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
they ever turne any lawfull Prince out of doores to make way for themselves and their Episcopall Authority or party Which method as I touched appeares to have been used even by the first Presbyterians in the world even at Geneva as some report where popular fury violently expelled not onely the Bishop but the lawfull Prince of that City who had of right not onely the spirituall jurisdiction but also the civil dominion of that Place and Territory as Bodin and Mr. Calvin confesse After this copy in many places turbulent spirits did endeavour arte vel Marte by power or policy by hook or by crook to bring in that new way into Cities and Countries and no where I find more remarkably than in Scotland during the minority of King James and the raigne of his mother How little regard was had to the Lawes or Religion then established to the Will or Authority of the supreme Magistrate how insolent petulant imperious audacious were some Presbyterian spirits there against Princes as well as Bishops is no newes to those that have read the histories of that Church among which none exceeds that of Dr. Spotswood Arch-Bishop of St. Andrewes set forth by the care of Dr. Duppa the Learned and Reverend Bishop of Salisbury a person of such Piety Patience and Prudence under his undeserved sufferings that not onely his friends but his and all Bishops enemies admire the Christian gravity and heroick greatnesse of his mind as well as others of his Order How far the like spirit plotted threatned acted and attempted in England in Queen Eliz. time so afterward in K. James his raigne and now at last in K. Charles his compleat Tragedies ful sore against his will and conscience no lesse than against the Lawes not then by any power repealed both Mr. Hooker Bishop Bilson Bishop Bancroft Archbishop Whitgift Mr. Cambden and many more of old together with our own late sad experience sufficiently informe us They of old began with scandalous petitions scurrilous libels bold admonitions rude menacings cunning contrivances which were followed at last with fire and sword with blood and ruine with sad division and great devastation to Church and State to Prince and People Which events are no wonder when any new thing pretending to Religion and Reformation may be carryed on by principles and practices of violence and force and these not because lawfull but because they are said to be necessary for Gods interest yea as instances of the highest zeal and most conscientious courage as if there never were nor could ever be any truth or faith any piety or sanctity any Christ or Christianity any Grace or Gospel in the Church or any Christians hearts unlesse Anabaptisme or Presbyterisme or Independentisme had not gently contested but rudely justled Episcopacy out of the Church of England as well as Scotland though full sore against the will of the Chief Magistrate Certainly military or mutinous methods of Religion and Reformation were never preached or practised meditated or endeavoured by any worthy Prelates Presbyters or people of that perswasion For they doe not think that Secular Arms are fit Engines to set up Jesus Christ or his Kingdome in this world which is not of this world nor after the methods of worldly power and force yea they hold that Soveraigne Princes as Christians ought not by brutish force to compel but by reason and due instruction to perswade their Subjects at first to the true Religion much lesse are weapons in the hands of Subjects meet instruments to convince or convert Princes forcibly to yield to any popular presumptions and meer innovations in Religion especially when contrary not onely to the Catholick Customes of all Churches but to the present constitution of that Church of which the Prince is a chief part yea against that personall oath by which a Prince hath sworn to preserve the setled and just rights and priviledges both of that Church and those Church-men which are in his Dominion What is more horrid than to have Reformation or Religion never so good and true thus crammed down the consciences of Kings or States whether they will or no which is the way to make all secular powers jealous of all Christianity and Reformation to set their faces and their forces against them as seditious injurious mutinous and rebellious against the publick peace the civil Rights Honors and Authorities of all Governours in Kingdoms and States The Episcopall and Evangelicall methods have been quite other as I have said by preaching and praying by patient sufferings and frequent Martyrdomes by attending Gods leisure and their Princes pleasures Thus they obtained the protection and favour of the Lawes other projects or policies other arts or armes were never known to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ or its unseparable attendant Episcopacy Thus did Evangelicall Bishops and their Clergy conquer by a meek gentle and unbloody Conquest the vast Roman world and that part of it which was here in Britany no people were so barbarous no Princes so tyrannous whom they did not soften and sweeten by that Evangelicall way and spirit which is called an anointing because it is a sacred balme or oyle which breaks not heads but hearts wounds not the bodies but the spirits of Princes and others with an healing stroke with a soft and mercifull wound Thus did the Crosse of Christ and the Crosiers of Bishops ever go together into all places not pulling down but exalting not shaking but setling the Crownes of Kings and Princes Though they were Heathens Unbelievers and Persecutors as all at first were yet did holy Bishops and their Clergy so far submit to their civil power as to pray and preach not onely faith in Christ but fidelity to Kings teaching not onely Religion but Allegeance yea they made the Allegeance of Christian subjects and souldiers even to heathen Emperours as Tertullian saith a great part and note of true Religion which perfectly abhors all rebellion against God or man as the sin of witchcraft it being as an apostasie from and an abnegation of the true God and true Religion when upon any godly and specious pretentions of Piety or Reformation as by so many charmes and enchantments of the Devil turning himself into an Angel of light Christian Preachers or Professors do begin and carry on factious tumultuous and rebellious motions against the civil Powers Lawes and Polities of any Prince or State It is upon the point a denying of the faith and setting up a new Gospel a Judaick or Mahometan not a Christian Messiah whose true servants and souldiers were alwaies armed with weapons that were spirituall not carnal ministerial not military or martial which in Church-men rather stab and wound all true Religion and Reformation to the heart by infinite scandals injuries and deformities than any way advance it either to a greater power or approbation and acceptance among men of any sober reason or morall sense of things No violence and injustice
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
oath that he aimed at no more than his Duchy yet afterward aspired gained the Kingdom of England by the name of King Edward the fourth so some Presbyters at first pretended onely to claime a coordinate exercise of Counsell and assistance with Bishops in some things consisting with a modest and orderly subordination to them as chief Fathers of their Ecclesiasticall Tribes and Families yea I knew some chief Rabbies of them have professed that they cryed down and covenanted onely against the Tyrannick Government of Prelates and the over-grown train of their Officialls shewing some reason to regulate Episcopacy by reducing it to the modesty of Primitive patternes Yet this motion was no sooner begun among us but we see it increased to such a violence as kindled the ambition of some people and Presbyters so hot against all Bishops that the best of them and many of them were incomparable men excellent Christians and most admirable Bishops were counted Refractory Popish and Antichristian with all their abetters because they would not tamely contribute to their own utter destruction and presently consent to the reproch of this and all ancient Churches where Bishops I think were as well known and as long used as the Sacraments or the Scriptures Yea at last the contention grew so sharp that it not onely whetted many tongues and pens but it came to swords ending if it be ended in much blood Presbyters challenging to have not only a meet share and concurrent influence as was ancient in Ignatius and St. Cyprians and St. Austins times and which might be very fitting and usefull in Church-Government but they will have all or none and this upon Christs title Bishops as usurpers for 1600. years must have no faire quarter nay none at all but persons and power must be wholly exautorated extirpated impoverished contemned abased undone Though they had done nothing but what either the Lawes commanded or the Prince in whom by law was the chief Ecclesiasticall as well as civill power indulged yea and required them to do yet no medium no moderation can be expected between Caesar and Pompey Sylla and Marius Antonius and Augustus when mens Spirits are heightned by jealousies and emulations to seek each others destruction After all this the peremptory reign of Presbytery which cost this Church and Nation so deare was not long-liv'd nor could be well established though at first it looked so big and grasped on the sudden even at three Kingdomes For before it was warme in its nest or well seated in its Throne we see Independency got hold on one end of its Scepter or quarter-staffe rather threatning in the right of Christ Jesus and in the behalf of all Christian common people to wrest it quite out of the hands of Presbytery either by legerdemaine or maine force unlesse it might go at least halfe with it in the spoiles of Episcopacy and that share of Church-Government which they pleaded was due not onely to a few Preaching Parsons and ruling Elders but to the whole congregation as being holy the Lords people the body of Christ in particular This check made Presbytery much more tame and tractable than it was wont to be when it first whetted its tushes so sharply and brisled so fiercely against all Episcopacy root and branch hoofes and hornes no regulation no remission no moderation no merit of so many Godly Learned Moderate yea Martyrly Bishops heretofore and even then in England would serve the turn After all this trouble the more grave and sober sort even of those Presbyterian and Independent Ministers are brought as we see into no small straits and reduced to this great Dilemma of policy whether they should choose to put their heads again under the Bishops hands or under the common peoples feet whether it be more for the honor of their Ministry to be subordinate to grave and worthy Bishops as Learned Moderators Presidentiall Fathers and elder Brothers or to be thus everlastingly haunted with evill and unclean Spirits to be thus hampered with the giddy and ungratefull vulgar who are very petulant and saucy companions very soure and insolent masters Nor is this Triumvirate of Episcopall Presbyterian and Independent Antagonists and rivals the boundary of mens religious Ambition and contentions in England There are other Names and Titles and daily will be more and more new Sects and Factions which will have their Godly agonies and pretentions no lesse than those three have had Yea the least and most unsuspected the feeblest and silliest of them will serve either to kindle new or to continue successive fires of jealousies troubles seditions and wars in this Nation Take them all together and leave them equally to their severall principles and contrary operations they will be like the complication of many diseases in one body as the Quartanes Dropsies Scurvys Hectick Feavers and Consumptions of this State and Church not onely shaking oft and daily dispiriting but in time quite destroying the Beauty Health Strength Peace Safety and Honor of this Nation whatever it be Common-wealth or Kingdom Aristocracy Democracy or Monarchy For while mens Spirits are sharpned by daily contentions in Religion to anger emulations and ambitions who shall be greatest in popular esteem in prevalency of parties in number of Sectators in novelties of opinions and in presumptuous practises they not onely sowr to secret animosities but break out to open enmities from the least differences For the true life and power of Religion which consists in a Knowing Humble and Charitable Zeal for Gods glory and each others good this is taken off and extremely dulled as the edge of sharp knives by cutting of cork while mens head and hearts are wholly busied in whitling and hewing those small points and softer parts of Religion which consider at first it may be onely the ritualls externals and polities of it yet in time these continuall droppings undermine and overthrow the very fundamentals which consist in the Unity of the Faith the Sanctity of Manners and the Sincerity of Christians Charity to each other which held better in Unity Health Beauty and Strength amidst heathenish persecutions than they ever did or can do amidst Christians contentions needlesse and endlesse janglings of Preachers and Professors among themselves For these rising most-what not from the holy and humble warmth but the wantonnesse and luxuriancy of mens Spirits especially after long peace and setling upon their Lees do naturally break out to such boyles and tumors of Factions as swell every Opinionist and his party to the hope of having a turne or share at least in rule and Empire wherein the present prevalent party is ever jealous and impatient of having any equall or rivall either to affront or disturb them and the depressed parties still conceive they are injured and oft complaine of being persecuted Nay they are filled with Whisperings and Murmurings with Envies and Animosities though they be let alone and connived at by way of Toleration when they see the publick
