disorders and scandals being far heavier than the loyns of the Law were in former-times where if there was less liberty by the restraints which men had by Laws laid on themselves yet there was also far less ignorance in names fewer errors in judgements 5. Other weak conjectures of the causes of Ministers abating in their honor blasphemies in opinions brokenness in affections dissolutions in discipline undecencies in sacred administrations and licentiousness in the ordinary maners of men So that if those times were not the golden age of the Church sure these cannot brag to be beyond the iron or brazen No less superficial and unsearching are those Conjectures or Censures which a late Writer makes of Ministers ostentations of reading and humane learning in their Sermons of which many men cannot be guilty unless it be of making shews of more then indeed they have Also he allegeth as an occasion of Ministers lapse in their love and respect among the people their small regard and strangeness to godly people When it is evident many mens and womens godliness brings forth now no better fruit than first quarreling with then neglecting afterward despising next separating from after that bitter railing against and lastly stirring up faction not onely against that one Minister but his whole calling Certainly some are become such godly brambles and holy thistles as are not to be conversed with more than needs must and are never to be treated with bare hands But in case some Ministers by many indignities provoked grow more teachy and morose to these mens thrifty inconstant and importune godliness If they fortifie what they assâ—â—â— by the testimonies of learned men which is no more than is sometimes needful among captious curious and contemptuous auditors yea if they seem to some severer censor something to exceed in their particulars those bounds of gravity and discretion which were to be desired yet what wise man can think that such fleebites or scratches in comparison can send forth so great corruption or occasion so ill a savor in the nostrils of God and man that for these things chiefly Ministers should be so much under clouds of obloquy and disrespect that although they have every seventh day at least wherein to do men good and to gain upon their good wills yet many of them are so lost that there are but few can give them so much as a good word But 1 Sam. 19.12 some men are willing to mistake the Image and Goats-hair for David and pretend with Rachel infirmities Gen. 31.34 when they sit upon their Idols Alas these cannot be the symptomes of so great conflicts and paroxisms as many Ministers now labor under who were sometimes esteemed very pretious men and highly lifted up on the wings of popular love and fame In which respects no men suffer now a greater ebb than those that were sometime most active forward and applauded The sticks and strains of lesser scandals and common failings among Ministers might kindle some flashes to singe and scorch some of them but these could not make so lasting flames so fierce and consuming a fire as this is In which many or most Ministers that thought themselves much refined and undertook to be refiners of others are now either tried or tormented Who sees not that the fire and wood of this Toâ—het which God hath prepared Isai 30.33 is not as some conceive onely for Princes and Prelates for Archbishops and Bishops c. In some of whom what ever there was of want of zeal for Gods glory of sincere love to the truth of charity to mens souls I cannot excuse or justifie since they could not but be as highly displeasing to God and man as from both they enjoyed very great and noble advantages above other men of glorifying God advancing Christian Religion and incouraging all true holiness Nor was the having of Dignities and Revenues their sin but the not faithful using of them no wonder if of them to whom much was given Luke 12.48 much be required either in duty or in penalty But this Tophet is also we see enlarged for the generality of Presbyters and such as disdained to be counted the inferior Ministers nor is this fire thus kindled in the valley of Hinnom nourished onely by the bones and carkases of ignorant profane and immoral Ministers who are as dry sticks Jude 12. and trash twice dead to conscience and to modesty fit indeed to be pulled up by the roots but even those greater Cedars of Lebanon have added much to this pile and fewel who sometimes seemed to be Trees of the Lord tall and full of sap very able and useful in the Church and while within their due ranks and station they were faithful flourishing and fruitful whose very Children and Converts their former disciples followers favorers and beloved ones Gen. 19.22 now in many places turn Chams pointing and laughing at their Fathers real or seeming nakedness Who drinking perhaps too much of the new wine of state policies opinions and strange fashions of reformations possibly may have been so far overtaken with the strength of that thick and heady liquor as to expose something of shame and uncomliness to the view of the wanton world where not strangers open enemies proud and profaner aliens but even Protestants Professors Domesticks and near Allies sit in the highest seat of scorners inviting all the enemies of our Church our Ministry and our Reformed Religion to the theatre of these times Where among other bloody and tragical spectacles this is by some prepared for the farce and interlude to expose by Jesuitical engines and machinations the learned and godly Ministers together with the whole Ministry of this Church of England to be baited mocked and destroyed with all maner of irony injuries and insolency And alas there are not many that dare appear to hinder the project or redeem either the persons or the function yea many are afraid to pity them or to plead for them The merciful hearted and tender handed God who smites us whose hand we should all see Micah 6.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and return to him who hath appointed this rod and punishment doth not use to make so deep wounds and incisions for little corruptions which are but superficial and skin-deep nor to shoot so sharp and deadly arrows in the faces of those that stand before him as his Ministers unless they first provoke him to his face 1 Sam. 2.22 by their grosser follies in Israel as Eli's sons did Wherefore I conceive a further penitent search and discovery ought to be made of Ministers sins and failings for which the Lord hath brought this great evil upon them which although it be a just punishment yet it may prove a fatherly chastisement to us all and at once both purge us as fire from our dross and by exciting those gifts and graces truly Christian and Ministerial in us it may prepare us both for greater service
dubious in their rise and prone to be exorbitant in their progress and most injurious in their success have most of Love Patience and Christian Charity which are indisputably commendable in the Christian Psal 15.4 though they be to the mans own hinderance It will not be asked of Ministers of the Gospel at the last account who fought and slew and spoiled c. but who fasted and prayed and mourned for the sins and judgements on the Nation and Church nor will they easily be found in Gods Book of Martyrs who died upon disputable quarrels in Civil Wars while they neglected the indisputable duty of their Office and Ministery Levit. 10.19 Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed Incongruam non probat mixturam Deus bonitate simplicissimus simplicitate optimus August Ministers never reap less crops of love or respect from men than when they sow that forbidden mislane the Tares and Cockle of passionate novelties unproved opinions and civil dissentions among the seeds of Religion and essays of Reformation From which mixtures those Ministers whose gravity wisdom and humility have most withheld or soonest withdrawn their hearts and hands are the likeliest men by their piety moderation patience and constancy in holy and justifiable ways to recover and restore the dignity of their Calling Who in the midst of those great and wide inrodes which have much broken down the fence and occasioned the letting in all sorts of wilde beasts upon the Lords Vineyard of this Church while others like dead stakes formerly making a great shew in the hedg are found rotten weak and unsound These are evidenced to all true Christians to be as living standards well rooted in their pious principles and not easily removed from that stedfastness and meekness of their practises in ways of judicious constancy which they have hitherto with patience maintained in the midst of those tempests which have not so utterly overwhelmed them but that in many places they appear fixed and unmoved in their pious integrity and patient charity which makes them looked upon with some eye of pity love and honor by all ingenuous spectators while yet they generally reflect with scorn and laughter on many others who in the publick storm thought themselves gallant sailers and skilful steersmen yet having made great waste of their patience obedience and discretion they seem also much crackt in their conscience credit and reputation For seeking inconsiderately to pull down or to possess themselves of others Cabins who as Pilots had a long time safely steered the Ship they have almost split and sunk the whole Vessel wherein they and others were embarqued Nor will they any way be able to buoy it up again or stop the daily increasing and threatning leaks till forsaking those soft and shameful compliances with factious novelties and immoderate ways of vulgar reformings they return to that primitive firmness and indisputable simplicity of the Antient which were the putest and best formed Churches both as to Doctrine Discipline and Government which no learned and unpassionate man needs go far to finde out either in Scripture paterns or in the Churches after-imitation by which the dignity of the Ministry and Holy Mysteries of the Gospel always preserved themselves amidst the hottest persecutions both in the love and obedience of all sound and sober Christians So that in my judgement who know how hard it is to play an after-game in point of Reputation and who have no design but a Publick and Common good writing thus freely as under the favor so without the offence I hope of any good man The Ministers of this Church will never be able to stand before those men of Ai their many adversaries who are daily scattering them into many feeble factions and pursuing them every where so divided with scorn and afflicting them with many affronts and injuries until having taken a serious review of their late extravagancies and making a serious scrutiny into their consciences and finding as they needs must if they be not wilfully blinde or obstinate some accursed thing some Babylonish garment and wedg of Gold something wherein proud or ambitious or covetous or revengeful or injurious emulations or other more venial errors have tempted tâ—◠〈◊〉 to offend they cast them quite away and so humbly re'ally themselves to that Primitive Harmony that Excellent Discipline Order and Government wherein was the honor beauty and consistency of the Church and Christian Religion even when least protected and most opposed by secular powers Of whom Christian Bishops Ministers and People never asked leave either to believe in Jesus Christ or to live after that holy form and publick order wherein Jesus Christ and the blessed Apostles after him established and left them which obtained universal imitation and use in all Churches for many hundred of years from true Christians both Pastors and People in the midst of persecutions 14. Jere. 6.16 Thus saith the Lord Stand in the ways and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk therin and ye shall finde rest for your souls Out of which old and good way of Primitive Vnity Order Government Discipline and holy Ministrations if those immoralities be kept as they may most easily to which we see the lusts and passions of men are prone to run even in all * Non datur reditus ad unitatem nisi per veritatem nec ad veritatem nisi per vetustatem Quum illud est antiquissimum quod verissimum Cypr. novel forms and inventions pretend they never so much at first to glorious Reformations Nothing can be a more present and soverein restorative for this Church and the true Reformed Religion to settle with truth and peace among us both to the comfort of all able Ministers and the satisfaction of all sober Christians who study the truth and unity of the Faith not the power and prevalency of any faction We need not go far to seek the root and source of our miseries present or impendent which have brought forth so bitter fruits whereby God at once would shew and satisfie vain men with their own delusions * Isai 66.4 In which heady and high-minded men trusting more to their own wits or tongues and to the * Jere. 17.5 Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord. arm of flesh in politick machinations than to the living God in holy and humble ways of truth and peace have soon found them to be both vain and cursed things As it is evident at this day in the sad fate which some Ministers folly presumption and precipitancy together with other sinful frailtiles and excesses have brought upon themselves and their whole Function in this Church Who first despising then destroying the Antient and Catholike conduits of their Order and Ministry which derived from Christ by his Apostles went on in an after constant succession of true
is among us not so much a famine as a surfet of the Word and knowledge which hath here been as the waters of the Sea Hab. 2.14 disdains those shores of order office and duty which the Lord hath set for its bars and bounds in his Church Christians in many places having had great fulness are come to great wantonness and the enemies of the Ministry The greatest enemies of Ministers make them most necessary and Reformed Religion in this Church are not such as have been kept meager and tame with emptiness and ignorance but such as have been pricked with provender high fed by an able and constant Ministry These are grown to such ferocious spirits like pampered horses whom no ground will hold daily neighing after novelties rushing upon any adventures and impatient to bear those Ministers any longer by whose bounty they have been so liberally nourished with all means of knowledge preaching conferring and writing These now affect high racks and empty mangers subtilties rather than solidities and novelties more than nourishment yea they are become the rivals of their Ministers and und rtake like Balaams Beast to teach their Masters not onely speaking with them but against them yea seeking to cast them quite off lifting up their heel against them and trampling their feeders under their feet Thus having either got the bridâ—e between their teeth or having cast quite off their neck the reigns of Order Government and Discipline in Religion Psal 32.9 they are become like Horse and Mule without understanding without gratitude civility and common humanity so far they are from sober piety Running furiously without their guides wantonly snuffing up the wind and proudly lifting up themselves in their high crested opinions and presumptuous fancies of notions gifts prophecyings and inspirations Glorying in this riotous liberty and mad frolicks of Religion which all wise humble and holy Christians know are not more unworthy of and uncomfortable to all good Ministers who taught them better than they will be most dangerous destructive and damnable to those men themselves who proudly affect those ruder and dangerous follies in the Church of Christ who cannot either they or their posterity be ever so safe as in Christs way at his finding and under his custody where with holy and just restraints becoming Reason Order and Religion there are also the most ingenuous liberties and the most liberal fruitions Wandering prodigals in Religion who forsake the order and regularity of their Fathers house which is full of bread will soon be reduced to a morsel of bread And we see already such as have in their pride and disdain most forsaken the true Ministry are come by their riotous courses to feed on husks and from the harlotry of their wanton and fine opinions to consort with swine having hired out Luke 15. and enslaved themselves to all rude unjust and profane designs or else wallowing in filthy and sensual lusts which makes them sin against Heaven and Earth and be no more worthy to be called the sons of God or the children of this Christian Reformed Church So that we evidently see That those men fight against God against Christ Jesus against the Reformed and Christian Religion against the Word of God which is the standard of Religion against the Unity Order and Cathol ke conformity of the Church of the Christ in all ages against the future Succession of Religion against their own souls against their posterity against the common good of all mankinde and all such as may want and enjoy the inestimable blessing of the Gospel who ever fight against the holy office divine authority necessary duty sacred dignity and constant succession of the Evangelical Ministers and Ministry without which the Church of Christ like a Field or Garden without diâ—igent and daily Husbandmen and Gardiners would long ago have run to waste and been over-run with all maner of evil wâ—â—d which grow apace even in the best Plantations if God in his wisdom and mercy to mankinde and to his Church had not appointed some men as his Ministers to take care from time to time that the field of the Church be tilled in every place that the Garden be weeded and the vineyard fenced and this especially for their sakes who are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most of men whose cares and burdens of life or whose dulness and incapacity or whose wants and weakness or whose lusts and passions would never either move them to or continue them in any way worthy the name of true Religion if God had not sent and ordained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cryers 1 Tim. 2.7 Praecones vel Caduceatores Heralds and Ambassadors to summon invite and by pious importunity even compel men to come into the ways of true piety and happiness which being not onely far above sinful flesh and blood but quite contrary to them had need have a Ministry whose authority for its rise assistance and succession should be beyond what is of humane original and derivation which who so seek to oppose destroy or alter will certainly bring upon themselves not onely the guilt of so high an insolence against Christ and injury against this Church but also will stand accountable to Gods justice for those many souls damnation whom their vanity and novelty have perverted and destroyed both in the present age and after generations for want of true Ministers These first weapons then which the Adversaries of the peculiar Calling of the Ministry hoped to finde in the Armony of Scripture or Right Reason whereby to defend their own intrusion and to offend that holy Function and divinely instituted Succession are found I think to have as little force in them to hurt the Ministry or to help the enemy 1 Sam. 17. as Goliahs Shield Helmet Sword and Spear had either to injure David or secure himself yea we see those smooth stones those pregnant and piercing Authorities of many clear and concurrent Texts of Scripture both for precept and example which I have produced according to right reasoning from Jesus Christ and the blessed Apostles To which the Catholâ—ke practice and custom of all Churches in after times is as a sling directing them more forcibly and firmly against the brazen foreheads of those Anakims that oppose the Ministry All these together are sufficient to prostrate to the ground their proud height and to put to flight that uncircumcised party who have defied and seek to destroy the hoâ—y Ordination of Evangelical Ministers whose poor and oppressed estate although it may now seem but as little David with his Scrip and Staff in the eyes of self-exalting adversaries who despise and curse them in their hearts yet these may finde them to come in the Name and Power of the Lord sent by Gods mission furnished with Christs commission and appointed by the Churches due Ordination to be Leaders Rulers and chief Officers in the Church Militant under His Excellency the Lord Jesus Christ
from which the best Christians study alwaies to keep themselves most free and unspotted Mat. 23.5 Confirmatur hypocrisis Pharisaei quando ampliantur Philacteria Chrys The large Philacteriâ—s of pretended preaching gifts which some men so Pharisaically set forth to the vulgar view who as St. Jerom saith easily admire what they hardlyest understand do not presently make them such Rabbies and teachers in Israel as they fancy and affect to be counted where there is or may be had far better supplies of such able and right ordeined Ministers as the Church of England hath brought up These are graces and gifts of the Spirit to be shewed in mens silence as well as in their speaking as he that knew how to hold his peace put in his name among the famous Orators Yea if the case of this Church were so desolate as some pretend and destitute of able and faithfull Ministers which blessed be God it yet is not yet few of these forward intruders of themselves have such sober gifts and well-grounded knowledge in the mysteries of Christian and in the ordinary controversies of the Reformed Religion as might supply the Church in its cases of necessity wherein any Christians or Churches may possibly crave and have some relief as to the teaching coâ—firming or comforting part of the Ministry from the larger and golden rule of Charity Where Christian communion makes believers usefull to each other not out of Office and speciall duty but out of love and that generall relation they have to each other Which necessity thanks be to God is not yet the Case of this Church nor shaâ—l ever need to be by Gods blessing if Magistrates and true Ministers would do the duties which become them in their places Though the Harvest be great yet the Labourers are not few which are of the Lords sending Mat. 9.37 if they may be suffered to do the Lords work And if those sturdy gleaners and pilferers who thrust themselves into others mens fields and labours did not every where disturb and hinder them by their sharking and scrambling 10. The Churches supplies in cases of necessity When true Ministers cannot be enjoyed John 2. Lando factam de necessitate virtutem sed plus illam quaÌ„ elegit libertas non indicit necessitas Ber. Ep. 113. 1 Kings 17.6 1 Kings 17. Who doubts or denyes but in cases of reall not feigned affected or imaginary necessity when Christians are forcibly deprived of their true Pastors and Ministers the Lord Jesus Christ who hath speciall care of his Church by the assistance of his Spirit can turn the water of some Lay-mens weaker gifts into wine for the Instruction confirmation and consolation of scattered and desolated Christians Although those teachers are not every way exactly prepared nor fitted for every work of the Sanctuary Rather than poor Christians that hunger for the food of Heaven should wholy want refreshing Ravens shall feed them as they did wildred and banished Eliah A lay mans barrell of meal and cruse of Oyl that is his good skill and sound understanding in the main fundamentals of faith and holy practise Also in those gracious promises which God hath made to upright hearts these may have miraculous augmentations and effussions to sustain a widowed Church and Orphan Christians in time of dearth But we must not therefore suffer these Acephalists these circulators and beggars to perswade us De Acephalis Hos neque inter laicas nâ—que inter clericos Religio detentat divina mixtum genus est prolesque biformis Isid Hispa de off Ec. lib. 2. c. 3. that we are famished in our fathers house where we see servants are wanton with fulness of Bread meerly that they may boast how they have made us to eat of their mouldy scraps and drink of their musty bottels In the confusions of a family where violence overbears setled order removing both chief and inferior Officers those supplies are commendable which the charity and discretion of any servants can afford one the other yet without usurping any place and authority which they have not over others But in a setled and orderly family where there are Stewards and Officers appointed it is a preposterous charity for every Servant to undertake to give to the Children or Servants of the family their portions Precedents of extraodinary sustentation with Bread Wine and Oyl either by miracle or Charity are no warrant for any mens presumptions rashness and disorder in ordinary cases any more than those fore-named examples should justify any man from madness who presuming of extraordinary supplies would cut up all Vines or plant no Olives or use no tillage and Husbandry which are the wayes of Gods ordinary providence both to exercise and reward mens honest and orderly industry In like manner where the Churches or societies of Christians greater or smaller are blessed with the enjoyment of those institutions and gifts which Christ hath appointed and bestowed for the joynt and publike good of his Church in planting preserving and propagating true Religion with good order which ever was and is to be carried on by the right Ministration of the word and Sacraments and other holy Offices properly belonging to duly ordeined and authorised Ministers there no pretended liberty or affected and self-made necessity Prima est necessitas quam praecipientis Dei autoritas imponit Secunda quam permittentu providentia dispensat Tertia quam deficientis in officio negligentia cogit quam peccatum esse sui paenam credas Bern. Necessitas quod cogit defendit modo absit malum morale Eccl. 10.8 no right of common-age or levelling zeal may violate the bounds which Christ hath set and the Churches ever observed He that breaks the hedges of Religious order in the Church the Serpent of an evill conscience shall bite him All true Christian Liberties that is such as are * Libertas ut matrona decora non est honesta si non sit Gibeuf 1 Kings 8. Augustior Salomon in genua procumbens quaÌ„ in solio sedenâ— ornatior orans quam imperans Jeron comely 11. Of Christians Liberty to use their gifts orderly and usefull are by all godly and learned Ministers allowed and encouraged in all faithfull people of whatsoever calling quality and condition Masters in their families Magistrates on their Benches Commanders amidst their Souldiers Princes among their subjects cannot appear more to their honour and advantage within their places and callings than when like Salomon they shine with that wisdom piety and devotion which becomes all true Christians on all occasions and may make them merit the honour of Princes and Preachers too in Jerusalem which liberties and abilities the humble piety of wise and modest Christians knows how soberly and discreetly to use as to any occasion of private charity or publike edification in their places yet not insolently and unseasonably to abuse it so as to disparage neglect and usurp upon the publike ordeined Ministry Every
