to be cloathed So our Saviour breathed on the Apostles Ioh. 20.21 22. when he said Receive the Holy Ghost So the Apostles used imposition of hands to denote their ordained Successors 1 Tim. 5.22 and 4.14 Heb. 6.6 which ceremony the Church of Christ in all ages hath observed in the successive Ordinations of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons as one of the fundamentals of the Churches polity order and power Not that these outward Rites and Ceremonies are of the essence of the duty of the divine power but for the evidence of that order and authority which is necessary that there may be nothing dubious or doubtful or confused or upon bare presumptions and conjectures in the Churches sacred Ministry but such an authority as is both powerful in its efficacy and pregnant and signal in its derivation and execution that none might undertake the work who is not constituted to be a Workman nor any withdraw from it who is rightly furnished for so worthy a Work as the Apostle calls the work of a Bishop either the minores Episcopi which are orderly Presbyters or the majores Presbyteri which are the paternal Bishops We see Eliahs spirit falls on none but his annointed Successor The spirit and power follows the lawful succession nor was any so fit for the appointment and succession as Elisha a man indeed of plain breeding of a country yet honest way of living which is no prejudice or impediment when God intended to furnish him with Eliahs spirit 1 Kings 19.19 with extraordinary gifts and endowments with the power from on high as Christ did his fishermen when he made them fishers of men Luk. 5.10 This was in one hour more to their improvement than all Schools and Vniversities all literature and education all languages arts sciences and Scriptures But when these special gifts which were miraculous are not given nor needful in the ordinary ministration propagation and preservation of Religion there reading and study and diligence and education and Schools of the Prophets are the conduits of Gods good and perfect gifts conveyed by holy industry and prayer to those that study to shew themselves workmen that need not to be ashamed 2 Tim 2 15. when once they are sanctified or set apart by God and the Church as here Elisha was In whom doubtless God and Eliah had seen something that expressed a very gracious and sincere heart by an humble holy Elisha's fitness to succeed Eliah and unblameable life We never finde that men of leud or scandalous lives are called to be Prophets of God or allowed to be made Preachers and Bishops of the Church wherein the antient Canons of the Affrican and other Churches were very strict and circumspect whom when and how they were ordained Bishops Presbyters or Deacons St. Paul requires that they should be not only unblameable but of good report even among the Heathens and unbeleivers as to matters of Justice Morality and common honesty as well as sound and orthodox in the Christian faith § Elisha discovers an excellent spirit and fit for a Prophet of God 2 Kings 2.2 4 6 not only by his individual adherency to Eliah three times piously disobeying his commands when he bade him leave him As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth I will not leave thee The love of good company is a good sign of a good conscience a very good way to a good life and a ready means to make us partakers of spiritual gifts but further Elisha shews a most devout and divine soul in him fit to make a Prophet to succeed Eliah when first he doth not preposterously and presumptuously obtrude himself upon the holy Office and Succession but attends Gods call and the Prophets appointment of him Secondly When he sees it is the will of God and his father Eliah he doth not morosely refuse or deprecate and wave the imployment as some had done Moses and Jeremiah after though he knew it would be heavy and hot service in so bad times but submits to that onus no less than honos burthen as well as honor God imposeth on him Thirdly In order to his support and encouragement in the work he doth not covetously or ambitiously look to the preferment or honor or profit which might easily follow such an imployment especially if merchandise might be made of miracles as Gehazi designed and of the Gospel if Ministers turned Sucklers and Hucksters of the word of God as the Apostle taxeth some who were greedy of filthy lucre no but his earnest and only desire is for a double portion of Eliahs spirit to be upon him not that he might have more glory but be able to do more good 1 Kings 9. â—4 Iames 17 with more courage and constancy with less dejection and melancholy despondency than Eliah who was a man subject to like human passions and sometimes prone to fall not only into despiciencies and weariness of life but even to despair as to the cause of God and true Religion It is as Chrysologus calls it a commendable emulation to imitate the best men and a pious ambition to desire to excel them in spiritual gifts and graces which the Apostle St. Paul excites all to covet in their places