they had exalted above the ranke of others within the bounds of their câ—lling And agreeable hereunto what paines have the men we named ever denied to consecrate unto the Church Have they ever thwarted the Rules of their first Institution And if the name they beare speakes them engaged to a perpetuall taske in managing of publicke affaires have they not ever applied all the powers of their soules to the pursuance of the same Yes they have done it with a flaming and saint-like zeale and have made the world read in their Actions their constant readinesse to sacrifice their lives and fortunes to the good of their Brethren But they are traduced for countenancing Popery where it was already and scattering some new seeds thereof where it had been extirpate This may be true of some but is a grosse slander upon the most of them If it had a simple toleration this was done mostly out of a charitable regard towards the Reformed Churches in Popish Dominioâ—â— nay further for the good of the Papists themselves whom they so tolerated Their examples their conversation their affable deportment might happily one day draw them over to a Profession from which banishments and other the like rigorous courses doe commonly divert them Religion cannot be forced upon the soule God must either Infuse it himselfe or perswade it by men Had the Bishops leaned never so little to the Popish Party and could they have been induced by any warping in opinion to favour those of that Religion when the Protestants were overborne in Ireland they would certainly have used them with more humanity when they had them at their mercy as an argument of that good correspondence betwixt them But the case was much otherwise so as never were any in a more deplorable condition then they There is no manner of reproach disgrace losse persecution which hath not befallen them Had the Bishops there beene such as the common voice proclaimes them would they not have beeâ— spared And if they had not been Protestants indeed would they not have gone over to the Conquetours and have followed the prevailing party was there for all this I will not say a Bishop but even any well affected to Episcopacy whom the threats of Fire and Sword could prevaile with to embrace Popery and renounce the Reformed Religion They further tell us that they doated too much upon titles of pride and ambition and such honours as the superstition and Idolatry of blinder times bestowed on them Beshrew their hearts that did so But the Innocent have reason to complaine of hard dealing if they must be listed with the guilty were there indeed any such at all You will pardon me if I shall hereupon avouch that many even of our owne men have sometimes picked a quarrell where there needed none I remember we once fell in discourse upon this argument and how after some slight debate you agreed with me in the upshot that the Overseers of the Church ought in all reason to be invested with some distinct and peculiar character to draw respect from inferiours That this was ever the practice of the Church and the very intention of those that established a superiority therein Whence arose the severall appellations of Father Paternity Pope Holinesse with many such in use with antiquity Nor is Episcopacy and the respects due unto it commended unto us with more earnestnesse then formerly they were As God seemes to have graven his image in a more eminent manner upon the face of such as are in authority thereby representing his unity an unity not to be parallell'd with any thing in the world in like sort hath the Church universall honoured them with such prerogatives as might best denote the obedience due to God himselfe who conferred that function upon them Hence doth the Author of that Epistle to the Trallians which goes under the name of Saint Ignatius use these expresse tearmes Reverence your Bishop as yee doe Christ reserving also a share in the honour to the Presbyters that so by your subjection to the Bishop and the Presbytery yâ— may be sanctified in all things This Presbytery as he there interprets it himselfe is the Colledge of Presbyters a sacred Assembly the Bisoaps Councellors and such as we call Assessours in civill Courts to whom he enjoynes obedience as to the Apostles of Jesus Christ Where the distinction he makes betwixt the honour due to Bishops and that appertaining to Presbyters is worth our observation For he saith that the former are to be reverenc'd as Christ the other as his Apostles which he would never have done had he not presumed that they who were intrusted with the care of the Church did governe it according to the rules of their Master surrendring themselves to the obedience of his holy spirit and these holding fast to their head won authority to their Ministery and all their instructions by that conformity betwixt them I am not Ignorant that some cavill at this exhortation and take occasion hereby to condemne that age of having first attempted upon the honour and respect due unto Christ as if by such expressions the Bishops were put into the ballance with him but these men consider not how all this was grounded upon Scripture He that heareth you heareth me They have not rejected you but mee Obey thâ—â— that have the rule over you And besides what Ignatius enjoines in behalfe of Bishops Polycarpus a disciple of the Apostles expressely recommendeth in behalfe of Preists and Deacons in that excellent Epistle he wrote to the Philippians which we have only seene in