to excommunicate here and there several Christians and their families as single Slips and Off-sets of Christianity which might grow apart by themselves but their aim was with preaching Verity to plant Unity and with true Faith to graft fraternal Charity which conjoyned them to and with Christ and all Christians in the world This being a most visible mark of Christs Disciples also a special means for mutual assistance and comfort amidst the many persecutions which Christians would meet with sufficient utterly to discourage them if when they were scattered from each other they were presently without any joynt harmony greater combination and ampler communion of Saints by which means whereever Christians fled from one place to another if they met with Christians they were sure of hospitable friends bringing as they ever did letters of communication or commendation from their Bishops which presently made their way to such a kind reception and communion in all holy duties as that station permitted as Catechumens or Penitents or Eucharistical Communicants in which they stood whereever they had lived Therefore as the Apostolical wisdom so all their successors diligently gathered single believers and private families of Christians into greater Congregations these they led on to larger combinations which comprehended the Christians of many Villages Towns Cities and Territories according as the Spirit of Christ directed them for the greater conveniency and benefit of both Ministers and people who scattered in small bodies or parcels must needs be both more cold and more feeble but so united in grand Societies they would be both warmer stronger and safer and besides more eminent and conspicuous in the eyes of all the world Such beyond all doubt were those Apostolical and famous Churches distinguished by the Spirit of God according to the chief Cities which were the centre of their Religious addresses for Church-Order Authority and Communion as the Church of Jerusalem Antioch Rome Ephesus Corinth Sardis Smyrna Colosse with many more whose Cities being most-what Metropolitan or Mother-cities as to secular power and distribution of civil justice they were chosen as meetest for the principal residency of Religious Order Polity and Authority wherein as was meet the blessed Apostles did during their lives preside as Bishops either in their persons or by those faithful Apostolick men whom they as St. Paul did Timothy Titus Archippus others appointed as Rulers or Bishops under them for the carrying on of the service of Christ his Church partly by the common duty and office Ministerial which was to preach baptize celebrate other holy Mysteries in an orderly way even in lesser Congregations yea to private Families and single persons as occasion required which was the work of Bishops and Presbyters in common and partly to manage that presidential power and Episcopal Authority over both Presbyters and people united in larger combinations and Churches as might best preserve the Purity Unity and Honor of the Church and Christian Religion in doctrine and discipline also derive by way of right Ordination after the pattern given to Timothy and Titus and others a continued succession of an holy and authoritative Ministry by such an eminent power of Order as was specially delivered to the chief Apostles and by them to their principal successors as Bishops in those great Apostolical and complete Churches where as Christians increased many Presbyters were ordained by the chief Pastor or Bishop to be both Counsellers and Assistants to him in that Evangelical work of teaching and governing the Church committed to him First as appointed immediately by the chief Apostles while they lived and after as chosen by the surviving Presbyters in every precinct or Diocese to succeed so far in that Apostolical eminency and presidential authority as was necessary for the Churches constant Order and good Government according to that precedent Charter and Commission which all Churches had received from the Apostles and they from Christ not as a temporary Ordinance but such as for the main end and method the Lord would have continued till his coming again by a succession of ordinary Bishops who are a lesser or second sort of Apostles in many things short of their gifts yet having the same ordinary power to ordain Presbyters and Deacons to appoint them their offices and places in the Churches Ministry and to see they execute the same as is meet for the edifying of the Church in Truth and Love to rebuke and reject them in case of failing and obstinacy As the Church daily thus increased spreading its boughs even to the utmost seas still its Polity or Government as the bark or rinde of the Tree enlarged with the body or bulk being most necessary for the preserving both of lesser and greater branches to knit and bind all together to convey the sap and juice to every part and to the whole This once peeled or broken or cut wounds the tree weakens and oft kills that part which is so injured Trees may as well thrive without their bark and bodies live without their skins as Churches without setled and united Government Therefore that all true Christians might still keep a Catholick Correspondence Subordination and holy Communion between the whole and every branch or member they had not onely Deacons above the people but Presbyters above Deacons and Bishops above Presbyters yea and as the borders and numbers of the Church so increased that not onely Presbyters but Bishops grew many and so fit to be put into some method and order they had Archbishops or Metropolitanes above ordinary Bishops and Patriarchs above Archbishops or Metropolitanes and a generall Council above all thus still drawing nearer to a center of union and mutuall intelligence So that first three afterward five Patriarchs had the general Episcopacy Superintendency and Inspection over all the Christian world Nor were these Bishops Metropolitans and Patriarchs any ambitious affectations or forcible intrusions of pride or tyranny upon the Churches of Christ but by a wise and general consent on all sides Christian Bishops did so cast themselves into comely rancks of Subordination after the Apostolical pattern as might most suit to the good order correspondence and unanimity of all Christians as but one Church there being in the first 300. years of sore persecution no other motives to these eminent places and regular orders in the Church of Bishops Archbishops Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs but onely those of Labours and Cares of Sufferings and Martyrdoms which still pressed most upon the Presidents and chief Governours or Bishops of the Churches as was evident in the glorious marks of the Lord Jesus to be seen on the Faces Hands and other parts of the Bodies of those venerable Bishops 318 which met at the first great gaudy-day of the Church in the Council of Nice which all made but one Episcopacy and were Representers as well as Presidents or Rulers of but one Catholick Church After which time by the favour of
Idolatry Heresie Schism and Apostasie in all the world if God had not in the place of primitive miracles supplied the Church with such Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters whose admirable learning undaunted courage indisputable authority uniform order and constant succession was beyond any miracle which did at once both wonderfully attest and mightily preserve the sanctity mystery and majesty of Christian Religion from the subtilty of persecutors the sophistry of Philosophers the contumacy of Schismaticks and contumelies of Hereticks being too hard by Gods assistance for the malice of men and the wiles of Satan All which are then under severall new notions and disguises probable to prevaile over this or any Christian Church when such liberty shall be used by vulgar spirits and inordinate minds as shall not onely diminish and abate but quite in time destroy and vacate the divine reverence and inviolable sanctity of religious mysteries and holy ministrations which will inevitably follow where the Catholick order and divine authority of Ministers derived through all ages is not onely questioned and disputed but denied despised variated prostituted usurped by whosoever list to make himself a Minister in any new way which cannot be true if new nor authentick if it be exotick unwonted in the Church of Christ either broken off or different from that primitive commission and constant exemplification or Catholick succession which was owned and observed in Bishops and Presbyters throughout all the Christian world For my part I abhor all intrusion and obtrusion of dangerous Novelties both from Papists and Separatists either in Doctrine Discipline or Government of the Church and those I account dangerous yea detestable Novelties which not upon any plea of ignorance or necessity but meerly out of wantonness and wilfulness seek to alter the sacred streams and currents of Ecclesiasticall power authority and order from those fountains where Christ first broached it and those conduits by which the Apostles derived it which unquestionably was by Bishops and Presbyters I know that the sacred office and Angelick function of the Evangelicall Ministry as it is from my Lord Jesus Christ and is in his name and stead so it ought to be managed reverenced esteemed transmitted and undertaken among all true Christians as a visible supply of Christs absence in body as an authoritative embassie or delegation from Him as a sacred dispensation of that Ministry to his Church by chosen and duly ordained men setting forth his History his Precepts Promises Sacraments and other holy Institutions together with the Ministrations and Gifts of his holy Spirit by which he promised to his Apostles to be with them to the end of the world in that holy work wherein he employed them and their lawfull successors to be his witnesses among all nations whither he should send them So that every true Minister as with the ancients Mr. Calvin observes in his proper place and order as Bishop or Presbyter is first a Prophet to teach and instruct in the truths of God that part of Christs Church over which he is constituted next he is as a Ruler Shepherd and Governour over them in the Lord to feed and guide them in that holy order and discipline which becomes the lesser and the greater the single and sociall parts of Christs flock according as they are under their several care and inspection lastly every true Minister is in his proper station to perform in Christs stead those offices of his Evangelicall Priesthood which he hath assigned to be dispensed for his Churches good as the solemn consecration and celebration of that Eucharisticall memoriall of the great oblation of Christ to his Father upon the Cross for the redemption of the world by which all mankind is put into a conditionall capacity of salvation and upon their true faith and repentance Christs body and blood with all his meritorious benefits are evidently set forth signally confirmed and personally exhibited in that great Sacrament and most venerable mystery to every worthy Receiver He is further to offer up upon the altar of Christs merits the spiritual sacrifices of the Church in prayers praises thanksgivings alms and charities Besides this there is in the true Pastor or Minister of the Church of Christ according to their proportion and degree their line and measure as Bishops and Presbyters a power of mission and propagation in order to maintain that holy succession of an Evangelicall Priesthood which Christ Jesus hath appointed and which the Apostles with their successors the Bishops and Pastors of the Church in all the world have to this day continued without any interruption or any variation as to the maine of the power and practise of Ordination So then as these three offices are eminently in Christ as the great Prophet Prince and Priest of his Church to all which he was consecrated by the mission of his Father by his own Blood-shed and Passion also by the anointing of his eternall Spirit which filled him with all divine Graces ministeriall Gifts and miraculous Power necessary for so great a work so the Lord Christ being absent in body but present in his power and Spirit had derived and committed the outward ministeriall execution of these his offices to chosen and ordained men as over-seers and workers together with Christ of themselves but earthen vessels yet the fittest instruments for the present dispensations of his Gospel and grace which yet are to be carried on according to the first appearance of Christ in the flesh in such darkness weaknesse and meannesse as may most set forth the present excellency of Gods gracious power and set off the future manifestations of his glory to his Church which even in this inferiority and obscurity of the Gospel hath yet as three that bear witnesse to its truth in heaven the wisdome of the Father contriving the love of the Son effecting and the power of the holy Ghost applying Evangelical mercies to poor sinners so it hath three that bear witnesse on earth to that glorious truth and mystery of the Gospel the water of Baptism which sprinkles to Regeneration the blood of the Lords Supper which feeds and refreshes believers also the Spirit of ministeriall Power and Authority which hath been and still is from Christ continued in all true Christian Churches As the first three are one in an essentiall unity of divine nature so these later three as S. John tells us agree in one that is in one Soveraign author Jesus Christ and in one sacred order and office of Church-Ministry or Evangelical dispensations successively derived from the Apostles Elders and Deacons by a power and commission peculiar to those who are duly ordained to be Christs Deputies Lieutenants and Vicegerents in his Church for those holy offices and divine ministrations whereto they are severally appointed in an higher or lower degree as Apostles or Elders as Bishops or Presbyters as Pastors or Teachers either over-seeing as
enemies rivals and extirpaters of the ancient Clergie and Ecclesiastick order in England can pretend the true Ministers Bishops and Presbyters of this Christian and Reformed Church doe challenge use and maintaine no other power priviledge or authority Ecclesiasticall than what they have duly and constantly received in the way of holy orders from their predecessors hands who have descended from the very Apostles dayes Nor are they such Monopolizers or appropriators of this power and office ministeriall to their own persons or to such onely as are formall Academicks professed Scholars and University Graduates as not willingly to admit into that holy Order and Fraternity by the right and Catholick way of due ordination not onely any worthy Gentlemen of competent parts pious affections and orderly lives whose hearts God shall move to so holy an ambition to desire so good a work but even those that are of plebeian proportions of meaner parts and less improved erudition provided they be found upon due trial to have acquired such competent abilities by Gods blessing upon their private industry and studious piety as may render them meet for any place or work in Christs husbandry where one may sow another may water a third may weed a fourth may fense the Church and Vineyard according to the severall gifts and dispensations ministred by the same Spirit and power of Christ which ought to be dispensed and carried on not in an arbitrary rude and precarious usurpation and intrusion but in an authoritative orderly and decent derivation succession for the honor profit peace of the Church of Christ Certainly no worthy Minister or sober Christian can so undervalue and debase those Evangelicall offices of Christ which are exercised by his ordained Ministers as to think that every self-flatterer and obtruder is presently to officiate without any due examination approbation and ordination from those with whom that commission and power hath been ever deposited in a regular and visible succession from Christ the great exemplar or Original which visible order mission and delegation is as necessary for the outward unity authority solemnity and majesty of Christs militant Church and Ministry upon earth as the workings of his blessed Spirit are for the inward operation and efficacie of true grace in mens hearts So that as no private and good Christian hath any cause to complain in this part of the Bishops and Ministers of the Church of England who in dispensing of holy orders or ministeriall power acted after the Catholick pattern of Primitive Churches no less than the particular constitutions of this Church allowed by all estates and degrees of men no more have any secular Powers or civil Magisrates who are or shall be professors of true Christian Religion any cause to be jealous of the ancient Bishops and Ministers of the Church nor shall they need either out of conscience or reasons of state to pervert and innovate that pristine course and regular succession of ministeriall authority yea as worthy Christians and wise Governours they ought both in piety and policy in honour and conscience to be no less exact in preserving this sacred order and divine authority from alteration invasion and usurpation than they are for their own civil power and secular jurisdiction which the renowned patterns of Christian Potentates Constantine Theodosius and other great and godly Princes were so far from arrogating to their imperiall power that they humbly submitted themselves to the order and power Ecclesiasticall in the things of Christ highly esteeming and venerating that Apostolick race of Bishops and Presbyters in the Church as the great Luminaries of the world the constant witnesses of Christs life and death the celebraters of his mysterious sufferings grace and glory the ministerial Fathers and confirmers of Christians faith as terrestiall Angels as Gods gracious Ambassadors for pardon and peace as Christs speciall commissioners appointed for to carry on the great work of saving mens souls Just and generous Princes if they be truly Christian cannot be so partial as to forbid any man under the highâ—st pain and penalty of high treason and death it self to challenge to himself any part of their civil or military power without a due commission derived either from themselves immediately or from those to whom they have deputed power for such ends and purposes which order they permit no man to violate or usurp however conceitedly or really able he may seem to be to himself or others for the managing of such power and yet permit such persons as are for the most part heady and high-minded insolent and disorderly to intrude themselves by a meer usurpation upon that sacred office authority and Ministry which is Christs without any due and solemn derivation of this power in such a way as hath ever been Apostolick Primitive Catholick and onely authentick in the Churches of Christ Certainly the rude innovation and usurpation upon this office and honour merits above any boldness as Nilus in Balsamon expresseth it that black brand of the last and perillous times when men shall be emphatically Traytors not onely to men but to Christ not onely to Common-weals but to Churches disobedient to parents not onely naturall and politick but also spirituall and ecclesiastick violating and betraying not onely the visible peace order uniformity and successive authority of the Church but the invisible comforts quiet and grace of poor peoples souls who must needs be at a great loss in a very sad and shamefull case as to their Religion where their spirituall leaders and shepherds are usurpers intruders clamberers not coming into the sheep-fold by the door of right ordination but climbing some other way as thieves and robbers when their titular and intruding Pastors prove either grievous wolves or miserable asses as they commonly are found to be who are not admitted by due ordination but crowd into the Ministry by rude and novell obtrusions so domineering over the flock of Christ over whom not the holy Ghost by an ordinary derived power and authority but their own unruly spirits have made them not so much over-seers of others as either stark blind or grosly over-seen in themselves CHAP. X. THe sense of this High Treason against Christ and of those sinfull disorders which men bring on themselves the Church of Christ by their intrusion usurpation upon this ministeriall power and office makes me here seriously suggest to You my honoured and beloved Country-men this religious caution That it very much concerns you for your own and your posterities souls good to be very wary not to be imposed upon and abused by vulgar pretensions of zeal and Christian liberty in this point of the Ministry but to be vigilant with whom you intrust as Ministers your own your childrens or any other peoples souls where you are Patrons of Livings And since your own prudent abilities for learning piety and experience are so modest as not rashly to adventure upon this
Ravens must not be hoped for to feed us where Providence gives us opportunity to get our bread by honest industry Where then there are so many intruders and deceivers gone out as Ministers of the Gospel it is a matter of conscience as well as necessary prudence in all good Christians to be cautious and inquisitive whom they allow and follow as Ministers to be first satisfied in that question which the Jews rationally asked of Christ By what power or authority dost thou these things No discreet person in civil affairs will obey any warrant or order which hath no other authority than a private and pragmatick activity and can it be piety or prudence in Christians to be deluded by any pretenders in the great concernments of their souls to have no more of Sacraments or any other holy duties than the meer sensible shell and husk of them for the spiritual life and power of them is no where to be had but from such dispensers of them as have the authority and power the mission and commission of Christ rightly derived to them which was evident first in Christ after in his holy Apostles and their lawfull successors Certainly the cheat and falsity of such mock-Ministers and Pseudo-pastors is of far greater danger and detriment than those of spurious and supposititious children or of embased coin and counterfeit money Some people have been so wicked as to change their own children steal others from their parents but it was never heard that children of any discretion were so foolish and unnaturall as to abdicate their true Fathers and genuine mothers that they might adopt false parents and superinduce upon themselves the Empire of bastardly progenitors The mischief abuse is not less in Churches than in Common-weales in Christian Congregations than in families Due respect of paternall care and filiall love such as ought to be between Pastor and People can never be mutually expected where the relation is either supposititious or presumptuous or meerly imaginary or at best but arbitrary which is inconsistent with humane much more with divine Authority the measure of which is not the pleasure of man but the will of God whose will is asserted by his power For my part I firmly conclude that as no true Christians may admit of any Gospel or Sacraments or holy Institutions other than such as have been already once delivered to the Catholick Church and preserved by her fidelity against which the preaching of an Angel from heaven is not to be received or believed but accursed so nor may any Church or good Christians either broach invent or admit any new ministeriall power order mission or authority beside or beyond that which the Church of England and the Catholick Church of Christ hath received and transmitted in a constant succession That sacred ordination which began in Christ and flowed from him as the effect of his Melchisedechian Evangelicall and eternall Priesthood must never be interrupted innovated or essentially altered no not under any pretense or removing or reforming what corrupions may possibly be contracted by time and humane infirmities which are but accidentall as diseases to the body to Catholick prescriptions founded upon divine institutions Fields once sown with good corn must not be rooted up or fired because tares may be sown by the enemy while men slept Trees that are full of moss missletow through age yet bearing good fruit ought not to be cut down but pruned and cleared The decayes or dilapidations of the Temple before Hezekiah and Josiah repaired it were no excuse for peoples neglect to frequent it much less were they justified and to sacrifice other where than there onely as the place which the Lord had chosen to put his name there nor did those pious Princes set that house of God on fire because it was decayed but duly repaired it with great cost and care And such indeed was the excellent piety and prudence of the Church of England such wisdome and moderation it observed as in all other things so in this of the ministeriall order and office What injuries it as other holy things had suffered in the darkness of times by the dulness of Presbyters the negligence of Bishops or insolence of Popes it wisely reformed not abrogating the authority or breaking the Catholick succession of Bishops and Presbyters in this as in all Churches not broaching a new fountain not obstructing as Philistins the wells their fathers had digged not diverting the ancient course and conduits of the waters of life but cleansing the fountains and continuing the streams of primitive holy orders in the constant descents degrees and offices of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons They did not raise up new Ministers like Mushromes out of every mole-hill noâ— force them like Musk-melons out of the hot beds of popular zeal and novellizing faction without any regard to the ancient stock and root of Ecclesiasticall power and Ministeriall authority from which as Irenaeus Tertullian S. Cyprian and all the ancients clearly tell us Bishops and Presbyters were ever derived as slips and off-sets of the twelve Apostles and seventy Disciples No time ever did or ever shall render that Primitive plant and root of Evangelicall Ministry so dry dead and barren that they may or ought to be quite stubbed up or new ones set in their room No they are only to be pruned and trimmed that so they may be worthy of that honor which indeed they have to be by an uninterrupted succession derived and descended from the blessed Apostles whom Christ first planted by his own hands nor may any mans presumption undertake to pul up that holy plantation as those design to do who endeavour to destroy the derivation and succession of the power Ministeriall The truth sanctity and validity of which as to the Ministry of the Church of England by its Bishops and Presbyters hath been fully and clearly asserted by able pens against both Papists on the one side and Novellists on the other The one confining all Episcopal and Ministeriall power to one head and origin the Bishop of Rome as if there had not been twelve fountains and foundations of prime Apostles but onely one S. Peter appointed by our Lord Jesus Christ the other lewdly scattering that sacred office and divine authority even among vulgar and plebeian hands that every man may scramble for it as he list according as he fancies that his abilities and liberty in these times may extend The putid and pernicious effects of which in their present usurpations divisions confusions debasements discouragements upon the Clergie and Church of England as I shall afterward in the third Book more fully set them forth so I cannot here but justly condemn those partiall unreasonable and irreligious principles from whence so pragmatick an itch or thirst of novelty in so grand a concernment of Religion must needs arise that fond men should be so eager to stop up the ancient fountains
Bishops and Presbyters of the Catholick Church the East and West the old and new the Greeks and Latines the Roman and Reformed that all these have conspired to erre so great so universall so constant an errour themselves and to mis-guide you me and all the Christian world in such wayes of receiving and conferring Ecclesiastick order Evangelicall Ministry Church-government as were unchristian yea Antichristian diverse from Christs mind yea contrary to it offensive to the godly odious to God himself as some men have lewdly declamed whose tongues I judge to be no slander since they appear persons of so little conscience and less forehead either grosly ignorant of the practise and platform of Antiquity or most uncharitably impudent in branding so many thousands of godly Bishops and other gracious Ministers both in England and all other places who were justly famous in their generations for their learning and piety as if they were either so many blind guides or so many bold intruders meer usurpers juglers impostors hypocrites as if to gratifie their own private ambitions they had from the very beginning in the sight and in despite of S. John and other Apostolick Pastors perverted the way of Christ as to that Ministeriall power Church-order which he had appointed setting up of their own heads a paternall presidency or Episcopall eminency instead of these newly discovered wayes of either a Presbyterian parity or a popular Independency by which Presbyters and people in common challenge to themselves the sole possession dispensation and managery of all Ecclesiasticall office power and authority inventions so pragmatick so turbulent so contrariant to one another as well as to the ancient orders of the Church that we in England were happily unacquainted with them till of late years as were all other Churches in the world till this last century who cannot be thought in all former ages to have wanted such Pastors and Teachers such Rulers and Governours as were after Gods own heart to carry on his great work of saving souls in the preserving and propagating of his Church by the Ministers of it If the great cloud of ancient and Catholick witnesses who ever owned all Ecclesiastick power to be magisterially indeed and primarily in Christ but ministerially and secondarily in the Apostles and their successors as to all Church-ministration ordination and jurisdiction which power resided chiefly in Bishops and from them was regularly derived to Presbyters if these I say can fall under your hard censure as either deceived or deceivers yet truly their errour in this point may be the more veniall because the case was not so much as once doubted or disputed for three hundred years in those best and first ages of the Church It will be more charity in their censurers to suspect they wanted ability to see the light of Christs mind and the Apostles examples than honesty to follow them But for my self and other Ministers my Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England who after so high contests about the Ministry of the Church both as to ordination and jurisdiction in which we have examined all Scriptures and rifled all Antiquity if we do still bona fide humbly honestly and conscientiously chuse to follow what seems to us Christian Catholick and uniform antiquity rather than any partiall and divided wayes of novelty I hope we are excusable to you if not commendable how ignorant or obstinate soever we seem to others who think we ought to be confounded if we will not be converted or rather perverted by them But if you do indeed judge that after so clear demonstrations and potent convictions from Scripture and Antiquity which either Geneva or Edenburgh or Amsterdam or New-England have alledged we do still persist in our Primitive opinions and Catholick Errours touching the office power and derivation of the Evangelicall Ministry and Authority such as was established in this Church of England meerly out of either passion pertinacy and obstinacy or for private interests sinister ends and secular policies if you can think us so base and false such sots and beasts so unworthy of the names of Ministers Christians Englishmen or men if this be your sense of us truly you and the whole State shall do but an act of high Justice speedily to cast us all out as well Presbyters as Bishops for unsavoury salt to expose us yet more upon the dunghill of vulgar contempt and worldly poverty which some Satyrick tongues and pens have earnestly importuned and petulantly endeavoured against all the ancient Ministers and orderly Clergie of England under the name of Prelaticks and Episcopall If the bitter and bold invectives of spitefull Papists and fierce Separatists of rash Presbyterians and rude Independents of Erastians and Anabaptists if these have been or can be made good to you against the Ministry and ordination of the Church of England against all its Bishops and Presbyters both in office and exercise as if we had not either before or since the Reformation any due ministeriall office or authority no true ordination or succession little of ministeriall gifts and less of graces no sound doctrine faithfully preached no Sacraments rightly consecrated no holy mysteries lawfully celebrated no Church-discipline dispensed no right government constituted no true Ministry or authoritative Ministers any way deserving either love or honour from you and your posterity If all your and our faith repentance charity and other graces be in vain if your Christian peace and hopes be all but imaginary if neither we are made true Ministers of Christ nor you true Members or Disciples of Christ if all your and your fore-fathers piety devotion charity Christianity hath been onely a fantastick pageantry a mummery and mockery of Religion Christianity and Reformation if hitherto you have onely been deluded and abused in so high concernments of your consciences and souls to eternity truly 't is but high time for you and your new Common-weale to offer up the wretched remnant of those Bishops and Presbyters who have yet survived the calamities and contempts of these times and who yet retain their former judgement ministeriall office and holy orders conformably to the Church of England to be an acceptable Sacrifice a welcome Holocaust or much longed-for Burnt-offering to the malice of their adversaries and persecutors both Gog and Magog first to the more secret but implacable despite of Papists who have infinitely longed and no less rejoyce to see poverty obscurity silence scorn division confusion extirpation to be the portion of the English Clergie whom they heretofore either envied or dreaded beyond the Ministry of any Christian or Reformed Church in all the world next you shall in so doing highly gratifie the bitter and bolder enmity the fouler-mouth'd fury of all other sharp-tongu'd brazen-fac'd and heavy-handed Schismaticks who have a long time grudged at the Clergie of England envying both Bishops and Presbyters their honours liberties livelihoods and lives prompted hereto partly by their own
conferences occasion better understanding between many of them and so by Gods blessing in time produce some such counsels as may be worthy of them and the publick But if their aime be slily to get into some hands such popular advantages by their soft insinuations of seeming equanimity and moderation as shall further displace and disparage the former Catholick Government of this and all ancient Churches they will be but as new patches put to an old garment which will make the rent and deformity the greater Certainly the state of the Reformed Religion in England will never be happy till it is setled nor setled till it be uniform nor uniform till the office and authority of Ministers be valid and venerable nor will this ever be untill the sanctity and samenesse of ordination together with the use of Ecclesiasticall power and holy Ministrations be rendred so August so Sacred and Complete as may be most conforme to Scripture and to pure Antiquity for while Ministers are of diverse makes and moulds they will be of diverse minds nor can they produce other than multiforme Christians of different fashions and deformed factions in Religion which do as necessarily bring forth infinite mischiefs in any Church or Christian State as the itch breeds scratching and scratching fetches blood As the blessed Apostles so their holy successors kept to one way of Religious Order and Power which preserved the unity of faith and love among Christian Bishops Presbyters and people I confess I do sometimes in my sad and retired solitudes hope that our common calamities may by Gods softning and calming grace upon mens spirits make both all Godly Ministers and all good people so wise as humbly sincerely and charitably to search into the cleare steps of Primitive prudence Apostolicall order and Ecclesiacall Authority which had due and tender regard to all sorts of Christians so as to keep up a meet subordination with a Christian communion To which end I was willing to hope this shew of Association might conduce But when I find in some of them nothing that looks civilly upon Episcopacy many things cast reprochfully and scornfully upon the excellent Bishops of England and all the Episcopall Clergy who were not inferiour in any regard to the best Associators when I find that some of them have the confidence to exclude all that have of late yeares been ordained by any Bishop with Presbyters though such an one as the late most venerable Bishop of Norwich Dr. Hall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when I see that some rigid Presbyterians and popular Independents affect with great Magistery to Duopolize all Church-power to grasp into their hands and bosomes as the sides of a drag-net meeting together all Ministeriall Authority not onely not owning the best surviving Bishops with any respect nor yet in any faire way applying to any of them after all their undeserved indignities but spitefully and professedly abdicating all communion with them under the name of Bishops reducing them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the levell and parallel of Presbyters which the 630. Orthodox Fathers in the fourth generall famous Councell of Chalcedon which all Ministers of England approved and I think subscribed to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an absurd and unreasonable practise yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great sacriledge and Zonaras upon that Canon makes it a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fighting as Giants against God as a dethroning of Christ the Bishops eminent authority and presidency in the Church being a lively representation of Christs sitting in the midst of the throne who did undoubtedly delegate his visible authority of governing the Church to the chief Apostles above the 70. and all other Teachers after which manner and proportion these chief Apostles who were the first and great Bishops after Christ did both commit and derive their authority to the following Bishops their successors who were a lesser sort or second edition of Apostles when I see what an Idol some Ministers and people make of their Scotch-Covenant by which great Engine or Military Ram they still think themselves bound to batter Episcopacy as if their Covenanting against it as it then stood in England were an obligation to persecute all Episcopacy for ever when in earnest the least variation of its former constitution both satisfies and absolves from that bond which some men still superstitiously venerate as if it were an image faln from heaven a matter of divine precept and institution and not rather of humane machination and politick invention which we are sure it was as if it were the solemn result of the pious or of the peaceable and publick sense of this Nation and not rather the issue of troubled braines and broken times indeed many forget that the Covenant smells more of fire smoke of sulphur and gun-powder than of the Spouses myrrh and perfumes of Christian Love and Charity Again when I consider how passion and pride betrayes many men to rashnesse rashnesse to folly folly to obstinacy obstinacy to presumption presumption to animosities and these to unchristian fewds everlasting despite and bitternesse which must still be vented as cholerick humors once in a month against the most innocent and Primitive Episcopacy yea against the most deserving and yet most suffering Bishops of this Church and of all the world old and new when I see the personall errata's and exorbitances or infirmities of some few Bishops by most uncharitable Synecdoches which put a part for the whole are in a pittifull fallacious way of vulgar oratory urged against all Episcopacy and Bishops in any orderly eminency or presidentiall authority in the Church contrary to the faith and honour of all antiquity and the former happy experiences of this Reformed Church when I find how wary and shy some Ministers are in their zeal and forwardnesse for their petty Associations to seem to own even their own judgements and reall inclinations toward any such condescentions and close with Episcopacy as may reflect upon their former transports how loth they are really and freely to offer such proposals as are equable and ingenuous pure and peaceable to the Episcopall party who aim at no more than such a paternall presidency and order as may best preserve the undoubted power of ordination and Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction as it was Primitively setled in and transmitted by the hands of the first Bishops who immediately succeeded the Apostles When I see as I plainly do this partiality restivenesse and cowardise in some Ministers of good parts then do I almost sink in despaire ever to see or enjoy while I live in England any thing in the Order Government and Discipline of this Church that may look like the Primitive pattern which was indeed a Catholicon approved in all Churches used in all ages and submitted to by all sorts of good Christians the onely proper Antidote I think against the poysons of our times farre beyond any of these kind of new confections which tampering and partiall Empiricks
would be established and the tranquillity of the Nation highly setled and confirmed upon the best foundation of peace that can be among mankind In all which things we have and do on all sides so far extremely suffer as we differ by such unreasonable distances and uncharitable defiances first among Ministers which are presently followed with all disorder lukewarmenesse irreligion profaneness arrogancy Atheism Affectation and Faction among the people in England chiefly as I conceive upon this account The needlesse variating shifting and changing of that Primitive plat-forme that Apostolick and Catholick order and succession of Ecclesiasticall Authority and Ministeriall power in this Church which hath ever been owned with religious reverence and conscience in Engl. ever since it was Christian preserved as sacred by the most pious Princes honored as Divine by the most Religious and reformed Parlaments prospered by the speciall benignity and grace of God peaceably enjoyed by all devout judicious and humble Christians to the unspeakable comfort of their souls living and dying when they knew who were their Bishops Pastors and spirituall Fathers owning them with all due respect and love as in Christs stead submitting to them for conscience sake as to the Lord and receiving from them good instructions just reproofes holy comforts and heavenly Mysteries not as from man but God after the rule of the Scriptures and the example of the best Christians in all ages who looked upon Episcopacy or the Government of the Church as fixed completed and exercised chiefly by Bishops assisted with worthy Presbyters not onely as a book of a larger volume greater print and fairer binding than Presbytery or Independency that is the sole power of Presbyters or people by themselves but they looked upon the Episcopall eminency as having more in it of Apostolick power and Ecclesiasticall Authority both in point of ordination and jurisdiction than is either in Presbyters or people by themselves Bishops and Presbyters being as the eyes and hands which are not more members of the body than the leggs and feet yet they are the more noble parts and have more of publick use and virtue as to inspection direction and operation for the common good of all parts in the body No wonder then if the honor of all Religion be much abated if the renown of this Reformed Church be thus abased no wonder that Presbytery it self is so baffled and Independency despised no wonder that all the Office Power and Authority of Ministers together with their persons be reduced to such a low ebb and almost quite exhausted when Bishops the grand Cisternes and chief Conduites of all Ecclesiasticall Orders and Ministeriall Authority as derived from Christ and his Apostles are not onely bruised and crackt but utterly broken cut off and cast away whom yet no Presbyter or Independent of any learning or forehead can deny actually to have been in all ages used and esteemed as the constant successors and immediate substitutes of the Apostles first invested with that power by the Apostles themselves after their decease chosen by the Presbyters and after consecrated by other Bishops to be as the prime receptacles conservators and conveyers of all Ecclesiasticall Power and Ministeriall Authority not onely as Teachers of Divine truths preachers of the Gospell and dispensers of holy Mysteries in common with Presbyters but as chief Fathers Pastors and Rulers of those larger flocks which constituted those famous ancient Churches which were not limited to the bounds of one family or one congregation or one little parish in which one Preacher or Presbyter may in ordinary duties suffice but they extended to such ample combinations as contained large Cities and their Territories in which were many thousands of Christians many congregations and many Presbyters who all made but one Church or polity Ecclesiasticall under one chief Pastor or Bishop residing with the Presbyters at first in the chief City afterward these were fixed to particular parishes or villages by the care of the Bishops Without whose authority and consent nothing of consequence was done by any in the publick managing of Religion without the just brand and censure of Schismaticall arrogancy it being ever judged that Bishops had derived to them an higher degree of Apostolick power and Church jurisdiction than ever was or could be in any one or many Presbyters or people without them who could not regularly nor never did unblamably ordaine of themselves or by their own sole Authority any Ministers or exercise the censures of the Church in a plenary and absolute jurisdiction without deriving their power from their respective Bishops without whom and against whom few ever acted in any age of the Church and never any good Christian refused subjection to and communion with their lawfull and orthodox Bishops no nor did ever any Hereticks or Schismaticks proceed to such extravagancy as to reject and disclaime all Episcopall order till of later yeares whose example hath little in it to make it compared with much lesse preferred before Catholick customes and Primitive patternes of all ancient Churches what ever glosses the wit of men or their craft or their successes or their Godly and necessary pretences may put upon their variations and schismes CHAP. XII IT is not now my design either to spin out or to wind and summe up that long and tedious thread of dispute which hath been so much snarled and entangled of late yeares in England by popular pens or cleared and unfolded by more able learned and impartiall Writers Who is not weary now and ashamed of those thread-bare allegations drawn from the samenesse or promiscuous use of Names which we know vary with time and must yield to use and custome as if Apostle Evangelist Bishop Presbyter Pastor Preacher Teacher and Ruler they may adde Deacon and Servant and Minister were all one in the equivalency of their power order and authority in the Church For any one nay all these names are in the latitude of their sense given to some one man or officer in the Church yet in the more strict precise and Emphatick sense they denote different gifts orders authorities dispensations and functions as well as degrees in the Church of Christ which did never confound Deacons with Presbyters nor Presbyters with Bishops nor all with the Apostles because the chief Apostles who contained in their ample authority and commission all Ecclesiasticall powers eminently under Christ are sometimes called Presbyters Compresbyters and also Deacons or Ministers of Jesus Christ and servants of the Church deriving all these powers in their severall degrees and orders to Bishops Presbyters and Deacons after them To the first as to a lesser sort of Apostles but chief Rulers or Overseers in the Church they gave the eminent and peculiar power of ordaining Presbyters and exercising spirituall jurisdiction over them as is evident in the power that Timothy and Titus had given them by Commission from the great Apostle St. Paul who certainly in this was conforme to