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
upon your posterity If I had the opportunity to see your faces O honoured Gentlemen and beloved Countrey-men I should no doubt easily discover by the clouds and dejections of your looks what your thoughts fears griefs and sympathies are in the behalf of the Reformed Religion and the present state of the Church of England While some of Her destroyers walk with haughty looks triumphant spirits and threatning eyes You are full of tears sighs and sorrows to see the Church of England sometimes so amiable venerable and formidable for the beauty authority and majesty of Christian and Reformed Religion in it so much now divided impaired debased deformed and in danger to be destroyed And this after so many publick protestations so many specious pretensions so many pious precipitations so many Parlamentary heats and votes Ordinances and Acts to maintain the true Religion established in the Church of England After all which little other effects appear save onely these the hypocrisie formality coldness and unprofitableness of some Christians have been punished by the rudeness rashness fancifulness and uncharitableness of others who neglecting cordially to advance the great and joynt interests of Gods glory this Churches peace their own and others souls good have rather raised fomented small factions and carried on the poor concernments of different and divided parties in order to their own private profit and sinister advantages Hence hence these luxations distortions dislocations weaknesses deformities and almost dissolutions which have befaln the Church of England and the Reformed Religion once happily established professed and prospering in it which pejorations as to the piety peace and honour of this Nation no man that hath eyes to see and a heart to be sensible of can behold without sad and serious deploring While he sees not onely the outward order polity and harmony of Religion worsted torn and shattered but the inward bands of Christian love and charity so ravelled broken and cut asunder that almost all people in all places in Cities in Parishes in Families in Churches are full of bitter feuds envies enmities animosities and Antipathies Christians of different principles and parties do not love the presence or aspect of each other they look with jealous supercilious contemptuous evil eyes upon one another they do not willingly meet in one place nor correspond in civil affaires As for religious unity and mutual society they perfectly abhor as needles touched with the different poles of the load-stone any communion with one another in any sacred duties and Christian mysteries they thunder out Anathema's against each other they have different Churches or Bodies different Ministers and Bishops different designs interests different spirits and principles each studying as much to depress and destroy their rivals and dissenters as to advance their own sides and parties which dream much more of swords and pistels of fights and victories of blood and vastation whereby to set up that Empire and dominion which each affects in their new wayes of Religion than of humility obedience charity and other Christian graces The Evangelicall exhortations of Christ and his blessed Apostles to all Christians to love one another to live in peace to be of one heart and one mind in the Lord to speak the same things to walk worthy of their holy calling to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace to be gentle meek courteous tenderly affected forbearing forgiving one another these holy charms these pious and pathetick conjurings these divine prayings and charitable beseechings are much forgotten Those Scriptures which joyn faith and repentance zeal and meekness righteousness and true holiness piety and charity patience and perseverance together are practically interpreted as if they were meer Apocrypha unfit rules blunt tools weak engines to carry on the great designs that some pretend for Christ and His Saints who take their modell for a new Jerusalem more out of the dark descriptions of the Apocalyps than out of the clear revelations of all the Gospels and Epistles So that Christian Reformed Religion being very much resolved into fancy and faction there must necessarily follow great abatings not onely of Christian charity but even of morality infinite degeneratings as of mens passions and affections so of their actions from Christian sincerity to hypocrisie from common equity and humanity to mutual insolencies animosities cruelties Plead to some men Scriptures or Statutes lawes of God or man they reply Providences Power Successes urge the commandements of the second Table the holy Precepts the humble meek and orderly examples of Saints in Old or New Testament there are that retort new lights inward dictates spiritual liberty special impulses extraordinary cases In which they hold as once a person of very supercilious gravity also of versute and vertigenous policy a true Protestant Preacher who had passed through all shapes Episcopall Presbyterian Independent and is now ready for the metamorphosis of a Lutheran Superintendency he told me as his opinion That it is in many cases lawful for Moses to do what Pharaoh may not and for the Israelites to do what the Egyptians as men might not do that there are after the Gnostick principles which Irenaeus tells us of Gospel-liberties which holy men may sometimes take upon heroick motions and extraordinary impulsions upon their spirits fancies which those that are yet under legall bondages and restraints may not venture upon nor are capable of because they are psychici not pneumatici they may have principles of law and reason but have not the privy seal or warrant of Gods Spirit dictating or moving within them This was answered to me by that sage Dictator whose answers have more of the Heathen oracles ambiguity than of divine infallibility when I sillily urged those fixed rules of justice and unflexible bounds of equity and charity of righteousness and true holiness which I simply conceived were impartially given in the written Word of God to all mankind and specially to all Christians to whom that Word is now delivered and owned by them as onely able to make the man of God perfect to every good word and work Certainly it was ever esteemed strange Divinity among Orthodox Christians to hold that there are some special indulgences and providential temporary dispensations given to some sort of Christians above others to act at some times and conjunctures in such wayes as themselves must needs confess to he by the clear letter of the Law and word of God injurious unjustifiable and unwarrantable that is in plain terms unlawfull wicked and abominable which evils ought not in any case to be done that good may come thereby no more than Lot's daughters might lie with their father to prevent their barrenness or the defect of posterity Hence have followed those strange rapes which some mens lusts have endeavoured to commit upon the Christian and Reformed Religion against the known lawes both of God and man hence those presumptuous sins those enormous impieties
conveniency When Religion is thus setled by publick counsel consent and sanction it ought in all reason and conscience to be preserved in wayes of honour peace and safety more carefully than those banks are which by keeping out the seas inundations preserve our pastures and cattel from drowning else every Polity and Nation pretending to be Christian proclaim to all the world that they think Religion to be no better than matters of Scepticall dispute and variable opinion having nothing in it clear or certain as to any divine truth or infallible Revelation Of which since their ignorance and weakness or passion and partiality to which every private man is subject makes them less capable either to search or judge to dispute or determine the wisdome of God hath alwayes either established or exemplarily directed his Church to use and enjoy some such constant Conservators of Religion besides the occasionall Reformers and restorers of it which were of old the Prophets extraordinarily sent besides those that were ordinarily brought up in the schooles of the Prophets which were the nurseries of those learned and wise men who made up the Sanhedrim or grand Council among the Jews consisting of seventy men who were for piety parts and place chief Fathers Doctors and Rabbies in the Church of the Jews and the great Conservators of their Law and Religion Answerably we read in the Primitive Churches and times this care and power was by the wisdome of Christ fixed and by all good Christians owned in the Apostles and Elders to whom in case of any dispute or difference in Religion address was made not onely to hear their counsel and judgement but to submit to their decisions and decrees which bound every man to preach no other doctrine different from much less contrary to what that venerable consistory both taught and summarily delivered to the Churches of Christ viz. wholsome formes and short summaries of sound doctrine as well as in their more diffused writings occasionally sent to particular Churches and divinely delivered to the use care and custody of the Catholick Church Agreeable to these holy precedents every Christian Church in after-ages had within their several distributions or dioceses distinguished by their Cities or Provinces their Synods or Ecclesiasticall Councils for all those emergencies or concernments of Religion which arose within their limits and combinations proportionably they had more extensive Conventions and generall Councils in cases of grand concernment for the comprimising of all differences in Religion and conservation of the Churches both purity and peace These methods of prudent piety and pious prudence as they were of divine Institution so they ought to be perpetuall in the Church of Christ as being the onely means left for the conservation and reformation of Religion 'T is true in the dimness of after-ages when the decay of Primitive zeal love sanctity and sincerity had too much prevailed over these Western Churches the Bishops of Rome taking the advantage of the higher ground whereon the fame of that City was raised not onely for being the Metropolis of the Roman Empire but for being a prime Church of Apostolicall plantation and high renown for the Faith and