unworthily or unduly Ordeined are like sleight and ill built ships which endanger the loss of themselves and all those that are embarqued in them and put to Sea with them Miscarriages in the matter of ordination of Ministers are to the unspeakable detriment and dishonour of Religion as unskilfull cowardly or perfidious Officers are to Armies I shall never hope to see the Church flourish or truly reformed untill this Point of right Ordination of Ministers be seriously considered of and duly restored to its Pristine honour and excellency when to Ordein Ministers for the service of the Church Oâ—ortet Ecclesiae Epis ministrum Christi esse formam justitiae sanctimoniae speculum pietalis exemplar veritatis doctorem fidei defensorem Christianorum ducem sponsi amicum cui ille irascitur Deum sibi iratum non hominem sentiat Bern. ad Eng. l. 4. was not to prefer men to a Benefice so much as to recruit Christs regiments to strengthen his forces to fortifie the Church and true Religion with most vigilant Watchmen and valiant Champions whose care was on every side to defend the Flocks of Christ against all enemies which were to be as the Cloud or Pillar of fire both lights and guards to Christians upon all occasions who made conscience to live with to suffer with yea and to dy for the sheep as good Shepheards Such men only are fit to be Ordeined Ministers such Ministers ought to be prayed for highly prised and perserved in the Church by all that desire to transmit any thing of true Religion to Posterity nor was the Church of England or yet is destitute of such Ministers both duly and worthily ordeined to the service of Christ and this Church To abolish this order or to usurp to undue hands or to contemn this Sacred and right Ordination which sends forth able Ministers in Christs way can be no other but a most cruell and detestable sacrilege far worse than that of robbing the Church of its maintenance for such Ministers Cyprian reproves Novatus a factious Presbyter Quod Felicissimum satellitem suum diaconum suum constituit neâ— sciente nec permittente me sola sua factione ambitione Acts 8.18 All undue Ordination is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. profanum detestandumque ludibrium Bâ—s both as preaching and ruling well wich yet is a sin of so deep a dy that no Niter can cleanse it being seldome ever pardoned because seldome repented of so as to make a â—ust restitution without which repentance is never true Yea for any Laymen in a brutish violence and meerly by Ppular insolency to arrogate this power where it is not or to abrogate it where truly it is is a sin of a more heynous nature than that of Simon Magus was who had so much of civility justice and good manners as to offer money for a part of the miraculous and Ministeriall power It is indeed no other than a Cyclopick fury and unwonted barbarity ill becomming any sober or civilized Christians thus to wrest the keys of Gods house out of the hands of those Stewards with whom the great Master Christ hath specially intrusted them for the right Oeconomy and dispensing of all holy Mysteries and Institutions And when such rude and unruly fellows have thus insolenced these Officers of the Church and bound their hands how comly will it be to see the keyes of the kingdome of heaven Ischyras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-ordeined or only by Rolâ—thus a Persbyter Hence Athanasius Apol 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Pro. 20.23 managed or committed as it were to Boyes to Pages and Laquies to weak mean mechanick ignorant dissolute and riotous wretches who not conscious to any true Ministeriall power or just authority in the Church can never make conscience of doing any holy Ministerial duty to which they are most unfit never caring how prodigall they are of the truth and honour of Religion of their own or other mens souls It being a sport to such proud and spitefull fools to do wickedly to speak prophanely and to live disorderly in the Church And not content to commit a rape upon true Religion and the holy orders of Christs Church as Absalom did on the house-top before the Sun and all Israel they will further in time justifie the flagitiousness of their villanies as if the zeal they had for true Religion provoked to such outrages these pestilent pandars for errors and all licentiousness with their followers who must presently all turn preachers though never duly Ordeined nor fit ever so to be yea their arrogancy makes them ordeiners too of whom they please to set up to minister to their extravagant lusts and follies which makes them many times much fitter for the flocks or cages than for the pulpits These will surely come at last as much short of the happy effects of true Ministers as they are far from that holy power of right Ordination which I have proved to be from Christ and the Blessed Apostles rightly derived to us by the constant Custome of this and all Churches and this not as a cypher or meer formality but as of sacred Institution so of reall and excellent efficacy and divine vertue