ownes as the badg or bond of his admission into Communion with Christ and his Church both Catholick and congregationall generall and particular This it seemes must now not at all be owned or slighted nulled and forgotten by the superfetation of a new form of Christian confederation more solemn sacred and obliging as they fancy to Christian duties than that was which was solemnly made in the presence of the congregation ratified in the blood of Jesus Christ and testified in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost yea and after this the poor Episcopall Divines if they will gently comply and for feare Associate must quietly permit either the community of the people or the parity of the Presbyters in their severall lesser bodies and congregations or in their greater classes and conventions to challenge to themselves the plenary sole absolute perfect and unappealable power of not onely ordination which of old they never had as St. Jerom confesseth but of all Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and Discipline and this under the conduct and auspicious management of onely some Diurnall Dictator some temporary prolocutor or extemporary moderator who is forsooth to have the Image of a superficiall Bishop and the shadow of a short-liv'd superintendent a thing meerly occasional and unauthoritative as to any office or power inherent in him or of right to be challenged or exercised by him enjoying onely an horary arbitrary and humane presidency for fashion and civility sake without any Ecclesiasticall eminent or constant Authority residing in him as derived from Christ the Apostles or their successors or any Churches custome designation and consent in former times Such as was ever committed to owned in and used by the Bishops of the Church as regularly succeeding to the Apostles in that ordinary eminency of power which was necessary to keep both Presbyters and all Christian people and Churches good Order Peace and Unity which blessings they never more enjoyed or more happily than under a right Episcopacy Whose cause however of later yeares it hath been run down and trampled in a hurry under foot by some men in England Scotland and Ireland yet hath it suffered no reall diminution as to the true Honor of its Apostolick Authority its Primitive Antiquity its Catholick succession its high descent and its holy Originall which was never denyed or much disputed by any men of any considerable Learning and Piety till these later Dog-dayes in which not onely some single Stars of nebulous and dubious light but whole Constellations of them like Sirius or the Canicular Juncto erected under the new name and figuration of Smectymnuus to calculate the Nativity of a new Reformation became Lords of the Ascendent being filled contrary to their former Conformity and declared submission with a very unbenigne that I say not malignant influence not only against Episcopacy but in effect against the whole visible Constitution of this Church in which as Goods in a sunk ship all things are much wasted and abased by the ruine of Episcopacy Their destructive fires kindled from the colder parts of this Island first flamed into strange Logomachies thredbare cavillings and triviall strifes about Words and Names as if after sixteen hundred years all the Christians and Ministers of England its Princes and Parliaments its Synods and Councels yea all the Christian world elsewhere were to be Catechized by a few petty Presbyters in comparison and their Scot-English Assembly what the names of Bishop and Presbyter of Pastor and Teacher of Elder and Ruler of Helps and Governments of Apostle and Evangelist of Ecclesiastical Stars and Angels did mean which not onely all Writers but all times and practises of all Churches had sufficiently interpreted and cleared from the first promiscuous use of some general names which called the chief Apostles Prophets Evangelists Bishops Presbyters Elders Ministers and Deacons too in whose offices authorities and duties there were real and great differences to more proper and peculiar distinctions according to the several ranks degrees orders offices and powers then established in the Church After the Squibbs and Crackers of paper had been lighted and cast in the face of venerable Episcopacy at last as the manner is things came to dreadful Chiromachies such scufflings and fightings with hands and arms of flesh against that Government which is as the Ancient of dayes that they looked more like that Gigantomachy the Giants assaulting Heaven and the Gods than that Good fight of faith which ought to contend earnestly onely for that which was once uniformly delivered to all true Saints and received by all true Churches of Christ in doctrine order and government among whom all lesser disputations and differences circumstantial rising among good Christians were wont to be fairly debated and determined in lawful Assemblies in Ecclesiastical Synods and National or general Councils from which Christian and Orthodox Bishops were never either terrified or excluded but principally called and admitted as the chief Fathers of those holy Oeconomies or Christian Polities Nor was Episcopacy ever condemned by any of those Councils Synods or Assemblies in any Age of the Church much less was it ejected and extirpated as uselesse unlawful and abominable no not by any Synods and confessions of any Protestant and reformed Churches of note notwithstanding they could not conveniently enioy the blessing of it for so they accounted it either by reason of the petulancy of people or the impatience of civil Magistrates or the Sacrilegious humours and designes of all against the Clergy After all these prepossessions and just presumptions thus challenged to the cause and state of Episcopacy in point of its venerable and undeniable Antiquity I cannot but offer to its still scrupulous or implacable Adversaries these following Quaeres 1. How sad I beseech you and wretched how confounded and astonished must the awakened Consciences of those men be who have been the chief Authors and Fautors of our late troubles variations and miseries chiefly upon the account of their Antiepiscopal Antipathies if after all these combustions perturbations and plunderings of Religion which have rather pleased mens private passions and opinions than any way profited the publick welfare of this Church or State if I say these great sticklers against Episcopacy should be either grosly mistaken or malitiously perverted from the right path that good old way of which former Ages can better inform us then those that are but of yesterday and can know nothing but by their light 2. What if it should be as true as it is most probable because generally so believed in all Ages parts and places of the Church that the cause of Primitive Episcopacy is indeed the cause of God of Christ and of the whole Church the cause of all the Apostles of all Primitive Bishops their immediate successors yea the cause of all true Presbyters and all true Christians a cause in which the glory of God the wisdome of Christ the honor of the Apostles the fidelity of their successors the
mischiefs as small parties cannot avoid or remedy In like manner Christians have in all ages grown up from the first Apostolical Plantations of Christianity which were in particular persons and private families to such holy Associations Charitable Combinations and regular Subordinations as reached not onely to the first Families or lesse Congregations and Neighbourhoods which as I said may be called Churches in their Infancy Youth and Minority but they grew up spread and increased by the spirit of Prudence Peace Order Love and Unity even to great Cities large Provinces and whole Nations To all which more publick and extensive relations Christians finding themselves obliged by the ties not onely of their common faith and love but of their own wants and mutuall necessities for Order Safety and Peace they ever esteemed themselves so far bound in duty to every relation both greater and lesser as the generall good and more publick concernments of those Churches of Christ did require of them which were ever esteemed as Ecclesiae adultae Churches in their full growth beauty harmony procerity vigour and completenesse both as to the good to be enjoyed and the evils to be avoided by all Christians not onely in their private but publick and politick capacity 'T is happy indeed when one Sinner or one Family one Village or Congregation give their names to Christ at which the Angels in Heaven rejoyce But how much more august must their joy be how much more magnificent must the glory of Christ and the renown of his blessed name be when whole Cities Countreys and Nations willingly give themselves and be joyned to the Lord and to his Ministers or Ambassadours This carries more proportion as to the merit of Christs Sufferings price of his Blood and power of his Spirit so to the accomplishment of those many cleare and munificent promises foretold with so great pomp and majesty by the Prophets of Gods giving in the Nations with the glory and fulnesse of their multitudes to Christ for his Inheritance so far that many and mighty Kings and Queens should be nursing Fathers and Mothers to the Churches of Christ which should be not onely diffused and scattered according to the latitude and extent of their civil Dominions but piously owned prudently governed and orderly preserved by their princely and paternall care in their severall distributions and orderly jurisdictions according as all true prudence and polity Ecclesiasticall as well as Civil doth require of wise and good men Namely to such a grandeur beauty comelinesse and safety as was and is infinitely beyond any of those modern Models and petty Inventions which seek to slip goodly Boughs into small Twigs or Branches to reduce ancient Churches of long growth of tall and manly stature to their pueriles their long coats and cradles Such famous and flourishing Churches for instance were those in the Apostles times and long after which received their denomination or distinction from those great â—â—ties of Jerusalem Antioch Ephesus Philippi Thessalonica Corinth Rome and the like Mother-Cities According to whose latitude and extensions in point of civil distinction and proconsulary jurisdiction the union and communion of Christians there first converted and formed into severall Churches did extend by the holy and happy Association of their respective Bishops Presbyters Deacons and people into one Ecclesiasticall polity whose orderly and united influence contained in it not onely some one particular Congregation whose number might fitly meet in one place to worship God but it comprised all Christians and Congregations in that city how numerous soever yea and extended not onely to the walls of that city but to the suburbican distributions yea to their several Territories and Provinces appertaining to them in which although there were no doubt many thousands of Christians who were divided into severall Congregations according to the nearnesse of their dwellings and conveniencies of their meetings in one place to serve the Lord yet were they still but one Church as to that Polity Order Authority Government Inspection and Subordination which was among them which cast and comprehended them by a native kind of right and spirituall descent as children to fathers under the care rule and guidance of that Apostle or Apostolick Teacher who first taught and converted them which Apostle afterward committed them together with his own ordinary Authority over them to his Vicegerents Suffragans or Successors in that chief city who residing there was called the Angel Apostle Bishop President or Father of that Church even by the Apostles themselves and by the Spirit of Christ writing to the seven Churches of Asia Ephesus Sardis Pergamus Thyatira Smyrna Philadelphia and Laodicea All which were ever reckoned by Pliny Strabo Stephanus and others as chief Cities or Proconsulary Residencies to which many other Villages and Towns yea some lesser Cities and Countreys were subordinate and united as first in civil dependence and jurisdiction so afterward in Ecclesiasticall Communion and Subjection So that it is most evident by Scripture-dialect by the wisdome of Christs Spirit by the Apostolick prudence and the subsequent practices of all famous Churches as at Alexandria Constantinople Carthage and many other instances that the compleatnesse and perfection of Church-polity order union power and authority was never thought to be seated or circumscribed in every particular congregation of Christians as they were locally divided in their lesser conventions which would make all Churches as small twigs both feeble in themselves and despicable to others but it was placed in those great branches those strong and extensive boughs which had in them the united power or authority not onely of many Christians but of many congregations in which were many godly people many grave Deacons many venerable Presbyters and one eminent Bishop or Father who continued in that Presidentiall authority to water propagate increase preserve and â—overn in order peace and unity those Churches which the Apostles had so planted fixed and established in their severall polities and limits as to Ecclesiasticall union order and jurisdiction In which the chief Pastor President or Bishop so presided in the place power and spirit of the Apostle yea and of Jesus Christ that no private Christian no Deacon no Presbyter yea no particular congregation might as Ignatius and other Ancients tell us regularly doe any thing in publique doctrine discipline worship or ministration without his respective authority consent and allowance Yea all good Christians did ever make great conscience of dividing from the principall succession seat and Pastor who was the centre and conservator of that Church-union and government which was first setled by the Apostles in Primitive Churches and imitated by all others which grew up after them Primitive Christians ever esteeming it as the sin of schisme the work of the flesh a fruit of pride and factious arrogancy for any Christian or any company of Christians to dissolve to divide from and so to destroy that
great bond of Christian communion and subordination into which by the wisdome of the Apostles the providence of God did at first and ever after cast his Church in its severall parts throughout all the world for their greater safety strength comfort counsell honour peace and stability which are then most like to be enjoyed when Religious power and the Churches authority run not in small and shallow rivulets which are contemptible and soon exhausted but in great rivers with faire and goodly streams in the united counsels and combined strength of many learned wise grave and godly men Nor may it be thought in any probability of reason that when the Spirit of Christ wrote by Saint John to the seven Churches in the lesser Asia which was about ninety years after the birth of Christ and above fifty after his Ascension or when the Apostle Saint Paul wrote to the Churches eminent in other great Cities that there were then no Christians or no congregations and assemblies of them in the other cities towns or villages of those large countries and spacious territories or that those Christians were not at all considered by the Spirit of Christ or the Apostle as to their further confirmation instruction regulation order and government No but all those Christians and congregations in those respective limits territories or towns belonging to such a principall city or renowned Metropolis were comprehended and included in the dedication or direction given to the Angel or Bishop and chief overseer under or after the Apostle of that whole Church which was contained in that Precinct or Province Which method and form of uniting constituting and governing such ampliated and completed Churches was Primitive and Apostolical whence it also grew Catholick in all Nations and Churches without exception no Christians or Congregations till these last and worst times ever seeing any cause to think themselves wiser than the Apostles or the Spirit of Christ nor ever either finding or feigning or forcing any necessity to alter that constitution order and subordination by any unwarrantable breakings Schismes Separations which are the ready way to weaken and waste the Churches of Christ in their order safety and majesty by unbinding and dissolving what was once and ever well combined breaking the staff of Beauty and Bands of Unity Defence and Stability Certainly as no Reason so much less Religion doth perswade any men to shrink themselves from their manly stature and full growth to become dwarfs and children again who but children mad-men or fools would rend a goodly and fair garment into many beggarly shreds and tatters which are good for nothing but to trim up Babies How savage a cruelty is it in any as Medea did her children to cut a fair strong and well-compacted body into severall limbs bits and mammocks which thus divided are both deformed and dead It argues no lesse a fierce and ferine nature in any men to ravell and scatter themselves from all civil fraternities and sociall combinations which strongly twist the joynt interest of mankind together meerly out of a lust to return to their dens and acorns or out of a fancy to enjoy such liberty as exposeth men by their own infirmities and others malice both to necessities wants and injuries Who but mutinous and mischievous mariners will cast their wise Pilots and skilfull Masters over-boord or shipwreck and cut in pieces a fair and goodly Ship in which many men being sociably strongly embarqued they were able to encounter with and overcome the roughest seas and storms meerly out of a cruell wantonnesse and dangerous singularity which covets to have each man a rafter or plank by themselves or out of a vain hope to make many little skiffs and cock-boats in which to expose themselves first to be ludibrium ventorum the scorn of every blast tossed to and fro with every wind next after a little dalliance with death and dancing over the mouth of destruction to be overwhelmed and quite sunk by such decumane billowes as those small vessels have no proportion to resist Alike madnesse and folly would it be in the Souldiers of an Army to scatter themselves into severall troops and companies of fifties and hundreds that should be absolute of themselves under no Generall or Commander in chief as to joynt discipline united they may be strong and invincible divided they will be weak and despicable The Polity Wisdome Stability Authority and Majesty of those ancient ample and Apostolick Churches was such of old that all good Christians had infinite comfort relief safety and support in their communion with them if any injury were done by any private Minister or particular Bishop to one or many Christians remedy was to be had by appeale to such whose judgement was most impartiall and whose authority as well as wisdome was least to be doubted or disputed by any sober Christian Such as were imprudently erroneous or impudently turbulent Innovators of true doctrine forsakers of Christian Communion disturbers of Peace or despisers of Discipline either they were soon cured and recovered by wholsome applications from the authoritative hands and charitable hearts of many not onely Christians but Congregations and their united Presbyters with the joynt consent of their respective Bishops so far as the evil and contagion had spread in particular persons Congregations or Churches or in case of obstinacy they were not onely silenced and infinitely discountenanced by the notable censures and just reproches of many but they were at last as it it were with the thunderbolts of heaven so smitten bruised astonished and disanimated by the dreadfull Anathema's which from the concurrent spirit of those great Churches and Synods were solemnly denounced in the name of Christ by the chief Pastors or Bishops succeeding in the authority and place of the Apostles that every good Christian feared and trembled they wept and prayed for such sinners repentance and in case of desperate contumacy or incorrigiblenesse they gave them over to the Devil as certainly as if the sentence of Gods eternall doom had passed upon them This this was the pristine polity unity beauty majesty and terrour of the Churches of Christ in their ample and Apostolical combinations when each of those Churches were as sometimes in England faire as the Moon bright as the Sun beautifull as the tower of Tirzah comely as Jerusalem a city of God at unity in it self also terrible as an army with Banners for so they are prophecied of and described under the name of the Spouse of Christ Can any Christian that is not utterly fanatick and wild with his Enthusiastick fancies ever expect such harmony weight lustre authority and efficacy from any of those petty Conventicles and pigmy Churches into which some men seek first by Independent principles and practises to mince all Episcopall and National Churches next by Presbyterian policies to mould and soulder them up again as Medea did Jasons-limbs either to partiall Associations or to parochial Consistories or little
all ages if his prohibition be not against Separation Apostasy and total forsaking of the Churches communion both in Discipline and Doctrine in Polity and Verity as well as against Schisme The difference is not much between S. Pauls censure of Schisme and division as carnall and a work of the flesh Gal. 5.20 and that of S. Jude against such as separate as being sensuall and not having the Spirit especially where such communion is offered and required by a Church Christian and Reformed as is no way against the Word of God the Apostles example and the Primitive Catholick practise of all Churches such I believe and hope to prove that of the Church of England was and is as to those main essentialls of Religion which constitute a true Church both in the being and well-being But I needed not and therefore I crave your pardon worthy Gentlemen have spent so much breath to blow up and break the late thin bladders or light bubbles these new Corpusculas of separate Churches compared to the Catholick eminency unity and solidity of the Church of England and others of like size An easie foot will serve to beat down such new-sprung Mushromes of late perked up in this English soyle through the licentiousnesse of times and luxuriancy of mens humours since it hath been watered with Humane and Christian blood whose ambition seems to be not onely to divide and share but wholly to possess and engross this good land or else to leave desolate that field out of which they are sprung which bare far better fruits than now it doth long before their name was heard of under the new titles or style of bodyed and congregated associated or independented and new-fangled Churches Who have now the confidence to cry down the Church of England in its late visible polity harmony order and unity as a meer name and notion an insignificant Idea and empty imagination as if it were neither bonum nor jucundum good nor pleasant for Brethren in Christ to dwell together in unity or for men in one nation to be Christians in one Church as if bonds of civil polity reached farther than Ecclesiastick Some are so vain and vulgar as to boast that all Church-fellowship in England is no better then floten milk when once they have taken off the cream of some Saintly professors which they think worthy to make up and coagulate into their new and small bodyed Churches which are carried on by some with so high an hand and brow that a young master of that sect hath been heard to say not more magisterially than uncharitably he would sooner renounce his Baptism than own the Church of England to be a true Church And this notwithstanding that it is evident these new Rabbies have added nothing new and true to the Doctrine of the Church of England nor yet to the divine Worship and holy Ministrations or Duties used and professed in it with as much solemnity judgement and sincerity I believe as they can pretend to without blushing on mans part and with infinite more spirituall blessings and proficiency in all graces so far as yet appeares on Gods part Nor have they ever shewn any cause why It should be denyed the name honour priviledge and comfort of a true Church of Christ both in its principall parts and in the whole visible community or polity afflicted indeed at present but sometime famous and flourishing as in favour both with God and good men nor did it ever recede from its love or apostatize by any publick act or vote from such a profession of Christian and Reformed Religion as gives her a good Title to be and to be called a true Church of Christ in spight of men and Devils If any still list to quarrell at the name of a Nationall Church the same schismaticall sophisters may as well slight all those proportions and expressions used in all the grand Combinations and visible Constitutions of such ancient Churches throughout all descents of Christian Religion which never doubted to cast themselves into and continue in such Ecclesiasticall forms and parallel distributions as they found laid out by the blessed Apostles and the Spirit of Christ which without doubt most eminently guided those Primitive Churches When these new projectors have answered the Scripture style and the Apostolick patterns and pens followed by all antiquity which call and account all those Christians conjoyned in one Churches communion in point of Ecclesiasticall polity subordination chief power and jurisdiction who yet were dispersed in many places and so distinguished no doubt into many congregations as to the duties of ordinary worship throughout their Cities respective Provinces which I am sure were many of them far larger than any one Diocese or Province in England yea and possibly not much lesse than all England as Ephesus Crete Jerusalem Antioch whose province was all Syria as Ignatius tells us so Corinth Philippi Laodicea Rome c. with their Suburbs Territories and Provinces which extended as far as their proconsulary jurisdictions reached in one of which that learned and pious but fancifull interpreter Mr. Brightman doubted not to find a prophetick Type representing the Nationall Church of England with much more aptitude than his other Satyrick correspondencies were applied When the wit and artifices of Independent brethren if they allow me that relation have shrunk those great and famous Churches so distinguished and nominated by the Scripture line and record into little handfulls such as one mans lungs can reach at one time in one place when the Presbyterian brethren who have cast off yea cast out their Fathers the Bishops can manifest that the severall Congregations of Christians in those Parishes Classes or Associations which they fancy had as many Bishops properly so called and fully impowered as there were Presbyters or Preachers when by their joynt skill and force they can evince out of any Ecclesiasticall Records or Scripturall that there was not some one eminent person as the Apostle Angel Bishop and President or chief Governour among them over all those people and Presbyters who lived within such large Scripture-combinations as Churches such as was Timothy in Ephesus Titiâ— in Crete S. James the Just in Jerusalem either succeeding the Apostles after death or supplying their places during their absence from particular Churches who in their severall lots portions or Episcopal charges and divisions had while they lived the chief inspection rule authority and jurisdiction When I say these grand difficulties are cleared and removed as scales from our eyes who still honour the Church of England then we shall be willing and able to turn the other lessening end of the Optick glasse and to look upon the great and goodly Church of England as fit to be shrunk into decimo sexto volumes or to be divided into small pamphleting Congregations and bound up in Calves leather which heretofore by an happy deception of sight appeared to us at
and measure as I received from his Word and Spirit for I learned not those manifestations of Divine love from any other Church Pristine or Modern so much as the speciall dispensations and discoveries of Gods Graces and Gifts to me in which few equalled none seemed to exceed me in all the world From this great and pure fountain of all perfection and comfort the sweetnesse merit and fulnesse of my Saviour I recommended to my children every Grace every Vertue every holy Duty every necessary Precept every precious Promise every imitable Example and this was done with all the advantages of good Learning of sound Knowledge of most potent and pathetick eloquence which at once was able to inform the weakest capacity to satisfie any sober curiosity and to silence the subtilest adversary To this purpose that the great work of saving their souls might be effectually carried on with order power and authority I furnished them not with precarious praters bold intruders or pitifull pieces of Plebeian oratory in whom ignorance and impudence inability and inauthoritativeness contend which shall be greatest but I provided and prepared for them with much study and industry with many prayers and teares with long education and diligent care excellent Bishops orderly Presbyters able and authoritative Ministers workmen that needed not be ashamed of a lawful ordination and right descent of a mediate divine mission after the Apostolick line and Catholick succession after the form of an uninterrupted and authentick commission duly and truly exemplified in the consecration of Bishops and ordination of Presbyters and Deacons through all ages of the Church agreeable to that originall Institution which was from Christ Jesus the great High Priest the unerring Prophet the soveraign King of his Church the chief Preacher of Righteousnesse and Bishop of our souls who instituted first his twelve Apostles afterward the seventy Disciples whose commission was not so large nor their mission so solemn as that of the twelve whose Episcopacy and number was to be completed and upon whom the promised power from on high specially came in the miraculous and ministeriall gifts of the Holy Ghost After this pattern which was ever followed by all Churches in all the world I supplied those under my care with such a succession of Bishops and Ministers of holy things as for solid learning for powerfull preaching for devout and discreet praying for reverend celebrating for acute disputing for exact writing for wise governing and holy living were no where exeeded in all the Christian world and hardly equalled in any age since the Apostles times whose ministeriall sufficiencies and successes were sometime highly magnified and almost deified by many of those that now would stone them and destroy me by a late transport of malice as much unexpected as undeserved by me which looks more like a fascination and fury than any thing of true Zeal and sober Reformation For no men of any weight or worth for parts and piety for judgement and ingenuity for conscience and integrity have hitherto convinced me or those men that were my prime servants sons and supports of any Heresie or Idolatry of any Superstition or Apostasy of any just scandall or notable defect What some have urged for my not exercising a more severe and strict Discipline after the manner of some ancient Primitive Churches it is not imputable to any unwillingnesse in those worthy Bishops and Presbyters whom I employed but to the general wantonness or refractorinesse of all sorts of people in that point who were so farre from enduring a stricter discipline to be set up that many grudged at any Ecclesiastick authority exercised over them though it were established by their own publick consent and lawes If any of my Bishops Presbyters or people failed to do the duties which I required or rather Christ commanded them it was to be reckoned as the fruit of mens private temptations and personall infirmities but not of my constitutions or directions which were so pious and perspicuous that people could not justly plead invincible ignorance to excuse their immoralities and impieties which indeed they owed to their own negligences or corruptions Yea where the seeds of Religion were thinnest sown and thrived least in some parts of this nation it was not so much from the want of labourers as from the labourers wants the poverty of many places and barrennesse of the soyle was such that either impropriations or sacriledge or both had not left for any competent workman a competent maintenance both my Dower and Patrimony Glebes and Tithes being almost wholly alienated by hard lawes and evil customes from my use and enjoyment that holy Portion which is Gods being oft perverted to feed Hinds and Dogs and Horses which was originally devoted to feed such Shepherds as might feed my flock in every place Nor could in those cases either my prayers or teares the sordid necessities of many poor Ministers or the cryes of poor peoples famished souls ever yet move the civil State effectually to restore or remit or to make other necessary supplyes for Pastors and peoples good Yet even in this distresse which befell too many places much against my will my care and endeavour was so to keep up the life health and soundnesse of the true Reformed Christian Religion that people every where had what was necessary wholsome and decent for their souls good though possibly they had not nor was it needfull the same plenty variety dainties and superfluity in a constant way which some places did so long enjoy untill as with the Jews the Manna and Quailes Sunday Sermons and week-day Lectures came out of their nostrils while the heavenly food was rowling in their curious palates and wanton jawes the wrath of God brake forth upon them and upon me as upon Moses for their sakes who was indeed as jealous of their surfeitings of holy things as of the others famishings both being contrary to my care and desire which were God knows first to preserve the Foundation of necessary and saving Truth among them next to adde the beauty of holinesse to humility to joyn decency to sincerity to maintain the power of godlinesse with the wholsome formes of it that so Truth and Peace Order and Unity the leaves and the fruits of the tree of life might grow together for the nutriment muniment and ornament of piety Nor do I doubt to plead and affirm before Gods Tribunall That if those people who seemed to fare hardliest though the greatest complainers against my treatment of them were such as enjoyed most and fared deliciously every day wantonness being more querulous than want if they had made so good use as they might and ought to have done of that holy light and rule which was duly held forth to them in the plain parts of Scripture every year read to them in the Sacraments duly administred among them in the Articles Creeds Homilies Catechise and Liturgy with which they were
varying in this as in other things from the whole ancient Churches constitution no less than from this of England are likely to differ among themselves even till Doomesday unless they return under some new name and disguised notion of moderators and superintendents to what they have rashly deserted the true pattern in the Mount that paternall Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which was the centre and crown of the Churches unity peace order and honour which imports no more after all this clamour and terrour than one grave and worthy Presbyter duly chosen in the severall Dioceses limits to be the chief Ecclesiastick Overseer and Governour succeeding in the managing of that Ecclesiasticall power and authority which without an Apostolick President or Bishop properly so called Presbyters alone in parity or equality never did enjoy and so never ought to exercise in the Churches of Christ as to ordination and jurisdiction no more than Bishops regularly may without the counsel and assistance of Presbyters Which ancient Order eminent Authority of Primitive Episcopacy if neither right Reason nor the Word of God either in the Old or New Testament did clearly set forth to us as best if neither Apostles at first nor the Primitive Fathers after them if neither Church-history nor Catholick custome nor Primitive Antiquity nor the approbation of the best Reformed Churches and Divines if all these did not commend it as they evidently do to my best understanding yet the late mad and sad extravagancies in Religion do highly recommend it yea the great want of it in England shews the great use necessity and excellency of it especially if advanced to its greatest improvement of counsel order and authority I may adde the votes of all sober and impartiall Christians even now in England who are grown so wise by their woes as generally to wish for such Episcopacy whose restitution would be more welcome to the wiser and better sort of Christians in this nation than ever the removall of it was or the medlies of Presbytery and Independency is like to be Nor do I believe that the restauration of a right Episcopacy would be unacceptable to many of the soberest men even of those two parties if any expedient could be found to salve and redeem the reputations of some lay-leaders and popular Primates of those sides whose credits lie much at pawn with the people upon this very score as having been by them rashly biassed against all Episcopacy the abusing of which Apostolick order on one side and the abolishing of it on the other side were I think two of the greatest Engines the Devil used to batter the Church of Christ withall pride and parity insolency and Anarchy being equally pernicious to Church-polity and Christian piety The overboylings of some mens passions which the Scotch Thistles being set on fire under them chiefly occasioned having now almost quenched themselves by bringing infinite fedities and deformities upon the whole face of the Christian Reformed Religion in this Church as well as otherwhere these sad events may save me the labour of further asserting in this place the use and honour of Catholick Episcopacy in the Churches of Christ which is already done as by my owne so many abler pens as it was also done by Mr. Hooker sufficiently proving that the Church of England deserved not upon the account of its retaining the Catholick and Apostolick order of Episcopacy to have suffered these many calamities which have ensued since the Schismes and Apostasy of many from this Church and from that Primitive Government other than which was not so much as known or thought of in the Catholick Church of Christ for 1500 years nor then when the Church of England began its wise and happy Reformation which did not indeed abolish but reform and continue as became its wisdom that Ancient and Apostolick government of the Church which was primitively planted in these British Churches as in all others throughout the world long before the Bishop of Rome had any influence or authority among them being highly blessed of God and honoured of all good men nor hath yet any cause appeared why it should be blasted or accursed or scared by Smectymnuan terrors CHAP. XI AS for the Doctrinals of Christian Religion this Church of England ever had so high an approbation from the best Reformed Churches and so harmonious a consent with the most Orthodox and Primitive Churches that it must be extreme ignorance or impudence on this part to esteem the present miseries of this Church as merited by Her wherein it was indeed most exact and compleat as wholly consonant to the Word of God so nothing dissonant from the sense and practise of the ancient and purest Churches Yea I find that the bitterest enemies of the Church of England do in This least shew their teeth or clawes except onely in the point of Infant-Baptism not for want of ill will for nothing more pincheth them then the Doctrine of the Church of England which was according to godliness teaching all men that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts they should live righteously soberly and godlily in this present world but for want as of just cause so of skill and abilitie most of them being such as have no great stock of knowledge learning or judgement nor very capable on this side to assault the Church of England whose strength and shield is the invincible Word of God rightly understood Therefore the cunning Adversaries and Vastators of the Church of England drive a lesser trade of small cavellings and bitings rather as the serpent at the heel than head not much engaging themselves in any grand controversies of Divinity which are generally above the reach of their capacities whose feeble assaults the Church of England hath no cause to fear against the Doctrine set forth in Her 39. Articles Her Catechisme Her Liturgy and Her Homilies since She hath so many years mightily maintained this post of her Doctrine against the Learning Power and Policy of the Roman party who are veterane Souldiers and mighty Troopers weightily armed in comparison of whose puissance these light-armed Schismaticks and small Skirmishers are like Pot-guns to Canons or Pigmies to Giants seeking to deface the Pinnacles and Ornamentalls of Religion but not capable to shake the foundations of it as it was happily established and duly professed in the Church of England CHAP. XII NOr have they had either more cause for or better successe in their disputings against the Devotionals of the Church of England in its publick worshipping of God by Confessions Prayers Praises Psalmodies and other holy Oblations of rationall and Evangelicall Services offered up to God by the joynt devotion of this Church the subject and holy matter of which ever was is too hard for their biting therefore most of them contented themselves to bark at the manner of performing them chiefly quarrelling at that prescript form or Liturgie used in this Church under the title