martyrly constancy of its first Bishops these with no great difficulty as with great art and policy contrary to the judgement and practise of Antiquity for the first 600. years sought to fix the Standard of Religion in the Popes chair and to make his breast the great Conservator of Religion certainly a very easie compendious and happy way to keep up the peace and honour of Christian Religion and Churches if the Bishop of Rome could in the noon-day-light of these times either convince the world of his speciall gift of Infallibility or make good his claim of being sole and supreme Judge of all controversies in Religion above any other Pastors and Bishops yea and above a generall Council This late prodigious pillar or huge Colosse of the Popes infallible sole and supreme power hath as of old so of late years not onely been much weakned by many Churches Greek and Latine dissenting but by some it hath been quite overthrown demolished and broken in pieces as an arrogant abuse and intolerable tyranny contrary to all rules of Scripture and reason never challenged by the first famous and holy Bishops of that Church nor owned in after-ages when Popes began to usurp upon other Bishops and Churches by the most learned and godly men of those times This justice being done to the honour and liberty of the Churches of Christ and their respective Bishops or Pastors against the Papall obtrusion of his sole judicature yet no Reformed Church of any repute hath been so transported by just indignation against the Papall usurpations as to expose themselves and their Religion to the various breach and giddy brains of the vulgar but every one hath both confined and setled their profession by some publick profession as the standard of Religion also they have some such Conservators of Religion either ordinary or extraordinary as do take care that the established Religion suffer no injury or detriment This authority or power seems now much wanting in England though it be very necessary in my judgement which should so preserve the publick stability of true Religion as not to invade any good mans private liberty which ought not to be too severely curbed yet not so indulged as to injure the common welfare contrary to all rules of reason justice and charity These Conservators of Religion should not exact of private Christians any explicite conformity or subscription under penalty of any mulct or prison much less with the terrour of fire and faggot which was the zealotry of Papal tyranny onely they should take care that people be duly taught that Religion which is setled that none be a publick Preacher that is a declared dissenter or opposer of it that no man do broach any novelty without their approbation that no man do petulantly blaspheme oppose scorn or perturb that constitution of Religion which is publickly setled as supposed to be the best that no man abuse the name of Christian liberty to the publick injury All sober and wise Christians do see and feel by late sad experience that liberty in the vulgar sense and notion is but a golden Calf which licentious minds set up to themselves under that specious name as the Israelites did their abominable Idoll under the popular title and acclamation of These are thy Gods O Israel If common people be indulged in what freedome they will challenge to themselves wise men will soon find that their Christian liberty is no better than an Image of jealousie a Teraphim a Tamuz or Adonis offensive to the God of reason order law and government destructive to humane society dishonourable to the name of Christ and that holy profession which was so renowned of old as Christian that is the most regular meek harmlesse strict peaceable and charitable Religion in
these must exercise all 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
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
eggs the best of which are of no great worth and most of them are quite addle or rotten CHAP. XXIII ALthough I have thus far and thus long insisted most honoured and beloved Countrey-men upon the mischiefs of abused Liberty as the first and chief cause I conceive of the greatly lapsed and decaying estate of the Church of England and the Reformed Religion which was heretofore so setled so sound so prospered so approved by God and good men yet I cannot forbear a further search into this Ulcer or Fistula for indeed her hurt is not now a green wound lately made either by the malice of open enemies or by the wantonness of those friends who love to be alwayes pickeering and skirmishing in Religion but it is now by a long confluence of ill humours in people grown a venomous and inveterate sore contumacious to any ordinary Medicines opprobrious to the best Physitians contagious to the remaining parts of this Civil and Ecclesiastical body which have any thing in them sound and sincere many of which especially among the common people being weak are less able to resist that petulant poyson and spreading itch of liberty which is so bewitching a name to the populacy a temptation and infection which few vulgar spirits are able to resist or willing to remedy And indeed the mischief seising like Mercury or Quicksilver upon the spirits and brains of men that are rash easie heady it makes them presently suspect and shortly to hate all those as their enemies who go about to curb or cure so welcome and flattering a disease which is not less dangerous because delightfull for commonly all those things that are most agreeable to naturall men and carnall minds who love to be licentious prove grievous to Gods Spirit scandalous to the name of Christ and pernicious to his Churches purity or peace Liberty if it be in ill keeping soon putrifies to licentiousness as the manna did which turned to wormes Not that I am any way against that rationall ingenuous modest inoffensive charitable and conscientious liberty which is the onely true Christian liberty to be desired and enjoyed either in private or in publick such I mean as is neither touchy nor turbulent but carries an equall tendernesse to other mens honest and harmless freedome as to its own seeking onely by lawfull means either to remove those impediments of its well-being and doing that are really rubs or remiras in its way to heaven or else to obtain those holy allowed advantages which may most promote its communion with God with Christ and his blessed Spirit which holy freedomes and happy advantages are surest to be met withall as I conceive in those high wayes and plain paths which Christs Catholick Church in its nobler parts and ampler combinations hath constantly kept after the primitive proportions Apostolicall distributions of Churches wherein the majesty of Christ the harmony of Christians which is the honour of Christian Religion are infinitely more to be seen and safely preserved than in any of those by-wayes or diverticles which Schismatick liberty affects to chuse and follow which will at length make any Nationall Christian and Reformed Church that was heretofore grounded in truth guided with order united in love conspicuous with beauty fortified with its joynt power uniform in its solemn ministrations and orderly in all its holy motions like an army well ordered disciplin'd and bravely marshall'd to be like the routed parties and ragged regiments of a scattered and divided army It is an observation never failing That the sanctity of Christian Martyrs the honour and prevalency of that Religion which recommends the crucified Lord Jesus as a Saviour and preserver not a destroyer of mankind these are best preserved in any nation or society of men there where least liberty or license is permitted to private spirits publickly to innovate or alter dispute or deny contemn or subvert those Catholick Truths and Doctrines or those comely constitutions and customes which are once well wisely setled by publick counsel and authority which carried due regard to the glory of God to the rule of his Word to the Catholick precedents and to the common good of that particular Nation or polity All experience and our own as bad as any teacheth us that liberty in the vulgar sense and use is like a sweet and rank kind of Clover-grass with which the beast of the people will soon surfeit even till they burst themselves if they be not moderated and restrained from over-feeding by their wise Governours in Church and State The Histories of Sleidanus and others sufficiently shew you in the last Century how wild the Boores of Germany grew even to a kind of a Lycanthropy by such liberties as their teachers first indulged and themselves afterward usurped how quickly this charm like Circe's turns men and women into dogs and wolves how abused liberty having once seized upon the thatch and straw the petulancy and insolency of common people as most combustible matter like a masterless and unbridled fire it will devour more in a few dayes by the pragmatick folly of some extravagant heads and hands than the wisdome piety and gravity of your forefathers could erect or your posterity will be able to repair in many years or ages for no fires burn with more fury pertinacy than those which maintain their unquenchable flames by the oyl of Religion and Liberty with which they are least to be trusted who most love to play with it as children do with fire and gun-powder Common people like young heirs who have more wealth than wit are of so profuse an humour and so lavish of their liberty both civil and religious when once they think themselves masters of it that they will presently be undone if they have not some wiser men to be their Guardians who will be better husbands for them than they would be for themselves nor are they ever more desperately prodigall or more certainly miserable than when like mad-men they have by insolency or importunity extorted from their Governours and the Laws such a portion of liberty either civil or religious as they least know how to use and will be sure to abuse Let those men that are the greatest Tribunes of the people the seeming Patrons of their liberties but reall parasites of their licentious humours in Religion let them I say make but one years triall with how much good nature reason justice and modesty these people will use their civil and naturall liberty in which being absolved from all restraint of laws and fears of power and of punishment they shall have leave with the bridle on their necks to covet challenge contend invade usurp and take every man to himself such women such houses such goods such lands such offices such power and such honours as each of them most fancies himself capable to deserve or enjoy in a few dayes they will soon see how severe a revenge such folly will take of