fallacious or pernicious novelties to which the breath of some politick or passionate spirits had raised them so much above the ordinary mark of true Christian religion as to drown or threaten to carry away all those many happy enjoyments of truth peace order government and Ministry which formerly they enjoyed Not wholly it may be without but yet with fewer and more tolerable grievances which humble Christians ought to look upon in any setled Church and State rather as exercises of their patience duty and charity than as oppressions of their spirits Knowing that impatience usually punisheth it self by applying remedies sharper than the sufferings easily and hastily running down the hill as from health to sicknesse from peace to war from good to bad from bad to worse but very slowly returning from evill to good or recovering up the hill from worse to better It is true the Ministers of the Church of England of all degrees seem now to have an harder part to act for their honor and wisdome than ever they had under any Rulers professing to be Christian and reformed But they may not therefore weakly disclaim or meanly desert their Ordination and holy function nor may they despair of Gods if they have not mans protection who can soon make their very enemies to be at peace with them and stir up many friends unexpectedly for them It may be through the Lords mercy this winters floud shall be for their mendment or fertility and not for their utter vastation and ruine This fire shall not consume them but refine them this winnowing will be their purging and this shaking their setling As oppositions of old gave the greatest confirmations and polishings to those Truths which were most exercised with the hammer or file of heriticall pravity or schismaticall fury If it be the mending and not the ending the reformation and not the extirpation of Ministers which their severe censurers and opposers seek for why should not time of triall be given and all honest industry used to improve these well grown and flourishing fig trees before they be hewed down and stubbed up which heretofore have not been either barren or unfruitfull to God and man If either Papall or Anabaptisticall and Levelling enemies must at length after severall windings and turnings be gratified with their utter ruine and destruction which God forbid yet while Ministers have leave and liberty to pray to preach to print to doe well and worthily God forbid they should so farre injure God good men and so good a cause as not Christianly to endeavour its defence which at worst is to be done by comely suffering And who knows but that when these witnesses both against superstition and confusion in the Church shall seem to be slain cast out and buryed they may live again to the astonishment both of friends and enemies But if the sins of this Nation and the decrees of divine Justice doe indeed hasten an utter overthrow here of the reformed Ministry and the reformed Religion If Ministers of the ancient Ordination lawfull heirs of the true Apostolick succession are therefore accounted as sheep for the slaughter because they are better fed and better bred than others of leaner soules and meaner spirits If they are therefore to the men of this world as a savour of death unto death because they hold forth the Word of Truth and Life to the just reproach of a lying dying and self-destroying generation If we must at last perish and fall with our whole function and fraternity after all our studies charges labours and sufferings Yet it is fit some of us and the more the better lest our silence may argue guilt give the world both at present and in after ages some account why and how in so learned valiant wise and religious a Nation as this of England hath been wee as Ministers have stood so long what pious frauds and holy arts we had whereby to impose so many hundreds of years upon so many wise Princes so many venerable Parliaments so many pious professors of Christian and reformed Religion And lastly upon so quick and high spirited a people as these of England generally are neither so grosse as to be easily deluded nor so base as patiently to suffer themselves in so high a nature to be abused That so at least if the world can lesse discern for what cause the Ministry and Ministers are now to be destroyed they may see upon what grounds of piety or policy they were so long preserved in peace plenty and honour And for what reasons they now seek as their pious predecessors did to maintain not their persons so much as their office and function in its due order and authority that so they might have transmitted it in an holy and unblameable succession to posterity as that which in their consciences they verily think to be a most divine and Christian Institution Beneficiall for the good of the Church and of all mankinde which in former ages was ever esteemed the glory and blessing of this or any other Nation The setter forth of the light wisdome power and love of the eternall God in his Son Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinners and which thousands of Christians in all ages and places have experienced and approved to be to their soules the Savour of life unto life the mighty power of God to salvation The Author easily observes the present face of our heavens which are much darkned by those black and lowring clouds which chiefly hang over constant true and faithfull Ministers heads menacing them above any rank or calling of men Nor is he ignorant of the touchinesse and roughnesse the jealousies and timorousnesse of many mens spirits in these times whose highest pretentions to piety are set forth either by fierce oppositions against the Ministry or by such a weak pleading for and wary owning of their succession and ordination their calling and persons as ra-rather invites opposition contempt and insolency than any way gives credit or countenance to them and their function whose remaining branches of Presbytery will hardly thrive by the watering of those hands which have been and are destroyers of its root the Primitive Apostolicall Episcopacy they are pitifull defenders of that who are passionate opposers of this who of all men have given the greatest advantages to those that seek to abrogate the whole function and calling or to arrogate it to vulgar ignorance and impudence The grim and sad aspect on all hands upon Ministers makes the Authour out of charity to himself and others as willing to give a fair account of his profession so loath to offend any sober and judicious Reader or to contract the enmity of any others of ruder tempers by any rash stroke or inconsiderate dash of his pen to which he may be subject and for which he begs pardon both of God and man if any have escaped which yet may be so far venial as its innocent sharpnesse aims at no mens person but onely
dashing against their Bibles and some Almanack-makers casting a generall and publique scorn upon their Ministers and Ministry imputing both unjustly and indignly the folly and ridiculous impotency of some Ministers passions and actions which may be but too true to the whole function venerable order and learned fraternity without limitation or distinction of the wise from the foolish But the badnesse of the times or madn sse rather of any men in them makes this cause never the worse Indeed it is so great and so good having in it so much of Gods glory and mans welfare that it merits what it can hardly finde in secular greatnesse a proportionate patron who had need to be one of the best men and the boldest of Christians And therefore is the addresse so generall that besides our great Master the Lord Jesus Christ the founder and protector of our order and function this work might finde some pious and excellent Patrons in every corner whither so great a Truth hath of late been driven to hide it selfe by the boldnesse and cruelty of some the cowardise and inconstancy of others This book requires not the cold and customary formality of patron-like accepting it and laying it aside but the reality of serious reading generous asserting and conscientious vindicating Who ever dares to countenance this Apology in its main Subject The true and ancient Ministery of the Church of England must expect to adopt many enemies and it may be some great ones Whom he must consider at once as enemies to his Baptism his Faith his Graces and Sacramentall seals to his spirituall comforts his hopes of heaven to his very being being a Christian or true member of this or any other sound part of the Catholick Church Enemies also to his friends and posterities eternall happinesse The means of which will never be truly found in any Church or enjoyed by any Christians under any Ministry if it were not in that which hath been enjoyed and prospered in England not onely ever since the reformation but even from the first Apostolicall plantation of Christian Religion in this Island Of which blessed priviledge ancient honour and true happinesse no good Christian or honest English man can with patience or indifferency suffer himself his Countrey and posterity to be either cunningly cheated or violently plundered Certainly there is no one point of Religion merits more the constancy of Martyrs and will more bear the honour of Martyrdome than this of the divine Institution authority and succession of the true Ministry of the Church which is the onely ordinary means appointed by Jesus Christ to hold forth the Scriptures and their true meaning to the world and with them all saving necessary truths duties means and Ministrations wherein not onely the foundation but the whole fabrick of Christian Religion is contained which in all ages hath been as a pillar of heavenly fire and as a shield of invincible strength to plant and preserve to shine and to protect to propagate and defend the faith name and worship of the true God and his Son our Lord Jesus Christ This makes the Authour not despaire to meet with some Patrons and Protectors of this Defence in Senates Councels Armies and on the house top no lesse than in closets and private houses To whom it cannot be unacceptable to see those many plausible pretensions and potent oppositions made by some men against the Divine authority and sacred Office and peculiar calling of the Ministry so discovered as they shall appeare to be not more specious and subtill than dangerous and destructive to the temporall and eternall welfare of all true Protestants sober Christians and honest hearted English men who certainly next the pleasing of God and the saving of their souls have nothing of so great concernment to themselves and their posterity as this The preserving and encouraging of a true and authoritative Ministry which is the great hinge on which all learning and civility all piety and charity all gracious hopes and comforts all true Religion and Christianity it self depends as much as the light beauty regular motion and safety of the body doth upon its having eyes to see But if this freer and plainer Defence should neither merit nor obtaine such ample measure of favour and publique acceptance in the sight of judicious Readers as it is ambitious of and at least may stand in need of yet hath the Author the comfort of endeavouring with all uprightnesse of heart to doe his duty though he be but as an unprofitable servant And possibly this great and noble Subject the necessity dignity and divine authority of the Ministry of the Church of England so far carried on by this Essay which sets forth 1. The Scripture grounds established by the authority of Christ and his Apostles 2. The Catholick consent and practise of the Church in all ages and places 3. The consonancy to reason and order observed by all Nations in their Religion and specially to the Institutes of God among the Jewish Church 4. The Churches constant want of it in its plantation propagation and perfection 5. The benefit of it to all mankinde who without an authoritative Minâ—stry would never know whom to hear with credit and respect or what to beleive with comfort 6. The great blessings flowing from this holy function to this Church and Nation in all kindes These and the like grand considerations and fair aspects which this subject affords to learned judicious and godly men may yet provoke some nobler pen and abler person to undertake it with more gratefull and successefull endeavours whose charitable eyes finding the sometime famous and flourishing Ministry of this Church thus exposed in a weeping floating and forlorn condition to the mercy of Nilus and its Monsters the threatning if not overflowing streames of modern violent errors may take pity on it and from this Ark of Bulrushes which is here suddenly framed may bring it up to far greater strength and publique honour than the parent of this Moses could expect from his obscurer gifts and fortunes To which although he is very conscious as being of himself altogether unsufficient for so great a work and so good a word yet the confidence of the greatnesse and goodnesse of the cause the experience of Gods and generally all good Christians attestation to it in all former ages of the Church The hopes also of Gods gracious assistance in a work designed with all humility and gratitude wholly to his glory and his Churches service These made him not wholly refractary or obstinate against the intreaties of some persons whose eminent merit in all learning piety and virtue might incourage by their command so great insufficiencies to so great an unâ—ertaking Which is not to fire a Beacon of faction or contention but to establish a pillar of Truth and certainty Also to hold forth a Shield of defence and safety such as may direct and protect stay and secure the mindes of good Christians in the midst
untractable World are not ignorant what noble Precedents may be alleged for my writing in this maner of Apology which is or ought to be a * Apologeticum scribendi genus est mixtura quaedam oratoris disputantis Dialectici deprecantis Eras twisting of Logick and Rethorick together a Checquer-work of Arguments and Oratory studying to cloth the Bones and Sinews of Syllogisms with the smoothness and beauty of Eloquence seeking at once both to convince the Understanding and to excite the Affections For besides those lesser and obscurer pieces recorded by the Antients of Aristides Melito * Quadratus ApostoloruÌ„ Discipulum Aâ—heniensis Pontifex Ecclesiae Adriano principi librum pro Christiana Religione tardidit Et tantae admirationis omnibus fuit ut persecutionem gravissimam illius exellens sedaret ingenium Cant. 2.2 Jeron ad Mag. de Aristide aliis doctis Christianis Quadratus Apollinaris Methodius Johannes Gram. Themistius and Apollonius this last being a Roman Senator wrote and recited in the Senate his Apollogy for the Christians and was after crowned with Martyrdom We have also extant those famous Apologies of Justine Martyr who dedicated his first to the Roman Senate and his second to Antoninus Pius Augustus also that of Tertullian who in the time of Severus the Emperor seeing Christians persecuted onely for the * Vel solo nomine ex praejudicio domnantur Christiam Ter. Apol. Name as a sufficient crime as many Ministers now are by some men wrote his Learned large and accurate Apology dedicating it to the Emperor and his Son Saint Hilary also wrote a Defence for the Orthodox against the Arrians presenting it to Constantius the Emperor And of later times in its kinde inferior to none is that Apology of the Learned Pious and incomparable Bishop Jewel * Bishop Jewels Apology The former wrote their Learned Modest and Eloquent Apologies for Christian Religion as it then stood like the Lilly among the Thorns baited persecuted and condemned on all sides by the Heathen who wanted neither numbers nor arts nor power to oppress yet was it boyed up and preserved by Gods blessing on the learned Courage and industrious Constancy of those and other Holy Men This last our Renowned Countryman vindicated the Reformed Churches and particularly this of England for their not complying with and submitting to the Councel of Trent and for their necessary receding from the Church of Rome so far onely as this did in Doctrine or Maners from the Scripture Rules and from the Primitive Judgement Canons and practise of the Fathers the first Councils and the Primitive purest Churches That excellent Prelate no doubt would have then fully asserted as he did other points then in dispute the Order Honor Office and Authority of the Ministry of the Church of England if either the ignorance or malice of those times had been so far guilty and ingenious as to question or oppose it which some men now do who dare any thing but to be wise honest and humble I know my self unworthy to bring up the rear of so gallant a Troop of Worthies in all Ages 5. Why by this Author nor is it from the ignorance of my own Tenuities or other mens Sufficiencies that I have thus far adventured to list my self in the Army of Christian Apologists or to march under the Banner of this Apology Onely in some respects I seemed to some men if not to my self to be signed out by providence to this duty or endeavor at least in as much as I may be thought redeemed somewhat beyond the ordinary from that grand prejudice which is like a beam in many Readers eyes or like a dead Fly ready to viciate the sweetest Confections made by any Minister in this kinde As if all were done onely for that livelihood and estate which their Church-Livings afford them that any Ministers so stickle and contend to uphold their Function and Ministry either by speech or writing Few men stand freer from the dashes of this suspition than my self in regard of either present benefit or future expectation by any imployment in the Ministry which is such as neither an idle man would undertake the work nor a covetous man much envy the reward Yet I thank God I want not either abilities or opportunities to exercise Piety and Charity among a company of poor for the most part yet good and orderly people whose love respect and peaceable carriage to me in these times hath merited that I should prefer the good of their souls before any private advantages so long as I am over them in the Lord. I thank God I have far less temptations of private interest than would be required to put any discreet man upon so rough an adventure in a tempestuous Sea where silence with safety were to be chosen rather than publickness with peril if I did not consciously and charitable look much more upon the publick where taking a general view of the state and condition wherein most of my Brethren the Ministers either are or are like to be in this Church if some men may have their wills I cannot but with shame and sorrow behold in all corners of the Land to how low an ebb not onely their persons but the whole profession of the Ministry now is or is like to be brought for Government Maintenance Reputation Authority and Succession in these Churches through the dissentions of these times And truly in the midst of our dust and ashes we the Ministers of England must confess That with no less justice than severity the Lord hath poured upon us this shame and confusion of face as well as upon other ranks and orders of men since our many great spots and foul stains both in Doctrine and Maners could not but be the more remarkably offensive to God and man by how much in the sacredness and eminency of that Calling more exact holiness was expected from us and pretended by us 1. Whence the lapse of Ministers in the love and reputation they had And here I hope I shall not give any my Betters or my Brethren any offence while I humbly prostrate my self in the Porch and Threshold of this Apology giving glory to God and taking shame to my self as well as others Not by an uncharitable censuring of any man but by a penitential searching and discovering the true cause for which I think the Lord hath poured this contempt upon the Ministers of this Church Herein to begin aright with God and our own Consciences may best relieve us with men the disburthening of a ship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. orat 15. Quicquid defisit pietati aut charitati confessionis humilitas suppleat Bern. 2 Sam. 12.13 is half buoying it up when sunk or a ground Ingenuous confession is a good part and a great pledge of future amendment Some diseases are half healed as soon as well searched and discovered It may be we may finde the same readiness both