which the more bright and excelling they are like the light of the sun the more they dispel all the vapors mists and fogs of humane passions or pride which by fits darken the souls of holy men I cannot here but own my desires The defective and dubious succession of Evangelical Ministers very deplorable and deplore the state of our times which forbids me almost to hope their accomplishment as to any orderly and meet succession of Evangelical Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Presbyters in this Church our Eliah's dayly drop away I do not see any care taken for Elisha's to suceed them in such compleat clear and indisputable ways of holy Ordination and Succession as may most avoid any shew of faction novelty and schism and be most uniform to the Antient Catholick primitive Apostolick and uniform pattern which never wanted in any setled Church either Presbyters to chuse and assist the Bishops or Bishops after the Apostles to try ordain oversee and govern with the Counsel of Presbyters and all other degrees and orders in the Church Darkness disputes divisions distractions dissatisfactions and confusions must needs follow that Army or City that knows not who are its Commission officers or lawful and authorised Magistrates so must it needs be in the Church when Christians know not who are their Fathers their Stewards their Shepherds their Bishops or their Presbyters There is nothing next the fundamentals of faith in which the Church should be more clear and confidently ascertained than in this the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 10.15 Ordination and succession of their Evangelical Prophets for how shall they preach or rule unless they be lawfully sent and set over the houshold of faith Christs
reputation He was beyond any new feculent and intoxicating Must of yesterdays tunning like an excellent piece of sound good old wine always ripe and ready for all commers and tasters fully prepared for all essays and to all business of import § If he had once had any moderamen guidance of the chariots and horsemen of Israel the Clergy and Ministers of England it is not imaginable what his gravity goodness sincerity moderation oratory and piety would have done He would have been far enough from Phaethons fact and fate to have overthrown or set all on a light fire but this was a blessing that this Nation was not worthy of being ripe for wrath fitter for Soldiers to mow down than Schollars to plant or water it Other mens judgment of Bishop Brounrig before they plaid a new Presbyterian game § As to the esteem he had on all hands I my self have oft heard as others so Mr. John Pint who was of some kindred to this Bishop not only highly commend him but even glory and boast of him so did M. Marshal and those of his Juncto while conformity kept them warm till growing wanton planetary and excentrick from their former judgement and practice for many years they turned the Tables and withdrew their stakes these indeed for reasons of State playing against Bishops and Episcopacy while the other always like himself and as became Bp Brounrig for conscience sake stood constant to assert it as I know this reverend Prelate did ever to his last nor from any vain glory pertinacy pride or humor of revenge he was far remote from any such poisons but from eternal and immutable principles of Reason and Religion of order polity and peace in Church and State also from experience of the blessings by and under Episcopacy which this and other Churches had enjoyed and the either defects or miseries for want of it He hath sometime said to me That he held other reformed Churches which had not Bishops to have verum esse a true being of Ministers and other Christians but it was esse defectivum They had as wandering people esse naturale but not esse civile they might be Christs sheep but not so folded and under such shepherds as the Church had ever used from the Apostles days much insisting on that due veneration which posterity and particular Churches owe to the piety prudence and fidelity of the Catholick Church in Primitive times where Churches no more thrived or lived without Bishops as Presidents authoritative among and above Presbyters than Christians lived without their heads or hearts Yet was he out of love to his native Country His moderation in the matter of Episcapacy and pity for the Church of England passionately inclined to any fair and fraternal accommodations that humble orderly and worthy Presbyters whom he loved and treated as brethren might have all their due and Bishops no more than was their due by Scripture by primitive customs by the Laws of the land and by principles of order and true polity among all fraternities of men He had so great regard to the judgment Catholick custom of this and all Churches of Christ in all ages that he did not like some modern Sampsons think fit to break those cords or bands asunder at the pleasure of any men whatsoever meerly upon secular and civil designs for however he well knew that the Church depends on the Civil State