for which no Apology but made and affected necessity is alledged which none but God Almighty can convince confute and revenge hence those convulsions faintings swoonings and dyings which are befaln the Church of England and its holy profession the Reformed Religion which heretofore was a pure and unspotted Virgin free from the great offence constant to her principles and duties both to God and man alwayes victorious by her patience This seems now besmeared all over with blood this is sick deformed and ashamed of her self so many sanguinary and sacrilegious spirits pretend to court and engross her such foul spots are found upon Her which are not the spots of Gods children which no nitre no sope no fullers earth no palliations or pretensions of humane wit policy or necessity can wash away or make clean til He plead Her cause take away Her reproch whose love induced him to shed his own precious blood for his Church a noble eminent uniform and beautifull part of which I must ever own the Church of England to have been Of whose former holy and healthfull constitution I am daily the more assured by those modern eruptions and corruptions defections and infections errours and extravagancies blasphemies and impudicities which have so fiercely assaulted and grievously wasted the Truths the Morals the Sanctities the Solemnities the Mysteries and Ministrations the Government and Authority the whole Order and Constitution of the Church of England clearly evincing to me that this Church was heretofore not onely tolerably but most commendably reformed and happily established upon the pillars of piety and prudence verity and unity purity and charity Nor do I doubt but the blessed Apostle S. Paul with all those Primitive planters and Reformers of Churches would have given the right hand of fellowship to the Christian Bishops Presbyters and people of this Church of England cheerfully communicating with us in all holy things blessing God and greatly rejoycing to have beheld that power and peace that stedfastness and proficiency that beauty order and unity which was so admirably setled and happily preserved many years in this Church by the joynt consent and suffrage of the Nation Princes Parlaments and People cheerfully giving up their names to Christ and willingly yielding themselves to the Lord and to his Ministers Nor do I believe those Primitive and large-hearted Christians who brought the price of their estates and laid it down at the Apostles feet testifying their esteem of all things but as loss and dung in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ that these would have ever repined or envied at the riches plenty civil honours peace and prosperity wherewith the Governours and Ministers of Christs Church were here endowed No those first-fruits of the Gospel had too good hearts to have evil eyes because the eyes of Princes Peers and people had been good to the Clergie investing them with that double honour which the Spirit of God thinks them worthy of while they rule well and labour in the Word and Doctrine so as the godly Bishops and Presbyters of the Church of England did abundantly since the Reformation nor was their labour of love in vain in the Lord. What was really amisse or remisse in any Ministers as to their minds or manners as some Errata's we find even in those Pastors and Churches which were of the Apostolicall print the very first best Edition certainly there wanted not sufficient authority and wisdom skill or will in the Governours of Church and State to have reformed all things in such a way of Christian moderation as should have gratified no mens envies revenges ambitions covetousness and the like inordinate passions but have kept all within those bounds of piety justice charity and discretion which would have satisfied all wise and honest mens desires and consciences Such an Apostolical spirit and method of Reformation as would have cleared the rust and not consumed the metall sodered up the flaws but not battered down the whole frame of so goodly a Church this spirit might have mended all things really amiss in England at a far easier and cheaper rate than either calling for fire from heaven or calling in the Scots to quench our intestine flames with oyl To purge the English floor from all chaff there was no need to raise up such fierce winds as the Devil did when he overthrew the whole house and oppressed all Jobs children with the rubbish and ruine both of superstructures and foundations No work requires more wary wise and tender hearts and hands too than Church-work or that which men call Reformation of Religion which easily degenerates to high deformities if bunglers that are rash rude deformed and unskilfull undertake it Nothing is more obvious than for Empiricks to bring down high and plethorick constitutions to convulsions and consumptions by too much letting blood and other excessive evacuations those are sad purgations of Churches which with threatning some malignant humours do carry away the very life spirit and soul of Religion the whole order beauty unity and being of a Church especially so large so famous so reformed so flourishing an one as the Ch. of Engl. was which some mens ignorance malice and excess hath a long time aimed at impatient not to forsake yea and quite destroy both It and all its true Ministers to whose learning and labours they owe whatever spiritual gifts Christian graces priviledges or comforts they can with truth pretend to All which I believe they have not much bettered or increased since their rude Separations and violent Apostasies by which they have shewed themselves so excessively and unthankfully exasperated against the Fathers that begat them and the Mother that bare them more like a generation of vipers full of poysonous passions which swell the soul to proud and factious distempers than like truly humble meek and regenerate Christians who cannot be either so unholy or so unthankfull as to requite with shame despite and wounds the womb that bare them and the breasts that gave them suck not feeding them with fabulous Legends superstitious inventions or meer humane Traditions but with the sincere milk of Gods word as it was contained in the holy Scriptures which were the onely constant fountain from whence the Church of England drew and derived both its Doctrinals and its Devotionals its Ministry and Ministrations Of which truth having such a cloud of witnesses so many pregnant and undeniable demonstrations before God and the world before good Angels and Devils before mens own consciences in this Church and before all other reformed Churches round about I suppose these are sufficient Testimonies in the judgement of You O my worthy Countrey-men and of all other sober Christians to vindicate the Church of England that it never deserved either of Princes Parlaments or People so great exhaustings and abasings as some men have sought to inflict upon Her Over which no tongue is
preach that Gospel which Christ hath taught he industriously omits the use of that prayer which Christ hath not onely commended but enjoyned and commanded as an Evangelicall institution Which shamefull compliance of many Ministers with vulgar levity and licentiousnesse seems to me so far from really advancing their own honour or the true interests of the Christian and Reformed Religion that in earnest they have by these and the like mean desertings of their own judgements duties very much exposed themselves and the Reformed Christian Religion to the insolencies and contempts of the meanest people which as easily crowd and prevail upon them as waters do against crazy and yielding banks when once they see Ministers so stoop and debase themselves to the dictates and censures the fears and frowns the fancies and humours of giddy and inconstant people who naturally affect such liberty or looseness in Religion as may have least shew of divine Ligation and Authority but onely such as being of mens own choice and invention they may as easily reject as others obtrude The very Directory and its ordinances which gave the supersedeas or quietus est to the Liturgie of the Church of England doth not yet seem to intend any such severity as wholy to silence sequester eject the Lords Prayer ten Commandements or the Apostles Creed out of childrens Catechisms Ministers mouths or Christians publick profession and devotion in which they seem to me to appear a rich and invaluable Jewels giving the greatest lustre price and honour to their religious Solemnities CHAP. VII I Have already shewed you O worthy Gentlemen one great and evil instance of that inordinate liberty which some people have challenged of late to themselves in England to the great dishonour and detriment of the Christian Reformed Religion besides the disgrace and indignity cast upon this sometime famous and flourishing Church while they have endevoured to abolish all those holy Summaries and wholsome Forms which are the best and meetest preservers of true Faith holy Obedience and mutual Charity among the community of Christian people Nor are these the onely extravagancies of vulgar licentiousnesse whose inordinate and squalid torrent like an inundation of waters knows not how to set any bounds of modesty reason or conscience to it self but they have farther adventured as a rare frolick of popular freedome to invade and usurp upon to confound and contemn to divide and destroy the office honour authority the succession and derivation yea the source and original of that sacred Priesthood or Evangelical Ministry and mission which was ever so highly esteemed reverenced and maintained among all true Christians as well knowing that Its rise and institution was divine from our Lord Jesus Christ as sent of God his Father who alone had authority to give the Word and Spirit the Mission and Commission the Gifts and Powers that are properly ministeriall Which as the blessed Apostles first received immediately from Christ so they duly and carefully derived them to their Successours after such a method and manner as the Primitive and Catholick Churches in all places and ages both perfectly knew and without question exactly followed in their consecrating of Bishops and ordaining of Presbyters with Deacons as the onely ordinary Ministers of Christs Church whose ministeriall authority never was any way derived from depending upon or obnoxious to the humour fancy insolency and licentiousness of the common people To which miserable captivity and debasement as the Aaronicall or Levitical Priesthood was no way subjected so much less ought the Melchisedekian Christian and Evangelicall Priesthood which is no less soveraign and sacred nor less necessary and honourable in the Church of God So that those licentious intrusions which some people now affect in this point of the Ministry cannot be less offensive to Gods Spirit than they are directly contrary to those holy rules of power and order prescribed in the New Testament which both the Apostles and their successors both Bishops and Presbyters together with all faithfull people precisely observed in all those grand Combinations and Ecclesiasticall Communions whereto the Church of Christ was distributed in all nations where if sometime the peoples choice and suffrage were tolerable as to the person whom they desired and nominated for their Bishop or Presbyter yet it was never imaginable that either Bishop or Presbyter was sufficiently consecrated and ordained that is invested with the power office and authority ministeriall meerly by this nomination and election of the people which indulgence in time grew to such disorder as was intolerable in the Church much less was any esteemed a Minister of Christ onely because he obtruded himself upon that service The late licentious variations innovations invasions corruptions and interruptions even in this grand point of the Evangelicall office and Ministry in England have partly by the common peoples arrogancy giddiness madness and ingratitude and not a little by some Preachers own levity fondness flattery and meanness of spirit not onely much abated and abased to a very low ebbe that double honour which is due but they have poured forth deluges of scorn contempt division confusion poverty and almost nullity not onely upon the persons of many worthy Ministers but upon the very order and office the function and profession whose sacred power and authority the pride petulancy envy revenge cruelty and covetousness of some people have sought not onely to arrogate and usurp as they list but totally to innovate enervate and at last extirpate For nothing new in this point can be true nothing variable can be venerable that onely being authentick which is ancient and uniform that onely authoritative which is Primitive Catholick and Apostolick both in the copy and originall in the first commission and the exemplification I confess I formerly have been and still am infinitely grieved to hear and ashamed to report what enormous liberties many men have of late years taken to themselves in this point of being Ministers of the Gospel what contradictions of sinners what cruell mockings sawings asunder what buffetings strippings crucifyings and killings all the day long the Ancient and Catholick Ministry of this all Churches hath lately endured in England since the wicked wantonness of some men hath taken pleasure to be as thorns in the eyes goads in the sides of the Ch. of England and Its Ministers be they never so able successfull and deserving whom to calumniate contemn impoverish and destroy in their persons credits estates liberties yea and lives hath seemed like Mordecai to Hamans malice and wrath so small a sacrifice to the fierceness and indignation of some men that they have aimed at the utter extirpation of the Nation the nullifying cashiering and exautorating of their whole office and function either owning no Ministers in any divine office place and power or obtruding such strange moulds and models of their own invention as are not more novell and unwonted than ridiculous and preposterous
like Monsters having neither matter nor form proportionate to Ministers Against whose petulant and too prevalent poyson I have formerly sought to apply some Antidote not more smart and severe than charitable and conscientious aiming as now I do neither to flatter nor exasperate any but in all Christian integrity and sincerity to discharge my duty to God and my neighbour to this Church and to my Countrey Nor was it indeed then or is it now other than high time to answer that folly to repell and obstruct if possible that Epidemick mischief which on this side greatly threatens both Church State Faith and good manners all things civil as well as sacred What wise and honest-hearted Christian that hath any care of posterity or prospect for the future doth not daily find as an holy impatience so an infinite despondency rising in his soul while he sees so many weak shoulders such unwashen hands such unprepared feet such rash heads and such divided hearts not onely disown cast off contemn and abhor all Ministry and Ministers in the Church of England but they are publickly intruding themselves upon all holy duties all sacred Offices all solemn Mysteries all divine Ministrations after what fashion they list both in their admission and execution In many places either pittifull silly wretches or more subtill and crafty fellows have become the mighty Rivals the supercilious Censors yea the open menacers opposers no less than secret underminers of the most learned and renowned the most reverend able and faithful both Bishops and Presbyters in England All that ever these Worthies have done in former ages or still do never so commendably in their religious services of God and this Church is superciliously and scurrilously cried down by some men under the presumption and protection of their ignorant and impudent Liberties as no better than formall and superficiall carnall and unspirituall as unchristian yea Antichristian All their and our catechisings preachings prayings baptisings consecratings their instructing of babes their confirming of the weak their resolvings of the dubious their terrifying and binding over to judgement unbelieving and impenitent sinners their censuring and admonishing of the scandalous their excommunicating the contumacious their loosing the penitent their comforting the afflicted their binding up the broken-hearted all the exercise and operations of their spirituall power yea their very ordination and holy orders their gifts and graces their abilities and authority either from God or this Church all these are either baffled and disparaged or invaded usurped by some rude Novellers with equall insolency and insufficiency being for the most part by so much the more impudent by how much they are grosly ignorant Yea some of them the better to colour over their lazy and illiterate licentiousnesse to which they are now degenerated have such audacious brows and seared consciences as after they have pretended to have tasted how gracious the Lord was in the orderly and holy dispensations of heavenly gifts by the Ministry of the Church of Engl. yet they now glory to cast off all her ministrations to separate from her communion and all due subjection to any of her Ministers vapouring much of their own and other mens gifts of extraordinary callings of odde ravings and rantings of new seekings and quakings of rare dippings and dreamings of their extemporary prophecyings and inspired yet confused prayings of extraordinary unctions and inward illuminations the grounds and fruits of which strange pretensions I have been a long time diligently curious to observe in the speech writings and actions of these pretenders And I must profess that either I am wholly a stranger to right reason as well as true Religion to the Word and Spirit of God principles and practises of all godly men and women in former ages or I am utterly uncapable to discern any of these either rationall or religious orderly or honest expressions in any instances or degrees proportionable or indeed comparable to much less beyond what was most clearly observable as the Suns light at noon-day in the Sermons Prayers Writings Lives and Actions of those Ministers and other excellent Christians who heretofore held and still do an holy communion with the Clergie and Church of England Beyond whose sober light and solid discoveries of true Religion these new Masters who will needs be Ministers have yet offered to me no other but such strange stuffe such rambling rhapsodies such crude incoherences such chymicall chimaeras such Chaos-like confusions such Seraphick whimsies such Socinian subtilties such Behmemick bumbast such profound non-sense such blasphemous raptures big as Behemoth and disdainfull as Leviathan proud swelling words of vanity as no sober Christian hath leisure to intend or need to understand if he had capacity which he is not likely to have since I am confident they pass their authors own understanding not that there is any thing in them that flows from the higher springs of grace or the profounder depths of divine mysteries but they are meer puffings up of proud and fleshly minds intruding themselves into things they have not seen who delight in this froth of idleness these lyings and vapourings of hypocrisie which never did of old in the Gnosticks Montanists Manichees or others of the like bran with these men in the least degree advance the majesty or authority of Christian Religion or the credit and comfort of Christian Preachers or Professors however they served for a time the bellies and interests of such popular Parasites more than Preachers of the Gospel or Ministers of Jesus Christ Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father was of old still is and ever will be in the minds and mouthes of true Ministers when these Hucksters and Mountebanks these deceitfull workers are buried in infamy and obscurity with those their rotten predecessors a rich magazine of heavenly wisdome a Treasury of sound knowledge a store-house of pregnant and ponderous Truths bringing men to a good understanding of God themselves and their neighbours free from the rust and scurf of childish easiness and popular petulancy planted by holy and humble industry watered by prayers and patience beautified with all manner of usefull vertues and moralities dispensed to others with authority industry and perspicuity entertained in mens own hearts with honesty and charity not studying to be admired of men but approved of God not affecting to stupifie auditors with strange difficulties and curiosities but to edifie them with saving Truths and sound Doctrine in words easie to be understood five of which S. Paul preferred before ten thousand in an unknown tongue or unintelligible gibberish so much affected by these new-minted Ministers That primitive plain and profitable way of preaching praying and writing was the commendable method of those excellent ordained and orderly Ministers of the Church of England who were furnished both with ability and authority for so great and sacred a work whose notions were more in the fruitfull valleys of practicall
pride covetousness and other discontented lusts and partly by Jesuitick arts and Papall policies whose joynt aims are at this day to extirpate the whole race root and branch of the Reformed Catholick Christian Church and Ministry in England They conspire nothing more than that they may serve both the Bishops and Presbyters of England as Elias and Jehu did Baals Priests for this is the sense some men have of us and this is the sentence they have passed and seek to execute upon us as upon so many Cretians not Christians as if we were onely liars evil beasts and slow-bellies either imperious masters or unprofitable servants to the Church that so these new Masters may on all sides freely enjoy those superstitious and fanatick liberties which they have designed for their divided parties who despaired to prevail in England untill they had brought the English Clergie to undergo all manner of indignities and injuries CHAP. XII ALl which Tragedies that the people of England might behold and bear with the greater patience and stupidity they must by popular orators be perswaded 1. That all Bishops or presidentiall Fathers and Over-seers among the Clergie such as the Apostles and their immediate Successors first were are Antichristian truly so are Fathers in families Magistrates in cities and Chieftains in armies 2. That the ordaining of Presbyters by Bishops is meerly Popish so is the celebrating of Baptisme or the Lords Supper or the Lords day 3. That Christs Ministry appropriated to one order of men is a monopoly or a taking too much upon mens selves when others of the congregation may be as holy and able so is all order office and authority civil and military a meer monopoly when others may be as able and wise as the best Magistrates and Commanders 4. That all humane Learning is not onely superfluous but pernicious in the Ministers of the Gospel so is all skill industry and ability in all other workmen 5. That Ministers maintenance by Tithes Glebe-lands and other oblations is Jewish so is all justice and gratitude in paying labourers their wages 6. That the distinction of Clergie and Laity is arrogant and supercilious so are the titles of Master and Scholar Teacher and Disciple Priest and People Minister and ministred 7. That it was proud and insolent for any Clergie-men to be invested with honour to be stiled and respected as Lords Truly if it be no dishonour to any temporall Lord to become a Minister or Christs glorious Gospel nor doth he thereby lose his civil Lordship and dignity no more is it misbecoming learned grave and venerable Ministers of the Gospel the chief Fathers and governours of the Church to be adorned with honours and to enjoy as the favours of Christian Princes and States both the Titles and Revenues of their temporall Baronies and Lordships which they might for ought I could ever see as well deserve and use as any other Lords who had their Lordships by birth by purchase or by favour nor did Honour less become Ecclesiastick Rulers than it doth those military Commanders who I see can endure themselves to be called treated as Lords I confess under favour I do not understand how Church-government should be less capable of degrees and distinction in Governours than those which are civil or military since order and subordination must be in them all nor do I more understand how such chief Governours of the Church-militant as Bishops were and ought to be might not as well both merit and manage such honours and estates as any men who by far less abilities or pains do get to be Major-generals or Colonels and chief Commanders in an Army over poor Souldiers Sure the saving of souls is every way as hard and honourable a work as the killing of mens bodies which is the worst of a souldiers work or as the saving of mens temporall lives and estates which is the best of that employment nor is it less of true valour vigilance and resolution in learned and good Scholars to fight with and overcome the ignorance errours and barbarity of mankind than it is fortitude in good souldiers to suppress the rapines and injustice of mens extravagant actions But these and such like are the envious cobwebs the thin and ridiculous sophistries formerly used by some men of evil eyes and worse hearts out of principles full of ignorance or envy or covetousness or licentiousness or Atheism whereby to perswade silly people to follow these novell easie and more thrifty methods of saving souls which some swelling Libertines propound who have the confidence earnestly to invite this noble Nation to commit the whole managery of Christian Religion and of their souls eternall salvation to such new cheap and bold undertakers who adventure to minister in Christs name without any such character commission or conscience of divine authority which as Irenaeus and all the Ancients tell us were ever in a solemn visible and orderly manner derived by the hands of Bishops to the Presbyters or lawful Ministers of the Church as from Christ and the Apostles in an undoubted and uninterrupted succession of which Tertullian gives so excellent an account in his Book of prescription against Hereticks Their ostentations of naturall liberty of civil indulgence of rationall abilities of speciall gifts and undiscernable graces or which is most incredible of extraordinary calls from God All or any of these if they were really true yet will not be allowed as a justifiable ground for any mans usurpation or intrusion into any office military or civil without a visible commission derived from the supreme power in both much less are they sufficient pleas for any man to officiate in the Ministry Ecclesiasticall whose Supreme Authority is confessedly in Christ and the derivation or deduction of it in all ages is so visible constant and uniform that no man honestly learned can be ignorant where it resided or how it was derived Certainly it never was dispensed by the hands or power of Emperours Kings Protectors Princes or any civil Magistrates whose duty I conceive if they will act as Christians is not to alter or innovate this sacred authority and method used by Christ the Apostles and the Catholick Church but to preserve it as sacred and inviolable much less was it left to the spontaneous confidence the passionate suffrages and confused petulancies of common people who are the great and infallible prostrators of all Religion vertue honour order peace civility and humanity if left to themselves but it was divinely setled by Christ in the Apostles and by the Apostles in their successors the ordained Bishops and Presbyters of the Catholick Church in its severall branches and combinations who ever have been and ought to be under Christ the great Conservators the onely complete and regular Distributers of this holy ministeriall power as they have been to this day in this and all other orderly Churches of Christ without any controversie or contradiction without dispute or doubt
rejoyce in that vengeance which they conclude God hath made upon our Schismes Errours Obstinacies and Persecutions against them by our mutuall confusions Hence must daily and necessarily follow secret inclinations and accessions to the Roman party by all those who are not well grounded in the Reformed Religion or not much prejudiced against the Popish Errours or are indifferent for any Religion which is most easie or pleasing These at length will warp to the Roman party as the most specious of any so that unlesse there be a speedy restauration of the honour of the Church of England I see not how it is possible to prevent that fatall relapse either to Romish superstition and slavery or else to a dreadfull persecution which will in time necessarily follow those dissipations and destructions of this Reformed Church its Ministry Government and Religion which some men have already too much still do beyond measure so industriously promote to the excessive joy and gratifying of the Popish party and designes which are not onely invasive upon the honour and freedome of this Nation but highly scandalous to our Reformed Profession and dangerous to our consciences especially as we yet stand convinced of the Errours Superstitions and Sacriledges of the Romish Religion since it lapsed from the Primitive Institutions of Christ the patterns of the Apostles the ancient Communion of Christian Churches and the fraternall Coordination of Bishops who were alwayes united in orderly happy and harmonious Aristocracies rather than subordinate to any one Monarchicall Supremacy as to Ecclesiasticall Power and Jurisdiction however they had such regulation and primacy of order by Patriarchs and Metropolitans among Bishops and the representers of severall Churches as became wise men that were numerous when they met in great Councils or Church-Assemblies CHAP. XV. I Cannot but here recommend it to the most serious consideration of all wise and worthy Christians who make conscience and not policy of Religion as Christian and Reformed That however the soberest sort of Christians in Engl. do in many and possibly in most things necessary to salvation which are not very numerous agree both charitably and cheerfully with those of the Roman Church as to our common Faith in Jesus Christ and hope of Salvation by his merits in the way of an holy life and good works yet as it will never be hoped that the Papists shall return to a communion with us while we are so divided among our selves and daily excommunicating each other from Church and Christ and Heaven so it will be very difficult and dangerous both in point of conscience and prudence of sin and safety for you or your posterity to return to a plenary and visible Communion with the Papal profession or Roman Conventions considering how we now stand convinced in our judgements and so will many of your posterity ever be untill all Books of controversie which no purgatory Index can correct are burnt or buried by which you and they must needs be so well informed as to be justly opposite and uncompliant to those Errours Superstitions and Sacriledges which the Roman party seeks to impose upon all those that will have visible communion with them which no consciencious Christian can swallow down when they appear to him not onely different from but contradictive in plain termes to that Word of God which themselves with us do own to be the rule of faith and manners the measure of all true Religion contrary to which some of their Tenets Injunctions and Practises seem to us either to rob God of his peculiar honour and omniscience which is to search hearts to heare and answer the prayers of our souls as well as our lips or to rob Christ of the glory of his onely Merit Mediation Satisfaction and Intercession for us or lastly to rob the Church of Christ of that pure and plenary perception of Christs holy Institutions and blessed Sacraments to which they adde and detract as they please performing religious offices most-what in such a language as most people cannot understand and so not be edified either in their judgements or affections which ought in all reason by holy duties to be either more enlightened or judiciously warmed and devoutly excited to the knowledge of God to the love of Christ to an holy Life and mutuall Charity To remove all which Deformities Disorders and Indignities put upon religious Mysteries by the Church of Rome the Church of England with great Prudence Piety and Charity did assert and restore to a Scripturall rectitude primitive simplicity and sober decency the state of this Church and Nation by a just necessary and prudent Reformation of those Romish Errours Superfluities and Corruptions which had with great fraud and fallacy prevailed upon this as other parts of Christendome here in the Western world Which great and happy work of due Reformation was begun carried on and compleated not by any forraign or intestine Swords not by popular and tumultuary rudenesse as in many places which are the odious methods of the Devil to blast over-drive and pervert due and true Reformation in Churches or States but in Gods peaceable just and holy way by such publick lawful and complete Authority both Ecclesiasticall and Civil as this Church and Nation had originally in it self without any authoritative or subordinate dependance upon any forraign State or Church Prince or Prelate however it did in Charity so comply for many years and correspond with the pristine renown and eminency of the Roman Church as might most preserve Order and unity in the Christian world till it felt as well as saw the Roman Yoke to be intolerable in honour and conscience Which Independent and absolute state of this Church and Monarchy as to the originall right and power of it in it self hath been unanswerably asserted as by others so of late by those very reverend learned and judicious persons who have made it their businesse in particular Tracts to defend this Church and Christian State from the just charge of any unjust Schisme in respect of the Roman Communion and Jurisdiction or usurpation rather resuming upon good grounds both as to Divine and Humane Lawes that supreme power which is inherent and unalienable in this Nation both in Prince Nobility Prelates and People for the preserving of true Religion and reforming it as need shall require in order to the Honour Peace and Happinesse both of Prince and People Church and State who never did nor indeed ever could alienate or give away from themselves and their posterity those primitive ancient Rights or Immunities of the Nation which if any had in the darkness drowziness of times by great artifices and pretensions encroached upon all Reason and Justice required that when Prince and People awaked out of their dreams and superstitious slumbers they should reassume those honorary powers and hereditary priviledges of Church and State which were cunningly lurched or filched from them while they were dozed or asleep
and tyrannies of some Bishops as if all were to be blamed none to be commended and highly magnifying the zeal themselves have for a through Reformation that is that they might freely and fully gratifie their own and peoples ambitions by setting Episcopacy and all Bishops quite beside the saddle on purpose to make way for themselves who are for the most part as fit to governe Churches alone as apes are to build houses I crave leave in order to promote a faire and firme accommodation with all ingenuous freedom and candor to make some more particular application of my desire and designs to those Ministers of the Presbyterian and Independent waies who have opposed their faces sharpned their tongues or pens and hardened their hearts most against all Episcopacy even in the most innocent usefull regular and moderate constitution of it I meane that Primitive order and paternall residency which was universally acknowledged to be eminently in one President as Bishop or chief Pastor over many Presbyters in his Diocese after the pattern of the 12. Apostles who were by Christs appointment above the 70. and so their declared successors as Timothy Titus Archippus those others who are called the Angels of the 7. Asian Churches with many others to whom they derived not onely their example and practical constitution but their Authority and Power Ecclesiastical as is evident by the Canons and Rules set forth not onely in ancient Councils but in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus for the setling and managing of Church-order Discipline and Government in such a way as clearly gives not to any consistory or company of Presbyters and people but to one man a Paramount Authority as Bishop or Superiour both in Ordination and Jurisdiction above others as his inferiours and so subordinate to his spirituall power so far as to reprove examine censure reject c. All which being to me immoveable and immutable foundations for the establishing of Episcopall presidency as the onely succession of that ordinary Apostolick power and authority which is necessary to be alwaies in the Church of Christ they do make me dayly by these considerations more restive and lesse compliant to any new waies or Associatings than perhaps otherwise I should be both by the sociablenesse of my temper and my earnest desire for another way of happy union among Ministers of worth and moderation This uncorrespondency to which I am upon those grounds compelled is with the greater regret to me because I know the learning the industry the zeal the piety the ingenuity the potency of some of those my dissenting brethren in their preaching writing praying and living I am charitably perswaded of many of their sincerity in aiming at Gods Glory and at the purity of holy Ministrations I do not see wherein many of them differ from the best Episcopall Divines ancient or modern as to any main matter of Religion in doctrine or duty Nor can I find any reason yet alledged by any of them sufficient to justifie that pertinacious distance and defiance which of later yeares onely they have taken up against Episcopacy meerly upon the account of jealousie and impatiency to choose and admit a learned grave and worthy Bishop as a fixed Father or constant Governour and Grave Moderator authoritatively to preside among them in their severall grand distributions or Dioceses after that order and eminency which were most comely for them and most unquestionable as to the fixing and completing of Church-order and Government to all sober Christians satisfaction I will not tax or suspect the soberest of my Presbyterian or Independent brethren of such pride and arrogancy as can endure no superiour or chief among them I rather conceive it was a Sympathethick impulse at first from those Scotish motions and pretentions which swerved them not onely from the former good constitution of the Church of England to which they heretofore very orderly and happily submitted but also from their conformity to the Catholick Church in that point to which I believe their judgement heretofore ahd inclination now may incline and lead them as apparently best for their publick and private interests Some are prone to suspect that the best of them did not heretofore submit so humbly and heartily to their Lawfull Superiours and Governours in the Church as in duty and conscience by the lawes of God and man they ought to have done others challenge them for want as of piety and honesty so of Christian charity yea and of common humanity or compasâ—ion for their forwardnesse and fiercenesse to undoe all Bishops and all dignified Clergy-men at least for their ready consent to their utter ruine holding the garments of those that stoned them to death never so much as praying heartily for them while they were in power nor yet pittying them in their miscarriages or calamities no nor so far interceding for or listning to any just moderation which was oft proposed and offered as might have been not more happy for the Bishops than for themselves as Presbyters yea for this whole Church and all Christian people in England I am willing to hope that many Ministers mutations began with good affections and were carried on at first with principles of sincerity and zeal though not with that knowledge meekness and wisdome which was requisite But to many of them that are now the most haughty stiffe and obstinaâ—e against all accommodating with Episcopacy I cannot but still appeale whether they do not in their consiences find that either at first or afterward some secular advantages and private hopes did not a little warp and sway their inclinations to novelties whether they felt not the secret but dissembled strokes of discontent anger envy revenge popularity ambition feigned jealousies inordinate affectations of liberty exciting and animating them to the utter extirpation of Episcopacy whether they did not by a self-conceit generally imagin themselves not onely jointly but severally as fit and able to govern the Church in the whole or in parcels as any yea all the Bishops in England whether any of them do believe the case of Episcopacy to have ever been fully heard freely discussed and impartially stated by the peaceable wisdom and piety of this nation whether many of these Ministers as Politicians and Statesmen did not rather comply with the streame and vogue of times running fiercely against Episcopacy than with their own clear convictions in reason law scripture antiquity conscience whether they kept that equanimity and moderation in all things of this nature which became wise and good men of an Evangelicall Spirit and temper or were not biassed yea transported by something that was popular and sinister whether they do not think that the violence and precipitancy of some of their examples was beyond all solid arguments to drive many well-meaning Ministers and People to such heady and hot petitionings against Episcopacy and to such pittilesse Antipathies against all the most excellent Bishops which were then and still are England
Last of all I appeal to all sober Ministers whether they do not think that Episcopacy as now it is stripped and devested of all secular greatnesse and reduced to Primitive poverty might be as safely restored as any of their crude and new Associations in their severall stations and formations with their mutable moderators and temporary Presidents either in greater or lesser Circles which are but the thin parings small shreds and weaker shivers of Episcopacy whether they do not in their consciences think that some righteous and just compensation ought to be done to good Bishops and to the case of true Episcopacy which have suffered so hard measure a long time now in England that so we might not in this nation beyond any place in the Christian world cast eternall and indeleble reproches not onely upon this Church since its first plantation but upon the Catholick Church of Christ in all ages and places as if wilfully for ignorantly they could not they had from the beginning swerved from the Apostles prescript and example in the Order and Government Discipline and Authority which was to be in the Church of Christ I will not suspect any honest-hearted or worthy Minister of having been so base and sacrilegious in his Spirit as therefore to cry down Episcopacy root and branch new and old good and bad out of secret hopes of filthy lucre and secular glory expecting some benefit by plundring the personall estates of Bishops or by sequestring the revenues of their Churches or gaging to buy at last some good peniworths of them These temptations were so black and base so sordid and Plutonian that they may not be suspected of any Ministers or other men but those whose notorious actions have put them beyond all suspicion Presuming therefore in charity that those precipitant alterations in Church-Government which have produced so sad consequences and calamities in this Church were from principles of honesty and purposes of integrity in the best Ministers on all sides at first and finding now that the itch of former novelties is past and the pleasure of Ministers scratching one another is now very little because of the rawnesse and sorenesse of all their common conditions besides the distractions and confusions of ordinary people and foreseeing that this painfull posture is not onely very grievous to all honest Protestants but dangerous to this Church and Nation if they be not speedily healed Give me further leave to ask of the greatest Zelots and sticklers against all Episcopacy and the admirers of either Presbytery or Independency whether after they reflect upon the rough meanes used and the sad events which have followed the design of extirpating Episcopacy and introducing any other waies they do still believe was pretended that either the God of order or the Saviour of his Church who is the Bishop of our soules and the exemplary Institutor of Episcopall eminency in his chief Apostles for Power and Authority over all parts of his Church who accordingly transmitted their ordinary power and superintendency to others as Bishops or successive or minor Apostles in all Churches whether I say they do in earnest believe that God or Christ or the Apostles ever were or are such enemies to all Episcopall order and presidentiall eminency as hath been vulgarly clamored and passionately pretended so that now after 1600. yeares prescription and succession of Episcopacy in all Churches God is not to be pleased unlesse Episcopacy be extirpated and Presbytery or Independency as waies of parity and popularity be brought in Can they sufficiently wonder at the patience of God and our Saviour Christ that for 1500. yeares bare with Episcopacy yea continued it in the peaceable possession of Church-Government as to the Primacy and priority of it both in Order and Authority without any notable check from any Martyr or holy man T is strange that Aarons Rod should never bud before nor Presbytery challenge its Divine right in all that time nor Christ ever enjoy the freedome of his Kingdom and Scepter till these last and worst times Do they in earnest think that no Scripture no word of God old or new no precepts and paternes of the Apostles no Primitive practise no true testimonies of Fathers Councils and credible historians do any way favour a right Episcopacy further than they were misunderstood warped and wrested by all antiquity from the mind of God the will of Christ and the way of the Apostles onely to gratifie the ambition of some few Bishops and Clergy-men who made way for Popes and Antichrists T is strange all should conspire thus to eject Christ from his Kingdom and Government or to abuse the whole Christian world from holy Polycarp Polycrates and Ignatius his daies all Primitive Bishops yea from St. Johns dayes and yet none detect or decry the fraud none persevere in the first way if it were as is now pretended Independent or Presbyterian in the many shepherds or many sheep without any prime pastors and Governours among them as Bishops Yea further I demand whether their divisions at least into such a Dichotomy as they now are in be not a just jealousie to sober men that both of these novelties may be in the wrong since both of them cannot be in the right whether regular Episcopacy may not yet be as the virtue or medium between these vicious extremes which are made up either of parity popularity or of Tyrannick and Papall Episcopacy whether they now find that either of thse new waies have any thihg so much to plead out of Scripture for themselves as Episcopacy hath or the thousandth part so much out of any good Antiquity whether they be not pure novelties of later invention and unprosperous use hardly yet formed and never well setled in this or any other famous or Reformed Church that enjoyed its just freedom without the oppression of either sacrilegious Princes or heady and mutinous people Can any learned and sober Minister either Presbyterian or Independent now flatter himselfe that there is no light or shadow no shew of Reason or Religion of Scripture or Antiquity for Episcopacy Can they any longer wonder without ignorance or impudence that learned and moderate Episcopall Divines are so firme to their first principles and perswasions which are not easily answered or with any reason overthrown by any ancient example at least Episcopall men are very excusable in adhering to their ancient and Primitive way till they find these novell opposites to Episcopacy and rivals to each other so well reconciled by a firme Associating together as may wholly supply the Office Power and place of Episcopacy which yet they have not done as to the Order Polity Peace and Unity of the Church or to the satisfaction of the most learned and godly men at home and abroad Where I beseech you O my good and gracious brethren of Presbyterian and Independent principles where do you think were the Eyes the Learning the Wits the Hearts the Honesty the Conscience