dominion upon the carkasses and ruines of such as are able true and faithful Ministers of the true God and the Lord Jesus Christ However my own private comforts of life might other ways be either secure or satisfactory yet how can I with silence or as Nehemiah without sadness Nehe. 2.2 behold the miseries of many my Brethren and Companions For whose sakes I cannot but have great compassion even in worldly regards well knowing that many if not far the most of them have born the heat and burthen of the late days or years rather of great tribulation beyond any sorts of men to whom have been allowed some ways either for reparation or composition or restitution or oblivion But not so to any Ministers from some of whom hath been exacted the whole tale of Bricks as to the necessary labors of their Ministry and charges when the straw of maintenance hath in great part been either denied to them or some way exacted from them nor was ever any publick ease or relief granted to them in that regard But it becomes neither them nor me in this particular to plead or complain as to any private interests pressures or indignities already sustained The Lord is righteous and holy though we be wasted impoverished and exhausted yea though we be accounted as the off-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 4.13 and as unsavory salt fit to be cast on the dunghil Matth. 5.13 While there are so many * Vel in hoc uno maximè inidonei quòd sibi idonei videntur tam tremendo Ministerio Jeron hasty intruders and confident undertakers of the work of the Ministry yet the best and ablest of us all desire before the majesty of God in all humility to confess That we are less than the least of his mercies that none of us are as to Gods exactness or the weight of the work 2 Cor. 2.16 2 Cor. 4.7 Non thesaurus debonestatur vasculo sed vas decoratur thesaurâ— Prosp sufficient for that sacred Office and Ministry Yet since this heavenly treasure hath been duly committed to such earthen vessels who have wholly devoted even from their youth their studies lives and labors to the service of Christ and his Church in this work of the Ministry since the publick wages and rewards for that holy service have by the order of humane Laws by the piety bounty and justice of this Christian Nation been hitherto conferred upon them and they rightly possessed of them I cannot but present to the considerations of all men that have piety equity or humanity in them That there are no objects of pity and compassion more pitifully calamitous and distressed than those many learned and modest men the godly and faithful Ministers of this Church of England either are already or are shortly like to be if the malice of their adversaries be permitted to run in its full scope and stream against them which will be like that flood which the old Serpent Rev. 12.15 and great red Dragon cast out of his mouth after the woman the Church which would carry away both mother and childe old and yong the sons with the fathers true piety with the whole profession the present Ministers with all future Succession as to any right Authority and lawful Ordination or Mission 19. The cunning and cruelty of some against the Ministry What I pray you O excellent Christians all whose other excellencies are most excelled in your Christian pity and compassion can be more deplorable than to see so many persons of ingenuous education good learning honest lives diligent labors after so much time devoted chiefly to serve God their Country and the Church of Christ and the souls of their Brethren with their Studies Learning and Labors to be turned or wearied out of their honest and holy employment to be so cast out of their houses and homes together with all their nearest relations to be forced to begin some new methods of life in some mean imployment or dependance and this in the declining and infirmer age of many wherein they must either want their bread or beg it or at best with much contention against the armed man Pr v. 24.34 Poverty in labor and sorrow night and day they must mingle their bread with ashes and their drink with weeping when they shall be deprived of all those publick rewards and setled incouragements which God knows were neither very liberal in most places nor much to be envied if * Matth. 24.12 Destiâ—â—e charitate â—â—cessâ— est abundare nequitiam quum non auferantur iniquitatis stercora nisi per charitatia fluenta 〈◊〉 gentem rempublicam ecclesiam validissiâ—â— purgâ—â—tia August Tepâ—â—to â—â—â—riâ—â—â—â— fervore frigesâ—â—â— rigoscunt conscientiae Bern. charity did not grow cold and iniquity abound wherewith the whole labor of their lives their learning and chargable studies besides their industry humility and other vertues were but meanly yet to them contentedly recompensed by those Laws of publick piety and munificence which invested Ministers in their places and livings after the same * Ministers have the same Right to their Ecclesiastick estates by Magna Charta as others have to their Temporalities Concessimus quod Ecclesia Anglicana libera sit in perpetuum habeat omnia jura sua integra omnes libertates suaâ— illaesas Magna Charta c. 1. See the Statute of 2. Edw. 6. and 19. for treble damages in case of not paying Tithes where due tenure for life and good behavior that any man enjoys his free-hold in house or land keeping himself within the compass of the Law And that the barbarity impiety and monstrosity of the injury may seem the less with the common people all these sufferings of poverty and necessity which either have faln upon some or threaten other true Ministers in this Church must be attended with the black * Pereuntibus Christianis sub Tiberio addita ludibria ut serarum tergis contecti laniaâ—â— canâ—â—â— interirent ubi dofecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis flammali urebantur Tac. An. l. 19. Luke 23.34 Joh. 11.48 18.38 shadows of all evil speaking and reviling such as was used to their great master and institutor Jesus Christ when he was to be thus crucified with contempt lest the Romans come and destroy the City though there was nothing found in him by his Judge worthy of death That so the proud mockers of the Ministry may say with scorn Behold these men of God these that pretended to preach salvation to others let them now come down and save themselves from that Jesuitick Socinian and mechanick Cross to which they are with all cruel petulancy either now or shortly as their malicious enemies hope and boast to be fixed O what would the enemies of this Reformed Church and State 20. Hoc Ithacus velit magnâ— mercentur Atride Virg. whatever they are have wished more to crown their envious desires and consummate their
malicious designs than to see that woful day wherein this abomination which threatens to make the Reformed Religion desolate in this Church of England being set up the whole Function and Succession of the true and lawful Ministry here should be questioned cashiered triumphed over and trampled upon by the foot of Ignorance Error Popery Jesuitism Atheism Profaneness and all sorts of disorderly mindes and maners All which heretofore felt the powerful restraints the mighty chains the just terrors and torments cast upon them by the convincing Sermons learned Writings frequent Prayers and holy examples of many excellent Ministers in England before whom the devils of ignorance error profaneness schism and superstition Luke 10.18 Vera fulgente luce flaccessit fulguris coruscatio terrore magìs quà m lumine conspicua Chrysost were wont to fall as lightning to the ground from their fanatick Heavens Have all these Sons of Thunder and of Consolation too who were esteemed heretofore by all Reformed Christians in this Church to be as Angels of God Embassadors from Heaven Friends of Christ the Bridegroom of their Souls more pretious than fine Gold dearer to humble and holy men than their right eyes the beauty of this Church and blessing of this Nation Have they all been hitherto but as Mahumetan Juglers or Messengers of Satan or Priests of Baal or as the cheating Pontifs of the Heathen gods and oracles Have they all been found lyers for God and born false witness against the Truth and Church of Christ Have they arrogantly and falsly * Numb 16.3 Ye take too much upon you since all the Congregation is holy every one of them c. Wherefore lift ye up your selves above the Church of the Lord Thus Korah and his company against Moses and Aaron taken too much upon them in exalting themselves above their line and measure Or magnifying their Office and Ministry above the common degree or sort of Christians And why all this art fraud and improbity of labor in Ministers Sure with the g eater sin and shame learned and knowing men should weary themselves in their iniquity Quò minor tentatio tò majus peccatum Aquin when they had so little temptation to be either false or wicked in so high a nature Alas For what hath been and is all this pompous pains and hypocritical sweat of Ministers Is it not for some poor living for the most part for a sorry subsistence a dry morsel a thred-bare coat a cottagely condition In comparison of that plenty gallantry superfluity splendor and honor wherewith other callings which require far less ability or pains have invited and entertained their professors in this plentiful Land Judges 8.6 Are not the gleanings of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer Are not the superfluities * Merito à secularibus negotiatoribus lucro praemio superamur quum caelestia aeterna à Christo expectamus munera Jeron of any ingenuous calling beyond the necessaries of most Ministers And all this that after infinite studies pale watchings fervent prayers frequent tears daily cares and endless pains exhausting their Time Spirits Estates and Health they might through many vulgar slightings reproaches and contempts with much patience condemn themselves and their relations first to * Grave est paupertatis onus ubi deest bonae conscientiae levamen quâ sublevante gravescit nihil quâ dulcante nihil amarescit Petrach poverty which is no light burden where a good conscience is wanting or an evil one attending as in this case malice doth suppose And now at last after more than One thousand five hundred years and one Century and half since the Reformation in all which time this Nation hath more or less enjoyed the inestimable blessing for so our pious Ancestors esteemed the lights of this World the true Ministers of the Church in their Prayers Preaching Writings holy Offices and Examples they should by some men be thought unworthy of any further publick favors or imployment and to have merited to be counted as sheep for the slaughter * Rom 8.16 For thy sake are we counted as sheep for the slaughter and killed all the day long Laniâ—na diaboli Christi victima Leo. They are Christs Lambs whom the Devil delights most to â—utcher in their persons And as to their Function or Calling which was ever esteemed sacred among true Christians to be wholly laid aside and outed with all disgraceful obloquies as if they had been but pious Impostors devout Vsurpers and religious Monopolizers of that holy Ordination divine Mission Power and Authority which Christ gave personally to the Apostles and both by declared intent and clear command to their due and rightful Successors in that ordinary Ministry which is necessary for the Churches good Or at best they must be reputed but as superfluous burthensom and impertinent both in Church and State chargeable to the publick purse dangerous to the publick peace useless as to any peculiar power of holy Administrations which some think may be more cheaply easily and safely supplied by other forward pretenders who think themselves endued with greater plenitude of the Spirit with rarer gifts with diviner illuminations more immediate teachings and special anointings by which without any pains or studies they are suddenly invested into the full office and power Ministerial And as they are themselves led so they can infallibly lead all others into all truth with such wonderful advantages of ease and thrift both for mens pains and purses that there will be no need to entertain that antient form and succession of ordained Ministers as any peculiar calling or function amidst so gifted and inspired a Nation So much more sweet and fruitful do these self-planted Country Crabs and Wildings now seem to many than those Trees of Paradise which with great care and art have been grafted pruned and preserved by most skilful hands which these new sprouts look upon and cry down as onely full of Moss and Missletow In this case then O you excellent Christians such freedom as I now use I hope may seem not onely pardonable but approvable and imitable to all good Christians who fear God and love the Lord Jesus Christ who have any care of their own souls any charity to the Reformed Churches any pity to their Countrey any tenderness to the religious welfare of posterity And in a matter of so great and publick importance it is hoped and expected by all good men That none of you either in your private places or publick power and influences will by any inconsiderate and mean compliance gratifie the evil mindes of unreasonable men in order to compass the Devils most Antichristian designs who seeks by such devices first to deceive you next to destroy and damn both you and your posterity Your * Blasphemiae proximum est Christiani silentium ubi Christi causa agitur negligitur quam filendâ— aquè prodimus ac Judas salutando aut
voluntiers 1 King 13.33 Jeroboam made of the lowest of the people Priests whosoever would he consecrated him and he became one of the Priests V. 34. And this thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam to cut it off and destroy it from the face of he earth whosoever lists not to consecrate but desecrate himself by an execrable boldness or else is elected and misordained by that zealous simplicity schismatical fury and popular madness after any novelty which is ever in any meaner sort of people These no doubt are sufficiently known to you together with those learned solutions those sober and to wise men satisfactory answers which have by many worthy Pens both long since and lately been made publick both as to the calumnies of the adversaries and the vindication of this Church and its Ministry Which is conform not onely to our wise excellent and antient Laws but to all right reason common rules of order and policy dictates of humane nature practise of all Nations Also to the Precepts Institutions Paterns and Customs of God of Christ of the Apostles and of all the Churches and ever was so esteemed and reverenced until the sour and unsavory dregs of these perilous last 2 Tim. 3.1 and worst times came to be stirred and drawn forth Wherein under pretences of I know not what special calling gifts and privileges but really to advance other fruits than those that use to grow from the Spirit of truth peace holiness and order some men are resolved to ascend to that desperate height of impiety which counts nothing a sin a shame or a confusion I shall not so far distrust the knowledge memory or consciences 30. Ministers unheard ought not to be condemned Quod rationibus non possunt fustibus satagunt deficientibus scripturis succurrant gladii Aug. de Circumcel Lunam è calo quum non possunt deducere allatrant canes Sen. of wise and worthy Christians as to abuse their leisure by a large exact and punctual disputing every one of those Particulars Arguments and Scriptures which have been well and learnedly handled by others who have put the heady rabble of their opponents to so great disorders as from Arguments to threaten Arms from shews of Reason to flie to Passion from sober Speaking to bitter Railings Scoffings and Barkings at that Light which they see is so much above them Onely I cannot but suggest in general to all good men That it seems not to me onely but to many much wiser and better than my self a very strange precipitancy which no Christian wise Magistrates will permit more like tumultuary rashness and schismatical violence than either Christian zeal or charitable calmness That the whole Order and Function of the Ministry of the Gospel in this Reformed Church so long owned by all good men both at home and abroad so long and largely prospered here with the effects and seals of Gods grace upon it so esteemed necessary to the very Being of any Church and Christianity it self by all sober and serious Christians For there can be no true Church where Christ is not who promised to be with his Ministers to the end of the World So that where no true Ministry is there can be no presence of Christ as to outward Ordinances Matth. 28.20 which is spoken to those that were sent to Teach and Baptize c. Lastly This Calling so never opposed by any but erroneous seditious licentious or fanatick spirits of later times That I say this antient and holy Function should without any solemn publick conference impartial hearing or fair consultation even among Professors of Reformed Christianity be at noon day thus vilified routed and sought to be wholly outed by persons whose weavers beams or rustick numbers and clamorous crouds not their reason learning piety or virtue renders them either formidable or any way considerable further than to be objects of wiser and better mens pity and charity or fears and restraints Is it that there are no Ministers of the true and good old way worthy to be heard or comparable to those plebeian pieces who by a most imprudent apostacy Et osores desertores sui ordinis Sulp. Sev. becoming haters and desertors of their former holy orders and authority Ministerial have taken a new Commission upon a popular account Are none of the antient Ministers fit to be advised with or credited in this matter which concerns not themselves so much as the publick good both of Church and State Are they all such friends to their own private interests some poor living it may be as to have no love to God to Christ to the Truth or to the Souls of men Have they no learning judgement modesty or conscience comparable to those who being parties and enemies against them hope to be their onely judges and to condemn them Is wisdom wholly perished from the wise and understanding hidden from the prudent Is Religion lost among the Learned and onely now found among simple ideots Or rather are not the Antiministerial adversaries so conscious to the true Ministers learned piety and their own impudent ignorance that they are loth and ashamed to bring the one or other to a publick test and fair trial resolving with the Circumcellions with more ease to drive them Circumcelliones inter Donatistas furiostores cùm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Continentes se vocitabant jus fasque omne evertenies sacerdotibus Ministris Catholicis vim inserebant omnia ditipientes c. Calcem cum aceto in oculos piorum ingerebant Vil. August c. 9. 1 King 18.21 than to dispute them out of the Church aiming not to satisfie any by their reason but to sacrifice all to their passion if they can get power Who doubts but that if the learned and godly Ministers in this sometime so famous and flourishing Church of England who seem now in the eyes of their enemies as if they had been taken by Pirates or Picarooms onely fit to be so thrust under Hatches not worthy to be spoken with to appear to be trusted or regarded if they might have so much publick favor which they despair not of and do humbly intreat as by solemn tryal and dispute to assert their Station and Function against their adversaries as some have in private ways done Who doubts I say but by Gods assistance whose mercy hath not will not ever forsake them they would make the halting and ungrateful people of this Church to see whether the Lord or Baal be God Whether I say the Primitive Order and Divine Constitutions of Christ which have on them the Seal of the Scripture the Stamp of Authority and carry with them all the beauties of holiness For right reason due order decency peaceableness and proportionableness to the great ends of Christian Religion together with their real usefulness confirmed by the happy experience of the Primitive times the purest Saints the best Christians the constantest Confessors holy Martys and most
in the prime or Mother Cities where Christianity was first planted end from whence it spred to the Territories or Provinces about One would think besides common speech among all Christians which is sufficient to justifie what word is used to express our meanings to others That this were enough to confute the simplicity or peevishness of those who to carry on new projects dare aver That they know no such thing as a National Church 1 Pet. 2.9 Ye are an holy Nation a peculiar people may be said of any Christians and with much coyness disdain to own or understand any relation of order duty subordination or charity they have to any such Church Of which they say they know no virtue no use no necessity no conveniencies as to any Christian and Religious ends Which so wilful and affected ignorance was never known till these latter and perilous times had found out the pleasure of Paradoxes by which men would seem wiser and more exact both in their words and fancies than either pious antiquity or the Scriptures Hoping by such gross and unexpected absurdities which would fain appear very shie and scrupulous in language to colour over Shismatical and Anarchical designs and under such fig-leaves to hide the shame and folly of their factious agitations and humors which makes them unwilling to be governed by any in Church or State without themselves have an oar in the Boat and a share in the Government This poor concernment of some mens small ambitions makes them disown any Church but such a conventicle or parcel as some men fancy to collect and call which they infect with the same fancies of sole and full Churchship and separate Power Whereas the Lord Jesus Christ always first called men by his Ministers to his Church and by Baptism admitted them and by meet Governors whom he sent and ordained ruled them as his flock in greater as well as lesser parties Gen. 32. as Jacob did his distinct flocks in the hands of his sons By the same Cynical severity these men may deny they have relation to any other men being themselves compleat men or at most that they are to regard none but their families where they live and so cast off all observance to any greater Societies in Towns or Cities or Commonweals yea and all sense of humanity to the generality of mankinde whom they shall never see together or be acquainted with Who doubts notwithstanding this morose folly but that as in all right reason equity and humanity every man is related by the common nature to all mankinde so also to particular polities and societies of men greater or smaller according to the distinct combinations into which providence hath cast him with them either in Cities or Countreys With whom to refuse communion and disown relation is to sin against the common principles of society order and government which are in mans nature which God hath implanted Reason suggests and all wise men have observed for the obtaining of an higher and more common good by the publick and united influence of the counsel strength and authority of many than can be obtained in scattered parcels or small and weaker fraternities In like maner to be in and of the Church is not onely to be a true believer which gives internal and real union to Christ and to all true Christians in the Church Catholike Ecclesia una est quae in multitudinem latius incremento facunditatis extenditur Cyp. de Eccl. unit 1 Cor. 2.11 What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him of which no man can judge because he cannot discern it save onely in the judgement of charity But it implies also to have and to hold that profession of Christian Religion in such external polities and visible communion with others as the providence of God both offers and requires of us according to the time place and opportunities wherein he sets us so as we may most promote the common good Which study and duty we own in humanity as men and more in charity as Christians to any Church or society of Christians To whom our counsel and power or our consent and subjection may adde a further authority a more harmonious and efficacious influence than can be from small or ununited parcels So that a National Church that is such a Society of Christians as are distinct by civil limits and relation from other Nations may not onely own and accordingly act as they are men related in things civil but also as Christians they may own and wisely establish such a Church power relation and association in matters of Religion as may best preserve themselves in true Doctrine holy Order Christian peace and good maners by joynt counsel and more vigorous power The neerness which they have affording greater opportunities to impart and enjoy the benefit of mutual counsel and charity and all other communicable abilities to a nobler measure and higher proportion than can be had in lesser bodies or combinations This joynt publick and united authortiy of any Church in any Nation or Kingdom is so far from being slighted as some capricious mindes do that it is the more to be venerated and regarded by all good Christians who know that duty enlarges with relations and a greater charity is due from us to greater communities both of men and of Christians Odia quo iniquiora eo magis a cerba Tacit. The greatest vexation of these new Modellers is That they have so little with truth modesty or charity to say against this famous National Church of England and its Ministry For they daily see notwithstanding all their specious pretensions and undefatigable agitations the more as winds they seek to shake and subvert well-rooted Christians the more they are confirmed and setled in that Christian communion 9. Charity necessary in any true Church and Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Camer de Melan which they have upon good grounds both of Reason and Religion Polity and Charity with this Church of England as their Mother Which blessing all wise Christians and well ordered Churches ever owned and enjoyed among themselves as parts of the Catholik in their several distinctions and society In these points of the true Church and true Religion however I covet to be short yet I shall be most serious and as clear as may be writing nothing to other mens Consciences which I do not first read in mine own and of which I know account must be given by me at Christs tribunal And truly I am as loth to deceive others as to erre my self in matters of so great concernment Nulla erroris secta sam contra Christi verit atem nist nomine cooperta Christiano ad pugnandum prosilire audet August ep 56. as true Religion and the true Church are Both which every Sect and Party of Christians chalenge to themselves and those no doubt with most right and truest comfort who do it
