first constitution of Bishops after the Apostles Nor can such a paternall presidency be injurious to others If rightly ordered Epist ad Evagrium adversus Luciferianos Ecclâ—siae salus in summi sacerdotis i. e. Episcopi dignitate pendet cui si non eximia quadam ab omnibus eminens datur potestas tot in Ecclestis efficientur schismata quae sacerdotes Propter Ecclesiae honorem quo salvo salva pax est Tertul. de Bapt. Presbyteri diaconi jus habent Baptisandi non tamen sine Episcopi autoritate c. Jeron Aliqui de Presbyteris nec Evangelii nec loci sui memores neque futurum Dei judicium neque nunc sibi prapositum Episcopum cogitantes quod nunquam omnino sub antecessoribus factum est cum contumelia contemptu prapositi sui totum sibi vendicant quorum immoderata abrupta praesumptio temeritate sua honorem martyrum confessorum pudorem universae plebis tranquillitatem turbare conatur Thus Cyprian complains in his time who was one of the meekest and humblest Bishops that ever were of the Arrogancy of Presbyters acting without their Bishop Cyp. Ep. 67. Mutua at faeda sibi praestat errorum patrocinia errantium multitudo Cecil in M. F. Desipit qui ad vulgi normam sapit Sen. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 24. contra Arianos qui suis numeris gaudebant in the due choosing and preferring of a worthy and tryed person who cannot be said to be imperious or to exercise any forbidden dominion over those by whose suffrages and consent he is worthily placed in that power and place for the good of them all which priority and eminency ought to be kept within those bounds of Christian authoriry which may consist with Charity and Humility And after all this we see by wofull experience that the want of that right Episcopall Government hath occasioned so many and great mischiefs in this and other Churches as do sufficiently shew the use and worth of it which was alwaies the greatest conservator of the Churches peace and purity in the best and Primitive times If any Object the vulgar prejudices and disaffections in many mens minds 3. Answer to vulgar unsatisfactions against Episcopacy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Instar navis tempestatibus â—actatae est Episcopi anima 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrysost in Act. Ap. hom 3. Ethi against any thing that is called Prelacy or like to Episcopacy I answer 1. The best observation to be made as from the vote and sense of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most men is this what they most dislike and oppose is most by wise men to be desired and approved It s no rule for good men to walk by in matters of Religion above all 2. I believe the generality of sober Christians in this Nation do so much see the misery of change and the want of right Church Government that they are both the most and best of them rather desirous of a restored and regulated Episcopacy than any other way which hath been tryed in vain 3. Neither headless Presbytery nor scattered Independency are without many great dislikes already in the minds of many good Christians who finding these remedies worse than the disease are prejudiced against them both 1. For their novelty being unheard of in the Christian world for 1500. years Nobis nihil ex nostro arbitrio inducere licet fed nec eligere quod aliquis ex suo arbitrio induxâ—â—iâ— Apostolâ—s domini habemus autores qui nec ipsi quidquam ex suo arbitrio quod inducerent elegerunt sed acceptam à Christo disciplinam fideliter rationibus administrarunt Tertul. de Praes ad Haer. Livi Dec. 1. l. 1 Hieron in Epist ad Titum and the last of not above ten years standing in England both brought in but abruptly as rising from private mens interests passions and policies with which Episcopall Government did not well agree Neither of them ever having had either the vote of any generall councill or the practise of any considerable part of the Catholick Church 2. Suspected they are by many for their prevaling upon this Church by a kind of force against the consent of the supreme Magistrate and this in broken and bleeding times Planted not by Preaching and patience but by the Sword and watered with civill blood Each driving their Chariot as Tullia the wise of Tarquinus Superbus did over their Fathers As if they brought in Armatum Evangelium Christian Religion in compleat armor and Christ marching like Alexander Hannibal or Caesar when as Episcopacy was toto orbe decretum with wisdom charity and peace by consent of all Churches in all the world approved as St. Jerom tels us and established even in those times when persecution kept the Church most in purity and unity with self and when prayers and tears were the only arms used in the Church to set up any part of the Kingdom of Christ either in Doctrine or Discipline 3. Because neither of those new ways ever yet had such plenary and peaceable approbation after due debate from the publike reason prudence and piety of this nation comparable to what the Government by Bishops alwaies had in all Parliaments and Synods for many hundreds of years since we had any Princes or Parliaments Christian 4. Neither of them carry yet any promising face of more truth peace order and honour to the Christian reformed Reâ—igion to this Church or Nation nor yet of more morall strictness and holiness in mens lives nor of more grace in mens hearts nor of more love and union as to mens affections yet in no degree so much as Episcopacy did in the Primitive and best times yea and in these last times too since the Reformation for although it might have some sharp prickles with it yet it bare sweeter and fairer Râ—ses than these last have done or are like to do and with far less offense 5. The same or worse inconveniences which are by any objected against Episcopacy in its age and decays discover themselves in the very bud and infancy of these new ways As much pride ambition tyranny vanity incharitablenese more Prophaness Atheism Heresie Blasphemy Licentiousness far more faction bitterness vulgarity deformity and confusion besides the needless offence and scandall given to most Christian Churches in all the world who retain the government by Bishops being as antient as their being Christians and descended from the same origin the Apostles and Apostolicall men 6. Neither of the new modes ever produced either Precept or holy example or any divine direction for them in any degree so clearly and so fully as Episcopacy hath alwayes done Nor yet have they produced any promise from God that they shall be freed from those inconveniencies which were reall or odiously objected against Episcopacy and which may be incident in time to all things that
cunning of some the credulity of others and the custom of most men serves where seconded with power to scare and amuse the world so as to keep the vulgar in some aw and subjection And in their best and foberest temper they hold That no Religion is or ought to be other than a lackey and dependant on secular power that piety must be subordinate to policy that there the people serve God well enough where they are kept in subjection to those that rule them From whose politick dispensations and allowances they are humbly and contentedly to receive what Scriptures Law and Gospel holy Institutions Ministry and Religion those who govern them think fittest whereby to preserve themselves in power and others in peace under them That where the principles of Christian or Reformed Religion which hath so far obtained credit in these Western parts of the World do cross or condemn the designs and interests of those in Sovereinty how unjustifiable soever they are for righteousness or true holiness yet are they by Reasons of State and the supposed Laws of Necessity first to be dispensed withall and actually violated Next by secret warpings variations connivencies and tollerations they are to be ravelled weakned discountenanced and decryed Thus gradually and fuly introducing new parties and factions in Religion which cryed up by men of looser principles profaner wits and flattering tongues also set off and sweetned with novelty profit and power will soon bear down and cast out with specious shews of easier cheaper freer and safer modellings all true Religion and the true Ministry of it and all the antient if they seem contrariant ways though never so well setled and approved not onely by the best and holiest of men but as to their constant preservation even by God himself Indeed all experience teacheth us 17. Ambition the Mâ—ch of true Religion That no passion in the soul of man is less patient of sober just and truly religious bounds than * Luctanter agrè fert humana ambitiâ— Christi jugâ—â— am Dei Imperitur nec libeâ—ter crutem giâ—â—â—â—â—ui sceptra captant diademata aucupantur Parisiens Ambition which will rather adventure as it were to countermand and over-rule God himself than fail to rule over man Nor hath any thing caused more changes tossings and persecutions in the Church than this forcing religious rectitudes and the immutable rules of divine Truth Order and holy Institutions to bend to and comply with the * Cupido dominandi cunctis affectibus dominantior Tacit An. l. 15. crookedness of ambitious worldly * Regnandi causa violandum est jus caeteris aequitatem cole Jul. Caes Suet. interests Insomuch that very Reformations pretended and by well meaning men intended have oftentimes degenerated to great deformities through the immoderations and transports of those who cannot in reason of State as they pretend subject themselves to or continue to use those severer rules of righteousness or follow those primitive examples of holy Discipline and Religious orders which Christ and his Church hath set before them but they must so far wrest and innovate Religion formerly established and remove the antient Land-marks which their forefathers observed as they finde or fancy necessary to the interest of that party or power which they have undertaken Hence inevitably follows by those unreasonable * Pope Pius the fifth could not with patience hear of Ragioni di Stato counting those pretensions to be against all true Religion and Moral Virtues L. Verul Reasons of State which not the Word of God nor his providence nor any true prudence but onely some mens fancies passions lusts and follies make necessary That the antient established Ministry and true Ministers be they never so able worthy useful and necessary must either be quite removed and changed or else by degrees drawn to new Modellings and Conformities which can never be done without great snares to many injuries to others and discouragements to all that have any thing in them of Religious setledness whose pious and judicious constancy in their holy way and profession chusing rather to serve the Lord than the variating humors of any men and times shall be judged pertinacy faction and the next step to Rebellion how useful peaceable and commendable soever their gifts and mindes and maners be in the Church of Christ To this Tarpeian rock and precipice by Gods permission and the English worlds variation in Civil and Ecclesiastical affairs doth seem to be brought as to some mens designs and purposes the whole frame and being of the Reformed Religion in this Church of England as to its formerly established Doctrine Discipline Government and true Ministry Not but that I know the Lord Jesus Christ can withdraw this his Church and Ministers as he did himself from their malice Luke 4.30 who sought to cast him down headlong from the browe of that Hill on which their City stood I know he is as willing able and careful to save his faithful servants as himself And who knows 2 Kings 5. how far God may be pleased to use as he did the relation of the * Sermentâ—â—â—â—cilla sequitur heri sanitas per servulam captivam liberatur leprosus Dominus De parvo momento pendent res magni momenti uâ— vel â—â—xima Dei esperâ—â—ur August captive maid in order to his mercy both for healing and converting Naaman this humble Intercession and Apology of the meanest of his servants who ows all he is hath or can do to his bounty and mercy God oft hangs great weights on small wires and sets great wheels on work by little springs We know that words spoken in due season before the * Monet Deus de proposito ut praeviniamus decretum quasi à nobis poenitentibus poenitentiam discat dominus Fulgent decree be gone forth Zach. 2.7 may be acceptable and powerful even with God himself how much more should they be as * Prov. 25.11 Verba tam splendida quà m pretiosa pietate bona tempestiditate grata Bern. Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver to sober and religious men and in the behalf of those who at least have deserved to be heard before they be condemned and destroyed I have read of Sabbacus a King of Ethiopia * Herodoti Clio. who being by dreams admonished that he could not possess himself of the Kingdom of Egypt otherways than by Sacrilege * Servil de Mirandis l. 1. and the slaying of the Priests he chose rather to lay aside his claim and advantages of War which he had gotten and to refer the Government of that Kingdom to twelve Wisemen who erected to the memory of that Princes piety one of the stateliest Pyramids of Egypt which yet remains How much more will it become Christians in any way of Power and Magistracy not to make their way upon the spoils nor lay the foundations or to carry on the fabrick of their greatness and
all Heretical or Schismatical insinuations when yet they never had any Bibles or Scriptures among them but onely retained that Faith which they at first had learned and were still taught by their Orthodox Bishops and Ministers which they never wanted in a due succession Of whose piety honesty and charity they were so assured as diligently to attend their doctrine and holy ministrations with which the blessing of God opening their harts as Lydia's still went along so as to keep them in true faith love and holy obedience Since then no man or men can give to others any such sure proofs and good grounds of their personal infallibility as the Scriptures have in themselves both by that more than humane lustre of divine truths in it which set forth most excellent precepts paterns and promises excellent morals and mysteries excellent rules examples and rewards beyond any Book whatsoever Also from that general credit regard and reception which they have and ever had with all and most with the best Christians in all ages as the Oracles of God delivered by holy and honest men for a rule of faith and holy life also for a ground of eternal hope Since that from hence onely even the Pope or any others that pretend to any infallibility or inspirations do first seek to ground those their pretensions of which every one that will be perswaded must first be judge of the reasons or grounds alleged to perswade him It is necessary that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infallibility of the Scriptures must be first received and believed by every Christian in order to his being assured of any truth which thence is urged upon him to believe or do Which great principle setling a believer on the certainty or infallibility of the Scriptures as a divine rule of Faith and Life is never to be gained upon any mens judgements and perswasion be they either idiotick or learned unless there be such an authoritative Ministry and such Ministers to preach interpret open and apply the Scriptures by strong and convincing demonstrations which may carry credit and power with them The succession then of rightly ordained Ministers is more necessary to the Church than any such Papal infallibility in as much as it is more necessary to believe the Scriptures authority than any mans testimony which hath no credit but from the Scripture Which while the Pope or others do seek to wrest to their own secular advantages and ends they bring men at length to regard nothing they say nor at all to consider what they endlesly wrangle and groundlesly dispute about true Religion or the true Church 12. An able and right Ministry is beyond any pretended Infallibility So