it self both as to the actors and permitters If such inordinate liberty which naturally men affect and which imposeth on mankind the necessity of having publick laws and magistratick powers above all private mens fancies if it be so pestilent in civil and secular regards that the indulgence of it is no more to be permitted by wise and good men for one moneth or one day than a fire may be left to its freedome for one hour in any private cabbin or chamber to the endangering of the whole ship and house how I beseech you can it be convenient or profitable to the common interests of Religion or the honour of any Nation that desires to be called Christian to let every man pick and chuse their severall doctrines opinions forms and fashions of Religion as they best fancy or to suffer them to set up to themselves what Prophets Pastors or Preachers what Churches Congregations Conventicles they most affect one being of Paul another of Apollos a third of Cephas one Episcopall another Presbyterian a third Independent a fourth owning no Ministers no Religion at all Specious names and godly pretensions may be very pernicious to the peace of the Church the honour of Christ and the good of mens souls as the blessed Apostle there observes through the folly and factiousness of people Better the most deserving names how much more the most flattering Novellers in the world should be buried in eternal oblivion than they should be set up in the Church of Christ as so many apples of contention so many wedges of division so many rivals to the glory of Christ so many moths to religious unity and the Churches beauty so many Molechs or Idols through whose fires your posterity as Christians that are not yours onely but Gods children and as it were Christs seed and off-spring should be forced to pass with popular noyses and incondite acclamations of liberty onely to drown the sad cries of those poor souls who are to be tormented in those flames those Tophets of uncharitable novelties and factious liberties Christian liberty as vulgar spirits commonly use it is but a corroding salve spread on a silk plaister it is a confection of carnal projects wrought up with spirituall mixtures it is poyson presented in a gilt cup the Devils rats-bane mingled with sugar The sad effects already upon us in England and further threatning us do promise nothing upon this account but envies wraths strifes jealousies animosities whisperings swellings tumults seditions oppressions and mutual persecutions with every evil work among us as men and Christians CHAP. XXVI NOr are these mischiefs only rife among Lay-men or ordinary people whose ignorance meanness and discontent are prone to tempt them to any thing but even among those who desire to be called the Ministers Teachers Pastors leaders of the people for even these in many places either mis-led by the people or sadly misleading them are very much bitten and infected with this epidemicall disease of mistaken corrupted and abused liberties in matters of Religion both as to Doctrine and Worship as to Ecclesiasticall order and Ministeriall authority many of these otherwise men of worth for soundness and integrity no way unfit for the work or unworthy to have the honour of being Ministers of the Gospel yet are miserably tainted with these divisions distractions and deformities even among themselves Which contagion among the Pastors as well as the Flocks as a farther sad and evident instance of the grand causes or occasions of this Churches present miseries and of the great decayes of the Reformed Religion I crave leave without offence to any of my worthy and deserving Brethren in the Ministry of what name or title of what stamp or metall soever they are a little to insist upon that I may by further discovering the rise and progress of our mischiefs the better make way for such remedies as your wisdome O my noble Countrey-men shall see fittest for the recovery of health strength and beauty to this deformed Church and the remnants of Reformed Religion in it As all experience tells us poor mortalls that our greatest enemies are many times nearest to us and oft lie in our own bosoms so the greatest mischiefs that have or can befall the Christian Reformed Religion in England do chiefly arise from some Preachers or such as would be accounted the Ministers of Christs Church under severall notions and formations Vulgar reproches plebeian contempts the injuries of Lay-men yea the persecutions of great and mighty men the Clergie or true Ministers of Christs Church in England might possibly have born with patience constancy comfort and honour though much to their outward diminution if they had had the grace wisdome and understanding to have kept among themselves that harmony constancy and integrity in judgements practise and affections which became men that should be both wise and warm prudent as serpents and innocent as doves if they had as Christs Disciples loved one another though the world hated them if they had as one man held together like a well-turn'd Arch surely they might at once have upheld themselves and easily sustained any pressures laid upon them by the levity violence and ingratitude of other men the Clergie being as the cable and anchor of Religion which firmly twisted together and fraternally combined in truth and love will in time bring the people to quiet and calmnesse in Religion however they may have their storms and tossings sometime partly by innate fluctuancy as the rollings and tidings of the sea and partly by outward winds and tempests What Nation hath there been so barbarous what heathens so truculent what persecutors so inhumane whom godly Bishops and other Ministers have not by their exemplary faith patience unity and charity with Gods blessing in time softened and sweetened convinced and converted to be Christians while they all spake the same things carried on the same interests of Christ as it were with one shoulder These once broken in their orderly and uniform methods varied in their Catholick succession and authority divided in their fraternall concord and harmony the peoples minds soon grow distracted and are violently driven as ships from their anchors and cables upon a thousand dangers When primitive Pastors and people were most cordially united though they were most cruelly persecuted yet Christianity spread and prospered what the fury of men pull'd down that the care and charity of their Ministers built up twisting what others ravelled either as Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks which reparations of Religion were easily effected while the sheep knew their true shepherds following them or flying to them in case of any danger when the people knew their proper Presbyters and orderly Presbyters owned those Bishops to whom they were duly subordinate when all ranks and orders in the Church of Christ as parts in the body kept their stations and ranks their orders and correspondencies their proportions and duties either in
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
any Church-men in England had by their misdemeanour legally forfeited their use and enjoyments of such holy things as they had in Gods name and as the Churches servants yet certainly the whole Church and Nation had not lost their right in them Posterity could not consent to be deprived of those advantages of Learning and Religion and I am sure Gods title to them can never fall under any forfeiture or escheat whose speciall patrociny those Demesnes were In the Goods and Lands belonging to the Ministry and Church of Christ for the Service of God for the Education and Maintenance of his Ministers for the well-ordering and Government of the Church and Relief of the Poor who ever presumes to impropriate them by meer Power or purchase them to his private Estate had need have either a very good penniworth of them for they will destroy more than they bring or a better title than Ananias had to what was once his own or than God himself hath to them when once devoted and given to him yea they need more power to preserve such Estates to their use and their Posterities than God hath to blesse or curse both them and theirs I have read it as an observation made out of many Authors that the holy vessels of the Temple which were taken from Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian and tossed up and down to many Countreys and Cities in Europe Asia and Africa did as the Ark among the Philistins carry alwayes a storm and calamity with them with such a sacred horrour that no man durst melt them or divert them to secular uses or private benefit untill they were at last brought out of Africa from Carthage as I remember to Constantinople and there dedicated by a Christian Emperour to the service and honour of Christ in the goodly Church of Sancta Sophia which Constantine the Great built and endowed with many goodly both Vessels and Revenues as Eusebius tells us yea and commanded all goods taken from Christian Churches in former times to be restored Sacriledge what fair face soever it carries hath the taile and sting of a Serpent nor can any man die with peace or hope for the prosperity of his Family after him who knowingly is guilty of that Sin Modest and Honest Christians will not no not in their extremities take from God and his Church so much as a shooe-latchet to make them rich David would have been famished I believe rather than by force have taken the Shew-bread or Priests portion from them which was a work onely fit for Doeg who durst take away their lives CHAP. XXIII I Know it will be pleaded by some that are more politick than pious Religionis trapezitae 1. That civil Polities have the absolute supreme power over all things of civil Rights and secular Enjoyments to dispose of them as seems most for the publick Safety Profit and Honour 2. That whatever is acted passed and possessed by such Authority seems valid and unquestionable 3. that those Lands and Revenues which nourished Bishops Deans and Prebends were superfluous if not superstitious as to the point of Christian and Reformed Religion 4. That if there be any fault in any mens first invading and alienating things sacred yet private possessors either by gift or purchase of them are afterward in no fault as having the highest civil Right to what they so enjoy 5. Besides divers Princes and States have disposed as they pleased of Church-Revenues To all these pretensions every mans own reason and conscience will first and best give answer if it be not partiall and bribed by its own private gain but to open the eyes of such as are willingly blind I must tell them in words of sobernesse and truth with all due respect to whatever powers are ordained of God as supreme among men 1. No man as to his own private civil Estate to which he hath a good right in Law would think it just without any fault done by him or proved against him to be deprived of it and turned out of all by any reason of State How then can he think it just as to any Church-mens Ecclesiastick Estates that they should be outed of their Estates to which they have both a civil and religious Title both Gods Right and Mans Donation No Christians should offer that measure to Christ and his Ministers which they would not have offered unto themselves 2. Though civil polities mâ—y have the supreme power over particular mens Estates among men yet 't is a power sub graviore regno subordinate to Gods Soveraignty and ought to be subject to those rules of Reason Justice and Religion which he hath given mankind and especially Christians the greater any mens Power is the more strict the Piety and Equity of it should be for they are subject to erre and to sin no lesse than private men and are no lesse punishable by Divine Vengeance both singly and socially whole Nations may rob God and be accursed of him 3. Civil polities in their due conjunctures are indeed justly counted supreme upon earth being as they ought to be free and full when all Estates called convened and concerned in publick Counsels and Transactions have liberty to plead and vote deny and grant to hear and argue to judge and determine according to the conscience of all and not according to the prevalency and bias of any one party nor exclusive of any mens consent which ought to be had in such cases either as to the right of Enjoyment or as to the joynt legislative and supreme power which onely can make a legall alienation of any civil rights 'T is evident that the most united and excellent Parlaments in England for Piety and Peace did abhor and avoid Sacriledge as a sin against God his Church and all good men The Kings of England were bound by Oath to preserve the State and Rights of the Church nor were Peers and People lesse bound in duty and gratitude to God and man than if they had been sworn 4. It doth not appear by any Law of God or Man in Reason or Religion that any humane or civil power hath any authority or jurisdiction to the prejudice of Gods Rights and Interest whose the Estate and Revenues of the Church are in Fee as chief Lord being dedicated to his Service Worship and Glory and are indeed in no mans property however in Church-mens use as Gods Tenants The acts of power and will may prevaile among men and hold good in Westminster-Hall in foro soli humano but they cannot give a right in foro coeli conscientiae before Gods Tribunall or in a mans own Conscience which regard not actuall and arbitrary Power but internall Right and Equity which forbids any injury to be done to any man and specially to those that are the Ministers or Servants of Christ and his Church whose injuries redound to God himself Good Christians must consider not quid factum valet among