the Law Quicquid deficiunt aliae unica supplet charitatis gratio qua in aeternum non de ficiet Bern. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nis Prius chari quaÌ„ proximi Min. Fael 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just M. Tâ—ypl o. and all Churches was Scripture Truth the Cement Charity the Beauty Unity and the Strength orderly and social Government O thou fairest of ten thousands Christian Charity which were the wonder of the World in the Primitive times Which didst so spread thy wings over all the Earth like the Spirit of God on the face of the great deep the ocean of mankinde that every man might and every Christian did enjoy the vital heat and diviner influence of thy fosterings on their souls So far that what weaker Christians came short of in believing or failed in understanding or were defective in doing they made up in loving of Christ and for his sake one another Yea what the very enemies and persecutors of Christians wanted of that humanity which is as the morn and dawning of Christian Charity true Christians sought to relieve them by their prayers and to cover their horrid cruelties with their own kindness to them while killed by them and devotions for them while they were dying under them as the bâ—essed Martyr Stephen did and the Crown of Martyrs Christ Jesus They forgat not to pray for those that persecuted them which made Christians in their furthest dispersions greatest distances and grievousest sufferings still admired by all men though hated by them still endeared well acquainted and united in love to each other before they had seen or were personally known to each other O thou potent flame of celestial fire which the love of Christ Charitas est oleum unde clara virtutuÌ„ omnium lampas sustentatur Religio sine charitate est lampas sine oleo Bern. ep 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 28. So Just Martyr Ep. ad Diog. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 14. stronger than death had kindled in the souls of the first and best Christians No Seas no solitudes no poverty no pains no sufferings no torments no offences no injuries were able to damp or quench thee of old but still thou didst gloe to so fresh an heat that it warmed and melted the hardest Rocks of Heathen persecutors and tormentors Who before they believed the Gospel or love of God in Christ covered to be of that Christian society where they saw men love one another so dearly so purely so constantly as to be ready to die with and for each other Alas now every small drop of fancy every novelty of fashion in Religion every atome of Invention every dust of Opinion every mote of Ceremony every shadow of Reformation every difference of Practice damps rakes up buries puts out thy sacred sparks and embers in Christians hearts yea and kindles those unholy cruel and dreadful fires of contrariety jealousies scorn hatred enmity revenge impatience of union and zeal for separation to so great heights of all-devouring flames that nothing but the flesh of Christians will serve for fuel to maintain them and nothing but the blood of Believers to extinguish them So that no Christians now love further than they conspire and contend to destroy and conquer all but their own party and faction Thus the want of this holy grace of charity wastes us by the fires of unchristian fewds and even presages the approaching of those last dreadful conflagrations which shall consume the world and those eternal flames which shall revenge this sin of sins among Christians the want of charity which sins against the love of God the blood of Christ the Churches peace and our own souls How shall we uncharitable wretches not dread the coming of our Judge or how can we love his appearance in flaming fire who have thus singed and burnt that livery of Christs love wherewith we were clothed which was dipped and died in his own blood that so it might stanch the further effusions of blood among Christians and cover the stayns of that bloud which had been passionatly shed among them How can we hope our souls should be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus when we spend our dayes in damming and destroying each other and scarce suffer any to possess their souls in patience or in any degree of charity amidst the wasts and troubles of this conflicting and tottering Church Which like a great tree whose roots are loosned round and almost cut through stagger too and fro threatning to fall on every side being nothing now but weakness over-laden with weight and labouring with the burthen of it self is ready to destroy both it self and others by the suddenness and violence of its fall O you excellent Christians hasten as Lot should have done out of Sodom to withdraw your selves from the interests designs zeal devotion and Religion of this uncharitable and self destroying world wrap your selves in the mantle of charity peaceableness and patience hasten to hide your selves in the holes of this rock the love of Christ your Redeemer till he come who is at the dore and will not tarry Charitas sanctitatis Custos Chrysol ser 94. O pretious and inestimable grace of Charity the only Jewel of our lives the viaticum for our Deaths the greatest ornament of a Christian profession the sweetness of our bitterness the Antidote of our poysons the Cordiall in our infirmities the comforter under our dejections the supplyer of our defects the joy in our sorrows the witness of our sincerity the Crown of our graces the Seal of our hopes 1 Joh. 3.14 the stay and Pillar of our Souls amidst the tears tossings Dilectio suÌ„muÌ„ fidei sacramentum Christiani nomini thesaurus Tertul lib. de Patientia Mat. 5.44 Humanum est amicos Christianum inimicos diligere Hilar. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. de Christian dissid or 14. fears and conflicts of our mortall Pilgrimage In which we then only joy when we either love or are loved by others but then we have most cause of pious joy when being hated and cursed and persecuted by others we can yet love them and pray for them and bless them for Christs sake Thou that madest Martyrs and Confessors and all true Christians more than Conquerors of death and enemies men and Devils O how have we lost thee how have we banished thee how have we not injured thee yea how have we grieved thee more in this that we are loth to find thee But most in this that we seek thee among Heresies Schisms Apostacies seditions furies perjuries tyrannies superstitions sacrileges causeless disputes endless janglings yea cruell murthers of bodies and Anathemaes of souls But the highest indignity and greater than the greatest insolency offerd thee is That we boast and proclaim we have found thee in what we have most lost thee that we have raised thee by what we have ruined thee that we are most Churches when we are least Christians or most
assertion That no part of the Catholike Church of Christ in any age or place was ever setled or flourished without a constant peculiar Order and Ordination of Ministers who were consecrated to the receiving and exercise of that power in the Church as from Christ although by man which have continued to this day Theodoret. hist l. 1. c. 22. De Aedesio Frumentio apud Indos dâ—vina Ministeria â—bierunt Laicii cum erant Frumentius postea ab Athanasio ep factus Cap. 23. Captivamulier apud Iberos Evangelium praedicabet miracula edebat His Const M. Episcopos misit There are indeed three or four examples in cases extraordinary of some private unordained Christians in the Primitive times who occasionally trading to Heathens were means first to teach them the Mysteries of Christ so as they desired to be baptized which was after done by such Bishops and Ordained Ministers as were sent them upon their request from other Churches To produce particulâ—r testimonies out of each Author Father Council and Historian in every age to prove the constant succession the high veneration and the unfeigned love which was every where conferred upon the Bishops and Ministers of the Church also to shew forth that devout care and religious regard which the ordainers the faithful people and those to be ordained to the office had in their several relations and duties when Ministers were to be ordained and consecrated such allegations were easie being very many and obvious but I hold the pains needless considering that to learned men they are so well known and all ingenuous Christians will believe my solemn asseveration that as in the presence of God what I write is Truth As for those weak or wilful men who are in this my onely opposers I know they consider not any heaps of authorities which they account onely as humane which they cannot examine nor do they value them when convinced of the certainty and harmony of them were there never so sweet and many flowers gathered from the testimony of Antiquity and Authority of the Fathers these supercilious novellers will not vouchsafe to smell to them It is well if I can make them savor any thing well out of the Scriptures which favors the Function of the Ministry 4. Catholike custom confirmed by Scripture as to the Office of the Ministry 2. So then in the next place This Defence of the Churches clear constant and Catholike Testimony in this point of the peculiar Office of the Ministry as in any other becomes a brazen wall an impregnable bulwark able to break in pieces or to retort all engines and batteries made against it when it appears to be exactly drawn according to the scale line and measure set down in the holy Scripture which are therefore much sleighted by some who despise the Ministry because like well-planted Canons they defend the Church and its constant Ministry as on the other side the Churches fidelity and constancy are the ground-work and platforms on which the Scriptures are planted 1 Tim. 3.15 The Church of Christ bearing up as the ground and holding forth as a pillar that divine Truth Power and Authority which from God they have in them of which the Church is the Herald or Publisher but not the Author or Inditer Conferring nothing to their internal Truth which is from their revealer and inspirer God but much to their external credit and historick reception which we have tendered to us daily not as immediately from God or Angels or inspired Prophets but by the veracity and fidelity of the Church chiefly in its publick Ministry which in this point of so necessary constant and universal practise for the good of all faithful people in all Ages and Churches cannot be thought in any reason either to have had no rule divinely appointed or that all Churches have been wholly ignorant of it or knowingly have so wholly swerved from it that never any Church either in its Teachers and Pastors or in its people and believers were followers of the Scripture-Precept and Patern till these last and worst days whereas the clear and pregnant light of the Scripture is in this point of a setled Ministry so agreeing with the use and practice of the Catholike Church that as no error can be suspected in the one so no obscurity can be pretended in the other by any Christians who will allow the divine Authority and infallible Truth of those Scriptures which we call the New Testament In all which nothing is more evident Christ sent of the Father as a Minister of Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.25 Heb. 12.2 Matth. 17.5 Jâ—hn 4.34 5.36 6.57 7.16 Heb. 5.4 No mantaketh this honor to himself but he that is called of God as Aaron V. 5. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest but c. Matth. 3.17 and self-demonstrating beyond any cavil or contradiction than That our Lord Jesus Christ the promised Messias the beloved Son of God the Angel of the new and better Covenant the Minister of Righteousness the great Apostle the chief Bishop and Father of our souls the Author and Finisher of our Faith the supreme Lord and King the eternal and compassionate High Priest the unerring Prophet of his Church whose voice we are onely to hear and obey in all things he commands us That I say this Lord Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to a personal accomplishment of all Prophecies fulfilling of all righteousness to a visible Ministration of holy things for the Churches good That he came not in his own Name as a man to be Mediator and Teacher nor did he as a man take this honor of Prophet Priest or King of his Church upon him but had his mission or appointment from his Father God who gave evident testimonies from Heaven of him not onely before and at his birth but afterward at his solemn and publick inauguration by Baptism into the Work of his Ministry where a voice from Heaven was heard and a visible representation of the Holy Spirit was seen testifying him to be the beloved Son of God the anointed with the gifts of the Spirit above all as Head of the Church These after were followed with infallible signs and wonders while Jesus went about doing good teaching the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven instituting holy rites for the distinguishing of his Church from the world and for the comforting of the faithful in the world by those seals pledges and memorials of his love in dying for the Church and shedding both water and blood upon the Cross Christs sending his Apostles as Ministers Acts 1. Phil. 2.9 Christ having thus personally finished the suffering and meritorious part of his Ministry after his Resurrection being now no more to converse in a visible humane way of presence with his Church on Earth but ascending as was meet to that glory of the Father which as God he had ever with him as man he had
exemplo Timothei ecclesiae ordinationem custodirent Ambr. in 1 Tim. 6. not arbitrarily and precariously but as a trust and duty of necessity out of conscience and with all divine power authority and fidelity as Ambassadors from Christ for God as Heralds as Angels or Messengers sent from God as Laborers together with God in his Husbandry the Church as Woers and Espousers having Commission or Letters of credence to treat of and make up a marriage and espousals between Christ and the Church which sacred office of trust and honor none without due authority delegated to him from Christ might perform any more than Haman might presume to court Queen Esther before the King Ahasuerus During these Primitive times of the Apostles Ministry of the Gospel before they had finished their mortal pilgrimage we read them careful to ordain Presbyters in every City and Church to give them charge of their Ministry to fulfil it of their flocks to feed and guide them in Christs way both for truth and orders over whom the Lord had made them over-seers by the Apostles appointment who not onely thus ordained others to succeed them immediately but gave command as from the Lord to these as namely to Timothy and Titus to take great care for an holy succession of Ministers such as should be apt to teach able and faithful men to whom they should commit the Ministry of the Word of life so as the Word or Institution of Christ might be kept unblamable till the coming of Jesus Christ 1 Tim. 6.14 by an holy order and office of Ministers duly ordained with the solemn imposition of hands as a visible token to men of the peculiar designiation of them and no others but those to this Office and Function who must attend on the Ministry give an account of their charge and care of souls to God Thus we finde beyond all dispute for Three Generations after Christ First in the Apostles secondly from them to others by name to Timothy and Titus thirdly from them to others by them to be ordained Bishops and Deacons the holy Ministry instituted by Christ is carried on in an orderly succession in the same Name with the same Authority to the same holy ends and offices as far as the History of the New Testament extends which is not above thirty years after Christs Ascension And we have after all these the next Succession testifying the minde of the Lord and the Apostles Clemens the Scholar of Saint Paul mentioned Phil. 4.3 who in his divine Epistle testifies That the Apostles ordained every where the first-fruits or prime Believers for Bishops and Deacons Pag. 54. And pag. 57. the Apostles appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinct Offices as at present 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That when these slept with the Lord others tried and approved men should succeed and execute their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy Ministry than which testimony nothing can be more evident After that he blames the Corinthians for raising sedition for one or two mens sake against all the Presbytery Pag. 62. And exhorts at last Let the flock of Christ be at peace with the Presbyters ordained to be over it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So after Be subject to the Presbyters c. Thus the excellent methods of Christs grace and wisdom toward his Church appear as to this peculiar Office and constant Function of the Evangelical Ministry commanding men to work the work of God that they may have eternal life John 6.29 which is to believe in him whom the Father hath sent sealed and anointed with full power to suffer to satisfie to merit to fulfil all Righteosness Also to declare and confirm this to his Church constantly teaching guiding and sanctifying it He hath for this end taken care that faithful able and credible men should be ordained in an holy constant succession to bear witness or record of him to all posterity that so others might by hearing believe without which ordinarily they cannot Rom. 10.14 15. Nor can they hear with regard or in prudence give credit and honor to the speaker or obey with conscience the things spoken unless the Preacher be such an one as entreth in by the door John 10.1 into the sheepfold such as is sent by God either immediately as the Apostles or mediately as their Successors from them and after them who could never have preached and suffered with that confidence conscience and authority unless they had been conscious that they were rightly sent of God Rom. 10.14 15. Psal 68.11 Isai 53.1 1 Cor. 1.18 and Christ At whose Word onely this great company of Preachers were sent into the world who so mightily in a short time prevailed as to perswade men every where to believe a report so strange so incredible so ridiculous so foolish to flesh and blood and to the wisdom of the world Thus far then the tenor of the whole New Testament 6. Distinct Characters and Notes of the Ministerial Office John 15.19 and that one Apostolike Writer Clemens witnesseth that as Jesus Christ the great Prophet and chief Shepherd 1 Pet. 5.4 was sent and impowred with all power from the Father to carry on the great work of saving sinners by gathering them out of the world into the fold and bosom of his Church So he did this and will ever be doing it till his comming again by ordeining and continuing such means and Ministry Mat. 28.20 as he saw fittest to bring men into and to guide them in Joh. 21.15 Feed my Lambs my Sheep Acts 20.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To feed as Shepheards the flock 1 Pet. 5.2 1 Cor. 4.4 Let a man so account of us as the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God c. 2 Tim. 4.1 2. 2 Tim. 4.5 Acts 20.29 1 Tim 4.11 Mat. 28. ult Heb. 13.14 Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account c. Luke 12.43 Blessed is that servant the faithfull and wise Steward set over the house-hold whom his Master comming shall find so doing Dan. 12.3 1 Cor. 9.17 If I do this willingly I have a reward c. the wayes of saving truth of Religious orders and of holy lives Investing as we have seen particular persons whose names are recorded with peculiar power to teach to gather to feed and govern his Church by Doctrine by Sacraments and by holy Discipline Setting those men in peculiar relations and Offices to his Church as Fathers Stewards Bishops Shepheards Rulers Watchmen calling them by peculiar names and distinct titles as light of the world Salt of the earth Mat. 5.13 Fishers of men Mat. 4.19 Stars in his right hand Rev. 2.1 Angels of the Churches Requiring of them peculiar duties as to Preach the word in season and out of season to feed his Lambs and Sheep to fulfill the work of their Ministry to take care of the flock against grievous Wolves
false teachers to stop their mouths Tit. 1.11 to exhort command and rebuke with all authority Tit. 2.15 to do their work as workmen that need not to be ashamed 2 Tim. 2.15 as those that must give an account of their Ministry and the souls committed to their care and charge by God and the Church Adorns them also with peculiar privileges promises and speciall assistances takes care for peculiar maintenance 1 Cor. 9.9 19. and double honour to be given them by all true Christians 1 Tim. 5.17 and encourageth them in a work of so great pains exact care and consciencious diligence which must expect to meet alwaies as now it doth with much opposition and contradiction of sinners promising to them speciall degrees of glory and more ponderous Crowns of eternall rewards in Heaven 1 Cor. 12.29 Are all Apo. are all Prophets are all Teachers c. 1 Cor. 9.16 Though I Preach the Gospell I have nothing to glory of as superogating so necessity is layd upon me yea woe is unto me if I Preach not the Gospell By all which and many others which might be added the Demonstration is clear as the Sun at Noon day to all that are not wilfully blind That some and not all in the Church and these not arbitrary and occasionall but chosen and ordeined persons are sent in a succession from Christ in his name and by vertue of this divine mission speciall authority and ordination to the care service and work of the Ministry they are bound in the highest bonds of conscience to the glory of God and the salvation of their own and others souls under a dreadfull woe and curse of being guilty of their souls damnation who perish by their neglect to attend diligently to discharge faithfulâ—y and couragiously as in the name and authority of Jesus Christ the Lord of glory this great and dreadfull imployment of the Ministry which Angels would not undertake without they were sent nor if sent without some horror Onus opus iâ—sis angelicis formidandum humoris Betn 2 Cor. 2.16 Who is sufficient for these things i. e. to speak the word of God as of God in the sight of God in Christ i. e. of sincerity 2 Tim. 2.4 2 Tim. 4.13 14 15 16. Acts 4.19.20 The Epistle of Paul to Tim. and Tit. are the constant Canons and divine injunctions for the succession of Ministerial power by way of tryal imposition of hands prayer c. To which no earthen vessels are of themselves sufficient but through the grace of God they are made able and faithfull 1 Tim. 1.12 and being such are both successefull and accepted while they give themselves wholy to this work not entangling themselves with other incomberances but devoting the whole latitude of time parts studies gifts to this business of saving souls and this not in popular and precarious wayes or only upon grounds of charity but with all just confidence of having that authority with them as well as necessity upon them which makes them bold in the Lord that they cannot but speak the things for which they have received power and commission from Christ by the Ordination and appointment of the Governours and guides of the Church who formerly had received the same power To which none can without high impudence blasphemy and impiety pretend who are conscious to themselves to have received no such authority from Christ either immediatly or in that one mediate way of successive ordination by which he hath appointed it to be derived to posterity which I have already proved cannot by any shew of Scripture no more than in any way of reason and order becomming Religion be found to have any other way than by those that are in orders as Ministers neither is it intrusted with the community of people among Christians nor left to every private mans pleasure As then some men are duly invested with power ministeriall 7. None can be true Ministers but such as are rightly ordeined both to act in this power and to confer it to others after them and these only are commanded by the rule of Christ by their duty or office and by all bonds of conscience to make a right use of this peculiar and divine power for the Churches good So are all other men whatsoever not thus duly ordeined and impowred though never so well gifted in themselves forbidden under the sins of lying falsity disorderly walking proud usurpation and arrogant intrusion of themselves into an holy office uncalled and unsent either to take this office and Ministry of holy things on themselves or to confer the power which they never received on others which neither Melchisedeck nor Moses nor Aaron nor Samuel nor any of the Prophets nor the Lord Jesus Christ nor the blessed Apostles Heb. 5.1 Every high Priest taken from among men is ordeined for men in things pertaining to God c. 4. No man taketh this honour to himself but he that is called of God as was Anon c. 5. Christ also glorified not himself to be made an high Priest c. nor any Evangelist or any true Bishop or Presbyter nor any holy men succeeding them did ever take to themselves either as to the whole or any part of that power and Ministry not so much as to be a Deacon but still attended the Heavenly call and mission either immediatly Luke 12.42 Who then is a faithfull and wise Steward whom the Lord shall make ruler over his household to give them their portion in due season 43. Blessed c. 1 Tim. 3.15 If I tarry long that thou mayst know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the house of God c. which was confirmed by miracles and speciall revelations or predictions or mediatly in such an order and method of succession as the Lord of the Church who is not a God of confusion hath appointed and to this day preserved who otherwayes would have left his Church short of that blessing of orderly Government and Officers appointed for holy ministrations which is necessary in every society and which no wise man that is Master of any Family doth omit to appoint and settle especially in his personall absence where he governs by a visible derived and delegated authority given to others as Christ now doth his Church as to the extern order and dispensation of holy things Peoples duty The duty of all faithfull people in which bounds their comforts are conteined are no less distinct and evidently confined Quomodo valebit homo secularis sacerdotis magisterium adimplere cujus nec officium tenuit nec disciplinam agnovit Isid Hisp off l. 2. c. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lay man is bound up by Lay commands to keep his rank and order Cl. ep pag. 53. Nor can saith he the Presbyters be cast out or degraded without a great sin Pag. 57. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Exors officii exors solatii praemii Is Hisp Matth.
