at the vile and vulgar indignities they suffered even a Parlament now sitting of which they were Members pen the form of their intended plea lesse conveniently passion being an ill Counsellour or dictator to the wisest men yet I believe few of their severest censurers would have been more cautious in their expressions if they had been under the like tumultuary terrors and insolencies which repeated and unremedied were capable to provoke men of very meek spirits and mortified passions to speak or write unadvisedly as Moses himself did in a case of lesse personall provocation than at other times he had given him from the petulancy of people Nothing scares sober men more than to
Darknesse Truth and Falshood Error and sound Doctrine between the Institutions of Christ and the sacrilegious Inventions of Men between the infallible Rule and Oracles of Gods Word in the Scripture and the variable Canons of poor men between the Catholick Custom of pure and Primitive Churches and the particular practises of later Usurpations brought in in the twilight of dark and depraved times These diametral distances ought ever to be preserved by all godly Bishops who may not come neerer to Popery than Popery is neer to Christianity or then Antichristian policies may correspond in some things with Christian piety Which just bounds as far as ever I could understand our pious Bishops in England from the first Reformation till now have religiously observed not one of them much less all deliberately or openly owning any communion with the Church of Rome where they saw the Church of England had made a just clear and necessary separation yea the learned Bishops of England have generally so fully confuted the Falsity Injury and Indignity of that calumny both by their Preaching Writing Living and Dying that men must be blind with despite mad with malice or drunk with passion when they vomit out so foul calumnies against all Bishops and Episcopacy in England as if they were Pandars for Popery and Pimps to the Whore of Babylon for this is the language of some mens oratorious Zeal against our Bishops and all Episcopacy which will in time much more agree with Presbytery and Independency I fear than ever it did with Episcopacy But it wil be demanded of me whence then arose this smoke of Jealousie which was so popular and spread abroad that it made so many pure Eyes to ake and smart yea to grow watry and blood-shotten not onely among the vulgar but even among our greatest Seers and Overseers Was there no fire where there was so great a smoke My Answer is these jealousies of some Bishops and other Ministers who most imitated them being Popishly inclined never had so far as ever I could discern any farther ground than this Some Bishops pleased themselves beyond what was generally practised in England with a more ceremonious conformity than others observed first to the Canons and Injunctions which they thought were yet in force in the Church of England being not repealed but onely antiquated through a general disuse next being aged and learned men and more conversant in the Antiquities of the Church than younger Ministers they found that such ceremonious Solemnities in Religion were then very much used without any sin or scandal no godly Bishop Presbyter or other good Christian ever making scruple of using the sign of the Cross in Baptism and at other times of Bowing Kneeling Prostrating himself or of putting his mouth to the ground and kissing the Pavement when he came to worship God or to celebrate holy Mysteries expressing thereby that Humility Faith Fervency sense of his own sinful Unworthiness and that unfeigned Reverence which he bare in his heart toward God and his Service This I suppose made some of our Bishops hope that they might with the like inoffensivenesse add such Solemnity to Sanctity and such outward Veneration to inward Devotion and yet be as far from Popery or Superstition as the ancient Christians were yea as those Ministers and others now pretend to be who make so much of lifting up their eyes and hands in Prayer or who are pleased to be uncovered in Praying Preaching Singing or Celebrating the Sacraments Besides this many Bishops found a secret genius of Rusticity and Rudenesse of Familiarity and Irreverence strangely prevailing among Country-Preachers and People so far that they saw many of them placed much of their Religion in affecting a slovenly rudenesse and irreverence in all publick and holy Duties loth to kneel not onely at the Sacrament but at any Prayers or to be uncovered at any Duty enemies to any man and prejudiced against all he did if he shewed any ceremonious respect in his serving God They saw some were grown so spiritual that they forgot they had bodies and pretending to approve themselves to God onely as to the inward man they cared not for any thing that was regular exemplary orderly comely or reverent as to the outward celebration in the judgement and appointment of the Church of England Hence some men grew to such great applaudings of themselves as if this were the onely simplicity of the Gospel that they thought every man went about to cut the throat of Reformed Religion who applied any Scissers or Razor to pare off rudeness and rusticity or to trim it to any decency in the outward Ministrations according to what seemed best to the Church of England Many Bishops thought that Religion would grow strangely wild hirsute horrid and incult like Nebuchadnezzars hair and nails if it were left to the boysterous Clowneries and unmannerly Liberties which every one would affect contrary to the publick appointment of the Church If some Bishops pleased themselves in using such outward and enjoyned Ceremonies beyond what was ordinary to some men yet certainly a thousand decent and innocent Ceremonies such as those enjoyned by the Church of England were declared to be do not amount to one Popish Opinion nor are they so heavy as one popular erroneous Principle which tends to Faction Licentiousnesse and Profanenesse Ceremonies may possibly be thought superfluous because not of the substance of the Duty but they are not to be charged as superstitious where the Devotion of the heart is holy and the Duty is sincerely performed for the Essentials of it as it is instituted by Christ enjoyned by the Word of God who hath left the ceremonious part of Religion more or less very much to the prudence of his Church according to the several forms and customs of civil respect and decency used in the world which St. Austin and St. Ambrose with all the Ancients declare placing no further Religion in any Ceremony of humane invention and use than it served aptly to excite or express inward sincerity of Devotion and an outward conformity to the decent customs of any Church Which keeping to the Truth Faith and holy Institutions of Christ for the main were not blameable for that variety of Ceremony which was and might be observed without any damage to Truth or breach of Charity As to the maine charge then that Bishops in England were Popish that is warping from the Reformed Doctrine of the Church of England as it was and is stated opposite to the Romish errors and corruptions I do believe that the Bishops of England were in all Ages since the Reformation and in this last as much removed and as free from Popery as the most rigid censors of them who dare accuse every man for Popish who is not boyled up to the same superstitious height and Ceremonious Antipathy with themselves or who do not presently adopt every mans new fancy opinion and form of Religion though private
a steddy judgement and unpopular spirit who pressed upon his Unepiscopal much more against his Antiepiscopal Presbytery so strongly that he forced his Antagonist to stoop and subscribe to Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy yea and to acknowledge Bishops even from the Apostles dayes to have been the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ◠Presidents or chief Rulers among Presbyters in all Churches Mr. Beza's Essayes not so much to have undermined Episcopacy as to have fixed or earthed his Presbytery better being thus notably countermined yet upon his very breaking the earth and promising at least pretending to spring some rich Mine of Scripture and Antiquity to prove if not the sole yet at least the concurrent Divine right of Presbytery on both sides of it both as to its preaching ruling Elders as stamped with the mark of Christ and his Apostles besides his and others terrifying the world as if Popery had begun with Prelacy and Antichrist had sucked the breasts of Episcopacy it is not imaginable what industrious Pioneers and Souldiers followed these charms this alarme for Presbytery against Episcopacy who sifting every name of Bishop Presbyter Elder Evangelist Messenger Apostle Prophet Pastor Teacher Ruler Governments Helps c. in Scripture and Antiquity found or fancied upon all of them something that made very much if not onely for Presbytery and very much if not wholly against Episcopacy so far that they would not allow so much as the twelve or thirteen prime Apostles any Episcopal Presidency Eminency or Authority above the seventy Disciples or any Presbyters whom they ordained much less any Bishop after them above the youngest meanest and pettiest Presbyter rather suspecting yea aspersing all Antiquity even in the primitive and purest times for Ignorance and Error or Falsity and Ambition in following the Catholick custom of Episcopacy after the great Apostolical pattern which was in them given to all Churches by the Spirit of Christ and after continued by the Apostles own appointment than any way admitting any Innovation Flaw or Defect to be in their new-formed Presbytery Heats unhappily growing great and Eruptions many from the Etna or Vesuvius of mens passions the sulphur and ashes at last came from Geneva Franckfort and Edenborough over to England where at first they onley fell upon the square Caps and Rochets of our excellent reformed and reforming Bishops but at last they flew in their very Faces and Eyes without any respect to their Age Learning Piety Sanctity and Martyrly Constancy besides the honourable places they still held both in Church and State according to our Laws For the Undertakers for the Cause as they called it of Jesus Christ first picking at the outworks of Ceremonies next at the spiriritual Courts or Jurisdictions of Bishops after that at the excellent Liturgy at last they laid amain at the whole Body as well as the Branches of Episcopacy going much further than ever their first Founders of Presbytery abroad or the modester Non-conformists at home ever designed or desired Thus a bolder Generation of men stopping their ears against all the charms of Scripture Antiquity Universality Prudence personal Merits publick Blessings and all proportions of Government and Polity only urging a peremptory necessity and a self-inforcing novelty perfected that in a dreadful War which was neither begun nor promoted nor desired by the chief Magistrate nor by his chief Council in its pristine fulness and freedom nor ever before was acted in any reformed Church whatsoever against their reformed Bishops After much bustling and blood-shed in perilous times this crooked and low shrub of Presbytery which having never much thriven or grown handsomly in Scotland or in any other Kingdom where it had been happily and handsomly grafted by King James with a renewed and well-reformed Episcopacy this bitten mangled and mis-shapen was brought over on the swords point and wrapped up in the cover of a Covenant as Plants in Mats to be set in this good soyl of England after sweating Smectymnuus and the industrious Assembly with many Heads Hands Tongues and Pens had digged and prepared the ground for it by gaining the minds of some wel-affected Members in the two Houses and others in other places About the Year 1649. the Fasces Imperiales and the Sacrae Secures the Holy Rods and Imperial Axes of Presbytery were displayed to England in their Ruling and Teaching Elders in their High and Mighty Consistories Parochial Classical Provincial National Oecumenical for the Presbyterian power was in all the world to prevail against Episcopacy as Daniels He-goat did against the Ram casting him to the ground and stamping upon him Every Presbyter young and old ripe and raw was to have not onely a sword in his mouth but a switch of correption in his hand which lest he should use too rashly and sharply he was to be pinioned and surrounded with certain Lay-Elders each of them furnished also with a Rod of Disciplinarian or ruling power equal to the Minister All this dreadful dispensation of Presbyterian discipline was pontifically and punctually set out by many discourses to the no small wonder of all wise men who knew the disproportions to all Government generally which were both in younger Ministers and in most Lay-men of plain parts and plebeian breeding such as in most places these herds of ruling Elders must be into whom the spirit of Government must presently enter And no less terrible was this paradox and parado of Presbyterian Discipline and Severity even to Common-people yea and to the most of the ablest Gentry and Nobility except some few whose itch and ambition of a Lay-elderships place had possibly biassed them to smile upon their persons and their now Presbytery to which they were invited solemnly to be Gossips Thus armed and marshalled in its Ranks and Regiments Presbytery began to hasten its March in its might furiously enough setting up its Conventions Ordinations Jurisdictions trying the metal and temper of its Censures by Ebaptizations Correptions Abstentions Excommunications and new Examinations even of ancient Christians old and eminent Disciples to whom they had formerly given the Sacrament twenty times some of which they sought to win by fair speeches some people they perswaded others they menaced and scared to submit to their new Scepter Daily Intelligences and brotherly Correspondencies were zealously kept every where very quick and warm among the Presbyterian Fraternity Bishops never so aged learned unblameable venerable and meritorious for their Labours and good Examples were as Underlings and conquered Vassals not so much as pittied but despised and trampled under foot exautorated and vilified by every young stripling that had got the switch of Presbytery in his hand which he saw now was beyond the Bishops Keyes or Crosier Presbytery thus driving at Jehu's rate for some time some of its wheels or pins like Pharaohs began to drop off which forced it to drive more heavily than its natural genius can well bear being spirited like Ezekiel's wheels with so