men but quid fieri debuit as to the exact righteousnesse which God requires The dividing Christs garment among the Souldiers and casting lots for his Vesture was not sufficient to give them a good title to his Clothes as their fees when Christ was so partially and unjustly condemned 5. The practise of some Princes or Common-weals is no precedent or rule for Christians to follow no more than Jeroboams reason of State to prevent the return of Israel to Davids house justified his Calves Yea though we read some tolerable or good Kings of Judah did make bold with the Treasures of the Lords house to redeem themselves and both Church and State from hostile invasions as the ancient Clergy oft sold their rich Vessels or Chalices of the Church to redeem captive Kings as our Richard the first and other Christians yet this is recorded by the Spirit of God to their diminution though it were but borrowing the gold of the Doors and superfluities of the Temple with a purpose no doubt to restore them in better times but we never read that any Prince or People of any note for Piety did ever take away the Lands and Houses of the Priests and Levites of old nor those Revenues Tithes and Oblations which were the honourable or necessary subsistence of Evangelick Ministers the very livelihood of many worthy men and their Families the publick rewards of learned Men and usefull Vertues also the honorary encouragements of all Ministers and advantages of Christian Reformed Religion especially in Engl. where Governours in some eminency wil be found as necessary for the order and well-being of the Church as Ministers are for the praying and preaching part 6. If the first Alienators of holy things be as principals sinners and sacrilegious against God and his Church I fear it will be hard for those to excuse themselves of being accessary to the Sin who knowingly accept or purchase them at the second or third hand however the title may by power be made good among men yet sure there is no Power valid or Title good against God nor can unjustice stand before his exact justice if no wise or honest man will deal in dubious Estates or crackt Titles as to civil Bargenings and Purchases much lesse where God and the Church besides particular men and Ministers too make so pregnant Claimes and clear Titles by Law that nothing but absolute will and power of man can be brought to make good the contrary Nothing is more for the honour of a Christian Nation than to have no men in it that would buy Gods Portion and the Churches Patrimony 7. He that had bought the Wedge and Garment of Achan ignorantly might have been excusable as to any complication with or comprobation of his Theft and Sacriledge yet no doubt he must have restored them as Anathemaes devoted to God if he expected any Peace or Comfort but whoso had knowingly bought or received them of Achan could not but be guilty of his sin and under the same condemnation nor could Israel ever recover its Courage Strength and Honour till the camp was cleared of those both goods and persons who stood before God under the brand offense and high guilt of Sacriledge 8. Every mans own experience or conscience will give him the fullest convictions as to this sin and I am of opinion that no mans Estate is so fat and thrifty by what he hath at first second or third hand taken or detained from the Church but he feeles the sharp stings and gnawings of his own misgiving conscience besides his famished and fearfull soul which justly dreads to look Judgement or Death in the face when he knows how ill account he can give either of goods unjustly taken and detained from the right owners of them or willingly bought at under rates from a second had If personall and private injuries done against the estate and livelihood of any one poor man will oppresse the greatest oppressor at the last day where will they appeare who are found oppressors of many men and these religious men too yea and Ministers of God and his Church for the good of the souls of many thousands for many generations Nor will it excuse some men that they are upon occasion zealous to relieve poor Ministers and other distressed Protestants abroad if they help to undoe and impoverish their own Pastors at home Sacriledge is certainly a scandall not to be so easily wiped away from the face of any Reformed Church and Religion if it were either the principle practise or approbation of any which it never was is or wil be nor can so great a sin be so cheaply expiated by any men with almes given to relieve some poor men in their distresses But I have done with this Viper this Dragon this fiery flying Serpent against whose poyson and fiercenesse I know no Antidote sufficient but a pure heart innocent hands and a good conscience nor is any charm potent enough to resist its contagion among mean and mercenary spirits when once it comes to be an indulged and exemplary mischief fortified as with a Law yea consecrated as the brazen serpent for an healing Emblem that is a Lay-meanes to reform Churches to regulate Clergy-men and to recommend Christian Religion which must all be impoverished that they may be improved No armes are strong enough to give check and repression to its insolency but such thunder-bolts as Jupiter is said to have used against Typhoeus or Briareus or Enceladon such Giants as designed to pillage the Gods and to sack Heaven it self whom the Poets fancied to be cast into those Tophets or burning Mountains such as are Aetna Vesuvius and others the fittest terrours of everlasting burnings to scare men from Sacriledge which is a mischief a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beyond any that can befall true Religion or mankind especially when it pretends most to befriend and regulate Religion Such Sacriledge as a clandestine persecution is worse than any open hostility for this invited even enemies to embrace a profession adorned with such Saintly patience and heroick constancy but the other alienates all both Friends and Strangers from such Religion as is felo de se cuts its own throat mocks and strips its Saviour thieves from its God impoverisheth and debaseth his Priests and Ministers gives nothing but scandals and offences to all men of any just Principles and generous Piety not onely to Divines and Preachers but to Princes Noblemen Gentlemen Lawyers and Souldiers both Protestant and Papist who have any value of their Saviour respect to their God gratitude to their Preachers or love to true Religion and true Reformation Not but that I know many men in a licentious and presumptuous Age which nothing but daily thunder-bolts can confute like deaf Adders after all is said that can be against Sacriledge yet flatter themselves in the good purchases they make of Church-lands They reply with great confidence that many grow rich who dwell
Foxes and wild Boars of Romish Power and Policy to enter in and not onely secretly but openly as occasion shall serve to destroy all the remaining stock of the true Protestants and Professors of the Reformed Religion who at first soberly protesting against Popish Errours and Deformities afterwards praying in-vain for a joynt and just Reformation did at last reform themselves after the rule of Gods Word interpreted by the Catholick Practise of purest Antiquity What without a miracle can hinder the Papall prevalency in England when once sound Doctrine is shaken corrupted despised when Scriptures are wrested by every private interpreter when the ancient Creeds and Symbols the Lords Prayer and Ten Commandements all wholsome forms of sound Doctrine and Devotion the Articles and Liturgy of such a Church together with the first famous Councils all are slighted vilified despised and abhorred by such English-men as pretend to be great Reformers when neither pristine Respect nor Support Credit nor Countenance Maintenance nor Reverence shall be left either to the Reformed Religion or the Ministry of it without which they will hardly be carried on beyond the fate of Pharaohs Chariots when their wheeles were taken off which is to be overwhelmed and drowned in the Romish red Sea which will certainly overflow all when once England is become not onely a dunghill and Tophet of Hereticall filth and Schismaticall fire but an Aceldama or field of blood by mutuall Animosities and civil Dissentions arising from the variations and confusions of Religions All which as the Roman Eagle now foresees and so followes the camp of Sectaries as Vultures and Birds of prey are wont to doe Armies so no man not blinded with private passions and present interest is so simple as not to know that it will in time terribly seize upon the blind dying or dead carkase of this Church and Nation whose expiration will be very visible when the Purity Order and Unity of Religion the Respect Support and Authority of the Ministry is vanished and banished out of England by the neglect of some the Malice Madnesse and Ingratitude of others your most unhappy Countrey-men Then shall the Israel of England return to the Egypt of Rome then shall the beauty of our Sion be captive to the bondage of Babylons either Superstition or Persecution from both which I beseech God to deliver us As an Omen of the future fate how many persons of fair Estates others of good parts and hopefull Learning are already shrewdly warped and inclined to the Church of Rome and either actually reconciled or in a great readinesse to embrace that Communion which excommunicates all Greek and Latine Churches Eastern Western and African Christians which will not submit to its Dominion and Superstition chiefly moved hereto because they know not what to make of or expect from the Religion and Reformation of the Church of England which they see so many zealous to reproch and ruine so few concerned to relieve restore or pity As for the return of you my noble Countrey-men and your Posterity to the Roman Subjection and Superstition I doubt not but many of you most of you all of you that are persons of judicious and consciencious Piety doe heartily deprecate it and would seriously avoid it to the best of your skill and power as indeed you have great cause both in Prudence and Conscience in Piety and Policy yet I believe none of you can flatter your selves that the next Century shall defend the Reformed Religion in England from Romish Pretensions Perswasions and Prevalencies as the last hath done while the Dignity Order and Authority of the Ministry the Government of excellent Bishops the Majesty and Unity of this reformed Church and its Religion were all maintained by the unanimous vote consent and power of all Estates Nay the Dilemma and distressed choice of Religion is now reduced to this that many peaceable and well-minded Christians having been so long harrassed bitten and worried with novell Factions and pretended Reformations would rather chuse that their Posterity if they may but have the excuse of ignorance in the main controversies to plead for Gods mercy in their joining to that Communion which hath so strong a relish of Egyptian Leeks and Onions of Idolatry and Superstition besides unchristian Arrogancy and intolerable Ambition that their Posterity I say should return to the Roman party which hath something among them setled orderly and uniform becoming Religion than to have them ever turning and tortured upon Ixions wheel catching in vain at fancifull Reformations as Tantalus at the deceitfull waters rolling with infinite paines and hazard the Reformed Religion like Sisyphus his stone sometime asserting it by Law and Power otherwhile exposing it to popular Liberty and Loosenesse than to have them tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine with the Fedities Blasphemies Animosities Anarchies Dangers and Confusions attending fanatick Fancies quotidian Reformations which like botches or boiles from surfeited and unwholsome bodies do daily break out among those Christians who have no rule of Religion but their own humours and no bounds of their Reformations but their own Interests the first makes them ridiculous the second pernicious to all sober Christians Whereas the Roman Church however tainted with rank Errours and dangerous Corruptions in Doctrine and Manners which forbid us under our present convictions to have in those things any visible sacred communion with them though we have a great charity and pity for them Charity in what they still retain good Pity in what they have erred from the Rule and Example of Christ and his Catholick Church yet it cannot be denied without a brutish blindnesse and injurious slander which onely serves to gratifie the grosse Antipathies of the gaping vulgar that the Church of Rome among its Tares and Cockle its Weeds and Thornes hath many wholsome Herbs and holy Plants growing much more of Reason and Religion of good Learning and sober Industry of Order and Polity of Morality and Constancy of Christian Candor and Civility of common Honesty and Humanity becoming grave men and Christians by which to invite after-Ages and your Posterity to adhere to it and them rather then to be everlastingly exposed to the profane bablings endless janglings miserable manglings childing confusions Atheisticall indifferencies and sacrilegious furies of some later spirits which are equally greedy and giddy making both a play and a prey of Religion who have nothing in them comparable to the Papall party to deserve your or your Posterities admiration or imitation but rather their greatest caution and prevention for you will finde what not I onely but sad experience of others may tell you that the sithes and pitch-forks of these petty Sects and plebeian Factions will be as sharp and heavy as the Papists Swords and Faggots heretofore were both to your religious and civil Happinesse CHAP. XXIX FOr however the feeblenesse and paucity of lesser Sects and Factions in Religion in some places their mutuall