all other Apostles in their severall Bishopricks or Distributions To the second as Presbyters or a lesser kind of Bishops and Apostles over private and particular congregations they gave power to preach the Gospel administer Sacraments and assist their chief Pastor or Bishop in governing the Church according as they were required and appointed to their severall duties and charges But no where in Scripture that I see do we find either the sole or chief power of ordaining Ministers or of exercising any Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction over them by correption or rejection given to any one or more Presbyters as such unlesse men list for ever to play the children and cavill with the identity or samenesse of the names used of old which calls Apostles Presbyters as a word of honor and Presbyters Bishops as overseers and all of them Deacons as servants to Christ and the Church and all may be called Apostles too in some sense as sent by Christ on his work Which Crambe is so fulsome a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cavilling about words to confound all good sense and order that all sober men are now weary of it when they clearly see that all ages and actions of the Catholick Church have sufficiently declared beyond any fallacy of identity as to Names and titles the reall and actuall differences of persons and duties or offices to which words may at first be indifferently applied without implying any such confusion of places and powers in the Church any more than when the name of ruler is applyed to supreame and subordinate Magistrates or when the name of Officer is given to Corporalls Lieutenants Captaines Colonells and Generalls or that of Alderman to such as are so by age or office or estate just as if one should obstinately maintain that the petty Constables of every parish the High Constables of every Hundred and the Lord high Constable of England or France were the same things as to office power and honor because the same name of Constable is applyed to all of them It may with as much reason be urged that every Master of Arts in a Colledg and the Master of the Colledg are the same in office place and power or that every one who is called Father by nature age affinity adoption merit or relation either Domestick Civil or Ecclesiasticall presently may challenge the same Authority over us and the same Duty or Obedience from us as our naturall parents have and do expect because all are called Fathers So we shall have many Gods and Lords to justifie the Polytheisme of the heathens because there are many that are in Scripture called Gods and Lords as the Apostle tells us These Sophisticall equivocations from names and words have been indeed the bushes or thickets the borrowes and refuges a long time of those men who aimed to bring in all factions innovations and confusions into this and other Churches onely under such empty colours and fallacious pretentions out of all which they have been lately so stripped ferreted by many learned unanswerable assertors of Episcopacy in its just presidency and authority that they are now naked and ridiculous to all sober spectators who see that all the judgement and practice of antiquity besides the Scriptures analogy is so clear and distinct against all their petty cavillings and popular levellings that the reall differences of the powers orders degrees and offices in the Church as begun by Christ exercised by the Apostles also continued in that method and series through all ages are not lesse evident than their peevishnesse and pertinacy are who list to urge the first indifferency or latitude of words against the after and evident distinctions of things declared and confirmed by the constant judgement and practice of all Churches which is in my judgement the best and surest interpreter and distinguisher of what ever seems wrapped up or any way obscured and confused in Scripture-expressions otherwaies we must with the Papists own as many Sacraments and Mysteries as these words are applyed to in Scripture either in the Greek or Latine Presbyters might well enough be then called Bishops in a generall and lower sense when there were so many Apostles as chief Bishops above them which Name of Apostle the modesty of after Bishops refusing they contented themselves with the peculiar title of Bishops and confined that of Presbyter to that second order or degree of Clergy-men as that of Deacon to the third which yet in their latitude are applyed to Bishops and Apostles themselves I know there have been many things speciously urged for Presbytery and odiously against Episcopacy all which have been so abundantly answered that it is time they were forgotten and all enmity buried with them My aime in this pacificatory addresse to all worthy Ministers is not to revive the cavils and disputes but to reconcile all interests to compose all differences and to satisfie all demands Onely because I know there is no closing or glewing of pieces together with firmnesse where there is not first made an evennesse and smoothness on all sides for their apt meeting I shall here further endeavour fairly to take away some remaining roughnesse swelling and protuberancy which possibly may be still in some sober mens minds as great hinderances of the desired closure and composure of all sides I know it is further urged by some that every Presbyter singly and much more socially that is in a joynt body and Associate fraternity may be rationally thought to have the full power and divine authority of a Bishop to all ends offices and purposes since it is well known in all antiquity as St Jerome tells us and it is confessed by all Episcopall men that Presbyters as such primitively chose their respective Bishops as at Antioch Jerusalem Alexandria from S. Marks time in other places so that Bishops may seem primarily to receive all their authority and eminency from Presbyters who certainly can conferre no more upon any of Bishop than is radically seminally and eminently in themselves as a superiour Magistrate that nominates an inferiour or a Corporation that chooseth a Major or chief officer or as Fellowes of a Colledge who choose a Master or President over them or as an army which is St. Jeromes instance who choose their Imperator or Generall From this ancient and well-known priviledge of Presbyters to choose their respective Bishops many conclude their joynt power at least to be equall to any Bishops yea superiour to them as causall and efficient insomuch that they may if they please exercise it apart from and wholly without any Bishop by choosing none to be over them or among them but serving their occasionall meetings with a temporary Moderator rather than a constant Superintendent To this it is easily answered That however Presbyters of old did and of right as I conceive ought by the leave and permission of Christian Princes to choose and appove the persons of their Bishops as being the fittest men in
the necessity and use of Bishops yea they deny any flaw or defect to be in their new Presbyterian and popular ordinations for want of any other Bishops but themselves who are as pert in their novelty as ever any Prelates were in their antiquity That these Heteroclite or equivocall ordinations have of late been acted in England with much self applause and popular parade by meer Presbyters I well understand but quo jure by what right from God or man by what authority civill or Ecclesiasticall I could never yet see yea I am sure no law of God or men heretofore ever was thought to give any such power to meer Presbyters without yea against their lawfull Bishops insomuch that many learned and sober men have much blamed at least suspected these Presbyterian transactions for Schismaticall presumptions these ordinations for disorderly usurpations at least in such a Church as England was where there were and still are venerable Bishops of the orthodox faith reformed profession and ancient constitution willing and able to do their duty in the point of ordination Which in all ordinary cases appeares to have ever been their peculiar right specially derived to them as Bishops from the Apostles through all successions of times and Churches without any interruption except when some factious and insolent Presbyters ventured to be extravagant and usurpant whom all the learned Fathers venerable Councils and good Christians in the Church every where condemned as most injurious because usurping that Authority which no Apostle no Councill no Bishop ever gave to any that were meer Presbyters in their Ordination and Commission no more than the Lawes or Canons of this Church and State Nor is there as far as I can perceive any one place in Scripture that by any precept or example invests either one or more simple Presbyters with the power of trying and examining of laying on of hands of giving holy orders as from themselves alone of committing or transmitting what they had received to other faithfull men that should be able to teach All which were given to Timothy and Titus as chief Bishops The Pope of Rome indeed animated by those flatterers which would make him the sole Bishop by Divine right and all other Bishops as surrogates to him dependants upon him and derived from him as if there had not been 12 or 13 but onely one â—â—sion â—lick Chaire or prime seat of Episcopacy hath some â—eath given power of ordination to such as were but Presbyters as â—nd read of some Abbots and Priors but it was alwaies to the great scandall of the best Bishops and Presbyters of the Church as contrary to all ancient Orders Canons and Customes of the Church unlesse he first made them as Chorepiscopi or suffragane Bishops But in earnest it is hard to judge whether Popes or Presbyters be most enemies to Catholick Bishops As for the pious pomp and the specious apparences the formall dressings and verball adornings which they say are used by Presbyters in their late Ordinations in England though I never saw any of them yet I have heard and read so much of them as gives me to judge far less to be in them of authority true complete and valid than ought to be For besides the persons not impowered or commissionated to that office there is as I heare no transmitting and so no receiving of the holy Spirit as to that Ministeriall Order and Power which is thereby derived to Ministers as from Christ whatever there may be of godly solemnity and plausible formalities which are usually more studied and affected to please the people there where men are most conscious to the defect of authentick reall and righteous power But all these saintly shewes to wise men signifie nothing no nor the personal abilities either of the ordainers or ordained who cannot by their personall power knowledg virtues graces or private gifts make any Officer in State or in Armies in War or in Peace much lesse in the Church and Ministry of Jesus Christ Alas no private capacity in any man can make the least petty Constable or Bailiffe or Corporall or Serjeant without they first have a publick and lawfull Commission from the fountains of Authority to give them an Authority far beyond any private arrogancy and presumed sufficiency of their own Possibly extraordinary cases may in time be their own excuses in such Churches where Bishops may be all dead or banished or where such as are Orthodox cannot be had and they that are will not ordain any Presbyters without imposing upon them such things as are erroneous and unlawfull but nothing can be pleaded that I yet see no nor doth the candor and charity of Bishop Usher know how to excuse such Presbyters from being Schismaticks factious presumptuous and disorderly who first cast off and forsake such Bishops as are of the same faith and reformed profession worthy and willing able and ready every way authorized by Church and State to do their duty The contempt and rejecting of such Bishops is I fear a great sin before God I am sure a great grievance to such Churches as first suffer those distractions And no doubt it is as a great so a needlesse scandall to most Churches and the best Christians in all the world nor can it be other then a foule reproach and scorn cast on all pious antiquity nor will it prove other than a lasting misery to any Church and Nation that wilfully continues that guilt and defect upon themselves and their posterity especially when God â—s them sufficient meanes to remedy that mischief to supply thâ—â—fects and to compose those differences which are ever followâ—â—he waâ— much more the needlesse expulsion of Primitive Episcopacy For whose power and authority while either Presbyters or people are scrambling they do but make Religion a May-game bring as we see both themselves and their Ministry into contempt for no Presbyters or people can while the world stands ever stamp such an honor and Authority Ecclesiasticall upon themselves as was in all ages and by all Churches consent besides the Scripture-Character and Apostolick signature set upon Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which ever united centred and confirmed power in one man not over all which the Pope affects but over their Dioceses or Provinces A 4 th Objection much flourished by some popular Preachers against Bishops and all Episcopacy in any Authority and eminency above Presbyters is that Episcopacy is the root of Popery that Prelates were the parents of Antichrist that every Bishop hath a Pope in his belly and that the Pope is no other than an overgrown Bishop that to rout all Popery and raze the foundations of Romes pride all Prelacy or Episcopacy must be stubbed up My answer to this is that this objection sounds as little of truth as it savours much of malice especially in any Presbyters of any learning and ingenuity who well know the abasing of Bishops is the design and hath
dispensers of it be not wisely united not onely in their doctrine but in the derivation and reception as well as dispensation of that holy Authority by which they officiate for otherwise one Minister is prone to magnifie himself against all others of any other make mold to disparage all that is done by others as sacred to draw disciples from one side to another perswading people according to the feuds which were between the Samaritan Jewes and Priests of that Temple against those of Jerusalem that what is done in holy duties by such as are not of his stamp form is unauthoritative presumptuous invalid meer nullities and profanations of holy mysteries without Spirit Life Power or Efficacy an histrionick pageantry of Preaching Praying Baptising Consecrating Celebrating Censuring Binding Absolving Terrifying Comforting as in the name of Christ when indeed there is either no power or authority but a new one that must needs be a false one either usurped or obtruded or pretended by those that have nothing to shew for their Commission Order and Derivation of such spirituall power either from the Scripture or the constant practise or the Catholick Custome of the Church of Christ Thus everlasting feuds distances and defiances will follow among people and Pastors where an harmony is not in this maine point of ordination or Ministeriall Authority which certainly were no hard matter to effect if Ministers would so far agree by an Episcopall subordination in an uniformity of ordination and all other Ecclesiastical Ministrations as no Ministers or peoples just claime and interest should be either neglected excluded or oppressed 1. First the rights of people should be so far satisfied that no man should be ordained a Minister but in the most publick and solemn convention of the Diocese after publick notice given of his name and demand what any could say against his being ordained in like manner no Minister should be obtruded upon any people by patron or Bishop without hearing what they had to object against him and rationall satisfaction given to them which was required in St. Cyprians time 2. Next the rights of Presbyters should be so far satisfied that none should be ordained a Presbyter untill he had passed the orderly triall as of the Bishop so of any Minister that list to examine his sufficiency or his manners and life after which done Presbyters should not onely be present at the solemnity of preaching and praying but such as could conveniently of the eldest and gravest Ministers might lay their hands with the Bishops or Presidents upon the ordained both in their own and others behalfe as a testimony of a joynt consent on all sides to his ordination 3. Last of all the rights and claime of Episcopacy or Bishops would easily be satisfied and very compliant with the other of Presbyters and people if no ordination might passe without either the presence of the Bishop as President or of such a Presbyter as in the Bishops necessary absence should be his suffragane or Vicegerent nominated by him and allowed by that Presbytery over whom the Bishop presideth This method and moderation would as I humbly conceive both complete and settle in all sober mens judgements the ordination of Ministers and giving satisfaction to all just demands or ingenuous pretensions it would powerfully and happily unite both Bishops Presbyters and people as answering all the claimes and expectations considerable of Episcopall Presbyterian and Independent parties as to the maine point of unanimous and uniform Ministry Among whom a like correspondency would easily if wisely and meekly be carried on in all other Ecclesiasticall affaires of publick concernment for Doctrine Worship Discipline Censures Appeales Admission Abstention Excommunication Absolution Synodal conventions and the like It is not imaginable how great an harmony honor and happiness would hence arise to the infinite content and comfort of all good Christians to the great advantage of the Reformed Religion to the peace of this Church to the happiness of the Nation to the Glory of God and to the unspeakable quiet of many thousands of poor soules who are now agitated with infinite Scruples Feares Anger 's Jealousies and Despites in Religion according as they are ingaged and exasperated in their first entrance or beginnings all these would peaceably and comfortably apply by Gods help and Ministers harmony to the improvement of their soules in faith and repentance in truth and love to lead holy and orderly lives to hear with diligence and reverence to receive with frequency and charity to pray with understanding and fervency to do all things with meekness and wisdome lastly to die with earnest desire and blessed hope of further enjoying that Christian and sweet Communion with God with Christ Jesus and his holy Servants Saints and Angels in an other life of which he hath had so blessed experience and pleasing a fore-taste even in this world where the onely heaven a good Christian can have consists in the happy Communion he hath with God and good Christians without which all society is but solitude or worse an harmony no better than what may be found in hell which is a conspiracy in sin and conjunction in misery This holy Communion is so much the more divine and joyfull even in this world by how much it enlargeth it self to greater numbers and extentions true Christian love being loth to be confined to a narrower compasse than the Christian and Catholick faith is but coveting as light and heate most ample dilatations and Catholick diffusions seeking if possible and as much as in it lies to live peaceably with all men and chearfully with all that are of Christs family or the houshold of faith who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity By these and such like peacefull methods of prudence and love of moderation and mutuall condescension among Ministers without further disputing or urging any of their former principles upon which they seemed to differ much lesse casting any further reproaches upon each other I do not see but by the blessing of God upon them they might all meet in an happy union and accord in Church-Government according to those principles of right Reason and Religion of Piety and Polity of Scripture-Canons and Catholick Customes in which all sober Ministers must necessarily agree as the best rules of Christian prudence the surest methods of holy order and the firmest bonds of Christian Communion To which maine ends as all good Christians should chiefly bend all their Counsels Prayers and endeavours so I do not conceive they are so strictly confined and limited by any precise rules or formes of any externe Polity and Order but they may as occasion requires for the peace of the Church and edification of Christians in love use such a liberty in their mutuall condescendings and compliances as shall no way offend the blessed God of Truth Order and Peace nor violate any of their own consciences while they bear such a tender regard to other mens as they
the new fry of any Factionists or Enthusiasts were known in the English or Christian world Then will the honor of the Reformed Religion recover take root flourish and fructifie again in England when it is by due authority and just severity cleared of all that rust and canker that mossy and barren accretion which of later yeares it hath contracted chiefly for want of those Ecclesiasticall Councils sacred Synods and Religious Conventions which being called and incouraged by civill authority will best do this great work of God and the Church freely and impartially solidly and sincerely learnedly and honestly discussing all things of difference disorder or deformity in Religion These these would by Gods blessing and your encouragement remove in a short time all that putid matter from which the scandals offences and factions do chiefly arise and by which they are nourished in the licentious hearts and lives of some men who dare do any thing that they safely may against Religion These as the ablest and meetest Judges of Religion would soon discerne between the vile and the precious and separate the wheat and the chaffe in Christs floore wisely using the flaile and fan of his word and Spirit CHAP. XV. THerefore is our Religion so miserably lapsed and decayed through the ignorance negligence and impudence of men because it hath not for these many yeares been under such hands as are most proper either for its care and preservation or its cure and recovery Courts of Princes and Councels of State the Spirit of Armies and the Genius of Parliaments are not alone apt agents or instruments for this work though they may be happy promoters and authoritative designers and contrivers of it Saint Ambrose and others of the Ancients observe that it never went well with the sound part of the Church when the disputes of Religion as between the Arrians and the Orthodox were brought into Princes Courts and determined by their Counsellors and Courtiers It was not more piety and modesty than prudence and generosity in Constantine the Great when he had conquered Licinius with other enemies and entirely obtained the Roman Empire when he had power absolute and soveraign enough to have made what Edicts he listed for Religion yet that he then called the Bishops of the Church throughout the Roman world and other venerable Teachers attending them to discusse the differences in Religion to compose the breaches to allay the jealousies to reforme the disorders to search and establish the true faith to confirme the ancient Government to adde vigor to the just Discipline of the Church and due authority to its true Pastors or Bishops All which were happily done by the wisdome piety and moderation of the famous Nicene Council in which Constantine himself was oft present as to his person and Counsell though he never voted or determined any thing of Religion among the Fathers of that glorious Assembly lest he should seem to over-balance or over-awe the truth by his authority or to eclipse the Church by the State This this was that Primitive and Catholick way of Ecclesiasticall Councills and Synods used first by the Apostles and after by all their successors the Martyrly Bishops and Pastorly Confessors of the Church which endured the fiery trialls of heathenish and hereticall persecutions who had Ecclesiasticall Councills and Synods of Church-men for their reliefe and remedy before they had the favour of Christian Princes for their refuge or defence To this proper method for Reforming of any Church and restoring Religion all Princes that were true Patrons and Protectors of the true Church have applied their powers and counsels for the repairing of decayes rectifying disorders condemning heresies vindicating fundamentall truths composing differences and restoring peace in the Church of Christ calling together such Synods and conventions of the Clergy as did beare most proportion to those inconveniences or mischiefes which they sought to remedy either in greater or lesser circuits according as the poyson and infection of Heresie or Schisme had spread it self The welfare of Religion and healing of the Church of Christ was never heretofore left to every private Christians fancy or to particular Presbyters nor yet to single Bishops to act according as their opinions passions and interests might sway them nor was it ever betrayed into the hands of onely secular men either Civill Magistrates or Gentlemen or Tradesmen who are as fit generally for Church-work as Clergy-men are to marshall Armies or to manage battels The building of Gods Tabernacle and his Temple required men of extraordinary gifts and excellent Spirits proper and proportionate to those works As the Leviticall Priests of old did judge not onely of plagues and leprosies but of all controversies about the Law and Religion to whose determination all men were to submit under paine of death And as Aaron standing between the living and the dead stopped the spreading of a plague and mortality among the people even so hath the Lord ordained the Evangelicall Ministers to be as shepherds feeders defenders and rulers in his Church also as Physitians and Fathers of the flock of God whose lips ought to preserve knowledge so as to discerne both the contagion and the cure applying as their duty is such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sound Doctrine and Discipline as are both wholesome food and healing physick Certainly all other Lay-undertakers and tamperers with Reformation and Religion are but as Empiricks and Mountebanks having neither that ability nor that authority which is requisite in Religious undertakings But after much paines and charge they alwaies leave Reformation and Religion Church and Clergy more unsearched and unsound unbound and ulcerous than they found them God never following those with the blessing of the end who disdaine to use those orderly meanes which his holy wisdome hath directed them to who lay the Ark of God upon the cart and think to draw it by the beasts of the people when it should be orderly and solemnly born by the shoulders and hands of those that are consecrated to that holy service as the Priests of the Lord which method is not onely more for the honor and solemnity of Christian Religion than for the glory of the blessed God that his name might be sanctified even before the world in the managing of true Religion not flightly or slovenly not with unwashen hands and preposterous confusions but with that holy respect and humble reverence which is due to the Majesty of that God and Saviour whom Christians professe to worship T is ridiculous for Princes and States-men to have the best Musitians for their pleasure the most learned and experienced Physitians for their bodily health the most able and renowned Lawyers for their secular Counsels the gallantest souldiers for their military officers the best Mathematicians for their Engineers and the best Mariners for their Pilots that so these things might succeed to their worldly honor and happinesse and yet in matters of Religion
Church in all Ages and places of which we have two expresse witnesses and great exemplifications in the commissions given by Saint Paul to Timothy and Titus both as to ordination and jurisdiction Such as hath been preserved in the Church through all times and places as a sacred depositum of Spirituall power enabling Bishops and Presbyters to act as Ministers of Christ in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit in those holy Offices and Mysteries which are instituted by them for the calling collecting constituting and governing of the Church in a regular society and visible polity which least of all affects or admits any novelty or variety in its holy orders or authority Which great Trust Power and Commission for duly ordaining and sending forth Ministers into the Church of Christ no man not wilfully blind but must confesse that it hath been in all times parts and states of the Church of Christ executed if not onely yet chiefly by the Ecclesiasticall presidents or Bishops in every grand distribution of the Churches polity So as it was never regularly warrantably or completely done by any Christian people or by any Presbyters or Preachers without the presence consent or permission of their respective Bishops in the severall limits or partitions Nor was this great sacred and solemn work of Ordination ever either usurped by Bishops as arrogant and imperious or executed by them as a thing arbitrary and precarious but it was alwaies owned esteemed and used by all true Christians both Ministers and People as an Authority Sacred and Divine fixed and exercised by way of spirituall Jurisdiction and power Ecclesiasticall specially inherent and eminently resident in Bishops as such that is so invested with the peculiar power of conferring holy orders to others even from the hands and times of the Blessed Apostles who had undoubtedly this power placed in them and as undoubtedly ordered such a transmission of it as to Timothy and Titus so to all those holy Bishops that were their Primitive Successors who did as they ought still continue that holy succession to all ages by laying on such Episcopall hands as were the unquestionable Conservators and chief distributers of that Ministeriall power ever esteemed Sacred Apostolick Catholick and Divine being from one fountain or source Jesus Christ and uniformly carried on by one orderly course without any perverting or interrupting from any good Christians either Presbyters or people Nor were they ever judged other than factious schismaticall irregular impudent and injurious who either usurped to themselves a power of Ordination or despised and neglected it in their lawfull and orthodox Bishops upon any pretence of parity or popularity as Learned Saravia proves unanswerably against Mr. Beza when to make good the new Presbyterian Consistory at Geneva he sought in this point to weaken the ancient Catholick and constant prerogative of Episcopall Ordination which never appeares either in Scripture to have been committed or in any Church-History to have been used by any Presbyters or People apart from much lesse in despite and affront of the respective Bishops which were over them This great power of Ordination which the Author to the Hebrewes signifies by the solemn ceremonie or laying on of hands is esteemed by that Apostolick writer as a maine principle or chief pillar of Christian Religion in respect of Ecclesiastick Order Polity Peace Authority and Comfort necessary for all Christians both as Ministers and as people in sociall and single capacities For there is ordinarily no true and orthodox believing without powerful and authoritative preaching and there can be no such preaching without a just mission or sending from those in whom that Sacred Commission hath ever been deposited exemplified and preserved which were the Bishops of the Church beyond all dispute who did not ordaine Presbyters in private and clandestine fashions but in a most publick and solemn manner after fasting preaching and praying so as might best satisfie the Presbyters assistant and the people present at that grand transaction both of them being highly concerned the first what Ministers or fellow labourers were joyned with them in the work of the Lord the other what Pastors and Teachers were set over them as from the Lord and not meerly from man in any natural morall or civill capacity whence the authority of the Christian Ministry cannot be since it is not of man or from man but from that Lord and God who is the great Teacher and Saviour of his Church who onely could give power as gifts meet for the Pastors Bishops and Teachers of it These serious weighty and undoubted perswasions touching one uniforme holy and divine ordination being fixed in the consciences of all wise and sober Christians it will follow without all peradventure that true Religion as Christian and Reformed will never be able to recover in this or any Christian Nation its pristine lustre and Primitive Majesty its ancient life and vigor its due credit and comfort much lesse its just Power and Authority over mens hearts and consciences untill this point of Ordination or solemn investiture of fit men into Ministeriall Office and Power be effectually vindicated and happily redeemed from those moderne intrusions usurpations variations and dissentions which are now so rife among Preachers themselves whence flow those licentious and insolent humors so predominant in common people who by dividing the other by usurping both by innovating in this point of Ordination have brought those infinite distractions contempts and indifferences upon Religion and its Ministry as Christian and Reformed which are at this day to be seen in England beyond any Nation that I know under Heaven It is most certain that the major part of mankind yea and of formall Christians too do not much care for the power of any Religion nor for the Authority of any Ministry no nor for any serious profession or form of Religion further than these may suite with their fancies lusts and interests If custome or education have dipped them in some tincture of Religion during their minority if the cords of counsell and example have bound them up to some form of godlinesse in their tender yeares and tamer tempers yet as they grow elder they are prone to grow bolder to sin and to affect such refractory liberties as may not onely dispute and quarrell some parts but despise and trample under feet all the frame of Religion that is not indulgent to their humors or compliant to their inordinate desires and designes Especially when once they find publick disorders distractions and disgraces cast upon that very Religion in which they were instituted when they see contumelies and affronts cast upon that whole Church in which they were baptized and all manner of contemptuous insolencies offered to those chief Church-men by whom they had received the derivations and dispensations of all Holy Orders Truths and Mysteries When men see new Religions new Churches new Ministers and new modes of Ordination set up to the reproch
and defiance of all that went before who I beseech you of most ordinary Christians who are yet agitated by their youthfull lusts and unbridled passions will be so constant as to hold fast that profession which formerly they had taken up Who will continue to venerate that Church and Clergy whose heads they see crowned with thornes and their faces besmeared with blood and dirt whose comelinesse is deformed with the spittings buffetings and scornes of those that seek to expose them to open shame and to fasten them to the Crosse of death and infamy Alas they will not at all regard in a short time any orders of the Church or any ordination of Ministers or any sacred ordinances and mysteries dispensed by them since no pleas never so pregnant and unanswerable for the Antiquity Uniformity and Constancy of that way and method which was used in all ages and places of the Church of Christ since no gracious and glorious successes attending such ordaining Bishops and such ordained Presbyters since nothing prevailes against vulgar prejudices and extravagancies provoked by that impatient itch they alwaies have after novelties Many we see will have no Ordination no Ministers no Sacraments rather than Bishops should have any hand in ordaining The honor of that Ordination which was in all ancient Churches must be cruelly sacrificed with all ancient and Catholick Episcopacy rather then some mens passions for a parity or popularity or an Anarchy in the Church be not gratified All Bishops as such and all Presbyters and all Christians and all Churches and all holy duties performed by them in that station and communion must be cryed down yea thrown down as the adulteratings and prostitutions of the Churches Liberty and of the purity of Christs Ordinances The hands of Bishops and Presbyters too though joyned and imposed in Ordination must be declared as impure vile and invalid yea a flat novel and impertinent distinction must be found out to vacate the Bishops eminency and yet to assert the Presbyters parity and sole power as resting in any three two or one of them though never so petty poor and pittifull men in all respects naturall and civill sacred and morall Yet these forsooth some fancy as Presbyters may still ordain because a Bishop say they did so meerly as a Presbyter of the same degree and order not as having any eminency of office degree authority or jurisdiction above the meanest Minister which St. Jerom and all antiquity acknowledged as a branch of Apostolicall dignity and eminency peculiar to a Bishop above any one or more Presbyters Which reproches against the persons power and practise of Bishops in England as usurpers and monopolizers in this point of ordination which they ever challenged and exercised as their peculiar honor office and dignity in this as all Churches if they could by any Reason or Scripture by Law of God or Man by any judgement or practise of any one Church or of any one godly and renowned Christian in any age or History of the Church be verified so as to make their power of ordination to be but a subtile or forcible usurpation in Bishops it would have been not onely an act of high Justice to have abrogated all the pretensions of Bishops to that or any power in the Church but it will be a work of admiration yea of astonishment to the worlds end in all after-ages and successions of Christian Religion which will hardly last another 1500 yeares to consider the long and strong delusion which possessed the Christian world in this point of Ordination as onely regular and complete by Bishops where their presence and power might be enjoyed Nor will it be more matter of everlasting wonder to ponder not onely Gods long permission of such a strong delusion but his prospering it so much and so long as a principall meanes to preserve and propagate the Ministry Order Government Peace and Power of true Religion and the true Churches of Christ which were never without Bishops as Spirituall Fathers begetting as Epiphanius speakes both Presbyters and people to the Church Nor will it be the work of an ordinary wit whether Presbyterian or Independent to salve all those aspersions and diminutions of either ignorance and blindness or fatuity and credulity or weaknesse and impotency which must necessarily fall from this account not onely upon the wisest and best Church-men but upon the most Christian and wise Princes the most zealous and reformed Parlaments of England who in the grand Reformation of this Church and ever since for neer an 100. yeares have after grave counsell and mature debate approved and appointed countenanced by a law and incouraged by their actuall submission the ordination of Ministers chiefly by the authority of Bishops never without them And this they did certainly not out of policy but piety not in prudence onely but in conscience convinced not only of the lawfulnesse of Bishops but of the necessity of them where Providence doth not absolutely hinder or deny them as it never did in England or elsewhere by the example of the Apostles by the ancient constant and uniform practise of this and all Churches by the suffrages of all Learned and Godly men of any account in all ages To all which were added as great preponderatings in behalfe of Episcopacy the many and most incomparable Bishops that have been in all successions of the Church the many Martyrs Confessors excellent Preachers Writers and Governours of that order lastly the unspeakable blessings which by their Ordination Consultation and Jurisdiction have been derived to the Church of Christ If all Estates in the Reformed Church of England have been hitherto deceived as to this point of Episcopall Ordination by Bishops sure they are the more excusable because they have erred with all the Christian world Nor could they be justly blamed if when they reformed superfluous Superstition they yet abhorred in this point so great and dangerous an innovation which must needs shake and overthrow the faith of many if the peculiar office and power of Bishops to ordaine Ministers and governe the Church were either onely usurped or wholly invalid as some of late have pretended not with more clamor than falsity But if all these jealousies and reproches cast upon Bishops and their Authoritative Ordination as a peculiar office and exercise of power eminently residing in them be most false and by some mens calumnies heightned to such impudent lies that no eructations of Hell or belchings of Beelzebub had ever more blackness of darknesse in them or more affrontive to the glory God and the Honor of the Catholick Church whence I beseech you O my Noble and worthy Countrymen is that dulness stupor and indifferency come upon us in England so far as not onely connives at the arrogancy of some Presbyters who without Scripture-precept or Catholick-patterne challenge this ordaining and Governing power as onely and wholly due to themselves discarding all Episcopall Eminency and Authority above them but
facility as children make little babies of clouts or statues of clay as Nazianzen alludes For what I pray you will these new propagators with all their progeny of new-ordained new-fashioned new-coyned and new-commissioned Preachers signifie to the more sober sort of mankind or indeed to the very plebs and vulgar especially among people so curious so querulous so proud so pragmatick so petulant so insolent as are in England Will sober Christians ever much care for any Ministers unlesse they be commended to them as meet to be such not onely by the highest wisdome and civill orderings of this Nation but also as set over them in the Lords Name and Christs Authority by an holy and solemn Ordination such of which they have the least and indeed no cause to have any doubting or slighting thoughts which is the case onely of Episcopall Ordination English Christians of any estate worth weight or wisdome will never be contented to be taught and reproved to have their children baptized at the Font or themselves communicated at the Lords Table by such Ministers as shall have onely the petty tickets of an humane act or State ordinance No they will and justly ought to require the grand Charter of Divine Authority conferred in the way of Catholick and true Ordination That so Ministers may be able to justifie their function and actions not onely in Law but in conscience not as Emissaries from men but as Embassadors from God Commissionated by Christ and his Deputies imployed in his work and armed with his power There goes much more to make a Minister of Jesus Christ than to make a Constable in an Hundred or a Parish or to make a Captaine in a Troop or a Justice on a Bench who yet cannot expect to be owned as such unlesse they can evidence their Commission and Authority to be rightly derived from the soveraigne originall of civill power no more may Ministers unlesse they can shew the right source and course of their sacred Authority While Ministers preach and practise Baptize and Consecrate with divided tongues distracted hands and distorted heads as to this point of their Ordination they are likely to produce no better successes either to this Church or Nation than those morter-men did whose work deserved the nick-name of Babel or Confusion The essentiall forme and difference the whole life and operation the proper virtue and efficacy of a Christian Ministry and Minister depending as I have shewed upon the truth sanctity and validity of that Authority with which he is invested and by that enabled to do the work and office of a Minister without which no man hath any more to do than his meanest groom or foot-man with the acts properly Ministeriall Military or Magisteriall whatever abilities or call he fancie himself to have So that if once your Wisdome and Piety O worthy Gentlemen could find a way to put the Clergy or Ministry of this Church as formerly we were into an uniform way of sacred complete and undoubted Authority as to their Ordination then and not before will they appeare like the Angels of God ascending and descending in their orderly courses then will they be enabled and esteemed powerfully to pray to God for you powerfully to preach from God to you powerfully to consecrate and exhibit holy mysteries to you Then will they be like the Lamps of the Temple or the shafts of the Golden Candlestick which were all of the same make and fashion and supplied with holy oyle from the same source shining with a lustre more than humane in your severall congregations how much more will they appeare like Angelick and Celestiall Quires in their Ecclestastick Convocations and Synodall Conventions Whereas now Ministers are in all Places Cities and Countries wretchedly divided monstrously deformed and miserably disabled mutually accusing and clamoring against each other alwaies barking or biting or howling either tormenting or tormented as the Devils in Hell One superciliously abhorrs what another devoutly adores One vilifies what another venerates One Minister with his party pulls down what another builds up One execrates what another consecrates One nullifies what another magnifies One formally officiates who is counted no Minister and really is none another is thought to be but halfe a Minister or a kind of mungrell a third is reputed for more than an ordinary Minister as having his Commission by inspiration or conspiration One is thought superfluous yea superstitious in his Ordination because he had a Bishop with Presbyters to ordaine him another is judged defective and dwarfish for want of a Bishop a third hath neither Bishop nor true Presbyters to ordaine him but either begets a body to himself as an head or is chosen by a popular body to be their head This makes both Preachers and people at such distances and defiances in Religion that one counts that sacriledge which another boasts of as sacred One is called a mocker of God an usurper in holy offices and a contemner of the Churches Primitive and Catholick Custome another is derided as a doting Antiquary a superstitious Priest or proud Prelate who can relish no bread but what is old and moldy nor any drink but what is out of a Gibeonitish bottle Thus are all holy mysteries and duties which any Ministers performe made either very disputable or despicable to the people while all their authority on all sides as dispensers of them is so much questioned doubted divided and denyed in the great point of their mission and Ordination which is most essentiall to a Minister and most fundamentall to any Churches Peace and Polity requiring next the maine Articles of Faith to be setled in the clearest and most unquestionable way with most uniform Authority most conforme to all pious Antiquity whose ancient and Catholick patterne as to Episcopall that is Apostolicall Ordination is no more with prudence to be changed either into Presbyterian or Independent new formes than the Church hath cause to exchange Davids Psalmes for any such godly Balads or moderne Hymns as we see some Ministers with more piety I hope than good poetry have sometime commended to the harsh and unharmonious voyces of ill-tuned and ill-stringed Congregations Adde to all these not onely the inconveniencies but mischiefes which are not more uncomfortable than pernicious to the interest of the true and Reformed Religion For from the divisions of Ministers as to their rise and descent or Ordination follow not onely strangeness but strifes and emulations evil eyes and secret feudes against one another each being either jealous of or contemptuous toward another But furthermore from this difference in their Ordination they are tempted to affect to broach and to preach different Doctrines For those peeled rods which alwaies lye before their eyes as to their Orders or Characters their Ministeriall Admissions and Stations do occasion their conceiving and bringing forth a ring straked and spotted kind of Religion even as to Doctrine that by the discriminations of their opinions either in