all ages if his prohibition be not against Separation Apostasy and total forsaking of the Churches communion both in Discipline and Doctrine in Polity and Verity as well as against Schisme The difference is not much between S. Pauls censure of Schisme and division as carnall and a work of the flesh Gal. 5.20 and that of S. Jude against such as separate as being sensuall and not having the Spirit especially where such communion is offered and required by a Church Christian and Reformed as is no way against the Word of God the Apostles example and the Primitive Catholick practise of all Churches such I believe and hope to prove that of the Church of England was and is as to those main essentialls of Religion which constitute a true Church both in the being and well-being But I needed not and therefore I crave your pardon worthy Gentlemen have spent so much breath to blow up and break the late thin bladders or light bubbles these new Corpusculas of separate Churches compared to the Catholick eminency unity and solidity of the Church of England and others of like size An easie foot will serve to beat down such new-sprung Mushromes of late perked up in this English soyle through the licentiousnesse of times and luxuriancy of mens humours since it hath been watered with Humane and Christian blood whose ambition seems to be not onely to divide and share but wholly to possess and engross this good land or else to leave desolate that field out of which they are sprung which bare far better fruits than now it doth long before their name was heard of under the new titles or style of bodyed and congregated associated or independented and new-fangled Churches Who have now the confidence to cry down the Church of England in its late visible polity harmony order and unity as a meer name and notion an insignificant Idea and empty imagination as if it were neither bonum nor jucundum good nor pleasant for Brethren in Christ to dwell together in unity or for men in one nation to be Christians in one Church as if bonds of civil polity reached farther than Ecclesiastick Some are so vain and vulgar as to boast that all Church-fellowship in England is no better then floten milk when once they have taken off the cream of some Saintly professors which they think worthy to make up and coagulate into their new and small bodyed Churches which are carried on by some with so high an hand and brow that a young master of that sect hath been heard to say not more magisterially than uncharitably he would sooner renounce his Baptism than own the Church of England to be a true Church And this notwithstanding that it is evident these new Rabbies have added nothing new and true to the Doctrine of the Church of England nor yet to the divine Worship and holy Ministrations or Duties used and professed in it with as much solemnity judgement and sincerity I believe as they can pretend to without blushing on mans part and with infinite more spirituall blessings and proficiency in all graces so far as yet appeares on Gods part Nor have they ever shewn any cause why It should be denyed the name honour priviledge and comfort of a true Church of Christ both in its principall parts and in the whole visible community or polity afflicted indeed at present but sometime famous and flourishing as in favour both with God and good men nor did it ever recede from its love or apostatize by any publick act or vote from such a profession of Christian and Reformed Religion as gives her a good Title to be and to be called a true Church of Christ in spight of men and Devils If any still list to quarrell at the name of a Nationall Church the same schismaticall sophisters may as well slight all those proportions and expressions used in all the grand Combinations and visible Constitutions of such ancient Churches throughout all descents of Christian Religion which never doubted to cast themselves into and continue in such Ecclesiasticall forms and parallel distributions as they found laid out by the blessed Apostles and the Spirit of Christ which without doubt most eminently guided those Primitive Churches When these new projectors have answered the Scripture style and the Apostolick patterns and pens followed by all antiquity which call and account all those Christians conjoyned in one Churches communion in point of Ecclesiasticall polity subordination chief power and jurisdiction who yet were dispersed in many places and so distinguished no doubt into many congregations as to the duties of ordinary worship throughout their Cities respective Provinces which I am sure were many of them far larger than any one Diocese or Province in England yea and possibly not much lesse than all England as Ephesus Crete Jerusalem Antioch whose province was all Syria as Ignatius tells us so Corinth Philippi Laodicea Rome c. with their Suburbs Territories and Provinces which extended as far as their proconsulary jurisdictions reached in one of which that learned and pious but fancifull interpreter Mr. Brightman doubted not to find a prophetick Type representing the Nationall Church of England with much more aptitude than his other Satyrick correspondencies were applied When the wit and artifices of Independent brethren if they allow me that relation have shrunk those great and famous Churches so distinguished and nominated by the Scripture line and record into little handfulls such as one mans lungs can reach at one time in one place when the Presbyterian brethren who have cast off yea cast out their Fathers the Bishops can manifest that the severall Congregations of Christians in those Parishes Classes or Associations which they fancy had as many Bishops properly so called and fully impowered as there were Presbyters or Preachers when by their joynt skill and force they can evince out of any Ecclesiasticall Records or Scripturall that there was not some one eminent person as the Apostle Angel Bishop and President or chief Governour among them over all those people and Presbyters who lived within such large Scripture-combinations as Churches such as was Timothy in Ephesus Titiâ— in Crete S. James the Just in Jerusalem either succeeding the Apostles after death or supplying their places during their absence from particular Churches who in their severall lots portions or Episcopal charges and divisions had while they lived the chief inspection rule authority and jurisdiction When I say these grand difficulties are cleared and removed as scales from our eyes who still honour the Church of England then we shall be willing and able to turn the other lessening end of the Optick glasse and to look upon the great and goodly Church of England as fit to be shrunk into decimo sexto volumes or to be divided into small pamphleting Congregations and bound up in Calves leather which heretofore by an happy deception of sight appeared to us at
true ministeriall authority precious liberties what sober men count defections from the ancient Catholick Apostolick pattern they boast of as perfections what plain-hearted Christians esteem as decayings of the Reformed Religion and ill omens and presages of its ruine these Seraphicks affirm to be edifyings and repairings of that structure which since the Apostles times they pretend was alwayes decaying and dropping down to Apostasy being overladen with the fair roof or covering of Episcopacy of which burthen some blessed Reformers seek totally to have lightened this Church as they have done some Cathedrals of their Leads that they may leave this Church and the Reformed Religion as without any roof and defence against the injuries of foul weather so without any band or coping to keep the walls and sides together What others call Extirpations these magnifie as rare Plantations in which they fell down Cedars and set up Shrubs they root up Vines and plant Brambles rejecting venerable Bishops and orderly Presbyters who are of the Primitive Stock and Apostolick descent that they may bring in a novel brood of Heteroclite Teachers equivocall Pastors and new-moulded Ministers whose late Origine without all doubt ariseth no higher at best than Geneva or Frankfort or Amsteldam or Arneheim or New England some are such popular pieces so much terrae filii of obscure rise of base and mean extraction that they have no name of men or place to render them remarkable being like Mushromes perking up in every molehill and in a moment making themselves the Ministers of Jesus Christ To whose strange and novell productions in Old England the late civill distractions finding it seemes much prepared matter gave not onely life and activity but so great petulancy and insolency that many do not onely change their former profession and utterly abdicate their Church-standing and communion in England but as meer changelings they prefer the saddest Succubaes and Empusa's the most fanatick apparitions of modern fancies in their poor and pitifull Conventicles before the Church of England as some children do the Queen of Fairies before their genuine Mothers instead of whose sound Doctrine sacred Order and Catholick Councils they betake themselves each to their private dotages and ravings to meer nonsense and blasphemies which some cry up as strong reasonings high raptures extatick illuminations to which all men must subscribe though no wise man know what they mean Such confidence some men have that Christians in England have lost not onely their Religion but their Reason upon whom they hope so rudely and grosly to impose their most childish novelties and frivolous follies that as Erasmus speaks of some monkish corrupters or interpolators of S. Jeroms works who had made it harder for him to find out what that acute and learned Father wrote than ever it was for him to write his excellent works so in England what was formerly plain and easie sound and wholsome orderly and Catholick as to true Religion both in Faith Manners Ministry and Government the modern Novelties Whimseys Factions Intricacies and Extravagancies of some men have made not onely perplexed confused but contemptible and ridiculous Yet these are the trash and husks which some mens nauseo us wanton palates in this age do prefer and chuse rather than that wholsome food and sincere milk of Gods word with which the Reformed Church of England alwayes entertained her children untill an high-minded and stiff-necked generation of rank appetites like Jewes growing sick of quailes and surfeited of manna longed for the garlick and onions of Egypt legendary visions fabulous revelations and fanatick inspirations Which Egyptian diet hath of late by a just anger of Heaven upon mens ingratefull murmurings and wanton longings brought many in England to those high calentures and distempers in Religion that like frantick people they flye in the faces of their Fathers and tear the very flesh of their Mother Though civil troubles and State-furies seem much allayed yet these Clero-masticks and Church-destroyers still maintain a most implacable war against the Church of England thinking yea professing some of them that they shall do God good service utterly to destroy it with all its assistants and adherents In order to which design they have sought every where to vilifie and set at nought to crown with thorns and crucifie or at best to counterfeit and disguise the merit worth and majesty of all the sacred Solemnities and Rites the Peace and Polity the Ministry and Ministrations of the Church of England yea and fancying they have a liberty to mock them first and after to naile them to the Cross Good God! how have they buffeted them how importunely do they obtrude upon them amidst their many Agonies gall and vinegar to drink what cruell contempts what virulent pamphlets what scandalous and scurrilous petitions do they frequently vent against all Churches and Church-men relating to or depending upon the Church of England some of them ripping up by a Neronean cruelty the womb that bare them others cutting off by a more than Amazonian barbarity the breasts that gave them suck Nor do they despair to pierce at last this bleeding Church to the very heart if ever the power of the sword come into such hands as are professed enemies to all other Reformed Churches as well as this of England whose languishing but living fate they now behold as with great pleasure so with no small impatience while they see that notwithstanding all their sedulous and industrious machinations against learning and Religion against the Church and Universities of England against Ministers and their maintenance yet there is still some life and spirit some liberty and hope left through the mercy of God and the moderation of some men in power for those Christians that have the courage and conscience to own the Reformed Church of England as their Mother and the Reformed Clergy as their spirituall Fathers Whose just Honour and Interests as I must never desert while I live because I think them linked with those of Gods Glory my Redeemers Honour the Catholick Churches veracity the peace of my conscience and my countrey's happinesse both as to the present age and to posterity so I have thought it my duty in her deplorable condition and in the despondency of many mens spirits to apply the cordiall of this confection mingled with her teares and with her sighs presented to you my most honoured Countrey-men by the help of which you may both fortify your own honest minds and oppose that diffusive venome which you cannot but daily meet in some mens restlesse malice who neither know how to speak well of the Church of England nor how to hold their peace By the example of your judicious favour and generous compassion I doubt not to excite like affections of courage and constancy in all worthy Protestants honest-hearted English whose duty it is amidst the pertinacy of all other parties and factions who like Burres hang together to hold fast that holy and
exercised to each other their numerous conventions their fervent devotions their reverent attentions their unanimous communions their cheerfull Amens those blessed hopes and unspeakable comforts which thousands enjoyed both living and dying in the obedience to and communion with the Church of England All these holy fruits and blessed effects as most certain seals and letters testimoniall were I conceive most pregnant evidences and valid demonstrations of true Religion and of a true Church so happily setled by the joynt consent and publick piety of this Nation that it was not in reason or conscience in modesty or ingenuity to be suddenly changed much lesse rashly deserted and rudely abandoned chiefly upon the giddinesse of common people or by the boysterousnesse of common souldiers whose buff-coats and armour cannot be thought by any wise and worthy Souldiers to be like Aarons breast-plate the place from which Priests and people are to expect the constant oracles of Urim and Thummim Light and Reformation Such of that profession as are truly Militant Christians that is humbly wise and justly valiant as I hope many Souldiers may be will think it enough for them modestly to learn and generously to defend as Constantine the Great said to the Nicene Bishops not imperiously to dictate or boldly to innovate matters of Religion in such a Church and Nation as England which was I am sure and I think still is furnished with many able Divines many Evangelicall Priests and Ministers of the Lord whose lips preserve saving knowledge who have many a one of them more learning and well-studied Divinity in them than a whole Regiment nay than an whole Army of ordinary Souldiers whose weapons are not proper for a spirituall warfare nor apt as Davids hands either to build or repair a Church otherwaies than as Labourers who may possibly assist the true Ministers who are and ought to be the Master-builders of Gods house whose skill is not to destroy mens bodies but to save their souls not to kill but to make alive It must ever be affirmed to Gods glory because without any vanity or flattery that the Church of England for this last golden century came not behind the very best Reformed Churches nor any other that profess Christianity in any part of the world which is not my particular testimony who may seem partiall because I unfeignedly professe my self a son and servant of it but it is and hath been the joynt suffrage of all eminent Divines in all forraign Reformed Churches who have written and spoken of the Church of England ever since its setled Reformation not with commendation onely but admiration especially those who coveting to partake of the gifts and labours of English Divines have taken the pains to learn our hard and untoward language Yea I may farther with truth and modesty affirm that saving the extraordinary gifts of Tongues Miracles and Martyrdomes the Church of England since its setled Reformation under Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory came not much short of the Primitive Churches in the first and second Centuries Which had at least some of