who hath been a parallel to King David both in his Persecution and Restoration is as truly his parallel in Piety and holy Zeal for the true Religion and hath made it his first Care as soon as God brought him back to his Kingdom to bring back the Ark of God to Jerusalem to restore the holy Doctrin Worship and Government of our Church which had with himself been long banished and having in the happy Examples of his most Royal and Religious Predecessors observed how exceedingly this Church hath florished under the established Order for many years how eminently her Faith hath been spread abroad in every place how all her Sisters of the reformed Church rejoiced to behold her order and stedfastness towards Christ The Daughters all calling her blessed as also finding by sad experience that in these times of Trouble and Confusion of which we may truly wish with Job That they were blotted out of times and might not come into the number of years the plucking up of the established Order hath been the loss at once of Truth and Peace in the Church and the cause of all the bitter Dissentions and lamentable Divisions wherewith it hath been wounded and dilacerated and which never could be cured or closed by any the Balms and healing Medicins applied by Presbyterians Independents or any other who pretended to be our Physicians this I say his Majesty in his Princely and Pious Wisedom observing hath restored to God's glory and his own great honour that Religion which had before this Rupture obtained and long flourished 2. But there is nothing can be so well devised so warily composed so innocently established as to satisfie all Judgments and anticipate all Objections That Manna wherewith God himself fed his people from Heaven that Angels food was soon loathed and despised As it was at King James his coming to this Crown so at his present Majestie 's there are Dissenters and Complainers who with great and loud Importunities vehement Accusations and a mighty specious Zeal cry out against the publick Worship and Order to be restored His Majesty imitating in the like case the example of that our English Solomon was pleased to give Commission for a Conference or Treaty between some select persons of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Judgment to consider of the Form of publick Worship the Common Prayers of this Church and if occasion be to make such reasonable Alterations Corrections and Amendments therein as should be jointly agreed upon to be needfull and expedient and doubtless for the same reason with that of King James Not but that any thing in the Common Prayer contained might very well have been born with by men who would have made a reasonable construction of things But for that in a matter concerning the Service of God we were nice or rather jealous that the publick Form thereof should be free not onely from blame but from suspicion so as neither the common Adversary should have advantage to wrest ought therein contained to other sense than the Church of England intendeth nor any troublesome or ignorant person of this Church be able to take the least occasion against it The Treaty wanting that Issue his Majesty and all good men desired and no Accommodation thereby effected it is enquired and diversly censured where the blame lies 3. The Presbyterians charge the Episcopal Commissioners to be wholly in the fault and say They have petitioned the Bishops proposed their Alterations made their Objections against the Liturgy replied upon the Bishops Answers finally have cleared themselves and given account to his Majesty of the whole Transaction But the Bishops have answered nothing to their Petition have not considered their Alterations have said little to their Objections and granted as little by way of Concession Therefore they profess the Disappointment hath not been on their part and that they have quiet in their minds having discharged their duty and been Seekers and Followers of Peace But for all this fair flourish it will appear to any Judgment that is not forestalled that 't is on the score of the Presbyterians and for the fault of their undue managing thereof that the Treaty hath proved ineffectual and this I shall manifest by first answering their pretensions and then considering their Petition 1. That the Bishops answered not their Petition it was for good causes what they ask was not in the power of the Bishops to grant the matter was unreasonable the motives weak and not worthy an Answer being in number many but light in weight as when they come to be examined will appear and however directed to the Bishops the Petition was intended to gratifie the people of their own party the design of it being popular and the aim of it apparent to keep up their Interest 2. That they answer nothing to their new Form which they call their Alterations a perfect Abolition of the Churches Form was not their fault but their favour They were obliged to the Bishops for their silence who might justly have convented them instead of answering them the very publishing of that Form being a high Attempt against the Laws and a plain Violation of his Majestie 's Directions in his Commission 3. That they say little to their Objections is for that many of them had little in them were trivial and stramineous and little or nothing have they said in their Objections but what had been said before by Cartwright and others and by Archbishop Whitgift and Mr. Hooker abundantly answered 4. That they granted little by way of Concession they had great Reason and great Precedents Great Reason for 1. The Compilers of the Common Prayer Book were holy able zealous and orthodox Persons and such an Alteration as they desired as I said in effect an Abolition had been to question their Piety and Ability and to cast Dirt in the Faces of those venerable Fathers Confessors and Martyrs 2. The Common Prayer Book was revised approved and confirmed by divers Acts of Parliament and Proclamations