manuscript Abstaining saith he from these things be ye subject to the Preists and to the Deacons as unto God and Christ the like expression was used by the Primitive Doctours of the Church in exhorting the People to obey their Kings and Princes which they borrowed from an Epistle fathered upon Barnabas not * This Epistle of Barnabas was 〈◊〉 first printed at Oxford by the Lord Primate of Ireland and since at Paris yet published to the world What inconvenience can there be in bestowing that upon one which hath beene given to many and allowing as much to a Bishop as hath beene granted an Assembly of Presbyters seeing that in the language of antiquity the care of the Church which was dispersed in the whole body is united in him and that authority which had beene scattered amongst so many wholly devolved upon him Suppose this corruption in manners they talke of were such indeed or worse suppose farther that the Bishops were guilty of some errours in Doctrine may we for all this suppresse them nothing lesse nay we are not so much as to decline theirs or any manâ— company upon this ground alone if we will beleeve one of our most able and judicious writers 〈◊〉 I meane who in his Lectureâ— Of the Church hath this passage that we ought not to deny a diseased Person the benefit of our society if the malady be not mortall and
was never arraigned for those strange crimes which have beene proved upon some of it's Professours The Church is here to employ her authority which stretcheth not beyond suspension or deprivation and that of the Persons not of the Function How many Bishops hath Antiquity beheld shamelesly profaneing the holinesse of their Profession How many tainted with avarice ambition tyranny heresie sorcety and yet never man saw any considerable number of them condemned never durst or would any preferre a Bill for the suppression of the Order I am not ignorant of what is here commonly objected that absolute authority and supersâ—uity of riches are the usuall bane of the Soule and that there be but few men of ranke upon whom they have not a corruptive influence That these two being as it were inseperable Accidents cannot be sequestred from the Church without destroying the Subject which containes them That the Waldenses and Albigenses concurred in the same judgement and that of late they have received a totall proscription among our selves For the first it is granted by all that Riches and Authority suite not indeed with a narrow soule uncapable either of rightly understanding or knowingly valuing the pure and true dictates of Christianity To the second who denies but there may be Bishops without either investing them with an absolute Power or affording them any such excesse of riches In the whole Primitive Church there were none but indigent and necessitous ones enabled with no other authority then to dispense the graces of God and to proclaime his Judgements unto the People And yet no doubt but if choice were made of consci 〈…〉 men after the example of the Primitive Fathers there would be little ground to grudge them what the bounty of Kings and the consent of the People hath suffered them for so many ages successively to enjoy If they be such as are indeed worthy of a Bishopâ—icke they will employ their authority in executing Justice upon the vicious expend their riches in accommodating the needy as the Prelates here doe generally at this day Their very Adversaries confesse them to have ever beene most strict inquisitours after crimes and most severe â—â—nishers of the same Nor can they deny that the poore and unfortunate the Widowes and Orphans have ever found somewhat either in their Counsell or credit to protect them from scorne and reproach And they must needs farther acknowledge that besides those workes of Charity which call for a reverent esteeme and even a kind of veneration to the memory of an infinite traine of Bishops the publicke monuments founded by them both for the Honour and the profit of that Kingdome are so many pregnant arguments that they have employed their great revenues rather as just Stewards for the benefit of others then as the vassals of their owne pleasures Witnesse so many stately Churches famous Colledges rich Hospitals so many Bridges Foundations Dotations Edifices which owe their being to that Order 'T is true the Waldenses and Albigenses were generally against Bishops but who can give us the true meaning of those we desire may passe for our patternes How many were there amongst them whom it would be a great crime to propose for our imitation I cannot be induced to beleive that they of the most rationall sort among them who were best acquainted with the Errours which had then stole into the Church were the same with those who at that time made warre upon the Bishops Nor can I thinke that they who massacred Trincavell their Viscount in Besiers and dasht out their Prelates teeth having taken Sanctuary in Saint Magdalen's Church were in the number of those whose successours we glory to be called If so what may we thinke of the Divine Providence which forty two yeares after gave these bloud-thirsty men into the hands of the Croissades as very bloud-suckers as themselves who sacrificed them in the selfe same Church wherein they had spilled the bloud of others Vengeance pursued them into the place they had chosen for a Sanctuary and where they had exercised their cruelty there they received their punishment A remarkeable circumstance to assure us that the