absolutely necessary and sufficient in the way of ordinary means is a right and duly ordained Ministry which Christ hath appointed to continue and propagate true Christian Religion which ever builds true Faith and the true Church upon the Scriptures That as there is no infallibility of the Pope or other man evident by any Reason Scripture or Experience so there needs none to carry on that great work of mens salvation which will then fail in any Church and Nation when the right Ministry fails by force or fraud If we can keep our true Christian Ministry and holy Ministrations we need not ask the Romanists or any other arrogant Monopolizers of the Church leave to own our selves true Christians and a part of the true Catholike Church of Christ which cannot be but there where there is a profession of the Christian Religion as to the main of it in its Truths Sacraments holy Ministrations and Ministry rightly ordained both for the ability of the ordained and the authority of the ordainers although all should be accompanied with some humane failings Where the now Roman Church then doth as we conceive either in their doctrine or practise vary from that Catholikely received rule the Scriptures which are the onely infallible certain and clear guide in things fundamental as to faith or maners we are forced so far justly and necessarily to leave them and their infallible fallibility in both yet charitably still so as to pity their errors to pray for their enlightning their repentance and pardon which we hope for Where no malice or corrupt lusts makes the additional errors pernicious and where the love of truth makes them pardonable by their consciencious obeying what they know and desire to know what they are yet ignorant of Yea and wherein they are conform to any Scriptures doctrine and practise or right reason good order and prudent polity there we willingly run parallel with and agreeable to them both in opinion and practise For we think we ought not in a heady and passionate way wholly to separate from any Church or cast away any branch of it that yet visibly professeth Christian Religion further than it rends and breaks it self off from the Word Institution and patern of Christ in the Scriptures and so either separates it self from us or casts us out from it uncharitably violating that Catholike communion of Christs Church which ought to be preserved with all possible charity The constancy and fidelity of the Church of Christ is more remarkable in its true Ministry holding forth in an holy succession the most Catholike and credible truth of the Scriptures which at once shews both the innate divine light in them and the true Church also which is built by them and upon them The truth of which Scriptures while we with charity believe and profess both in word and deed we take it to be the surest and sufficientest evidence to prove That we are a part of the true Church against the cavils and calumnies of those learneder Romanists upon whose Anvils others of far weaker arms have learned to forge the like fiery darts against this Church of England For on the other side the new Models of Independent 13. The contrary extreme reducing all Churches to small and single Congregations or Congregational Churches which seem like small Chapels of Ease set up to confront and rob the Mother Churches of Auditors Communicants Maintenance and Ministry winde up the cords and fold up the curtains of the true Church too short and too narrow Shrinking that Christian communion and visible polity or society of the Church to such small figures such short and broken ends of obscure conventicles and paucities that by their rigid separatings some men scarce allow the whole company of true Christians in all the world to be so great as would fill one Jewish Synagogue Fancying that no Church or Christian is sufficiently reformed till they are most diametrically contrary in every use and custom to the Roman fashion abhorring many things as Popish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. In vitium ducit culpae fugasi caret arte Hor. and Superstitious because used by the Papists When indeed they are either pious or very prudential yea many count it a special mark of their true
which sanctifies reason to serve God and the Church in all comely ways may not use those principles and rules for order unity peace and mutual safety of Christians in their multiplied numbers and societies which we are taught and allowed to use in all civil associations Yea and not onely allowed but enjoyned to observe in Ecclesiastical polity and Government by that great and fundamental Canon of the Apostle 1 Cor. 14.40 Let all things be done decently and in order which must hold not onely in private and lesser parcels but in the more large and integral parts of the Church of Christ But Reason then and Religion sufficiently discover the vanity and impertinency of those novel fancies which are obtruded as necessary for all private Congregations when indeed they are and ever have been and will be destructive to the more publick and general good of the Church whose tranquillity honor and safety consists in such dependencies and subordinations which may be furthest remote from those fractions and disunions which arise from that Church-dividing and Charity-destroying principle of Independent Congregations Rom. 16.5 Greet the Church which is in their house 1 Cor. 16.19 The Churches of Asia salute yâ—u which was never used in any times of the Church further than the minority and infancy of the first planting while either Christians were not encreased much in number or not enlarged in place But when the first small company of believers multiplied from a Church in one Family to a Church in many Congregations which could not now with conveniency all meet together in one place they yet as branches still continued both united to the root Christ Jesus 14. The Church of England not blamable for its National communion and also to the main body and bulk of the visible Church by union to that part whence they descended and to which they related and they were not as Colonies or Slips so transplanted and separated as to grow Independently of themselves apart from all others Of which there is no example in Scripture or Antiquity It follows then That what was setled in this or other like Christian Churches was no whit blamable as any thing of meer humane invention or any superfluous and corrupt addition to any precept patern or constitution either of Christs or the Apostles who never prohibited the ordering of Churches in larger associations or Governments extending to Cities and their Territories to great Diocesses Provinces and Nations Since there is no precept or practise limiting Churches power and society to private and single Congregations Yea there are such general directions and examples in the Scripture as command or at least commend rather than condemn those analogous or proportionable applyings of all orderly and prudential means for union and communion according as the various state and times of the Church may require which still aym at the same end the peace and welfare of the Church both in the lesser and the larger extents which are justly so carried on by the wise Governors and Protectors of the Church according to the general principles and rules or paterns of pious and charitable prudence set down in the Scriptures beyond which in this case of the Churches outward order and polity there neither is nor needs other directions no more than on what Text and Subject or in what method and place or how long time and how often a Minister must pray or preach and people must hear Sermons or attend holy duties That antient and excellent frame then of this Church in England which in a National union by civil religious and sacred bonds was so wisely built and for many ages compacted together and which hath been lately so undermined so hackt and hewn with passionate writings and disputings and actings that it is become not onely a tottering but almost a quite demolished and overthrown frame This Church I say hath suffered this hard fate rather through the iniquities of times malice of men and just judgements of God on the Governors and governed who we may fear improved not so great advantages of union order power peace and protection to the real good of the Church and furtherance of the Gospel rather I say by these personal failings than for any either mischief deformity defects or Antichristian excess in the way and frame it self as to its grounds and constitutions Which were setled and long approved by very wise holy and learned men carrying with them as much as any Christian or Reformed Church did the lineaments feature beauty and vigor of those famous Primitive Churches which in the midst of heresies and persecutions kept themselves safe as to truth and charity not by the shreds of Independent Bodies but by the sutures of Christian Associations in Provincial National and Oecumenical enlargements Such ample and noble platforms of religious reason and sanctified wisdom as not ambitious policy but Christian charity and prudent humility embraced which as our new models and projections will never mend so they much commend those antient happy models and paterns by those multiplied mischiefs ensuing inevitably upon the presumptions of posterity which have rashly adventured thus to remove and change the antient limits marks and orders of the Church which Primitive Fathers and Apostles had recommended and setled 15. Seekers thence The Eutychian Hereticks refusing to subscribe the Catholike Faith confirmed by the Council of Chalcedon called themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ambigentes Dubitantes and after run out to all corrupt opinions Aug. de Haere Nobis qui sam credimus aliud non quaerendum Si enim semper quaerimus nunquam inveniemus nunquam credemus Tert. de Praes ad Hae. c. 10. Quemadmodum Atheorum pars maxima non tam credunt quam cupiunt non esse Deum M n. Fael Non facile invenient veram ecclesiam qui illibenter quaerunt Melancth Which temerity of thus mincing and crumbling or tearing any Church National being the issue of no Synod or Council in the Church but onely of private fancies and most-what mechanick adventures hath we see made some poor souls turn Scepticks and Seekers after true Religion and a true Church being wholly unsatisfied either with the abolition of the old way or the various inventions of new ways These profess whether out of weakness pure ignorance passion or policy God knows That they are Christians no further than to see that all Christian Churches are now and have been ever since the Apostles times adulterous impure deformed and Antichristian That they are wholly to seek for any true ground or way of Christian Religion Church and Ministry even among so many Christians Ministers and Churches That is they cannot see wood for trees nor light for the Sun at noon-day And this may easily be either by reason of wilful blindness or for want of that charity and humility which keeps the hearts and eyes of Christians open and clear or from that darkness and blear-eyedness which prejudice and
scandal speedily reform abuses restore defects execute all power of the Keys in the right way of Discipline without which there is no true at least no compleat and perfect Church for these men think Christians can hardly get to Heaven unless they have power among them to cast one another into Hell to give men over to Satan to excommunicate as they see cause to open and shut Heaven and Hell gates as they think fit Must all things that concern our Church say they lie at six and sevens till we get such Bishops and Presbyters such Synods and Councils such Representatives of Learned men as are hardly obtained and as hard to be rightly ordered or well used when they are met together They had rather make quicker dispatches in Church work as if they thought it better for every family to hang and draw within it self and presently punish every offence than for a whole Country to attend either general Assizes or quarter Sessions Answ Truly good Christians in this Church at present are in a sad and bad case too as well as their Ministers if they could make no work of Religion till they were happy to see all things of extern order and government duly setled Yet sure we may go to Church and to Heaven too in our worst clothes if we can get no better nor may we therefore wholly stay at home and neglect religious duties because we cannot be so fine as we would be Both Ministers and people must do the best they can in their private sphears and particular Congregations to which they are related whereby to preserve themselves and one another as Brethren in Christ from such deformities and abuses as are destructive to the power of godliness the peace of conscience and the honor of the Reformed Religion until the Lord be pleased to restore to this Church that holy Order antient Government and Discipline which is necessary not to the being of a Christian or a true Church as its form or matter which true Believers constitute by their internal union to Christ by Faith and to all Christians by Charity but onely as to the external form and polity for the peace order and well being of a Church as it is a visible society or holy nation and fraternity of men 1 Pet. 2.9 professing the truth of Jesus Christ Yea and Christians may better want that is with less detriment or deformity to Religion that Discipline which some men so exceedingly magnifie as the very Throne Scepter and Kingdom of Christ under Christian Magistracy as they may the office of Deacons where the law by Overseers takes care for the poor where good laws by civil power punish publick offences and repress all disorders in Religion as well as trespasses in secular affairs Better I say than they could have been without it in primitive times when Christians had no other means to repress any disorders that might arise in their societies either scandalous to their profession or contrary to their principles of which no Heathen Magistrate or Humane Laws took then any cognisance or applied any remedy to them Not but that I do highly approve and earnestly pray for such good Order comely Government and exact Discipline in every Church both as to the lesser Congregations and the greater Associations to which all reasons of safety and grounds of peace invite Christian Societies in their Church relations as well as in those of Civil which were antiently used in all setled and flourishing Churches Much after that patern which was used among the Jews both in their Synagogues which they had frequent both in their own Land and among strangers in their dispersions and also in their great Sanhedrim which was as a constant supreme Council for ordering affairs chiefly of Religion to one or both which no doubt our Saviour then referred the believing Jew in that of Tell it to the Church that is after private monition tell it to the lesser Convention or Consistory in the Synagogues which might decide matters of a lesser nature or to the higher Sanedrim in things of more publick concernment both which were properly enough called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coetus congregatio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo. Jud. calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nihil hic à Christo novum praecipitur sed mos rectè introductus probatur H. Grot. in loc Ecclesiae i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato Every polity hath in it power enough to preserve it happiness Coimus in coâ—tum congregationem Ibidem orationes exhortationes castigationes censura divina Praesident probati quique seniores Tert. Apol. Solebant Judaei res majoris momenti ultimo loco ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 multitudinem referre i. e. ad eos qui eadem instituta sestabantur quorum judicia conventus seniores moderabantur tanquam praesidet Grot. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. Bas in Chrys Beyond this sense none could be made of Christs words by his then Auditors to whom he speaks not by way of new direction and institution of a Soverein Court or Consistory in every Congregation of Christians to come but by way of referring to a well known use and daily practise then among the Jews which was the onely and best means wherein a Brother might have such satisfaction in point of any offence which charity would best bear without flying to the Civil Magistrate which was now a forein power When Jews turned Christians it s very certain they altered not their Discipline and order as Christians in Church society from what they used before in their Synagogues Proportionably no doubt in Christian Churches of narrower or larger extensions and communion among the Gentiles the wisdom of Christ directs and allows such judicatories and iurisdictions to prevent or remove all scandals and offences among Christians to preserve peace and order as may have least of private or pedantick imperiousness and vulgar trifflings of men unable and unfit to be in or to exercise any such holy and divine authority over others who are easily trampled upon and fall into reproach and the snare of the Devil by reason of divers lusts passions weaknesses and temptations but rather Christ commends such grave Consistories solemn Synods and venerable Councils as consisting of wise and able and worthy men may have most as of the Apostolical wisdom eminency gravity so of Christs Spirit Power and Authority among them Such as no Christian with any modesty reason conscience or ingenuity can despise or refuse to submit to the integrity of their censure when it is carried on not with those heats peevishnesses and emulations which are usually among men of less improved parts or ripened years especially if Neighbors Such a way wisely setled in the Church might indeed binde up all things that concern Religion in private or more publick respects to all good behavior in the bonds of truth peace and