Seates they had most evidently continued in all Churches without any interruption or variation of the forme or power however the persons had been oft changed by mortality Certainly it is most easie for all learned honest and unbiassed men to see what the uniform and Catholick form then was of all Churches orderly combinations I dare appeale to Independents and Presbyterians as well as Episcopall men to declare bona fide what they find it was in the first and best times after Churches were once fully formed and setled in their severall partitions No man not more bold than bayard or more blind than a beetle but must see and confesse that according to the first platform which we read of in the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles the Order Polity and Government of the Church was completed setled and continued first in Deacons who had the lowest degree of Church-office order and Ministry consisting in reading the Scriptures in making collections for the poor in distributing of charity in visiting the sick in providing things necessary safe convenient and decent for Christian Ministers and people when they met to serve the Lord in one place which place or house from hence was called Dominicum or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Church or House of the Lord. Next these in order degree and office were Presbyters that is ordained preachers to whom was committed by the Apostles first and after by Bishops their successors the Charge and Office of Catechizing the younger of Preaching to the elder of Baptizing believers and their children of consecrating the holy Elements of the Lords Supper and of admitting worthy Communicants to receive them besides the grave and venerable Presbyters had as brethren the priviledge of electing their Bishops also of counsell confessions and assistance with their respective Bishop's in publick concernment and grand transactions of the Church Above both these in eminency of place degree and power as to gubernative Authority were those prime Bishops or overseers of the Church first called by the name of Apostles as immediately set by Christ in that Episcopacy next were those that were personally appointed by the Apostles to supply their absence or to succeed them in that ordinary presidency and constant jurisdiction which was necessary for the Churches peace union and good Government of which we have two pregnant instances in Timothy and Titus who to be sure had Episcopall power given them not as Evangelists or Preachers but as Ordainers and Rulers of many Presbyters After these Bishops of a lesser size constantly succeeded being first chosen by the Presbyters of each grand Church or Diocese to that power and office and then consecrated to it or confirmed in it by neighbour-Bishops who solemnly imparted to them and invested them in that Eminency of Ordaining and Ruling power which is properly Episcopall not onely for the dispensing of holy mysteries for the preaching of the word and absolving penitents as Presbyters who were a minor sort of Bishops but for confirming those who had in infancy been baptized for solemn excommunication and absolution for examining and ordaining Presbyters and Deacons for transmitting that Episcopall and Ministeriall power in a constant and holy succession according as they had received it so for judging of and inflicting publick censures and reproofes likewise for all Synodal Conventions and representations of the Churches lastly for the authoritative enacting and executing of all Ecclesiasticall decrees and Church-disciplines all which things Bishops did as a Major sort of Presbyters though a Minor sort of Apostles if we may believe the judgment practise and testimony of all Antiquity in the purest times which are diligently collected evidently set down and unanswerably urged by many late writers who have brought forth such a cloud of witnesses as to this point of Ecclesiasticall Order and Government by Deacons Presbyters and Bishops a threefold cord not to be broken that men may as well deny the Evangelicall History as the Original Institution and Succession of the Evangelicall Ministry and the orderly constant Government of the Church by the service of Deacons the assistance of Presbyters and the superintendency of the Apostles whom no sober man denies to have been while they lived the eminent Rulers authoritative Overseers and chief Governours and Bishops of all the Churches where they were fixed or which they had under their particular care and charge Nor may it with any more shadow of reason or truth be denied that Bishops in a distinct place and eminent power were a successive and secondary sort of Apostles inferiour to them in their immediate call in their extraordinary gifts and the latitude of their power but equall to them in that ordinary constant and regular jurisdiction which was and is ever necessary for the Churches good Order and Government If all sorts and sides would look beyond their own later prejudices and presumptions to this holy patterne this so cleare constant and Catholick prescription they would be ashamed of such grosse ignorance or impudence such peevishnesse or partiality as should beyond all forehead or modesty affect any novelty or variety from an Ecclesiastick custome and an Apostolick precedent so undeniably Primitive so famous so glorious so prosperous so never altered or innovated as to the maine that all true believers all humble Deacons all orderly Presbyters all Confessors all Martyrs all Synods all Councils submitted and subscribed to the same form and kind of Government in its severall stations and degrees according as the wisdome of the Church saw cause to use its prudence power and liberty as Calvin Zanchy and Bucer tell us in having not onely Bishops but Metropolitanes or Arch-Bishops Primates and Patriarchs ad conservandam disciplinam as Calvin ownes for the better Order Unity and Correspondency of the Church in all its parts which were never quarrelled at till pride begat oppression and envy schisme in the Church till foolish and factious spirits chose to walk contrary to the true principles and proportions of all right Reason and Religion of all prudence and polity which are to be observed in all Societies sacred or civil which the Divine wisdome as St. Jerom observes had exemplified in the ancient Church of the Jewes and directed us to as Salmasius confesseth in all successions of Churches by the Spirit of wisdom which Christ gave to his Apostles and all their immediate successors the Bishops who were conform to them and impowered by them to be a kind of Tutelary Angels of presidentiall Intelligences in the larger circles and higher orbes of the Church where as in Ephesus and the other grand Metropolitane Churches which are denominated by the Spirit of Christ and the pen of the Apostle from the chief Cities in those Provinces there were no doubt many Christian people Presbyters and Deacons yet all these subject as Beza glossing on St. Jerom confesseth to that one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Provost or President as their
Directory of Ecclesiasticall prudence and practise 8. What if the Great God of order peace and truth as well as so many learned and godly men so many famous and flourishing Churches in all Ages should by beating or scaring men from their popular prejudices pitiful subterfuges and sinister designes thus mightily plead the cause of true Episcopacy against all those who have spoken and done so many perverse things against that excellent government What if he should by some powerful means rebuke their confidences as he did Job's justly demanding of these Destroyers Where is that Wisdom that Modesty that Gentleness that Charity that Moderation that Humility that Gravity and Christian Caution which became godly men to their betters to such a Church and to such worthy Bishops as were the Governours of it under God and the King Could you be ignorant of the learning graces virtues merits and worth which were in Bishops suitable to their lawful Autority Did you not know and with some repining see how justly they were preferred before Presbyters and People as every way fittest to be over and above them Are these immoderations and injuries the wayes of true Religion and Reformation Can there be true piety without charity yea without equity or pitty If evil men are not to be injured much less good men good Ministers and least of all good Bishops which were not wanting among you May not thus the lightnings of Gods rebukes be clearly seen and the terrors of his thunders be justly heard and the blastings of his displeasure be felt by all the unjust tumultuary malicious and implacable enemies of venerable Episcopacy Methinks I hear the Divine Majesty thus uttering his glorious voice against them O foolish People O unthankful Nation O degenerous Christians or deformed Church not worthy to be beloved of God or happily governed by wise men Do you thus requite the Lord and thus despise all the ancient Churches of Christ by forsaking yea rejecting your own mercies and happiness Is it a small thing that you have broken through all Laws and the arm of mans civil authority but will you also contend against the power of God and the wisdom of Christ whose out-stretched arm in the way of Episcopacy hath been in all Ages a defence and refuge to his Church Should you beyond the boldnesse of Balaam dare to curse what God hath not cursed or to defie what God hath not defied but signally owned with his blessing in all Ages and Churches In seeing do you not see and in reading do you not understand the constant methods of Gods guiding and governing both this and all other Christian Churches How hath a novel zeal but not according to knowledge blinded your minds Who called the first Apostles to be chief Bishops over all Churches Who supplied the Apostasie of Judas by the Election of Matthias to his Episcopacy Upon whom did the power of the Holy Ghost first come Who placed Bishops immediately after them in all completed Churches through the world What planted preserved united and reformed them but that Apostolical that is the Episcopal autority assisted by such Presbyters whom they ordained to part of the Office Labour Honour and Ministry Who were the chief Champions of the Gospel but the venerable Bishops in all Ages Who were the most resolute Confessors holy Bishops Who the most glorious Martyrs excellent Bishops Who were the most Learned and Valiant Asserters of the Orthodox faith Primitive purity sanctity order and harmony becoming Christian Churches but admirable Bishops Who were counted the prime Starres in the hand of Christ Who were called by way of eminency Angels by him but the chief Presidents and Bishops of the seven Churches To whom was Divine Power first given and after derived not onely to teach and feed but to ordain Presbyters and Deacons also to rebuke rule and govern both Presbyters Deacons and People as St. Paul enjoynes but to holy Bishops in the persons and patterns of Timothy and Titus Archippus and others whose Authority as such no man ought to despise Who were they that wounded and destroyed the Great Behemoth and Leviathans of prodigious errors and spreading heresies in the four first Centuries but incomparable Bishops such as were Irenaeus Athanasius Epiphanius Augustine Ambrose Hilary Prosper both the Cyrils the Basils the Gregories and others Who quenched the wild-fires of Schisme and faction among Christian people and Ministers but excellent Bishops such as Clemens Ignatius Cyprian both the Dionysiu's Austin Optatus Fulgentius and others By whose sweat and blood next after the Apostles were the plantations and necessary Reformations of Churches watered and weeded but by the vigilancy and industry of worthy Bishops both in their single capacity and in their joynt Synods or Councills wherein Bishops as the Representatives or chief Fathers of all Churches as the families of Christ might orderly meet duly deliberate and autoritatively determine what seemed good to the Spirit of God and to them for the Churches Purity and Peace according to the Scriptures precept and Catholick practise Who were those renowned Pastors and Preachers of old that mitigated the Spirits of great Princes that converted many Nations that baptized mighty Kings and Emperours that advanced the Gospel beyond their Empires and set up the Crosse of Christ above their Crownes not in soveraignty or civill power but in the Divine Empire of Verity Sanctity and Charity Who moderated the Spirits and passions of persecutors Who convinced them of their errors resolved their scruples who condemned their sins who terrified their consciences and who either raised or restored them through repentance to the peace of Christ and his Church but heroick wise and invincible Bishops Who have been the chief Luminaries in all Churches in all Ages the Chariots and Horsemen of Israel the prime Pillars of Piety and Peace of Hospitality and Honour of Order and good Government but wise and renowned Bishops Who furnished all Churches with fervent Prayers devout Liturgies convenient Catechises learned Homilies practical Sermons accurate Commentaries and excellent Epistles with sound Decisions of Controversies and Cases arising in the Church or any private Conscience Who made up with charitable Composures all uncomfortable breaches and unkind differences among Christians but pious and prudent Bishops whose autority was ever esteemed as sacred being experienced in all Ages to be sanative and soveraign to Religion and the Church where they had freedom and encouragements to act as became the chief Pastors Counsellors and Governours of the Church in all Ecclesiastick concernments Sure if God would have them utterly destroyed he would not so long have accepted such sacrifices from the hands of Bishops both ancient and modern nor thus mightily have pleaded the cause of Episcopacy in all Ages and in this both as to Gods wisdom in and his blessing upon that way of Church-government and Governours But possibly our later Bishops especially in England whose cause is here chiefly pleaded were such
fancy but in the publick counsels and constitutions of every Kingdome State and Polity Nor was this more true piety and charity than prudence and policy in the Bishops and other Ministers of the Church to whom as to gowned and bookish men and not as to armed souldiers doth all the Christian world owe under God the planting propagating and preserving yea and the due reforming of true Christian Religion For the armes of flesh or any carnal weapons going along with the Gospel which is a spirituall warfare as so many Pioneers with pick-axes and spades to demolish and overthrow civil powers must needs have alarmed and armed all States and Princes all honest and just all wise and morall men against it when they looked upon Christianity as coming not to preach and save but to plunder and spoile for all wise Magistrates know that there was no trusting to the moderation and justice no nor to the mercy of any men who came with force against them Though they professe as Andronicus did and Absalom before him never so much to mend and reform things yet they will at last rob kill and destroy and as the Sons of Jacob dealt with the Sichemites they at first onely pretend to circumcise men yet at last they will not onely geld but kill them Armed Religion like Eagles and Hawkes is alwaies terrible Which considerations do justly harden all mens hearts that have any thing to lose or to keep in this world against all forcible and riotous entries of any Religion or Reformation whatsoever which seldome failes to be sacrilegious as well as rebellious Hence the present feares jealousies and abhorrencies which many Princes and States as well as Bishops and Church-men that are of the Romish Communion have taken up against any Reformation of Religion by such popular methods and principles which they see are seldome begun and never ended without infinite trouble confusion and ruine of all things both sacred and civil every wise man rightly judging that when God is pleased to bring in the beauty and blessing of true Religion or due Reformation to any Church or Nation he will as he did in England most eminently so stir up the spirits of Soveraigne powers the method he anciently used in purging and reforming the Temple and Church of the Jewes by Hezekiah Josiah and others that the work shall go on as without noyse like the building of the Temple so with Order and Honor to the glory of God the safety of Princes the honor of the Clergy and the peace of the people as well as the purity of the Church and true Religion Till this may be done a thousand civil burthens and oppressions yea persecutions are easier than any sinful presumptions yea true Religion will be beautifull when it is black with persecution if then it be comely with patience Scorching Reformations so burn the face of Religion that they leave not onely sad scarres but shamefull Stigmas or brands upon it which look very like rebellion and barbarity engaging men and Christians into mutuall hatred blood-shedding deaths and destruction Let men pretend never so much to be Saints godly yea and inspired too yet as the purest water and the wholsomest flesh when once they come to feel the heat of factions and begin to boyle up to civil perturbations they will soon discover a very black fome and foule scum to rise in their hearts and actions which as Hazael they hardly thought could have been in them carrying them to injustice immoderation uncharitablenesse presumption rebellion sacriledge and cruelty and all unwarrantable actions before they are aware of the folly falsity or foulenesse of their own as indeed all mens hearts at whose bottom lies all manner of filth and villany which is then easily and constantly discovered when they are passionately and inordinately stirred Nor is it at all to be considered how pure men appeare as to that which is upward or outward in their Religious protestations and professions when once they come to that Romantick and Errant spirit which thinks it as much gallantry to fight for their Religion as some do for their Mistresses beauties which exceeds quarrelling and killing each other by civil and heroick murthers for no other offence but the glory of their opinion and the preferring of their fancy What did ever seem more holy than the Euchites and Circumcellions of old what more precise and godly than John of Leiden and his crew what more inspired than our Hacket and Coppinger what less covetous and impartiall than Massaniello All of them were not very warme but very scalding Reformers yet came to nought Adde to all these what was or is more titularly holy than some later Popes of Rome who ever seemed more solicitous to advance Religion Yet by their usurping both St. Peters swords by interpreting Arise Peter kill and eate in a sanguinary sense by making the Bishop of Rome the greater light to rule the day and Emperours or Kings in their dominions to be as the Moon and lesser lights by challenging a power unchristian and inordinate to depose lawfull Princes to absolve Subjects from â—â—eir oathes to expose their lives to their Subjects or any other mens swords to dispose of their Thrones and Kingdomes as they please in order to the Romish Churches or Courts interests they have made all the world now very wary of them Even those Princes that are of the Papall Communion are grown very reserved and vigilant as to their civil power now their eyes are so opened that many moderate men have highly suspected as Padre Paulo the Author of the History of the Councel of Trent and others this Papall arrogancy to be one of the shrewdest markes of the Papall Antichristianism a Bishop thus enormously exalting himself by fraud and force by blood and violence in the Church or Temple of God above all that is called God in civil Magistracy directly contrary both to Christs pattern and the two great Apostles precepts as well as practises who though they laid with the other eleven Apostles the foundations of an Episcopal Hierarchy by the parity or Aristocracy as of the chief Apostles so of Bishops yet they never either exercised or enjoyed or dreamed of a Monarchy in which one Apostle or Bishop should have dominion over all others and over the whole Church Episcopacy as it is Primitive and Apostolicall exactly and conscientiously preserves to all Princes and Soveraigne Magistrates whatsoever their civil peace and safety of their persons their lawes and powers with their just prerogatives as well as it doth the Evangelicall and ingenuous Liberties of all Christian Subjects which are alwaies and onely to do well either in active or passive obedience But as the Papll claimes and flatteries of former Ages did with full mouth and open forehead invade yea and by force insult over the just powers of Soveraigne Princes however of late they have been more cunning modest and tender so other spirits which from Pygmies have
the Emperour did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as men suffer their native passions to carry them somewhat beyond tha discretion and temper which became grave and godly Bishops while they did too much proscind and prostitute as it were the Imperial purple vilifying that Majesty which ought to be sacred to Christian Subjects although the persons wearing them may be Tyrants Persecutors and Apostates as the Censers were to be holy in which Incense had been once offered though with strange fire Bishops Miters and Crosiers ought in no case to clash with the Crowns and Scepters of Soveraign Princes however their discreet zeal may seasonably represent to them and in Gods name reprove their misdemeanors as Christians much less may any Presbyters pert upon them who are of a far lesser size and never had any ensignes of honor and autority as chief governours of any Church Be Bishops or Presbyters never so zealous and gracious yet they are not beyond the ancient and best Bishops of Rome and of other chief Cities who with Gregory the Great owned the Emperours as their Soveraign Lords So did St. Ambrose respect both Theodosius and Valentinian so did the venerable Council of the Nicene Bishops reverence the Emperour Constantine the Great Neither their number being three hundred and eighteen nor their publick representation of the Catholick Church did encourage them to do or meditate any thing beyond prayers and petitions recommending all their Counsels to God the Emperour and all the Church No Preachers or Christians warmth needs go beyond the pitch of Christ and his Apostles who are so absolutely for obedience respect and civil feare to Princes whether heathen or Christian that no supreme power whatever need to fear the overthrow or shaking of their Empire Soveraignty and Dominion by admitting true Christian Religion and true Christian Bishops nor need they feare it as any sin persecution or injustice in them to curb represse and punish by all meanes the inordinate pragmatick and seditious zeal as of Bishops so of any Presbyters or people who shall pretend to bring in any Religion or Reformation against their will and permission it being the work and mark of true Religion and undefiled to establish the Thrones of Princes to preserve the publick peace to teach subjection not onely of purses and persons but of soules and consciences so far as Princes do not require them to disobey God and in these cases they need not rack their wits to find out rebellious remedies or disloyall evasions the onely lawfull and laudable refuge is neer at hand namely Christian patience which sets men furthest off from railing or resisting both which are but the scorchings and soote of black and over-burning zeal which makes a kind of Charcoale of Religion What wise sober and humble Christian then can sufficiently love honour and admire the modesty humility and loyalty of true Episcopacy ever expressed by the carriage of the best Christian and reformed Bishops towards all Princes And who can sufficiently abhor the petulancy and insolency of those Novellers and Reformers who shall dare to lift up either the Presbyterian virgula or the Independent ferula or the Anabaptistick flail not onely to threaten but to chastise Soveraign Princes that list not to admit their wayes into their dominions before they can approve them in their Consciences and Judgements following the disciplining methods and penance used by some Monks of Canterbury against our King Henry the second Surely Christianity and the Clergy are never so healthy and comely as when their complexion is rather pallid with the fastings and prayers the studies and pains of humble Bishops and Presbyters than purpled or sanguine with blood and fury The over-hot breathings of Ministers like the chaud of Charcoale stifle and suffocate the vital spirits of true Religion Godly Bishops and Presbyters ever abhorred as Hell and damnation to teach Princes their Religion their Canons Catechises and Directories as Gideon did the men of Succoth with Briars and Thornes or to discipline Soveraigne Majesty with Swords and Pistols in order to perswade them to submit to the Gospel-Scepter and Discipline No they never did attempt so to do either in the Primitive and persecuting times when Magistrates were most froward and injurious or in those times which were afterward more propitious and prosperous when the Clergy fed highest and was most indulged by the munificence of Christian Emperours and Empresses devout Kings and Queens who as good nurses never repined at the fulness of their own breasts or the hearty sucking of their dear nurslings joyning the Prince to the Prelate and adding Lordly Honors with Estates to Christian Bishops never fearing hereby to make them too wanton or insolent while they saw them keep to the sober principles of Christianity conformable to that Apostolick and Primitive Episcopacy which was alwaies pure and peaceable faithfull to God humble and loyall to man so Ruling the Church of Christ as not to be Masters of mis-rule in any Nation State or Kingdom Yea in the amplest enjoyments of that pious munificence and those generous liberalities which Christian Princes Noblemen Gentlemen and inferiour persons devoutly afforded to Bishops and the rest of the Clergy as tokens of their gratitude to God their honor to their Saviour their love to their spirituall Fathers and their value of their own and other mens soules however some few Clergy-men among many might possibly surfeit sometime and as Jesurun grow petulant sensuall and sottish through fulness of bread idlenesse and luxury yet still the generall face of the best Bishops and Clergy was comely and venerable there wanted not in all Ages such Bishops and Presbyters both in England and all Churches for Gravity Learning Sanctity Charity Fidelity and Loyalty as kept up the Office Name and Honor of the Clergy and of Episcopacy to an high degree of honor and veneration both with Princes and people that were good Christians No men were more usefull or more imployed for the good ordering both of Church and Common-weale than Bishops were none were better Counsellors to Princes and greater Benefactors to their fellow-subjects none further from faction sedition popularity sacriledge and rebellion none did greater service or better offices for their King their Church and their Country How loyal resolute and religious a Remonstrance did the Bishop of Carlile make in Parliament against the deposing of King Richard the Second when the whole stream ran against him Was not Morton first Bishop of Ely and after of Canterbury the first designer and a principal effecter of the union of the White and Red Roses the two great houses of York and Lancaster to the blessed extinguishing of those long flames of civil war which drank up the blood and consumed the flesh of this Nation whose greatest miseries rise from its own bowels Was not Richard Fox Bishop of Durham the chief Counsellour Promoter and Actor of that other union between the two Crowns of England and Scotland by treating
they lose him who is best to be found in the Evangelicall and still voyce to which the Priests and Prophets of the Jewish also the Apostles with their successors the Godly Bishops of the Christian Churches have alwaies listned and generally obeyed judging nothing more diametrally distant from and opposite to true Religion than Rebellion that is the usurping of that power which is by Right and Law anothers upon any religious pretence whatsoever Certainly the Jewel of Loyalty neither was nor ever will be safer kept than in the Cabinet of Primitive Episcopacy as Aarons Râ—d and the Tables of the Law were best preserved in the Ark of the Testimony and in the most holy place which were laid up with the pot of Manna Emblems most lively setting forth the happy State of any Christian Church and Nation while it maintaines the Lawes of God and man while it subjects all men to the Rod or Scepter of just Government both in Church and State supporting as the Princes so the chief Pastors Bishops and Guides of the Church with an honorable plenty and all other Ministers both in Church and State with competent and ingenuous alimony As Christian Kings and Queenes have ever been according to Gods promise the most indulgent liberall and tender nurses of the Church of Christ in all Countries every where retaining and reverencing Episcopacy as most agreeable with their Soveraignty and Monarchy so have all true Christian Bishops in all Ages and places ever been the most Learned Assertors of and the humble submitters to Soveraigne and Monarchical Authority of Princes and no lesse to that of Aristocracy in Common-weales or Republiques such as Florence was and Venice still is who never yet saw any reason of State to move them to change the ancient and honorable Government of Catholick Episcopacy for any other which hath as more of parity popularity and poverty so lesse of honest policy firm peace and religious loyalty Certainly a Christian Prince or State that designes stability to their power and peace will need these two swords of Soveraignty and Episcopacy to keep himself his people and his Church safe A wise Governour cannot but see and say of Episcopacy compared to all other formes as David said of Goliahs sword there is none like that in respect of its principles operations and influences as to religious loyalty and publick tranquillity The loyalty and civil subjection of all novellers seemes to be with so many salvo's and reserves of godlinesse and grace of Religion Christs Discipline or true Church-waies of Princes not being tyrants or persecutors in their subjects sense that there is little certainty much lubricity and as many dangers as evasions But the Loyalty of Episcopacy is positive and plenary resolute and absolute according to those cleare Evangelical precepts and patternes either to act or suffer with good conscience owning no pensations as from God or Man Pope or Presbyter or People which some Antiepiscopall Preachers and Professors seem to have found out as the Gnosticks of old did being loth to be Carbonated or Crucified Christians if they can help it pleading that Right followes Might especially in Cases and Engagements of Religion excusing the Primitive Martyrs softness and easinesse to suffer as Bellarmine and others do the Popes pristine submission to the Emperours by reason of their Minority being then in their bibs and hanging-sleeves CHAP. XXI MY third Plea to recommend Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy to my wise and honoured Countrymen is taken from the consideration of the Genius or temper of the English Nation in which the Spirits of people are generally so heady and giddy so high and stout that they cannot long bear any way of Government or any Governours which seem levelling popular plebeian and prostrate however they may for a fit of novelty or discontent be pleased with such Pageants yet these are not the Mansion-houses that English people will dwell in They are too stiff-necked and stubborn a people ever to reverence or submit to such Magistrates in State or such Discipliners in Church as are but their Peers and Equals at best and many times their Inferiours as in estate and learning so in all those things Divine Civil and Humane which are proper to conciliate respect and command submission upon the account of some eminency of merit or worth set off with some conspicuity of riches honour or power The late Presbyterian design and defeat in England as to inducing their Checker-work of Lay-elders to be Joynt-rulers and Partners with Preachers in Ecclesiastical autority placing as they must needs even silly Mechanicks in many places in a parallel jurisdiction with the ablest Scholars and Ministers as to Church-government and Discipline yea and above them in their numbers and suffrages the speedy baffling I say and discountenancing of this pitiful project with all its long train baggage and ammunition by a general dislike difuse and neglect of it sufficiently shews that either Common people in England have more modesty yet left in them than to think themselves fit judges and rulers in the State or Church with their Magistrates and Ministers or else that they utterly disdain to be Catechized and controlled by such as are their plain country-neighbours and trivial Comrades of the same forme for rusticity and simplicity and many times as much below them in prudence as in estate in civility as in solid piety to which a factious and pragmatick ambition in any man adds very little The speedy confutation of this incongruous polity and stratagem which to please the people sought to besiege my selfe and all Ministers both in City and Country with four or five or more Lay-elders made up of Farmers Shop-keepers Clothiers and Handicrafts-men to be our Assessors and Assistants as Censors and Supervisors of all the Parish and our selves too not only with us but in some things above us Ministers both in number and popular influence this hath really wrought such an abhorrence and disdain in most people of all such Lay-ruling-elders and such a despiciency of all such Disciplining-plots as are neither prudent nor pertinent for the English temper that even those Ministers who were at first most zealous to set up in stead of the fair Temples and Cathedrals those small Synagogues and low Consistories of Lay-partners in Church-government even these Ministers find they have lost much of that pristine respect and influence they had among their own and all other people so that upon the point neither great nor small will now be further than they list governed by such methods of imprudent men who have reproched their own mother-Church diminished themselves and their Order blasted their Ministerial Ordination soiled that fountain whence they sprang disgraced those venerable Bishops who were lawfully and worthily their Fathers and Rulers despised as much as in them lyes the very Catholick and honourable name of Episcopacy abolished its ancient honour and autority which were ever established and preserved till now by the
of England O venerable censors O severe Aristarchusses of a more than Catonian gravity to whose ploughs and looms and distaffs and clubs and hammers 't is meet as to so many sacred scepters this later English and Christian world should no lesse submit their souls than the Jews and Gentiles Greeks and Barbarians Romans and Scythians did to the nets and fish-hooks of the Apostles who were authorized with miraculous gifts and assisted by the speciall power of the holy Spirit of Christ to plant settle and reform and purge Christian Churches To whose holy Doctrine and Divine Institutions delivered in the Old and New Testament and followed by all the Primitive Catholick Churches notwithstanding that the Church of England did in its first Reformation diligently and exactly conform it self if we may believe the integrity of those Reformers who had the courage and constancy to be Martyrs whose learning worth piety hath been confirm'd by the testimony of so many wise religious Princes by the approbation sanction of so many honourable and unanimous Houses of Parliament by the suffrages of so many learned and reverend Convocations by the applauses of so many Sister-reformed Churches if we may believe the preaching living and dying of so many hundred excellent Bishops and Presbyters or the prayers praises and proficiencies of so many thousands of other good Christians or lastly if we may believe the wonderful blessings and speciall graces of a merciful God attesting to the verity sanctity and integrity of this Church-Reformation and Christian Constitution for many happy years Yet against all these some peevish Momusses some spitefull Caco-zelots some evil-ey'd Zoilusses some insolent and causelesse Enemies of the Church of England have not so much modesty as to conceale their malice or to smother their insolent folly and intolerable arrogancy which dares to put the ignorance giddinesse emptinesse vulgarity rashnesse precipitancy and sinisternesse of their silly censures into the balance of Religion contrary to the renowned learning piety gravity grace and majesty of all those who have had so great favour love respect and honour for the Church of England Whom her spitefull and envious adversaries now presume to follow with nothing but Contumelies and Anathema's with pillagings and spoylings with railings and revilings with waste and ruine to the excessive joy of Her Papall enemies whose deeply-designed policies have a long time desired and hoped to see that wofull day befall the Church of England in which her Bishops might beg her Presbyters be starved her Ministry contemned her Liturgie ejected her Unity dissolved and broken her Ancient and Primitive Government abolished her undoubted ordination and succession of Ministers interrupted her whole Christian Frame and Nationall Constitution which was for the main truly Catholick Primitive and Apostolick destroyed dissipated desolated What invincible Armadoes could not atchieve what monstrous Powder-plots could not accomplish what wily Jesuits and other subtile Sophisters despaired to attain having been oft defeated and repelled by the learned care and vigilant puissance of wise Princes sober Parlaments reverend Bishops and other able Ministers of the Church of England that the weaknesse wantonnesse and wickednesse of some of our own petty Sectaries Schismatick Agitators superâ—reforming Reformers is likely to bring to passe whom the most admired and devout Lord Primate of Armagh a great Prophet of God and Pillar of the Reformed Religion sometime told me he esteemed no other than Factors for Popery and Engines for Roman designs by divisions and domestick confusions of Religion to bring in Popish Superstition and Tyranny Indeed a prudent Conjecturer may in this case easily make a true Prophet For the Roman Eagle a watchfull powerfull and voracious bird can never fail at last to seise on these parts of Christendome for her prey where she shall see Ignorance prevail against Knowledge Barbarity against Learning Division against Unity Confusion against Order People against their Priests Novelty against Antiquity Anarchy against Catholick Authority and infinite deformities ushered in under the title of speciall Reformations That cunning Conclave which overlooks the Christian world as the greatest constellation of policy in the West knows full well that such feaverish distempers in any Church or Christian State as now afflict the Church of England will not faile if they long continue to bring it to such an hectick consumption as will quite destroy its former healthfull constitution and prepare it for those Italian Empiricks who will come then to be in request with common people when they find no good to be got by the best-reputed Physicians the most specious Reformers when these are at their wits ends so differing in their judgements and practise that they know not what to do by reason of the madnesse impatiency and petulancy of people those foraign Mountebanks will alwayes promise men help and cure at an easie rate for they require no more of the most desperate patients than to credit their receipts to be confident of and reconciled to the skill and artifice of the Church of Rome their Mother and the Pope their Father CHAP. VI. I Cannot believe that any of you who are persons of Learning Honour and Integrity lovers of your Countrey and the Reformed Religion can be wholly strangers to the sad and dangerous condition of the Church of England Nor can you if rightly set forth to you be unaffected with it unlesse your designs and fortunes are to be advanced by the rents and ruines of this Church of England In which as the Lord liveth before whom we all stand distempers are risen not onely to Divisions but Distractions not onely to Injuries but Insolencies not only to Obloquies but Oppressions not onely to Schismes but Abscissions not onely to Factions but Confusions not onely to Lapses but Apostacies not onely to rude Deformities but they tend to absolute Nullities as to any Christian Harmony Fraternity Order Beauty Unity Strength Safety and publick setling of that Reformed Religion which was once professed in the Church of England And this by reason of the Envies Despites Rudenesses Animosities Seditions Strifes Separations Raylings Reproches Contumelies Blasphemies and prophane Novelties every where pregnant and predominant among vulgar spirits and odiously cast upon all things that you and your forefathers esteemed as religious and sacred in this Church of England The torrent of rebukes and troubles like Ezekiels waters is now risen not onely to the ankles and knees but to the loyns and neck growing too rapid and deep for the common people to wade over or venture into nor are they safe for any to engage upon but those who as S. Christopher is represented in the Legendary Emblem are heightned by their own integrity and supported by Gods heroick Spirit for it is a black and dangerous a red and dead Sea upon which he adventures who will now seriously assert the Church of England whose troubled state is more stormy than those waters were on which S. Peter ventured to walk or
these must exercise all church-Church-power and Divine authority over your consciences whereas for my part I do not think that the best of these new Masters and Ministers can have from their own fancies or peoples forwardness so much authority because they have none either from God or the Church of Christ or the laws of this Land as would make them petty Constables or Bom-baylies a Lay-elder or an Apparitor This I am sure that in the purest and primitive times as Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian S. Cyprian and others assure us the holy mysteries of Christian Religion the power of the Keyes the sacrating of Sacraments the pastorall ruling and preaching as of office duty and necessity to any part of Christs flock was esteemed the peculiar and proper work of Bishops and Presbyters in their order and degree as the true and onely Pastors and Teachers that succeeded the twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples in their ordinary Ministry nor were men branded for other how able soever than insolent and execrable usurpers who did adventure to officiate unordained that is not duly authorised as Ministers Such intruders Tertullian notes both some men and women to have been in his time who were leavened with Schisme and Heresie so Epiphanius and S. Austin tell us of the Quintilliani Pepuziani and Colliridiani who were confounders of the Ministeriall order Sozomen Socrates Nicephorus and other Church-historians sharply censure one Ischyras or Ischyrion who unordained pretended to be a Presbyter and so to officiate calling him a detestable person and worthy of more than one death whom Athanasius finding about to consecrate or rather desecrate the Eucharist he in an holy and heroick zeal as Christ in the Temple brake the Communion Cup overthrew the Table and repressed his insolent impiety counting him as another Judas Iscariot a traitor to Christ and the Church Yet in the place of the Ministers of the Church of England I beseech you how few Athanasiusses how many Ischyrasses may you now see challenging to themselves the care of mens souls as Ministers of Christ undertaking the managerie of mens eternall interests confident to interpret Scriptures to resolve doubts to decide controversies to satisfie mens consciences to keep up the truth power and majesty of Christian Religion by new undue and exotick wayes against the torrent and impetuous force of ignorance Atheism profaneness errour malice and madness of men and Devils For all which grand designs of Gods glory and the Churches good those men are as fit agitators as Phaeton was to drive Phoebus his Chariot and truly with like success they will do it for instead of enlightening the world these Incendiaries will set all on fire as far as they meet with any combustible matter in which sad conflagrations begun and blown up by them in this Church of England some of them are so vain as to glory calling them the spirituall day of judgement an invisible doomesday a coming of Christ in the spirit of burning and refining to purge his Church For this purpose they say the Sun must be turned into darknesse and the Moon into blood government of Church and State must be subverted nor do they according to their severall fancies and interests fail to presage and expect a glorious Resurrection to their parties which they hope shall reign with Christ if not a thousand years yet as long as they can prevail so as to get power and preserve those liberties they have ravished to themselves CHAP. VIII NOr are these novell undertakers ever more ridiculous than when they sow pillowes under their own rustick arms and others elbows excusing yea abetting their illiterate rudeness and idiotick confidence with the primitive plainness and simplicity of the Apostles when Christ first chose them who were Fishermen Tent-makers or the like Which is truly but very impertinently alledged as any parallel case with these impotent and pragmatick intruders unless they could manifest to the world which they never yet did nor ever will such miraculous endowments such power and anointing from above as came upon the Apostles which in one moment was able to furnish them with more sufficiency and authority than all study and industry can ever do any of us which are the now ordinary means appointed and blessed by God succeeding in the place of miraculous gifts where Churches are once fully planted and Christianity setled To all which the constant testimony of an uninterrupted Ministery and holy succession of ordained Bishops and Presbyters from the very Apostles as they from Christ is a more pregnant witnesse and conviction than any new miracles could be much more than any such pittifull accounts can be as these wonders of ignorance and arrogancy can give to the world of any extraordinary matters they say or do either as Ministers or Christians The best of some of whose lives would deform I fear the golden legend which seems to be written by a man of a brazen forehead a leaden wit and an iron heart We the despised Clergie of England do profess to use and pray God to bless our long preparative studies meditations writings readings also our immediate care concomitant labours in this kind habitually to fit us for that dreadfull work and for every actuall discharge of it We find these methods practised by the most famous lights of the Church recommended by S. Paul to Timothy though a person in some things extraordinarily gifted that he should attend didiligently to those exercises that his profiting might appear We do not now expect fire from heaven with Elias to come down upon our sacrifices but we are glad to take the ordinary coals of Gods altar which may by his Word and Spirit going along with our pains and prayers both enlighten our minds and kindle our hearts so as to make us burning and shining lights in Gods house which is his Church Truly those proud and poor wretches who know no coals but those of their own chimney-corners may possibly have a few embers on their hearths or in their potsheards they may like dark lanthorns have a bit of a farthing-candle in them that shines with a little dim and dubious light on one side onely as in the smatterings of some plain primer-knowledge which they have gathered either by superficiall reading the Scriptures or by hearing some Sermons heretofore from the able Ministers of England or by gleaning a little out of the plainest of their writings but 't is most apparent that on three sides of them that is for Grammaticall skill historicall knowledge and polemicall learning they are so horridly black and dark that they seem fitter implements to bring in such ignorance irreverence Atheism superstition and confusion as shall quite put out the Christian and Reformed Religion in this nation reducing all to pristine darkness deformity and barbarity than probable ever to be either propagators purgators or preservers of it which had long ago been over-run with the rank weeds of