in several Princes Reigns to alter it after their Model had been also to cast Dirt in the Face of Supream Authority and to question the Wisedom and Piety of the wisest and most pious Kings and Parliaments 3. It would have opened a gap to the Papists who cry out against us for Novelty and Inconstancy 4. It was his Majestie 's Order That there should be as little Alteration as might be for that the people were acquainted with and accustomed to the Form established 2. They had great Precedents for 1. In Queen Elizabeth's time it being revised very few alterations or additions were made and 2. In King James his time also who judged the Form so compleat that he would have some small things rather explained than changed nay more admonisheth all men That hereafter they shall not expect nor attempt any farther Alteration 5. For that the Bishops have said little and the Presbyterians much it makes nothing for the one nor against
is easie to be deceived because at first sight it doth not by and by appear what difference there is between the one sort and the other But I will so plainly in few words set out the whole matter that the Likeness may deceive no man First let us hold this That if we see in every Society of men some Policy to be necessary which may serve to nourish common Peace and to retain Concord if we see that in the doing of things there is alwaies some orderly Form which is behoofefull for publick Honesty and for very Humanity not to be refused the same ought chiefly to be observed in Churches which are both best maintained by a well framed disposition of all things and without Agreement are no Churches at all Therefore if we will have the Safety of the Church well provided for we must altogether diligently procure that which St. Paul commandeth That all things be done comely and according to order But forasmuch as there is so great diversity in the Manners of men so great variety in Minds so great disagreements in Judgments and Witts neither is there any Policy stedfast enough unless it be stablished by certain Laws nor any orderly Usage can be observed without a certain appointed Form therefore we are so far off from condemning the Laws that are profitable to this purpose that we affirm that when these be taken away Churches are dissolved from their Sinewes and utterly deformed and scattered abroad for this which St. Paul requireth That all things be done decently and in order cannot be had unless the Order it self and Comeliness be established with Observations adjoyned as with certain Bonds But this onely thing is alway to be excepted in those Observations That they be not either believed to be necessary to Salvation and so bind Consciences with Religion or be applied to the worshipping of God and so Godliness be reposed in them We have therefore a very good and most faithfull mark which putteth difference between those wicked Ordinances by which we have said That the True Religion is darkned and Consciences subverted and the lawfull Observations of the Church if we remember that the lawfull Observations tend alway to one of these two things or to both together that in the Holy Assembly of the Faithfull all things be done comely and with such dignity as beseemeth and that the very common Fellowship of men should be kept in Order as it were by certain Bonds of Humanity and Moderation for when it is once understood that the Law is made for publick Honesty's sake the Superstition is now taken away into which they fall that measure the Worshiping of God by the Inventions of men Again when it is known that it pertaineth to Common uses then that false opinion of Bond and Necessity is overthrown which did strike a great Terror into Consciences when Traditions were thought necessary to Salvation for herein is nothing required but that Charity should with common dutifull doing be nourished amongst us But it is good yet to define more plainly what is comprehended under that Comeliness which Paul commendeth and also what under Order The end of Comeliness is partly that when such Ceremonies are used as may procure a Reverence to Holy things we may by such Helps be stirred up to Godliness partly also that the Modesty and Gravity which ought to be seen in all Honest Doings may therein principally appear In Order this is the first Point That they which govern may know the Rule and Law to govern well and the People which are governed may be accustomed to obeying of God and to right Discipline Then that the state of the Church being well framed Peace and Quietness may be provided for Verily because the Lord hath in his Holy Oracles both faithfully contained and clearly set forth both the whole Sum of true Righteousness and all the parts of the Worshipping of his Divine Majesty and whatsoever was necessary to Salvation therefore in these things he is onely to be heard as our Schoolmaster But because in outward Discipline and Ceremonies his Will was not to prescribe each thing particularly what we ought to follow because he foresaw this to hang upon the state of Times and did not think one Form to be fit for all Ages herein we must flee to those general Rules which he hath given that thereby all those things should be tried which the necessity of the Church shall require to be commanded for Order and Comeliness finally forasmuch as he hath therefore taught nothing expresly because these things are not necessary to Salvation and according to the manners of every Nation and Age ought diversly to be applied to the edifying of the Church Therefore as the Profit of the Church shall require it shall be convenient as well to change and abrogate those that be used as to institute new I grant indeed that we ought not rashly nor oft nor for light causes to run to Innovation but what may hurt or edifie Charity shall best judge which if we suffer to be the Governess all shall be safe Now it is the Duty of Christian People to keep such things as have been ordained