pro corum inter quos vivitur societate observandum est Aust Ep. 118. ad Jan. Salvà fidei regula de D sciplina contendentibus suprema lex est Ecclesiae paâ— Blondel sent Jeron praef Furthermore The great Motor of some mens passion zeal and activity against this Reformed Church was that one Error against the judgement liberty and practice of all antiquity which is fundamentall as to the Churches polity and extern Peace namely That nothing may be used in the Church as to externals which is not expresly and precisely commanded in the word Which yet themselves observe not when they come to have power either to form and act some things they take in upon prudentiall account as their Church-Covenant of the form and words of which they are not yet agreed which they urge so their requiring each Member to give an account not of the historicall belief of the truth but of the work of grace and conversion which no Scripture requires or Church ever practis'd That of St. Austin hath been often inculcated by many learned quiet and godly men in this Church of England and elsewhere as a most certain truth That however the Faith Doctrine Sacraments and Ministry of the Church are precisely of divine Institution rising from a divine Spring and conveyed in a like sacred Current which ows nothing to the wisdom policy power or authority of man yet the extern dispensation of this Faith Sacraments and divine Ministrations together with the fence and hedge of them the necessary Government Order and Discipline of the Church in its parts and in the whole these doe fall much under the managing of right reason rules of good order and common prudence all which attends true Religion So that they neither have nor needed nor indeed were easily capable of such positive precise and particular precepts or commands as these men fancy and by this pertinacious fancy they have cast great snares on the consciences of many great scandals on the Churches both antient and modern and great restraints on that l berty which Jesus Christ left to his Churches in these things according as various occasions and times might require Sumus homines ciâ—es cum fimus Châ—istiani Salv. None but foolish and fanatick men can think that when men turned Christians they ceased to be men or being Christian men they needed not still to be governed both as Christians and as men by reason joyned to Religion which will very well agree carrying on Re igious ends by such prudent and proportionate means and in such good order as is agreeable to right reason and the generall directions of Religion which never abandoned or taught any Christian to start at and abhor Naturae lâ—â—en rationis radios non extinguit sed excitat Religio quae non vera tantum sed decora postulat Aust Phil. 4.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Whatsoever things are true honest or comly just pure lovely of good report if any vertue any praise think on these things or meditate with reason and judgement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what is taught by the very light of nature and those common principles of reason and order or polity which teach the way of all Government and subjection either of yonger to the elder whence is the very ground of all Presbytery or of weaker to the stronger or of the foolisher to the wiser or of the ignorant to the learned or of many to some few for the good of all None of which methods can cross Religion nor being observed in some due measure can be blamed nor ought factiously to be altered by the members of any setled Church in which there is neither Apostacy from the Faith nor recession from the Scriptures nor alteration of the substance of Christs holy Institution which this Church of England not-being guilty of but apparently professing and fully adhering to the Scriptures as the ground rule and limit of Faith and holy Mysteries We doubt not but however it used the wisdom of learned wise and holy men and followed the warrant of the Primitive Churches in the extern maner and methods of holy Administrations Government and Discipline yet it may and ought still as it doth lay claim to the right and honor of an eminent part of the true Catholike Church of Christ having a true Ministry and true Ministrations In which I believe all the Apostles and Primitive Martyrs and Confessors in all Ages would most willingly have owned and approved yea the Great God from Heaven hath attested it and still doth to the consciences of thousands of excellent Christians which have had their birth and growths to Religion in this Church of England So that the out-cryes abhorrencies and extirpations carried on so eagerly against the main constitution frame and Ministry of this Church by many who now appear to be men of little charity and strong passions and very weak reason as if we were all-over Popish Superstitious Antichristian altogether polluted intollerable c. Those calumnies and clamors wanted both that truth that caution and that charity which should be used in any thing tending to disturb or discourage any true Christian or Church of Christ whose differences in some small external things from us in judgment or practice we ought to bear upon the account of those many great things in which we agree with them as Christians Nor ought poor men of private parts and place in Church and State so to swell at any time with the thought of any Liberty and Power in common given them from Christ to reign with him or to reform c. as to drive like tipsy Mariners those rightful Pilots from the Helm or to break their card and compass of antient design draught and form by which they steered as they ought or as they could in the distress of times And this onely That these new undertakers may try how they can delineate new carts or maps and how soon they can over-whelm or over-set so fair rich and goodly a Vessel as this Church of England once was in the eye of all the World but our own This Iland was not more nobly eminent than the Church was great in Britany The leaks chinks and decayes which befal all things in time might easily have been stopped calked and trimmed by skilful and well-advised hands when once it was fairly and orderly brought upon the Publick stocks and into a Parliament Dock which good men hoped of all places would not prove either a quick-sand or a rock to the Reformed Church or the Learned Ministry of England But the Lord is just though we should be confounded in our confidences of men though neither mountains nor hills nor valleys can help yet will we trust in God who is our God in Christ who we doubt not but in mercy will own us with all our frailties and defects as his true Church and true Ministers And if in
relation to the Gospell of Jesus Christ did ever so much as dispute or question the power and succession ministeriall as to its calling peculiar and divinely appropriated to some men in the Church Till of later dayes in Germany and some otherwheres the pride of some mens parts and conceit of their gifts or the opinion of their raptures and Enthusiasms mixed with other lusts and secular designs tempted some weak and fanatick men of the Anabaptistical leaven to adventure the invasion and vulgar prostration of the office before ever they broached their reasons against it Confessores gloriae Christi An. 1543. When they after proved to be Pastoricidae Vilains which conspired to destroy all the Ministers of the Gospel in Germany hanging and drowning many of them casting them into wells An. 1562. Cl. Sanctesius de temp decept Irenaeus l. 4. c. 43. Qui absistunt à principali successionâ— Episcoporum Presbyterorum ab Apostolis quocunque locâ— relliguntur suspectos habere oportet vel haereticos vel scindentes vel elatos sibi placentes Oâ—â—eâ—â—i decidunt à veritate Sophistae verborum magis esse volentes quà m discipuli veritatis Iren. lib 3. c. 40. which presumption and disorder the Swenckfeldians who called themselves Confessors of the glory of Christ afterwards the Socinians and others intending to introduce new and heretical doctrines with their new Teachers studied to set forth with some weak shews of reason and Scripture Whereas in all former ages of the Church such as should have abrogated the antient Catholick way or have broached any new way of Evangelical power and Ministry would have been as scandalous as if he had broached a new Messias or a new Gospel and made the old one of none effect as many of those strive to do who seek to cry down the former way of Ministers right Ordination Succession and Authority Who if they had not met with a giddy and credulous and licentious age would have needed new miracles to have confirmed their new and plebeian ways of Ministry or to cashier the old one which was first began and after confirmed as the Gospel was for some years with many infallible signs and wonders wrought by the Apostles and their Successors in that Order and Function 3. What can be the design of any to go contrary or innovate What can it be then but an exceeding want of common understanding or a superfluity of malice or a transport of passion or some secular lust either to deny credit to the Testimony of the best Christians and purest Churches in all times or to go quite contrary to their judgment and practise by seeking to discredit and destroy the Authority and peculiar Function of the antient Catholike Christian Ministry in these or other Churches And since in primitive times it could be no matter of either profit or honor in the world In ea regula incedimus quà m Ecclesia ab Apostolis Apostoli à Christo Christus à Deo accepit Tertul. de Praes c. 37. Radix Christianae societatis per sedes Apostoloâ—um successioneâ—â—piscoporum certa per o rbem propagatione diffunditur August ep 42. to be a Bishop or Presbyter in the Church who were the first men to be persecuted or sacrificed What motive could there be then but onely Religion Duty and Conscience to undertake and persevere in that holy and dangerous Calling that so the Gospel might be continued And since now in England it can be no great temptation of covetousness or ambition unless it be in very poor and necessitous man to be a Preacher of the Gospel upon the new account of the peoples or self-ordaining which is as none what can it be that provokes so many in a new and pitiful way either of egregious ignorance and popular simplicity to undertake to be Preachers Or in a more refined way of devilish malice and deep design to seek to level cast down and trample under foot all Ministerial power whatsoever which is none if it be common and not peculiar to some men by divine Sanction Certainly this can arise from no other aim but either that of destroying us as a Reformed Church or desolating us quite from being a Church or Christians Which our posterity will easily cease to be as to the very form as many at present are 1 Cor. 15.14 as to any power and conscience of Religion if once they cease to have or begin to think they have not had any true Ministers in this or any Church So that all Preaching of the Gospel all Saâ—â—aments all the Faith of so many Christians Professors Confessors and Martyrs in all Ages together with the fruits of their Faith in Patience Charity and good Works must be in vain Alas these poor revenues and encouragements which are yet left to the Ministers here considered with their burdens of business duties taxes and envy are scarce worth the having or coveting even by vulgar and mechanick spirits who may make a better shift to live in any way almost than now in the Ministry The design then of levelling the Ministry must needs be from greater motives such as seek to have the whole honor and authority of the Reformed Religion here in England utterly abolished or else taken up upon some such odde novel and fanatick grounds which will hold no water bear no weight or stress being built upon the sands of humerous novelty not on the rock of holy antiquity and divine verity That so this whole Church may by the adversaries of it be brought to be a meer shadow of deformed and confused Religion or else be onely able to plead its Christianity upon meer Familistick or Anabaptistick or Enthusiastick or Socinian or Fanatick Principles Upon which must depend all our Christian Privileges Truths Sacraments Ministrations Duties and Comforts Living and Dying all which will easily be proved and appear to a considerate soul as profane and null when he shall see they are performed or administred by those Agnitio vera est Apostolorum doctrina antiquus ecclesiastatus in universo mundo charactere corporis Christi secundum successiones Episcoporum quibus illi â—am quae est in unoquoque lâ—ci Ecclesiam tradiderunt Ire l. 4. c. 6â— who can produce no Precept Scripture or Practise from Antiquity for their ways either of Christianity or of Ministry but onely their own or other mens wilde fancies and extravagant furies nor can they have better excuses for their errors in forsaking the right and Catholike way but onely a popular levity credulity and madness after novelties So that as to this first part of my answer touching The peculiar Function of the Ministry I do aver upon my Conscience so far as I have read or can learn That there is no Council of the Church or Synod no Father or Historian no other Writer that mentions the affairs of the Church no one of them gives the least cause to doubt but wholly confirms this