sacred office charge and ministration how infinitely ought you to be ashamed and regretted to see them usurped many times by the dogs of your flocks by your hinds and foot-men your grooms and serving-men by threshers weavers and coblers by taylors tinkers and tapsters any mean and mechanick people whose parts and spirits are onely fit for those trades to which their breeding and necessities have confined them Not that I despise or reproch these honest though mean employments but I highly blame their insolence and other mens patience to see these usurp upon the dignity of the Ministry Certainly such proud poor wretches may to some men possibly seem fittest Ministers in a disordered State and decaying Church as factors for Satan and Antichrist setters for Ignorance and Superstition turning Faith into Faction but they will never prove after that fashion of preparing and admitting either able or faithfull or fruitfull Ministers of Christ or his Church seeming themselves and making others despisers of Christ with the blasphemous Jews while they so look upon him and treat him as under the notion of the Carpenters son as their equall or inferiour in some handicraft forgetting his divine glory and majesty as the onely-begotten son of God to whom all power is given in heaven and earth who hath executed this power most visibly in sending forth his Ministers to teach and baptize all nations out of which to gather and govern his Church in his name They rudely slight Christs ministerial authority in such as are truly excellent and duly ordained Ministers that they may proudly challenge it to themselves without any reason or Scripture law or order command or example either from Christ or his Church These men who say they are Apostles Prophets and Preachers and are not will be in the end and already are found liars against God and their own souls deceitfull workers false Apostles Mock-ministers Pseudo-pastors disorderly walkers authors of infinite scandall and confusion of scorn and contempt to Christian and Reformed Religion both here and elsewhere many of them serving their bellies and gratifying their carnall lusts and momentary wants much more than designing to advance the glory of God the Kingdome of Christ or the eternall good of mens souls which are not to be carried on save in Gods way that is by fit abilities and with due authority both are required as necessary for a true Minister the first though reall is not sufficient without the second For as the meer outward materiall action cannot be a divine sacramentall or ministerial transaction more than every killing of an Ox was a sacrificing so nor are meer naturall or personall abilities sufficient to acquire any office or authority much less this of the Ministry which is divine or none any more than every able Butcher was presently enabled to be a Priest Any mans ability fully to understand or handsomely to relate the mind of his Prince makes him not presently an Embassador or Minister of State unless there be a commission or letters of credence to authorize the person The blessed Apostle S. Paul who was extraordinarily converted called and sent of God as a Christian a Minister or Apostle yet we see did not take upon him the exercise or office till first Ananias had by Gods speciall command laid his hands on him and he became endowed with the ministerial gift or power of the holy Ghost which were afterward in like sort solemnly confirmed and increased by the express command of God when Paul and Barnabas were separated and sent upon special service with fasting prayer and laying on of the hands of some Prophets and Teachers in Antioch where the Apostle had formerly preached in the Church a whole year among much people This same Apostle oft blames and bids Christians beware of false Apostles not onely false in their doctrine but in their ordination and mission as the Prophets of the Lord did of old the false Prophets whom God had not sent yet they ran The Spirit of Christ commends the Angel of the Church of Ephesus where as Irenaeus and others tell us S. John lived long and left the most pregnant examples of Ecclesiasticall order Episcopall power and Ministeriall succession for trying those that said they were Apostles and were not for finding esteeming and declaring them as liars no way listning and adhering to or communicating with them as being Falsaries and Impostors enemies at once to the truth order and peace of Christs Church For 't is seldome that a bastardly generation of Preachers doth not bring forth some false and base doctrines for it is observable in this as in civil Histories that Bastards in nature and so in office are commonly most daring and adventurous spirits Certainly the late illegitimate Ministers or spurious Preachers of new and strange originals in England have in less than fifteen years brought more monsters of opinions and factions in Religion than have arose in so many hundred years before in any one Church I know some Christians are prone to gratifie their curiosity as those do who sometime go to see monsters in making some triall and essay of these pretended Preachers that once knowing their ignorance and insolence they may upon juster grounds ever after abhor them If this be tolerable for some persons of able and sober judgements yet it is no better than a snare and dangerous temptation for others that are weak and unstable nor may the venture be oft made by the more steddy Christians lest they seem thereby to countenance and encourage so great a confusion innovation usurpation and scandal in the Church of Christ besides the abetting of that high profanation of holy duties and mysteries which ought not to be transacted but in the name power and authority of our God and Saviour Certainly good Christians ought not at any hand to communicate with such usurping intruders in any sacramentall action nor ought they to own any thing more of a Minister of Jesus Christ in them than they would of a King or Magistrate in a Stage-player Doubtless as no good Christian so least of all those that profess to be Ministers of Christ ought to live as sons of Belial disorderly refractory unruly after the arbitrary rude and presumptuous dictates of their own wills The spirit of true Ministers and Prophets will be subject as it ought to that rule order and custome which in all ages hath been the canon measure and commission of all Evangelical Ministers and Pastors of Christs Church As naturall and morall endowments are no plea to invest any man into any office military or civil much less into any power and authority Ecclesiastical The pretenses of new and extraordinary calls of missions immediate from God are not in any reason expectable nor in Christian Religion credible where the ordinary power and commission was continued and might duly be had as it was and yet is in the Church of England
use of any such plank or rafter which might serve to buoy them up from utter sinking and starving though it were but teaching school in a belfrey yet after all these personall sufferings and extremities behold they must live to hear and see their very calling and orders their whole function and fraternity disgraced and disordered yea as to some mens desires and endeavours quite routed and abolished the primitive pipes and ancient conduits of all Ecclesiastick power quite broken and new cisterns set up which hold no water comparable to that brazen sea of Apostolick Episcopacy and orderly Presbytery which ever served the Sanctuary of Christs Church in all ages places and offices It might possibly break the quiet the cheerfulness the estates of many worthy Ministers to see their persons preaching pains prayers and holy ministrations neglected by many despised by some and trampled under foot by not a few who after the rate of plebeian spirits following the revolutions of mens fortunes think there can be no worth meriting their value and respect either civil or religious but onely under the characters of riches honour and power soon ebbing in their love and esteem of the Clergie when they see the tide of honour and munificence so turned and abated even to the lowest water-mark almost as now it seems in England But it breaks the very hearts and spirits of worthy Ministers like old Elies to hear and see Philistines take by violence the Ark of God and carry it captive to their Dagons the Idols that every ones fancy lists to set up in private Conventicles under the title of Ministeriall power and holy ordination this at present infinitely dejects all sober Christians and true Ministers this for the future quite sinks them in despair CHAP. XXXII O How high and holy an ambition I beseech you my worthy Countrymen will it be in after-times and already is for any man of parts of learning of conscience guided by Scripture and by all ancient practices of the Catholick Church no lesse than that of this Reformed and famous Church of England to devote himself to be a Minister of the Gospel when he shall see no Reverend Bishops no subordinate Presbyters left to ordain him few or no people left to entertain him with due respect to his calling some doubting others denying a third sort wholly despising all his Ministeriall power and authority of which next to our salvation Ministers and other Christians should study to be assured that it is valid and divine upon good and authentick grounds which may both merit their acknowledgment and oblige them to submission If any man that is fit and willing to be a Minister in England if I say he can dispense with the Novelties irregularities and inconformities of his ordination as to all Antiquity no less than the orders of the Church of England which ever was by Bishops as the Apostolick Conduits the chief Fathers and proper Conveyors so confessed by all Reformed Churches if he can bear the tedious journeys from the remoter Counties the long delayes the unexpected scrutinies and the strange questions he shall meet with before he be allowed and admitted to officiate which are very hard trials to men that are tolerably learned and not intolerably necessitated for a small living if these difficulties can be digested which we see of late have deterred many good scholars and hopefull students from entring upon the Ministry rather diverting their thoughts to other employments which are more easie profitable and honourable now in England yet still whatever doore he comes in at he is a great and bold adventurer daring at once to undertake so tedious and dreadful an employment in which he must daily undergo many oppositions many abuses many injuries many indignities incident from one side or other to any Minister what stamp soever he bears He must be fortified with invincible patience with heroick resolutions with humble constancy with Hermeticall content with Martyrly charity while he contends with many causeless enemies with all those difficulties of poverty and contempt which are very unwelcome to flesh and blood though never so spiritualized and refined these do and ever will attend him as a Minister while common people take so great liberties and confidences to baffle to dispute to despise to disturb and to undo their Ministers besides their daring to obtrude themselves into his place and office The meanest tradesman or handy-craft mechanick bears the labour of his hands and that sore travail of his soul during his mortall pilgrimage cheerfully and comfortably while being willing and able to work for his living he gets his wages without any mans grudging and enjoyes himself without any envy or obloquy in honest wayes of industry though possibly it reach no further than making of ribbands or points or buttons or babies for the use of the Common-weal onely the poor Minister especially if he dare own the Church of England or assert his authority from an higher origine than what is novel secular and popular after twice seven years rigging and preparing himself for so rough and hazardous a voyage after he hath many nights and dayes by studying watching fasting praying weeping furnished himself as a workman that needeth not to be ashamed before men after he hath wholly and onely devoted himself to that heavy plough and employment the care and culture of mens souls which are naturally hard as fallow grounds full of weeds and thorns which work may well take up the whole time ability and industry of the best of men after he hath so followed this holy husbandry as to neglect all other means and opportunities to advance his worldly condition thinking it would be enough for him to merit well of his Countrey and the publick and as a learned grave and serious Minister to serve God and mankind by setting forth and communicating to the world the inestimable riches and excellencies of his and their Saviour which service might well deserve as good salaries and encouragements as those enjoy who have offices in the Customes Excise Exchecquers and treasuries of unrighteous mammon after he hath thus denied exhausted and macerated himself in order to promote the highest interests of God and man which is the eternall salvation of sinfull souls and this at no great charge or expence of mens estates after his modesty charity and hospitality hath convinced all men that he covets them not theirs condescending oft below himself in order to captate the love and civil favour of people that he might gain more advantages to save their souls Yet still this good Ministers condition will of all mens in Engl. be most miserable for while he is daily doing his duty and doing it well with meekness of wisdome with good conscience and discretion yet he shall be sure to contract many enemies without a cause Many that are meere strangers to him will hate him out of anti-ministeriall Antipathies and Epidemick principles which are so rife and in fashion
infamous practises attending that opinion wherewith some of them have taught the world long ago in Germany as lately in England to beware lest in stead of water they baptize both infants and elder people with blood and fire as proclaiming all to be no Christians nor better than Heathens who will not come to their new dippings Their errour is not solitary nor the sting of their schisme either soft or blunt or unvenomous which doth not a little discover their opinion to be as far from the Spirit of Christ as it is from the mind meaning and intent of Christ in his Word nor are they now excusable as Luther at first thought but afterward recanted when he saw the bad and bitter fruits of their new doctrine they cannot now with any colour plead simple or invincible ignorance which now is boyled up by the heat of their spirits to obstinacy contumacy and insolency against this and all Churches both peace and practise for they doe still boldly persist in their tedious errour after so many Scripture-demonstrations cleared and confirmed by the Catholick testimony and practise of the Church of Christ Nor is their judgement or practise in other things accompanied with such meeknesse modesty charity humility and innocency as might render this a veniall errour or tolerable difference which may grow as a weed not very noxious or unsavoury among many sweet flowers of Graces Vertues and good Works like that of S. Cyprian in point of rebaptizing such as Hereticks had baptized which S. Austin calls in that holy man and Martyr a wart or mole in a fair and candid breast to be covered with the vaile of Christian charity But the Anabaptistick fury flies in the very face of this and all Churches pulling out the very eyes of Christians by which they obtained their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first illumination as Baptisme was anciently called by the Fathers and the Apostolick Author to the Hebrews it not onely sliely picks at but violently strives to overthrow the first foundation of all Christian Faith Profession Polity Order and Church-communion Hence besides its novelty and heterodoxie it riseth naturally from so presumptuous an errour to pertness sharpness tumultuariness sedition haughtiness contempt of all Christian men and Magistrates too who wil not either receive or connive at this and other their imperious errours Who is the◠Minister or other that differs from them be he never so sober grave and holy but he must be vilified reproched and openly railed at by their libellous scurrilous either pens or tongues Their greatest spite and malice lies as the Jesuits most levelled and implacable against the best and ablest Ministers who retain both Catholick Ordination and Baptisme whose successfull labours and excellent lives do most confute this and all other novell fancies while themselves are by the blessing of God justified to all the Christian world not willingly blind to be Ministers not onely of the Letter and Water but of the Spirit Grace and Power Such as desert Catholick Ordination and Government by Bishops give greatest advantage to Anabaptists for the pulling out of one corner-stone in a wall makes way for others easily to follow As all Anabaptists are against Bishops so all the Ancients who are for Infant-baptism as Catholick are for Episcopall Government even S. Jerome himself Not that I think all men who it may be lesse approve Infant-baptisme than that of elder years conceiving that practise to be more clear in the letter of the Scripture have the same calentures and cruell distempers many of them I hope may have sincerity to God-ward and charity to those Christians who in this differ from them But I conceive the tumultuating rude violent and uncharitable Anabaptists with all their Spawn of other Sects have greatly sinned against the Lord Christ and against his Church both in England and elsewhere also against his servants the Ministers of all ages and places whom they have most injuriously slandered and shamefully treated with great scorn malice and all manner of indignities that were within their reach and power whom I pray God to forgive giving them that true repentance which may redeem them from that gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity in which they seem to lie this is the worst I wish any of them In order to which good desire I thought it not amisse thus far to expresse my judgement and as much as in me lies to justifie after many others in the point of Infant-baptisme the doctrine and practise of my Mother the Church of England and both its Fathers and Sons who have suffered so undeservedly and therefore complain so justly of the mischiefs and miseries befaln and threatening them from this dangerous party and faction who resolve never to be satisfied in their perverse disputes and endlesse janglings who with one puffe blow away all that concurrent strength which in the behalf of Infant-baptisme is truly and solidly mustered up from the Covenant of Grace from the tenour of Scriptures from the proportion of Evangelicall priviledges from the relation which Christians in the Church have to God by Christ from the Catholick custome and practise of all Churches old and new from the joynt suffrages of all Councils Fathers and Church-Historians Against all which cloud and army of Witnesses they bring onely two or three literall allegations partially and incompleatly interpreted They boast much but falsely of Tertullian in this point whom they forsake in many others who was a person though excellently learned and of high parts yet immoderately passionate easily transported and in that very point as I have shewed is either different from himself in other places or to be understood in a meaning limited and occasionall either to the children of Heathens yet untaught and unprofessing Christian Religion or the children of Christians hurried up and down by persecutions which in Tertullians times were if not constant yet very frequent After him they have found in six hundred years one Walafridus Strabo who seemed to scruple Infant-baptism as not of primitive use but shews no grounds of his scruple and at last Ludovicus Vives in his notes of late on S. Austin de civitate Dei is produced as a witnesse against Antiquity a Papist in all things else and in this point differing from his own Church and Communion if it were his opinion and judgement which I see no cause to believe because he proveth nothing he not thinking it unlawfull or vain but perhaps not absolutely necessary to baptize all in infancy to which Nazianzen inclines except in case of death But all these are either single Doctors and private opinions or petty Pygmies and Mushromes compared to those many Heroes that Lebanon of tall Cedars which were all advocates of Infant-baptisme in all Ages and Churches from the Apostles dayes There is not any one of the Ancients doth dogmatically deny it as lawfull or so far doubt and dispute it
which is holy high and honourable in Gods esteem as his Embassage venerable before the good Angels in Heaven and terrible to the very Devils in Hell Let not the preaching of the Word be slighted mocked and laughed at by the unautoritative insolency and unsufficiency of unordained and impudent praters who will never make powerfull Preachers Let not the solemnity of publick prayers and Sacraments be made ridiculous vaine and void by the simplicity and barrennesse the non-sense and flatnesse the slovenly rudenesse and confusion of those undertakers to officiate whom no man in Christs name hath duly authorised or sent according to any Primitive pattern or Catholick custome in this and other Churches When the Authority of Ministers is doubted denyed divided despised on all sides it is impossible there should be any unity or charity among either Ministers themselves or those to whom they thus brokenly Minister holy things nor can there be any reverent and sacred esteem of those things which they so administer with so much variety dubiousness and inconformity Civill respect to Ministers of the Gospel will follow where there is a religious regard to their Ministry as sacred and Divine indeed as Christs for so it is or it is none upon any religious account Therefore I forbear to urge you with any importunities in order to restore the Pristine honors and dignities the many priviledges and great plenty which the Clergy enjoyed in England I know those are unseasonable motions in an iron age amidst so many sacrilegious Spirits as envy even those pittances that yet remaine of oyle in the cruses or meale in the barrels of poor Ministers who are generally in a low depressed squeesed and almost exhausted condition not onely publick exactions but private sharkings of people in many if not most places have reduced heretofore convenient livings to pittifull tenuities Ministers affect indeed to wear longer haire than they were wont but their condition is now so much shorne and shaved since the Scots rasor was first applyed that most of them are very bare and quite bald to the great joy of Papists the viler sort of licentious people who want but one vote more to perfect their desired Reformation That is to take away all tithes and glebes rather giving them to Moloch or Beelzebub than to Christ his Church and his Ministery to whom these are paid by many men so grudgingly sharkingly and superciliously that few Scholars of any generous minds and parts will apply themselves now to be Ministers and many grave men heretofore devoted to that calling are content to be silent rather than to preach to ungratefull and gain-saying people yea some Ministers think it better to starve with honor than to be fed with scorn preferring any calling before that which must first work then beg or contest for its wages But as the poverty and tenuity of Ministers the popular contempt of their persons and calling the neglect and irreverence of holy ministrations the intrusions and usurpations of petulant people upon their function as all these could not have grown upon them had they not been scattered and divided among themselves for by these cracks and leakes those bitter waters have prevailed thus far to sink and depresse them So the reducing of Ministers to some unity in their judgments to uniformity in their Ministrations to an identity or samenesse for their Ministeriall power and ordination also to a decent subordination and government among themselves these methods would be most effectuall beyond any thing I can think of to remedy all those great inconveniences and mischiefes under which they now labour and grone From Ministers mutuall separations affrontings reprochings oppressings and despisings of one another common people have learned the language and carriage of clownery and contempt For how can people see any thing worthy their civill much lesse consciencious respect and love toward any Ministers when they see hear and read how they depreciate and scorn envy and maligne shun and abominate one another on all sides each invalidating or disparaging the others authority to officiate and almost annulling all they do in holy duties as Ministers Be they never so able and fit as to their gifts knowledge utterance holy lives and good report in all things yet still they are thought by some side or other either to enjoy more than they merit or to arrogate more than is their due or wholly to usurp that which is no way their due Certainly it is not a more pious and Christian than heroick and prudent work to reconcile the discrepancies and feuds that are grown among Ministers of severall formes and names as to their ordination or admission to their Ministry And since there are on all sides men of very good abilities commendable lives and usefull parts in this publick service as Ministers of the Church it is infinite pitty that Christians should be by any prejudices deprived of the common benefit to be had by them or by factious and frivolous discriminations if their Ministeriall Authority be frustrated of those many blessings which all good Christians might happily enjoy both publickly and privately by a firm union and uniformity among all true Ministers both in the origination of their power also in the manner of the derivation and dispensation of it Which harmony as without doubt it would highly contribute to the honor of the reformed Religion so it would much obstruct the advantages which Popery gets by the scandall of Ministers discriminations and divisions in this point For what sober-minded man will not rather adhere to what seems uniform though an error than to what seems divided though a truth Men will rather turne Seekers Quakers and Enthusiasts than weary themselves in dancing after every Ministers pipe and the new tunes they set to both their Ministry and holy Ministration For my part I should rather choose to live in a solitude as a private Christian or retire to any corner of the land as a Minister than to correspond with such societies of Preachers as are either evidently Schismaticall in their principles or onely formally and partially Associating in their politick practises which do but declare their spirits to be at as great distance from their duties both to their betters and their equalls as ever they were I prefer a cottage in a smooth and peaceable wildernesse before such palaces as are built among briars and thornes I am sorry and ashamed to see those Ministers who are able and worthy to use the trowell for edification should be so eagerly imployed at the swords for mutuall destruction Since they generally agree to preach and live Christ Crucified since they do for the maine correspond in doctrinalls of faith and morality yea in holy Mysteries and Ministrations what a misery is it they should not all endure the same imposition of hands or the same holy and Catholick ordination yea what pitty is it they should not all dare to say publickly and Ministerially the same Creed
the Lords prayer and the ten Commandements to all which I suppose they all are ready privately to say Amen How sad a prospect is it to see those men who professe such zeal for Church Government and good Discipline to be so little governed or correspondent in any wise communion and discreet subordination among themselves And all this while every plausible preacher is ambitious rather to ordain and governe others after his own fancy than to be ordained and governed as a Minister after the Apostolicall pattern and that one ancient forme which was universally owned and uniformly used in Christs Church both for the ordination and subordination of Ministers CHAP. IX IN order therefore to invite all able Orthodox and honest Ministers to some Christian correspondency and fraternall accord it will not be amisse for me to present both to your equanimous wisdome O worthy Gentlemen and to your piety what I humbly conceive the best Medium to be used in so great and good a work which must be tenderly and impartially carried on by a serious discovery and discerning First what is really good usefull and commendable in any party that this may be allowed and preserved agreed to and embraced by all Secondly what either is or seems defective or superfluous evill or inconvenient scandalous or dangerous on any side that this may be either pared off and removed since it may be well spared or else in reason and Religion in piety and charity so qualified and moderated as may comply with what is truely good and usefull for the publick on all sides First then to begin with Episcopacy not as it enjoyes or loseth the benefits of secular favour in estate honour or jurisdiction which are not essentiall to it any more than cloths are to the man but as it appeares in its Apostolick primacy of Order in its Catholick centre of Unity in its chief power for Ordination and Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction which it ever enjoyed among good Christians though it were never so poore and abased by civill powers as it was in Primitive times of persecution for 300. yeares The reall good of true Episcopacy which undoubtedly hath the clearest best and most ancient title to ordination Church-Government according to the custome and prescription of all Ages for 1500. years is Decency Order Unity Authority Stability Paternall Presidency Grave Government with subordination of younger to the elder and inferiours to superiours agreeable to the rules of right reason and the measures of the best polities military civill and religious Here are the aptest remedies and conservatives against Schismes the fittest mediums for Catholick Councils for correspondencies conventions and Communion of Churches not in popular rabbles and heady multitudes but in their chief Presidents and representatives In this is best kept up as an Uniformity of particular Churches so a Catholick Conformity to the Church universall when Primitive purest and most persecuted which without any peradventure did follow the Apostolick prescription and pattern in all things of so universall use and reception Upon the head of Episcopacy as upon the hill of Hermon hath the dew of heaven the blessings of God as in temporall enjoyments so in all spirituall gifts and graces most plentifully faln and from that to all the lower valleys and inferiour parts of the Church To this it is that all the most learned moderate and wise men in all the Christian world of what ever party or side they are in other things whether Latine or Greek Lutheran or Calvinian Protestant or Papist all agree in this that Episcopacy is the ancientest and aptest the wisest and noblest the onely Apostolick and Catholick consequently the best and compleatest of Governments in the Church containing in its right constitution and use all the pretended excellencies of all other Governments and something more than any of them as the crown and perfection of all The evills defects and dangers incident to Episcopacy and rising not from the function or imployment but from the persons of Bishops are pride ambition secular height and idle pomp a supercilious despiciency and Lordly tyrannizing over other Ministers and the flocks of Christ under their inspection arrogating a power to do all things imperiously arbitrarily and alone without any due regard either to that charitable satisfaction which was anciently given to Christian people or to that fraternall counsell and concurrence which might and ought in reason to be had from learned and grave Presbyters or such Consistoryes of choise Ministers who possibly may for wisdome piety and ability be equall to the Bishop however they are inferiour in order and authority As the complete good of presidentiall and paternall Episcopacy deserves above all other formes to be esteemed desired and used in the Church so it may easily and happily be enjoyed if the personall faults and failings of Bishops be prevented and avoided which is no hard matter where Bishops are chosen as anciently they were by the suffrages of the Presbyters or Ministers of the Diocese either personally present or to avoid noise and tumult incident to many by their proxyes and representees chosen and sent from their severall distributions The Bishop thus chosen is easily kept within bounds of moderation if he do nothing of publick concerne validly and conclusively without the presence counsell and concurrence of his appointed Presbyters being further responsible for any misgovernment to such conventions of the Clergy as are meet to be his judges and are by the Laws appointed so to be Certainly these limits supports and ornaments of Episcopacy would easily restore it to and keep it in the compasse of its Primitive beauty honor and usefulnesse to the Church The good of Presbytery especially in conjunction with Episcopacy is grave and impartiall counsell serious discussion and well-advised deliberation arising from many learned and Godly men which is as the joynt and concurrent assistance of all the Clergy whose publick suffrages may carry all things Ecclesiastick as with lesse partiality so with more authority most satisfactorily to Ministers and people too yea and with lesse odium or envy upon any one man as Bishop or President in cases that seem lesse popular or in censures that are more heavy Beyond all this some men cry up Presbytery in its Aristocratick influence as the great Choak-peare of Antichrist as the best receipt in the world to make the Pope burst in pieces like the pitch and haire which Daniel mixed to split Bel and Dagon This this they say is the strongest sense against all tyranny usurpation and ambition in Church-men the great conservative not of an absolute parity but of those ancient priviledges which are due to all Ministers also of those liberties and indulgences which are the peoples darling while they see all Church-matters managed not by private and partiall monopolies but by publick and generall complacencies of all sober and good men at least the major part of them The evils of Presbytery in a parity or
of all holy men in all Churches before your time Can you prefer the factious fancies of one Aerius or Acolythus or Ischyras of old before all the famous Bishops Presbyters and Councils Can you honestly plead St. Jerom for your Presbytery till you reconcile him with himself who is plaine and punctuall for Episcopall eminency and onely pleads at most for the joynt Counsel and assistance of Presbyters in which rank himself was which I and all sober men do earnestly desire as best and safest for the Church yea and for Bishops too Shall one David Blondel or Walo Messalinus that is Salmasius men indeed of excellent Learning yet obliged as Pet. Moulin confesseth of himself in his Epistolary dispute with the most Learned Bishop Andrewes to plead what might be for the enforced stations and necessitated conditions of those Presbyterian Churches with which they were then in actuall fellowship and Church-Communion shall I say these two men which are the greatest props for Presbytery who yet are allowers of Episcopacy though not as absolutely necessary yet as best for the Polity and Government of the Church where they may be had be put into the balance against all the ancient and modern assertors of Episcopacy or shall the votes of the late Assembly be a just counterpoise against all the chief Reformed Divines at home and abroad as Calvin Peter Martyr Bucer Zanchy Chemnitius Gerard and many others who are all well known to be for Episcopacy and Bishops if they will be Fathers and Fautors of the true Christian and Reformed Religion as Bishops in Engl. were Did not Deodate from Geneva Salmasius from Leiden write hortatory though concealed letters to the chief sticklers of late for Presbytery in England advising them to acquiesce in and blesse God for such a regulated Episcopacy as had obtained and might best be retained in England Have not others abroad much deplored their want of such Episcopacy and such Bishops as England happily enjoyed since the reformation and ever before Can the late Scotized Assembly modestly pretend to better light clearer spectacles more discerning eyes or more honest hearts for Religion and due Reformation for Christs honor and this Churches happinesse than all the ancient Councils or the modern Convocations and Nationall Synods of Engl. Or can it now at last seem either an unreasonable expectation in Episcopall Ministers or an unconscientious condescention in those of the Presbyterian and Independent parties to turne their Extemporary Presidents or Momentary Moderators into fixed and deserving Bishops can it be an hard matter for them to conforme to uniforme Antiquity who have so long gratified various novelty What great matter were it for them so far to satisfie the consciences of Episcopall men yea and the interests of all sober Ministers as not to suffer any further Innovation or longer abscission or total interruption or final abruption to befal the Catholick Order and Authority of Episcopacy in this Church the restoring of which would no way injure their own true interests as Presbyters or patrons for the people who might both have and enjoy all those ingenuous Liberties and Priviledges which they justly claim short of an absolute sole and soveraigne power in Church-Government which is never to be trusted either in common peoples or common Presbyters hands I ask these Acephalists who will indure no head but that on their own shoulders whether the City of London is worse governed because it hath a Lord Maior among and above the Aldermen and Common Councel whether the Colledges in the Universities or the Companies and Fraternities in Cities are lesse happily ordered because they have Presidents or Masters and Wardens in them and over them whether they think it were better for an Army to have no Colonels or Commanders in chief but all military Counsels and transactions should be managed in war and peace by a meer Democratick or popular way as every souldier fancied his own valour and ability I doubt not but in all these parts and proportions of good Government sober men stand convinced that they are then best when Counsel and Order make up the Majesty and completenesse of Authority by subordination of all and the suffrages of many joyned to the eminency of one worthy person in their severall precincts stations and jurisdictions Nor can I think that chief Governors can be hereticall irrationall irreligious or Antichristian onely in the point of Church-Goverment as if this polity and fraternity beyond any other were exclusive or incapable of that order and eminency which is the Crown and completion of Government which is used in all other Societies and ever was so in the Churches of Christ In order therefore to draw the designed plat-forme of Ecclesiasticall Communion from the novelty partiality and popular policies of Associations to its just proportions and due dimensions my last quaere or proposall to my brethren the Ministers is whether all things considered in cool thoughts and consciencious tempers it were not worthy of all Learned Godly and sober Ministers first to unite themselves in their judgements counsells and desires with all singlenesse of hearts and mutual brotherly kindness and then humbly to crave leave of the civill powers to permit them to cast themselves into such prudent and orderly combinations for Church-Government as might best suite as with the peace and prosperity of this Church so with the Primitive and Catholick way of Christs Church thereby satisfying all honest desires and pious interests of all considerable parties That neither Bishops should be wholly ejected as superfluous nor yet Presbyters despised as meer ciphers nor Christian people any way oppressed as slaves or beasts who having each of them their severall honest interests and just uses wil better attaine their desires in an happy conjuncture than in any separations which first weaken them apart then destroy them all Nor may this model of Church-union and Government be thought a meer Idea or Utopian fancy experience of all times and the best times for Religion as Christian and reformed that ever England or any Nation enjoyed assures us that it is not onely feisable but every way most commendable as most agreeable to every honest interest and indeed every way completest for the glory of God the honor of Christ the good of this Church and the Communion with all other either Christian or Reformed For by this meanes the scandall and shame of late Schismes would be removed the ancient Ecclesiacall succession continued the grand power of Ordination will be neither various nor defective neither innovated not altered the Ministeriall Office and Authority will be most authentick and undoubted the minds of all Learned and sober men will be satisfied their heads hearts tongues and hands united Christian charity and brotherly Communion best restored the reverence and Majesty of Religion also the honor and dignity of the Ministry as Christian and Reformed would be mightily recovered the Peace and Unity of this famous and well-reformed Church