according to this Rule with a free Conscience and without any Superstition but yet with a godly and easie readiness to obey not to despise them nor to pass them over with careless Negligence so far is it off that they ought by Pride and Obstinacy openly to break them What manner of Liberty of Conscience wilt thou say may there be in so great observation and wariness Yes it shall stand excellently well when we shall consider that they are not stedfast and perpetual stayed Laws whereunto we are bound but outward Rudiments for the weakness of Men which though we do not all need yet we do all use them because we are mutually bound to one another to nourish Charity among us Thus Mr. Calvin delivers his Judgment directly contrary to yours perfectly consentient to the Church of England and we find his Practice according with his Judgment he put the Yoke of Discipline upon the Neck of the Senate and People of Geneva and bound them to it with an Oath and he declares for a Form of Prayers and Ecclesiastical Rites and greatly approves that it be fixed from which it may not be lawfull for the Pastors to depart in their Function you may now go and accuse Mr. Calvin with our Church as judging and acting contrary to Romans 14. and to the Decree of the Apostolical Council laying both upon Pastors and People a great Burthen of things not necessary and if you please to take a view of the Scotish Discipline you will find there also a huge and heavy Burthen abundance of things which you dare not say are necessary And to come home The Solemn League and Covenant imposed by the long Parliament upon the whole Kingdom and taken I doubt not by your selves is a most heavy Burthen of things so far
of God serving him with one mind and with one mouth having the same Doctrine the same Worship the same Government Now consider who they are which hinder this Peace You need not petition the Bishops 't is in your own power to grant your own Petition and truly a Petition for Peace though it have a pleasing Sound yet carries a sad Supposition it suposes 1. That you are not in Peace with the Church and 2. it implicitly accuses his Majesty of Persecution But to come to the matter of your Petition two things you pray 1. That the Bishops will grant what you have in your Preface proposed and craved their Consent unto the Alterations and Additions to the Liturgy now tendred unto them that being inserted as you have expressed It may be left to the Ministers choice to use one or other at his discretion upon his Majestie 's Approbation according to his gracious Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs Here they desire That it may be left to the Ministers choice to use one or other the new or the old Form and 't is not hard to judge which will be chosen the old by all who are Episcopal the new by all the Presbyterians So shall we have Altar against Altar Common-prayer-book against Common-prayer-book confusion in all Parishes and Division those who are for the old if the new be read will leave their Minister and go where the old is read and the like will they doe who are for the new So shall there be endless Contestations between Ministers and Ministers People and People one pleading for the old Form and exploding the new the other arguing for the new and despising the old Is this to petition for Peace nothing can be more against Peace Certainly we shall ever be two and the Church divided if we have two Liturgies And whereas they appeal to his Majestie 's Declaration his Majesty speaks plainly enough his meaning and more plainly in his Commission that he intends not two Liturgies be established but onely some Alterations in one and the same Liturgy some additional Forms to be left unto the Ministers choice to use one or the other at his discretion and these Alterations and additional Forms not to be made by the one Part separately as yours are but by those of both Persuasions You farther Petition since we cannot obtain the Form of Episcopal Government described by the late Reverend Primate Ireland and approved by many Episcopal Divines we may at least enjoy those Benefits of Reformation in Discipline and that Freedom from Subscription Oaths and Ceremonies which are granted in the said Declaration by the means of your charitable Mediation and Request Answ 1. Why did you not then when it was in your Power and the Staff in your hands hearken to Bishop Vsher and those Episcopal Divines did you not covenant against Episcopacy do you not still judge your selves obliged to keep your Covenant did not a prime Leader of your Party in his Sermon at the Treaty at Vxbridge call Episcopacy and the Common-prayer-book The Plague-soars of the Nation did not his late Majesty of blessed memory offer as great condescentions as could be desired to your Divines at the Isle of Wight and did they not oppose and disown all Episcopal Government Hear his Majesty I was willing to grant or restore to Presbytery what with reason or discretion it can pretend to in a conjuncture with Episcopacy but for that wholly to invade the Power and by the Sword to arrogate and quite abrogate the authority of that ancient Order I think neither just as to Episcopacy nor safe for Presbytery nor yet any way convenient for this Church and State Behold what his Majesty was willing to doe in yieldance to Presbytery so as Episcopacy might not be abrogated Behold what the Presbyterians will doe they will goe no lower than to abrogate Episcopacy and since they could not doe it by the Word they will doe it by the Sword But 2. Have you now really changed your minds are you in good earnest do you speak Verbo Sacerdotum when you make us believe you desire to obtain an Episcopacy How doth this consist with your Profession in your Grand Debate There you utterly disclaim all Episcopacy These are your words We doubt whether men in the same Order do by Divine appointment owe obedience unto those that gradually goe before them and they may scruple