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
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
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
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
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
counted arrogancy their very zeal seems either impatient oâ—â—â—â—â—olent All nations ever abhorred a beggerly Priesthood as a blasphemous disparaging of the honor of their God Nor is indeed in my judgement any thing at this day more worthy of the Wisdome Piety and Honor of this Nation after all its long war and vast expences military than to begin to think of doing their duty to God by finding out and effectually using some fit meanes to put on Christs cloaths again to make every Church-living in England and Wales so competent as may maintaine one and in some great populous places two competent Ministers that both Preaching Catechizing and Visiting with other offices may be more fully performed Alas what can twenty or thirty or fifty pound or less than an hundred pound a year do to supply the studies and families of any able and ingenuous Minister to keep up his Spirits from rusticity and sordidnesse to preserve his person and calling from contempt to make him in some measure Charitable and Hospitable cheerfull and considerable Much we know was once pretended for the setling and enlarging the maintenance even of the inferiour Clergy even then whâ—n much was intended to be taken away from the chiefest of the Clergy both of Lands Houses and Honors This last I am sure hath been sorely executed the former is yet for the most part to begin nay most Livings in England are abated twenty yea thirty in the hundred since those specious proposals just as the burthens of the Israelites were sorer after the newes of their deliverance O when will that blessed day come in which the just pitty and generous piety of this Nation will by some most prudent and equable waies make either a just restitution or some moderate compensation to Church-men not onely to maintaine something of publick Order Polity Honor and Government among them but so as may support private and painfull Ministers in their little Parishes where unlesse they be able to live in some decent sort in their own Houses and Tables they can never serve well at the Temple and Altar They ought at least to be redeemed from biting and debasing poverty though they be not tempted to grow rich a blessing now denyed to most Ministers beyond any that are publick agents or officers yea and the meanest Farmers mechanick Artisans Much envy spleen and bitternesse have by some popular and envious orators been heretofore vented against pluralities of benefices when two or three would scarce make one competent living A like censorious sharpness hath been used by some against Bishops ordaining and admitting to poor and pittifull Livings some poor and pittifull Ministers Alas better Ministers cannot in reason be expected without better maintenance Mend this and then in Gods name mend the other good workmen will not be had nor can they live upon small wages This deep and old core of this Nations sin and shame its sore and suffering in Religion ought first to be pulled out and cured then will strength health and beauty follow in all parts It is poverty tenuity and despaire that commonly tempts Ministers that are conscious to their neglected and unrewarded abilities to be either factious and popular or debauched and discontent This Church had fared much better if some Ministers bellies had been fuller Some were ready to flatter any factious spirit that kept but a good Table and would feed them without an affront others having an envy at some of their brethrens and Fathers preferments were ready to turne all to confusion just as Josephs brethren resolved to make him away because of his gay coate and his dreames of honor Men are then most willing to be quiet when they are at their ease There was scarce one Minister that had any dignity or Church-preferment yea or a good Living in England that was either forward or fomenting of our late troubles upon a Religious account Men that have most wool on their backs will be most wary of the briars and most obedient to Lawes both Civill and Ecclesiasticall As to the relief of Church-livings much might in a few yeares be done if the work were once well begun by publick advise and consent partly by buying in of Impropriations which are usually little improvements to any Gentlemens Estates and I believe no great cordiall to their consciences especially while they see the necessities to which poor Vicars and Stipendiary Incumbents are driven besides the sorry provision that is made for poor peoples soules in those Livings where there is scarce bran enough left to make aloafe of bread for the Priest or a cake for the Prophet Some advantage might be further made by uniting two or three little Livings that are contiguous or neerly adjacent it being no sacriledge for two sixpences or three groates to give a good shilling to the Temple Much help also might be by abolishing all injurious and defrauding customes which ought not to prejudice Gods right or the Churches Dues Nor would it be a small comfort to Ministers moderate Livings if their rights and dues by Law or Custome were once so valued and stated by an equable rate in every parish that there might be a power in some officer as in other parish-rates to levy them as they were setled and due without any further vexatious and chargeable suites at Law For if the Labourer be worthy of his hire it is but just he should have it without spending one half of it and much time to get the other yea in most cases the charge of a suite at Law comes to more than that is worth which is detained I know some petty Lawyers and progging Atturnies will not favour this motion thinking it will take grist from their Mills but such of them as are pious just and generous Christians will as readily vote for and advance such an Act for setling Ministers rights as they did that for treble dammages Last of all it would be an act of great ease and favour if Ministers might be exâ—mpted in part from publick taxes and Town Charges or at least be rated as for Goods and not for Lands Certainly these and such like as just as pious projects were not hard to be executed as well as invented if men had as quick a sense of their soules interests as of those which concern their Estates Greater matters by far have been done of late yeares with far greater expense and far lesse benefit to the Nation The value of one yeares tax laid in for a stock or foundation together with the additions of private bounty which I am confident would be cheerfully cast into this Treasury or Exchequer of the Church would in a few yeares do this great work I meane purchase in Impropriations which the Learned and pious Bishop Bedel calls Badges of Babylons captivity and plain Church-Robberies in his Sermon on Rev. 17.18 lately set out by Dr Barnard This Redemption should begin there where is most need We know that small stock which was
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
City and Territory after the Apostle St. Pauls death or they were still under some surviving Apostles generall care and inspection as St. John who yet lived in Domitians time when Clemens wrote this Epistle to those Corinthian Presbyters who possibly for want of some chief Bishop or President chosen and placed among them thus fell into emulations and factions which afterward were remedied by Episcopall eminency in that Church as St. Jerom tels us This is certaine as no Primitive Church had more early factions and more carnall divisions or more needed Episcopall Presidency that is Apostolicall Authority to represse the turbulent and contentious humors among both people and Presbyters so none had more eminent Bishops among whom one was that famous Dionysius whom Eusebius and all Antiquity so commend for a Bishop of most Primitive and Apostolick temper full of Majesty and Humility of Authority and Charity To conclude I find no disadvantage brought against Primitive Episcopacy but much for it by either of these most Ancient Writers to which all others after them do so unanimously and clearly agree for asserting the Venerable Authority and Catholick Antiquity of Bishops above Presbyters that for any man of parts to listen to the partiall novel and pittifull allegations which some Presbyters have made against Episcopacy and all Presidentiall Bishops contrary to those ancient Authors who were most of them yea almost all of them of that Episcopall order in the Church is certainly as senselesse a superstition and as vaine a divination as that was for which Hannibal reproched Prusias King of Bithynia when being advised by Hannibal to fight with the Pergamenians he refused because the entrailes of the calfe then sacrificed seemed not propitious Sure Sir sayes he to the King you cannot be well advised in your warres who rather regard the entrailes of a young calf than the Counsels of an old souldier and veterane Commander Nor is it lesse impertinent for any sober Christian to credit the pittifull Rhapsodies or scraps forced out of the Scriptures or Fathers and corraded by a few Neotericks to wrest them against Episcopacy and themselves too who were actually Bishops rather than to believe that uniform concurrence which makes wholly for it out of all Antiquity as in perswasion so in practise so far that not one person or Author Father or Historian Synod or Councill of any Name or Note Worth or Eminency can be excepted No not St. Jerom himself whose judgement and practise is cleare in many places for Episcopall Eminency and Authority however as a Presbyter he challenged an interest as in the Election so in the Counsell and assistance of Presbyters to be joyned with Bishops which is as prudent as ancient and not denyed by any sober man who adheres to Primitive Episcopacy For which St. Jerom himself gives so pregnant and ancient a Testimony as none clearer can be desired in the person of St. Mark the Evangelist who first planted and setled a Christian Church at Alexandria where he died and was buried After whom by his advise and direction no doubt the Presbyters of Alexandria chose Anianus as their Bishop a man endeared to God and man of admirable Piety and Charity who in celsiori gradu collocatus placed and owned in a higher degree than any Presbyters did govern that Church twenty two yeares as Bishop whose succession continued as St. Jerom saith to his daies in Dionysius and Heraclas Bishops of