them as I shall after shew rather more than fewer ceremonies partly Judaick partly Christian yea far greater errors and abuses were found among some of them than were generally among any professors in communion with the Church of England witnesse those touching the Resurrection of the body and in the celebrating of the Lords Supper among the Corinthians The first some denied the other many received covetously uncharitably drunkenly disorderly undecently in the Church of Corinth Besides the scandalous fact of the incestuous person with which they were not so offended as became Christians they were also full of factions and carnall divisions going to law one with another before Infidels undervaluing the blessed Apostle S. Paul and other faithfull labourers preferring false Apostles and deceitfull workers with no lesse folly than ingratitude challenging in many things disorderly and uncomely liberties which amounted to clokes of malice and a licentiousnesse tending to confusion These and other corruptions were among Christians of an Apostolicall Church newly planted carefully watred and excellently constituted Nor are there lesse remarkable faults found by the Spirit of God in six of the seven Asian Churches mentioned in the second and third Chapters of the Revelation while yet they were under Apostolicall inspection For the Devil who is a great rambler but no loyterer began betimes to sow his tares in Gods field by false Apostles unruly walkers deceitfull workers meer hucksters of Religion schismatick Spirits proud Impostors sensuall Separatists wanton Jezebels curious and cowardly Gnosticks with all the evil brood of Nicolaitans Simonians Cerinthians and other crafty Hypocrites brochers of lies patrons of lewdnesse extremely earthly and sensuall yet vaunters in proud swelling words of spirituall and heavenly gifts but more covetous of filthy lucre and sedulous to serve their own bellies than zealous to serve the Lord or to save souls In all which instances of diseases growing even upon any of those Primitive Churches however Christians are commanded to repent and do their first works to keep themselves pure from contagion private or epidemick yet are they no where put upon the pernicious methods of reproching rending and separating from the very frame and constitution of their respective Churches as they were holy Polities Constitutions or Communions setled by the Apostles in decent subordinations and convenient limits of Ecclesiasticall order government authority and jurisdiction without which all humane societies civil or sacred run to meer Chaosses and heaps of confusion Which as the God of order and peace perfectly abhors so he no where by any Divine precept or approved example recommends any such practises to Christians under the name notion or intention of reforming abuses crept into any Churches presently to rend revile contemn divide destroy and make desolate the whole order polity frame and constitution of them which is very Christian and very commendable If the grand example of Divine Mercy was ready to spare Sodom upon Abrahams charitable intercession in case ten righteous persons had been found in that city and Jerusalem in case one man could have been found there who executed judgement and sought the truth how little are those men imitators of Gods clemency or Abrahams pity who have studied and still endeavour by all acts of power and policy utterly to destroy such a Church as England was in which many thousands of good Christians may undoubtedly be found who are constant adherers to the Faith gratefull lovers of the Piety and most pathetick deplorers of the miseries of the Church of England Whose excellent Christian state and Reformed constitution deserved much better treatment from those at least who were her children carefully bred born and brought up by her however now they appear many of them better fed than taught more puffed up with the surfeits of undigested Knowledge than increased in humble
like Monsters having neither matter nor form proportionate to Ministers Against whose petulant and too prevalent poyson I have formerly sought to apply some Antidote not more smart and severe than charitable and conscientious aiming as now I do neither to flatter nor exasperate any but in all Christian integrity and sincerity to discharge my duty to God and my neighbour to this Church and to my Countrey Nor was it indeed then or is it now other than high time to answer that folly to repell and obstruct if possible that Epidemick mischief which on this side greatly threatens both Church State Faith and good manners all things civil as well as sacred What wise and honest-hearted Christian that hath any care of posterity or prospect for the future doth not daily find as an holy impatience so an infinite despondency rising in his soul while he sees so many weak shoulders such unwashen hands such unprepared feet such rash heads and such divided hearts not onely disown cast off contemn and abhor all Ministry and Ministers in the Church of England but they are publickly intruding themselves upon all holy duties all sacred Offices all solemn Mysteries all divine Ministrations after what fashion they list both in their admission and execution In many places either pittifull silly wretches or more subtill and crafty fellows have become the mighty Rivals the supercilious Censors yea the open menacers opposers no less than secret underminers of the most learned and renowned the most reverend able and faithful both Bishops and Presbyters in England All that ever these Worthies have done in former ages or still do never so commendably in their religious services of God and this Church is superciliously and scurrilously cried down by some men under the presumption and protection of their ignorant and impudent Liberties as no better than formall and superficiall carnall and unspirituall as unchristian yea Antichristian All their and our catechisings preachings prayings baptisings consecratings their instructing of babes their confirming of the weak their resolvings of the dubious their terrifying and binding over to judgement unbelieving and impenitent sinners their censuring and admonishing of the scandalous their excommunicating the contumacious their loosing the penitent their comforting the afflicted their binding up the broken-hearted all the exercise and operations of their spirituall power yea their very ordination and holy orders their gifts and graces their abilities and authority either from God or this Church all these are either baffled and disparaged or invaded usurped by some rude Novellers with equall insolency and insufficiency being for the most part by so much the more impudent by how much they are grosly ignorant Yea some of them the better to colour over their lazy and illiterate licentiousnesse to which they are now degenerated have such audacious brows and seared consciences as after they have pretended to have tasted how gracious the Lord was in the orderly and holy dispensations of heavenly gifts by the Ministry of the Church of Engl. yet they now glory to cast off all her ministrations to separate from her communion and all due subjection to any of her Ministers vapouring much of their own and other mens gifts of extraordinary callings of odde ravings and rantings of new seekings and quakings of rare dippings and dreamings of their extemporary prophecyings and inspired yet confused prayings of extraordinary unctions and inward illuminations the grounds and fruits of which strange pretensions I have been a long time diligently curious to observe in the speech writings and actions of these pretenders And I must profess that either I am wholly a stranger to right reason as well as true Religion to the Word and Spirit of God principles and practises of all godly men and women in former ages or I am utterly uncapable to discern any of these either rationall or religious orderly or honest expressions in any instances or degrees proportionable or indeed comparable to much less beyond what was most clearly observable as the Suns light at noon-day in the Sermons Prayers Writings Lives and Actions of those Ministers and other excellent Christians who heretofore held and still do an holy communion with the Clergie and Church of England Beyond whose sober light and solid discoveries of true Religion these new Masters who will needs be Ministers have yet offered to me no other but such strange stuffe such rambling rhapsodies such crude incoherences such chymicall chimaeras such Chaos-like confusions such Seraphick whimsies such Socinian subtilties such Behmemick bumbast such profound non-sense such blasphemous raptures big as Behemoth and disdainfull as Leviathan proud swelling words of vanity as no sober Christian hath leisure to intend or need to understand if he had capacity which he is not likely to have since I am confident they pass their authors own understanding not that there is any thing in them that flows from the higher springs of grace or the profounder depths of divine mysteries but they are meer puffings up of proud and fleshly minds intruding themselves into things they have not seen who delight in this froth of idleness these lyings and vapourings of hypocrisie which never did of old in the Gnosticks Montanists Manichees or others of the like bran with these men in the least degree advance the majesty or authority of Christian Religion or the credit and comfort of Christian Preachers or Professors however they served for a time the bellies and interests of such popular Parasites more than Preachers of the Gospel or Ministers of Jesus Christ Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father was of old still is and ever will be in the minds and mouthes of true Ministers when these Hucksters and Mountebanks these deceitfull workers are buried in infamy and obscurity with those their rotten predecessors a rich magazine of heavenly wisdome a Treasury of sound knowledge a store-house of pregnant and ponderous Truths bringing men to a good understanding of God themselves and their neighbours free from the rust and scurf of childish easiness and popular petulancy planted by holy and humble industry watered by prayers and patience beautified with all manner of usefull vertues and moralities dispensed to others with authority industry and perspicuity entertained in mens own hearts with honesty and charity not studying to be admired of men but approved of God not affecting to stupifie auditors with strange difficulties and curiosities but to edifie them with saving Truths and sound Doctrine in words easie to be understood five of which S. Paul preferred before ten thousand in an unknown tongue or unintelligible gibberish so much affected by these new-minted Ministers That primitive plain and profitable way of preaching praying and writing was the commendable method of those excellent ordained and orderly Ministers of the Church of England who were furnished both with ability and authority for so great and sacred a work whose notions were more in the fruitfull valleys of practicall
these must exercise all Church-power and Divine authority over your consciences whereas for my part I do not think that the best of these new Masters and Ministers can have from their own fancies or peoples forwardness so much authority because they have none either from God or the Church of Christ or the laws of this Land as would make them petty Constables or Bom-baylies a Lay-elder or an Apparitor This I am sure that in the purest and primitive times as Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian S. Cyprian and others assure us the holy mysteries of Christian Religion the power of the Keyes the sacrating of Sacraments the pastorall ruling and preaching as of office duty and necessity to any part of Christs flock was esteemed the peculiar and proper work of Bishops and Presbyters in their order and degree as the true and onely Pastors and Teachers that succeeded the twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples in their ordinary Ministry nor were men branded for other how able soever than insolent and execrable usurpers who did adventure to officiate unordained that is not duly authorised as Ministers Such intruders Tertullian notes both some men and women to have been in his time who were leavened with Schisme and Heresie so Epiphanius and S. Austin tell us of the Quintilliani Pepuziani and Colliridiani who were confounders of the Ministeriall order Sozomen Socrates Nicephorus and other Church-historians sharply censure one Ischyras or Ischyrion who unordained pretended to be a Presbyter and so to officiate calling him a detestable person and worthy of more than one death whom Athanasius finding about to consecrate or rather desecrate the Eucharist he in an holy and heroick zeal as Christ in the Temple brake the Communion Cup overthrew the Table and repressed his insolent impiety counting him as another Judas Iscariot a traitor to Christ and the Church Yet in the place of the Ministers of the Church of England I beseech you how few Athanasiusses how many Ischyrasses may you now see challenging to themselves the care of mens souls as Ministers of Christ undertaking the managerie of mens eternall interests confident to interpret Scriptures to resolve doubts to decide controversies to satisfie mens consciences to keep up the truth power and majesty of Christian Religion by new undue and exotick wayes against the torrent and impetuous force of ignorance Atheism profaneness errour malice and madness of men and Devils For all which grand designs of Gods glory and the Churches good those men are as fit agitators as Phaeton was to drive Phoebus his Chariot and truly with like success they will do it for instead of enlightening the world these Incendiaries will set all on fire as far as they meet with any combustible matter in which sad conflagrations begun and blown up by them in this Church of England some of them are so vain as to glory calling them the spirituall day of judgement an invisible doomesday a coming of Christ in the spirit of burning and refining to purge his Church For this purpose they say the Sun must be turned into darknesse and the Moon into blood government of Church and State must be subverted nor do they according to their severall fancies and interests fail to presage and expect a glorious Resurrection to their parties which they hope shall reign with Christ if not a thousand years yet as long as they can prevail so as to get power and preserve those liberties they have ravished to themselves CHAP. VIII NOr are these novell undertakers ever more ridiculous than when they sow pillowes under their own rustick arms and others elbows excusing yea abetting their illiterate rudeness and idiotick confidence with the primitive plainness and simplicity of the Apostles when Christ first chose them who were Fishermen Tent-makers or the like Which is truly but very impertinently alledged as any parallel case with these impotent and pragmatick intruders unless they could manifest to the world which they never yet did nor ever will such miraculous endowments such power and anointing from above as came upon the Apostles which in one moment was able to furnish them with more sufficiency and authority than all study and industry can ever do any of us which are the now ordinary means appointed and blessed by God succeeding in the place of miraculous gifts where Churches are once fully planted and Christianity setled To all which the constant testimony of an uninterrupted Ministery and holy succession of ordained Bishops and Presbyters from the very Apostles as they from Christ is a more pregnant witnesse and conviction than any new miracles could be much more than any such pittifull accounts can be as these wonders of ignorance and arrogancy can give to the world of any extraordinary matters they say or do either as Ministers or Christians The best of some of whose lives would deform I fear the golden legend which seems to be written by a man of a brazen forehead a leaden wit and an iron heart We the despised Clergie of England do profess to use and pray God to bless our long preparative studies meditations writings readings also our immediate care concomitant labours in this kind habitually to fit us for that dreadfull work and for every actuall discharge of it We find these methods practised by the most famous lights of the Church recommended by S. Paul to Timothy though a person in some things extraordinarily gifted that he should attend didiligently to those exercises that his profiting might appear We do not now expect fire from heaven with Elias to come down upon our sacrifices but we are glad to take the ordinary coals of Gods altar which may by his Word and Spirit going along with our pains and prayers both enlighten our minds and kindle our hearts so as to make us burning and shining lights in Gods house which is his Church Truly those proud and poor wretches who know no coals but those of their own chimney-corners may possibly have a few embers on their hearths or in their potsheards they may like dark lanthorns have a bit of a farthing-candle in them that shines with a little dim and dubious light on one side onely as in the smatterings of some plain primer-knowledge which they have gathered either by superficiall reading the Scriptures or by hearing some Sermons heretofore from the able Ministers of England or by gleaning a little out of the plainest of their writings but 't is most apparent that on three sides of them that is for Grammaticall skill historicall knowledge and polemicall learning they are so horridly black and dark that they seem fitter implements to bring in such ignorance irreverence Atheism superstition and confusion as shall quite put out the Christian and Reformed Religion in this nation reducing all to pristine darkness deformity and barbarity than probable ever to be either propagators purgators or preservers of it which had long ago been over-run with the rank weeds of