whether such making themselves the Governours of their Brethren make not themselves indeed of a different Order or Office and so incroach not upon the Authority of Christ who onely maketh Officers purely Ecclesiastical and whether it be no disloyalty to Christ to own such Officers Again 't is a matter of very great doubt whether a fixed Diocesan being the Pastor of many hundred Churches be indeed a Governour of Christ 's appointment or approbation and whether Christ will give us any more thanks for owning them as such than the King will gives us for owning an Vsurper He who can reconcile their Petition for Peace with their Grand Debate the one pretending for Episcopacy the other renouncing all Episcopacy Erit mihi magnus Apollo But the Instance you might have let alone of owning an Vsurper Did you not own and set up an Usurping Parliament against the King and will you not disown the most Lawfull King that shall deny your Will and Way and own the Greatest Usurper that will set up and yield his Neck to your Presbyterian Government But if you cannot gain your own you would be free from Obedience to any other That we may at least enjoy freedom from Subscription Oaths and Ceremonies by the means of your charitable Mediation A modest and merry Request That the Bishops will mediate with his Majesty that the Presbyterians may be free from Obedience to Episcopal Government Were your Presbyterian Government set up would you allow the Freedom you ask You have preached and printed against Toleration you would bind Kings with your Chains and Nobles with Links of Iron you would be very shy to give the Indulgencies and Dispensations your selves desire Nay you refuse them to your Independent Brethren Your second Petition is Seeing some hundreds of able holy and faithfull Ministers are of late cast out and abundance of Congregations in England Ireland and Wales are overspread with lamentable ignorance and are destitute of able faithfull Teachers and seeing too many that are insufficient negligent or scandalous are over the flocks we take this opportunity earnestly to beseech you that will contribute your endeavours to the removal of those that are the shame and burthens of the Churches and to the Restoration of such as may be an honour and blessing unto them and to that end that it be not imputed unto them as their unpardonable Crime that they were born in an Age and Countrey which required Ordination by parochial Pastors without Diocesans Ans 1. Is not this a Pharisaical strain through all your Papers To cry
formerly I am to learn they know his late Majesty made to them moderate Proposals but was refused and they confess the Lord Primate of Ireland made moderate Proposals but by them never accepted As to their bold Appeal to all Protestant Churches presuming they will give their Judgments for them and against the Church of England's established Constitutions which they have the huge Confidence to prophesie even of the Judgment of all succeeding ages They might without a Revelation by their Jugdment past and present have foreseen their Judgment for the future The past age hath cryed Grace Grace to our happy orderly and moderate Reformation in Doctrine Government and Worship the Protestant Churches have given us the Right-hand of Fellowship have maintained sweet Communion with us have in Marian Persecution received our Exiles their most eminent Lights have sent us high Congratulations their ablest Ministers have divers of them come over and with Joy beheld our Order and some have lived and died amongst us What Judgment did Mr. Beza give Let himself speak Quod si nunc If now the Reformed Churches of England being underprop'd with the Authority of Bishops and Archbishops do continue as this hath hapened to that Church in our memory That she hath had Men of that Calling not onely most notable Martyrs but also excellent Pastors and Doctors let them truly enjoy that singular Blessing of God which I wish may be perpetual unto her What Judgment did Peter Martyr pass in the Case of Bishop Hooper about the Ceremonies Did he not answer his Arguments vindicate the lawfulness of them exhort him to submit unto them The Judgment of Doctor Moulin you have heard and much more might be told you of the high Honour he had for the Church of England And to come nearer what Judgment the Protestant Churches passed upon your Covenant your Reforming the Church by the Sword and in the Bloud of the Nursing Father and the Prime Pastour of it with many Thousands more you have surely heard Were they not ashamed confounded and astonished at our Schisms and Seditions and Violations of all Authority Sacred and Civil And Have not your Actions in the late lamentable times cast a Blemish upon the Honour of our Nation never to be washed off An English-man daring scarce to look another man in the face in a foreign Countrey being under the Objection and Reproach of Rebellion Murthering their King Changing the best tempered Monarchy in the World into a puny Common-wealth and that swallowed up soon into a Barbarous Protectourship and Abasing the most primitive and venerable Episcopacy into a novel and contemptible Parity and Linsy-woolsey Presbytery made up of Preachers and Lay-elders and that too straight undermined and baffled by a Mushrome Independency Pudet haec Opprobria vobis dici potuisse non potuisse refelli This is the past Judgment of the Protestant Churches abroad concerning our Church established and you who ruined it till God in mercy restored it For the Churches of succeeding ages I think they will hardly believe the History of ours That such men as you professing highest Godliness should in a pretended zeal for it preach up Sedition and Schism and embroil the Church and Nation wherein you were born and baptized in Bloud and Confusion and which seems more incredible Appeal to all Protestant Churches in your own Justification nay Supplicate the King whose Royal Father was martyred and