Heb. 2.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is the Generalissimo chief Captain and Prince of our Salvation who having in former times delivered his Servants the true and faithful Ministers from the paws of the Lions and the Bears Heathenish force and Heretical furies will also deliver them out of the hands of these uncircumcised Philistims who having received from their Ministry what ever honor and privilege they can pretend to as Christians yet now carry themselves as if they were aliens from the Israel of God and had never had relation to or blessing from this or any other true Church where hath been a constant Ministry not more famous for Learning and Industry than blessed with all Evangelical excellencies and happy successes To which now the Lord is pleased to adde this crown of patience under great tribulations and of perseverance in suffering much evil discâ—uragement wheâ—e it hath deserved so well CAVIL III. Or Objection about Christian gifts and exercising in common as Preachers or Prophets ALl impartiall spectators may hitherto behold the salvation of God how the insolent opposers of the Ministeriall function the men of Gath are in their first encounter so deeply smitten and woun ed that they ly groveling on the ground The remayning motions which they may seem to have Inconditi morientium motus invalidi expirantium conatus Sym. are but the inordinate strokes of hands and heels the last batteries and weak struglings which attend impotent revenge and exspiring malice It will be no hard matter to set my foot upon their prostâ—ate power and to sever their Heads from their Shoulders that they rise up no more by the means of that two edged and unparalleld Sword of the Scriptures rightly applyed which hath both sharpness weight and brightness the clearest reason potentest conviction and divinest Authority with which they thought to arm themselves against the peculiar Office of the Ministry Yet there are some seconds and recruits who seem to have less fury and malice against the Ministry who seeing the chief Champion of the Antiministeriall faction thus Levelled come in either as to the spoyl or rescue as Ajax to Ulysses holding before them the shield of manifold Scriptures Alleging That notwithstanding there may be granted some peculiar Office and Institution of the publike Ministry yet as to the power of preaching or liberty of prophecying the promise is common to all believers Joâ—l 2.28 cited Acts 2.17 for the powring out of the spirit upon all flesh in the later dayes for the Annointing from above which shall lead every believer into all Truth so that they shall not need any man should teach them 1 Joh. 2.27 Rom. 12.6 1 Cor. 14.1 1 Thes 5.19.20 1 Cor. 12.7.39 Acts 18.26 being all taught of God That the manifestation and gifts of the spirit are given to every one for the good of the Church in teaching exhorting prophecying c. Which every one is to covet and may communicate to others for their conversion or confirmation as Aquila and Priscilla did to Apollos and other Christians in Primitive dispersions exercising and employing their talents received if not as Ministers in Office and ordeined yet as Prophets and gifted Brethren if not as Pastors yet as Teachers 1 Per. 4.11 In like sort Christians now find their gifts of knowledge and utterance to great and good that they cannot smother them nor suffer them to be restrained and oppressed by the Ministers encroachment and Monopoly Thus they who would seem to be somewhat more civill and equanimous to the calling and Office of the Ministry Answ 1. Gifts in others no prejudice to the Office of the Ministry nor warrant to any man publike arrogancy My Answer first in generall is That all these and the like small shot which Infaustus * Socinno lib. de Eccl. Socinus * Osterâ—d Inst c. 42. Osterodius * Smaltzius de Ord. Ecc. Smaltzius * Radeccius de Eccl. Radeccius * Theoph. Nicolaides defens Socin c. 1. Acts 14 23. When they had ordained them elders in every Church Acts 13.2 Separate to me Paul and Barnabas 1 Tim. 4.14 5.22 Acts 18.28 Heb. 14.17 2 Tim. 2 4. 1 Thes 5.12 13. 1 Tim. 5.17 1 Cor. 12.18 c. 1 Cor. 14.32 V. 33. 40. Rom 16 17. 2 Thes 3.6 2 Tim. 4.3 Primitive prophecying what 1 Pet. 1.19 Prophetae Scâ—pturacum interpretes erant maximè propheticarum obscurarum Ambr. Theoph. Chrysost Prophetarum munus erat mysticum Scripturarum sensum ad salutem auditorum explanare Erasm in 1 Cor. 14. 1 Cor. 4.30 1 Cor. 14.29 c. Nicolaides and others of the revived Arians have afforded these Semiant iministeriall adversaries have been oft discharged and received without any hurt as to the divinely established Office of the Ministry Having been either satisfied with all ingenuous concessions as far as order modesty and charity will carry them or refuted with just replyes against all vanity arrogancy and confusion by those learned men who formerly or lately have given very sober solid and liberall satisfaction to any pleas urged or scruples alleged out of Scripture which will in no sort maintain idleness vanity pride and confusion in the Church under the specious names of liberty gifts and prophecying There are indeed many places exciting Christians to labour to abound in every good gift and work but yet as many to keep them within due order and holy bounds becomming the honour of Religion All those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gifts were never more eminent and common in the Church of Christ than in those times when the Ministeriall power was by peculiar marks ceremonies and duties distinctly and undoubtedly conferred on some peculiar persons as the Apostles and 70. Disciples on Timothy Titus and others who were separated and ordeined by fasting praying examination and imposition of hands to be Bishops or Presbyters in the respective Churches as they came to be capable of setled order and Ministry And notwithstanding the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit which were then conferred upon many not yet ordeined Ministers we see the Office and honour of the Ministry was never more clearly asserted as divine being set over the flocks by the Lord so to be owned and esteemed as distinct from secular intanglements as an retire and compleat imployment even for the best and ablest men to which they should once ordeined wholy give themselves and attend on it Never was order and peace and proportion in the Church more enjoyned and duly observed never were disorderly and unruly walkers false Apostles self-obtruders house-creepers heaps of teachers who caused divisions more severely repressed than in those Primitive times when believers enjoyed most eminent gifts and graces for some ends either in miracles or toungs or prophecying which was not that eminentest sense of prophecying that is foretelling things to come but the opening and applying the places of the Prophets in the old Testament which was then
power and office of that Ministry which Christ and the Apostles had setled in the Church and to which they pretended to have a zeal Fourthly at the worst what ever they were or did regularly or irregularly as to the point of Preaching Christ crucified the Apostle so far rejoyced not as they were passionate or peevish envious disorderly c. but so far as God restrained them in any moderate bounds of truth-speaking It was some joy to see a less degree of mischief and scandal arise from their perversness and spite That they did not blaspheme that Name and preach another Gospell or corrupt this in points of doctrine with Jewish or Hereticall leaven no less than they did with those tinctutes of passions envy and defects of Charity A good Christian may rejoyce at any preparation of men to receive the Gospell In omni malo est aliqua boni mixtura Simpliciter enim absolute malum esse non potest Neque enim est malum pura negatio sed debiti boni privatio neque est cognoscibile nisi per bonum Tho. Aq. 1. q. 14. Non humane est imbecilitatis plena indagine conoscere quâ ratione Deuâ— mala fieri patiatur quae non incuriâ sed consilio permittuntur Salv. l. 1. Gub. Mirandum non est quod mala exurgant sed vigilandum est ne noceant nec permitteret Deus ex surgere nisi sanctos per hujusmodi tentationes erudiri expediret Aust Ep. 141. as in the Indies tho they be first taught it in much weakness and superstition It is so far happy in the worst of times and things that there is no simple or sincere evill which hath not some mixture of good in it which it abuseth else it could not be at all and some extraction of good may be from it by the omnipotent wisdome of God causing all things to work together for the good of his Church Gods permissions not to be urged against his Precepts and Institutions But what sober Christian will urge Gods permissions against his Precepts and Institutions The rule in the Word is still right constant and divine though in the water of events providence may seem crooked and irregular Gods toleration of evill of disorders or heresies in the Church doth not justifie them in the least kind against his Word which forbids them The Apostle was glad and so may we be in evill times that things were no worse but he allows them not to be so bad Quae permittit Deus non approbat in permisso praviter agente quamvis apprâ—bet permissionem suam profundissimè potentissimè sapientia quae bona ex malo ducenda novit Vid. Aust Ep. 120. Ep. 159. In abdito est consâ—lium Dei quo malis bene utitur mirificans bonitatis suae omnipotentiam Rom. 3.8 Multa sunt in intentione operantis â—ala quae in eventu operis bona sunt Aquin. Praescientia praepotentia sua non rescindit Deus libertatem creaturae quam instituerat Tertul. lib. 2. cont Marcâ—on vid. Synes ep 57. nor would he approve the doing of evill or the envy and spightfulness in preaching that good might come thereby He only considered it in the event as to Gods disposing not in the agent or fact as to mans perverting A sober and wise man may make a good use of others madness and folly as God doth of mans and devills malice One may rejoyce that there are some poysonous creatures by which to make Theriacas and Antidotes Many venomous beasts have the cure in them against their own stings and poâ—sons The same Apostle might rejoyce in the supposed not decreed and absolute Necessity of Heresies There must be heresies 1 Cor. 11.19 that as in these times the constancy of judicious and sincere Christians may be made manifest It is some ease that Impostumes break Plus est jucunditatis in sapientia Dei quae bona è maâ—is extrahit quà m in malis molestiae Lact. l. de Ira. Respondet Epicuri quaest cur Deus permisit mala cum potens sit bonus Permisit malum ut eâ—icaret bonum Id. Acts 27. whereby corrupt humors are let out and spent possibly the Apostle might in some sense or notion have rejoyced in the storm he suffred and the shipwrack so far as it discovered Gods extraordinary protection to him and for his sake to those with him And so may all his faithfull Servants the Ministers have cause at last to rejoyce when the Lord hath brought them and this Church to the fair haven after this foul weather which seeks to overwhelm them But Christ is in the ship and they have a good Pilot God whose Spirit with their own bids them be of good chear The Lord can and will save his that be godly from so great a death But such joyes are the serious and sincere raptures of very godly and wise men far enough sequestred from the flashes of the world which hardly ever discern in Events what is of God from what is of man Good events in which Gods over-powring is seen are oft consequentiall not intentionall Severa res est gaudium Sen. Cl. Alex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to the second agents and flow not from their will or vertue but follow their work through Gods soveraign over-ruling who as St. Austin sayes would not permit any evill of sin to have been in and from the creatures pravity of free will and infirmity of power if his infinite both power and goodness had not known how to extract the good of his glory out of the greatest evill And truly this good we hope through the mercy of God The good which may come from this evill to true Ministers Phil. 1.16 both all true Ministers and all true Christians in this Church of England will reap by this envy contention spitefull unsincere and uncivill dealing of these Anti-ministeriall Adversaries who cry up their new preaching and prophesying wayes thereby thinking to adde affliction to those bonds and distresses which are upon Ministers in these dangerous and difficult times That this will make all true Ministers more study to be able for to walk worthy of and alwayes to adorn that holy profession and divine Ministration which they have upon them that so they may stop the mouths of gainsayers Tit. 1.9 Saluberrimus est malorum inimicorum usus quo illorum quadam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meliores vigilantiores reddamur Erasm 1 Cor. 3.1 who lye in wait for their halting and reâ—oyce at their fallings Also it will breed in all others that are serious sound and good Christians a greater abhorrency of these insolent and disorderly wayes in the Church the root and fruits of which are carnall not spirituall pride faction strife bitterness confusion scom of religion corruption of all true doctrine and holy manners neglect and disuse of holy duties prophaness and disposition to all
Ministers or others who are of different judgements Is it not their trespass that true Ministers know too much that they see too clearly that they examine things too strictly that they admit no latitudes of Civill interests or State policies Multis in culpa est ut Socrati Athenis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pictatis literatura omnigenumque virtutuÌ„ eminentia cujus individua comes est invidia Melan. and sinfull necessities as dispensations of Gods Morall Law and the rules of both common honesty and true piety That they stand valiantly many of them and as becomes them in the gap against the insinuations and invasions of those infamous heresies those received errors those vile and putred novelties those perfect madnesses those apparent blasphemies confusions and dissolute Liberties which threaten this reformed Church with a more sure inundation than the Sea doth the Low-Countriss if the banks and dams be not preserved Is not this with some men the unpardonable sin of the best Ministers that they do not crouch and flatter and fawn on every plausible error on every powerfull novelty every proud fancy and high imagination Veritas nemini blanditur nemâ—nem palpat nullum seducit a pertè omnibus denunciat c. Bern. that they lick not the sores of any mens consciences or the pollutions of any mens hands with servile and adulterate tongues That they do not cry up or in any kind own for the gifts of the Spirit those passionate or melancholy or cunning and affected motions and extravagancies which some men strongly fancy to themselves and weakly demonstrate to others as to any thing like to sound reason or Scripture religion Suidas in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herodes primus ex alienigenis ex Judaorum ex ima plebe artus Ignobilitatis suae conscius Genealogias Judaicas exussit quantas poiuit ut sic facilius nobilitatem suam ementiatur Euseb hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 7. That they oppose these Bells and Dragons of fanatick Divinity which the Authors of them will never be able to advance to any publike veneration or reception as spirituall heavenly and divine among sober Christians in England while such wise Daniels live who have neither leisure nor boldness so to mock God and to play with religion nor untill as Ptolomy did to magnifie the Image of Diana to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faln from heaven so they deal with able Ministers when the best Statuaries had formed an Image of Diana to rare perfection the King at one supper destroyed them all by the ruine of the house where they were and after produced the Statue as faln from heaven Or as Herod the Idumaean or mungrill Jew did with the antient Records and Genealogies of the stems of the Kings and succession of the Priests among the Jews that so he might by abolishing them the better bring on his own tide So must these Antiministeriall adversaries first destroy and cancell both common reason in mens souls and the whole Canon of the Scriptures which are the durable oracles of God Artiâ—ciâ—sa sibi parant Lumina Histriones quâ melius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ous suas obtegere simulari possint Lenocinantibus lucernis meridianum solem quasi de nimio splendore exprobrantes Sydo Veritas loquendigrande praesagium mali Lact. Psal 18.24 for the Churches directions and all learned interpreters of them Torches of private Spirits are ridiculous too be lighted up while the Sun shines unless it be for those who having some mask or play to act reproach the Noon-day Sun of to much splendor and make to themselves and others an artificiall Night which will better serve their turns When all light of true reason and Scriptures are extinguished in this Church and Nation or much Eclipsed then and not before will honest-hearted Christians believe that they have no need of true Ministers or that those they have hitherto had have not been worthy the name of reformed or have pertinaciously reteined any such Popish opinions or superstitions as are inconsistent with true piety And in this thing let the Lord deal with us according to the clearness of our hands and the uprightness of our hearts in his sight either to deliver us into or redeem us out of the hands of violent and unreasonable men whose very mercies have proved cruell to poor Ministers whose pious constancy is the greatest thorn in some mens sides But if our wayes please God he can make our very enemies at peace with us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. Prov. 16.7 Wholy to remove the antient Ministry as some men aym under pretence of bringing up a new nursery of gifted brethren and Prophets which like under-woods are not so likely to thrive while Ministers like goodly Timber trees grow so high above them and over drop them will be a work fully compleating those sad effects which disorderly unordeined unsent and unabled Teachers and false Prophets have already begun to bring forth in this Church And how can it ever be thought or hoped that they will bring forth better fruits either for the truth honour or power of the Reformed Religion either for the Peace of Church or State unless there be a speciall committee appointed for the regulating of Prophets and tryall of their gifts in which none may be fitter for learning piety and moderation to be Chayr-man than that Author and zealous assertâ—r of the peoples Liberty and Privilege Pag. 3. who says he is not so much a friend to these new Prophets as to be an utter enemy to the function of the old Ministers though he would have Prophets planted yet not Ministers pulled up root and branch but only pruned from that which he calls superstition wherein his Charity to Ministers may perhaps make his censorious severity veniall He that so much studies the Reformation of Ministers we hope will not bring in such Esopick and deformed Prophets as most of those who have yet appeared rather to scare men from than to instruct good Christians in true holyness and Religion It is evident enough 15. The vanity and mischief of false and foolish Prophets and too much to all true reformed Christians what wide gaps that generation of pretended Prophets and gifted Brethren have already made for the easy inrodes of what is truly Popery superstition or meer formality All sorts also of corrupt opinions and Heresies together with Idleness barrenness barbarity Illiteratness Ignorance Atheism and contempt of all true Reformed Religion both in the power and extern form order and profession of it Many men being prone have learned easily to make little conscience of hearing reverencing or obeying the word of God Even from any true Ministers never so able and worthy since they have learned to scorn make sport of and laugh at these novell and pittifull pretenders to Preaching and prophecying of whose insufficiency and non-authority to Preach and administer any holy mysteries in Christs name common people being
Over whose Walls the crafty malice of Jesuitick Foxes and any other enemies will easily go and break them down Neh. 4.3 when ever they pass which makes many men suspect that these Lay Preachers are but the left hand of Babels builders fit instruments to divide Muros dum erigunt mores negligunt Bern. confound and destroy the Reformed Religion in these British Churches and all those who study to preserve it Which they only can with any shew of reason effectually do by Gods blessing who are workmen that for their Authority and approved skill as well as their good will and readiness to build need not to be ashamed 2 Tim. 2.15 Of whose reall sufficiencies these new bunglers are most impatient hearers and perfect haters because from those Ministers exactness these mens bungling receives the severest reproaches and justest oppositions A man may as well hope that hogs by their rootings and moles by their castings will Plow and till his ground as that such Arbitrary Casuall and contingent forwardness or such inordinate activities of poor but proudly gifted men will any way help on the great work of Christian Religion the propagating of the Gospell or the Reformation of hearts or Churches which require indeed the greatest competency and compleatness both for gifts learning and due Authority that can be had both for the Majesty of Religion and for the defence of the truth as also for the binding to diligence and exactness the conscience of the Ministers no less than for the satisfaction of other mens consciences in point of the validity of Sacraments and other holy Ministrations which have not any Physicall or naturall vertue but a mysticall and Religious only which depends upon the relation they have to the word and Spirit of the holy Institutor and Commander Jesus Christ So that it is indeed a very strange bewitchedness and depravedness in many mens appetites that they should so cry up those mush-room Prophets and Teachers who need more sauce to make them safe or savory than their bodies are worth who are self-planted soon started up in one night as if they were beyond all those former Goodly plants for beauty sweetness and wholesomness which much study care learning pains and prayers have planted in the Church Or that Christians should so far flatter themselves that the soyl here in England since it was watered with civill bloud is so well natured and fruitfull that there needs no such care and culture as was antiently used in the Garden of God either in setting watering preparing or transplanting those trees of the Ministry which should be full of life Rev. 22.2 Supersâ—minationes satanae whose leaves should be for the healing as well as their fruits for the nourishing of mens souls So confident the devill seems to be of the giddiness folly negligence and simplicity of these times that he stirs up the very thistles the most useless and most offensive burthens of the earth which the foot of every vile beast is ready to crush and trample upon to chalenge and contemn the Cedars of Lebanon 2 Kings 14.9 And he would fain perswade reformed Christians to cut down and stub up those goodly trees of the Lord which are tall strait and full of sap as cumbring the ground that those sharp and sorry shrubs those dry and sapless kexes may have the more room and thrive the better pretending that they will at easier rates and with less pains supply all the Churches occasions when the Lord knows and all excellent Christians see by sad experience that they are so far from that length strength and straitness required in the beams and pillars of the Temple that their crooked and knotty shortness will scarce afford a pin on which to hang the least vessell of the Sanctuary Excellent Christians I protest before the Lord that I write not thus out of any desire to grieve quench or exasperate any mans Spirit 17. No design in the Author to grieve any good mans Spirit or discourage his gifts 1 Joh. 4.1 in whom the wise and sanctifying graces or usefull gifts of Gods Spirit do dwell in the least measure with truth and humility but only in the way of trying the gifts and Spirits whether they be of God or no if they be found by the word of God to be proud foolish evill unclean unruly refusing to be bound with any bonds of good order and government such as seems to have possessed some in this Church who seek to bewitch others and to trouble all God forbid we should not all of us strive by fasting prayer preaching writing and all just rebukes of them to cast them out Luke 9.42 notwithstanding their cryings tearings and foamings It is far I hope from my Soul by any envy or undervaluing of any good Christians to damp the Spirit of Christ in them I would have every one study to improove the talents he hath and to be employed according to his reall improovement of which no man being naturally proud and self flatterers is fit to be judge himself but ought to be subject to the tryall and judgement of others both as to that light and heat knowledge and zeal gifts and graces which any may pretend to and wherein they may be really usefull to the publike or any community of Christians whose edifying in faith and love we have all cause both in conscience and prudence dayly to nourish and increase in Gods way which is an orderly peaceable and blessed way wherein only either private Christians or Church societies can hope to thrive and flourish Num. 11.29 I wish with Moses all the Lords people were Prophets Both able to give an account of their knowledge in the mysteries of Christ and also to help on in an orderly way as every wheel or pin doth in the motions of a watch the great and weighty work of saving souls which is the main end of the Ministers calling and pains Better we Ministers be despised than the Spirit of Christ in any gracious heart be justly grieved or any good work of God in the Church hindred But we are well assured by good experience that none would be less despisers or more encouragers lovers and zealous preservers of the true Evangelicall Ministry and its divine Authority than such men who have graces with their gifts and are both able and humble none are more slow to speak to others in the name of Christ James 1.19 than they who cannot hear others Preaching with due abilities and authority without fear and trembling as reverencing God and the Lord Jesus Christ in their Ministers There is no danger of able parts where there are humble and honest hearts no more than we need fear the strength of any part in the body will hurt or offend the whole body or disorder and violate any other Member which is above it in place in honour and in operation or function Reason teacheth us that the ability or