in the Church where duly used and applyed Which was that I had to prove against the scurrillous objections of those that seek to despise and destroy the whole Function Ordination and divine authority of the Ministry of this Church Reader the Reason why the Folios of this Book do not follow is because the Copy for Expedition was divided to two Printers Of speciall Gifts of the Spirit pretended beyond Ordinary Ministers ANother great Calumny 3. Calumny or cavill That the Ministers of England have not the Spirit to which their Adversaries pretend highly urged by their Adversaries against the true Ministers of the Church of England whose due and right Ordination I have vindicated to be as Divine so both Necessary and Efficacious is as a forked arrow sharpned with Presumption and Prejudice On the one side an high esteem and confidence which they have of themselves and a very low despicienty of all Ordained Ministers on the other side even in that which is the highest honour of Man or Minister while these Anti-ministeriall Adversaries pretend That the Ordained Ministers have not the Spirit of Christ nor can or ever doe Pray Preach and administer holy things by the Spirit which these new Modellers challenge in such a plenary measure and power to themselves that they justifie their want of ordinary abilities and endowments by their needing none Excusing their not studying or preparing for what they utter by their being specially Inspired Colouring over their well known idlenesse ignorance illiteratenesse and emptinesse by the shews of speciall Illumination sudden Inspirations and spirituall Enablements Which they say they have far beyond any Ordained Ministers And this by the Spirit of Christ which is extraordinarily given to them which suddenly leads them into
with most charity to any others that have for the foundation of their faith the Scriptures and the Sacraments for the seals and a true Ministry for the ordering and right dispensing of holy things professing such latitudes of charity always as exclude no such Christians from communion with them Notwithstanding they have many and different superstructures in lesser things Without this Christian charity it is evident all ostentations of true Religion of Churches purity and of Reformation though accompanied with tongues miracles and martyrdoms 1 Cor. 14.1 3 c. are in vain and profit men nothing As it is not enough to make men of the true Church to say They are the onely true Church and in the onely Church-way or to censure condemn and exclude all other Christians who may be in the same path-way to Heaven though the paving be different of grass or gravel or stone c. So it is enough to exclude any party sect or faction of seeming Christians from being any sound part of the true Church to say in a Schismatical pride and uncharitable severity That they are the onely true Church Excidisti ab ecclesia ubi à charitate excideris quum à Christo ipso inde excidisti Aug. as the ring-leaders of the Novatians and Donatists did excommunicating by malicious proud and passionate principles or in any other novelizing ways vexing and disturbing the quiet of those Christians and Churches who have the true Means and Ministry the true Grounds and Seals of Faith with other holy and orderly Ministrations though with some different rites yet professing holiness of life and this with Christian charity to all others Col. 3.14 which is the very bond of perfection The want of which cannot consist with those other graces of true faith and love repentance and humility by which men pretend to be united to Christ The ready way not to be any part or true Member of the Catholike Church is Isai 65.4 They eat abominable things yet they say Stand by thy self come not neer me for I am holier than thou These saith the Lord are a smoke in my nose and a fire that burneth all the day To chalenge to be the onely true Church and to separate from all others both by non-communion with them and a total condemning or abdicating of them As the way for any branch to wither and come to nothing is To break it self off by a rude Schism or violent fraction from the Tree that it may have the glory to grow by it self and to say with a Pharisaick pride to all others stand by I am holier than you Thus parting from that Root and Body Christ and the Catholike Church in the communion with which by Truth and Charity its Life and Beauty did consist However then the unholy love of novelty proud curiosity cold charity and distempered zeal of some men dare cast off unchurch and anathematise not onely single persons and private Congregations but even greater associations of Christians bound together by the bonds of civil as well as Church societies in Nations and Kingdoms yea and to despise that Catholike form of all the Churches in the World 2 Cor. 10.12 They measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise of antient as well as present times Yet this vain-glorying through a verbal ignorant proud and uncharitable confidence of themselves and contempt of all others seems to have more in it