himself long banished for standing up in defence of the Church which you opposed and by Force destroyed to screen you from the Churche's Power to grant you the chief Benefices in the Church and give you Liberty to be of another Church to enjoy a Worship and Government of your own Mode and Model But my Brethren how come you to make this lowd Challenge Why enquire you or rather Why presume you what Judgment the Protestant Churches will make of our Churches proceedings Sure your mighty Zeal and ardent Affection to your Cause hath clouded your own Judgment and quite bereaved you of your Memory You mention often and with seeming regard his Majestie 's gracious Declaration touching Ecclesiastical Affairs he therein tells you the present Judgment of the Reformed Churches abroad and had you Faith to believe his Royal word you might have spared this Argument and Out-cry which you may blush for and wish you had suppressed Hear his Majesty speaking their Judgment We do think Our self the more competent to propose and with God's Assistence to determine many things now in Difference from the time We have spent and the experience We have had in most of the Reformed Churches abroad in France the Low-countries and Germany where We have had frequent Conference with the most Learned men who have unanimously lamented the great Reproach the Protestant Religion undergoes from the Distempers and too notorious Schisms in Matters of Religion in England And as the most Learned among them have alwaies with great Submission and Reverence acknowledged and magnified the established Government of the Church of England and the great Countenance and Shelter the Protestant Religion received from it before these unhappy times So many of the have with great Ingenuity and Sorrow confessed that they were too easily mis-led by mis-information and prejudice into some disesteem of it as if it had too much complyed with the Church of Rome whereas they now acknowledg it to be the best Fence God hath yet raised against Popery in the World and We are persuaded they do with great Zeal wish it restored to its old Dignity and Veneration You see what Judgment the Protestant Churches have passed upon the Church of England and her former Proceedings and thereby may take an Estimate what Judgment they will pass on her present Proceedings and how the Churche's Cause and yours will be represented to them They will acknowledg and magnifie with great Submission and Reverence the established Government of the Church of England if you dare believe his Majesty and consequently will censure you as Schismatical and Disobedient to refuse to submit unto it But I must not misrepresent you your Submission you profess If after our Submission to his Majesty's Declaration and after our own Proposals of the primitive Episcopacy and of such a Liturgy as we here tender we may not be permitted to exercise our Ministry the Pens of those moderate Bishops will bear witness against you that were once employed as the Chief Defenders of that Cause we mean such as Reverend Bishop Hall and Usher who have published to the World that much less than this might have served to our fraternal Vnity and Peace Ans You before appealed to the Protestant Churches abroad now unto two Bishops of our own and with like Success 1. You say you have submitted to his Majestie 's Declaration you should have instanced wherein His Majesty there declares That having seen all the Liturgies that are extant and used in this part of the World he esteems that of
the Church of England to be the best and well knows the Reverence the most or at least the most Learned in the Reformed Churches have for it he heartily wishes and desires until it be reviewed and some Alterations and Additional Forms made the Ministers who dislike some Clauses and Expressions would not therefore totally lay aside the use of the Book of Common-prayer but reade those parts against which there can be no exception which would be the best instance of declyning those marks of distinction which his Majesty so much labours and desires to remove Have you herein submitted to his Majestie 's Declaration Have you read any thing of the Common Prayers and thereby instanced your desire in compliance with his Majestie 's to remove and decline those marks of distinction What you can lay hold of to your purpose in his Declaration you greedily catch at the rest you pass by However you pretend to submit to his Majestie 's Declaration he therein complains your Party of which you are the Leaders have not dealt candidly with him that there are amongst them unquiet and restless Spirits who continue their Bitterness against the Church and indeavour to raise Jealousies against his Majesty and have unseasonably printed published and dispersed a Declaration to his Majestie 's Reproach and since the printing this Declaration you say you submit to several seditious Pamphlets and Quaeries have been published and scattered abroad to infuse Dislike and Jealousies into the Hearts of the People Behold your Submission to his Majestie 's Declaration You next tell us of your own Proposals of the Primitive Episcopacy and your own Liturgy What your Primitive Episcopacy is your Jus Divinum Ministrii Anglicani speaks That there is no Bishop in the sense of our Church no Episcopus Pastorum but all Presbyters are equally and in a parity Episcopi Gregis and what your own Liturgy is you have let us see such a one as you would have for your selves in opposition to that of the Church and yet though you would have it you will not be bound to use it neither which is as much as to say If you may not have your own fancied frame of Government and publick Worship and that with Liberty too to throw them off when your fancie changeth you receive mighty wrong and as you said before all the Protestant Churches so you say now all the World will think it strange Bishop Vsher you mentioned before you now bring him in again after Bishop