Donatists of old were who so challenged the title of the Church to their factions as to exclude all others and refuse the offers and means of accord As Cyprian Ep. 95. and Aust Ep. 164. tell us To which brands of Schism we are then lyable only when we recede or separate from visible communion with any Church without just and weighty cause shewn out of the word or when we go further from them than there is just cause and that too without charity refusing the good which they have while we withdraw from the evill we suspect Which would be the case of the Church of England in this point of immoderate Reformation if we should as some would have us therefore separate from all Scriptures Sacraments Ministry Primitive Government and order because all these were retained used and after abused much by the Roman Church and Papall party we are bid to come out of Babylon Rev. 18.4 but not to run out of our wits to act as Gods people with meekness moderation and Charity not with that fierceness passion and cruelty which makes us as Sons of Belial inordinatly run from one Antichrist to another Many Christians in the Roman Church may have in them much of Antichrist in some kinds and so God knows may many others in other kinds either in Doctrine or manners in endless innovations and unsetled confusions or in rigor and uncharitableness All which may betray us to what we seem most to abhor in Antichrist for if nothing have more of Christ than Charity nothing can have more of Antichrist than that uncharitableness Uncharitableness is as Antichristâ—an as error A ChristianoruÌ„ dissidiis venturus Antichristus occasionem accipiet Naz. Orat. 14. which many men nourish for zeal mistaking a Cockatrice for a Dove and a firy Serpent for a Phenix Which may be as Anti-Christian in popular furies as in papall tyrannies in confusions as in oppressions It is strange how some men cry out against the cruelty of some Papists which indeed hath been very great when yet Qui Christi non est Antichristi est Jeron Ep. 57. ad Damas they have the same Spirit of destruction in their own breast both against the Papists and others longing for such a Kingdom of Christ as they call it and such a downfall of Antichrist which shall consist in War and Blood and Massacres against and among all Christians which are not of their mind and side We think that in charity we ought not to impute the faults and errors of every Pope or Doctor of the Roman side to all those of that profession Nor ought we take those learned men among them alwaies at their worst finding there is great difference between what they may hold in the heat of publike disputes and what they opine and practise in a private way noâ— are their death-bed tenets alwaies the same with those of their Chayrs and Pulpits Besides many of the more devout and learned men among them are now both in opinions and lives much more modest holy and Reformed than some were heretofore whose Reformation in judgement or manners in verity purity and charity we do really congratulate and joy in And for the Body of the common people among the Romanists many are ignorant of those disputes wherein the mistaking is most dangerous which if they do hold yet it is under the perswasion and love of truth Qui à seductis parentibuus erâ—oâ—em acceperunt quaerunt autem cauta solicitudine veritatem corrigi paâ—ati cum invenerint hi nequaquam sunt inter haereticos deputandi Aust Ep. 162. 1 Cor. 3.12 retaining still the foundation of Christ Crucified and hoping for salvation only by his merits as many now profess to do and living in no known sin but striving to lead an holy and charitable life in all things Charity commands us to think that in such the mercy of God accepting their sincere love to the truth and their unfeigned obedience to what they know pardons particular errors which they know not to be such wherein no lust of pride or covetousness c. either obstructs or diverts them from the way of Truth Though the superstructures may be many of straw and stubble which shall perish yet holding the foundation Christ crurcified in a pure conscience they shall be saved in the day of the Lord Though the vessell be leaky in many places yet by great care in steering and frequent pumping that is true faith and repentance it may keep the soul from Shipwrack and drowning in perdition which is embarked in the bottom of Christian Religion and which steers alwaies by the compass of conscience setting all the points of conscience by the Chart or rules of Scripture as neer as he can attain by his teachers or his own industry We are sorry for our necessary differences from the Romanists or others which yet our consciences so far command us as we think our selves enlightned by the word of God contrary to which we cannot and ought not to be forced actually to conform or to comply with any men in things Religious Yet have we no lust of faction no delight in separation no bloody principles or tenets against any Christians of any particular Church desiring the same charity from them to us which may in lesser differences from each other yet unite us to Christ and to the Catholick Church as true parts of it though infirm or diseased This temper we should not despair of in the devouter and humbler Romanists if they were not daily enflamed by politick Spirits and violent Bigots among them who will endure no Religion as Christian which doth not kiss the Popes Pantofle or hold his stirrop or submit to that pride flattery and tyranny which some of them have affected when indeed it ill becomes those that chalenge a chief place in Christs Church to be so vastly different from the example of the crucified Saviour of Christians Such talents then as have been once divinely delivered to the Roman as to all other Christian Churches we have all aright to as believers in private and as Christians or Churches in publike communion and profession nor can these Jewels be so embezeled by being buried or abused but that we may safely take them up clear and use them together with those other which we have obteined through the grace and bounty of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ In whose name and right we as a part of his Catholick Church received them first and enjoy them now only Reformed according to what we first received of them without any prejudice or diminution to their true and intrinsecall worth which is divine by reason of our fellow servants former or present idle imperious impure or injurious use of them We accept and use the holy vessels which belong to the temple and the Lord of the Church Ezra 7. without scruple when they are graciously restored out of the profane hands of revelling Balshazzers The remaining silver censers
antient Patern at least which God setled the Government of his Church among the Jews who had the heads of their Fathers as Bishops and rulers over their brethren the Priests and Levites Numb 3.24 Now 't is manifest that our Lord Christ and the Apostles had great regard to the Judaick customs in Christian Institutions As in the Baptising with water In the use of the Bread and Wine in the Lords Supper In the Sabbatising on the Lords Day and in the giving the power of the Keys to the Pastors and Teachers of the Church to open and shut to bind and loose expressing thereby Ministeriall Authority In all which there was some like or parallell precedents among the Jews in making their Rabbins and in celebrating holy mysteries and governing those of that Church and Religion 2. For the new Testament nothing either of precept or example seems against a right Episcopacy commanding a parity or forbidding order and subjection among Presbyters as well as other men what Christ forbids his Apostles of exercising dominion after the manner of Princes of the world excludes indeed First from the twelve who were pares in Apostolatu equally Apostles and were not long to live in one society but to lay the foundations of Religion in all the world by a parity of power coordinate but not subordinate to any but Christ who chose them and proportionably forbids all Bishops and Church-men the secular methods of gaining or using any Ecclesiasticall power and eminency in the Church as by ambition force usurpation tyranny by the sword and severities penally inflicted on the Bodies Estates Liberties and lives of men which was the way of the world but not of Christ or his Ministers yet these tyrannies which attend mens lusts and passions as men are as incident besides factions and emulations to the Presbyterian way where some are alwaies heady and leaders as to that of a right and regular Episcopacy whereto Presbyters are joyned The plain meaning of our Lord Jesus who owned himself as chief among his Apostles Calvin Inst l. 4. c. 4. Sect. 2. Saith Episcopall eminency is the best way to prevent Schisms and to keep peace in the Church Luke 22.26 But ye shall not be so But he that is greatest among you let him be as the youngest and he that is chief as he that doth serve Mat. 24. There may be a wise servant whom the Lord may set over his house Timothy is taught how to behave himself in the Church as a Governour no less than a Minister or Teacher 1 Tim. 3.15 Remis non sceper is guberuent Episcopi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost de Episc Tom. 4. p. 627. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is pel l. 2. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Liban to Basil says Bishops were c. Basil Ep. 154. yet condescended to serve them is That what ever excellency any Christian Minister or other had above others in age estate parts place power gifts graces or civill honors for what hinders a Prince or Nobleman to be a Minister of the Gospell and yet retain both his honour and estate temporall all these should be used and enjoyed without the leaven of pride insolency or oppression and only be turned to greater advantages of serving Christ and the Church with all humble Industry As Christ himself did And after him the Apostles who had undoubtedly as some order and precedency among themselves in the equality of their Apostolicall power so also priority both of place superiority of Church jurisdiction and authority and power over all other Disciples and beleivers And this not from any personall gifts temporary and privileges so much as from that wisdom and peaceable order which Christ would have observed alwaies in his Church after the Apostolicall example By some of whom as the antients tell us Some Ministers were clearly constituted as Bishops with an eminency of personall power over others to ordein censure rebuke silence even Presbyters and Deacons D. Blondell confesseth p. 183. None can be dispensed witâ— as tâ— the violating or neglect of that Chu ch ordâ—r and Government wh ch is pâ—esc ibed to Timothy and Titus which rule is of Divine right and perpetuall This is undeniably evident by Scripture in Timothy and Titus The validity and authority of which examples were esteemed by Antiquity and followed as warrantable divine precedents and obligatory examples to after ages in the like cases at least for imitation By preserving such an ordinary succession of power in Bishops among and above Presbyters both in ordination and jurisdiction Nor is this clear instance to be any way in reason avoyded by saying that Timothy and Titus w re Evangelists what ever that Office were in the Church either temporary and personall or common to other chief Ministers and perpetually to succeed for it makes nothing against a personall superiority of power and authority in them over their respective Churches which was to succeed to others in all reason as well as their Ministry did both these being alwaies necessary for the Church and indeed their ordinary power as to Government had no dependance on their being Evangelists 2 Tim. 2.15 1 Tim. 4.13 2 Tim. 4.2 no more than their Preaching and other Ministeriall acts had which we may not argue from these two persons to be incompatible to any Ministers now Unless they be Evangelists For then no Presbyters that are not Evangelists in their sense might study or Preach in season and out of season rebuke exhort c. or shew themselves Workmen that need not to be ashamed c. Now if these acts and Offices of Ministry are derivable to other single persons in a Ministeriall way why not also that Gubernative power too which was from the Apostle signally committed to Timothy and Titus and no where so expresly to any fraternity of Ministers or Presbytery in common 2 Cor. 11.5.12.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ioh. 21.15 After that rate of arguing we may conclude that none but the very chief Apostles might feed the Lambs and Sheep of Christ because that command was thrice given to Peter who was reckoned among the chiefest of the Apostles which Conclusions were as absurd and ridiculous being by all the practise and sense of the Primitive Churches confuted as this that the power of proving and ordeyning Presbyters 1 Tim. 5.19.22 Tit. 1.5 by laying on of hands of receiving accusations against them of rebuking censuring excommunicating silencing and restoring all Acts gubernative may not be eminently in any single person unless they be Apostles or Evangelists when as not only the use of such order and power is in all reason necessary for Church societies no less than for civill but the succession of it in such sort as it began in them to all times after seems clearly intimated by that vehement charge layd on Timothy 1 Tim. 5.21 2 Tim. 4.5 to keep those things unpartially and unblameably untill the comming of our Lord Jesus
Christ Which Timothy in his infirm person could not do but in his care to transmit the holy patern to posterity and to his successors he might as he was enjoyned be said to do For what is once well done in a regular publike way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas M. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. Perenâ—â—s est aeterna praeclari exemplaris virtus Jeron Quadratus Atheniensis Eccl. Episcopus Apostolorum Discipulus Jeron Ep. ad Mag. St. Jerom tels us that St. John wrote his Gospell at the intreaty of the Bishopâ— of Asia Catal. Script Eccl. c. 9. Rev. 2. Angels i. e. Apostoli nuntii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. Bibl. è Diod. Sic. l. 40. Austin Sub Angeli nomine Laudatur praepositus Ecclesiae So Beza Annot. The chief teacher in the Synagogue was called the Angell of the Congregation Anisw in Deut. 31.11 So Malachi 2.7 The Priests lips shall preserve knowledge for he is the Angel or Messenger of the Lord of Hosts is ever after done as to the permanency of that vertue which is in a good and great example What other Churches did observe after the Apostles times Ordo Episcoporum ad originem recensus in Johannem stabit autorém Tertul. l. 4. c. 5. ad Marcio So Clem. Alex. testifies that S. John made Bishops in Asia Ignatius Epist ad Ephâ—s but twelve years after the Revelation written Dionysius Polycarpus Placed by St. John for the Bishop of â— Smyrna Iren. l. 3. c. 3. Before the Revelation So the Epistle of the Smyrnenses justify of him calling him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb l. 4. Hist 116. Anno 1450. Fratres Bohemi lib. de fide moribus eorum as to the manner of their Government when they grew numerous and spread to many Congregations and Presbyteries we may easily be resolved both by the testimony and practise of all Antiquity Fathers Councils Historians who have registred the uninterrupted succession of Bishops from the Apostles both in the seven Asiatick Churches mentioned in the Revelation whose * Angels were generally taken for their Presidents or Bishops and some of Apostles then living when as Archippus Evodius and Onesimus and Polycrates were Bishops c. What after times observed is evident to this day among all Christians even those of the Eastern and Abyssine Church have still their Bishops so the Greek and Muscovitish Churches so the furthest Asians which are thought to have been first converted by St. Thomas who furthest from believing did the penance of travelling furthest to Preach the Gospell in India And I observe the Fratres Bohemi in their persecuted state and poverty for a long time still retained a very happy and comly order of Episcopall Government Truly I never found so much light of Scripture patern and precept enjoyning any one or more Presbyters to do all those works of power and jurisdiction Nor ever did they without the presence of an Apostle or some Apostolicall successor and Bishop regularly ordein excommunicate silence c. so far as I can yet learn There are but two texts that mention the Presbytery and but one which can be pretended for ruling Lay-Elders which yet these are not preceptive or institutive but meerly narrative and touching without expressing any joynt power Office or Authority of Presbyters with any President or Bishop much less without them and against them Yea I read in St. Judes Epistles v. 8. foul marks put upon those in the Church that despise dominions and speak evill of dignities Against whose proud and seditious practises a woe is denounced Vers 11. as against men cruell like Cain covetous like Balaam ambitious as Korah factious disturbers of that order which God hath set in his Church as well as in civill societies after the mutinous example of Korah and his company Numb 16.3 who rose against both Moses and Aaron parallel to whose evill manners and disorderly practises 2 Pet. 2.10 these men had not been against whom St. Jude here and St. Peter in his second Epistle so sharply inveighs as presumptuous self-willed despisers of dignities c. unless there had been some eminencies in the Church Christian as well as was among the Jews which these men were most bold to oppose and contemn As for the civill powers Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2.13 that then were in the world humble Christians made conscience as God commanded them to submit to them in all honest things And those hypocrites were no doubt too wary to adventure any thing against them whose power was terrible by the sword But the Orders Governments Dignities and Dominions in the Church were exposed by their weakness to the scorn and affronts of any such proud and tumultuating Spirits which covered themselves under the veil of Christian Religion yea and pretensions of the Spirit too Jâ—d 19. the better to set off their Schisms and separatings from that authority power and order which God had by the Apostles setled in the Church even in those times 5 If there were not thus much of Scripture patern and precept pleading fairly for a right Episcopacy yet since there is nothing against it in Scripture or Reason in Religion or morals yea and so much for it in common reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato de leg Nihil sit in rep sine ordinis regiminis custodia So Lycurgus o dered ut nullus in repub ordo sine proprio esset Magisterio true polity and almost necessitie in Church societies no less than in either families Cities armies or any fraternities and Corporations of men No doubt the Lord of his Church hath not deprived or denyed that liberty and benefit of good order and rationall Government to his Church which in all civill societies may lawfully be used according to wisdom and discretion Truly we may as well think it unlawfull for one Minister to excell another or many others in age parts learning prudence gravity and gubernative faculties which if they may lawfully he had and are found in some by the especiall gift of God to so great differences from and excellencies above others what Reason or Religion can forbid them to be accordingly used and publikely employed in answerable differences of place and power for the Churches good only Christ â—equires humility in priority Ministry in their majority and service in their superiority proportioned to their gifts and endowments which God never gave in vain Nor doth there ever want indeed a plebs and vulgarity among many Presbyters thought honest and able men some of whom are still young and prone to be passionate imprudent factious and schismaticall whose folly is not yet decocted nor youthfull heats abated c. For the good ordering of whom beyond a contemptible and heady parity a right Episcopall presidency may be as usefull lawfull and necessary as a little Wine was for Timothy in regard of his frequent infirmities 1 Tim. 5.23 which St. Jerom every where owns as the ground of the
many sinfull evils and snares while they forsake or cast out and despise their rightly Ordeined and duly placed Ministers and either follow and incourage such seducers as are very destructive both to the Churches peace and to mens souls both in the present and after ages or else fall to a neglect indifferency yea and abhorrency of all Religion The Order Power 20. Summary Conclusion of the power and efficacy of right Ordination and Authority then by which right Ordination is conferred on the true Ministers of the Gospel as was here in England although they seem to proud scorners to unstable minds to ignorant and unbelievers as frivolous as the Gospel seems foolishness yet to the humble eye of Faith it appears as the wisdome holy order and commission of God for the continuall teaching well guiding and edifying of the Church of God by truth and peace to Salvation The blessed and great effects of which depend as I have shewed not upon any naturall power or vertue tranfused from the Ordeiners to the Ordeined but upon the Word Promise and appointment of Christ sending them in this method of the Churches triall approbation and ordination In which by the judgement and conscience of those who are of the same function and so best able to examine and judge of gifts and abilities the examined and approved is publickly authorised and declared to be such a Minister as the Lord hath chosen to be sent such as the Spirit of Christ hath anointed and consecrated by meet gifts and graces for the service of Christ and the Church in that great work of the Ministry One who is thus ordeined the Church may in any part of it comfortably receive and own in Christs name One who is partaker duly of the comfort of that promise from Christ Mat. 28. to be with his true Ministers to the end of the world which could not be verified as interpreters observe of the persons of those then living and first sent by Christ who were long since at rest in the Lord but of their lawfull Successors rightly following them in the same office and power Non sunt successores in officio qui ad officium accedunt alio modo quam institutum est Reg. Jur. without which they are not truly their Successors in the Ministry and authority from Christ No more than they can be Embassadors Deputies and Messengers from or to any one from or to whom they have no assignment of any power by letters or other way of commission which when most legally and formally done by deeds and instruments of writing yet these receive no naturall change of their qualities nor is any inherent vertue conveyed to them when they are made instruments to testifie the Will and convey the power of any to another but they have such a change in relation to their appointed use and end as alters them from what they were before in common and unlimited nature The like is as to religious ends and uses where some men are specially ordeined to be Ministers having all their efficacy and authority as to that work from the will of Jesus Christ from whom alone such power is derivable and that not in every way which the vanity of men list but in such as the Church hath constantly used according to the Scripture Canons and directions which are clear to Timothy and Titus which are the great paterns and evident commissions for right Ordination and Succession to the Ministry besides other places Against the undoubted Authority and pregnant testimony of which Epistles and Scriptures joyned to the Churches Catholick custome it will not be easie for any Novelist to vacate and abolish that holy Succession and due Ordination which the true Ministers of England have generally had in this Church which in my own experience I cannot but with all truth and thankfulness testifie to the glory of God to the honour of this Church and those reverend Bishops as Fathers of it who not only with great decency and gravity but with much conscience and religious care ordeined Ministers as very many so very worthy Nor on the other side will these Novellers easily perswade judicious Christians That any upstarts and pretenders in any other way which as it is poor and popular so it comes very short and unproportionate to what is required in and of a Minister can have the power and Authority of true Ministers Habentes cum iis consortium praedicationis habeant necesse est consortium damnationis Tertul. de Haeret. auditoribus Jo. 2.8 having no right Ordination to which no mans pragmatick pride and self-confidence nor the ostentation of his gifts to others by a voluble tongue nor the admiration and desire of his si ly and flattering auditors can contribute any thing either as to the comfort of the one or the other but much to the sin and shame of them both as perverters of Christs order and the Churches peace forsaking their own mercies while they follow lying vanities which cannot profit them 17. Yet meer form of Ordination makes not an able Minister Not that every man that is Ordeined a Minister as to the meer outward form in a right and orderly way is presently of the essence and truth of a Minister in Christs esteem or in the comfort of his own conscience The ordeined may be such hypocrites as Simon Magus was when baptised as have neither reall abilities nor honest purposes aiming at Gods glory or the Churches good but meerly at their own worldly ends and base advantages The Ordeiners also may be either deceived in the judgement of Charity or corrupted by humane lusts and frailties so as greatly to pervert and prophane this holy Institution No man hath further comfort of his being Ordeined a Minister than he hath reall gifts and competent abilities together with an holy and honest purpose of heart to glorifie God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Baz M. ep 187. The antient custom of the Church receives none to be Ministers but upon strickt examination before they are ordeined Concil Nic. 1. and â—he Concil Caâ—ib 1. c 9. takes care that none be Ordeined Presbyters without due examination in the discharge of that holy office and power to which he is by the Church appointed Nor can on the other side the Ordeiners more highly offend in piety against God and charity against the Church than in a superficiall and negligent way of ordeining Ministers which antiently was not done but with solemn publick fasting prayer and great devotion Indeed nothing should be done in the Church of Christ with greater exactness both for inward sincerity and outward holy solemnity than this weighty and fundamentall work of carrying on the Ministeriall power and authority in a fit and holy Succession Abuses here are prone to creep in the Devill coveting nothing more than to undermine weaken and overthrow this main Pillar on which the Church and house of God doth stand Ministers either