for its secular peace and support yet he thought it but meet that a Christian State should in things Ecclesiastical conform to the primitive and Catholick customs of the Church Certainly he had been an admirable center for union His desire of an happy union between Bishops and Presbyters having a strong majestick attractiveness to win even adversaries to the love or reverence of him his demonstrations were so potent his perswasions so pathetick his designs so upright and just his deportment so fatherly and friendly that he was capable to rectifie even crooked pieces and to mollifie even stubborn perverss and peevish tempers if they did not with an high hand run quite counter and cross-grained to antiquity and reason either toward Rome or Amsterdam or Geneva to superstition to confusion or to popular and prevalent factions which he thought no less pernicious than novel to England by which some men not only seek to dictate very magisterially to this and all present Churches and States Christian but they dare to despise and condemn all antiquity even to the Primitive and Apostolical times as if no Christian Churches were ever well and rightly governed till after fifteen hundred years in all which times either long Anarchy it seems or sore Tyranny prevailed until the people of Geneva listing to reject their Prince and Bishop could not be composed to any order or polity Ecclesiastick but by the prudence of Mr. Calvin who t is evident did not constitute what Ecclesiastical polity he best liked but what the temper of the giddy people and distractions of times would bear for Mr. Calvin was known sufficientiy to be no enemy to Episcopal Presidency where Bishops would conform to the Doctrine and life of Christ § His great accomplishment for great affaires This reverend Bishop was indeed every way a most apt ample and accomplished person for great and publick affairs nor was he ever cut out for small work having so great and good a soul he was an excellent Schollar an admirahle Orator an acute Disputant a pathetick Preacher an unspotted Liver a prudent Governour full of judgment courage constancy and impartiality an useful good man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a grave and great Divine a gracious and sincere Christian as well as venerable Bishop consciencious in all he did and humble with all his indowments not less full of eminent graces than excellent gifts indeed every way such a man and such a Bishop as no Christian Church in any age but ours nor ours in any age but this would have laid aside being a Preacher and Professor of the same reformed Faith and Confession of Doctrine nor would any times but ours have forced by popular storms and tempests a goodly ship fraught with such rich treasures of worth and wisdom which are seldom embarked or laden in one bottom to come aground and to lie still in some obscure yet scarce safe corners and creeks either for fear of Plebean and Military Hericano's or for want of fit sails and fair winds or tides to bring it forth to the commerce and enriching of the world in Learning Religion and a most imitable example Not that this grave and grand Personage His usefulness in his retirement and private life when thus forced to retire was useless to those that were worthy of him and knew how to value and use him either as a Bishop or as a Divine or a counsellor or a comforter or a Friend nor were any people more to be envied in my judgement than those that were happy as Solomons
was The publique loss in his death and worthy to be beheld and enjoyed by us longer in the land of the living yet now he is as the flower goodliness of all flesh cut down withered and vanished hidden from all mortal eyes you are now to look upon him only by reflection backward for forward he is invisible Another potent Eliah taken out of your sight another reverend Father that hath left this Orphane and divided Church another wise man and faithful Counsellor withdrawn from a foolish nation and distracted people from whom God hath taken away his peace Another righteous man taken from the evil to come another great Prophet who could not but foresee and foretel the evils that would as St. Paul speaks follow a sinful generation after his departure § This is another of the prime chariots and horsemen of our Israel of our excellent Schollars Divines Preachers and Bishops which God hath taken out of an evil world after Bishop Vsher Bishop Hall Bishop Morton and others of later years who are sufficient to make an everlasting divorce between Prelacy and Popery that odious and unjust conjunction of modern calumny put upon the reformed Bishops of England all these died as in the true faith so in the foresight and fear of much future miseries impending over us for though we have drank deep of the cup of the wrath of God yet they justly feared we were not yet at the dregs If God heretofore punished the sins of King Lords and Bishops doubtless he hath a quarrel with Parliaments Presbyters and People For his wrath is not yet turned away but his hand is