Hall and give them the Titles of Reverend Learned and Moderate 'T is well Bishop Hall now he is at rest hath from you so kind a Character Time was when your combined Forces were bent singly against him you fought neither with small nor great but onely with Bishop Hall and when Smectymnuus was not able to dispute him down your Rabshakeh railed him down and however you now complement him you have shewn your present Esteem of him and of the Primitive Episcopacy in reprinting your Smectymnuus now since his Majestie 's Restoration and if as you say he and Bishop Vsher have published to the World that much less than that would have served to a fraternal Peace you publish to the World you have been obstinate and averse to Peace and Unity who when you had the Law in your hands would not hearken to those by you confessed Moderate Terms of Unity and Peace and your own Pens will bear witness against you that you are now justly repulsed who would not yield when fair means of Accommodation were offered as to Re-ordination which you often mention and here it comes in again 1. We deny your Presbyterian and Independent so called Ordination to be really and indeed any Ordination at all and till you prove it such you charge the Bishops falsely wih requiring Re-ordination 2. Many who have been under your hands have of themselves without being required judging your pretended Ordination a Nullity desired Ordination from the Bishops 3. The Canon supposed of the Apostles toucheth not this Case nor our Bishops who neither do re-ordain nor allow it Re-ordaining rightly so called being the Ordaining again of a Deacon or Priest by a Bishop who was by him known to have been by a Bishop before ordained 4. Bishop Bancrost speaks of those who were ordained by Presbyters where were no Bishops to ordain them as in many of the Reformed Churches abroad But we had Bishops till you pull'd them down Nay blessed be God we had Bishops after you had pull'd them down and till his Majesty set them up again and those who would in all the late times might have had and very many had Ordination from their hands 't is therefore a most gross Untruth and 't is strange such Godly men as you should dare to utter and publish it That your young Preachers by the old Presbyters sent were born in an Age and Countrey which required Ordination by Parochial Pastors without Diocesans if there had been no Bishops you might then have said the Age and Countrey required lest the Church should fail Ordination from Parochial Pastors but I say and you to your Sorrow know there were Bishops all that time divers English and also Scotish and Irish Bishops who though many of them were latent yet were and might be addressed to and did all along confer holy Orders there are at least five English Bishops living to my knowledge and you may know more having the Honour to be joyned with them in Commission which all good men are sorry is not on your part managed temperately and humbly prudently and piously to the Peace of the Church by your selves chiefly but for all our sins long and lamentably divided R. 11. Is a repeated Complaint of their Afflictions and an Accusation of the Bishops as their Afflictors which is already answered The Twelfth and Fourteenth are the same and shall be considered together The 13 th is hammered on the same Anvil with the 11 th That they are the Godly party and afflicted the Episcopal are cruel and persecute them for the Cause of Christ How will Christ take it of you to cast out from the Ministery or Communion of the Church or to grieve and punish all that dare not conform to you in these Matters Ans How will Christ take it from you to cast out all Bishops and Episcopal men who durst not conform to you in your Matters The Bishops Proceedings are by gentle methods 1. They Admonish 2. Suspend 3. Silence before they deprive any and none are deprived but for foul and incorrigible Crimes but you eject at first and totally for no Crime for no Breach of the Laws and Orders but even for that the Episcopal persons stand for the Laws and Orders established You trod down the Stars of Christ's planting as the Stones in the street All those places of Scripture misapplied by you may against you be rightly applied And whereas elsewhere they say to this purpose Sad Experience tels
whom he receiveth and can make to stand and that upon such small occasion is unbeseeming true Believers Their 20 th Reason is delivered with so mighty Confidence that they would make us believe it looks like a Demonstration But 't is scarce worthy the name of a Reason They tell us The Holy Ghost hath decided the Point in controversie between us that they think it strange 't is yet a Controversie A strange Presumption whereby they at once condemn all the Conformists and Non-conformists too in this Church ever since the Reformation They think it strange 't is a Controversie and yet know 't is the great Controversie of these 100 years What Volumes have been written pro and con upon this Subject The Churche's Power in things indifferent their own it seems wanted the Illumination of the Holy Ghost who could not see and shew that his plain Decision and so were fain to argue against the Churche's Orders with their slender Probabilities And ours in these charitable mens Judgment were Resisters of the Holy Ghost in asserting the Churche's Power to command for Decency and Order the Holy Ghost having plainly decided the Point against them that they had no such Power the most reverend Whitgift Morton Hall Hooker Mason Sanderson I wonder you did not demonstrate to this last Dr. Sanderson who I suppose was a Commissioner on the Bishops part his wilfull Sin and Errour in Preaching and Writing so earnestly for the Churche's Ceremonies from this very 14 th Chapter of the Romans we look upon him as the great Casuist of the Age a most rare Preacher and Textuary his Temper truly Christian and primitive charitable humble meek modest even to diffidence his