Author endevours may merit as much freedom and publique encouragement as others vainly affect and insolently usurp under the pretence of their prophesying gifts when indeed they are for the most part but meer pratings very weeds and trash the soyland load which may rend this Gentlemans net but they are not those good fish which he seeks to catch not so much it seems for the Churches necessities which the constant Ministry may well as it ought to supply as he confesses but for its Lenten dainties and varieties which blessed be God are not hitherto much wanted in any Church and least of all in this which hath hitherto enjoyed those Manna and Quails which the Lord hath from heaven plentifully poured round about its tents by the care and pains of the able orderly and duly Ordained Ministers If some places in this Church have wanted of that large provision yet others have gathered so abundantly Numb 11.20 Satietas omnis sibi ipsi contumeliosa Aust and fed so excessively that while they murmur they surfet while they complain their food comes out of their nostrils as sometimes theirs did among the ingratefull and wanton Jews These concessions then of all able and true Ministers 14. Answer to the Aspersions of pertinacy and superstition cast upon the Ministers in that book being so liberall and friendly to all private uses and to all gifts which are really fit to be publike I cannot tell what that great and dangerous pertinacy is with which that Gentleman towards the end of his book p. 78. charges so gravely and threatens so severely the Preachers in England as if all the fire of Gods and mans wrath which hath faln on them in these times hath not made them so much as willing to part with and be purged from their Babylonish superstitions their popish opinions and practises which sayes he they hold as fast as their right hands and right eyes A very sad reflexion if true upon All us that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil in ep 54. Lingua maledica sanctos carpere solita est insolatium delinquentium Ieron ad Eust Cum quis clericus Ceciderit statim omnes tales esse licet non manifestari possunt â—actitant profani cum tamen si maritata aliqua adultera sit non statim uxores suas projiciunt nec matres suas tales esse dicunt Aust Ep. 1.37 Ideo à malis boni petuntur calumniis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. l. 2. and must ever own our selves Christs Ministers And wherein this Gentleman had done more worthy of himself if he had given clear and particular instances than such generall and obscure intimations which without sufficient proof will seem no better than those odious aspersions and vulgar calumnies with the Anti-ministeriall Levellers to hide their own deformities are wont to cast upon Ministers and all men that differ from them and oppose their folly out of principles of higher reason and sounder religion than that sort of people use to be acquainted withall From the fauls and faylings it may be of some Ministers but chiefly from the hatred and malice of those men against all true Ministers it 's probable this author may without any great spirit of prophesying foresee and thus solemnly as he doth from the Tripos foretell the great sufferings which Ministers of learning constancy and honesty are like to undergo if God did not as well know how to restrain the pride and power of these men as he doth behold the rage and bitterness of them against all true Ministers Not because they will not come out of Babylon as he phraseth it but because they will not so easily return as many unwary souls do to folly and the principles of all confusion to the oppression of all that truth and order which the wisdom of our pious Progenitors hath observed for 1600. years and transmitted to us from the hands of the blessed Apostles according to the rules of Scripture and all religious reason But what I beseech you is this sinfull obstinacy of the Ministers of England Vid. Aug. Ep. 118. ad Jan. contra praefractos illos qui superstitiosa timiditate consuetudini cujuslibet ecclesia repugnant quae nec fidei nec bonis moribus adversatur Vnaquaque provincia suo sensu abundet pro more consuetudine antiquâ Consuetudines Ecclesiasticae quae fidei non officiant observandae ut à majoribus tradita sunt Jeron ad Licinium Cavendum est ne tempestate contentionis serenitas charitatis obunbiletur Aust Ep. 86. for which this Gentleman hath such a Sybilline rapture and more than a prophetick horror Is it because their judgement is constant to the approbation of that due obedience and legall conformity to which they formerly with good conscience subjected as in matters of extern right and decency in this Church wherein they had a liberty common with all Christians so far as they opposed not either sound doctrine in faith or holiness and morality in manners to conform themselves then in the use of them as now they have liberty not to use them while by force and terrour they are hindered They being not of that nature of things sâ—cred for which a Christian is bound to kindle the fires of Martyrdom nor of private contention against publique Prohibition Is he angry that Preachers do not all suddenly shipwrack their judgements learning and consciences upon every rock of vulgar fury or fancy that they are not presently melted with every popular gloing heat of seeming piety and that they run not into every mould Id viâ—â— gravi prudentique dignissimum non sacile permutatis nec ad vulgi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nutum â—uramque leviter commuveri Zanch. Orat. 1 Joh. 4.1 which any faction hath formed for the advantages perhaps of secular interests Is he displeased that they are not taken with admire or adore every Idoll of fanatick novelty that they seriously try the modern spirits whether they be of God or no and receive not every spirit Is he grieved that men of learned and sober piety will not subject the gravity of the Fathers the wisdom of the Councils the acuteness of the Schoolmen the fidelity of the Ecclesiastick Historians together with the excellent learning and acurate judgements of the best modern Writers and Divines in all reformed Churches yea and the authority of the Scriptures themselves Prov. 26.23 Burning lipâ— and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross Grande hoc subtile artificium nescimus vulgi ineptiis novitatibus assentiri non enim tam blandi sumus hominum inimici Ieron Sua dum pingunt vitia nostras dedecorare student virtutes lenones vulgi Erasm Planda pernicies Cyp. de Error AdulantiuÌ„ non amantium vox est Satis pâ—i modo diviteâ— estis probi satis si prosperi sancti sapientes satis si lato magnifico utuntur successui fortia
by us and all parts of it made Nehustan in stead of cleansing repayring and reforming which is not a novelty of nvention but a sober restitution of all things in Religion to the primitive mode and pattern which is authorised and ordained by Christ Who did no more himself as to the outward restoring of Religion and worship of God Chalenging Gods right to his own House of prayer when covetousness had made it a den of theeves The priesthood of old failed not by reason of the immoralities of the Priests among the Jews nor did the Didacticall or Teaching authority cease from Moses his Chair and succession because the Scribes and Pharisees who were men of corrupt doctrine and hypocriticall manners sate therein and taught the Traditions and inventions of men mixt with the commands of God No more did or doth the Evangelicall Ministry and Sacraments cease by reason of any Papall arrogatings or other human additions Inordinatio aliqua non invalidam reddit ordinationem vitio â—elicto rem ad legitimum modum revocarunt Alsted sâ—ppl Gerar. de Reform Luther owned no other call or Ordination as a Minister but that which he had as he was made a Presbyter in the Romish communion Gerard. de Ministerio pag. 70. Ab Episcopo suo ordinatus Lutherus anno 1507. Nec aliam quaesivit ordinationem Gerard 147. Multum d ssert inter causam culpam inter statum excessum Tert. l. 2. adv Marc. Non negandum est bonum quod remansit propter malum quod praecessit Aust Ep. 48. Therefore the wisdome and piety of the learned and godly Reformers of these Western Churches especially here in England contented themselves with casting out what ever corrupt doctrines impure mixtures vain customes and superstitious fancies the Papall vanitie and novelty had built upon those divine and antient foundations of Christian religion which were layd by the Apostles and Primitive master-builders all over the world Whose Canon the Scriptures together with sound Doctrine holy Ministry comly Government Sacramentall seals and other Christian duties of prayer fasting c. they restored with all gravity moderation and exactness with due regard both to the clear sense of Scriptures and the Catholick practise of Churches Conforming of all things either to the express Precepts and Institutions of the word of God or to those generall directions which allow liberty of Prudence and difference in matters Circumstantiall in all which the Primitive Church had gone before them Herein they were not so weak and heady as to be scandalized with and insolently to reject all things that the Papall or Romish party had both received and retained in religious uses from former and better times either as Christians or Bishops or prudent men for so they had very sillily deprived themselves and all the Reformed Churches of all those Scriptures Sacraments holy duties Order rites and good customs which the Pope and Romish party had so long used not as Popes by any Antichristian policy power and pride but as they were Christians having received them in a due succession at first though after much depraved from those holy Predecessors which had been Martyrs and Confessors in that famous antient Roman Church No judicious Protestant or truly reformed Christian 2 How far necessary and safe to be separated from the Romanists Ad quamcunque Ecclesiam veneritis ejus morem servate si pati scandalum aut facere nolitis Aug. Ep. 86. responsum B. Ambrosii whose conscience is guided by Science and his reforming zeal tempered with true charity either doth or ought to recede farther from Communion with the Roman Church than he sees that hath receded from the rule of Christ and the Apostolicall Precepts or binding examples expressed in the Scriptures so far as concerns the true faith in its Doctrines Seals and fruits of good works In matters of extern and prudentiall order every Church hath the same liberty which the Roman had to use or refuse such ceremonials as they thought fit and to these every good Christian may conform In many things we necessarily have communion with the Pope and Papists as in the nature and reason of men In some things we safely may as in rules and practises politick civill just and charitable as Governours either Secular or Ecclesiastical In many things we ought in conscience and religion to have communion with them so far as they profess the truths of Christian religion and hold any fundamentals of faith And however they do by mis-interpretation of Scriptures or any Antichristian additionals of false doctrines of impious or superstitious practises seem to us rather to overthrow or bury the good foundations than rightly and orderly to build upon them for which superstructures and fallacious consequences we recede from them and dispute with them yet we do not renounce all they hold or do in common with us as Christians In the Lords Supper 1 Cor. 11.27 Whosoever shall eat this Bread 28. So let him eat of that bread Sâ—let res quae significat ejus res nomine quam significat nuncupari hinc dictum est Petra erat Christus Aust Q. 57. in Levit For instance it being not now a place to dispute them We cannot own as the Catholick sense of Christ of the Scriptures or the Primitive fathers that sense which they in later times have given of the words in the Sacramental Consecration of the Lords Supper by which they raise that strange doctrine of Transubstantiation unknown to the first Fathers And which seems to us 1. contrary to the way of Gods providence both in naturall and in religious things which changeth not the substances and natures of things but the relation and use of them from naturall and common to mysticall and holy 2. Contrary also to the usuall sense of all Scripture phrases and expressions of the like nature where things are mystically related by religious institution and so mutually denominâ—ted without essentiall changes 3. Contrary to the common principles of right reason 4. And contrary to the testimony of four senses sight taste smelling and hearing which are the proper organes by whose experience and verdict of things sensible we judge in reason what their nature is 5. Contrary also to the way and end that Christ proposed to strengthem a Christian receivers faith which is not done by what is more obscure and harder to be believed than the whole mysterie of the Gospell as recorded to us in the Scripture There being nothing less imaginable than that Christ gave his Disciples his own very body each man to eat him whole and entire and so ever after when he was then at table with them and is now by an Article of faith believed to be as man in heaven These and the like strange fancies of men which draw after them many great absurdities and contradictions both in sense and reason and the nature of things being no way advantageous to the religious use end and comfort of the
Donatists of old were who so challenged the title of the Church to their factions as to exclude all others and refuse the offers and means of accord As Cyprian Ep. 95. and Aust Ep. 164. tell us To which brands of Schism we are then lyable only when we recede or separate from visible communion with any Church without just and weighty cause shewn out of the word or when we go further from them than there is just cause and that too without charity refusing the good which they have while we withdraw from the evill we suspect Which would be the case of the Church of England in this point of immoderate Reformation if we should as some would have us therefore separate from all Scriptures Sacraments Ministry Primitive Government and order because all these were retained used and after abused much by the Roman Church and Papall party we are bid to come out of Babylon Rev. 18.4 but not to run out of our wits to act as Gods people with meekness moderation and Charity not with that fierceness passion and cruelty which makes us as Sons of Belial inordinatly run from one Antichrist to another Many Christians in the Roman Church may have in them much of Antichrist in some kinds and so God knows may many others in other kinds either in Doctrine or manners in endless innovations and unsetled confusions or in rigor and uncharitableness All which may betray us to what we seem most to abhor in Antichrist for if nothing have more of Christ than Charity nothing can have more of Antichrist than that uncharitableness Uncharitableness is as Antichristâ—an as error A ChristianoruÌ„ dissidiis venturus Antichristus occasionem accipiet Naz. Orat. 14. which many men nourish for zeal mistaking a Cockatrice for a Dove and a firy Serpent for a Phenix Which may be as Anti-Christian in popular furies as in papall tyrannies in confusions as in oppressions It is strange how some men cry out against the cruelty of some Papists which indeed hath been very great when yet Qui Christi non est Antichristi est Jeron Ep. 57. ad Damas they have the same Spirit of destruction in their own breast both against the Papists and others longing for such a Kingdom of Christ as they call it and such a downfall of Antichrist which shall consist in War and Blood and Massacres against and among all Christians which are not of their mind and side We think that in charity we ought not to impute the faults and errors of every Pope or Doctor of the Roman side to all those of that profession Nor ought we take those learned men among them alwaies at their worst finding there is great difference between what they may hold in the heat of publike disputes and what they opine and practise in a private way noâ— are their death-bed tenets alwaies the same with those of their Chayrs and Pulpits Besides many of the more devout and learned men among them are now both in opinions and lives much more modest holy and Reformed than some were heretofore whose Reformation in judgement or manners in verity purity and charity we do really congratulate and joy in And for the Body of the common people among the Romanists many are ignorant of those disputes wherein the mistaking is most dangerous which if they do hold yet it is under the perswasion and love of truth Qui à seductis parentibuus erâ—oâ—em acceperunt quaerunt autem cauta solicitudine veritatem corrigi paâ—ati cum invenerint hi nequaquam sunt inter haereticos deputandi Aust Ep. 162. 