the Church to judge of a Bishops sufficiencies for that place and charge yet it no way followes that any Bishop hath his Spirituall or Ecclesiasticall power from them as the originall of it any more than of his temporall Barony and revenues to which he is admitted by the Presbyters election of him but only he is by their election and comprobation duly admitted and regularly enabled to exercise that power whose roote as that of Presbyters rise and foundation is from a far higher principle and greater authority Just as the Fellowes of a Colledge choose the Master President or Warden at least they admit and accept of him to the possession enjoyment and use of that power which is not in them joyntly or singly without their Master nor yet is it derived from them to the Master but he hath it from the first Founders Will and the Statutes or Customes of the Colledg In like manner the chief Magistrate of any City or Corporation though he be chosen by the Commons or Fraternities in it to his chief place and office yet his power and jurisdiction is not from them but from that Charter or Grant which gave the first constitution to that power and polity So in an Army Officers may choose their Generall to a power above them which he enjoyes and exerciseth beyond what any one or all of them hath right unto or any capacity to use yet doth that power accrew to him from those principles of Right Reason Order Polity and Authority which is derived and vested in him by the suffrage or consent of many who have right and reason thus to advise for their common order and safety by preferring one above themselves by whose suffrages and consents as by the Suns beames united in the centre of a burning-glasse a greater heat and luster of authority is raised than is in any one or many beames scattered and divided By vertue of which principles of reason order and polity as these other civil instances which act by their severall Charters and Statutes are neither left at liberty to choose or not choose any to be their chief Magistrate or Governour nor yet may they in right reason or law exercise that paramount power without him but they are bound in conscience and duty as well as by custome and charter to choose such a chieftane and so to invest him in that power paramount above them yet do they not give the power to that elect person but the person to that power which was setled before them So in the Church of Christ Presbyters of old did freely choose indeed their Bishops at least they consented afterward to accept of him whom the Prince or possibly the people in some cases nominated as a worthy and deserving person yet neither people nor Prince nor Presbyter did conferre upon any Bishop that power Episcopall or that eminent Ecclesiasticall Authority which he had properly in himself to use and exert it after he was thus chosen consecrated and installed No he had it from that grand Charter and Catholick Custome which was in the Church of Christ by which the first Apostolick Canons or Scripture-Statutes and Institutions not only founded but derived this Authority as received from Christ and by the Spirit of Christ conveyed it to their Successors the Bishops in the name and power of Christ for the orderly governing of his Church in all places which hath been and I think ought where God hinders not to be continued in the Churches of Christ by the like successive choise or approbation of Presbyters in the want and vacancy of their Bishops Nor do I doubt but Ministers are sinfully wanting to that duty which they ow to Christ and his Church when they cease to do as much as in them lies what they ought in this point to do might do if themselves did not hinder their choosing and having their lawful Bishops as well as people their Presbyters according to the Primitive rule and Catholick pattern which hath the force of a law it being no lesse necessary for the Church to be orderly governed and thus united than to be taught and communicated to in holy things Nay those two or three Bishops which after the great Nicene Councill were required to joyne in the more solemn consecration and investiture of every Bishop did not impart of their own power but solemnly declared and blessed as good and worthy the choise and investiture of him that was first duly elected by the Presbyters and then further confirmed by their publication and benediction which benediction was never that I read done by any Presbyters as being now inferiours to him whom their consent and suffrages had chosen to that Episcopall degree and eminency above them who as Presbyters might choose their Bishops but yet not depose him this work requiring their appeal to the higher power of a Council or Synod of many Bishops who were in that joynt capacity above any one Bishop and so onely capable to be his judges upon the complaint of Presbyters or people against him As Presbyters have their Office and Authority by Bishops ordination as conduits but not from them as fountaines of it there being but one spring of it which is Jesus Christ so Bishops have their power by Presbyters election as instruments or mediums but not from their donation as the source and originals of their power and authority which is Christs Thirdly Some Presbyters and Independents do with great brow and confidence urge that Bishops are wholly superfluous because Presbyters and any ordinary Preachers two or three or more of them are very able and willing every where to beget their like every petty Presbytery is become a seminary or spawner to ordain Ministers and conferre all degrees of holy orders for which they think themselves no lesse fitted than for preaching and administring Sacraments which they say are employments requiring greater abilities and no lesse authority yea many Country-Presbyters have made themselves and one another of late Chorepiscopi or Country Bishops ordaining Ministers when where and how they list without any Bishop among them And this they say with very good success and acceptance to Country-people who besides the pleasure they take in any daring novelty and insolency in Religion protest to find no lesse judgement discretion and gravity than was heretofore pretended to be in Bishops for that service Nor is it to be doubted say they but the ordination authority and Commission of such Presbyters is as valid as that done by Bishops since these Godly Ministers do so try and examine such as come to be ordained that they commonly pose the best Schollars and soberest men that come to them Further they pray and preach as well as most Bishops did yea they very gravely exhort and charge the ordained brother with as great weight and severity both for gifts and graces Ministeriall as ever the Bishops did though it may be not with so much pomp and formality Hence they deny
been the magnifying of the Popes of Rome beyond their line and measure of old That if Episcopacy could have held its Primitive and ancient parity according to the Apostolick seates and paternes that one Chaire of Rome had not so far exalted it self in this Western Church above all those that are therefore called Gods because the power of Christ and the word of God came to them as much as to Rome and is to be derived by them to their successions T is certain that Bishops did not at first as Nimrod set up themselves by any private ambition they were either constituted by the Apostles yet living as Irenaeus Eusebius Tertullian and others tell us or when the Apostles were dead the Presbyters of every chief city and Territory or Diocese did as S. Jerom tells us choose some Apostolick and eminent person from among themselves to be their Bishop not compelled hereto by any civill powers nor by any popular force or faction but meerly moved so to do by the precept and pattern the constant custome and imitation of the Apostles which were so full of pregnant reason necessary order and holy policy that nothing could be better If any then be to be blamed for giving occasion to the Papal ambition and what some count the great Antichrist who is as Isid Hispal defines by so much the more Antichrist by how much more he professeth Christ yet lives or teacheth contrary to the rule and example of Christ it must be either the Apostles themselves who first designed Bishops as their successors or the succeeding Presbyters of every Church who to avoid Schisme and Confusion first chose successive Bishops in every Church after the death of the Apostles not onely in obedience to their commands and conformity to their pattern but in order to preserve necessary polity Primitive unity and Apostolick authority in the Church of Christ And yet now behold by a strange vertigo or change of Counsels Presbyters must in all hast pull down all Bishops the better to avoid Antichrist who lies as much in confusion as error in schisme as in heresie none of which will ever advance Reformation or setling of true Religion So that it is an intolerable insolency and rudenesse of some men to say or suspect that every Bishop whom the Apostles themselves or the Presbyters after them first constituted were but spawnes and embryo's of Antichrist when many yea most if not all the first and best Bishops for 300. yeares were not onely excellent preachers and wise governours after the way of the Apostles but such resolute Martyrs and confessors as few of the more delicate Presbyters and softer-fingred Independents of our age would willingly carry the least stick of their fagots or touch the least coale of their fires or bear the least stroke and burden of their torments As then the Papall Tyranny so the Presbyterian Parity and Independent Anarchy may and will give I fear greater advantages to Antichrists than ever Episcopall order and eminency either did or can do while wisely setled and managed Fifthly another great bugbeare or terriculament which scares some from looking back with the least cast of favour on Episcopacy is the terror they pretend to have had of some Bishops sharpnesses and severities of which say they many godly men feel the smart to this day My answer is I do not go about to justifie or excuse any unreasonable unseasonable indiscreet or uncharitable actions of any Bishops who are justly to be blamed so far as they exceeded their Commission and power by the Lawes of man or Christ and the Church given to them not for destruction but edification Though some Bishops might shew themselves to be but men yea and some of them to be harsh and rash enough in their passions yet these failings and infirmities they neither had nor discovered as they were Bishops no more than tyrants do tyrannize as they are Magistrates or Judges are corrupt as they are Judges or Presbyters are partiall popular and imprudent as they are preachers It must still be granted that not onely some but very many yea most Bishops in England since the Reformation were as Angels of God in their light and love in their excellent learning and worthy living every way which sufficiently proves that piety and Episcopacy may as well meet in one man as piety and Presbytery or sanctity and Independency If any of these good Bishops seemed sometime too severe to some that were rudely refractory against the lawes then in force in this Church and State possibly those very persons that most complaine of them will be found not short of the sharpest of them if any of these complainers have suffered by any Bishops rigors I am sure they have had their full and excessive revenge upon them But to avoid the feared exorbitancy of Episcopacy for the future it will be sufficient effectually to restore that Commune Consilium Presbyterorum common Counsel and concernment of worthy Presbyters to their pristine use and assistance without which Bishops should do nothing publick and authoritative according to the Canon of the Councel of Cartharge and agreeable to the judgement as of St. Jerom so of St. Cyprian Ignatius and all the ancients This as I formerly touched is the best preservative of Bishops authority of Presbyters priviledges of peoples liberty and the Churches safety As I believe Episcopacy by this time sees it did it self as much wrong as any men could design in doing many things of publick concern without the presence counsel and concurrence of their gravest and most discreet Presbyters and as I think that modest and sober Presbyters shall do not onely themselves a right but the best Bishops too in their Christian advise and assistance to bear partem solicitudinis part of the care trouble odium and envy which is prone to offend all good Bishops as all good Governours in Church and State so I conclude that violent Presbyters have done themselves the Bishops the people and this whole Church as much injury and indignity as they well can by rudely rejecting and obstinately refusing as much as in them lies to readmit the Order and Honor of Episcopall Presidency which indeed was the common Honor of the whole Clergy Episcopacy we know preferred many Ministers of the Gospel to be as Lords and Peers in England whereas Presbytery Independency have purely levelled and abased all Clergy-men to a plebeian condition if not to be slaves and vassals yet to be very vile and servile even in the esteem of the vulgar Certainly it was in prudence to be desired by all wise Presbyters and other Ministers rather to bear much under the burden of the Episcopal yoak which was to them more honos than onus a dignity than any depression than thus by a precipitant impatiency to run themselvs their whole Order or function into a plebeian slavery while they affected an inordinate liberty It is better for birds to be
Roman Communion must not the fate of your either miscreant or miserable posterity necessarily be such that their teeth will be so set on edge by the sowre grapes you have eaten and left for them that they will not endure sound Doctrine much lesse wholesome Discipline Thus untaught and ungoverned unbred and unfed in Religion can you expect other from them than all debaucheries immoralities and such Atheisticall indifferences and impudencies as the heart of man easily runs into if left to it self as the Horse and Mule without bit or bridle of Religion and conscience to restraine them May they not have cause in their sad reflections upon the Beauty Order Honor and Happinesse of Religion in England which they may read of in former daies besides the many afflictions and civill dissentions which have and will inevitably follow divided Religion to an irreligion in any Nation may they not in their doubting dying and despairing retreates have cause to count you yea and to curse you as their carelesse and cruell parents who are never quiet or content till you settle your honors estates and civill affaires in some safe posture as you imagine but are wholly negligent as to any religious establishment which many men feare oppose and abhorre lest in cleare waters their faces should appeare the fouler varieties and uncertainties of Religion being most fomented by those whose piety is wholly resolved into policy who never tasted how gracious the Lord is in the waies meanes and fruites of true Religion But for you O my noble Countrimen that have seen and rejoyced in that glorious light of Reformed Religion which shined so long and illustriously in the Church of England how can you with any conscience or comfort leave the world and leave your posterity with your Country exposed to such variety uncertainties distractions deformities and confusions as to the Reformed Religion and its Ministry which makes them look like the Temple of God in Jerusalem after Nebucadnezzar and Nebuzaradan had visited it with fire and sword so defacing and deforming it that it was the pitty of all good men and the scorn of the wicked As Augustus Caesar was wont in his most impotent passion of grief and vexation to teare his haire and cry out Ridde Vare Legiones O Varus restore the Legions of brave and veterane souldiers which thou hast so unadvisedly or unworthily lost when they were slaine by the Germane surprises so may you heare the soberest Christians and truest-hearted English-men in their grief and shame cry out Reddite nobis Religionem Reformatam Uniformem Christianam primaevam Catholicam Reddite Ecclesiae Anglicana priscam pietatem pacem ordinem pulchritudinem patrimonium regimen Majestatem debitam decus antiquum Reddite nobis patres fratres filios spiritales Episcopos atate virtute authoritate venerandos Presbyteros literatura industria humilitate unitate ordine conspicuos Plebem probe instructam modestam sobriam mutua charitate amulam non effrâ—nem infrunitam laceram non erroribus lascivam non novitatibus foedam non scabie rigentem non nimia petulantia deformem non irreligiose Religiosam c. This was the voice of the Church of England while it dared to speake Latine which being now scandalous and reprochfull to many as the language of the Beast not understood by them She is forced to expresse her Prayer in English for mens better understanding Restore restore I beseech you to me to your selves to your country to your posterity the purity the peace the sanctity the solemnity the sobriety the order the honor the unity the solidity the stability the power the efficacy the fruites and works of true Christian and Reformed Religion Restore to us the happinesse of living not onely united in one civill polity as men but in one Ecclesiasticall Correspondency Combination and Communion as Christians It is more for our honor and peace to be Members of one Church than of one Commonwealth to have the same Religion and Devotion than the same Lawes and Statutes Restore to us those prime veines and Catholick conduits of Ecclesiasticall order of church-Church-power and spirituall authority under Christ those paternall Pastors those Primitive Bishops those successive Apostles That so we may have such Presbyters as have the Catholick Character of due Ordination and the most undoubted Derivation of Ministeriall Authority upon them being at once able and willing duly proved and empowered by Christs deputed Ministers and the whole Church to consecrate and dispense holy Mysteries to us not in the new names of Presbyters or people or Parlaments or Princes onely but in the name of Christ and his Church according to the commission he first gave to the Apostles and they transmitted to their successors in a constant undoubted and uninterrupted succession to this day Redeeme this ancient Church and renowned Nation from those lice and flies those locusts and frogs whose importune malice and wantonnesse seeks to deface and devour whatever yet remaines of the Reformed Religion in England Redeeme all sober Christians whose little life affords them no leisure to play with Religion redeeme them from the Rents and Schismes the raggs and tatters the breaks and divisions the fragments and fractions the chaines and fetters the childish and ridiculous janglings the scandalous and pernicious liberties with which pragmatick Spirits seek to poyson and to imprison their judgements and consciences Nothing is at least ought to be more pressive and urging upon your Honors and Consciences who are persons sensible of these two great regards to God and man than these concernments of true Religion whose influence reacheth to the eternall interest of your own and your posterities soules Nor is their lapsed estate to be helped by faire words and soft pretentions by demure silences and â—ary reserves by State-stratagems and politick artifices by vaporing of reformations and conniving at popular insolencies as if they were tendernesses and liberties due to conscience No the recovery of Religion is to be effected by potent convictions and impartiall suppressions of all enormous opinions and actions by serious trying of errors and establishing of sound Doctrine by just restraining all inordinate liberties by incouraging an able and uniform Ministry by discountenancing all fanatick novelties by composing al uncharitable divisions and by punishing all pragmatick arrogancies which evidently vary from or run counter against that truth order ministry authority and holy Discipline of Religion which Scripture and all Catholick conformity to it have commended to all Christians as Christs will and appointment which being accordingly setled in this Church and State ought not to be contradicted or rudely contemned by any new lights by pretended inspirations or the novel inventions of any man or men whatsoever seem they never so holy so devout so well-affected so sincere so saintly This and other true Churches of Christ did know very well what belonged to the unity sanctity charity and constancy of Religion as Christian and Reformed long before
and moves upon this one hindge give me leave with all humble and earnest advise to commend to your Christian consideration First the preservation of the very being or essence of a true and authoritative Ministry upon which depends the visible polity and orderly being of any true Church also the powerfull dispensation and comfortable reception of all holy mysteries Secondly the bene esse well-being or flourishing estate of such a true Ministry by which it may be kept in such order honor and unity as may redeem it both from vulgar arrogancies contempts and confusions also from mutuall factions and divisions by which meanes of later yeares the very face of a Church as to any Nationall harmony fraternity subordination and Communion in England is either quite lost or so hidden deformed and disguised that not onely the sacred dignity and authority but the very Name and Office of a true Minister is become odious infamous and ridiculous among many people who either will have no Ministers at all or onely such as themselves list to create in their severall Conventicles which are in respect of the true Church and Clergy of England no more to be esteemed than the concubines of jealousie and harlots of adultery are to be compared to lawfull wives that are Matrons of unspotted honor 1. The Essentials of a true Christian Ministry consist First in the person or subject fitly qualified for that callings Secondly in the commission or power by which the proper Forme and Authority Ministeriall is duly applyed to any person so qualified 1. The person subject matter or recipient of Holy Orders ought to be such persons as are furnished with those Ministeriall gifts and abilities both internall and externall for knowledge and utterance for unblamable life and good report as may make them not onely competent for that holy work in generall but likewise fit for that particular place whereto God by man doth call them Of these reall and discernable competencies besides those sincere and gracious propensities in charity to be hoped and presumed to glorifie God in that service not out of ambition covetousness popularity or meer necessity but out of an humble zeal and an holy choice a judicious serious strict solemn publick and authoritative triall and approbation ought to be made as was appointed in the Church of England by such Ecclesiasticall persons as are in all reason most able and so most meet to be appointed by law for the examining and judging of Ministers both as to their personall sufficiencies and the publick testimonies of their life and manners In this point I know some men are jealous that some Bishops in former times were too private remisse and superficiall approving and ordaining Ministers onely upon the Chaplaines triall and testimony which after proved but sorry Clerks for which easinesse they had many times to plead the meannesse of those Livings to which such Ministers were presented as could not bear an exacter triall Poor people must have such preachers or none in such starving entertainments as were in many places which like heathy grounds neither can breed nor feed any thing that is grand or goodly Were the maintenance of Ministers every where made competent nothing shouid be more severely looked to by the ordainers of Ministers than the competent abilities and worth of those to whom they transmit and impart that sacred power charge and Ministration For not onely the consciences of the ordained but of the ordainers stand here highly responsible to God and the Church that God may be glorified that the Church both in generall and particular may be satisfied that both other Ministers may cheerfully joyne with them in the work of the Lord and that their peculiar charge may receive them with that due respect love and submission which becomes those that minister to them the holy things of God in the stead of Jesus Christ as his Stewards Lieutenants and Embassadors No men will conscienciously no nor civilly regard any Minister when once the plebeian heat of faction is allayed of whose sufficiency and authority too they have no just confidence because no publick triall credible testimony or authoritative mission How much lesse when men shall have pregnant evidences of a Ministers weaknesse ignorance folly schisme and scandall many waies T is true in the highest and exactest sense as the Apostle sayes none are sufficient for those things but yet in a lower and qualified sense none ought to be ordained who are not in some sort sufficient for them Because none are by way of Divine equivalency worthy we must not therefore admit such as are in humane morall or intellectuall proportions utterly unworthy since the Lord of his Church is pleased in all ages to give such gifts and blessings to mens tenuity as may in some sense fit those earthen vessels to be workers together with God by the help of the excellency of his Divine power whose operations in this kind are not miraculous as without any fit meanes but morall and proportionate to the aptitude of such meanes as God hath appointed and required in his Church for humane ability and industry When the Materiall qualifications of one that is a Candidate or Expectant of the Ministry are thus examined by the ordainers discovered to all those who are concerned the next care for the Essentials of a Minister consists in applying that true Character stamp and Authority wherein the Essential Form and Soule as it were of a Minister of the Gospel doth consist which as I have in another work largely declared doth not arise from any thing that is common in Nature or Grace from any morall civill or religious respects for then all men and women too that have naturall or acquired abilities religious or gracious endowments might presently either challenge to themselves the place power office and authority of a Minister of Christ and his Church or communicate it to others as they please which would be the originall of all presumption and confusion in the Church of Christ as much as parallel practises would be in civill States if every man should put himself into what place and imployment publick he listeth either magistratick or military without any Commission or expresse authority derived to him from the fountaine of civill or magistratick power No the true valid and authentick authority of an Evangelicall Minister of any rank and degree as Deacon Presbyter or Bishop in the Church consists in that Divine mission and Ecclesiasticall Commission which is duly derived and orderly conferred to meet persons by those who are the lawfull and Catholick conduits of that power to whom it bath been in all ages and places committed and who are in a capacity to transmit or communicate and impart it to others by way of holy ordination such as Jesus Christ received from his Father such as he derived to his Apostles such as they committed to their deputed successors the Bishops and Pastors of the
the very beasts of the people are so far flattered as to be suffered with their foule feet daily to trouble and confound that cleare fountain and constant streame of Ministeriall Authority and Ecclesiasticall succession by way of Episcopall Ordination which was ever of so solemn and conspicuous use in all Churches of so venerable a succession of so ancient and uninterrupted a derivation from the very Apostles dayes and hands that it never failed to keep its course as some rivers do through salt waters amidst all the confusions which either heathenish hereticall or schismaticall persecutions raised in the Church Yea no Hereticks no Schismaticks except Aerius and his few complices who discontent for not obtaining a Bishoprick which â—e sought and turning Arrian was the first the onely and the fitâ—â—st engine to oppose Episcopacy as Epiphanius observes were ever so wild so fanatick so desperate as to cast off all Episcopall succession Authority over them both in Ordination and jurisdiction yea they knew no meanes to keep their confederacies and factions better together than that which they saw had alwaies been serviceable to preserve the true Churches communion Though the Manicheans Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Pelagians and others together with the Novatians Donatists withdrew from or were justly excluded by the Bishops of the sound and orthodox profession yet still these Heterodox Opiniasters had not onely Deacons and Presbyters but Bishops of their own Some of which Bishops afterward returning to the Catholick Communion were not degraded from their Episcopall power but onely suspended from the exercise of it in another Bishops jurisdiction or Diocese without his leave which being granted to some of them gave occasion to those Chorepiscopi which were Bishops without particular title and locall jurisdiction but yet enjoying and using this power of Ordination in some Country-Townes and Villages by the permission of the Bishop or Metropolitane of the Diocese or Province residing in the chief City which indulgence was after as the Church-Histories tell us taken away from the Chorepiscopi when it was found to occasion great inconveniences by admitting two Bishops in one Precinct or Diocese Certainly what is so pregnantly Catholick and usefull that not onely all good men but even such as were evill could not but approve and use it it were not onely folly but frenzy to cast quite away if it were the full vote and free act of the Nation What Apology could be sufficient to excuse this Nation either among Churches abroad or to posterity at home when they should see that by a rash partiall and popular precipitancy we have been hurried against all Reason Honor and Religion to forsake or to stop up the ancient fountaines of living waters which have alwaies flowed from Episcopall Ordination supplying this as all Churches in all places and offices with orderly Presbyters and usefull Deacons onely to try what those pits will afford which novellers have digged to themselves and which they eagerly obtrude upon this Church notwithstanding they are already found by sad experience to hold no such cleare and pure waters either for Doctrine or Discipline for Authority or Unity for Order or Peace as those were which the Apostles digged and the Catholick Church ever used and esteemed for sacred In this great point then of Right Ordination and true Ministeriall Authority of which the Learned Mr. Mason professeth next his salvation he desires to be assured it is as I humbly conceive not onely piously but prudently necessary for our Reformed Church Religion and Ministry to be effectually vindicated and by all possible meanes fairly united If there were ever any other way of Ordination used or allowed in the Church of Christ let the Authors Histories and instances be produced either as to their grounds or their practise If there were never any other either used or approved or thought of besides that which was in the Church of England managed by Bishops as necessary and chief agents in it truly it is but Justice Reason Conscience and Honor to own this Truth to follow this Catholick precedent to returne to an holy conformity with pious Antiquity which neither invented nor induced Bishops or Episcopall Ordination and jurisdiction as an affected novelty or a studied variety but they followed doubtlesse herein what was received from the very first Bishops who succeeded to the Apostles as authorized and placed by them So that as the succession of Bishops was lineally reducible to the Apostles which Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian Eusebius Nicephorus and others evidently prove not onely by their publick Registers but by their private memories when the names of Bishops were fresh in Christians minds and not very numerous as in the second and third Centuries No lesse may be affirmed of Ordination by Bishops it had its precept and pattern from the Apostles expresly committed and enjoyned to some persons as chief Bishops never trusted to meer Presbyters alone much less to people in common so far as any Record of the Church Sacred or Ecclesiastick doth informe us whose constant silence in this case is a better Testimony against all innovation of Ecclesiasticall Ordination than all the Sorites the Rhapsodies heapes and scamblings of I know not what broken scraps and wrested allegations out of any Scriptures or Fathers can be by which I see some men have sought with much dust sweat and blood to bring in their new uncertaine unaccustomed and unauthentick formes of Ordination exclusive of any President or Bishop who ever was as the principall Verb in a sentence which cannot be wanting without making the sense of all other words very lame defective incoherent and insignificant These grand perswasions joyned to the sad experiences made in Englands late variations do thus far command me to be more intent and earnest that in this point of valid complete undoubted and most authoritative Ordination we might be made uniform that all Ministers like currant money might have the same image and superscription upon them It is most certaine that the Christian and Reformed Religion will never be able to shine either clearly or constantly or comfortably upon the consciences of Christians either as Ministers or people while it is in this great point of Ordination so darkned clouded and eclipsed that it lookes like the Sun wrapped in sackcloth or the Moon turned into blood What Ministry what Ministers what Ordination what Ordained what Ordainers what Ordinances of Christ will in time be much esteemed in England by the Nobility Gentry or Yeomanry when they shall see various waies of Ordination daily invented and obtruded pittifull Novelties induced uniform Antiquity discarded Primitive Episcopacy exautorated a subordinate Presbytery scorned a popular parity and petulancy indulged every where to make what extemporary Priests and Preachers they list of the dregs and meanest of the people as little God knowes to their own soules benefit as to the Churches peace or to the honor of this Nation though they do it with as much
degenerous persons as deserved not to bear the name or knew not how to use the Office of a Bishop Doubtless their Enemies being Judges no place no Age no one Nation or Church in the world since the Apostles ever exceeded the Bishops of England for piety and learning for useful and exemplary vertues of which I shall afterward give more exact account no Church ever more happy flourishing or prosperous then the reformed Church of England was under such worthy Bishops as some men so despitefully used Could Bishops in this and all Churches be so blessed of God and yet Episcopacy deserve to be so abhorred of men Were the Evangelical labours of godly Bishops so plentifully watered with the Dew of Heaven and yet doth their function deserve to be rooted out of the Earth If Episcopacy in its secular riches and honours must needs be destroyed in order to confiscate the Churches Lands yet at least primitive though poor Episcopacy might have been preserved whose ancient eminency would have been both authoritative and conspicuous among good Christians through the Clouds of such undeserved poverty Though some men might presume to deprive Bishops of their deserved and lawful Estates yet sure they were too bold to rob the Church of all excellent and deserving Bishops such as England ever afforded both before and since the Reformation which the Romish and Jesuitick policies never hoped more effectually to deforme and destroy than by helping to carry on the routing of Episcopacy Certainly the excellent Bishops of England were the greatest Eye-sore of the Pope and his Conclave nor did they care to fight by their secret and open Engines against small or great Presbyters so much as against these Prelates who had so long stood in their way They knew when these chief Shepherds were smitten the Sheep would soon be scattered nor were Papists ever more gratified than when Episcopacy was extirpated out of England What if the God the Lord of his Church the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath laid the Government of it on the Shoulders of Christ Jesus and he derived the external administration or dispensation of it to the Apostles and they to succeeding Bishops as spiritual Pastors and venerable Fathers of his Church what if he should thus plead the cause of Episcopacy in the eminency of its Apostolical order and primitive authority against all those that have spoken acted and written so many peevish spiteful popular partial and perverse things against it What if he should lay to their Consciences what is visible to their and all mens eyes the sad divisions miserable confusions and horrid vastations of this Church and the Reformed Religion which have followed the destroying of harmlesse honourable ancient venerable useful and necessary Episcopacy Would they not be infinitely ashamed and mightily confounded for the new Modes which they have taken up for the Oakes which they have chosen to over-shadow themselves yea for the Briars and Brambles which they fancy as fittest to rule themselves and the Church of Christ in this Land either by way of parity or popularity which are not fit methods to rule their own families withall Will a few arbitrary precarious Presbyters and unautoritative Preachers or their new Associations serve their turn Or will a few petty Congregations or Schismatizing Conventicles here and there scattered and scrambled together in Cities and Countries be able to countervail the damage or to recompence the unspeakable defects and detriments which this Church and Nation which all estates and degrees of Christian people have sustained by the totall loss and overthrow of primitive Episcopacy which was as it were smothered to death in a crowd and huddle never legally examined or fairly condemned by the free and full suffrages of all estates so as its Antiquity worth and honour did deserve What learned prudent and conscientious Ministers or other Christians can be fully satisfied with those new-fashioned ordinations and ministrations of holy things which neither they nor their Fore-fathers nor any ancient Churches ever knew and wherein that Divine Authority which they challenge is so justly doubted or disputed as by no Catholick hand or regular course committed to them If that Ministeriall power which is challenged and exercised upon such new accounts of humane policies and later inventions if it should really be none at all or as weak and defective as it is dubious for Ordination as it is for Jurisdiction which is very much feared and suspected by very wise and good men especially where not want and necessity deny but wantonnesse and wilfulnesse seek to deprive Christians of their true Bishop O how vain how invalid how arrogant how insignificant must those Ministers and all their holy Ministrations appear to many Christians who have of later years set themselves up by a Presbyterian Commission or Popular Election not onely without but against their lawful Superiours who were every way so able so worthy and so lawfully authorized for that office and eminency not onely as they were ordained Presbyters but as they were further consecrated Bishops that is placed by Christ and appointed by the Church in an higher degree capacity use and exercise of Ecclesiastical power and jurisdiction then ever was in any Presbyters Of which eminency Episcopal as that famous Council of Nice took such care to have it continued after the cient mode and patern of publick Election and solemn Consecration or the Churches Benediction so all this formality must have been very superstitious and ridiculous if it added nothing of authority and power peculiar to them as Bishops but onely what they formerly had received in common as Presbyters Doubtless reordination as rebaptization to the same office and degree in the Church was ever condemned in the Church of Christ as impious because superfluous a meer mockery of Religion a taking the name of God in vaine forbidden by the African Canons and many Councils never practised by any but such as St. Basil the Great reports one Eustathius of Sebastia to have been whom he calls an infamous Heretick a notorious deserter of the Churches Catholick Communion If St. Chrysostome in the fourth Century had judged it enough to complete him in his Episcopall power and Authority to have been once ordained a Presbyter as he was in Antioch where he so lived twelve yeares sure he would not have troubled himself to have been after ordained or consecrated a Bishop by Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria and others of that order when he was chosen to be Bishop of Constantinople Nor would St. Austin a person no lesse pious and learned who had been ordained Presbyter by Valerius Bishop of Hippo been ordained anew by Megalius Patriarch of Numidia when he was chosen to be Bishop of Hippo. In like sort was one Alexander a Presbyter ordained by St. Chrysostome to be Bishop of Bassinopolis according to the uniforme method of Antiquity which judged that the Presbyters chusing the peoples approving and the
all others to prefer it and so the Bishops of all other Cities made no scruple to yield the precedency of honor and order to the Bishops of Rome which was as lawfull as it was orderly But when the Papall arrogancy lifted up it self above its brethren by a Luciferian height through the subtilty and importunity of Pope Boniface as Platina in his life tels us he afterward sought to exalt himself above all that is called God the Papall ambition very cunningly invading not onely the Rights of Kings and civill powers but of the Ecclesiastick Rulers also for the Roman policy saw that unlesse it got above all Bishops it could not easily get above all Christian Princes and Magistrates which supported the honor and freedome of each other Then Monastick and Jesuitick flattery following pride the Bishops of Rome must be not onely the chief Bishop but the Father the Fountaine the Lord the Prince of all Bishops and all Episcopacy indeed the onely Bishop of Divine and Apostolick Authority all other Bishops must be as his off-sets his Suffragans or his Chaplaines nothing without him and able to do nothing as Bishops but by a power derived from the Pope forgetting the Primitive equality of all Bishops as to their Episcopall Rights Power and Office which followed the parity of the Apostles as to their Apostleship which all Antiquity with St. Cyprian St. Jerom Gregory the Great and others owned as Unicus in solidum Episcopatus but one Tree or source of Ecclesiasticall Authority first rooted in Christ afterward derived to the chief Apostles and from each of them to their successors in all the Christian world This once laid aside and buried in the darknesse and insolency of warlike and superstitious times the degenerated Bishops of Rome by degrees gained their processe and designe which was to have no civill or Ecclesistick power in the world but such as might derive from and depend upon them all Princes and Prelates must be his vassalls or they must have no Principality no Episcopacy This axe was the first and a very heavy sharp one that was laid to the root of Episcopacy by the Papall arrogancy after whose copy all those may be suspected to write who first blot out Episcopacy that they may blot and out-bolt set up and pull down Magistracy upon such principles and pretentions of Religion as they list to set up and fancy for the advancing of Christs cause the Gospel Religion and Reformation words never more used by any than the Popes of Rome since they used the style of Holinesse and Servant of Servants but intended Highnesse and exercised Soveraignty over all according to that Mystery of Iniquity which was by some of them carried on and is not to this day laid aside though more tenderly and warily managed being on all hands either despised or disliked by all Christian Princes that are not forced by dependance or fear to be parasites to the Pope I know in this point other novel Antiepiscopal parties on all hands have sought with all artifices to captate Magistratick favour as well as plebeian applauses representing themselves so submissive and complyant to Princes and Parlaments to all States and civill Polities that they fancy to favour their side as if they onely studied to bear the crosse of Christ and not to weare any Crown of soveraignty But how modest some of them have been in seeking to set up Jesus Christ and themselves not onely without but against the expresse will and consent of the lawfull Princes and chief Magistrates no lesse than against the Lawes in force yea and against the far major part of the community of all sorts I leave it to others yea to themselves to judge who have any just ingenuous or blushing principle in them I am sure the Anabaptists at Munster first pretended to abhor all wars and weapons of blood while their party was small weake and frozen but afterward they could find hands as well as feet As for Presbytery and Independency truly they have given not only terrible alarmes and assaults to both Monarchy and Episcopacy which were both of them their lawfull superiours but they have even now sharpe rigours and ambitious rivalries against each other which of them shall have most power and most hands as well as most favour or indulgence Neither of them are looked upon as making any great scruple to bring in the prevalency of their parties by force of armes when once they presume of numbers sufficient neither of them seem to make any great conscience to set up their new Scepters by absolute power where petition and agitation will not serve their turne because both of them pretend to have Jesus Christ sure on their side who is indeed King of Kings and Lord of Lords yet I do not find that he hath any where made them his Lieutenants to Rule for him upon the score and Title of any Church-power notwithstanding that they intitle their designes with his cause and inscribe their banners with his name as Pontius Pilate did that Crosse whereon he Crucified Jesus Christ. Many of them I find do hold all Men all Christians all Ministers all Magistrates all Princes Kings and Emperours enemies to Jesus Christ that are not declaredly for them and will not be subject to their Discipline or Government Many Grave and Learned men heretofore and of later times have set them forth not onely in their occasional zelotries and transports but in their meditated principles and declared designes to be such strikers and sticklers that they seem to be born with hornes and hoofes at least with teeth and swords in their mouths preaching as in Gods and Christs Name that if Christian Princes will not Peers and inferiour Magistrates may if these will not the common people may and ought to Reforme any Church or Religion after such a Form as their leaders list to fancy and prescribe Nor is this to be done with gloves and mittens with petitions and prayers but with gantlets and speares with clubs and swords if need be and if they can get power into their hands which they say is to be counted Gods power or a providentiall dispensation to his people thus to carry on his glory his word and his cause as to Religion though against his expresse Word against all Rules of justice against all Lawes and bounds of civill order and obedience yea against common honesty even to the violating of just oathes and superinducing of perjurious superfetations yea even to excommunication and deprivation of the chief Magistrate or Prince of their place and power in case they be refractory Thus do many men tell us they have found the Disciplinarian pulse of Presbytery at least if not of Independency to beat almost ever since they were born so that they have and ever will give no small terror jealousie and trouble to all soveraigne and Magistratick powers where ever they can by popular arts get footing both of them bearing