Discourses profound and yet plain to the meanest capacity nothing more clear more clean more cogent and convincing And we judge those two Sermons of his one upon the first of St. Peter 2.16 the other upon Romans 14.23 do fully assert the Churche's Constitutions by the Non-conformists opposed and fairly represent and fully answer their Objections and Master Hooker had with as much meekness and strength done it before you have Time and Numbers if you resolve to stand out and not conform to answer Mr. Hooker point by point your many hands may make the work light but to make it short and easie I challenge a whole Smectymnuus of you to answer onely Dr. Sanderson solidly and soundly and I shall promise you to renounce Conformity and if you cannot as I know you cannot you are self-condemned if you renounce not Non-conformity and now I shall be as highly confident as your selves and shall affirm in a direct contradiction to yours that the Holy Ghost hath so plainly decided the Point in Controversie on the Churche's part that she hath Power to command things indifferent for Decency and Order in God's Worship in the 1 Corinth c. 14. v. 40. That 't is strange it should be yet a Controversie Nay the Church had that Power as to outward Order and Decency to appoint Rites and Ceremonies even when God himself had made Laws for Ceremonies and those so many that we might have thought none could or might be added The Religious Kings and Governors of the Jewish Church enjoyned divers things concerning God's Worship which were not by God commanded There was no Commandment of God assigning the Priests Order Manner and Times of Attendance in the Service of the Temple yet David and Solomon appointed them and the Priests conformed and observed them There was no Commandment for Singers Psalteries Organs Cimbals Harps yet David appointed for the Temple this Musick vocal and instrumental There was no Commandment for the Feast of Purim yet Mordecai enjoined it Hester set it forward and the Jews established it for succeeding Generations There was no Commandment for the Feast of Dedication yet our Saviour observed it If therefore the Jewish Church when God himself had instituted abundance of Ceremonies might and did appoint others besides those by God commanded which were generally by all without contradiction observed surely à fortiori the Christian Church having no Law of particular Ceremonies and Rites given by Christ since without Religious Rites God cannot be publickly worshipped in any orderly and decent manner may especially having a general Law to authorize her 1 Corinth c. 14. constitute and appoint such Rites and we must obey her Constitutions in things neither commanded nor prohibited But to come closely to their 20 th Reason since ad Triarios ventum est 't is their last and that in which they place their greatest strength The Holy Ghost say they hath plainly decided the Point in controversie in the Instance of Meats and Days Rom. 14. 15. A weak brother that maketh an unnecessary difference of Meats and Days is not to be cast out but so to be received I shall here premise the weighty Monition of Dr. Sanderson O beware of misapplying Scripture it is a thing easily done but not so easily answered I know not any one gap that hath let in more and more dangerous Errours into the Church than this that men take the words of the Sacred Text fitted to particular occasions and to the condition of the time wherein they were written and then apply them to themselves and others as they find them without due respect had to the differences that may be between those times and cases and the present Sundry things spoken in the Scripture agreeable to the infancy of the Church would sort very ill with the Church in her fulness of strength and stature This Caution directs me to tell the Petitioners that the Point and Case in controversie between us and them is hugely different from that Rom. c. 14. v. 15. in respect of the Time the Persons and Matter in difference 1. For the Time The Jewish Church was now expiring its Constitution dissolved The Christian Church succeeding it was in planting in its infancy in this time when the Church was not settled and its Order not fully established the new Converts being tender Plants were to be tenderly used and all sorts in pious Prudence to be indulged but not so in a Church planted and settled then and there all its Members are obliged to obey its Orders and not to cast them off upon pretence of Conscience or Christian Liberty the Troubles at Francford they mention though much to the hindrance of the Reformation because in the infancy and beginning of it yet because in the beginning of it that Party which opposed the new-made Constitutions of our Church were not so culpable as these Troublers who a hundred years after the Orders of the Church had obtained and happily flourished have invaded and overturned all Order and Government and now that 't is restoring keep up the same humour of opposing it 2. The case is different in respect of the Persons differing about Meats and Days The one Party were weak the other strong in Faith and Judgment of their Christian Liberty Now of