finger of God's Justice was there In the History of the Kings the Bookes of Chronicles and Mâ—ocabâ—â—s there are sundry notable examples of God's particular indignation against some upon whom he executed Justice in the same places where they had committed their severall crimes The like you have in Josephus and generally every Author abounds with such examples all which I will baulke with silence that I may not passe over two or three remarkeable accidents to this purpose in such fresh memory and knowledge of all the People here that even at this day they strike the consciences of the most with astonishment however they still continue in defiance to such visible summons from that providence which endeavours by this meanes to awake them The death of Hampden is one This man whom all your Novelists looked upon as one of the cheife Actours in the managing of their designe and who was the first that put them in a posture of Armes against their Prince received his Deaths-wound in the very same * * Chalgrove field feild where first he put the Militia in execution That of the Lord Brookes is another and perhaps you will thinke it a greater miracle In the very moment he threatned to demolish the Cathedrall of Lichfield the same day whereon they celebrated the memory of the * Saint Ghad Saint that founded it he was slaine with the glance of a bullet sent him from the hands of a dumbe person and that too just as he was peeping out at a door which I think hath not been hither to observed These circumstances are not to passe our attention being so many infallible testimonies of a Divine vengeance I might adde to the list of such examples that horrible disease of Pyâ—â— At the same time that his Conscience was gnawed with the vermine of ambition affecting a Tyrannicke power God gave him for food to lice and made him perish by such a kind of death as once he did those monstrous Tyrants Herod and Philip the second who both imbrued their hands in the bloud of their owne sonnes It remaines now that I should answer to such objections as are drawne from the custome of France wherein you can spare men labour your selfe with many moe besides that are acquainted with the present inconveniences which attend that way and foresee such as may be feared for the future In the meane time I will proceed to examine the grounds of Episcopacy And first of all I say that Episcopacy is either of Divine or at least of Ecclesiasticall Institution If of the former then ought Bishops to be continued where they are and restored where they are not Put case it be of the latter onely we are to examine whether it was establish'd upon good grounds or no and if so whether those grounds be not of equall validity
contagious That in the body the separation of any one part is dangerous what errour soever hath infected it except it be Heresie or Superstition otherwise there can be no just cause of doing so As for the depravation of manners he is yet more expresse affirmeing it downe-right folly for any man to conceive that a sufficient ground of seperation and alleadging the words of Christ they sit in Moses chairs what therefore they bid you that doe and he gives the reason wheresoever there is purity of Doctrine God must needs have a Church though encombred with a multitude of faults Now if this eminent writer had occasion to speake thus what a grosse shame is it for such as have nothing to object against their Bishops but the bare corruption of manners to endeavour not only a simple seperation from them but a totall suppression of them As for their Doctrine that 's Scot-free from censure 't is indeed so pure that it agrees in every particular with that of our best reformed Divines witnesse their severall Tracts of the Eucharist The power of the Pope The right of Kings The adoration of Images and the like which assure us that those which at this day advance the purity of Religion are their deserving successors that laboured so much in the first establishing of it Such were the Prelates God employed in this great worke the Arch-bishops of Canterbury Yorke the Bishops of London Worcester in Peter Martyrs time Cranâ—er Ridley Latiâ—er Hooper men all famous in their generations and such as knew how to weild a Bishoprick Most of which dyed martyrs in that hot Combat they maintained against the Errours and impieties of their times Before them when men durst scarce mutter of a Reformation one of the Bishops of Lincolnâ— couragiously entred the Lists with the Idolatry Grosâ—head and Superstition into which the Church was then plunged And he performed the Combate with so much gallantry that the common suffrage of all good men after him gave him this honorary title The Hammer of Rome Yet for all this they of London maâ—â—e him and the rest I have named you the common the 〈◊〉 of their Invectives both in the Presse and in the Pulpit They spare not to call them in publique a packe of impostours and Hypocrites such as never trac'd the paths of Christianity but in a râ—â—ling posture their soules being drunke with the cup of abdomination what fellowship can we have with such a generation as this We who have ever paid so much honour and esteeme to the memory of those worthy men that we have placed them in the ranke and calendar of our Martyâ—â—â— Nay our most upright and conscientious Divines have proposed each circumstance of their lives and deaths as the most exquisite patternes in all Europe and perhaps in the whole world besides of an unwearied