Alexandria One such testimony for a ruling and unepiscopall that is an unruly Presbytery or Independency without any Bishop would be worth considering but is not to be found in all Antiquity CHAP. XX. MY second argument or plea by which to reconcile sober men to Apostolick Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy is from that Evangelicall temper and true Christian spirit which is in it and was ever both owned and used by it as to the peaceable principles and obedientiall practises of all worthy Bishops and all Mininisters of that subordination in all Ages and places toward Civill Powers and Magistrates who both in first planting and after in reforming of any Church wherein they had a chief influence never applyed any popular rude and violent meanes to set up their opinions or parties any Church-way or power any Order Discipline or Authority nothing pragmatick mutinous or seditious was prayed preached or practised by them contenting themselves with sober sermons and devout prayers with doing well cheerfully and suffering evill patiently They never used any sinister policy or power no fraud or force nor any methods or engines to introduce Episcopacy other than such as were necessary to bring in Christianity in the true faith and holy mysteries of it which have ever been embarqued with steered by and either persecuted or prospered together with Episcopacy whose diligence and devotion peaceablenesse and patience both in their Dioceses and in their Synods or Councils assisted by Presbyters of the same adherence and Communion hath planted preserved propagated and best restored true Religion to all Nations by such demonstrations of meeknesse and wisdome as were loyall just pure peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated They never did any thing menacingly and boysterously against their Superiours with threatnings or tumults with sedition or hostility with faction or partiality They did not presently let fly bitter arrowes at the faces hands heads and hearts of all that refused their offers and motions but onely shook off the dust of their feet and quietly departed if need were as Christ commanded his Apostles and Disciples This was and is the temper of Primitive and true Episcopacy as to civill peace and subjection It is an observation not so strange as too true that all Spirits which are Antiepiscopall are in some respects antimagistraticall and most-what antimonarchicall enemies to Bishops are easily enemies to all Magistrates that are not of their own straine and way The first and great instance of which truth was and is in the Papacy since the Bishops of Rome forsook the first humble holy and martyrly principles of their predecessors and challenged in Christs Name a Soveraignty Monarchy and Tyranny above all Bishops not content with a primacy of order civility and precedency which was anciently allowed as to other Metropolitanes Primates and Patriarks so principally to the Bishops of Rome not for the honor of their first founders St. Peter and St. Paul nor for the renowne and orthodoxy of the Romane Churches faith for these might be and were as remarkable in other Cities as Jerusalem where Christ in person had been so in Antioch c. but it was consented and yielded to for the secular honor and glory of that mighty City which was as it were the confluence summary and center of all worldly greatnesse as the Queen of all Nations whence all Lawes and soveraignty flowed to the civilized world and terror to the other parts that were barbarous or enemies The Imperiall power and Majesty of that City induced
Custom and Canons of this as of all Churches also by the ancient Lawes of this Nation thus splitting even their dear Presbytery in pieces which was best embarqued with Episcopacy while they ran this on ground upon the Rocks Quick-sands the oppositions of power and the despiciencies of people between which all Church-government and publick respect is now removed from both Bishops and Presbyters Alas how pitiful a part of any Government have any of these Ministers now to act and please themselves with who affected to play a new game at Chesse in this Church onely with pawns and rooks without Kings or Bishops whose unseparable fate at least as to the Genius of England King James very wisely foresaw would stand and fall together if he had as wisely prevented the danger and damage of both it being very hard for any Soveraign Prince to govern such an head-strong people unless he have power over their minds as well as their bodies This a Prince cannot have but by Preachers who as the weekly Musterers Orators and Commanders of the populacy do exercise by the Scepter of their tongues a secret and swasive yet potent Empire over most peoples soules These preachers he knew were not easily kept either in good order or in just honor being men of quick fancies of daring and active confidences great valuers of themselves and ambitious to be many Masters yea popular and petty Monarchs in the Thrones of their Pulpits and Territories of their Parishes unlesse there were some men over them who are fittest to be above them as being too hard for them in their own sphere and mystery best able to judge of Ministers Learning Opinions Preaching Praying and Living men for yeares of Gravity and Prudence rewarded with Estates and Honors And such were Bishops without whom Christian Monarchs are like those Kings who had their thumbs and great toes cut off it being not possible for a Prince immediately to correspond with every petty Presbyter nor is it comely to contest with them nor can he be quiet from their pragmatick janglings unlesse they be curbed by some such Learned Authoritative and Venerable Superiours as are properest for them who were the fittest mediums between the King and his other Clergy both to perswade Princes to favour the Church and to perswade Church-men to preach and practise loyalty toward their Princes which tends to the honor of both Magistracy and Ministry So that it was no other then an obvious conjecture to foretel No Bishop no King since the same Scriptures and Principles of both reason and religion piety and policy lead men to obey both as rulers over them in the Lord or to reject both by affecting popular parities and communities as in Church so in State Which abatement of Kingly or Soveraign power in one person as to its civil Magistratick and Monarchical eminency hath by late experience been found so inconsistent with the Genius of this English Nation that the Representatives of the People have not onely importunely petitioned the restitution of Monarchical yea Kingly government but they have actually setled the main authority in one person under an other Name and Title justly fearing lest the dividing and diminishing of Soveraignty Majesty and Authority as to the chief Governour should in time make a dissolution of the civil Government by frequent emulations and ambitions incident to any such Nation as England is which hath so many great and rival Spirits in it prone to contemn or contest with any thing that looks like their Equal Nor do I doubt but Time will further shew us if it hath not done it already sufficiently that no less inconveniences and mischiefs both as to Church and State may follow the debasing and destroying of Ecclesiastical power and authority in England dividing and mincing it so diverting the ample and fair the ancient and potent stream of Episcopacy which flowed from the Throne of Christ and of Christian Kings into the new rivulets small channels and weak currents either of Presbytery or Independency The Scepter of Government in Church or State like the staff or rod of Moses when it is cast out of his hand on the Earth or populacy turns to a serpent Democracy being a very terrible Daemogorgon untill it be resumed into Moses his hand as King in Iesurun it doth not return to its former beauty strength and use which that did after it had justly devoured the rods and serpents of the Magicians as in time Monarchical Government will do all other kinds or essayes in Engl. which are but the effects of popular passions and encroachments carried on more by some Preachers Inchantments then by Lay-mens Ambitions Strabo and others tell us that the people of Cappadocia when the Romanes had conquered their Kings and offered them their Liberty as a Province or free State under them they refused the favour affirming the temper of their Country was such that the people in it could not live if they were not governed by a King So pertinacious were they as indeed most people in the world have been and are at this day to retaine the sacred Tradition of Kingly or Monarchicall Government which being parentall and Patriarchall is most naturall and divine derived to us by nature and confirmed by good experience ever since Noah and Adam who had their just Soveraignty as Fathers and Kings over all mankind derived to them from God the Great Father and Eternall King over all from whom Monarchy and so Episcopacy derive their Majesty and Authority Primogeniture carrying with it as Princely so Priestly power which made the same name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 41.45 Exod. 3.1 to signifie both Prince and Priest The want of either of which and the swerving from either of them commonly occasioneth infinite distractions in any Nation and Church especially if they have been in all times wonted to be governed by them To avoid which miseries among Mankind the Wisdom of God hath guided as most Nations to Monarchy so this and all primitive Churches to the royall Priesthood of Episcopacy from the very cradle or beginning of Christianity At which time S. Jerom to Euagrius confesseth it was toto orbe decretum a Catholick Decree and Order through all the Christian world which could be no other then Apostolical at least And however other Reformed Churches may make a shift to live and some of them thrive without the formal name and title of Bishops though most of them have the efficacy of the power and the reality of the authority in their Superintendents yet I am confident till English Spirits are wholly cow'd and depressed with war and such exhaustings as utterly dis-spirit and embase the Nobility Gentry and Communalty nothing will be more inconsistent with them than what savours of parity and popularity in Church-Government They will rather affect to have every one what they list which in effect will be no Government properly Ecclesiastick further then they may be commanded