1 Cor. 3.12 retaining still the foundation of Christ Crucified and hoping for salvation only by his merits as many now profess to do and living in no known sin but striving to lead an holy and charitable life in all things Charity commands us to think that in such the mercy of God accepting their sincere love to the truth and their unfeigned obedience to what they know pardons particular errors which they know not to be such wherein no lust of pride or covetousness c. either obstructs or diverts them from the way of Truth Though the superstructures may be many of straw and stubble which shall perish yet holding the foundation Christ crurcified in a pure conscience they shall be saved in the day of the Lord Though the vessell be leaky in many places yet by great care in steering and frequent pumping that is true faith and repentance it may keep the soul from Shipwrack and drowning in perdition which is embarked in the bottom of Christian Religion and which steers alwaies by the compass of conscience setting all the points of conscience by the Chart or rules of Scripture as neer as he can attain by his teachers or his own industry We are sorry for our necessary differences from the Romanists or others which yet our consciences so far command us as we think our selves enlightned by the word of God contrary to which we cannot and ought not to be forced actually to conform or to comply with any men in things Religious Yet have we no lust of faction no delight in separation no bloody principles or tenets against any Christians of any particular Church desiring the same charity from them to us which may in lesser differences from each other yet unite us to Christ and to the Catholick Church as true parts of it though infirm or diseased This temper we should not despair of in the devouter and humbler Romanists if they were not daily enflamed by politick Spirits and violent Bigots among them who will endure no Religion as Christian which doth not kiss the Popes Pantofle or hold his stirrop or submit to that pride flattery and tyranny which some of them have affected when indeed it ill becomes those that chalenge a chief place in Christs Church to be so vastly different from the example of the crucified Saviour of Christians Such talents then as have been once divinely delivered to the Roman as to all other Christian Churches we have all aright to as believers in private and as Christians or Churches in publike communion and profession nor can these Jewels be so embezeled by being buried or abused but that we may safely take them up clear and use them together with those other which we have obteined through the grace and bounty of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ In whose name and right we as a part of his Catholick Church received them first and enjoy them now only Reformed according to what we first received of them without any prejudice or diminution to their true and intrinsecall worth which is divine by reason of our fellow servants former or present idle imperious impure or injurious use of them We accept and use the holy vessels which belong to the temple and the Lord of the Church Ezra 7. without scruple when they are graciously restored out of the profane hands of revelling Balshazzers The remaining silver censers
non Anathemate dignos fatear si qui erunt qui non reverentur summâ—que obedientia observâ—nt Hierarchiam in qua sic emineant Episcopi ut Christo subesse non recusent ab illo tanquam unico capite pendeant ad ipsum referantur ejus veritate colligati fraternam chariâ—atem colant Beza in Apoca. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quem nimirum oportuit imprimis de his rebus admoneri ac per eum cateros collegas totamque adeo Ecclesiam Pet. Mar. loc com Zanchius Hoc minime improbari posse judicamus ut unus inter multos Presbyteros praesit Epis conf c. 5. th 10. Vedelius notis in Igna. Ex actis Epistolis Apostolicis atque ex Eccl. histoâ—icis colligitur ipsos Apostolos eorum successores hunc ritum observasse ut unus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nomine Presbyterii Ministros legitimè ab Ecclesia electos per manuum impositionem preces publicas ordinareâ— Gerard. de min. p. 372. Grotius inter propriè dictas Aposto traditiones esse â—sserit Episcopalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vot propace Peter du Moulin Epist ad Episc Winto Deodate in his Epistle to the late Assembly Pâ—imis beatis illis temporibus politeia Ecclesia admirabili Aristocratia mixta Epis Presbyt plebi sua jura tribuit Alsted de min. So Gerardus pag. 232. Retinendum Episcopalem ordinem asserit Propter 8. rationes 1. Varia dona dat Deus 2. Exempla Apostolica Primitivae Eccl. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3 propter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ecclesiae 4 Naturae congruus est ordo rationi in omni caetu 5. Alit concordiam 6. repâ—imit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 arrogantiam 7. Nulli gravis ubi sit electione per suffragia Presbyterorum peragit officium 8. Tollit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Schisma seditiones For the avoyding of Scandall giving to so many Christian Churches remayning in all the world who for the far major part are still governed by Bishops in some respect distinct from and eminent above the Presbyters It is not the work of Christian prudence or charity to widen differences between us and other Churches Greek Eastern African or Western yea we owe this Charity to the Romanists and to our selves rather who seem to have gained this great advantage against us by the offence given them in utter abolishing the Antient and Catholick order and succession of Episcopacy that they will less now esteem us Christians or to be in any true Church since they will not allow us any right and compleat Ordination of Ministers and so no Sacraments and no Christianity as to extern profession and administration without Bishops yea the best reformed Churches must needs be offended who approve such a Presidency of Bishops among Presbyters where it is continued with the doctrinall Reformation many enjoy Bishops stil as we did No learned and godly men ever thought it cause enough to separate from any Church because it had Bishops Such as have them not in a constant Presidency yet count this no part of their Reformation but rather deplore it as a defect involuntary pleading the Law of necessity or some grand inconveniencies and difficulty to excuse thereby their inconformity so far to other Churches and to all Antiquity yea the most learned and wise among their Presbyterians abroad oft wish they had the honour and happiness of reformed and reforming Bishops Nor ever did heretofore the most learned and godly people in England Ministers or others any more than the Princes Nobility and Gentry generally desire the abolition of right Episcopacy however now at last they had not either opportunity to plead for it or such power and influence as to preserve it against those inundations which God hath been pleased to suffer to overflow in this Church But rocks are not presently removed when over-flown what is of God will stand and out-live the deluge Corepiscopi forbidden to ordain without the Bishops licence by the Council of Ancyra which was before the 1. Nicaene So Concil Nicaenum owns and confirms the antient custom So Concil Arelat c. 19. So Concil Laod c. 56. Presbyteri sine conscientia Episcoporum nihil faciant Blondel Test Hier. p. 255. So Jerom excepta orditatione quid facit Episcopus quod Presbyter non facit Ad Evag. Inschismatis remedium factum est quod postea unus electus est qui caeteris praepontretur ne unusquisque adse trahens Christi Ecclesiam rumperet Jeron ad Evag. Quod Alexandria post Marcum Evangelâ—stam factum est à Presbyteris quomodo exercitus imperatorem faceret Cyprian Ep. 55. Non aliunde haereses abortae aut nata schismata quam inde quod sacerdoti Dei non obtemperatur Thirdly I prefer a Primitive Episcopacy as the best way of union and happy satisfaction to all learned wise and good men especially in that so shaken and disputed a point of Ordination for the right succession and conferring of power Ministeriall which the most learned and sober Presbyterians confess not to be weakned by Episcopall Presidency And very many no less considerable men for number learning and piety as Da. Blondell among others do think the right Ordination of Ministers to be much more strengthened adorned and compleated where it passeth through the hands of the Episcopall power and order if for no other reason yet for this that it was the Apostolicall Primitive and universall way used in the Church and by which the Authority and Office of the Ministry hath ever been together with Christianity derived to us from the Apostles times It s evident that the sudden and violent receding of many men from their former judgement and practise in this point hath occasioned many great scandals scruples and schisms troubles and confusions in matters both of Church and State giving great advantages to all that list to cavil at question and despise the Ordination and Ministry of even those Presbyters yea their very Christianity as to the outward form order and profession who so easily renounced and eagerly cast quite away that order and power as unlawfull and un-Christian Triumphati magis quam victi sunt Tac. de Germ. Nehem. 11.14 22. Sciamus traditiones Apostolicas sumptas de veteri Testamento Quod Aron filii ejus atque Levita fuerint in templo hoc sibi Episcopi Presbyteri diaconis vendicent in Ecclesia Jeron ad Eva. et ad Nepotianum So St. Cyprian l. 3. Ep. 9. ad Rogationum Fourthly A right Episcopacy seems yet never to have had so free full and fair an hearing as is requisite in so great a matter so as to have been evicted to be against the Scriptures as some pretended 1. When as 't is most evident in most learned and godly mens judgements antient and modern that it hath the neerest resemblance to that
Christ Which Timothy in his infirm person could not do but in his care to transmit the holy patern to posterity and to his successors he might as he was enjoyned be said to do For what is once well done in a regular publike way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas M. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. Perenâ—â—s est aeterna praeclari exemplaris virtus Jeron Quadratus Atheniensis Eccl. Episcopus Apostolorum Discipulus Jeron Ep. ad Mag. St. Jerom tels us that St. John wrote his Gospell at the intreaty of the Bishopâ— of Asia Catal. Script Eccl. c. 9. Rev. 2. Angels i. e. Apostoli nuntii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. Bibl. è Diod. Sic. l. 40. Austin Sub Angeli nomine Laudatur praepositus Ecclesiae So Beza Annot. The chief teacher in the Synagogue was called the Angell of the Congregation Anisw in Deut. 31.11 So Malachi 2.7 The Priests lips shall preserve knowledge for he is the Angel or Messenger of the Lord of Hosts is ever after done as to the permanency of that vertue which is in a good and great example What other Churches did observe after the Apostles times Ordo Episcoporum ad originem recensus in Johannem stabit autorém Tertul. l. 4. c. 5. ad Marcio So Clem. Alex. testifies that S. John made Bishops in Asia Ignatius Epist ad Ephâ—s but twelve years after the Revelation written Dionysius Polycarpus Placed by St. John for the Bishop of â— Smyrna Iren. l. 3. c. 3. Before the Revelation So the Epistle of the Smyrnenses justify of him calling him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb l. 4. Hist 116. Anno 1450. Fratres Bohemi lib. de fide moribus eorum as to the manner of their Government when they grew numerous and spread to many Congregations and Presbyteries we may easily be resolved both by the testimony and practise of all Antiquity Fathers Councils Historians who have registred the uninterrupted succession of Bishops from the Apostles both in the seven Asiatick Churches mentioned in the Revelation whose * Angels were generally taken for their Presidents or Bishops and some of Apostles then living when as Archippus Evodius and Onesimus and Polycrates were Bishops c. What after times observed is evident to this day among all Christians even those of the Eastern and Abyssine Church have still their Bishops so the Greek and Muscovitish Churches so the furthest Asians which are thought to have been first converted by St. Thomas who furthest from believing did the penance of travelling furthest to Preach the Gospell in India And I observe the Fratres Bohemi in their persecuted state and poverty for a long time still retained a very happy and comly order of Episcopall Government Truly I never found so much light of Scripture patern and precept enjoyning any one or more Presbyters to do all those works of power and jurisdiction Nor ever did they without the presence of an Apostle or some Apostolicall successor and Bishop regularly ordein excommunicate silence c. so far as I can yet learn There are but two texts that mention the Presbytery and but one which can be pretended for ruling Lay-Elders which yet these are not preceptive or institutive but meerly narrative and touching without expressing any joynt power Office or Authority of Presbyters with any President or Bishop much less without them and against them Yea I read in St. Judes Epistles v. 8. foul marks put upon those in the Church that despise dominions and speak evill of dignities Against whose proud and seditious practises a woe is denounced Vers 11. as against men cruell like Cain covetous like Balaam ambitious as Korah factious disturbers of that order which God hath set in his Church as well as in civill societies after the mutinous example of Korah and his company Numb 16.3 who rose against both Moses and Aaron parallel to whose evill manners and disorderly practises 2 Pet. 2.10 these men had not been against whom St. Jude here and St. Peter in his second Epistle so sharply inveighs as presumptuous self-willed despisers of dignities c. unless there had been some eminencies in the Church Christian as well as was among the Jews which these men were most bold to oppose and contemn As for the civill powers Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2.13 that then were in the world humble Christians made conscience as God commanded them to submit to them in all honest things And those hypocrites were no doubt too wary to adventure any thing against them whose power was terrible by the sword But the Orders Governments Dignities and Dominions in the Church were exposed by their weakness to the scorn and affronts of any such proud and tumultuating Spirits which covered themselves under the veil of Christian Religion yea and pretensions of the Spirit too Jâ—d 19. the better to set off their Schisms and separatings from that authority power and order which God had by the Apostles setled in the Church even in those times 5 If there were not thus much of Scripture patern and precept pleading fairly for a right Episcopacy yet since there is nothing against it in Scripture or Reason in Religion or morals yea and so much for it in common reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato de leg Nihil sit in rep sine ordinis regiminis custodia So Lycurgus o dered ut nullus in repub ordo sine proprio esset Magisterio true polity and almost necessitie in Church societies no less than in either families Cities armies or any fraternities and Corporations of men No doubt the Lord of his Church hath not deprived or denyed that liberty and benefit of good order and rationall Government to his Church which in all civill societies may lawfully be used according to wisdom and discretion Truly we may as well think it unlawfull for one Minister to excell another or many others in age parts learning prudence gravity and gubernative faculties which if they may lawfully he had and are found in some by the especiall gift of God to so great differences from and excellencies above others what Reason or Religion can forbid them to be accordingly used and publikely employed in answerable differences of place and power for the Churches good only Christ â—equires humility in priority Ministry in their majority and service in their superiority proportioned to their gifts and endowments which God never gave in vain Nor doth there ever want indeed a plebs and vulgarity among many Presbyters thought honest and able men some of whom are still young and prone to be passionate imprudent factious and schismaticall whose folly is not yet decocted nor youthfull heats abated c. For the good ordering of whom beyond a contemptible and heady parity a right Episcopall presidency may be as usefull lawfull and necessary as a little Wine was for Timothy in regard of his frequent infirmities 1 Tim. 5.23 which St. Jerom every where owns as the ground of the