themselves high upon the confidence of Christs Scepter Call and Kingdome which they say admits no stop delay or obstruction whenever Providence opens a door not to the Gospel which is already professed but to such a Form and way as they like to have it in as to Discipline Government and Church-Order and this if not to be had by Princes favour and consent yet by the suffrages and assistance of common people where they may be had who in such cases are not to regard their obedience to any worldly Princes or powers who stand in opposition to or competition with Jesus Christ or any thing that some godly men shall fancy to be an ordinance of his though never heretofore owned or used as such in his Church What is there so fond so fanatick so foolish so mad which such presumptuous fury will not bring into Church or State that is not of their mind That these have been the principles and in many places the endeavours or practises of many for I dare not impute them to all is not to be doubted being evident by their writings and the Histories of those who have truly told the world what their sense agencies and aimes are Nor is there any great cause to expect that other petty parties or novel sects which are generally the spawne of Presbytery should deny themselves that Gospel-Power and Liberty as they call it since every one sees it hath been affected and acted though with no very great or glorious success by their grand-fire Presbytery which both in Scotl. and in England besides other places hath not been sparing to proclaime to all the world what zeal they have for their and Christs cause for his that is their Discipline even to the consuming of their foes their friends and themselves as Penry Udal Hacket and others did in Queen Elizabeths daies of which Mr. Cambden and others give us sufficient account as Sleidan and others do of the like agitations in Germany by such as were first Schismaticks from the Church and then Rebels to their lawfull Magistrates But the true Episcopall principles are wholly Evangelical they neither preach nor practise other than what they have learned from Christ and his Apostles in the Scripture they know no voyce of Providence ever calling them to act contrary to those Rules of civil obedience and good conscience which are signall expresse and emphatick in Gods word to be subject to every Ordinance or Law of man for the Lords sake to obey Kings as supreme and all under them for conscience sake if in any thing they cannot freely and cheerfully act there they must and will patiently suffer what penalties or pressures are laid upon them Thus did all Bishops and all Presbyters of old both pray and preach obey and suffer as Tertullian tells us at large in his Apology whose example and Doctrine all good Christians followed in their constant subjection and submission to civill though persecuting powers even then when Christians wanted not power and numbers to have invited them to have asserted themselves against both persecuting people and Princes Yet still godly Bishops with all Presbyters and people subordinate to them in Religious respects followed exactly the precepts of the two great Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul yea and of their great Master and Saviour Jesus Christ rather suffering by many persecutions than breaking out to any one act or thought of sedition or rebellion No injuries ever made good Bishops forget their Duty and Loyalty to Soveraigne powers though they might have had Legions to have sided with them yet as Christ they chose the Crosse as the best refuge of Christian subjects Thus all holy Bishops both held and did in Primitive times Yea and since the later spring of Reformation in England I am confident there is not one instance of any one Bishop or Episcopall Divine that either wrote or instigated any Christian Subjects to act upon any religious pretentions contrary to the Rules of civil subjection to that Prince or State under which they lived no not to bring in or restore Episcopacy it self which hath far more pleas for it from Catholick Antiquity and Universall prescription from actuall possession in all times and places from the pattern of Christ and the practise of the Apostles from the imitation and uninterrupted succession of after-Ages besides the proportions of Gods wisdome and mans prudence in all setled polities and good Government together with its own Ancient Catholick and Nationall Rights which aggravate its injuries and exasperate mens spirits yet these are not enough to animate or heighten Episcopacy so far as to make or restore its way into any Nation Church State or Kingdom by armed power or tumultuary violence against the will of the chief Magistrate or the Lawes in force it humbly attends Gods time and the Soveraignes pleasure for its reception or restitution So false and foul are the odious aspersions of Fellonies Treasons Seditions and Rebellions which the loosenesse and choler of a Presbyterian Gentlemans Pen then more passionate and popular then now it seems hath cast upon all the Bishops of England as such in that rude immodest and uncharitable pamphlet which he then set forth by a preposterous zeal when having surfeited of an immoderate revenge against one Bishop he aymed so to disguise venerable Episcopacy and to degrade all the most excellent Bishops of Engl. with their Clergy as to expose them all to be the more cruelly baited and worried even to death by the enraged beasts of the people even then when they were to be diverted from considering the actuall combustions which then were raised by and for his Presbytery Such Declamatory and partiall papers were certainly very unbecoming a man of Learning Religion or Ingenuity especially toward such Bishops in his own Country which were men most-what his equals in all things and in many things much his betters and superiours being Peeres of the Kingdome and chief Fathers of that Church with which he held Communion vested in their Authority by our Laws as well as conforme to all Ecclesiastick ancient Constitutions being persons famous most of them for their worth every way answerable to the Piety and Learning of their best Predecessors who were great Preachers wise Governours learned Writers and valiant Martyrs as well as venerable Bishops I confesse this one instance makes me see with horror what a dreadfull tyrant and temptation passion and faction revenge ambition popularity and discontent are when once they transport men of parts beyond the true bounds of Reason and Religion of Charity Patience and Civility which is as apparent in that virulent charging of all Bishops for seditious Traytors as if one should condemn all Lawyers for corrupt and covetous for bribery and oppression as if all were Trissilians Empsons and Dudleys which were a reproch most unjust and false there having been and still are many of them men of great justice and integrity I well know it is
not to be denyed and dissembled what he liberally reports to have been done by some Bishops even in England in the more pompous and superstitious times that were like stormy nights blind and boysterous when many of them no lesse than other men of all sorts Yeomen Lawyers Gentlemen Judges and Noblemen were violently engaged in those different interests either Secular or Ecclesiasticall which set up two Supremes as two Suns in one firmament either in the Church against the State whereto the Papall pride and ambition then laid claime seven hundred yeares after Christ by an usurpation and pretention upon Christs score too at least St. Peters not known to the Primitive Popes or other pious Bishops either of Rome or any other City or else the distractions arose in the same civil State by the severall claimes and Titles which Princes made to the Crown and Soveraignty occasioning civill warres either in England or elsewhere But here the sidings and actings of some Bishops which we read of in our own and forreigne Chronicles were not as they were Bishops upon any Apostolicall rule or example nor by any Ecclesiasticall Canons much lesse upon any reall or pretended interests of Jesus Christ but they acted either meerly as persons of civill place and politick power or as men of common prudence and justice or of common passions and infirmities sometime as they stood affected in the justice of the cause which they were commanded to assist sometime for their own necessary preservation as wel as their Soveraignes sometime as they stood related by blood and adherencies to great and potent families which were commonly the first movers in those civill broyles and dissentions which many times were begun and carried on contrary to the desires of sober Bishops no lesse than the will of the lawfull Prince in order to gratifie private mens ambitions yet under specious pretentions of either asserting the Lawes or liberties of the people more than the advancing the Papall power and some Church-immunities that it was no wonder especially in the twilight and dimnesse of those times to see some Bishops out of their way as well as other gowned men who had naturally those civill and carnall principles of self-preservation common to even Judges and Lawyers Nobility and Gentry as to go along sometime with a potent streame and to symbolize with the strongest sword not the justest side But in dubious cases as to the right of Rule Bishops as all good Christians medled not with factions being neither Nigriani nor Albiniani as Tertullian speaks More veniall and excusable may those verball reluctancies reserves and refractures rather than any thing of open force and hostile rebellions seem which some Bishops are reported sometime to have been guilty of here in Engl. when they superstitiously asserted their disobedience and inconformities to their Princes upon the point of conscience and those religious perswasions which were then very plausible and generally admitted both in England and all Christendome as to the priviledges of the Popes of Rome or of the Churches interests and immunities distinct or exempt from the Authority of the Civil State which very challenges arose not from the seditions treasons and rebellions of Bishops and Church-men as such but partly from the cunning encrochments of the Popes of Rome and partly from the former indulgences of Princes more superstitious and easie also from the favourable Lawes or Customes of the Nation to the Clergy as men most usefull and venerable in their Ecclesiastick Authority which was esteemed sacred and Divine as indeed it is in the right constitution and execution of it But no Christian or Reformed Bishop as such did ever approve the stubborne and indeed insolent spirit of Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury who was slaine as he was officiating in the Church by a paroxysme more blameable in the King than that was in the Archbishop which made him so stiffe and refractory as to his and the Churches supposed priviledges and immunities What true Christian and Reformed Bishop doth not pitty the distempers of Lanfranc and Anselm both Predecessors to Becket in the same See of Canterbury who so highly contended with their Soveraignes in behalf of the Popes power as to investitures contrary indeed to the just prerogatives and ancient customes of this Kingdome and Crown in those cases as hath been sufficiently proved by Sir Roger Twisden and others that they lost much of the lustre of their otherwise reall worth and usefull virtues in the point of Learning Piety Charity Devotion and Integrity which were eminent as then times went in those two Archbishops of which Eadmerus gives a very honest and full account Yet did not these Bishops or their brethren proceed further than spirituall armes and Ecclesiasticall censures rather receding than revolting much lesse actually rebelling They never that I find did raise any armies against their Soveraignes upon those Church-quarrels nor did they ever engage Ministers and People by Oathes Leagues or Covenants to a forcible asserting of any Episcopall power or Ecclesiasticall priviledges or pretentions contrary to the declared will of their Soveraignes No look upon Episcopacy in the whole series of Bishops that were of the true Primitive temper stamp and succession as they followed the chief Apostles in their ordinary Ecclesiasticall Power and jurisdiction so they walked in the same steps and spirit of Humility Meeknesse Wisdome Patience Obedience and Loyalty as the Reforming and Reformed Bishops of elder and later Ages have alwaies done coming into all Nations Cities Countries Kingdomes Empires and Common-wealths at their first accesse and entrance as Christ did unto Jerusalem meekly riding upon an Asse with resolutions rather to be crucified there than to give any crosse or offence to civil powers further than they humbly testified soberly preached the Truth of God to them and their subjects not with any Factious Seditious or Rebellious spirits they never preached any such principles nor encouraged any such practises They neither at first nor afâ—â—â—ward when the word of God mightily grew and multiplied did make their way by any hostile invasions they never called Horsemen and Footmen Troopes and Regiments of Armed Souldiers to assist them in the work of the Lord or to set up Jesus Christ against Princes or people who did not believe them or not willingly receive them Yea so Meek Moderate Just Wise and Charitable was the zeal of Primitive Bishops and Church-men that they did not by force turne the Idols of the Heathens out of their Temples till Soveraigne and Imperiall Authority either commanded or permitted them so to do Nor did they drive out the Flamens and Arch-flamens here in England which were Idolatrous Priests till Princes converted by Bishops and other Preachers of the Gospel did forsake and abolish those lying vanities So far were Bishops from obtruding their opinion or party meerly as to gubernative order and power upon any City Nation or Kingdom contrary to the will of the chief Magistrate nor did
which he had by any outward token never appearing of later yeares in any other than a plain Gown and Cassock as an ordinary Presbyter A person so rich in all excellencies and yet so poor even to an annihilation in his own Spirit partakes no doubt of that first great Beatitude The Kingdom of Heaven But as if all that burthen while this blessed Bishop lived had no been sufficient to depress this Atlas this Job this Elias there wan-tted not some men who go for Ministers who to shew their despite and insolency against all Bishops and Episcopacy durst own and declare their scorn and disdain against this excellent Lord Bishop and Primate while he lived by not vouchsafing to own or call him by any of these most deserved Titles nor enduring the style of Armachanus to be added to his name O pitiful Parasites most obsequiously courting other men with the nauseous and repeated Crambes of Your Honour Your Lordship My good Lord c. whos 's neither place nor personal worth and merit in Church or State is or ever can be without a miracle comparable to this renowned Lord and Bishop if pious Impartiality and not secular Flattery might be judge Ask all the Christian and learned World what man of any Learning Honor and Ingenuity from home or abroad ever wrote to him or made mention of his name without exquisite Prefaces and studied Epithets of signal honor and respect which attributes of Lordship and Grace given to Bishops are no news nor any way offensive save onely to Mechanick Ignorance or Envy there being nothing in all Antiquity more frequent on all hands than the honourable compellations and additions of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Domine and Multùm venerande of Dominatio Dignitas and Paternitas of Honourable Lord and Venerable Father ascribed to worthy Bishops Among whom none was more worthy of all Attributes fit to be given to a mortal man than this Bishop whose greatest diminutions like the seeming Eclipses of the Sun did not lessen his light but onely hide him more from the World He was as truely worthy to be Honoured Emulated Admired Magnified and Imitated of all good men in all Ages as any one person that ever I knew in all my life which as Plato said of Socrates I think much the more blessed of God because I lived in those dayes which gave me the opportunity honor and happinesse both to know and be known to this great Exemplar of all learned worth this grand pattern of Bishops Preachers Scholars and Christians Nor was it the least cordial I had in the difficulties and horrors of later years to remember that I was not far from such an open Sanctuary that I might have frequent recourse to such a full and free Magazin of all Christian Graces and Gifts nor did I think we could be completely miserable and utterly desolated as to the Church while this great Genius was yet alive and in England in whom by a rare and wonderful conjunction such high abilities were mixed with unparallell'd humility such Candor and Gentleness did temper his Gravity and such Serenity did sweeten the severer Sanctity of his life that he seemed to me not so much a man as a kind of miracle or prodigy of humane perfections especially when I remember not long before his death those unfeigned tears which I saw and those humble complaints which I heard not for his losses but for his sins and omissions earnestly deprecating Gods displeasure and dreading his exact Tribunal Who will not fear and tremble who will not wax wan and discoloured when he sees a Rubie of so great price and orient lustre contract pallor and amazement As for the many sufferings or indignities he had sustained I never perceived the least regret or sigh much lesse any bitter and revengfull replies A very great sense indeed he expressed and very often with sadness and compassion for the distractions of this Church the deformities of our Religion and the feared future desolations which he oft and earnestly seemed to presage as neer at hand alwaies jealous that our Religious feuds and factions would at last end in Papall Superstition and mutuall oppressions Against both which this good Bishop and so many yea most of his Brethren were I believe as much enemies and as far removed both in their judgements and endeavours as the most Antiepiscopall Presbyter or Independent in the world being much better able to give a reason of his distance from them than they can for their defiance of him and all Bishops Against the deluge of whose partiality and passion I have thus opposed the Barricado or Peire this one great instance of a most unblameable Bishop purposely to vindicate against all mens impudence ignorance or malice the consistence of Episcopacy with Piety and the vast distance between Primitive Prelacy and after-Popery Truâ—y in my judgement this one Bishop out-weighs all that ever was or can be alledged against Episcopacy who not onely while he lived mightily justified the function but before he died his earnest desire was that such a due succession of Episcopall Authority might be regularly preserved in England as might keep up the completenesse and validity of Ecclesiasticall and Catholick Ordination first against the Calumnies of Papists who infinitely joy in the advantages they have got of such a Schismatick reproch upon us next against the rage and impertinencies of other factions who will in time bring all Reformed and Christian Religion to a consumption if they either quite obstruct or utterly destroy Primitive and Apostolick Episcopacy which that great Bishop esteemed as vena porta the great veine which hath from the Apostles conveyed in all Ages all Ecclesiasticall Order Power Authority and Jurisdiction Which undoubtedly was the judgement of all Antiquity otherwise all Churches would not have been so impatient of being without their Bishops at any time nor would Bishops have been so carefull in the times of persecution to propagate an holy succession of Bishops without any remarkable or long interruption never failing in any Church till this last Age nor in England till of late yeares Primitive Bishops not considering the pleasures or displeasures of men great or small in so grand a concern as what they believed was pleasing to God profitable for the Church and necessary for Ecclesiasticall Authority which they thought could no more stand without Episcopacy than a body can without its leggs Nor did Antiquity either use or know or want the late Crutches of Presbytery or the stilts of Independency which to make themselves seem usefull have sought to cut off the native pillars and proper supports of this Church to the very stumps not without infinite paine to some parts and those principal ones too of the Body besides constant diminution and deformity to the whole Which will in my judgement which willingly followes so great a guide as the Lord Primate never in England be well at its ease or
who are all consenting to the Law and concerned that justice be duely executed on some evil Members for the good of the whole So that the several degrees and subordinations in the ancient Church of Christ even long before the first Nicene Council as there is expressed among Churchmen and Bishops against which some have made so loud and ridiculous clamors were chiefly for this end as Mr. Calvin and others have as ingenuously as truely observed that the holy correspondency of all Christians and all Churches in one Faith and Truth in one Spirit and Power might not onely be most evident to the world but most aptly carried on and preserved against all Factions Variations and Divisions that they might by these means be known to be of one heart and mind in the Lord that they might all speak the same things and walk in the same steps that what one condemned all might in the same spirit condemn what one forgave all might forgive that none might upon any private passions either excommunicate others by injurious abscission or themselves by voluntary separation or make new confederacies and associations with those who are either deserters of the Catholick Communion or justly excommunicated from it which distempers of Ignorance and Impatience and Imprudence among Christians have brought as we see this great power of the Keyes and this exercise of Christian Discipline so far into contempt that no man almost regards it from any hand every one daring to make what retortions they please and to excommunicate any one or more yea and whole Churches that do excommunicate them for any the most notorious errors and insolencies Thus as the Popes of Rome heretofore so the people now in many places challenge to themselves this power against their Neighbours and Brethren yea against their Preachers and Bishops against the Fathers that begat them and the Mother Church which did bear them So that I confesse there is not so much cause of terror as of pitty in most Excommunications as they are now managed by private and unauthoritative spirits O what sorrow what shame is it to see so Sacred so Solemn so Divine so Dreadfull an Institution vilified and nullified which was designed for the health and welfare of the Church of Christ by just and necessary severiâ—ies when it was as it ought to be soberly applyed by wise holy and impartiall Governours of the Church in the name of Christ in the Catholick Spirit or consent of all Orthodox Bishops Presbyters and people which was able to shake Heaven and Hel to open and shut the Everlasting doores of Salvation or Damnation according as the penitency or impenitency of offenders did appeare To see this flaming sword which was put by Christ into the Cherubims hand those that were the Angels of his Church to keep the way of the tree of life to see this made the scare-crow and scorne of vile men the sport of petulant and peevish Spirits who neither fear to inflict Excommunication upon whom they list as much as lies in their impotent malice nor yet to suffer it from the most Just Impartiall and Authoritative hands in the world from whom being once proudly separated they fancy they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the reach and danger of this just terror and the others true Authority as lawfull Bishops or Governours of the Church whose heavy sentence if I should incurre so far that any one true Bishop with his Clergy should passe it against me upon just grounds of my scandalous and obstinate sinning against God and his Church according to the ancient rightfull and lawfull way of such proceedings in the Name and Spirit of Jesus Christ to which all true Christians in this Church and in all the world do submit and assent I confess I should much more fear living and dying to lye under such a censure and sentence than to be condemned in my Estate Liberty or Life by any Court of humane Justice which reacheth not to the Souls eternal estate as Excommunication rightly managed doth it being a most undoubted Oracle of our Lord Jesus Christ that whose sins the Apostles and their lawful successors as Rulers of the Church do bind on Earth they are bound in Heaven Who their lawful and authoritative successors have been are and ought to be in all Ages and places of the Church is evident to all that have any fear of God or reverence of his Catholick Churches Testimony This is certain as Excommunication carries with it the joynt spirit and suffrage of the whole Church and every true Member of it either explicitly or implicitly so the regular and authoritative managing of it was ever from the respective Bishops Authority and Order as chief Pastors in every Church to whose fatherly care and Inspection with the counsel of their Presbyters the Flock of Christ is committed especially as to the discreet use of such Discipline as highly concerns the salvation or damnation the hopes or despair the binding or loosing the abscission or restauration of any part which ought not to be judged determined and executed by every private spirit of Minister or people but by such venerable Bishops and their Presbyters as have the authentick transmission of the Apostles ordinary governing power delivered to them as from Christ being in this like the Judges in commission for Life and Death though the Sentence be the Laws and the power the chief Magistrates and the transaction or publication in the Face of the County to which all the Bench of Justices the Jury and other honest Men do tacitly give their votes and assent yet is the Cognizance and Examination of the merits of the Cause and the judicial solemn Declaration of the Sentence committed specially to the Judge both in respect of his learned Abilities and known Integrity also for the Honor and Order which are necessary to be observed in proceedings of so great concernment to Mankind as are matters of Life and Death Such is the power such ought to be the procedure of all due Excommunication such they were in the purest and primitive times when all Christians all Congregations all Presbyters all Bishops all particular Churches were so united that as many Spokes make but one Wheel and many Stones one Building and many Members one Body so these made but one Church in the same Faith the same Baptism the same Ministry the same Spirit the same Order the same Power the same Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ From which Blessed Harmony and Spirituall Communion if any Christian or any particular Congregation or any part of the Church as those of the Donatistick party and the Novatians in Africa with others either proudly passionately and peevishly did separate themselves or were deservedly separated by the just censure of any part of the true Church and thenceforth falling to mangling of all by mutuall Excommunications so as to fly in the faces of their lawfull Bishops and Pastors or else turne their backs on them
this Venerable resolver of No Sacriledg in selling Bishops Lands O! but this he tels us freely and with some earnestnesse as concerned had been horrid Sacriledg because of those he hath a good share those he hopes to enjoy together with his Bishops Lands Thus this irrefragable D. resolves that to rob the lesser Gods is Sacriledg but not to rob the greater Bishops were but Egyptians whom the Presbyterians as true Israelites might strip and spoyle So it were a sin to take any thing from an ordinary Citizen and common souldier but not from an Alderman or a Colonel It is lawfull to deprive Governours in Church or State of what they have but not the Governed Presbyters must jure divino have meat and drink and clothes to maintaine them that they may eate and preach but they need no Over-seers or Church-Governours to take care they preach no strange Doctrine nor live scandalously They must have victualls as beasts but they need no Government as Men Christians and Ministers O thrifty project O Blessed Paradox If it hold in all societies Civil and Military as well as Ecclesiastick it will spare the State many thousands of pounds upon the Civil account as it hath got it many upon the Church-account by taking away Bishops and their Revenues there being no need of such Governours and such Maintenance of Honor in the Church no more will there need any Judges in the Law nor Captaines and Colonels in the Army their places their pensions their pay may be spared if these be necessary why were not Bishops so for Order and Honor and Government and Judgement among the Clergy But he fancies that himself and other doughty Presbyters can do the work and govern without Bishops Possibly he may do it the better not onely for his grave carriage and reverend fashion of Living for his moderate meek and quiet Spirit for his great Learning and rare Endowments for the high Esteem that is had of him but especially because he is rich and hath a good part of the old Bishops Lands it may be a Spirit of government may go with them as a Spirit of prophesie did with the High-priests Office in Caiaphas but as for other poorer Presbyters and petty Rulers of his brethren the Antiepiscopal Ministers how fit they will be to govern in common how well they have managed Phoebus his Chariot since they undertook to drive it I leave to all wise and sober men to judge But it may be this purchaser is not against Bishops but against landed and Lorded Bishops he would have primitive and Apostolick Bishops which had no Revenues or Lordships or Lands or Palaces How sad is it that so good a man should have so evil an eye against the good hand of God and the bounty of good Christians onely as to their munificence to the Bishops and chief Pastors of Christs Church But why so blind and partial against Bishops when it is as primitive and Apostolical for Presbyters to have no Tithes or Glebes or Livings These were the setled blessings of the Church after the glory of Constantines time whom the Revelation seems so much to set forth to the Beauty Rest and Honor of the Church If this Pleader will be honest and impartial let him conform himself a Presbyter as well as Bishops to the primitive pattern They have not left but forcibly lost all let Presbyters leave also their Livings let this great Example begin let him turn sportulary Presbyter as well as he would have beggarly Bishops let him and others depend upon the Basket of Charity and the Bishops Distribution as was of old both for occasional contributions of Decimal Oblations and Imperial pensions of which Presbyters at first had no parochial portion or right which now this Pleader so much challengeth as if it had been his purchase or penny-worth and not the Alms of the Nation excited hereto chiefly by the piety of primitive Bishops and other Ministers in imitation of Gods ancient portion which they thought still the right of Jesus Christ Lord of all as to his merit and priestly portion to be kept in his Churches possession for his Ministers enjoyment especially since it hath by the devotion of the Nation been legally dedicated to his service and the support of his Servants which may be as well said of Bishops and other Church-lands as of Presbyters little Livings unless this Pleader think that those were too much for Christ and any of his chief Ministers to enjoy or that there was less of Law and publick consent as well as of private gift in them than other Donations or lastly unless he fancy there is not as much need of Government Order and Discipline and consequently of meet Bishops as chief Pastors or Shepherds for Christs flock as there is of pasture It seems he is more for the Bag Scrip and Wallet than for Crosier Crook or Shepherds staff O! but his blessed Tithes his rich Glebe his fat Parsonage these these he challenges as his right in Gods name as patrimonium Crucifixi Christs patrimony the Presbyterian Churches Dowry the Priests portion the Levites wages the Labourers hire the most holy things and utterly unalienable even Impropriations seem to him sacrilegious Alienations derived from no other title than the Popes Usurpation annexing them to Monasteries and by a continued succession of Sacriledge given to the Crown and so at last become Lay-fees Thus he seems to make Princes and Parlaments guilty at the second hand of this foul sin of Sacriledg which onely lies against Tithes Glebes and Parsonage-Houses the onely preferment it seemes that this plaintiffe hath been capable of or now aspires to O how far is reason from some mens Religion and justice from their Consciences And what I beseech all wise sober and upright men were Bishops Houses and Revenues but greater Glebes and Livings given to men of the same calling for the same holy and good ends for the service of God and the Church though to some higher degree of Duty and Dignity of Office and Authority not onely to preach the Gospel and administer the holy Sacraments in common with Presbyters but further to preserve a right succession of Ministers and to dispense the power of holy Orders by a Catholick Ordination which ever was Episcopall also to manage duly that Ecclesiasticall Discipline and Government which ought to be carried on as by men of greater Age Gravity Ability and Authority than ordinary Presbyters use to be so with a proportionable conspicuity for Honor and Estate for Hospitality and Charity all which are as lawfull just and becoming a Bishop or chief Governour among the Fraternities of Ministers as a greater pay or Salary is to Judges Colonels and Captaines not for their doing more drudging work and duty than common men or souldiers may do but for that eminent worth and prudence and sufficiency which they are presumed to have in order to Rule and Command others who are men equall as themselves and
piety than in the barren heights of uselesse sublimities Then was it that the sweet and fruitfull dews of heaven crowned those true Ministers labours with all spiritual proficiencies and heavenly blessings then was the Church of England and thousands of pious souls in it like Gideons fleece full of holy distillations or like the garden of Eden liberally watered with the rivers of God I mean the faithful endeavours of able honest and Orthodox Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters duly ordained and divinely authorized for that service then was the time common people had less of curiosity and liberty but more of piety and charity they were more kept to their bounds and inclosures but enjoyed far better pastures than they now find in the ramblings and extravagances of those commons where they have chosen to enjoy their Pastors and Preachers after their own heart Nor is this insolency of people any wonder though it be a great grief to sober Christians when they consider how far this gangrene of abused liberty hath spread among men and women too the meanest and most mechanick He or She as Tertullian observes of some bolder Hereticks and Schismaticks in his dayes dare contrary to all Primitive pattern and Scriptural precept to preach to baptize to consecrate to censure to excommunicate scorning and opposing all things that are not branded with their schismaticall marks their novell badges and factious discriminations Wherewith so soon as any silly men or women come once to be dubbed and signalized their first vow and adventure is against the whole frame and constitution of the Church of England but specially against the orderly ancient and Catholick Ministry of it which is the rind or bark of Religion by which the sap life and nourishment of it is preserved and conveyed from the root Christ Jesus to the severall branches of his Church in every place This this must by all means be peeled round stripped off and cast away under pretence of Christian liberty and a better because freer course of deriving Chirstian Religion to peoples eares and hearts by another Ministry than that Ancient Apostolick Catholick and Primitive way of an orderly ordained Ministry which consisted of Bishops Presbyters Deacons be brought in Against the constitution succession of all these as corrupt adulterous Popish Babylonish spurious and superstitious in England whole troops of plebeian spirits have been and still are engaged whose fierce onsets and encounters were at first begun and are still carried on with as great resolution and errour as his that assaulted a Windmill instead of a Giant The great alarm given by their chief leaders is First to rail bitterly against the whole Clergie and all sacred orders used in the Church of England thence they proceed to wipe off their Baptisme as vain and invalid to vomit up their Lords Supper as nauseous and superstitious to read their Creeds backward to an unbelief of all things have been preached next they cancell the Decalogue as a Judaick phylactery a legall prescription lastly they learn to account and call the Lords Prayer a kind of spell and conjuration being perfect enemies to any thing that looks like a Liturgy or set form of prayer and devotion After this with stiff necks and haughty looks they scornfully defie all ancient ordination all Catholick succession all Apostolick commission derived to any Bishops and Presbyters as Ministers of Christ altering and annulling as much as in them lies all the order descent and power of the Evangelicall Ministry both in this and all other Christian Churches since the Apostles dayes the right of resumption and redemption of which they challenge to themselves according as their severall fancies list to make themselves or others Ministers or to have none at all which is the highest pitch of their Christian liberty counting all Ministers to be but their curbs and manacles Having thus commenced Masters of mis-rule their next work is to tuâ—n the garden of God any setled Church as this of Engl. was into ruinous heaps or a very dunghil to expel the Priests of the Lord out of his Temple to make Churches of Stables and Stables of Churches to bring in the lips of bleating calves there where the calves of learned devout and eloquent lips were wont to be offered It is not liberty enough for them to separate from the Church of England and apostatize from those Ministers that baptized them unless they utterly destroy them both setting up instead of one National and renowned one uniform and flourishing Church in which were truth and order unity and beauty strength and safety all Christian gifts and graces every good word and work to admiration innumerable little swarms in severall Conventicles with Ministers strangely multiform mutable and mis-shapen in which novell confederacies both Preachers and people rather catch and hang together by chance like burres in confused knots than grow like Olive-branches or the kernels of Pomgranates with order and comeliness from the same root Christ Jesus after the methods of those ancient Churches which were the prime and exemplary branches whereto after-successions should conform themselves As these factious people are so must their new Priests and Ministers be Grave and godly Bishops with their learned Presbyters must be set aside as broken vessels that they may set up by popular and plebeian suffrages some miserable mechanicks some antick engines some pittifull praters and parasites of the vulgar who have had no higher breeding or degree in Church or State than that of poore tradesmen for the better bred and more ingenuous sort of men abhor such impudence and usurpation their shop hath been their school their hammers or shuttles or needles have been their books At last coachmen footmen ostlers and grooms despair not to become Preachers by a rare and sudden metamorphosis coming from the office of rubbing horses heeles to take care of mens souls as some Farriers in time turn Physicians It matters not how sordid how silly how slovenly how mercenary how illiterate they are provided they have cunning enough to pretend a call impudence enough to display their ignorance and hypocrisie enough by much talk of Gods grace in them to supply the reall wants of all competent ability as well as authority to be Ministers of the Gospel Yet these these O my noble Countrey-men are in many places rude intruders insolent usurpers doughty undertakers to discharge the duty of Evangelicall Ministers in any one of these you must seek and may find as they pretend a Bishop a Presbyter and a Deacon all Evangelicall power Ecclesiasticall offices and Ministeriall authority these are the new-invented Machines or Engines which the Church of England and all others since the Apostles times were not so happy as to know or use which must set up the decayed Kingdome of Jesus Christ these must propagate the glorious Gospel these must exalt Christ crucified these must consecrate for you holy Elements these must administer to you the blessed Sacraments
For other wretches I know how their penurious covetous and sacrilegious pulse doth beat they are in nothing more envious and jealous t is equally harsh and odious to them to heare of any thing to be given or restored to the Church being much more sensible of any damage and injury done to their private purses and Estates than of such publick detriments and depressions as cloud the glory of their God and Saviour eclipse the honor of this Church and State vilifie and upon the point nullifie the dignity of the Ministry and prostitute the soules of poor people for which Christ hath died to ignorance and Atheisme to licenciousnesse and hypocrisie it being more with many men to save a penny than to save a soul more willing to spare a sound tooth out of their heads than one pound or shilling to advance Religion they are for a cheap heaven or none so willing they are to perish with their money rather than live by lightning the ship a little CHAP. XVIII AFter the foundations of a true Christian Ministry are thus laid both for its Being which consists in reall abilities discovered and in valid Authority conferred after the most venerable Catholick and authentick custome of the Church which being conforme to the word of God ought in such cases to be as a Law sacred and inviolable after I have further set forth the wel-being of the Clergy and in that of the whole Church by sustaining able Ministers in their severall degrees and stations with such ingenuous maintenance as may become not onely the honor of the work and workmen but the Glory of the Christians God the love and value of their Saviour and the beauty or majesty of the Church in which they are employed in so sacred solemn publick and constant services which ought in all reason and Religion to be kept up by all good Christians to some outward conspicuity and decency as far as Gods indulgence affords men peace and plenty The next thing I humbly commend to the Noblenesse Wisdome and Piety of my Country for the further strengthning and preservation of the being and wel-being of this Church and its Christian Reformed Religion both in Ministers and people able Preachers and honest Professors is so to combine cement and unite all worthy Ministers and other Christians in an uniforme and holy harmony of due subordination holy discipline and decent Government as may best keep them by Gods blessing from such fractures and factions such schismes and swellings such dashings and dividings against and from each other as have of latter years not onely battered themselves and each other to great diminutions weaknings and deformities but they have crushed this whole Church and crumbled its former intirenesse and amplenesse to so many broken bits and pieces through the impotent ambition of those Ministers or people who being least apt or able are most greedy to govern of themselves and loth to be governed by others which refractoâ—inesse hath not onely defaced the beauty and broken the unity of this Church but further threatens to shake the civill peace stability and consistence of this Nation whose honor and happinesse is not onely now at the stake but much abated and in hazard to be quite lost if that publick wisdome and courage be not applied which is necessary to recover the blessing of the Reformed Religion and the unity of this Church to such a posture of setledness order and unity as shall not need to feare either fanatick Confusion or Romish usurpations which are the great plots and designes laid against this Church and Nation of England I easily foresee that nothing will be a more hard knotty and flinty work than the recomposing of this Church to any Ecclesiasticall Uniformity Charitable Harmony and Orderly Government if either the late sharp passions private interests or mutuall prejudices of any one of the parties so divided from each other in England be made the partiall and scanty measures of Church-Order and Polity For the animosities and Antipathies among them are such that they will on all sides disdaine to be forcibly cast into any one of the pretended models which are on foot The onely probable and feisable way to reduce all sober Ministers and honest people to a consciencious and charitable Communion is for the wisdome and piety of this Nation to do as Constantine the Great did when he burnt all the querulous demands and uncharitable petitions of the Ecclesiasticks against one another so reconciling them all while he utterly silenced all their quarrels and buried their complaints In like manner the best and speediest method of our union will be to lay aside all the earnest pleas and violent pretentions of all sides either Episcopal Presbyterian or Independent which have occasioned or increased our late differences and onely to examine calmely seriously and impartially what was the Idea of Church-Order and Government for the first three or four hundred yeares that is twelve hundred yeares at least before these late contests and debates were raised or indeed thought on in this or any Church Certainly the Primitive Catholick and Apostolick posture of the Churches Polity Order and Government must needs be the true pattern in the Mount as Mr. Calvin confesseth in which times there was lesse leisure for ambitious or factious variations the Church being either persecuted most-what for 300. yeares or miraculously refreshed at its freedome in the fourth Century through Gods indulgence and the munificence of Constantine the Great and other Christian Emperours who as Princely nursing Fathers studied the Peace Unity and prosperity of the Church as much as that of the Empire In both which conditions both calme and storme it is most remarkable that as no one Author Father Historian Synod or Councill did any way doubt dispute or divide about Church-Government before the Great Council of Nice so when that great and Oecumenick Councill did come together to take a survey as of the Churches unity in sound Doctrine and Manners so of its Discipline and Government that it might gather together and recompose what ever the tempestuous times of persecution had shaken or shattered yet this grand most venerable and holy Assembly did neither begin any new Hierarchy or Government of the Church nor did they in the least sort tax former times of any Innovation Alteration or desertion from the Primitive Apostolick and Universall pattern which was still fresh in mens memories but they began their Session and Sanctions with that solemn approbation confirmation of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 former ancient Customes or Orders of the Church-Catholick as holy and Authentick which all men knew had prevailed from the beginning Nor was there then any doubt or debate in the generall as to the point of Episcopall presidency or jurisdiction however as to their respective Dioceses and particular distributions some disputes had risen But as to the succession of chief Bishops from the very Apostles daies and