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 are set up by them as the great rivals and Antagonists of the Ancient Catholick and Apostolick Ministers of Christ and Vastators of the whole frame of the Church of England Can you O worthy Gentlemen or any sober Christians who are not strangers to the prayings preachings and writings heretofore brought forth by the worthy Ministers Bishops and Presbyters of the Church of England can you think that either the godly Ministers or the Christian people in England were ignorant of or strangers to those spirituall influences those inward powers and secret experiences of Religion till these new Pedlers of piety began to open their packs or till these rare Rabbies turned their shops into Synagogues and their Conventicles into the onely true spiritualized Churches of Christ Did we never know before these new Illuminates and Spiritaties rose up what belonged to the humble seeking the happy finding and holy acquaintance with God by the union and communion of Gods Spirit working and witnessing with ours Had we neither the root nor the fruit of true Religion till these new planters sprung up Were we utterly strangers to Faith Repentance Charity and good works or to that joy love peace blessed hopes sweet satisfactions evident sealings sincere sanctifyings and undoubted assurings of the holy Ghost which are wrought by and conform to the Word of God first casting the Christian into that holy mould and then filling him with such comforts as are unspeakable and glorious whose nature is rather to be humbly enjoyed modestly owned and tenderly treated in a gracious soul than vulgarly discovered and vapouringly ostentated in a rude and vain-glorious fashion The brightest lustre of Gods Jewels is rarely shewn and hardly seen being most glorious within the richest wares are least set upon the stalls or shop-boords These Arcana magnalia sublimia Dei secrets of the Lord these whisperings of the blessed Spirit these oscula Christi kisses of Christ as S. Bernard calls them these aromata gratiae perfumes of his soft breath these glowings of grace in the heart these holy fervours and heavenly raptures of humble devout meditative fervent souls who the more they believe the more they love and the more they love the better they live more humanely and more divinely more justly more charitably and more orderly these real pregustations of glory and anticipations of heaven blessed be God were long ago known and experimentally set forth in the Prayers Sermons writings and actions of thousands of good Christians both Ministers and others long before these novell and exotick masters began to lisp out the Soboloths of fine phrases before they dared to assault and not onely cry but beat down this and all National Churches all Clergie of the ancient and right order all Universities and Nurseries of good learning together all Tithes all Liturgies all studied Sermons and premeditated prayers all wholsome forms and sober compendiums of religious duties and devotion as if all these were meerly carnall literall formall and superficiall naturall and papall meer husks and shells the rind and out-side of Religion Yea we had the comfort and God the glory of his grace in the Ch. of Eng. long before either Anabaptists or Familists or Seekers or Quakers or Ranters or any other spawn of Libertinism and Independency of Schism and Separation had amused the silly vulgar as S. Austin tells us by his own experience the subtill but sordid Manichees were wont to do with their new motions and strange expressions of being Godded with God Christed with Christ Spirited with the Spirit and the like affectations which are either barbarities and simplicities or blasphemies insolencies and impossibilities of speaking for no sober Christian ever did or in Religion ought or in true reasoning can understand that by a believers being partaker of a diviner nature through Christ he is presently Deified that is personally invested and plenarily possessed with all the infinite Attributes essence and glory of God which are incomprehensible by any finite understanding and personally incommunicable to any creature excepting Christ Jesus the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Immanuel God Incarnate who onely may without robbery be equall with God esteemed called and adored as God So that they can religiously mean no more by all this pomp of their words than what was long ago far better understood and expressed in more humble wholsom and intelligible words also better enjoyed by sober meek just and quiet-spirited Christians who well knew the glorious priviledges of every gracious and sincere Christian which is to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ to whom being related by faith they are in some sense united to God As the eye that sees the suns light and glory by its beams is in some sense truly enlightened by it united to it partaker of it not as to the vastnesse of its Globe essentiall glory which is far too big and too bright for the eyes small capacity but as to its pleasing influences in like manner the Christian that is illuminate and regenerate by Baptism instructed by the Word of God and sanctified by the Spirit of God is so drawn to Christ by the sweet attractions of the cords of his love and engraffed in him that he is not now his own but Christs not enslaved to his own sinfull and depraved nature but endued with the new powers and principles of an holy and heavenly nature which is truly and soberly that divine nature of which S. Peter speaks which while we behold by true faith and obedience we are changed into the same image from Glory to Glory CHAP. XVI IF then a wise and serious Christian who is not so idle or impudent as to play with Religion to trifle in holy things or to mock with God if such an one will lose so much time as to sift all that these new masters vent that these vapouring Prophets say or write as rare and precious spirituall and heavenly beyond all the fleshly forms learned ignorance and litterall darknesse under which they say we other Christians and Ministers in England have lain long and laboured all night in vain if he will do himself and them so much right as to winnow away the chaff of their affected language their bumbast tearms their insolent expressions drive them from the refuge and confidence they have in the sillinesse of their Auditors the easinesse of their Disciples and the sequaciousnesse of their followers who most admire when they least understand this done he shall find that either nothing remains that is wholsome and good in their swoln heaps of new notions and expressions which are many times the gildings of some of their pills the palliations of their poysonous opinions the daring-glasses or decoyes to bring men into the snares of their dangerous or damnable doctrines or at best all this froth and swelling this noise and ratling of their Novellizings is reducible into a few drops a
very vigilant and active doth then move most potently upon the face of our English waters when there is to be seen nothing but a sea of confusion a meer Chaos of the Christian and Reformed Religion Which feared deluge and by wise men foreseen devastation of the Reformed Religion once wisely established honourably maintained and mightily prospered in the Church of England is already much spread and prevalent among many people under the plea and colour of I know not what liberty to own any or no Minister any or no Religion any none or many Churches in England The visible decayes and debasings of the true and Reformed Religion in England as to piety equity unity and charity as to the authority of its Ministry and solemnity of its Ministrations are so palpable both in the outward peace and profession also in the inward warmth and perswasion that it is high time for all sober and wise men that love God Religion and their Countrey mightily to importune the mercies of God that breathing upon us with a spirit of meeknesse and wisdome truth and love humility and honesty he would at length asswage that deluge of contempt and confusion the troubled and bitter waters of wrath and contention which have over-whelmed the highest mountains of this Church over-topping by their salt waves and aspersions the gravest wisest most learned and religious both Preachers and professors of the Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation Which licentious insolencies have made all sober Christians so sick weary and ashamed of them that they cannot but be infinitely grieved to see and foresee the low ebbe to which the Reformed Religion in its purity and power must in time fall in England while the pristine dignity and authority of the Evangelicall Ministry is so invaded baffled and despised while the authentick derivation and Catholick succession of that holy power is so interrupted innovated divided destroyed while the reverence of primitive customes and examples is so slighted abated by fanatick innovators while the cords of Christian harmony and Church-polity are so loosened and ravelled on every side while the just honour and encouragements of learning and learned men are so much damped and exhausted while the Ecclesiastick Glory of this Nation which was its chiefest in being and owning it self as a true and Reformed Church of Christ is so much eclipsed to the great reproch of this present age and the infinite hazard of posterity which will hardly ever recover the honour order beauty and unity of Christian and Reformed Religion formerly enjoyed in this Church and Nation when once the Jewels of it the learned ordained orderly and authoritative Ministers of the Gospel with all their Ministry and Ministrations come to be either trampled under feet by Schismaticall fury or invaded and usurped by vulgar insolency which in time will rake them all up and bury them in the dunghill of Romish superstitions and Papal usurpations CHAP. XIX HOw far in humane policy or reason of State this popular liberty or rather insolency usurpation and anarchy in Religion is to be indulged I know not as not pretending to any of those depths of secular wisdome which will be found shallow at last if Gods glory and the good of mens souls be not in the bottom of them But thus far I conceive I may after so many years sad experience which all sober Christians have had of the retrogradations of the Reformed Religion in England appeal as to you who are the most generous and judicious persons in this Nation so to all prudent and well-advised persons of all sizes and conditions who are capable to weigh the true interests and future concernments of their Countrey and Posterity both as to Piety and Peace Honour and Happiness by way of an humble and earnest expostulation Hath not I beseech you this English world Prince and peasant Pastors and people great and small had enough both in cities and in villages of these late Hashshes Olives and Queckshoes of Religion in the mixture and dressing of which every foul hand must have a finger Do you not perceive a different face of Christian and Reformed Religion from what was heretofore in England when it had less experience of vulgar licentiousness but more true Christian liberty when in my memory most of yours Engl. was so full and flourishing with excellent Christians of all sorts young and old plain and polite learned and illiterate noble and ignoble in the Nobility Gentry Yeomanry and Peasantry whose setled judicious piety was the fruit of the labours cares counsels and inspection of those learned grave and godly Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters with whom you were blessed Have not all of you had enough and too much of these new flashes these fluttering squibs these erratick Planets these wandering Stars these pretenders to rarities novelties superfluities super-reformings raptures revelations and Enthusiasmes in Religion To all which you may easily see that a fancifull invention a melancholy pride a popular itching a profane spirit a loose temper and a glib tongue are very prone to betray men being as sufficient to furnish them in those trades as a little stock will go far to make up a pedlars pack yet have they so great confidence of themselves as if they exceeded not onely all former Christians all Ministers all Councils all Churches but even all holy Scriptures themselves whose darkness or incompleteness must as some men say be cleared and supplied by their speciall illuminations an old artifice of the Devil most used by those men and in those times which being most destitute of true reason good learning and Religion did most vapour of their visions and revelations their traditions and superstitions witness those Cimmerian Centuries or blinder ages of these Western Churches in which there were as many visions revelations and miracles daily obtruded on the credulous vulgar as there were Monasteries and Nunneries which in stead of Seminaries and Nurseries became dark dungeons wherein Christian Religion and Devotion were for many ages sadly confined and almost smothered with superstition idleness and luxury Have we not had enough too much of vulgar playings with piety of triflings with Christian and Reformed Religion of baffling abusing and abasing the Christian Ministry of buffetings of Christ of mockings of God by impudent pratings and insolent intrudings by confused rhapsodies and shuffling sanctities by endless janglings and refined blasphemies vented in some mens writings preachings prayings practisings so far from the light weight and height the sobriety sanctity and majesty of true Religion that they are most-what void of ordinary reason and common sense of equity and modesty of humanity and civility being little else but the froth of futile and fanatick spirits who blind poor people to enlighten them captivate them to make them free and ruine them under pretense of building them after new wayes and models of Religion sanctity salvation Have we not had enough of passionate transports popular