constancy in asserting Truth and suppressing falshood Finally they are accused for intermedling too much in State affaires They will needs have it unlawfull for them to beare any share in the administration of Justice and that such priviledges should be annexed to Episcopacy which say they are incompatible with â—â—y but the Secular Authority and therefore they tooke care to dâ—vest them of the same in the beginning of this Parliament They which harpe so much upon this string are the very same malignant Spirits of which I have formerly given you the character Had they but any shadow of reason is it possible they should thus fight against the custome and example of so many ages both in their owne forraigne Countries Who knowes not that the Constitutions of greatest consequence in any State have bin made in Councells Assemblies of Bishops What else meaneth that ancient Ordinance of almost 900 yeares standing which pronounceth all Elections of Kings void where the Bishops and cheife of the People are denyed their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And whence arose the custome in all debates of preserving inheritances successions in families of having as much recourse to Episcopall as Regall Authority in that behalfe We finde that King Aethelstant â—â—â— 928. by expresse Statute joyned the Bishops in Commission with the Justices Secular to stop the current of Injustice and to root out all the seedes thereof Those employments did not divert them from the care of the Church Councels were no whit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 On the contrary we finde that in this Age or a little before whâ—â— the barbarisme of the Saxons had almost spent it self and men beguâ— to tast the sweetnesse of Christianity that the Bishops thereupon resuming their Authority and following the advice of one Bâ—nifâ—â—â— Arch-bishop of Mayence ordained that every Presbyter should yearly give an account of his Ministery to the Bishop who likewise for his part was yearly to visit his Diocesse in like manner to yeild an account of his proceedings to the Metropolitan these and many other Ordinances tending all to the establishment of purity in manners were with all rigour put in execution notwithstanding they set a part some time for secular affaires And this is further very remarkeable that Bishops themselves made lawes for the government of the People We finde it amongst others in one Odon Arch-bishop of Canterbury who exhorteth the Prince to yeeld all manner of obedience and submission to the Bishops which speakes the antiquity of their Power in this Kingdome a power which I can see no cause should be denied them if those that are invested with it be sincere Professors of true Christianity as they ought to be who are preferred to Bishopricks no more then their right of â—itting in Parliaments a right common to them with all the Bishops that ever have beene in the world and to which those of this Kingdome have a stronger title it being but the small remnant of that great power they had once and which they mannaged wit◠〈◊〉 much discretion Nor was it ever knowne that either King or People endeavoured their extirpation heretofore no not so much as to exercise my rigour upon their persons for about eleven hundred yeares together since the tyranny of the Saxon Kings forced them to quit the Realm and retire themselves to France that they might enjoy more case and liberty of Conscience in the service of God If ever their Votes in Parliament were lyable to suspicion it was doubtlesse in the reigne of Henry the 8 when they had so straight a dependance upon Rome that Prince having in a manner shaken off the Romish yoake and by his owne sole authority taken upon him the government of the Church of England which Pope Nicholas had heretofore freely resigned to Edward the Confessour had just cause to feare that in those Conventions they would betray his interestsâ—or of the Holy See's sake as they call it and so by consequent that he runne a great hazard of his owne Prerogative in not excluding them Notwithstanding be never had such a thought No more had Edward the Sixth nor Queene
moderation and to indeavour the recalling of some humanity into the mindes of men is the ready way to be accounted a Malignant and they that have attempted any such matter have beene used accordingly Witnesse the many Members of Parliament who being returned thither upon a free Election according to the Lawes of the Land have neverthelesse beene chased thence some by the bare Votes of such as complyed with the popular madnesse and others by some out-rage or injury done to their persons And how many of these have for their honesty and integrity sate in six or seven Parliaments with a generall applause What kinde of People now have they substituted in their places Even such as the lawes of the Realme did ever exclude thence â—â— the knowen instruments of malice and fury They have not indeed quite suppressed the House of Peeres but they have notoriously vilified it in so much as they will no longer allow them a share in the publique consultations No share I say there being but two or three of the Lords left to their liberty and that for no other reason but because they combine with the faction The rest are forced to swimme with the streame and they have not spirit enough to contradict the major part in any thing though their Conscience prompt them never so much unto it Things could ne'r have come to this passe had not