and might learn that the Church in prescribing Indifferent things takes away no man's Liberty The things prescribed are in their own nature and in the Judgment both of the Imposer and the intelligent Observer of them the same they were before Indifferent I obey the Church yet preserve my Liberty still judging the thing Indifferent which it commands and I obey not the Command as any necessary part of Religion but as the Church commands it which I am bound to obey for Decency and Order They that make Laws concerning Indifferent things have no intention at all to meddle with the nature of them they leave that in medio as they found it but onely for some reasons of conveniency order the use of them the Indifferency of their nature still being where it was They are very unhappy in alledging that Scripture Acts 15.28 which concludes directly for the Church against them we may tell them in their own words the Holy Ghost hath there so plainly decided the Point in controversie that it seems strange to us that yet it should remain a controversie they have here thrown down all they have built all their 20 Reasons fall and are broken in pieces as Dagon before the Ark. This Chapter acquaints us that some Jews though converted to the Christian Faith and embracing the Gospel yet thought themselves bound to the Observation of the whole Mosaical Law and they thought the converted Gentiles so bound also and told them that except they were circumcized and kept the Law of Moses they could not be saved Hereupon arises Dissention and Disputation and an Appeal is made to a Council at Jerusalem which upon the hearing and debating the Question determines That the converted Gentiles should not be obliged to Circumcision nor to the Ceremonial Law but in yieldance to the converted Jews who were zealous of the Law and to keep Peace with them they should abstain from some few things in their nature indifferent but necessary in order to Peace and Charity from Meats offered to Idols from Bloud and from things strangled Behold here the First and Greatest Council that ever was in the Christian Church to compose a Difference meets and makes a Law of Abstinence from some things indifferent and otherwise in themselves lawfull This is plainly the Case the Act of the Council and Decision of the Question and yet these men alledge the Act of the Council to prove the quite contrary I am amazed to see how they change and clip the words and pervert the sense of the Scripture they cite for their ends and I fear against their Conscience They say the Apostles and Elders Act. 15.28 declare unto the Churches that it seemed good unto the Holy Ghost and them to lay upon them no greater Burthen than necessary things Do the Apostles and Elders so declare then we yield the Cause Do they not then ought they with Sin and Shame to yield it They leave out the word These because they know it made against them limiting the Churche's Order to some few particular things there presently named Things offered to Idols Bloud c. Now whereas the Church makes a temporary Order for some particular things and declares thus It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater Burthen necessary besides these things or these necessary things They leave out that word these of main importance and hugely against them and would make a standing Canon of their own and father it upon the Apostles That the Church ought to impose no other then necessary things and yet too by their own confession these things imposed were not simply in their own nature unchangeably necessary but by accident pro tempore loco and whereas they say the Council imposed them because antecedently necessary The contrary is most true These things were not antecedently necessary but onely as themselves say pro tempore for the time There being at this time a difference risen about the Jewish Ceremonies it was not necessary before the Council now so determined That the converted Gentiles should abstain from things offered to Idols strangled and Bloud that Law belonging onely to the Jews never to the Gentiles Behold how rarely well these men argue To prove Church-Governours may not determine in things indifferent for Order and Unity but all ought to be left to their own Liberty They produce a Scripture which proves most plainly That Church-Governours have and may determine and restrain those under them from the use of things indifferent All the things touching which the Council they produce do give order being indifferent except one Fornication which is of another nature but with these prohibited for that the Gentiles allowed themselves in it and scarce looked on it as a Sin This of their 20 th and last Reason which I have thus at large considered for that they lay so much weight upon it though it prove as the rest light in the Balance I shall for a Conclusion of all clearly evidence the Churche's Power to prescribe external Rites and Ceremonies for Order and Decency and our Obligation to conform unto them from the Judgment of two ancient Fathers for whom I suppose our Brethren have some Reverence and if those cannot move them from the Judgment of a modern Father for whom I am sure they have a high Veneration 'T is St. Augustine's Rule Prudenti Christiano eo modo agendum esse quo agit Ecclesia ad quam devenerit and his Mother having used when she was in Africk to fast on the Saturday and coming to Millan where that Fast was not observed was doubtfull what to doe hereupon her Son consulted Saint Ambrose who thus answered When I am here at Millan I do not fast on the Saturday when I am at Rome I do fast on the Saturday and unto what Church soever ye come keep the custom of it if you be willing neither to give nor take Scandal From which Rule of St. Augustine and Advice of St. Ambrose a Learned person maketh these Remarks 1. That divers Countries professing the same Religion may have divers Ceremonies 2. That in Churches Independent one is not bound of necessity to follow another 3. That 't is the Duty of every private person to conform himself to the laudable Customs and Constitutions of the Church wherein he liveth or wherever he cometh You have heard the Judgment of these ancient Fathers Will you hear your modern Father Mr. Calvin and he delivers his Judgment so fully and with so much strength and clearness asserts the Churche's Power to ordain external Rites and Ceremonies that Master Hooker himself could not say more or better Whereas many unskilfull men when they hear that Consciences are wickedly bound and God Worshipped in vain by the Traditions of men do at once blot out altogether all Laws whereby the Order of the Church is set in frame Therefore it is convenient also to meet with their Errour Verily in this point it