are to take Christ with swords and staves O how fain would some men that the Sun were set that their glowormes might shine that the light of the house were extinguished In subversione fidei nullum ab ignorantia remedium est Saresb. that so their sparkes might appear which they have kindled to themselves in their shining corners and upon their private hearths Truly this calumny against good learning hath as much surprized me and my brethren the Ministers of this Church as the accusation of Fimbria did question Scaevola Quaerentibus quidâ—in Scaevola sam vulnerato essâ—t accusaturus respondit quâ—d totum corpore ferrum non receperat Tul. orat pro Sex Ros Vero deficiente crimine laudem ipsam in vituperium vertit invidia Tul. Act. 18 24. 28. Act. 26.24 who was impleaded by the other for not receiving that poynard deeper into his brest wherewith hee stabbed him and intended to have dispatched him The learned and godly Ministers in England never thought this would be laid to their charge as a fault the want of which had been a foul shame and a just reproach to them As the enjoyment of it was a great honour and advantage both to them and to the Reformed Religion They little suspected that among Christians Apollos should be forced to excuse his eloquent and potent demonstrations or S. Paul his sober and sanctified learning in which hee excelled worthy of that famous City and University Tarsus of which he had the honour to be free and pleaded it as a priviledge Act. 21.39 Which learning made him not so mad as those were who suspected and accused him that much learning had made him mad And if humane learning be such old clouts and rotten rags as these men of most beggerly elements pretend and wee confesse it is so compared to and destitute of those soul-saving Truths which are divinely revealed yet there may be good use of them Ier. 38.11 if it be but to help the Jeremies the Prophets and Ministers of the Lord out of those dungeons and mire where otherwayes their enemies would have them ever to be lodged both sordidly and shamefully and obscurely Nothing O you excellent Christians is lesse necessary than to paint this Sun or polish this pearl to set forth to you the use and necessity of good learning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just in dâ—cuâ— Tryph. of the benefit and blessing whereof in this Church your selves are so much partakers and whereof you are so great esteemers and encouragers And nothing shews good learning more necessary to the Church and true Religion both as Christian and reformed than this That the Divel by vain and fallacious instruments often hath and still seeks to deprive them of that weapon and defense which he hath used with great strength and cunning for his chiefest arms both offensive against the truths of religion and defensive for his own most damnable doctrines and delusions What havock would he soon make of sound doctrine Cresâ—onius the heretick oft complained that Saint Austin was too full of his Logick and Syllogisms when he could not answer his reasons In the Emperour Charls 5. time 1524. as in former ages he endevoured by those learned and subtill Sophisters his instruments and emissaries on every side if there were none on the Truths side able to encounter him and his agitators in that post of learning No wonder if the Woolf would have the Flock without Mastives or these without teeth it were much for his little for the flocks ease and advantage Although the Divel an old accuser must needs be a cunning Orator too and be furnished with all the swasive arts of insinuation which he fits to the severall geniusses of men and times yet he never till of late in Germany and now in England had confidence to make use of this place of Oratory to perswade Christians to burn all other Bookes that they might better study and understand the Bible yea and the Bible too that they might better understand the minde of God Which is all one as if the Israelites should have beene perswaded to have rid themselves of the cumber of their swords spears and shields that so they might better defend themselves or that they should have neither file nor grindstone to sharpen the naturall bluntnesse 1 Sam. 13. or clear the rustinesse of their weapons while yet the Philistims were all well armed and dayly preparing to battell Against whom there was no such warrant of a speciall divine protection as to make the people of God presume to neglect the use of those armes which art had prepared and use had taught how to imply We see that Jonathans heroick motion carries him not upon that successefull and great adventure without his sword and armour-bearer 1 Sam. 14.13 Nor did Davids confidence in Gods protection of which he had former experiences when he was without any arms against the Lion and Bears nor yet the assurance he had 1 Sam. 17. of the goodnesse of his cause or of the pride and profanenesse of his enemy none of these made him neglect to take and use such armes 2 Sam. 5.6 2 Pet. 3. as he thought most convenient The blinde and the lame men of feeble and confused spirits unlearned and unstable minds which are hated of Davids soule are ill assistants in Davids wars against the Jebusites who study to defend against him or to surprise from him the City of David or rather the City of God which is the Metropolis where grace and truth doe dwell It is certain that next to the primitive gifts of miracles 2. Humane learning succeeded miraculous and extraordinary gifts the gifts of humane learning have stood the Church of Christ in most stead For ever since the Apostles and Ministers of Christ assisted with extraordinary endowments of the Spirit had by the foolishnesse of preaching as by Davids improbable weapons against Goliahs compleat armature vanquished that old Idolatrous power * Nec miraculaâ— illa in nostra tempora durare permissa sunt ne animus semper visibilia quareret eorum consuetudine frigesceret quorum novitate flagravit Aust de ver Rel. c. 15. of heathenisme which prevailed in the world and was long upheld by shews of learning eloquence and in that way vaine philosophy The Church of Christ hath ever since the cessation of those Miraculous gifts which attended onely the first conquests made use of that very sword of that prostrated Gyant good learning both to dispatch him and to defend it self finding that both in humane and divine encounters there is none like to that if managed by a proportionate arm and strength Quantum ratio dat homini tantum lit eratura rationi religio literaturae religioni gratia Casaub Quantum a bestas dâ—stamus eo magis ad Deum appropinquaâ—â— Sen. For hereby the mind and all intellectuall faculties of mens souls which are the noblest and divinest
being heirs to our estates lands and dignities if they be disinherited of all good learning and that true reformed Religion which we have received from our learned and pious predecessors And this infallibly will be the sad event 7. The sad effects which must follow these illiterate projects and unhappy fate of the succeeding generations in England if such witlesse lack latin Zelots can prevail in their absurd desires and most fanatick endeavours who while they tell their silly disciples who are rather spectators than hearers of these mens affected gesticulations and ill acted Oratory That Latin and Greek are the languages of the Beast that all books but the Bible and as much of that as they take not to be for their turnes are Antichristian and to be destroyed Sleidan com l. 10. An. 1524. Mean time the common people are not so much men and reasonable as to consider the sad metamorphosis or change which already growes upon these Ignorant Masters and their scholars who like to Lycaon Io or Actaeon begin to thrust forth their hornes and hoofs and to shew their teeth in their grosse errors their rude and savage manners which are tokens evident and dreadfull enough of their brutised soules That if the wiser learneder and powerfuller world among us in England should through basenesse cowardlie and negligence suffer this illiterate and ferine faction to increase and multiply they will soon finde by their violence craft and cruelty that these Islands will be more pestered and infamous for wolves than ever they were in ancient times And what is it that these mens brutish simplicity would have Namely this That the purer Religion among the Protestant and Reformed Churches should have no learned Champions or able defenders but onely such silly Asinellos or Massinellos who think it enough to trust to their rude and irrationall confidences to their hard heels and harsher brayings for the defence of true Religion when as the large and luculent eares of these animals doe give so great advantage to any crafty error or grosser heresie to get hold of them that they will as easily be led to any damnable opinion and desperate faction as an Oxe is to the slaughter and a foole to the stocks For no men are more easily led into any temptation than those who presume to tempt God by neglecting to use such due and proportionate means as his wisdome in ordinary providence hath appointed to attain those great and holy ends of true Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. In studiis tantum quisque probat quantum se assequi posse sperat de quibus desperant ea de piciunt Casaub praef in Ari. In quantum ab ignorantia segregantur in tantum contumaciae agglutinantur Tertul. de Poen Yet we may see how all folly is ready to fall upon it self to confute its own principles By a rude unskilfunesse it sometime bandies the ball of contention against its own face For these great sticklers against all good learning in Ministers doe sufficiently shew they have fraud mixt with their follie like Foxes they love not the grapes while they cannot reach them Their despaire of learning makes them despise it in others Because it 's hardly possible to have any degree of true learning and not to oppose them But O how doe they seriously triumph and superciliously rejoice when any man that is but a smatterer in learning or smels a little of the pen and inkhorn for other than such â—â—vices and dunces never will so far shame themselves appears for them or seemes to leane and adhere to them how much more if he begins to stickle for their party and faction being deceived with their shewes of zeal and inspirations O how doe they prick up their ears and march then with greater courage and confidence as the Hares did when they had got a Fox to lead them in whom they thought was more strength and cunning than their own fearfull feeblenesse could be guilty of Even so these burglars in reason wresters of Scriptures and hucksters of religion doe find fault with those Tooles which they have no skil to use and like cowards they quarrell with those weapons as unlawfull which they most fear and can least resist Which yet could they once get into their hands and abuse to their advantages none would be more imperiously cruell and insolent * St. Austin de Doct. Christiae tels of a servant among the Barbarians who by three dayes prayers triduâ—nis precibus obtained full knowledge in all humane learning Ut librum quemlibet percurreret omnibus stupentibus For what would not these Illiterate Furies give to have indeed such an Inspiration as might in one night make them every way as learned and able in all points as those Ministers and other men have been and still are who dayly pare the ruder nails and muzzle the bolder jaws of these degenerate and desperate men who like horse and mule being without understanding are ready to fall upon those Psal 32.9 that are fit to be their Masters and rulers both in Church and State who in stead of found and healthfull learning have only the three distempers which Sir * Sir Francis Bacon L. Ver. in his advancement of learning Francis Bacon observed to be in most men Fantasticknesse Contention and Curiosity by imagination altercation and affectation But the enemies of good learning tell us 8. Objection against learning as injurious to true Religion the parent or nurse of errors That they discern so many spots and black patches in the face of this fair Lady 〈◊〉 they cannot esteem her a modest Virgin or a grave and sober Matron or any way fit company for true Christian Religion but rather some prostitute of Impudicity which is easily courted by every wanton spirit and oft impregnated with grosse errors which it either conceives and brings forth or nourisheth and beings up yea they have heard for these men read but little and understand lesse that great hereticks and enemies to true Religion have beene great Scholars And even in the bosome of the Church these vermine of heresies and schisms have crawled most since she put on and adorned herself as some thought with this patcht and beggerly garment of humane learning which she took up in the high way of the Gentiles Arius and his crew wanted not learning nor * Aust de Haeres Pelagii viri ut audio sancti non parvo profectu Christiani Aust c. 3. de pec mer. Bonum praedicandum virum Id. Pelagii discipulorum libri propter acrimoniam facundiam leguntur a plurimis Id. Ep. 144. Pelagius Sophistry nor Donatus eloquence as St. Austin tels us Nor those others of former or later dayes who made the Van or bring up the Rear of those forces which the divel hath mustered and trained up against the purity and simplicity of the Gospel Which impediment rather than ornaments as these men tell us