stretched out still against the Nation If fire break forth to consume the green trees what shall become of those that are dry and sear twice dead and thrice plucked up by the root from their Kings from their Parliaments and from their Reformed Religion to all which they were more than once solemnly engaged And how can we be sit for the peace of God or men This holy Bishop went not as the envious and evil world designed with sorrow to his grave upon his own account but rather with joy and blessed hope he knew the world was bad enough at best but now he thought it stark naught and mad without sense or shame for sin even at its worst Novissima pessima tempora His only fear and grief was least the Ark of the Reformed Religion once well settled in England should at length be taken captive again by the stratagems of the enemies and carried either to Babylon or the house of Dagon to popular and fanatick confusion or to Romish Idolatry and superstition this hope yet he had in the bottom of his fears next Gods mercy that fince the most crying and scarlet sins were not the vote fact or after-assent of either the most or the best people of the Nation that perhaps the Lord would yet return to England in his favour and require the vengeance due to his justice and to the scandal of the Christian and Reformed Religion from those who were the chief in evil counsels and actions violently obtruded upon the Nation to its great trouble and misery § The mourning due to his Funeral If tears were venial in any prviate funeral when Church and State lie a dying they might be allowed in this before us but not for his sake who is at rest and of whom we may say Non illi vita erepta sed mors donata as Tully of Crassus slain before the civil wars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Naz. he is a great gainer by death but for our selves as Christ told the weeping women both as to those evils that are continuing and encreasing upon us and for these publick losses of so worthy a person in whom as Nazianzen says of St. Basil the great Every man good and bad receives damage the first of the good example they love the second of that good example they need § And if as in other things some men are pleased to shew themselves Jews that is faithless and cruel to fellow-Christians so in this you as the better Israel of God list so to imitate that Judaick custom of rending your garments truly no ceremony is more agreable to Symbolize or to set forth our sad condition The sad rents in England religious and civil at his death whose rents and breaches are not in two peices but as many as the Prophet Ahiah tore Jeroboams new garment into and if onely our civil and outward garments were rent as to secular liberties estates peace and laws it were tolerable But our inward garment that should be nearer and dearer to us than our skins even Christs coat yea his skin nay his mystical body his Church this is torn into more than a dozen peices even our religion yea our very reformation is rent into rags nay our rags pretend to be our reformations and our Schismaticks would seem our Seamsters and our renders will needs be our reformers and repairers A condition of Church and State so deplorable that it requires rending of our hearts from sin more than of our garments and weeping with tears of blood as Nazianzen speaks § In the civil wars of England hererofore yet this comfort there was that they had the same religion They could say Amen to the same prayers though the bodies fought their souls did not The misery of our miseries is that our best medicine which should heal our civil wounds is become our greatest malady Our Oyl is turned to vinegar and our Balme of Gilead into aqua fortis or the water of jealousy Civil scratches and wounds will in time heal but religious divisions fester and grow ulcerous every one being ambitious in this to be constant in their zealous cruelty to the adverse party the truth is our wounds are so deep so rankerous and incurable that nothing but a miracle of mercy can help or recover us many have essayed to heal the hurt of the daughter of my people but slightly partially and superficially as Physitians of no value the more we trusted to them as King Asa or spent our estates upon them as the woman in the Gospel the worse we are O great Physitian of souls do thou undertake our cure to whose omnipotent mercy nothing is impossible § In the last place Conclusion of gratitude to the Societies of the Temples in the Bishops behalf I am to close this sad obsequie and Christian Solemnity with return of many thanks to these honorable Societies First in the Name of the departed this great Prophet this good Eliah this venerable Bishop Next in the name of all his reverend Brethren Coepiscopi yet surviving reliquiae Danaum atque immitis Achillis Thirdly in the name of all worthy Ministers that are not Acephalists and rudely Autepiscopal walking Antipodes to all Antiquity and themselves heretofore Fourthly in the name of all learned and ingenuous men in both the Vniversities and all the Nation