of Belial and Antichrist than of Jesus Christ more of Lucifer than of the Father of Lights who also is the Father of Love who hath therefore shined on men with the light of his grace and love of Christ that he might lead them by this powerful patern of divine love to love one another as men and as Christians with all meekness and charity with all good hope forbearance and long-suffering toward those especially that profess to be of the houshold of faith who hold the foundation Christ crucified though they may have many additions of hay 1 Cor. 3.15 straw and stubble since Those may save though these suffer loss God will easily discern between his gold and our dross between the errors rising from simplicity and the truths joyned with charity and humility He will easily distinguish between the humble ignorance of many upright-hearted Christians who are seduced to wandrings and the subtilty pride or malice of Arch-hereticks and Schismaticks who seduce others for sinister ends All wise humble and charitable Christians should so order their judgements and censures if at any time they are forced to declare them that they must above all things take heed that they nourish not nor discover any uncharitable fewds or distances and antipathies against any Churches or Christians after the rate of those passions which are the common source both of Schisms and Heresies whose ignorance and pride like water and ice mutually arise from and are resolved into each other Therefore proud because ignorant and the more ignorant because so proud Nor yet may they follow those defiances and distances in Religion Tantum distat à vera charitate quorundam zetotarum praeceps intemperatus â—â—dâ— quantum maligna sebricitantium flamâ—ae à native vitali corporis calore Cas which Reason of State or the Interests of Princes or Power of Civil Factions or the Popular fierceness of some Ministers and eager Sticklers for sides and parties do nourish and vulgarly commend as high expressions of zeal and the onely ways of true Religion Where there is scarce one drop of charity in a sea of controversie or one star of necessary truth in the whole clouded Heaven of their differing opinions and ways which set men as far from true Christian temper as burning Feavers do from native heat and health 10. Extremes touching the Church I know no point hath used more liberal and excellent Pens than this concerning the true Church as it is visible or professional before men which is the proper subject of this dispute Some mens Pens flow with too much gall and bitterness as the rigid Papists on the one side and the keener Separatist on the other Denying any to be in a right Church-way save onely such as are just in their particular mold and form Either joyned in communion with the Roman profession and being subject to its head the Pope pleading antiquity unity universality visibility c. or else embodied with those new and smaller Incorporations which count themselves the onely true and properly so called Churches pretending more absolute Church-power more exact constitution and more compleat Scripture-Reformation than any antient National dilated and confederated Churches could or ever did attain too Herein there is a strong excess on both sides 1. By the Romanists Baron Anno Christi 45. p. 376. Haereticum esse qui à Romanae Cathedrae communione divisuâ— sit So Bellarm. dâ— Rom. Pont. l. 2.12 Vetusta coâ—suetudo servetur ut hic Episcopus Rom.
the beams of his Spirit in the light of Truth as well as in the heat of Love how and where and to whom he will yea and oft doth reveale his secret and hidden things not to the wise and learned but to the babes and foolish Therefore a publique liberty at least and fair toleration ought to be granted to any men to opine to teach and accordingly to act as they are inwardly perswaded and moved And this without any such tyrannous restraints as commonly learned men and Scholars Ministers especially have sought themselves and taught Magistrates to lay upon both the judgement conscience and practise of people both in their first education and after profession studying to make all things in Religion or manners as bastards and illegitimate which have not their Certificate for their ligitimation whereas the Spirit of God ought not to be so strict laced stinted and restrained least of all curbed and constrained by any prohibitions or impositions on mens judgements and consciences which in matters of Religion are onely to be drawn with the cords of a man such as mens reasons or Scriptures or the Spirits perswasion may afford to every ones capacity and not to tye them up by any Creeds Articles Catechismes or Injunctions of Religion much lesse by penall and coercive Statutas which like Persian sheep carry tailes of injurious mulcts and penalties after them that are heavier then their bodies Answ Answ Of Christian Liberty Nil tam voluntarium quam religio cogi non potest longâ— diversa sunt carnificina est charitas nec potest veritas cum vi aut justitia cum crudelitate conjungi Defendenda est religio non occidenda sed