who presume to be better acquainted with the mind of religion than any Ministers or other able Christians it doth now utterly abhor and to ashamed of yea and would faiâ—â— quite cast away all those glasses and wimples and crisping pins and powders and paâ—ills and dressings and curlings and strange apparell which she had borrowed of humane learning even as the Jewish women were weary of their toyes and trinckets which they had from the heathen by which they provoked God against their vanity pride Isai 3. and folly Thus are these men ready with their rude hands to witnesse Divinity who being very bâ—nd and boisterous Answ Yet the benefit of learning is more than the danger are not able to distinguish between pulling off the patches or wiping away those spots and paints which a fair face needs not and the shaving off that hair which is given to Religion for an ornament and covering Or the plucking out of those eyes indeed which it needs not onely for beauty but for direction The learning of hereticke and schismaticks doth not so much defoâ—â— the Church and true Religion as the learning of Orthodox professors adorns and reformes it which as fullers earth is the best means to take out those kennel spots which noisome spirits and foul mouths cast upon true Religion There is the more need of wise and able Physitians to make wholesome Antidotes and confections by how much there are so many whose malice is cunning as the divels Empericks and empoisoners to mixe pestilent drugs and infusions with Religion 1 Cor. 11 19. There must be heresies and hereticks too not as necessary effects anâ— consequents of learning and religion but rather from the defects of them in mens hearts and mindes When men are not either able rightly to understand or not accurately to divide or not exactly to distinguish or not rationally to conclude from Scripture grounds and principles of truth Or else when they are prone grossely to mistake and easily to yeeld to any semblances of truth and fallacies of error which are incident to credulous incautions unstable and unlearned soules or to proud passionate and heady men though never so learned Hence follows their not onely forsaking the right way and resolute persisting in their dangerous and damnable mistakes as sheep gone astray seldome ever returning of themselves to the fold and unity of the Church but they would also draw others after them that they may not seeme to erre alone and by numbers at least and force at last carry on the evill opinions which always tend to evill practises unlesse the Lord had always furnished his Church with some learned and godly men as able for reduction as others were for seduction as potent to cure as others are to infect whose learning defensive was more mighty than any offensive ever was The flock of Christ was alwayes happily furnished with Mastives whose teeth were as sharp and strong as the Wolves With Davids whose valour was always as great as the ravening strength of Bear or Lyon whom nothing else would have curbed and overawed nor have without miracle been able to have preserved the flock of Christ from dayly scatterings and tearings So then in all right reason either wholly remove these offensive enemies and such weapons out of their heads and hands or else give true Christian Religion leave to keep her defensive Arms and those worthy men who are able to use them namely the learned and godly professors both Ministers and others of this and other Churches both Christian and reformed Whose learning courage and honesty together makes them impregnable Whom otherwayes even these pitiful pygmies who now thus oppose them would hope to be too hard for if once matters of religion were reduced onely to tongues and hands for Ignorance makes men violent and for want of reason to flye to force * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Eth. Possibly these professors of ignorance and rusticity may be lowder speakers and bolder fighters though they be weaker disputants and flatter writers yea we commonly see that hereticall pride and schismaticall passion in men that neither love the Truth nor the peace of the Church when worsted by arguments fly to Arms as the Arians and Donatists and Novavatians did when refusing fair disputations which the Orthodox Bishops and Presbyters desired Vide Ca â— Afric Concil Carth. An. 410 offering 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 orderly and peaceable disquisitions for the determining of differences so that Christian union might follow They presently ran furiously to meere brutish and tumultuary violences 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad immaes violentias Invading Churches by force driving away the Orthodox and holy Bishops and Presbyters who had not varied nor would yeeld to change that Faith and holy order of Religion and Ministry which still remained in all the Christian Churches as descended from the Apostles and primitive Christians and which had lately been confirmed and declared by the first famous Councell of Nice which consisted of 318 Bishops besides other many learned assistants holy Presbyters and Deacons together with some chief men of the laity who were so all of a minde that there were but 17 dissenters in the vote against Arius After the same riotous fashion also was that ignorant and abominable rable as it 's called of the Circumcelliones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. Afâ—i Genus hominum agreste famosissimae audaciae Aust cont Cresco l. 3. c. 42. Leniora tarrenum praedonum facta quam Circumcellionum a subsection of the Donatists who were wont to ramble idly up and down like squibs with fire and force among the plain and pagane Christians in the country till after great ostentations of piety devotion and zeale for Martyrdome calling themselves * St. Aust de Haeret. Optatus Duces Sanctorum Captaines of the Saints and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contenders for the faith they fell at length to pilfering then to plundering and wasting whole countreys opposing in an hostile manner the Vicegerents Pacelus and Mocatius till at length they were by the Emperour himself * An. 348. Honorius repressed and destroyed That many men abuse learning to abet errors and religion to colour hypocrisie and the name of the Spirit to indulge the flesh and heaven to carry on earthly designes I make no question nor will these objecters I beleive yet I doe not think their morosenesse is such as presently to conclude they must part with what they can well use because they see others daily abuse good things as health beauty strength riches preferment meat drink cloathing c. all which oft nourish vanity lusts excesse The aking of these mens heads or teeth makes them not willingly to lose them no more may the abuse of learning take away the use of it Wise men know how to keep a mean between starving and surfeiting between drunkennesse and cutting up all vines condemning all men to drink nothing but
and shews by the examples in holy Scripture and other holy writers what holy use is to be made of the learning of heathens by Christians See Tom. 2. pag. 331. St. Paul cites three testimonies out of heathen Poets Epimenides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Menander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Aratâ—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So Jannes and Jambres out of Jewish Records and Talmuds Plures sine dubio legerat B. Paulus poetas quam quos recitavit recitando aliques laudavit omnes in quantum divinoris veritatis scintillias saepius produnt Erasm Tarsis a famous University and after at the feet of Gamaliel or Attick Luke or eloquent Apollos ever despised or decryed or disused those acquired gifts of humane learning wherewith they were endued in the ordinary wayes of education no not when they were exâ—raordinarily inspired Their common gifts served them still in their ordinary Ministry as to understanding memory utterance or writing by which they endevoured to set forth that Jesus was the Christ the promised Messias So that in their arguments disputes reasonings and allegations out of humane Authours also in the style phrase and manner of their speaking and writing it might and may easily bee that the difference of Prophets Evangelists and Apostles naturall acquired or studied gifts did still remain when their extraordinary and infused might be equall yet these did not equall them in their either more strict and Logicall reasonings or their more Oratorious expressions or more elegant phrase and proper language which appear very different in those holy Writers and Penmen of the Scriptures which had the same Spirit directing or dictating as to the matter revealed to them but they used their own ordinary abilities to expresse them by word or pen to others And certainly when the Apostle Paul bids Timothy as a grand and lasting pattern for all Bishops and Ministers of the Church to study to meditate to give himselfe wholly to those things 1 Tim. 4.13 14.15 that his profiting may appear to stir up the gift that is in him still more fitting himselfe to the work of the Ministry notwithstanding he had some speciall and extraordinary gifts Sure the same Apostle gave Timothy no example of idlenesse in himself but both studied and prayed Ephes 6.18 yea desires the prayers of others for him that he might as an able Minister and as a Master builder finish the course of his Ministry with joy This blessed Apostle needed not have been so solicitous for the parchments 2 Tim. 4.13 which he left at Troas if his memory had been alwayes supplyed with miraculous assistance he needed not to have committed any thing to writing for his owne use It is very probable that those parchments were no deeds for conveying any land or temporall estate but rather some Scheme or draught of divine Truths and mysteries methodically digested which he had fitted for his own 1 Cor. 4.6 and transferred to the use of others as Apollos or Timothy or Titus So little doth the speciall gifts of the Spirit in the Apostles or other holy men justifie or plead for those odde and mishapen figures of those mens Divinity whether discovered by their tongues or hands of whose deformity and unpolitenesse compared to the fashion of all learned mens judicious methodicall and comely writings and discourses these crafty men being conscious would have no Sun or light of arts and learning shining among Christians by which their ridiculous monstrosity might appear 2 Col. 1.8 1 Tim 6.20 In tantum vana est quantum perversae felicitatis est doctrina gentium Philosophia Tertul. l. de Anima The same Apostle who bids us beware of vain Philosophy and wisdom falsly so called while it opposed the divine or was preferred before the word and truth of God in Christ which onely can attaine the end of all true wisdome to make a man happy to eternity yet he could be no enemy to any part of true and usefull Philosophy which is but the knowledge of God in the creature of which he gives severall touches in his most divine writings He commands us no lesse to beware of * Rom. 1.21 2 Tim. 4.3 Imperitissima est setentia scire quid senserint Philosophi nescire quid Châ—istus docuit Aust Ep. 56. Cum Philosophiae nidore purum veritatis aerem infuscant Tertul. false Teachers of heaps of Teachers of deceitfull workers of unruly walkers of unstable and unlearned spirits who by vaine bablings endlesse janglings high presumptions and private interpretations wrest the Scriptures corrupt both religious Doctrine sound speech and Christian communication Such who are * Col. 2.18 vainly puffed up in their fleshly minde whose glory is to lead Disciples after them desirous to be * 1 Tim. 1.7 Teachers when they know not what they say nor whereof they affirme Comparing themselves with themselves and abhorring all higher patterns they can * 1 Cor. 10.12 never be wise but in their own conceits and there is * Prov. 16.9 little hope of them But O you that excell in learning or humility or both 16. Monument of learning how excellent and usefull I should fear to write too much for good learning if I did not consider that I write to those chiefly who can never think too much said or wrote for it because they know the many beauties and excellencies of it both in reference to the glory of God and the good of mankind both for souls and bodies their religious and secular concernments their temporall and eternall interest Indeed no minde is able to conceive but such as enjoy them Aegrescit ingenium nisi fugiactione reparetur Cito expenduntur horrea quae assidua non fuerint adjectione fulcita Thesaurus ipse facile profunditur si nullis iterum pecuniis compleatur Cassiod nor can any tongue expresse them since they exceed the greatest eloquence of those that most enjoy them those bright heavenly and divine beams of Reason and Religion which with severall preparatory glories shine from the daily reading of those excellent writings and durable monuments of learned men in former ages as rayes of light falling from the Sun on this inferiour world breaking in upon all the regions of the soul dissipating its darknesse discovering its disorders supplying its defects filling it with the sweet and silent * Jucundissima est vita indies sentire se fieri doctiorem pleasure of daily knowing something more excellent in the creature or the Creator which before it knew not This secret and unspeakable contentment is more welcome to the now improving soul than the beauty of a fair morning which shows a safe haven to one that hath suffered the horrour of blind and midnight tempests more rejoicing the heart of a true man than liberty and light doe him that is redeemed from a dungeon I should but profane if I should too much unfold the sacred and sweet
and so a persecuting of his soul to let him hunt the divels suit without check and to follow the trains of errour Steriles fugiendae sunt passines Aust by which he leades men to perdition when it is in our way of charity much more in out place and authority to endeavour to convert or at least stop him so as others may not be perverted by him Good husbands will not forbear for their lowd crying to ring and yoke those Swine Non omnis qui parcit amicus est nec omnis qui verberat inimicus melius est cum severitate diligere quam cum lenitate decipere Aust de coercendis Haereticis Ep. 48. vid. Perpende non quid pateâ—is sed quare quo modo Lact. Inst l. which they see doe root up the pastures break through the fences and wast the corn yet still they leave even these beasts freedom enough to feed themselves and live orderly but not mischievously Although the man in every one is to be treated humanely and the Christian Christianly with all reason and charity because the Creator is to be reverenced in every creature and Christ in every Christian yet the Beast or Divell which may be even in regenerâ—ted men must be used accordingly that the man may be preserved though the other be restrained as we do without injury to those that are mad or daemoniack to whom if sober men should allow what liberty they affect cry out and strive for it were to proclaim themselves to all the world the madder of the two Salute reparata tanto uberius gratias agunt quanto minus fiti quemque pepe cisse sentiuut Aust Ep. 48. of the Donatists and Circumcelliones reduced by just punishments ab inquâ—eta suae teâ—eritate from their seditious rashnesse And none would have more cause to repent when they came to themselves of those indulgences fondly granted them which they poore men know not how to use but to their own and others harm Indeed those men * Sui juris esse non debet qui nisi in aliorum injuriâ—s vivere nescit Reg. Iur. forfeit their private liberty to the publique discretion and power who will not or cannot use it but to the publique detriment and the injury of others which to prevent or hinder is the highest work of charity None but sons of Belial that is of such as will not indure the yoke in Religion either in piety purity or charity nor suffer others to enjoy the benefit of it in peace and order can desire such a * Adâ—ò libere esse volunt ut nec Deunt habere velâ—â—t Dominum Aust freedom as will not indure the Lord for their God nor man for their Governour who seek to break the staves of beauty and of bonds on their Shepheards heads or to wrest the keys out of their hands who like wild asses would be left to feed in the wilderness to their own barren fancies and to snuffe up the winde of their own or others vain opinions till they are starved and destroyed rather than be kept in good pasture with due limits There is a damnable and damning Liberty a Toleration which the Divels would enjoy who would soone destroy all things on which is any Image of the Creators glory if the sharp curb and weighty chains of Gods omnipotency were not upon them both immediately and mediately through that wisdome care courage and authority which he gives to Christian Magistrates and Ministers to resist and to bind up Satan If they then that are thus furnished by God with just power in Church and State should leave the things of God in matters of Religion as outwardly professed to such liberties that all men may run which ways they please of ignorance errour atheism prophanenesse blasphemy being seduced and seducing others if they take no care that younger people bee catechised and others duly attend the publique duties of that religion which is established and which they still professe Vbi non est veritas merito talis est disciplina Ter. if they should neither stop nor restrain any man in any course of opinion or practise which he cals Conscience without giving any account of Reason or Scripture for it to those in Authority Certainly such an intolerable Toleration letting every one doe what seemes right in their own eyes Iudg 21.21 in the things of God and onely to look exactly to civill interests and safety is to make Magistratick power Rom. 13. which is Gods Ordinance for the good of mankinde to concurre with the malice of the Divels and that innate folly vanity and madnesse which is in mens hearts to the ruine of simple multitudes who cannot sin or miscarry eternally in such sinfull liberties irreligious and tolerations but at the cost and charge of the Magistrates souls if they be Christian and are perswaded of the truth of that Religion as we read the master became a trespasser or murtherer and was put to death who knowingly suffered his petulant Ox to enjoy such a liberty Exod. 21.29 as ended in the damage or destruction of his neighbours goods or life 10. Such Toleration is but a subtill persecution A toleration of any thing as to publique profession among Christians under the notion of Christian liberty is but the divels finest and subtillest way of persecution for he is as sure to gain by such indulgences as weeds doe by the husbandmans or Gardners negligence or lothnesse to pluck them up for fear of hurting the corn or good plants which when they are fully discerned to be but weeds as they are not possibly to be puld up by mans hand as to the private errours and hypocrisies of mens hearts which are to be left to the great Judge and Searcher of hearts so nor may they rashly be pulled up by every one that sees them lest injury be done to the good seed but yet they are not carelesly and sluggishly to bee suffered to * The Manichees forbad to pull up any weeds out of a field or garden Aust de Mani Agrum spinis purgari nefas putant quod plantae sentiunt overgrow and choak the good plants As if nothing were true fixed and certaine in religion nothing hereticall corrupt and damnable in opinion and doctrine nothing immorall unlawfull and abominable in practise nothing perverse uncharitable and uncomely in seditions schisms and separations We read frequently the zeal care and courage of Magistrates Princes and Priests among the Jews Hezekiah 2 Chron. 