have a name to * Revel 3.1 live by the Spirit and covet to be called spirituall who are dead in their lusts and walk after the flesh * Prov. 30 12. They seem pure in their own eyes and yet are not washed from their filthinesse Yea there is a generation O how lofty are their eyes yet are their teeth swords and their jaw teeth as knives Nothing is more cruell than supercilious hypocrisie * Ioh. 18.28 They were forward to crucifie Christ who were shy of being defiled by entring into the Judgement Hall They are most zealous to destroy the true Ministers yea the very function and succession who seem most devoted to be Teachers Prophets and Preachers of a new Spirit and form Many seem rich in gifts and increased in spirituall endowments thinking they need nothing of Christs true Ministry Revel 3.17 when they know not that they are poore and naked and blind and miserable Ephes 6.12 There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirituall wickednesses usurpant in the high places of mens soules as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more sordid and swinish spirits that dwell in the lower region of mens lusts It is expresly stigmatized on the foreheads of some pretenders to the Spirit Iude 19. which was the glory of those first and purest times that they are sensuall not having the Spirit Irenaeus l. 3. c. 1. of the Gnasticks andValentinians Gloriantur se â—mendatores esse Apostolorum perfectam cognitionmen non habuisse Apostolos cap. 2. Dicunt se non tantum Presbyteris sed Apostolis sapientiores sinceram invenisse veritatem So the Circumcelliones Quae non viderunt confingunt opiniones suâ—s habentes pro Deo honores quos non habuerunt se habuisse protestantur Isid Hisp de off Eccl. l. 3. c. 15. Vain and proud ignorance as we see in primitive times is not onely content to be without the true wise humble and orderly Spirit of God but they must also study to cover their follies disorders and hypocrisies with the shews of it as if it were not enough to sin against its manifest rules and examples in the Word which have alwayes been observed in the Church unlesse they impute also to it their simplicities fondnesses impudencies filthy dreams extravagancies and confusions Counting it no shame to ascribe those unreasonable and absurd motions speeches and actions to Gods most wise and holy Spirit which any man of right reason and sober sense or common ingenuity and modesty would be ashamed to owne Our humble prayer is that these new modellers and pretenders to the Spirit may learn not to blaspheme not to grieve resist and doe despite to the Spirit of God which hath been and still is evidently manifest in the true Ministers of this Church and our earnest study shall be that we may be truly endued with such gifts graces and fruits of the Spirit of Christ that we may both speak and doe and suffer as becomes good Christians and true Ministers after the example of holy men and of our great Master Bishop and Ordainer Jesus Christ That so the judicious Charity of those that excell in vertue wisdome faith and humility may have cause to say the Lord hath sent us in the power as well as in the order and office of the Ministry to which we were rightly ordained On the other side we fear that the great earthquakes in the Church and darknesse over the Reformed Religion which may follow the true Ministers being set at naught and crucified by the malice and wantonnesse of men may in after times give too much cause to those Mat. 27.54 that now neglect us or afflict us to say as the Centurion did of Christ Doubtlesse these were the messengers of the most high God the true Ministers of Jesus Christ and of his Gospell to this Church While we have any liberty and leave to live as Ministers it will become us not to be so discouraged by the impotent malice of any enemies as to desert this holy calling whereto the Lord by a right ordination in this Church hath duly called us Not to look back to the world having once put our hands to this plough to consider our persecutors no further than to pity them and pray for them notwithstanding all the injuries and blasphemies not against us so much as against God while they fear not to ascribe the great and good effects which the Lord hath vouchsafed to work by his Ministers upon the hearts of thousands in England to Beelzebub Mat. 12.24 to the spirit of Antichrist or to any thing rather than to own the Spirit of Christ among us which hee hath promised should ever be with his true and faithfull Ministers in an holy succession of authority and power to the end of the world Scandalous inconstancy of Professors Indeed the greatest grief to the Soules of all godly Ministers and which hath brought the greatest scandall and dehonestation on their Ministry next to some of their own grosse failings is this when the world sees so many of those who seemed to be baptized with water and with the Spirit to have been illuminated and sanctified by their teaching to have tasted of the heavenly gift Heb. 6.5 and the powers of the world to come that is of the authority and efficacy of the Evangelicall Ministry which was to come after the Leviticall and Aaronicall order Many who seemed to have rejoiced for many years in those burning and shining lights of this Churches Ministers to have by their Ministry been well instructed reformed washed and escaped from the pollutions of this world That I say some of these like Jesuruâ— should thus lift up the heel and thus kick against the Ministers and Ministry like Demasses thus to forsake them like Judasses thus to betray them whom lately they kissed and followed as Disciples like Swine that they should thus turn and revile those that cast pearl before them returning to the wallowing in the mire and dirt of unjust covetous ambitious erroneous seditious licentious perjurious malicious and sacrilegious courses No more now ashamed of their lusts then those unclean beasts are of their filthinesse in the midst of the fairest Sun-shine day and when they are neerest to the most pure and Crystall streams But the light which they will not see in this their day shining on them and discovering the frauds and evill of their wayes they may after see in that darknesse to which they are hastning and to which they seem even of God to bee condemned But to conclude my answer in this particular 15. Conclusion and resignation of our Ministry if c. wherein the Antiministeriall adversaries pretend to such spirituall gifts and speciall calling beyond the ordained and setled Ministry if any excellent Christians or any of those that have either wisdome to discern or power to dispose of things to the advantage of this Church and State if they doe in
these cheats in the pillory of publique infamy that they may loose their Ears that is their * Vt tandem male audiant qui male diâ—â—â—nt agunt hearing well that credit and fame of gifts which they cover and captate among the Vulgar and which they would enjoy by reason of their many wiles and artifices by which they ly in wait to deceive with good words and fair speeches as the Divels setting Dogs the well affected and plain hearted Christians Rom. 16.18 if they were not every where routed and confounded by the Ministers of the Church who are both far abler and honester men and to whose charge the flock of Christ in its severall divisions and places is committed that they may take care it suffer no detriment either in truth or in peace in faith or manners in Doctrine or in holy order Thus then although the soules and faith of the meanest true Christians be alike pretious and dear to God 2 Pet. 1.1 as the most learned men's yet they are not pieces of the same weight for gifts of the same extension for endowments of the same polishings for studies nor of the same stamp and authority for their calling and office All which as they are not to the essence of true grace and religion so they are much to the lustre power beauty order usefulnesse and communicativenesse of those gifts which goe with true Religion and are by the Lords munificence bestowed on the Church and faithfull for their well being safety and comfort even in this world besides their happinesse in another which ought to be the grand design of all true Christians both Laymen and Churchmen both learned and unlearned both Governours and governed But these Illiterato's further object with open mouth 11. Object Christ and his Apostles had no humane Learning That they are sure neither Christ nor his Apostles had themselves or commended to the Churches use humane learning Answ My answer is They needed none as humane that is acquired by ordinary education or industry being far above it by those glorious and miraculous endowmenâ—s of the Spirit of wisedome which can easily shine in a moment through the darkest lanterns men of the meanest parts and grossest capacities So that those might as well dispense with the absence of all acquired humane learning as he that hath the Suns light needs not the Moon or Stars or Candles or he that had Angels wings and swiftnesse would not want the legge of man or beast to carry him or he that is neer a living and inexhaustible spring needs not labour to dig wels as Isaac did and so must we too Gen. 26 1â— in the barren and dry land where we live which none but inhumane Philistims would stop up This therefore of Christ and his Apostles is not more peevishly than impertinently alledged by these men in these times against the use of good learning in the Churches Ministers unlesse the reall experiences of these men pretended Apostolicall gifts extraordinary endowments and immediate sufficiencies from the Spirit of God could justifie these allegations either as fitted to them as to the present dispensations of Christ to his Church Although the Lord sometime gave his Church water out of a rock and refreshed wearied Samson by a miraculous fountain which suddenly sprung up in Lehi not in the Jaw-bone but in the place so called from Lehi i.e. the Jaw-bone Iudg. 15.19 by which instrument he had obtained so great a victory there where it continnued afterward yet I beleeve these men will think it no argument to expect every day such wonderfull emanations and neglecting all ordinary means to expect from the Jaw-bones of Asses water or drink to quench their thirst I am sure this Church hath not yet found any such flowings forth or refreshing from the mouths of these Objecters whose lips never yet dropped like Hermon so much as a Dew of sweet and wholesome knowledge upon any place and how should they whose tongues are for the most part set on fire and breathe out with much terrour nothing but ashes and cinders like Vesuvius or Etna whose eruptions are vastatious to all neere them Col. 2.3 Matth. 12.42 Unus verus magnus est magister Christus qui selus non didicit quod omnes doceret Amb. off l. 1. Matth. 5 45. As for our blessed Lord Christ we know he was filled with all the treasures of wisedome both divine and humane for being greater than Solomon he could not come short of Solomons wisdome in any thing who was in all his glory but a Type and shadow of Christ and no way comparable to him Our Saviours design indeed was not as Platos or Aristotles to advance naturall Philosophy meer morality humane learning and eloquence the beams of which Sun by common providence God had already made to shine by other wayes on the bad as well as the good on the heathens as well as the Jews and Christians but Christs intent was Mal. 4. 1 Cor. 1.26 by word and deed to set forth the beams of the Sunne of righteousnesse the wisdome of the Father the saving mysteries of his Crosse and sufferings in order to mans improvement not by humane learning but by divine grace And however our Blessed Saviour hath crucified as it were the flesh and pride of humane learning as well as of riches honour and all worldly excellencies which are infinitely short of the knowledge and love of God in Christ yet he quickned and raised them all by the Spirit which teacheth a sanctified and gracious use of them all to his Church Luk. 2.48 and true beleevers Our Lord Jesus did not disdain to converse with the learned Doctors and Rabbies of his time among whom he was found after his parents had sought him sorrowing because in vain otherwhere yet our wanderers and seekers are loth to seek afraid to find and disdain to own Jesus Christ when they have found him among the learned men and Ministers of this Church lest in so doing they should seem to confesse they had lost Christ and true Religion 12. The objecters may not argue from the Apostles gifts against learning now since they have neither of them in their illiterate Conventicles and ignorant presumptions As for the blessed Apostles who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immediately taught of God by conversing with the Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ the Christian world well knowes their miraculous and extraordinary fulnesse of all gifts and powers of the Spirit both habituall and occasionall so that they wanted neither any language nor learning which was then necessary to carry on the great work of preaching and planting the Gospell And no lesse doth the wiser world know the emptinesse and ridiculous penury of these disputers against good learning even as to the common gifts of sober reason and judicious understanding wherewith the blessing of heaven is now wont to crown onely the prayers
which the Divel hath not some counterfeit nor is there any by which he cheats men more easily and more to his advantage and the Churches detriment than in the false figures and resemblances of Christian liberty * Liber est quisquis probus Servire deo est bonis operibus justitiam libertatem conservare Lact. For as no man naturally is willing to be curbed or restrained from any impulses of his lusts so neither can hee easily learn that Paradox of true Christian liberty which consists in the severest restraints from sin and the exactest conformities to the will of God You then O excellent Christians well understand with me That as no creatures Angels or men have that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self-subsistence nor that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self-sufficiency in and of themselves which is peculiar to God so neither have that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unresponsiblenesse to any other nor that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 independence or absolute liberty in their will which ownes no rule or measure of its motions but its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 own good pleasure For as Angels and men depend wholly upon God for our nature and being so we must needs be subordinate to him as our Authour and responsible to him as one wiser better juster and stronger than our selves * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nissen Religio est generosissimum animae vinculum quo ad Deum arctissâ—ne ligatur Aust Also our will wherein our rationall and religious liberties are planted and whence they spread or diffuse to all the motions and faculties under its Empire and command hath its holy limits and bounds set to it by God both as to the Supream end and highest good which the wise God hath proposed in himself and also as to those means by which he hath revealed that end to us as attainable either in piety or charity in private or publique relations This constant tendency or intention to the Supream end and those holy regulations which in due and lawfull means the wisdom of God hath prescribed the more any creature Man or Angell attaines the more rationall morall and divine liberty he enjoyes and he is so much the more freed from those shackles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. The will is a rationall desire or appetite of good and impediments which the chaines of darknesse and corruption through ignorance of minde and errour of understanding or perversenesse of will or excesse of passion or violence of temptations or depravednesse of customes or delusion of examples hamper and binde the soul withall as the wings of a bird with birdlime hindering its regard to the Supream God which is the glory of God and its exact applying to those means which are proper for the attaining and enjoying of it In the fruition of which the true and eternall liberty of the soul consists as the eyes in seeing most fully and perfectly it s most desired object and which it then enjoyes Servire dec est servitus propter praecepti obedientiam libertas propter recti licentium Aust Ench. ad Lauren. when by the wisdome of the Word and power of of Christ being every way freed from sordid sensuall and sinfull intanglements we onely will that which we know God would have us and doe most willingly what ever we so will and know as most conformable to his will The will of God in his Word the onely rule and measure of mans liberty Whose wise blessed and unerring will revealed in his holy Word being rightly understood is now the onely certaine and infallible rule the sole authentick Patent which any good Christian will regard and follow or alledge and plead in this point of Christian Liberty either internall or externall private or publique solitary or sociall in thoughts opinions judgement conscience speech action or operation in any kind Which the further it is from any error transport or licentiousnesse in a mans self and from any cloak of maliciousnesse against others 1 Pet. 2.16 the more it deserves to be counted and called Christian freedom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato de rep 1. As a man freed from the distemper of madnesse and rid of his chains and got out of Bedlam hath indeed now his true liberty as a man not to rave and speak or doe such mad things as he formerly did in his distraction but to doe all things as a sober man who is master of his wits and understanding and consequently under the most strict yet ingenuous restraints of reason and religion the lawes of modesty humanity honour civility charity and society from all which the captivity of his lunacy and madness unhappily freed him But now the recovery of his right senses happily restores him to those duties and observances which become a man and a Christian It is mercy which redeems us from our native bondage to sin and wrath and which sets us into the gracious and glorious liberty of the sons of God Rom. 8 21. which is to know and love and serve him as he would have us It is a madnesse for Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. â—r 16. Id liberriâ—â—um est quod minimeè à summo bono impeditur Cib. to think of covet or enjoy other Liberty than such as the Saints in all ages attained and such as the blessed Angels ever enjoyed which the Lord Jesus himself our great Liberator both observed himself and purchased for his Church yea such as God himselfe is eternally blest with all which is to be good and to doe good without any impediment 2. Of false liberty and true It is the heavyest chain of the Divels Tyranny and that in full bondage which hath entered into mans soul to imagine that our liberty consists in thinking or speaking or doing or omitting what we list without any regard to God or man as 〈◊〉 men were their own Masters and had no Lord over them To fancy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. de Rep. dia. 10. Quo liberior eo miserior Ber. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. Liberty is the right governing of our life that all restraints internall of modesty fear sense of honour science of truth or conscience of duty in purity piety or charity also externall of established order good laws just power and government either in things civill or sacred are encroachments upon and diminutions of Christian Liberty The want of neglect of which limiters doth infallibly subject us to the basest and most infamous servitude Whereas no doubt the true liberty of any man is to be such in his inward habits and propensities also to doe such things most constantly chearfully and without sinfull impediments which are most proper and advantagious to the nature and excellency of men considered both in it self and its relations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. Thedo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato Christiani vex est non ad placitum sed ad licitum as
〈◊〉 both in health and sicknesse both of their bodies and soules goe along with the Word preached whom many Sermons and good words will not move some charitable good workes seasonably applyed as a hotter fire or warmer Sun may soften melt and convert To all which your plentifull or at least competent estates piously and prudently managed will give you greater advantages than most of the ordinary Ministers can have Matth. 25.21 Non minor est de bene tolerata paupertate gloria quam de bene collocatis divitiis Sen. whom for the most part necessity drives into this port of the Ministry and there keeps them so under hatches or on the Lee that they are seldome able to adventure upon any way further then their country Congregation and obscurity afford them who have onely this glory of being faithfull in a little and bearing poverty with great patience A few persons of your rank and quality by some such heroick and exemplary zeal as so many brave Christians of old against the Saracens would much confound the insolency of our Antiministeriall Jannes and Jambres 2 Tim. 3. It would put the divell to new shifts and inventions when he and they shall see the Lord stirring up in a way not usuall the spirits of gentlemen eminent for estates and relations who then chuse to put their hands to the Churches Oars and helm when they see the danger greatest and the tempest blackest You as Hercules may come in to relieve those Atlasses of the faithfull Bishops and Ministers who finde some mens new heavens too heavy for their shoulders and their new earth an unstable foundation to set their feet upon Your learned humility cannot easily be seduced by popular novelties and pretentions to climb over the wall Joh. 10.2 or to break in upon the Ministry by new wayes and posternes of factious and fanatick presumptions but will rather chuse if God moves your hearts to his work to keep your feet in his way that you may come in by that ancient and holy ordination wherever it may rightly be had in this Church This will make not only the true sheep of Christ Joh. 10.3 but the true shepheards also glad to hear your voice and to partake of those excellent gifts which God hath given you which study prayer and exercise will dayly increase upon you It is great pity so many of your learned and pious abilities should lie idle or not have imployment worthy of them especially when they are fitted for the Lords service and the Lord hath need of them Doe not despise the calling though it be black yet it is comely as the curtaines of Solomon though it be now forced to dwell in Meseck and to have its habitation in the tents of Kedar The first founder of our holy function was a man of sorrowes an outcast of men in whom the world thought there was no form or comelinesse Affliction hath reformed us by restoring Ministers to Christs image Which of you that hath the true sense what it is to be a good Christian and what honour it is to serve Christ in saving of souls but will at the first word Matth. 21.2 which Christ sends loose the Asse which is tyed it may be to some small secular businesse pleasure or study and let it be brought to Christ being fit for his service That so being strowed and adorned with the richer ornaments wherewith your condition is cloathed Christ may with the more conveniency and decency sit thereon vers 7. and ride as it were in an extraordinary triumph to Jerusalem and many may follow him with Hofunnat Blessing you vers 9. that come in the name of the Lord to save them The lesse incouragements you can now expect as Ministers of Christ from men the greater will be your honour the sincerer your comforts and the ampler your reward from God when the world shall see that you honour the work of the Ministry for the work sake and love Christ for himself no lesse than others doe where that service is attended with great revenues and dignities There will shortly be need more than enough of some Ministers who can undertake the work and not want the wages even the meanest minded men now begin to divert their studies and education to another way rather than that of the Ministry finding that there they are like soonest to come a ground and to dash against the necke of poverty and contempt A few of you like Davids worthies furnished with due and divine authority for the Ministery as well as with gifts would mightily stand in the gap repell and confound the vanity and insolence of those 1 Chron. 27. who are risen up to lay wast and desolate this sometime so famous a Ministry and flourishing Church But this is onely an occasionall digression humbly offered to those worthy Gentlemen who have parts learning piety and courage enough to make them dare to be good and to doe good in so high and eminent a way in the midst of a degenerate and declining age which knows not how to prise the Gospell of Salvation not worthily to entertain the Ministry and Ministers of it But to return to my former subject The taking away Tithes will be a great burden to the people it is most evident that these projectors against Tithes are no wayes friends to the Farmers any more than to the Gentlemen and Landlords for when Tithes are once taken away from Ministers and being in Lay hands are as easily cast into the ballance of secular businesse as other Church lands have lately been if then Christian people any where would be desirous to have a true and able Minister and cannot satisfie themselves with those false Prophets and unordained Preachers which are so cheap truly they will finde a new burthen must then lye wholly on their estates and purses to maintain their Ministers while yet they must pay their Tithes other where These just considerations and most undeniable reasons have already made the honest Yeomen so wise as in stead of petitioning against Tithes to cry aloud to all those busie projectors Before you take away Tithes from our Ministers first provide a better way for their maintenance Exchange will be no robbery if it be no detriment that is such as shall be neither more chargeable in a new way nor lesse comely and honourable where a legall right may give claim against all impediments else vile dependents on any mens favour or good will will abase both the calling and spirit and carriage of our Ministers below what is comely for them or willingly seen by us who know that in our true Ministers welfare the good of our own and our childrens soules under God is bound up Deprive not them of that due and double honor which the piety and gratitude of this Nation hath given to them lest you deprive us and our posterity of the true Christian and reformed Religion which we fear