grave godly and industrious men fit to govern and apt to teach the Church of Christ are still maintained and repeated daily yea raked up and increased by the popular oratory of some novel Ministers so far as to raise eternall prejudices and antipathies even against all those Presbyters which were or are of Episcopall ordination And the better to justifie these Novelties and Schisms in the Church of England which some were so eager and easie to begin so loth and unwilling to retract they still entertain their nauseous credulous and itching Disciples with all those odious stale and envious Crambes which are most welcome to vulgar ears and sacrilegious aims as how unfit it was for the Ministers of Jesus Christ who was the great pattern of piety and poverty to have great revenues stately Palaces and noble Lordships which more godly men do want for Preachers to have any titles of honour and respect as Lords to have any part of civil power or indeed of Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction All which honest employments and enjoyments I conceive under favour the excellent Bishops and other deserving Clergie-men in England were as worthy to enjoy and as able to use with honour conscience and charity as any of those men either military or civil who were most zealous to deprive to debase and to destroy the Hierarchy or just honour of the Ecclesiastick state in England Nor do I think it was any way displeasing to God or in the least kind unbecoming the name of Christ for Bishops and other Ministers of his Church to have such ample estates and honourable preferments for their double honour in so plentifull a land as England was this I am sure it was far less beseeming any good Christian to repine at them and unjustly to deprive them of them If this envious vein of popular oratory grow at length fulsome vile and ridiculous as it is now to all sober and judicious auditors then the Anti-episcopall parties of Ministers devoutly rip up and sadly repeat whatever they have heard or others invented of any Bishops faults or the Episcopall Clergies past infirmities whatever they can they rake up though long ago buried as it ought to be in the charitable forgetfulness of all good men who either consider their own frailties or remember how many holy Bishops were Martyrs and Confessors in all ages of persecution how learned how diligent how commendable how admirable how useful they were to this Church for their preaching writing and living in times of persecution as well as peace even here in England All good Bishops and other Clergie as I have formerly expressed confess themselves as men to be subject to infirmities and temptations the best Bishops and Ministers least deny this truth being every day most vigilant to resist the one and amend the other These allegations then like the Devils quoting of Scripture though they may have some squint-ey'd truth in them yet they are spitefully partially and most impertinently alledged against all Bishops especially by those fierce Presbyterians or other implacable Preachers who have now liberally taught the English world that however the riches pomp and honours of Presbyterian or Independent or other Preachers are much against their wills far less than those which God and man reason and Religion order and polity devotion and gratitude Law and Gospel allowed to Bishops and Presbyters heretofore that the eminency of their office and place in the Church might have something of honourable splendour and hospitable magnificence proportionable to its venerable authority and great antiquity yet men are not so blinded by that popular dust stirred up against the faults and names of Bishops as not to see that the pride covetousness and imperiousness of the most furious and factious Anti-episcopall Ministers come not one jot behind any of those Bishops whom they look upon and represent with the most malignant aspect O how magisteriall are many new masters in their opinions how authoritative in their decisions how supercilious in their conversations how severe in their censures how inexorable in their passions how implacable in their wrath how inflexible in their factions how irrevocable in their transports though never so rash heady plebeian and unsuccessfull by which they at once forsook their duties to others and their own mercies And this many of them did to please others or themselves contrary to their former judgements their sworn and avowed subjection to Bishops for many years when they paid that respect to those Fathers and Governours of this Church which the laws of God and man required long before either Presbytery was hatched or Independency gendered in England The sharp severities and early rigours of both which parties and their Consectaries grew quickly both remarkable and intolerable to sober Christians for as they were bred and born like Pallas armed full of anger revenge and ambitious fierceness so they have acted even in their infancy and minority far beyond what regular sober and true Episcopacy ever did in its greatest age and procerity here in England yea its greatest passion and transports did not exceed the aims of these new masters both Ecclesiastical civil which was either to rule all or to ruine all Bishops commonly justified their reall or seeming severities by those lawes either civil or Ecclesiasticall which were in force against all such as did not conform to them Hence were occasioned much I am confident to the grief and against the desire of the most grave and godly Bishops sometimes those so oft declaimed against and aggravated persecutions of some unconformable yet otherwayes godly Ministers by silencings suspensions deprivations c. which sometimes were but just and necessary exercises of Discipline as I conceive if men will maintain any order and government in any Church or State sometimes it may be some Bishops pressed too much upon the strictness and rigour of law aggravated by their private passions beyond what might with charity and moderation safely have been indulged to some able and peaceable Ministers though in some things dissenters yet as to the main good and usefull to the Church Yet all these old Almanacks these stale and posthumous calculations of Episcopall severities did not upon true account no not in one hundred years equal the number and measure of those pressures and miseries which have been acted or designed in one fifteen years by such as now profess Presbyterian and Independent principles against all Bishops and all those Ministers which are of the Episcopal perswasion I think it may without any stroke of Rhetorick or Hyperbole be said with sober truth that the little finger of Presbytery and Independency with the warts and wens of other factions growing upon them hath been heavier upon the Episcopal which was the onely legal Clergie of England of late years than the loins of any sober and godly Bishops ever were for any one century yea and equal to the burdens of the most passionate and immoderate Bishops whatsoever in any age
in England against any that own themselves as Ministers ex officio by duty and office especially after the order of the Church of England Upon this very name he shall adopt the censures and hard speeches the envy and malice the janglings and ruffling the injuries and indignities of many he must be made a man of strife whether he will or no oft destinated to disgrace and ruine unheard untried unseen unknown If he own himself as a man of any spirit and a Minister of any authority then he is censured as proud a Pope a Lucifer if he be soft and supple then he is counted spongie poor-spirited pusillanimous if by any honest arts and innocent frauds he can preserve his station his living his liberty then he is counted cunning a meere politico a time-server an hypocrite where he is best known he must look to be least beloved by many high Seraphicks and supercilious Separatists there will be some godly bubbles swolne with pride and ignorance that will scorn all his learning all his abilities all his devotion all his duties When their mouths are stopped and their gain-sayings confuted though not silenced yet neither his work nor his person will be accepted nor will some men own their profiting by his Ministry that they may save their purses and excuse themselves for not paying him his dues His wages must be oft changed by peevish Labans sometimes totally denied by churlish Nabals and there are who never batten more than when they most cheat their Minister In fine he will need Argus his eyes to look about him for feare lest the whole foundation of his livelihood and subsistence be so undermined shaken assaulted and quite overthrown by two or three pragmatick and spitefull neighbours that he will be in hazard to be quite routed and outed without reward and work forced to be either indigent or idle and this without any ordinary rule or remedy that I know as to the Lawes of England A dreadfull prospect God knowes of Idleness and Indigence sufficient to scare a very resolute soul more than that spectre did Brutus the night before he fought unfortunately in the Philippick fields discouragements capable to damp any provident mens spirit from so dangerous and almost desperate a service as this is to be a professed and ordained Minister of the Gospel in England What young men of any parts and hopes of any pregnancy and ingenuity will be so zealously forward as to prick their fingers by gathering roses and lillies among such rude thorns as now either hedge up the way or encompass the paths of every solid and sober Minister It is a fervour not very frequent nor are they quotidian fits either in younger or elder men of any worth to embrace Religion in rags and vertue when it is vagrant and mendicant out at heels and elbows when to be a Minister of Jesus Christ is to have little for the belly or back less for books or the brain nothing to exercise charity of hospitality less than nothing as from man to cherish graces to increase gifts to whet industry to promote piety What mortal is so brutishly hardy as having no fleece or wooll on his back he would chuse not to dwell but do penance in so cold so Scottish a climate as old England will soon prove to worthy Ministers when it is become an Iseland a Freezland a nova Zembla nothing but Hyperborean rigour frozenness and barrenness in it no spring no summer no harvest expectable as to any common favour ingenuous pleasure honest profit or moderate honour which is the temperature that some mens distempers have sought to reduce poor Ministers to while they endeavour to turn the English Church and Clergy either up-side down or out of doors CHAP. XXXIII CAn you O my worthy and honoured Countrey-men without an infinite vanity folly and presumption most unworthy of your piety and prudence ever expect that there should be such burning and shining lights among you as have been in this Church and Nation when there shall be little or no oyle to supply the lamps or such as shall be rather Whale-oyl and Greenland-stuff than such sweet and golden oyl as through the golden pipes flowed from the Olive trees which were round about the Candlesticks in Zachariah's vision which was an emblem of Evangelicall diffusions from Christ to his Ministers and from these to his Church Do you think any mens sons of better quality or others whose hopes and ambition will carry them above the condition of a Cobler or a Tinker when they come to yeares of discretion and have a true prospect of that barren heath that dry and parched wildernesse to which the Ministry of England is like to be confined and condemned in the midst of a land of Goshen which flows with milk and honey to all other wayes of industry doe you think I say that any man who hath not lost his mother-wits and those innate principles of self-preservation will spontaneously rush into so many sharp contentions and temptations like the horse into the battail where hunger and thirst and cold and nakednesse and shame and sordidnesse of living shall threaten him as a Minister like the ragged regiment attending that armed man whose name is Poverty besides the black pots among which these doves must lie I mean the foot and skullery of vulgar insolency plebeian petulancy and fanatick contempt all which like the over-hanging brow of a rock or cliffe threaten to fall upon him and his relations who seeks for the refuges of his life and pilgrimage under the shelter of the Ministry where if any single men being more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 callous and iron-sided can bear with and bustle through their own sufferings and others rude oppositions yet when they are married and have relations more tender and dear to them than their owne lives O how will their bowels be broyled like S. Laurence's and their hearts turned upon the gridiron when they are frequently forced to hear and see and feel the cryes the wants the distresses the tears the pallors the squallors of their wives and children which pierce and wound the very souls of ingenuous men O how cruell will that indulgence appear in after-ages which took away the heavy yoke and severe restraints beyond what God and Nature Law or Gospel imposed as on the other Western Clergie so here in England by the policy more than piety of the Popes of Rome contrary to the sense of the Nicene and primitive Fathers when the fruit of such Clergy-mens marriages shall appear no other than withered plants starved in their very originall and condemned to perpetuall tenuity both of parts and employments In ancient times when the state of this Church and its Clergie was more idle and superstitious but more opulent and honourable what Gentleman what Nobleman what Prince yea what Soveraign Kings did not ambitionate to plant some of their sons as Henry the seventh intended his second