monendo non savitia sed sapientia non scelere sed fide Si animus a versus sit jam sublata est jam nulla religio Lactant. li. Just 5. c. 20. Religionis non est cogere religionem quae spâ—nte suscipi debet non vi Tertul. l. ad Scap. So Constâ—â—tine the Great would have no man compeld but perswaded to Religion Aliâ—d est certamen pro religione sponte suscipere aliud supplicii metu cogi Euseb Eccl. l. 10. cap. 5. There is no Jewell which Swine delight more to weare in their Snouts than this of Liberty which how well it becomes such sordid and indocible cattel those excellent Christians can best judge who are worthy to enjoy so pretious a token of Christs love to his Church as knowing best how to value it and use it I know well that true Christian Religion ought not to be made a snare or an harrow or a rack or an heavy yoak or an Egyptian bondage to mens mindes and Consciences this were to turn the sweetest vine into a sharp bramble and the figtree into a thorn Nor is there any thing which Christians should be more tender of as the * 1. Concil Eph. cap. ◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephesme Fathers most piously admonish than their own and others true liberties which Christ hath purchased with his pretious bloud of which both Christian Magistrates and chiefly Ministers should be most exact keepers and conscientious defenders lest piety prove an oppression and the bracelets or ornaments of Religion become the chains of hypocrisie and manacles of superstition binding such heavy burthens on mens consciences which God hath not imposed wherein the severer heights and tyrannies of men are prone to usurp upon the ingenuous kingdome and gracious dominion of Christ where none is a subject but he that enjoyes that free Spirit which David prayes to be established with Psal 51.12 and none is free but he that willingly takes up Christs yoak and burthen Matth. 11.30 which are light and easie but yet not loose or slack For Jesus Christ having redeemed us from the greatest slavery and spirituall bondage hath indeed invested his Church with the noblest immunities and governs it by the divinest liberties which drawing is by the cords of Gods love to us set forth in his Word and binding us with love to God and for his sake to one another by so much includes all true liberty Libera est apud Deum servitus cum non necessitas sed charitas servit Aust Quo sanctior quisque eo solutior Gibe Beata servitus quae dominatienem generat sempiternam Chrys l. 114. as it wholly consists of love whose very life and essence is liberty It being impossible to command consent or to compell love which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most absolute Soveraigne of it selfe and under no Empire but that of God who is love and perfect liberty And our Liberty is then truly Christian and divine which onely is desirable because onely true when it is such as Christ hath purchased for and God hath revealed to his Church in his Word with which men must seriously advise and not with their own wanton and extravagant fancies if they would bee informed what that liberty is which onely becomes true Christians who of all men have the least sinfull licentiousnesse indulged to them I finde there are no people more vehement boasters of and sticklers for this which they call Christian liberty than those who least understand it Tertuâ—lian tels of the Gnosticks promiscuous lusts in their Agapae Extincta lucerna in promiscuos amplexus taunt Hinc in Christianos ista infamia Scorpia fo Clem. Alex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. So S. Austin of the Gnosticks Manichees and others who held nisi iniquissima quaque operenâ—ur Diaboli vimse non posse effagere Hanc esse redemptionem hanc vitam sine tremore So Irenaeus of the Carpâ—eratians and others that held nothing morally good or evill all actions lawfull onely they must beleive in Christ Sela humana opinione negotia mala bona esse dicunt Lib. 1. c. 24. most abuse it themselves and are most impatient to allow it to others if once they get such power as makes them able to oppresse none are more insolent or lesse tolerating those things even in Religion to others for which they plead more of conscience both as to Gods and mans Laws than these objectors themselves can doe Nor can any the most modest plea for Christian liberty be heard by those who were formerly so lowdly clamorous for the name when indeed they did not either intend or rightly understand what the thing is It will be then a work of Charity and an effect of that love which I owe to these men for Christs sake in whom alone our liberties are sounded and conserved to free them from that captivity of errors and bondage of extravagant passions wherewith they are oppressed and abused even in this great point of Christian Liberty Then which as there is nothing which sinfull men could lesse deserve so nor is there any thing they can naturally lesse rightly use or more grossely mistake and abuse There is no Jewell with which Christ hath endowed his Spouse the Church and every true beleever for