the Bishops beene outed and therefore as I informed you before they begun at them a peice of the most notorious violence and injustice that ever was heard of condemned by all the honest men I know that are acquainted with the Principles of Christianity and the Lawes of a well-grounded Policy agreeable to both which they were first seated in Parliament and ought to have beene continued there as the only Pillars to support Order and Uniformity and consequently to hinder the State from falling to peices especially to prevent the downefall of Monarchy all other formes of government being hereso utterly repugnant to it But I ground not only upon those advantages which Monarchy enjoyes in their conservation to worke your dislike of those that outed them nor upon the sole interests of the whole Church which was so much concerned to keepe them in their places I stand altogether for their personall rights which are as ancient as those of the State the Bishops having as strong a title to a place in Parliament as either the Lords or Commons For if with the rest of the Clergy they make a part of the State as undenyably they do who can question their share in the rights of the State So that to exclude them is to set up one distinct State in the midst of another which is all one as to dismember and divide the same State from it selfe and by consequent to engage it to its owne inevitable destruction Besides as the Nobility and the Clergy though both concurring cannot without violation of the Publique Right exclude the Commons from publike conventions where Lawes are to be made for all so neither can the Nobility and Commons though both agreeing debarre the Clergy no more then the Clergy and the Commons can exclude the Nobility The case being thus who sees not that in the expulsion of Bishops all the rights of the State are infringed that this is the act of an unruly multitude which being empoysoned with a spirit of Libertinisme did at the first extort the approbation of those Lords that stayed amongst them and then rewarded their Cowardice with the losse of their Power and reducing them unto such a low contemptible condition that they could scarce be more vilified were they quite expelled the House Weigh a little I beseech you with what pretences they maâ—ke this outrage They will needes perswade us that Holy orders are inconsistent with secular employments and that it is a thing below the Ministers of the Gospell to intermeddle in civill Affaires To which purpose they quote us severall passages of Scripture and urge with all the example of a certaine Church man whom Cyprian would not allow any commemoration because he had taken upon him to be Guardian to a ward But this rigour which they presse so hotly upon the Clergy is neither consequent nor character of true Sanctity 'T is indeed the issue of an Anabaptisticall braine Henderson and Marshall two of their most able and expert Divines proclaime to the world by their secular employments in England and Scotland that they make but a mocke of these Arguments and that they beleeve those of their profession may without wounding their conscience or transgressing the rules of Christianity embrace all opportunities to promote the good of the Church though it be in the conduct of temporall affaires They have their generall Commissions as if they had never entered upon holy Orders by which they are enabled to heare and determine any matter of State even to the advanceing of a warre But granting these men the inconsistence they dreame of would not you concurre with me in this that though the Bishops Votes in Parliament be not simply necessary as a part of the civill government yet they ought to be granted them as the undenyable consequent of that universall priviledge which all free-borne Subjects enjoy which is not to be bound by any Law they never assented to either in their owne persons or by their proxies Besides it was ever till now thought but reason and equity that to such conventions where both spirituall and temporall affaires are to be joyntly agitated there should be summoned not onely your secular Scaâ—â—â—-men to judge of the utility or as they phrase it here the convenience of Lawes nor such onely as are skilfull in that profession to give verdict of their legality but withall some wise and honest Divines to judge for matter of piety in enacting them The truth is these cavillers bewray both in their speeches and in all their proceedings an absolute incapacity of any sound judgement blindly hurried on to an alteration of government out of a fond conceite that their designe will succeed so fortunately as to leade the dance for all the people in Europe to follow to which they solliciâ—â— them in their Covenant But they have more wit I trow then to be their Apes They have better rules to follow of their owne especially we Protestants of France * When they of London were told that the rigorous courses they â—ooke against the Papists here would sooner or later be practiced upon the Protestants in France their answer was Let others looke to themselves and let us alone for looking to our selves with whose interâ—â—s those Gentlemen were very little affected when they used the Papists with so much inhumanity so as it seems they would not acknowledge us for their brethren or that their charity was very cold towards us We have learned both from Christ and his Apostles the Doctors of the Church and all our first Reformers that such as be Incendiaries either