excellent and truely reformed Christians 8. Cavill Object 1. It 's not safe to plead for or protect Ministers onely left a wary super-politick and over-cautious spirit to encounter and dispell which pleads policy against piety and prefers outward safety before inward peace Being as it pretends lothe yea and afraid to displease deny or gainsay so great and powerfull at least so active bold and pragmaticall a party as is by these Antiministeriall adversaries pretended to be both among military men and others implacably ingaged against not onely the persons present standing and maintenance of Ministers but even the very calling ordination and function of the Ministry which they are resolved to undermine by calumnies or overthrow by force either by fair or foul means These Antiministeriall spirits must by all meanes be gratified and by no means displeased lest impatient of the repulses and elusions oft given to their many petitions and essayes against the Ministry they fly out to greater disorders than either the Ministers or the Gospell the reformed Religion or Christ himself are worth Better this one function of the Ministry though ancient usefull and necessary to the Church yea though holy and of divine institution the greatest gift of God next Jesus Christ to the world better this be destroyed than a generation of violent spirits should get a head and destroy both us and our Nation Thus some men whose feares are strong objecters against their judgements and consciences which cannot but acknowledg both of the Ministry and Ministers of England that God is in them and hath been with them of a Truth Answ I see how many Lyons the base fears and cowardise of men are prone to fancy to be in * Prov. 20 13. their way when they should undertake to maintain the cause of God of Christ and of true Religion 1. Mens cowardise in religious matters which the cause of the Ministers indeed is * Iudg. 9.36 Here the shadows of mountaines and * Phil. de Com fields of thistles appeare like armed men to timorous and degenerous Christians when yet all the outward difficulties all the inward terrours all the divels in hell cannot deter some men from those adventures wherein their worldly interest of profit safety or honour are concerned There oft-times necessities are first made then they are prosecuted after they are pleaded as grounds for excuse at least if not of justification of actions lesse warrantable If I thought as truly I doe not that this ungratefull mutiny of some men against the Ministry and the mean despondency of others their cold and faint friends were generall and Epidemicall among men of any considerableness for quality number and estate that these did either oppose or desert their Ministers Sueton. in Jul. Cas I conceive it would admit of no better confutation and remedy than for Ministers with Caesar to open our naked brests and to offer them to the ponyards and swords or pistols of those that think it fit to desert us and by a second hand to destroy us Ministers yeeld to the sentence of the Nation If those that excell in any vertue or in power doe indeed think the Ministers and Ministry of England have deserved to be thus vilified and exploded as the filth and off-scouring of all things if in reason of state and politick interest it be found therefore best because safest that Learning must yeeld to illiteratenesse study to temerity knowledge to ignorance modesty to impudence ingenuity to rusticity order to confusion gravity to giddinesse holy eloquence to vain blessings serious disputings to rude and profane janglings That the grave learned and venerable Preachers of the true Christian reformed Religion must give place to cunning and insolent Factors for all manner of errours superstitions and confusions if this be necessary or highly convenient for the publique good they shall doe wisely if not well with all speed to stigmatize by publique vote and act both the Ministers and their Ministry on the foreheads as so many vile persons whose craft hath hitherto cheated and abused the English world in stead of seeking and shewing men the true way to heaven Nothing is more just than to stop such mouths whose Oracles are no better than those which were silenced when Christ came into the world Yea quite to abrogate the function will be the shortest way whereby to satisfie the Antiministeriall malice And to expiate the sin or folly at least of this Church and Nation which self-displeased for entertaining them so long and so liberally shall now take but a just revenge in either sterving them and their families to death or condemning them to a wandering beggery That so by such a penall retaliation Fuâ—um vendidisti sumo pereas Sueton. in Vespas as that Emperour commanded a Cheater to be stifled to death with smoak because he vented only smoak Ministers may want common bread to live who have pretended to feed mens souls with the bread of life and have in this onely deluded men For coming now to be searched by the more accurate eyes of some new Illuminates they are found like the Priests and Temples of the heathenish devotion to have in them in stead of a venerable deity nothing but the Images of cats or crocodiles and the like despicable figures If neither God nor good men have any further pleasure in the lifes labours and prosperity of his servants the Ministers of England against whom the Shimei's of these times are bold so loudly to cast forth their cursing and evill speeches 2 Sam. 16. Let the Lord do with us as it seemeth good in his eyes Loe we are many of us in our severall places and charges yet residing some are already scattered and ejected most of us almost beggered exhausted weather-beaten and shipwracked in stormes and tossings of these times Some are even weary of themselves filled with the dayly and bitter reproaches of their insolent adversaries 1 King 19.4 and even praying with Elias It is enough we are not better then our Forefathers thus persecuted they the godly Ministers the Bishops the Presbyters the Apostles the Prophets of old fit our soules for thee and take them to thee that we may be delivered from so injurious and unthankefull a generation whose aim is to destroy the true Prophets and pull down all the house of God in the land Alas we of the Ministry have no weapons or arms Ministers unarmed innocency 1 Sam. 22.17 Non nobis tanti est vita ut armis tuenda fit Tiber. ad Senatum Tac. an 6. no strong holds or defenced Cities besides our prayers patience and as we hope good consciences it will be no hard work for a few Doegs to destroy all the true Prophets and Ministers of the Lord in the land That so this great Hecatomb so long desired and expected may be an acceptable sacrifice to the Jesuited Papists and pragmatick Separatists and all other malicious enemies of this
many to live well which is the work of true Ministers whose labours are great their burdens many their incouragement small and those greatly envyed * 2 Tim. 4.16 Verè magnum est habere fragilitatem hominis securitatem Dei Seneca their enemies encreased on every side their comforters few their defense little or none unlesse God be on their side Which he will not fail to be though all men forsake them as they did St. Paul And he alone is able to bear them up amidst the rough encounters of these times with that Christian patience courage and constancy that becomes learned and religious men who know whom they have served in whom they have beleived and may conclude there are more with them then can be against them whose upright soules and generous consciences are like Elishas mountain 2 King 6.17 full of fiery charets and horsemen that is devout flames of judicious zeal which have upon them the harnesse of wisedome and are managed with the reins of Christian meeknesse and discretion farre from those politick presumptions and enormous confidences of some Phaetons who never think they enlighten the Church enough unlesse they set Kingdomes and States on fire with wild and extravagant furies who are far from being the charets and horsemen of Israel for these though they are fiery yet they are orderly and are patient of government though they excell in gifts 12. Pathetick to true Ministers To such Ministers I here crave leave as Elihu did to make my addresse with all humility and charity as to my reverend Fathers and beloved Brethren You who have upon you the marks and characters of right Ordination and true Ministeriall power accompanyed with competent gifts * Iob 32. sanctified learning devout industry holy zeal unblameable lives and good consciences toward God and toward all men whose grand designe is to give full proof of those Ministeriall gifts and endowments which you were upon due triall found to have and to exercise that divine authority which you solemnly and rightly received to discharge that holy duty which in the Name of Christ and by the power of his Spirit was enjoyned you in the day of your Ordination by those through whose hand the succession of that Ministeriall authority is derived from the Apostles By all which you were qualified and disposed not to get a good living or two but to cast into the Sea of the world the net of the Gospell at Christs word to gain soules to God and Disciples to Jesus Christ to teach and guide by sound doctrine and holy discipline the flocks committed to you in your severall places and proportions Your earthly entertainment is from the munificence and devotion of men but your heavenly calling and authority to be Ministers is from Christ in whose Name you doe all as Ministers and not in the peoples whom some have taught to grow tumultuous against you and imperious upon you Neither your work nor your chiefe reward depends upon men Minimum sit mercedis quod a seculo expectamus Chrysol 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys It is the least of your comfort or incouragement that can from thence be expected as nothing of your authority is from thence derived Levell not your selves by popular crowchings and base compliances in this high point of your Ministeriall power It matters not much how you be levelled as to your maintenance for which you chiefly do depend not upon envious men but upon a bounteous God who will either give you liberally to enjoy all things or contentedly to want them 1 King 13. The withered hands of these Jeroboams which are stretched out against you may at your prayers be restored to the ancient fulnesse and favour used toward the Prophets of the Lord in this land If bonds and imprisonment poverty and contempt attend you in this world yet be of good comfort Christ your great Master hath gone before you and both by word and example by his life and death hath called you out of the world armed you against it and set you above it while insolent dust flies in your faces and proud wormes fight against God in you remember the battail is the Lords Ephes 6.12 The weapons of your warfare are spirituall and of greatest proofe in sharpest affliction If you are to contend with principalities and powers it must be not by ill language by railing and Satyrick invectives by secret plottings and practise but by the primitive Ammunition of Patience and Prayers by holy perseverance in your Ministry such as becomes the spirit of the Gospell in wisdom learning gravity between the extreams of fear and flattery with humble love and charity to all men Sueton. Vespas Vit. Imperatorem stantem moâ—i oportere moriens dixit inter manus sublevantium extinctus It becomes you as Vespasian said of Emperours to dye upright in your spirituall armes and harnesse intent to your duty fighting the good fight of faith till you have finished your course with joy In the midst of crosses comforts grow best as Lilies among thornes The clouds of your enemies darts poysonous opinions corrupt doctrines fraudulent dealings sharp arrows of bitter speeches fiery trials of persecuting menaces your adversaries cruell mockings and insultings your friends prevaricatings with you withdrawings from you and forsakings of you all these must onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stir up the more to quicker flames of study prayer meditation devotion and holy resolution those many gifts and graces that learning eloquence and sufficiency which are in you as Christians and as Ministers wherein to the praise of God you are not behind even the chiefest Ministers in the Christian world You are not now to expect Prebendaries and Deaneries and Bishopricks as the honorary rewards and incouragements of your studies pains and piety This age could not bear your enjoying of them though you used them never so well It is your part to know as well to want them as to have them Honoribus divitiis carere posse magni est animi at recte uti posse est maximi and in stead of those to prepare for poverty contempt and imprisonment you may be then at your best when the evill world thinks you deserve no better Never study by any mean ways to merit better of sacrilegious spirits Be sure your treasure be out of these mens reach It is your part to doe well and worthy of your high calling Leave it to God how well you shall be rewarded here and hereafter Paul never preached with greater authority than in his chaines Act 26 29. Phil. 1. nor wrote with greater eloquence and majesty then when he styled himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ well doing will be reward enough and a good conscience will be good chear at all times You cannot but observe that your great enemy the divell hath commanded as the King of Syria did his Legions of Hereticks Schismaticks Fanaticks erroneous superstitious idle
profane licentious and Atheisticall spirits who jointly combate against the truth of Christian and reformed Religion that they should fight neither against small nor great but chiefly against the reformed Ministers and the very Ministry it selfe of this Church Take heed that these smite you not 1 King 22 34 as those did the King of Israel between the joints of your harnesse between your conscience of duty to God and your civill complyance for safety with men between your love of Christ and the love of your relations between your fear to offend God and your lothnesse to displease men between your holding your livings and keeping good consciences between your looking to eternall necessities and your squinting on temporall conveniencies Navigare necesse est non item vivere Appian As Pompey said when he set to Sea in a storm against the advise of the timerous Pilot and Mariners so I to you It is not necessary to live but it is necessary to preach that Gospell which hath been committed to your care 1 Cor. 9.16 It is not necessary to be rich and at ease and in liberty and in favour with men but it is necessary to witnesse to the Truth of God and to that office authority and divine power of the Ministry of Christ in this Church against a crooked and perverse generation against the errours pride falsity ignorance and hypocrisies which are in the world What if Christ cals us in this age to forsake all Matth. 19.22 Age vero qui relinquere omnia pro Christo disponis te quoque inter relinquenda arnumerare memento Ber. de dil and follow him Shall we goe away sorrowfull Truly the world will not treat you much better when you have forsaken Christ to follow it For having once drawne you from your consciencious constancy and judicious integrity and pious reserves it will the more despise you and with the greater glory destroy you as Ministers Our * Ioh. 4.34 meat and drink must be to do the will of our heavenly Father as it was the Lord Christs our great sender and first ordainer Better we live upon almes and beggery than thousands of soules be starved or poysoned by those hard fathers and terrible step-mothers who intend to nurse Religion with bloud in stead of milk and feed the Church of Christ after a new Italian fashion commanding stones to be for bread and giving it Scorpions in stead of fishes mixtures of hemlock and Soulesbane with some shews of hearbs of grace of wholesome truths and of spirituall gifts Let the envyous penurious sacrilegious and ungratefull world see that you followed not Christ for the loaves Nor as Judas therefore liked to be his Disciples because you might bear the bag Let no Scribes or Pharisees Priests or Rulers outbid your value of Christ or tempt you to betray him and his holy Ministry on you by any offers unworthy of him and you Piorum afflictio non est tam poena criminis quam examen virtutis Aust de S. Iobo Act. 27.14 Shew your skill and courage in the storm wherein you are like for a time to be engaged Serener times made you carry slacker sayles and a looser hand now your eye must be more fixed and your hand more strong and steddy in steering according to cart and compasse the Euroclydons or violent windes of these tempestuous times will bring you sooner to your Haven Hitherto you have for the most part appeared but as other men busie as other ants on your molehils conversing with the beasts of the people in the valley of secular aimes and affaires now God cals you with Moses up to the Mount 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysâ—st in Act. ap hom 3. Matth. 17.3 and with Christ to a transfiguration where you shall see the meeknesse and charity of Moses with the zeal and constancy of Elias appearing with Christ in which great Emblemes your duty your honour and your comfort will be evident when you come to be stoned with St. Stephen the form of your countenance will be changed and you will then most fully see Christ and most clearly be seen of men as the Angels of God Act. 6 17. C. 7. 56. Nothing hath lost and undone many of us Ministers so much as our too great fear of losses and of being undone our too great desires to save our selves by complying with all variations even in Religion nothing will save us so certainly as our willingnesse to lose our lives and livelihoods for Christs sake and this not now for one great truth which is worth 1000 lives but for the pillar and ground of all truths the office and very Institution of the true Ministry whose work is to hold forth and publish the Truth of the Gospell to the world in all ages by a right and perpetuall succession Despair not of Gods love to you For Comfort Viro fideli magis inter ipsa flagella sidendum Ber. Ep. 356. Euseb hist l. 2. cap. 5. as Philo said to his countrymen the Jews at Alexandria when he returned from the Emperour highly incensed against them Be of good courage it is a good Omen that God will doe us good since the Emperour is so much against us Possibly you may as St. Paul be stoned cast out and left for dead yet revive again as is foretold of the witnesses It may be your latter end shall be better as Jobs than your beginning The experience of the sad effects * Act. 14. 19. which attend sacrilegious cruelties against the true Ministers and the want of such in every place * Rev. 11.11 may in time provoke this Nation by a sense of its own and of Gods honour to more noble and constant munificence which is not so much a liberality as an equity to able and faithfull Ministers It may be this Church Gal. 4.15 which hath so much forgot the blessednesse shee spake of in having learned able and rightly ordained and well governed Ministers Revel 2.4 which seems to have forsaken her first love and honour to the Clergy when Religion was as in all times preserved so in these last reformed and vindicated by the labours writings lives and sufferings of those excellent Bishops and Presbyters who were heretofore justly dear and honoured to this Nation so as no worthy minde envyed or repined at the honors and estates they enjoyed Possibly it may remember from whence it is faln and repent and doe its first works which were with piety order charity true zeal and liberality without grudging or murmuring against the honour or maintenance much lesse the office and function of the Evangelicall Ministers whose pious wisdome casting off onely the additaments and superstitious rags of mans invention yet retained with all reverence and authority the essentiall institutions of Jesus Christ The disguised dress and attire had no way destroyed the being and right succession of holy things but only deformed it to a fashion
or dubious in uncertainties or intangled with subtilties as Deer in acorn time they forget their food grow lean and fall into divers snares and temptations into many lusts and passions yea into the grave and pit of destruction whence there is no redemption Many as leaves from trees in Autumn every day drop away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. and dye in their mazes and labyrinths of Religion by wearying themselves in which they advance no more than birds in a cage and blinde horses in a mill whereas a true Christian should every day grieve to see himself nothing advanced in true holynesse or solid knowledge with grand steps he should be dayly going onward and upward with ample progresses and mighty increases of sound knowledge indisputable verities unquestionable practises of ly duties and heavenly conversation these are the steps by which holy men and women have ascended to heaven and conquered the difficulties of salvation That thus al the world might blesse themselves to see the happy improvements of true Christians beyond other men and the inestimable blessing of true and excellent Ministers paines among the filliest and worst of men in the dissolutest and worst of times O let not us then of the Ministry stand still and look on our own and the Churches miseries as the Lepers or mothers did in sieges till their children and themselves grew black with famine You that pretend to stand before the Lord of the whole world and the King of his Church you that bear the name of the most compassionate Redeemer who shed his bloud for his Church and laid down his life for his sheep Doe you never hear in the sounding of your own bowels the tears sighes and fears of infinite good Christians nor the voice of this English Sion lamenting and expecting pity at least from Ministers Is it worth thus much misery to root up Episcopacy to set up Presbytery and to undermine both with Independency All which might be fairly composed into a threefold cord of holy agreement such as was in primitive times between Bishops Presbyters and people whose passions have now ravelled out peace by sad divisions and weakned Religion by uncharitable contentions Though Parliaments and Assemblies and Armies and people should be miserable comforters passing by without regard and remorse yea though some be stripping the wounded and robbing this desolated Church yet doe not you forsake her now she is smitten of God Lamen 1.12 and despised of men Is it nothing to you O you that are more politicians than Preachers that passe by Stand and see if there be any sorrowes like the sorrowes of this reformed Church of England wherewith the Lord hath afflicted her in the day of his fierce anger It concernes no men more than Ministers to succour her which hath received these wounds most-what in the house and by the hands of her friends O give the Lord no rest untill he hath returned to this Church in mercy if you can by counsels and prayers reform nothing in the publique yet let nothing be unreformed in your private if you must be laid aside as to the peculiar office of Ministers yet you may mourn and pray the more in secret That the Lord would breath upon us with a Spirit of Truth and Peace of love and holy union of order and humility whereby none having any pride or ambition to govern every one may be humbly disposed to be governed For the great crisis of all Ministers distempers is in this not what Truths we shall beleive what doctrine we shall preach what holynesse we shall act but who shall govern whether Bishops or Presbyters or people yea the Keyes of some mens pretended power hangs so at the peoples girdle that it is too neer the apron-strings even of mechanicks and silly women When a right temper of Christian humility and love shall be restored to every part then will the spirits of Religion be recovered and aptly diffused into every member of this Church which blessed temperament as Christian Churches enjoyed in their primitive and florid strength nor is it lesse necessary now in their more aged and so decayed constitution O let not after ages say the Ministers of England were more butchers then Surgeons That they were Physitians of no value neither curing themselves nor others If any of us have not by malice so much as mistake given stronger physick and more graines of violent drugs than the constitution of this or any well reformed Church can well bear let us not be lesse forward to apply such cordials lenitives antidotes and restoratives of love moderation concession and equanimous wisedome as may recollect the dissipated and re-inforce the wasted spirits which yet remain in this reformed Church and the Ministry of it On which the enemies round about doe already look with the greedy eyes of ravens and vultures expecting when its languishing spirits shall be quite exhausted and its fainting eyes quite closed that so they may draw away the pillow and remaining supports of civill protection from under its head and violently force it to give up the ghost that the reformed Religion and Ministry of this Church may be at length quite cast out and buried with the buriall of an Asse that neither the place of reformed Bishops nor reformed Presbyters nor reformed people may know them any more in these British Islands In the last place therefore 13. Humble addresse to those in power in the behalf of Ministers I humbly crave leave to remind those that act in highest places and power who are thought no slight or shallow Statesmen That if neither piety to God nor conscience of their duty while they undertake to govern nor charity to mens soules both in present and after ages nor zeal for the reformed Religion move them as Christians nor yet justice and common equity to the encouragement and preservation of so many learned and godly men the lawfull Ministers of this Church in their legall rights and liberties nor yet common pity and charity to relieve so many pious men and their families If I say none of these should sway them as men or Christians the least of which should and I hope greatly will Yet worldy policy and right reason of State seems to advise the preservation and establishment of the so much shaken reformed Religion here in England which hath still deep root and impressions in the mindes and affections of the most and best people in this Nation Nor can this be done by more idoneous means than by giving publique favour incouragement and establishment to the true and ancient Ministry as to its main support and to godly Ministers as its head-most Professors If it be not absolutely necessary yet sure it is very convenient in order to the quiet and satisfaction of mens mindes who generally think themselves most concerned in matters of Religion either to confirm and restore to its pristine honour order and stability the ancient Ministry of the Church