there is a God above us and an immortall soul within us nor have ever any men endeavoured to put out this light within them but onely those whom the conscience of their wickedness made desirous rather to perish utterly than to be perpetuated to an after-being in misery From these main unhingings of Religion in mens consciences which have set them above any fear of God or reverence of man who can wonder at those disorderly motions which have so long filled and deformed this Church with so many schisms Heresies and Tragedies The utter irreligion of some the superstition of others the peevishness of some the pertinacy of others here Atheisme there hypocrisie here any Religion that civil politie lists to set up there no Religion setled to give any check or restraint by law here novelties and varieties of Religion affected there uniformity and Catholick antiquity despised these encounterings and contradictions among men as to matters of Religion in England what strages and vastations have they made in the minds of common people and the younger sort especially The face of Christian and Reformed Religion looks blasted with fire black with powder and smoke besmeared with dirt and blood the prospect of it is full of death and despair the distractions of it threaten both it and us with destruction at last because nothing whets mens swords sharper against each other than Religion With how much glorying even in point of conscience have Christians and Protestants wounded oppressed killed one another in England in great part upon the quarrel of Religion yea and of Reformation The scandall eclipse and ruine of which as to its truth credit and consistency is far more considerable than the loss of thousands of our carkases or vile bodies which were worthily and almost meritoriously sacrificed if by such means the true honour and interests of Religion as Christian and Reformed could be preserved or advanced But alas this is so far from any advantages of life health and vigour by all those bitter pills and potions it hath taken by all those sharp phlebotomies lancings it hath endured that it seems exhausted dispirited languishing drooping decaying and dying sinking under its own weight or rather under the pressures of impotent passions on all sides not onely to indifferency negligence and unsetledness as to any Religion at all which is very rife but to sottish ignorance gross superstition high Atheism and insolent blasphemies against our God our Saviour our Scriptures our Sacraments all ordinances and all that is sacred The epidemical rudeness and irreverence the vulgar profaneness and immorality their brutish stupor and barbarity their licentious impudencies and insolencies their publick scorns affronts and oppositions of the lawful Ministers of England in their holy Ministrations part of which I have seen others I have heard of these and the like fedities like a plague and leprosie have mightily infected and daily spread over the souls of men and women young and old in countries and cities both in England and in Wales as necessary consequents and concomitants of that liberty in Religion which many men have challenged to themselves Nor is this depravedness onely befaln the beasts of the people the meaner sort whose souls are as precious as the best though their condition be poor their breeding bad and their manners generally vile having naturally a brutish carelesness and dulness to any Religion but their greatest awknesse and aversness is against that Religion which is most soberly setled and exactly professed this giving most check to their boisterous lusts and extravagant fancies whose Religion is generally more upon custome and constraint than upon judgement choice or conscience ever waiting as water pent up doth for any opportunity to get such a liberty as will at last quite spill and spend it self being never better pleased than when they finde themselves least tied to please either God or any men but themselves This sort of vulgar people may in part excuse the abuses they make of any liberties or indulgences they can at any time extort by their terrours multitudes and importunities from wiser men CHAP. III. BUt the mischiefs of unsetled Religion and Irreligion like a Gangrene is further spread to the more noble parts of this body politick to persons of generous quality of hopefull ingenuity both by extraction and education who have fair fortunes like fuel to maintain the flames of their factions and good abilities like oyl to nourish the wild-fires of their fancies which way soever they affect to rove This sort of young gallants who are grown up amidst our late civil broils and religious distractions as handsome young trees oft do among brambles and bushes these I say who might be the strong supports and goodly shelters of Religion in after-ages these are miserably shaken depraved distorted not so much by the impetuousness of their own juvenile fervours and passions which if inordinate will as S. Austin observes be their own sting reproch and punishment as by those various circulations and contrariant traversings of Religion which have tossed their minds to and fro to a kind of delirium or vertigo a meer whimsicall uncertainty as to Religion Which distemper and giddiness in their heads and hearts they have contracted chiefly by beholding that unsettledness looseness giddiness variety irreverence contempt and confusion which hath been cast upon the face of the Reformed Religion and this Church of England for since they came to any years of discretion and a capacity as men to judge of humane affairs they have seen nothing managed with less discretion gravity and judiciousness than the publick interests of the Reformed Religion and this Church Many of them have been taught by words and more by examples full of all petulant rallieries against our Church and Religion as formerly established to despise and abhor all that their fore-fathers reformed or setled or professed and delivered as their Religion How do some suck from their very milk and nurses all manner of bitter scorns and reproches against the Church of England its Baptism divine Ministrations and Ministry Some that are now grown up men and women yet are still in the very infancy and cradle of Religion either sleeping securely in sensual impenitency or delighting to be variously rocked from one side to another with a lullaby of novelty which will bring them to a drowsie indifferency by a religious inconstancy Thus the very salt of true Religion as to its smartness and savour its piercing and preserving vertue which only is able to keep persons of pregnant parts and opulent estates from vicious putrefactions this is presented to them as useless unsavoury infatuate while they have from their youth upward seen it especially in its chiefest dispensers most constant professors according to the establishment of the Church of England daily cast out upon the very dunghill of plebeian petulancy and contempt exposed to poverty yea beggery in many places yea and profanely trampled under
which can by no persons of any right understanding be thought to be the temper of any thing that is worthy to bear the name inscription of the true God or the Christian and Reformed Religion This is not the pulse of piety nor can be the influence of Gods holy wise and peaceable spirit No Christian can be so uncatechised as not to know that these wounds and scarres which are upon the face of Religion and made by Christians of the same countrey and communion are not the marks of Christs sheep nor the characters of his Disciples who have been in all ages most eminent for all graces and vertues for all things true comely orderly just generous benigne charitable none exceeded or equalled them for mutuall love while they were neer or far off insomuch that primitive Assemblies of Bishops Presbyters and people were most lively resemblances of that Angelick Order Quire and Harmony which is in Heaven before the Throne of God and of the Lamb. This union and subordination kept up the reverence of Religion and the dignity of the Evangelicall Ministry among Christians even then when persecution most raged against them when the persons of holy Bishops and Presbyters were imprisoned banished mangled and massacred by Heathenish and Jewish persecutors yet then was the authority of Ministers looked upon as sacred and divine not from the earth but heaven not from Kings and Princes not from Parlaments and civil Senates not from Protectors and Major-Generals or new Triers much lesse from any principle or power which is now challenged by popular arrogancy and vulgar usurpation but from Christ Jesus and so from the blessed God who sent his Son and He his Apostles and other Ministers as his Father sent him for the same end and work in those measures and proportions of his Spirit which were necessary for the calling converting continuing and perfecting the Church as the Body of Christ While these continued in an holy and uninterrupted succession of undoubted Authority as Apostles Bishops Pastors and Teachers of one mind and mission of one ordination and succession they easily preserved the doctrine of Christian Religion uncorrupted the Mysteries unprophaned the Ministry unviolated the reverence of Religion unabased but these once divided against each other in opinions and factions their ranks and order broken their succession interrupted their commission counterfeited or varied their office invaded their authority doubted denied and destroyed who knowes not what spring-tides what whole seas of faction and fury of negligence and irreverence of Atheisme and irreligion must necessarily flow in upon the face of any Church when the truest and compleatest Ministers shall be questioned or scorned the dubious defective or false ones magnified by secular policy or popular levity when Lay-men shall either think there are no Ministers invested with any due authority or themselves as good as the best set up after some novell and arbitrary modes of their own invention which must not onely vye with the true ancient and Catholick ordination of 1500 years standing but justle it quite out of the Church like the bastard Abimelech who slew all the legitimate issue of Gideon his Father Who can heare with trembling or pray with devotion or receive with reverence or be reproved with patience or be comforted with peace or be terrified with judgement or mortified to any lust or moderated to any passion or confined to new obedience or won to true repentance or moved in conscience or raised in hope when he applies to any or all these duties out of faction novelty curiosity levity custome affectation or hypocrisie when he thinks the Minister that officiates hath no more power than himself or his groom and footman when he looks upon his Minister as a poor man confined to his teddar staked to his petty living dependant upon mens charity exposed to plebeian contempt at best but an almesman of the State a publick pensioner or an Evangelicall Trooper whose commission is ad placitum hominum after the will of man having no divine power or authority to his office and work no legall right or title as to certainty or perpetuity in any thing he enjoyes as his wages further than the arbitrary favours or frowns of men are dispensed to him a very trembling and precarious orator whose pulpit is like the Ara Lugdunensis soon made his scene his coffin and his sepulchre especially if either fervently praying or faithfully preaching or justly yet wisely reproving he displease any captious and peevish Auditor who hath confidence enough to make him an offender for a word and influence enough to sequester to silence yea to starve him and his family if he use an honest and innocent parrhesy or freedome of speaking such as becomes the Messenger of heaven the Minister of Christ and the Ambassadour of God When the mouths of Gods oxen are thus easily muzled when his Prophets are so cheaply despised when his neerest servants are thus despitefully used no wonder if irreverence Atheisme and profanenesse in all sorts of people attend all religious exercises as necessarily as shadows doe those grosse bodies which intervene between the sight and light which is the first sad and bad consequence following and flowing from the inconstancie and unsetlednesse of Religion CHAP. V. BEsides the decayes of Piety and Charity in mens hearts both as to the principles power and practice becoming Christians which like a Lethargick numbnesse and stupor is come upon the old stock of Christians in England together with that unsetlednesse irreverence contempt Atheisme and profanenesse which grows upon the younger sort of people who have been bred amidst these our divisions distractions and extravagancies of Religion to very much of irreligion the lusts and vanities of their minds being not any way so curbed and repressed by the incumbent majesty and authority of any such setled and uniform Religion as is necessary either to perswade men to be good or to over-awe and restrain them from being so bad as they would be Besides these mischiefes which I have already set forth to you my Honoured Countrymen there is a second sad and bad consequence which like a Gangrene or spreading Canker daily frets the spirits and as it were eats up the very substance and vitals of Religion in this Nation by reason of those endlesse and vexatious disputes which agitate the spirits and exasperate the minds of all sorts of Christians and of none so much as Ministers who are looked upon as those that expose and offer themselves to be the chief heads or Champions of Religion in their severall parties who are to undertake the combates and challenges of all opposers which truly were no very hard province if either Ministers were unanimous and mutually assisted by concurrent judgement among themselves or if they were protected by the shield of this Churches declared Doctrine and uniform profession of Religion Which heretofore was justly esteemed as sacred inviolable and invulnerable having
who have brought forth as good Scribes instructed for the Kingdom of Heaven out of the good treasuries of their hearts things both new old the Learning of the ancient Fathers Councills and Historians set off with later Experiments and Improvements of all spirituall operations and gracious comforts the forgetting I say of these Ministers cannot be worthy of that pious gratitude which becomes noble-minded Christian How meane uncomely and much below you must it needs appeare to all wise and sober Christians in the present age and all posterity if you suffer their holy orders to be despised their spirituall offices to be neglected their divine authority to be usurped their primitive orders and constant succession to be interrupted their persons to be abused and shamefully treated their support as to double honour to be so abuted that their maintetenance shall be very small sharking and uncertaine also their respect and esteem none at all especially among the common people whose civil and religious regards are much measured either by the bag and bushell or by the examples of their betters their Landlords and Governours The wilfull dividing debasing discrediting disordering and discarding of the ancient Clergy as to their Ordination Government Ministry Authority and succession in England which was most Christian Catholick and reformed must needs be as the sin and shame so the great injury and misery of you and your posterity being the ready way to bring in First a scrupulous unsatisfiednesse and unsetlednesse as to our former Religion as if either not true or not reformed Secondly next it raiseth a jealousie and suspicion of any Religion under the name of Reformation as if it would not long hold and had no bottom or bounds Thirdly after this followes a lukewarmenesse coldnesse and indifferency as to all Religion whatsoever as Reformed and as Christian Fourthly then will there creep in by secret steps a generall Apostasie at least from our pristine wise Reformation and happy constitution of Religion to the Roman errors superstitions and usurpations which wait for such a time and temper in England whereby to make their advance upon peoples mindes wildred and confounded when they shall see the shamefull retreates recoilings and variations made in England by the Reformed Religion upon it self whose disorders disgraces and deformities necessarily following the contempt of their Ministers or the change and rupture of their Ministeriall descent and succession will make most if not all men in time to recede from it and rather adhere to its grand Roman rival its implacable enemie Popery whose policies will bring you and your posterity by the contempt and want of true Bishops to have no Pastors or Ministers of any uniforme validity of Catholick complete and most undoubted authority If any man may be a preacher that listeth to pirk up into a Pulpit certainly in a few yeares you shall have no Preachers worth your hearing no Ministers of any reputation and authority either among the Idiots and vulgar or among the more ingenious and wiser sort of people who are not naturally either very solicitous or industrious in the concernments of Religion or the choise of their Ministers If neither God nor good men have any further pleasure in their servants the ancient Clergy of England if they really are as uselesse and worthlesse as they have been made vile and reproched by some mens tongues and pens if they have