greater difficulties and necessities as to his Estate yet never any had greater Antipathies against what he thought Sacriledge nor a less longing to tast of the Priests portion which he esteemed sacred because it was Gods dedicated to him and so vested in him both by Law and Conscience by true Divinity and just Humanity that he judged no power on earth could without manifest sin and robbery alienate it from God and his Church This made him so zealous not onely to preserve Bishops upon his Fathers principles but their Rights and Estates also because he thought them to be Gods and his Churches to maintaine whose right he remembred himself to have sworne in the first place at his Coronation and so was no lesse bound to them than to the rest of the people as to their civil Properties Lawes and Priviledges Certainly however some have denyed this King the Title of Pater Patriae yet he seemes to have deserved that of Filius Ecclesiae both Alumnus and Patronus of which he appeared more ambitious than of any earthly glory or Kingdom or Life For whence I beseech you before God Angels and Men do you think arose that his Princely and Christian pertinacy even to the death in the point of Episcopacy and Church-Lands Henry the Fourth of France could change the whole scene of his Religion from the Reformed to the Roman meerly upon reasons of State dispensing with conscience to preserve his Kingdom and his short-liv'd greatnesse yet is he cryed up for Henry le Grand how much greater is that King to be esteemed whose consciencious constancy which some counted obstinacy lessened him to nothing when to the very last he maintained those sharp Agonies Contests and Disputes he had as to the interests of the Church and Episcopacy which he counted his greatest concerns as to Religion Justice and Honor How did he encounter Mr. Henderson Mr. Marshall and others upon this point chiefly how indeed did he confound them by Scripturall grounds by Ecclesiasticall precedents by Catholick consent by the sacred venerable and unanswerable custome of all Churches till his daies What answers what offers of moderation and conciliation did he make as to this point of Church-Government to the admiration yea astonishment of his Antagonists Although as to Military successes and Civil concessions he yeilded much to an over powering power yet as to this rock of Ecclesiasticall affaires like the Ark upon mountaines of Ararat where he rested there he fixed there he continued rooted unmoveable invincible chusing rather to be dashed in pieces than to renounce his principles or to move contrary to those conscientious perswasions for which he thought he had such cleare and valid grounds such ancient prescriptions such constant presumptions that he thought nothing in Religion could be safe or certaine if in this point of Church-Government the Catholick Church were not to be believed or imitated in Episcopacy Good God! whence should it be that a Prince so knowing so sensible of his dangers when he saw the Presbyterian proposalls power and interests so pressing upon him for Independency that little stone was not then cut out of the Mountains whence had so great a restivenesse and obstinacy seised upon so great a Prince in a posture of so great storms and danger which would in all likelihood at first have been appeased if he would have cast this Jonas Episcopacy over-board and swallowed the Church-Lands into the Sea of the Exchequer He that could as to civil and Regall concernments much deny himself why should he chuse upon the Churches account to suffer so long a war so many wounds so tedious prisons so sad Tragedies living and dying For however differences at last were inflamed upon other accounts in the procedure of the war which necessarily multiplies offences on the conquered party yet certainly the maine propose and motion first of the Scots and then of the English Presbyterians was this Destroy the Temples of Episcopacy and set up the Synagogues of Presbytery Which any politick Prince would speedily have done at least when he saw so terrible a tempest in present pressing upon him yea and prevailing against him What Prince was ever so in love with any Bishops or any Church-men as to love them better then himself which in Reason he could not and in Religion he ought not to do nor would certainly have done so far as he did if he had not had such perswasions deeply rooted in his conscience of a justice gratitude and duty he owed to God to his Saviour and to the Church more than to the persons of a few Clergy-men which he solemnly avowed as in Gods presence to Mr. Marshall of Finchfield in Essex after a long conference at Newcastle as I take it had with him touching Episcopacy as Mr. Marshall himself soon after told me assuring him and conjuring him to assure others of his Majesties uprightnesse and resolvednesse in this point of Episcopacy as to matter of Conscience and not of State or Policy else in point of secular advantages his own peace and preservation the publick tranquillity the increase of his revenue by the Confiscation of Bishops and Cathedral-Lands would have amounted to much more benefit than ever he or his could expect from a few Bishops Deans and Prebends Thus riveted was the Kings Conscience to Episcopacy unable upon any terms till convinced not by Arms but Arguments to consent to the utter extirpation of it although he offered condescended to many moderations which were from him as much in vain for nothing but root and branch would serve as all the Extirpators Allegations to his Majesty against Episcopacy to prove it not to have been the Primitive Catholick and Apostolick Government of the Church were in vain for indeed nothing was produced new all were trivial and thred-bare arguments which had been answered ten times by learned men in this Church and had for ever silenced all sober and modest men if they had had so great regard to the Churches Catholick and constant Testimony or to the Scripture-rule and Apostolick pattern as indeed they should have had Besides this insuperable difficulty fortifying Episcopacy in his Conscience his Majesty no doubt had prejudices enough against Presbytery as to its novelty its first violent intrusion his Fathers vexation it s now armed obtrusion upon himself a Soveraign Prince and chief Governour of Church as well as State to these were added all the former Troubles and Tragedies in Scotland by the scufflings of Presbytery against Episcopacy besides he saw the destroyers of Episcopacy already divided among themselves neither Presbytery nor Independency could agree whose the child should be yea he lived to see Presbytery when it had been set up in the House of God faln like Dagon with its hands and head broken off before the captive Ark of Episcopacy Mean while His Majesty and all the World at home and abroad saw the miserable Distractions Confusions Luxations and Licentiousnesse which brake in daily
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
well he hath digested these Bishops Lands which now seem as a Lay fee to nourish the Beast and Man not the Presbyter Minister or Bishop as him will give the world cause in after-Ages to look as narrowly to him and his posterity how they thrive as the Roman Souldiers did to the Jews Guts and Excrements when they searched for the Gold which they had swallowed as Josephus tells us Some are so superstitious as to imagine that Bishops and all Church-lands or Revenues properly such as pertaining to the support of that Order Government Authority Ministry Charity and Hospitality which ought to be in Clergy-men are like Irish wood to Spiders and venemous beasts prone to burst them so that vix gaudet tertius haeres nay though they possesse them yet they do not enjoy them for nothing temporal can be enjoyed without a serene Mind an unspotted Fame and an unscrupulous Conscience all which if this gallant purchaser enjoyes together with his Bishops Lands and other fine things which he hath bought truely he is an object of most unfeigned Envy where I leave him and his Vindication This I am sure some men Ministers and others are so scrupulous in such a case that they never think a good penny-worth can be had of Bishops or Church-lands nay they would not have them gratis to stuff their Feather-beds fuller lest they should lye and sleep less at their ease highly magnifying that one thing recorded as commendable among the Jews in their greatest Hard-heartedness Madness and Sedition that during the siege straitness and famine of Jerusalem under Titus-Vespatian yet they were not wanting to furnish the Temple Priests and Altar of God with that juge sacrificium daily sacrifice Morning and Evening which God had once required till the great sacrifice of Messias had finished all by his once Oblation of himself which their blindness and unbelief would not understand Nothing can be too much for his Service who is the Giver of all But I return whence I was forced to digress CHAP. XXVII BEsides the Preservation of the Churches patrimony and Ministers maintenance which needs more an honourable Augmentation than any sordid Diminution there is in the second place great need O my worthy and honoured Countrymen of your redeeming this Church its Reformed Religion and its worthy Ministers from plebeian Arrogancies and Mechanick Insolencies from private Usurpations and popular Intrusions whereto both some Peoples Petulancies and some Preachers Pragmaticalness or Easiness are prone to betray them to the utter dissipation and destruction of that Order Honor Power and Authority of Religion which ought by wise men to be preserved as much as in them lyes It is certain that the Ministers of the Church of Christ which are made up of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons duely ordained and united in an orderly Subordination are as the Arteries of the Body politick in any Nation State or Kingdom which is Christian these carry from the Head which is Jesus Christ the vital and best that is the Religious spirits to all the parts as good Laws do in respect of civil Justice and Commerce like veins convey the animal Spirits with the blood and grosser nourishment from the Heart or Supreme power Once check abate or exhaust those vital Conduits of Piety and true Religion all parts of Church and State both noble and ignoble will soon be enfeebled abased mortified neither Common-people nor Yeomen nor Gentlemen nor Noblemen nor Princes neither Governours nor Governed will ever have either that Esteem Love and Honor for Religion which becomes it and them nor will they receive that Vigour Influence and Efficacy from it which is necessary for them while in the general Levelling Impoverishing Shrinking and Debasing of Scholars and Clergy-men none shall have either discreet Tutors for their Children or learned Chaplains for their Families or able Preachers for their Livings or grave Reprovers for their Faults or prudent Confessors for their Souls relief or reverend Governours to restrain them or spiritual Fathers to comfort them for none of their petty Pastors Preachers or Ministers will appear to them much beyond the proportions of Country-pedants not under any such character of eminent worth either for their personal Abilities or any such beam of publick Dignity and Conspicuity as may either deserve or bear the love respect and value of either Nobility Gentry or Communalty in England which are all high-spirited enough Not onely the civil and visible Complexion but the inward Genius and religious Constitution of this Nation will extremely alter in a few years as it is already much abated and abased by reducing all Scholars that are of the Clergy or Ministry to a kind of publick Servility Tenuity and Obscurity beyond any men of any ingenuous profession none of whom are so excluded but that by their industry and Gods blessing they may attain such eminence and encouragements as may make them most useful both to Church and State both in Policy and Piety neither of which can thrive or flourish to any Respect Power or Splendour of Religion in any Nation where the Clergy are made the onely Underlings and Shrubs condemned everlastingly to the basest kind of Villenage which is a sneaking and flattering Dependence which posture not onely streightens and shrinks but aviles and embaseth the spirits of any men there being nothing left them as to publick Favour Employment or Reward under any notion of hope which might heighten their parts or quicken their spirits to any such generous industry as might at least seek to merit them though they never attained them for still the Publick will hereby have the benefit of Ministers improved abilities however few Ministers obtain the deserved eminency the merit and capacity of which is many times better than the real enjoyment Having thus commended to you the publick interest of Church and State as they are very much depending upon the Honor and Happiness of your Clergy in the last place I beseech all persons of sober sense and judgement not to suffer themselves to be so far scandalized against the true Reformed Religion or this Church of England by its present distempers and sufferings as to abate of you former value and esteem of Her or of your present pitty for Her nor yet of your prayers and endeavours to repair Her O give not such advantages to your own innate corruptions or to other mens fond Innovations or to the Papists Triumphs or every Jesuits Machination or the Devils Temptations as either to discountenance or desert or decry or distrust the former excellent Constitution and Reformation of true Religion in the Church of England in which I am fully perswaded in my conscience there was nothing wanting to the being and well-being of a true Church and true Christians The first your own inordinate Lusts will be well enough content with no Religion or at least such an one as shall most find fault with the Church of England and all its