29. Josiah 2 Chron. 34. much commended for reforming Religion restoring true wayes of piety suppressing all abuses in Religion Certainly it is not lesse a duty nor lesse pleasing to God now among Christians to take all care that the name of Christ be not blasphemed nor the way of truth perverted or evill spoken of We read also the Spirit of Christ reproving as a great sin and omission of duty Rev. 2.14 20. that
made the beauty of his works to consist and to be evident in those distinctions which he hath set upon every thing both in the species and individuall God I say cannot be displeased to see mankinde on whom is the beauty of Reason or Christians on whom is the beauty of Religion to use such order distinction and decency in all things which becomes them both as men and Christians after the examples of the Apostles and Christ himself Matth. 9 35. who went about all the Cities and Villages teaching in their Synagogues and preaching the Gospell of the Kingdome which also befits and adorns Christians as to extern profession which is all that appears of any mens devotion or Religion to the eye of man setting forth in comely sort that duty relation and service which we publiquely professe to owe and pay to God who abhors sordidnesse and confusion as much as profane vastators love it Necessity indeed admits no curiosity of place nor affects any elegancy Aegrotantium amicorum sordes toleramus non item valentium Sidon but excuseth that which in plenty and freedome is esteemed sordidnesse and sluttishnesse Religion requires externally no more than God hath given of extern power and opportunity where these are wanting and by providence denyed a sick bed a Barn a Lyons den a Dungeon a Whales belly is as a Temple or Church consecrated by the holy duties which any devout soul there performs to God But as the Church of Christ considered in its extern communion or profession is visible and Christians are exemplary to each other and to the world it is warrant enough for Christians to build and to set apart to those publique holy duties some peculiar places upon Gods and the Churches account which grant we have in that great Charter and principle of Church policy which like a common rule 1 Cor. 14.40 measures all things of extern sociall Religion Let all things be done decently and in order Both which fall not properly under the judgement of Religion but of Reason not of Scripture but of Nature not of piety but policy or society nor need we other command to doe them than the judgement and consent or custome of wise and holy men which we have for this use of locall Churches thus peculiarly applyed to holy services ever since Christians had either ability to build them or liberty to use them which is at least 1400 years agoe If humane or Romish superstition used or affected or opined any thing in consecrating Churches which is beyond true reason and sound Religion yet we do not think that to be a Leprosie sticking so to the wals of the buildings that they must be scraped all over or pulled down else they can't be cleansed No But as places are not any more than times capable of any essentiall gratious or inherent holynesse which is onely in God Angels or Men so neither are they capable of inherent unholinesse The superstition is weak on either side weighs little but the worst is on this side to which these men so incline which tends more to profanenesse supinenesse and slovenlinesse in the outward garb of Religion which is not either so Cynical Sacerdoti maxime convenit ornare Dei templum decore congruo Amb. off l. 1. c. 21. or so tetricall as these men would make it What ever there is reall or imaginary of Superstition in the places or rather in mens fancies of them who possibly ascribe too much to them it will as easily recede and quit them when they come to be consecrated by the Churches reall performing of holy services or publique religious duties in them as dreams doe vanish when one awakes or as the dark shadowes of the night depart from bodies when the Sun comes to shine on them or into them if these poore objectors mindes and spirits could as soone be freed from those profane superstitious and uncharitable tinctures with which they are as with a jaundise deeply infected against those places and against those that use them with the decency becoming duties done to the Majesty of God and in the presence of the Church of Christ as those places justly called Churches may be freed from all misapprehensions of their name of their dedication If the former were as easie as the latter both locall and rationall materiall and mentall Churches both places and persons might long stand and flourish Psal 74.6 Both which some furies of our times seek utterly to break down and demolish that there may be neither Christian Congregations nor decent Communion in any publique place beyond the beauty of a Barn or Stable But these men have so much tinder and Gunpowder in them against Ministers 22. Answer to other quarrels against Ministers publique duties that whatever they enjoy say use or doe in their function be it never so innocent and decent yet they kindle to some offensive sparkes or coales and flames against them As if all the Ministers of this Church knew not what to doe as they should till these new masters undertook to School and Catechise them If any Minister prayes publiquely with that gravity understanding and constancy either for matter words or method which best becomes a poore sinfull mortall on earth when he speaks to the God of heaven It is they say but a form and a stinting of the Spirit If they preach with judgement weight exactnesse and demonstration of truth it is not by the Spirit but of study and learning If they read the Scripture 't is but a dead letter and meer lip-labour If they celebrate the Sacraments with that wisdome reverence and decency which becomes those holy mysteries they quarrell at the place or time or gesture or company or ceremonies used Not considering that Ceremonies in Religion are like hair ornaments though not essentials and ought to be neither too long lest they hide and obscure it nor too short lest they leave it naked and deformed Since the end and use of them is no more but to set forth piety with the greater comelinesse and auguster majesty to men If they name any Apostle Evangelist or other Christian of undoubted sanctity with the Epithet of Saint they are so scared with the thought of the Popes canonizing Saints that they start at the very name so used as if it were an unsanctified title and not to be applyed to the memory of the just which is blessed but onely arrogated to some persons living who frequently and ambitiously call themselves and their party 2 Tim. 1.13 The Saints If they use the ancient Doxology giving glory to the Father Son and holy Ghost which all Churches Greek and Latin did the Socinian and Arian Ears of some men are highly offended at it as if Christians must ask them leave to own the holy Trinity and to give solemne publique glory to the Creator Saviour and sanctifying Comforter of the Church If Ministers use those wholesome forms of sound words which are
fitted to the memories and capacities of the meanest hearers containing short summaries of things to be believed practised or prayed for as in the Creed the ten Commandements and the Lords Prayer Presently these men fancy them as the recitation of some charmes and look on the Minister as some Exorcist confined to these Articles of stinted spels and formes Yea so far hath the prejudices affectations and ignorance of these men prevailed against all Reason and Religion in some places that many Ministers in other things not unable or unworthy men are carried away with fear and popularity to comply with those mens fondnesse in a way of dissimulation Forbearing to use publiquely at any time either the title of Saint due to holy men or the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue which are both Scripturall Summaries and commanded to be used So also they lay aside the Creed which is an Ecclesiasticall compendium taken out of the Scripture Vid. Voss de Symbolis and very ancient in the chief articles of it containing the main foundations or heads of Christian Faith nor was any of these ever neglected or not both frequently and devoutly used in the publique Liturgies or Services of sober Christians either ancient or modern O how sowre and spreading a leaven is the pride passion and superstition of mens spirits which run after faction and novelties that even learned and grave men should be not so much infected with it in their judgements as to be swayed and byassed or over-awed by it in their practise contrary to their judgements meerly Gal. 2.12 as St. Peter with his dissimulation gratifying these pretenders to novelty speciall sanctity by the not using of those divine and wholesome forms of sound words in which neglect the presumed perfection of these Antiministeriall men disdains to condescend to the infirmities of novices and weaklings in religion the babes in Christ Those Lambs which good Shepheards Joh. 21.15 must take speciall care of as well as of their stronger sheep feeding them with milk or cibo praemanso the often repeated Catechisticall rudiments and chewed principles of Religion which are by the wisdome of God and our Saviour most fitly and compendiously set forth in the ten Commandements and the Lords Prayer as to the main of things to be done or desired by a Christian as also the summe of things necessary to be believed were anciently comprised in the Articles of the Creed according to that wisdome of the Apostles or the primitive Fathers which imitated those patterns set by the Lord to his Church That so the Infants or younglings of Christs family might not be starved because they have not such teeth as these mens jaw-bones pretend to who before they have well sucked in the first principles are gnawing bones or cracking kernels and nuts exercising themselves or vexing others with odd questions and doubtfull disputations more troubled with their Familisticall fancies about their own partaking of the divine Nature their identity with Christ and when and how it is in what manner and what measure they may be said to be God and Christ and the Spirit than soberly establishing their mindes in the fundamentall points of things to be beleived obeyed and desired to the glory of God and the honour of the Gospell But I must leave these envious and unquiet Spirits to their censorious separations wrangling themselves into vanities and errors at length falling like Lucifer into the blacknesse of darknesse to unjustice and cruelty after that into grosser blasphemies and presumptions against God Christ and the holy Spirit while they proudly affect and presume to be not like to the most High but the same with him not in the beauties of holinesse grace and godlinesse which are the clear Image of God set forth in the Word but in the glory and majesty of the divine Essence which is inscrutable not to be communicated or comprehended in its superessentiall being and superintellectuall perfection no more than the vast and glorious body of the Sun which is 160 times bigger than the earth can be locally contained in the eye to which yet it is by its beams in some kinde imparted and united Such superfluity we see there is of folly ignorance weaknesse pride and malice in some spirits who upon very peevish and perverse grounds forsake our Christian publique Assemblies and duties celebrated in our Churches which are sanctitied by the Word and prayer scorning and condemning what we doe upon the best grounds of Scripture and Reason separating themselves from the true Ministry and fellowship of the Church of England as if they were most spirituall and refined when yet they seem to be so grossely ignorant so passionate and some of them so sensuall as is no argument of their having the Spirit of God which is wise in all holinesse 7 Calumny Act. 24.5 BUt our Antiministeriall Adversaries object as Tertullus and the Jews did against St. Paul that the ordained Ministers of the former way Against Ministers as seditious and inconform to Civil government are pestilent fellows stirrers up of the people factious turbulent seditious not so supple conform and well affected to the present constitution of powers and publique affaires So that it is not onely lawfull but necessary either to bring them to a plenary conformity and subjection or to exautorate and suppresse them as to all publique influence in the Ministry Thus doe these Wasps and Hornets buz up and down who hope with their noise and stings ere long to drive all the ancient and true Ministers of God out of the land or at least out of the service of the Church that so they may be possessed of the Hive though they make no Honey Answ Answ This Calumny is indeed of the promising advantage to the enemies of the Ministers and their calling and therefore it is with most cunning and earnestnesse every where levelled by some men against their persons Naz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. actions and function It is like the policy of Julian the Apostate who to ensnare the Christians set the statues of the Emperours with the Idols of the Gods That if Christians did civill reverence as to the Emperours they should be defamed as Idolaters if not they should be accused as despisers of the Emperours And because I perswade my self that all excellent Christians how potent soever can bear an honest freedome and plainnesse I shall onely as to this sharp and poysoned arrow oppose the shield of plain dealing that in a matter so much concerning the satisfaction of others and Ministers civill safety there may be no such obscurities as may harbour any jealousies First of all I need not tell you 1. Some Ministers compliances what all the English world knows aboundantly That there are many Ministers of very good abilities who are not at all blameable in this particular as to any restivenesse and incompliancy in civill subjections they have sufficiently testified how Arts and ingenuous