deserved to be thus tossed in an eternall tempest of factious divisions vulgar depressions and endlesse confusions beyond any other order or rank of men if this be their evill fate and merit after all their studies and paines after all their Praying Preaching Writing and Living to the honor of this Nation and the great advantages of the Reformed Religion if to have equalled at least if not exceeded the Clergy of any Church in any age since the Apostles departure be the unpardonable fault of the Reformed Bishops and their Clergy in England if their very sufferings as the vipers seizing on St. Pauls hand make them appear to barbarous and vulgar minds as sinners therefore despicable because they are so much despised and so thought fit to be destroyed if this lingring and shamefull death of being thus Crucified is that by which the Clergy of England must glorifie God if this bitter cup must not passe from them truly it will be a mercifull severity to hold them no longer in ambiguous calamities but rather wholly to expose them to the last outrages of Fanatick Popular and Schismatick fury the Lions that hunger and roare to have these Daniels wholly cast into their dens and jawes that so your eyes may no longer see your poor despised distressed and miserable Clergy many of whom both Bishops and Presbyters are forced as you know to embrace the dunghil being destitute of order honour and estate some of them having neither food convenient nor any abiding place nor any fitting employment that so that Episcopall Clergy now rendred so odious who under God formerly redeemed you and your fore-fathers out of the bondage and darknesse of Egyptian superstition may by an Egyptian Magick and fate be drowned in the Red-Sea of vulgar contempt popular confusion and inordinate oppressions that thus the new Jannes and Jambres may not onely resist but wholly prevaile by their inchantments against your Moses and Aarons But if your Consciences O worthy Gentlemen who are the Beauty Strength and Honour of this Nation do on the other side tell you not with faint and dubious whispers but by loud and manifest experiences proclaiming to all the world that the ancient Clergy of England have generally deserved better of you by their Learning Preaching Praying Writing and Living what I beseech you can be more worthy of the Wisdome Justice Piety Honour and Gratitude of this Nation than to assert with their publick love and favour the dignity of their worthy Divines the honour of their Clergy the Sanctity of their Religion and Reformation against that plebeian petulancy and insolency which hath so pressed upon them and daily depresseth all their Authority not onely by reason of some Lay-mens folly and insolency but even by their variations and inconstancy who presumed to be Preachers and challenge upon what score they please a share or lot in the Evangelicall Ministry Truly it is high time to redeeme the Sacred Orders the Divine Authority the Catholick succession the ancient and authentick dignity of the Evangelicall Ministry in the Church of England from the obloquies contempts and oppressions of ignorant and unreasonable men who are great enemies to the piety and prosperity of this Nation and but back friends to the Reformed Religion being at so deadly a fewd against the ancient Clergy and Catholick Ministry of this Church whose totall extirpation both root and branch Bishops and Presbyters they have so resolutely designed and restlessely endeavoured that they long for nothing more than the natural death of all the reverend Bishops and all Episcopall
of all holy men in all Churches before your time Can you prefer the factious fancies of one Aerius or Acolythus or Ischyras of old before all the famous Bishops Presbyters and Councils Can you honestly plead St. Jerom for your Presbytery till you reconcile him with himself who is plaine and punctuall for Episcopall eminency and onely pleads at most for the joynt Counsel and assistance of Presbyters in which rank himself was which I and all sober men do earnestly desire as best and safest for the Church yea and for Bishops too Shall one David Blondel or Walo Messalinus that is Salmasius men indeed of excellent Learning yet obliged as Pet. Moulin confesseth of himself in his Epistolary dispute with the most Learned Bishop Andrewes to plead what might be for the enforced stations and necessitated conditions of those Presbyterian Churches with which they were then in actuall fellowship and Church-Communion shall I say these two men which are the greatest props for Presbytery who yet are allowers of Episcopacy though not as absolutely necessary yet as best for the Polity and Government of the Church where they may be had be put into the balance against all the ancient and modern assertors of Episcopacy or shall the votes of the late Assembly be a just counterpoise against all the chief Reformed Divines at home and abroad as Calvin Peter Martyr Bucer Zanchy Chemnitius Gerard and many others who are all well known to be for Episcopacy and Bishops if they will be Fathers and Fautors of the true Christian and Reformed Religion as Bishops in Engl. were Did not Deodate from Geneva Salmasius from Leiden write hortatory though concealed letters to the chief sticklers of late for Presbytery in England advising them to acquiesce in and blesse God for such a regulated Episcopacy as had obtained and might best be retained in England Have not others abroad much deplored their want of such Episcopacy and such Bishops as England happily enjoyed since the reformation and ever before Can the late Scotized Assembly modestly pretend to better light clearer spectacles more discerning eyes or more honest hearts for Religion and due Reformation for Christs honor and this Churches happinesse than all the ancient Councils or the modern Convocations and Nationall Synods of Engl. Or can it now at last seem either an unreasonable expectation in Episcopall Ministers or an unconscientious condescention in those of the Presbyterian and Independent parties to turne their Extemporary Presidents or Momentary Moderators into fixed and deserving Bishops can it be an hard matter for them to conforme to uniforme Antiquity who have so long gratified various novelty What great matter were it for them so far to satisfie the consciences of Episcopall men yea and the interests of all sober Ministers as not to suffer any further Innovation or longer abscission or total interruption or final abruption to befal the Catholick Order and Authority of Episcopacy in this Church the restoring of which would no way injure their own true interests as Presbyters or patrons for the people who might both have and enjoy all those ingenuous Liberties and Priviledges which they justly claim short of an absolute sole and soveraigne power in Church-Government which is never to be trusted either in common peoples or common Presbyters hands I ask these Acephalists who will indure no head but that on their own shoulders whether the City of London is worse governed because it hath a Lord Maior among and above the Aldermen and Common Councel whether the Colledges in the Universities or the Companies and Fraternities in Cities are lesse happily ordered because they have Presidents or Masters and Wardens in them and over them whether they think it were better for an Army to have no Colonels or Commanders in chief but all military Counsels and transactions should be managed in war and peace by a meer Democratick or popular way as every souldier fancied his own valour and ability I doubt not but in all these parts and proportions of good Government sober men stand convinced that they are then best when Counsel and Order make up the Majesty and completenesse of Authority by subordination of all and the suffrages of many joyned to the eminency of one worthy person in their severall precincts stations and jurisdictions Nor can I think that chief Governors can be hereticall irrationall irreligious or Antichristian onely in the point of Church-Goverment as if this polity and fraternity beyond any other were exclusive or incapable of that order and eminency which is the Crown and completion of Government which is used in all other Societies and ever was so in the Churches of Christ In order therefore to draw the designed plat-forme of Ecclesiasticall Communion from the novelty partiality and popular policies of Associations to its just proportions and due dimensions my last quaere or proposall to my brethren the Ministers is whether all things considered in cool thoughts and consciencious tempers it were not worthy of all Learned Godly and sober Ministers first to unite themselves in their judgements counsells and desires with all singlenesse of hearts and mutual brotherly kindness and then humbly to crave leave of the civill powers to permit them to cast themselves into such prudent and orderly combinations for Church-Government as might best suite as with the peace and prosperity of this Church so with the Primitive and Catholick way of Christs Church thereby satisfying all honest desires and pious interests of all considerable parties That neither Bishops should be wholly ejected as superfluous nor yet Presbyters despised as meer ciphers nor Christian people any way oppressed as slaves or beasts who having each of them their severall honest interests and just uses wil better attaine their desires in an happy conjuncture than in any separations which first weaken them apart then destroy them all Nor may this model of Church-union and Government be thought a meer Idea or Utopian fancy experience of all times and the best times for Religion as Christian and reformed that ever England or any Nation enjoyed assures us that it is not onely feisable but every way most commendable as most agreeable to every honest interest and indeed every way completest for the glory of God the honor of Christ the good of this Church and the Communion with all other either Christian or Reformed For by this meanes the scandall and shame of late Schismes would be removed the ancient Ecclesiacall succession continued the grand power of Ordination will be neither various nor defective neither innovated not altered the Ministeriall Office and Authority will be most authentick and undoubted the minds of all Learned and sober men will be satisfied their heads hearts tongues and hands united Christian charity and brotherly Communion best restored the reverence and Majesty of Religion also the honor and dignity of the Ministry as Christian and Reformed would be mightily recovered the Peace and Unity of this famous and well-reformed Church
Nice Ephesus Chalcedon and Constantinople besides many other Provinciall and Nationall Synods in Asia Africa and Europe also here in our Britany of which the most learned Sir H. Spelman hath given us a liberall account as Sirmondus of those in France where I say they were lawfully called by the chief Magistrate or freely convened by the Bishops consents and impartially managed with the feare of God and love of his truth so as becomes men of learning gravity and good conscience in so grand concernments as import the peace of the Church the satisfaction and salvation of mens soules in these cases it cannot be denyed nor sufficiently expressed with how happy successes God hath alwaies blessed those meetings their pious results and peaceable determinations being the votes of that publick Spirit of Christ to which the private Spirits of all true Prophets and Preachers no lesse than of Christian people will as they ought be subject Truth and Peace have for many yeares after flourished in those Churches that have been most blest with the frequency of such Synods As frequency of Parlaments when they are as they ought to be the highest fullest and freest Counsel of the Nation is the best preservative of our civill peace and of the vigor of our Lawes so would frequent Nationall Synods rightly constituted and managed be as I formerly demonstrated the best Conservators of the purity peace and proficiency of our Religion as Christian and Reformed When Convocations of Ministers should meet and sit not onely for forme and fashion to be the Umbra's of Parlaments to put on their gownes to tell the clock and to give their monies but to look seriously and effectually into the state of Religion that it suffered no detriment by any practise or pretention by profanenesse or superstition by any defects or excesses under the colours of affected novelty or antiquated Antiquity if the hand that held the scale and standard of Religion were here fixed by Authority that Nationall Synods should be the Conservators of Religion it is not imaginable how much all worthy Ministers would study to improve their studies and imploy their parts to increase their gifts and graces that they might be meet helps in so grand and publick services for God and his Church such as now are like bitten and over-dopped shrubs would then grow to the procerity of tall trees and goodly Cedars What is there so great so glorious so usefull so advantageous for Religion and the good of the Church that might not here by many acute eyes diligent hands able heads and honest hearts be effected 1. How might all new opinions which the luxuriancy of mens imaginations are prone to conceive and bring forth it may be with no evill minds as honest women oft do monstrous births be here timely and duly examined and either smothered or allowed to live being either fully confuted or seriously confirmed 2. How might the purity solidity and profundity of true Doctrine here be contained and maintained as the waters for the Temple were in the brasen Sea 3. How might the first Catechisticall principles or foundations with the second and third storyes of Religion be here methodically digested and prepared for the use of all sorts of people younger and elder 4. How noble an appeale and impartiall a Sanctuary would both Doctrine and Discipline here have which none could in reason or modesty either wave or refuse 5. How might the Devotionall parts of Religion be here admirably composed and so disposed as might supply both the infinite defects which have followed the late indirect Directory and the apparent wants which are found of a fitting publick Liturgy The disuse of which hath not onely exposed the solemnity of publick Prayers and Sacramentall consecrations to each private Ministers Spirit and abilities but to his defects disorders excesses errors indispositions and extravagancies yea they have brought a very great neglect of publick and private duties among all people through the ignorance and indevotion which is grown among us Further they have occasioned infinite partialities whisperings tumults strifes disdaines and divisions among all sorts both of Ministers and people who have not onely the word of God but the water and the blood both the Sacraments of Christ in great respect for mens persons parts and gifts One Minister will have Sacraments another will have none one is cryed up another cryed down as consecrating and officiating better or worse than another one is very long flat and tedious another too short obscure and concise one affects such strange words and odde phrases in his consecration and distribution as either amaze or scandalize the receivers which I have known some Ministers do all by their own either constant or occasionall formes others covet to imitate the patternes and expressions of leading and popular Preachers I humbly conceive much good might be done even in this particular if all Ministers were tyed to use some one grave devout complete and emphatick form such as should be established with all due regard to the former Liturgie and yet permitted with that to use what further prayers and praises they thought convenient or their fervent hearts moved them to for their own and their peoples occasions of the discreet performing of which they should have other judges besides themselves who should not suffer them to be tedious extravagant or impertinent 6. By such Synods moving in a constant orb or fixed sphere how easily might a noble Commentary upon the whole Scripture be composed and commended to the use of this Church for the clearing of the Scripture-sense and meaning and for confirming the Readers of them in the true faith which many not understanding with the Eunuch wrest to their own destructions for want of an interpreter For neither Geneva notes nor Diodates touches nor the late endeavours of some of the Assembly do in my judgement come up to that light and lustre which would be required and might be attained in so admirable and usefull a work whereto much good materialls are already prepared by the excellent labours of English Divines upon most parts of the Scripture To this Commentary might be added such directions for Readers more at leisure as might commend to them those excellent English or other Authors who had wrote well on any one book or chapter or verse with reference to the most remarkable Treatises or Sermons which have been set forth in the Church of England which beyond any Church ancient or moderne had a fulnesse of such spirituall gifts or prophesying powred forth upon it which are now generally shrunk and withered much abated and quite buried chiefly for want of such publick imployment improvement and incouragement as Ministers are capable of and aptest for 7. By the concurrent influence of such publick Counsels all difficulties in Doctrine Discipline and Church-Government might easily be maturely debated gravely resolved exactly stated and wisely composed 8. More compendious cleare easie and constant waies of instilling Religion
preferring such men to be Bishops as were worthiest of her favour fittest for Gods the Churches and her Majesties service Did this wise Princesse ever listen to the insinuations pretentions petitions and charmes of those men in her daies who so much importuned and molested the publick peace and patience by their despite against Episcopacy and their scurrility against Bishops Some of them possibly might be well-meaning men but I take the best of them to have been popular and superstitious in this point others very pragmatick and juvenile none of them were any great Polititians while they would either have no Church-Government with any Eminency or wholly reduce it to such a parity as they designed for their ambitions which would have made themselves and all the Clergy as at this day more divided and despicable than ever they could have been under Bishops though Bishops had had no more power than an High-Constable or a Country-Justice Besides this the simplicity of those zealous men in those daies who most maligned Episcopacy and disparaged the Church of England having been terribly scared by some Popish Bishops in Queen Maries daies whose sad pictures still frighted them in the Book of Martyrs did then by their needless Divisions Distractions Oppositions and Separations greatly advance the Papall interests as learned Mr. Cambden wisely observes writing of the contests between Archbishop Whitgift and Mr. Cartwright with his Associates whose unhappy Successors could we see never carry on their designes now at last but with the infinite troubles miseries of this Church and State by which they have advanced their Presbytery in England so little so not at all that never any men got so little or lost so much by so dear a bargaine which cost not onely much money but much blood many lives many soules and many sins After this renowned Queen had left Episcopacy not onely standing but fixed and flourishing in England to the content and happiness of the most and best of her Subjects in Court and Country in Parlaments and out of them King James succeeded as supreme Governour in Church and State What Christian King was ever crowned with more learning and a larger heart in all Knowledge Divine and Humane Ecclesiastical and Civil This Prince had been nursed with the milk of Presbytery he had been long dipped and dyed in Presbytery if any sure this King might have seen at least fancied the beauty that Presbytery added either to the Reformed Religion or the Imperial purple His education by Buchanan and his castigations by Mr. Knox and others might in all probability have much devoted him to Presbytery and prejudiced him against Episcopacy of which I believe he seldomer heard one good word than he did Faction Treason and Rebellion from those warmer Presbyters who as his swadling-clouts so straitly wrapped him up in his minority that he could hardly fetch his breath with freedom yea and in his majority too when they made themselves as his chains and fetters to bind Princes as all men to their good behaviour Yet notwithstanding these Presbyterian Prepossessions for so many years did not this great Monarch heartily rejoyce when he came to a Church handsomly and honourably governed by learned grave orderly and venerable Bishops the onely Catholick Government of all Churches of which he had read so much and so much good in the Ecclesiastical Histories and nothing of any other Was it not an infinite content to him to see himself freed from the vexatious Thistles and provoking Thornes of some Presbyterians in Scotland for others were grave and modest men that he might enjoy the fair and sweet Roses of Sharon such Bishops as had ever been the chiefest flowers in the Garden of Christs Church Was he ever satisfied untill he had reduced the Kirk of Scotland from some Presbyterian extravagancies to such Episcopal Order and Constancy as was indeed very excellent and neerest to the primitive pattern of paternall Presidency fraternal Assistance and filial Submission But few people are ever so happy as to know and value their own happiness When this great work was done of restoring Episcopacy to so ancient a Church as Scotland was and confirming it in England contrary to the vain hopes childish presumptions and self flatteries of some popular men who could never with reason expect that so learned and wise a Prince as K. James would exchange the Ark of God for Dagon Episcopacy for Presbytery did he not as seriously triumph in the blessed alteration of his Ecclesiastical Station as he did to remove his habitation from and extend his dominion beyond that Hyperborean horrour of Scotland to this Southern sweetnesse and amaenity of England These things thus well setled as to the Order and Honour of the Church of Christ in his Dominions although this King were a Prince of most profuse and indeed prodigious munificence thinking no Epithet became a King lesse as Tully sayes of Deiotarus than that of homo frugi thrifty or illiberall yet did he never incline to devour the Churches patrimony to keep the Episcopall Seates vacant that he might enjoy the Revenues He once refused the offer of Cathedral Lands which some had projected as very feisable because as a grave Bishop then suggested to him God was twice every day publickly and solemnly worshipped in every Cathedrall and his Majesty there publickly prayed for in his greatest necessities whatever hunger seised his royall appetite in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sharpest famine of his Exchequer yet he never waking or sleeping thought of Confiscating Church-Lands or making Bishops to be superstitious or superfluous in the Church because his condition was necessitious No whatever failings as a man that Prince had yet as a King and a Christian he had this justice and generosity to preserve the honor of Bishops and the Rights of the Clergy Indeed as he was the greatest Scholar of a King in all the world so he was as great a patron of good Scholars as the world had Nor will those that have most quarrelled the Memory and Reigne of King James easily mend the condition of Church or State which he left in Peace Plenty and Safety Nor was it so much policy or reason of State as strength of true Reason and the prevalencies of true Religion which so counterbiassed that Kings judgement against Presbytery as a partial popular novelty or confirmed him in Episcopacy as an Apostolick and Catholick Antiquity between which he thought there was no more compare as to Church-Government than there is between the Majesty of goodly Lions and the subtilty of little Foxes After this great pattern of King James whose learned arguments were more prevalent than his arms in Religion followed his unfortunate Son the last King who amidst all his reproches and improsperities cannot be denyed this Honour than he seemed not inferiour to any King that ever lived in his regard to the Churches ancient Order Estate and Honour although few Princes ever sustained
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
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.
many young Preachers of very active fancy and eager to rule After all this digging and delving this rare plant of Presbytery soon dwindled either as having no great depth of good earth or as not planted by so lucky an hand as it should have been in so publick and grand a concern as Government is in any Church or State or as watered so much with Christian and Reformed blood In fine its very Bark grew streight and hide-bound its soft branches and sudden shootes grew weak and withering its junctures loose and infirm its top too heavy for its body and its bulk for its roots as an Epidemick terror at first so now a nauceous scorn befell most people some laughing at others despising these new Undertakers to govern all sorts of Christians great and small in England without the leave of the chief Governour in Church and State to whom they had sworn to be subject as to the supreme Governour in Church and State In a few years the breach which these Trojans had made in the walls of their own City this Church of England to bring in this wooden Horse of Presbytery so weakned their own defence both for maintenance and authority that when they thought Town and Country and City had been their own they saw themselves much forsaken as by Prince and Peers so by the people generally yea and by some of their greatest Masters who listed not to write upon Presbytery Jugum Christi or Sceptrum Crucifixi the Yoke or Scepter of Jesus Christ After this damp and coldness had fatally come upon most men who were now as willing not to be governed at all by any Presbyters as Presbyters were unwilling to be governed by their lawful Bishops no Agitating no Stickling no Preaching no Praying no Fasting no Printing no repeated Crambes of Christs Discipline of Elders and Elderships of Helps and Governments of the Necessity of the Divine right of the Aarons Rod of Presbytery which had been kept hid it seems in the Ark of the Covenant for 1600. years no splendid Names of Mr. Calvin Mr. Beza Mr. Farel Mr. Knox Mr. Cartwright Mr. Baines Mr. Brightman Mrs. Smectymnuus no urging the Covenant the Votes the temporary Ordinances of two Houses no engine was capable to buoy up Presbytery which was either leaky as built of green timber in hast or overloaden beyond its bulk and capacity Many sober and good Christians bred up under Episcopal prudence and gravity had already felt and others feared the Pertness and Impertinency the Arrogancy and Emptinesse the Juvenility and Incompetency the Rusticity and Insolency of some ruling and teaching Elders too Sober men disdained till they saw better reason from God and Man to put their necks thus into a new Noose and their hands under the Girdles of their either Equals or Inferiours no ingenuous man or woman thought that High-shoes and the Scepter of Government yea of Church-government yea of Christs Government could well agree together So that the decoy and fallacy the sophistry and shooing-horn of bringing in Lay-elders by Divine right with some shew of Common-peoples having an influence in the new Church-government was soon discovered and despised it being most apparent that Ministers must be very silly Schollars and less Politicians not to over-bear by florishes of Words and Wit or shews of Reason Learning and Religion all his Lay-elders oâ— ruling partners so that he would upon the point enjoy the sole government of his parochial Principality or petty-Episcopacy which would make the little-fingers of Presbytery in time heavier than the loyns of Episcopacy ever were by so much as many poor mens Oppressions and young mens Follies are like to be more ponderous than one rich and aged persons power At this stand and maze some Ministers and people who could not for shame return to Episcopacy not yet well persist in promoting Presbytery which they saw a lost game very notably betook themselves to a new Invention of Independency of which the first five famous Planters and Commencers in England were men as of prudential parts so of good esteem for their piety where they were known and some of them were reputed for their learning These Quinqueviri with very modest Applications and humble Insinuations first begged leave and liberty not onely to dissent from Presbytery with more brotherly tenderness than that had done from Episcopacy but to attend the further completing of that Church-way which they called Congregational or bodying of Christians of which they already had some general light and model in their heads as most scriptural though least discernable in any track or practise of former Churches Their grand postulate or principle was as Jacob very smooth popular and pleasing probable enough to gain Disciples in a more gentle way than Preâ—bytery had done which was red and rough handed like Esau the Independant planters owning people to be the first and chief Receivers and Dispensers of all Church-power Both of them agree and resolve having shaken hands for fashion-sake as brethren utterly to leave their aged Father and old stock Episcopacy which they thought like Isaac now blind superannuated doting and quite spent having no more blessing for them These as young and lusty striplings for a while socially apply to shift for themselves without interfering each with other the one as eldest hoped to live by Hunting by using arms and force to compell people to bring them provision the other as yet of a milder nature gently applies in a more furtive way to gather Churches like little flocks of sheep from any Fold whence they listed to stray to feed them by their own will and to rule them according to their own pleasure because by their own power and popular commission making the flock to be above the Shepherd and the ruled above the Rulers in an absolute complete and supreme power under Christ being immediately authorized from him to chuse and to depose to make and to reject to reprove and to remove their Officers to Presbyters Elders Pastors or Bishops as their menial servants and Christs Messengers as their dependent and manual Ministers elected and ordained as well as nourished and maintained by them The body of the people thus congregated or congregating themselves being the measure of all Church-power to it self and to all its members great and small neither appealing to others nor requiring others appeales to them neither ambitious to Rule over others nor enduring to be Ruled by others but wrapping up it self in smal volumes every Church carries like a snaile its shell and all it hath with it not troubling poor people with tedious and long journies with vexatious citations and appeales from one Classis or Court to another which were they say the burthens attending both Episcopacy and Presbytery which last mended as they truly tell the world them atter very little in point of peoples Ease Quiet and Liberty after it had so quarrelled with Episcopacy and with many sleights as well as
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