ἹεÏá½° ΔάκÏυα Ecclesiae Anglicanae Suspiria THE TEARS SIGHS COMPLAINTS AND PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Setting forth Her former Constitution compared with Her present Condition ALSO The visible Causes and probable Cures of Her Distempers In IV. BOOKS By JOHN GAUDEN D.D. of Bocking in Essex Jer. 8.28 Is there no Balm in Gilead is there no Physician there Why then is not the health of the Daughter of my people recovered DEPRESSA RESVRGO LONDON Printed by J. G. for R. ROYSTON at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1659. ECCLESIA ANGLICANA PROTEGE PASCE DUX MEA IN TENEBRAS ET GAUDIUM IN MEROREM VT PELLICANA IN DESERTO Proprio vos sanguine pasco Nunquam CHRISTO Charior quam sub Cruce gemens Illustrissimis ANGLICANAE GENTIS Nobilibus Omniúmque Ordinum Generosis ingenuis Qui Natales Eruditione Eruditionem Virtute Virtutem Fide Fidem Moribus Verè Christianis Sanctitate Suavitatéque conspicuis Vel exaequarunt vel exuperarunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnibus Religionis Christianae Tam à Romanistarum Faece Scabie Quà m Fanaticorum Spumâ Rabie Reformatae Professoribus Hoc est verbo vitâque vindicibus Haec ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE MATRIS Olim Florentissimae nunc Afflictissimae Lugentis Languentis Suspirantis Et tantum non Expirantis Lacrymas Suspiria Planctus Preces Summa cum Reverentia Debitáque Observantia Pro Charitate Sympathia Quâ decuit Humillimum in Christo Servum D. D. D. J. G. THE CONTENTS The Preface or Address p. 1 BOOK I. Setting forth the present Distresses of the Church of England CHAP. I. THE Name and Thing the Title and Truth of the Church of England asserted p. 23 II. Primitive Piety and Prudence utterly against Schismatick dividing or mincing of Churches into small bodies or parcels p. 35 III. The present afflictions of the Church of England no argument against Her National and well-Reformed Constitution p. 46 IV. The England's Complaint p. 51 V. The cruel and unjust enmity of some against the Church of England p. 60 VI. The causeless malice and ingratitude of the England's enemies p. 64 VII Of the excellent Constitution of the Church of England and her undeserved calamities p. 68 VIII A furtâ—â—â—â— scrutiny and discovery of the England's miseries and enemies p. 73 CHAP. IX A general Vindication of the England's former excellent Constitution although it be now afflicted p. 76 X. Mr. Hooker's Defense of the Church of England unanswered and unanswerable p. 83 XI The excellent Constitution of the Church of England as to its Doctrinals p. 86 XII The Devotionals of the Church of England asserted p. 87 XIII The Ceremonies of the Church of England no meritorious cause of Her miseries p. 96 XIV A second Objection against the Church of England from Church-mens personal failings p. 114 Book II. Searching the Causes and Occasions of the Church of England's Decayes CHAP. I. HOW farre they conveniently may not and how farre they may be searched into p. 137 II. Inordinate Liberty in religious affairs the chief cause of miseries in the Church of England p. 139 CHAP. III. What Christian liberty is desirable and tolerable among people p. 143 IV. Of Plebeian rudeness and licentiousness in Religion if left to themselves p. 150 V. Instances of abused Liberty in the vulgar neglect of reading the Scriptures p. 153 VI. Vulgar neglect and scorn of Ancient Forms of wholsom words in the Decalogue Creed and Lords-Prayer p. 156 VII The Innovations Usurpations and Vastations made by some upon the Order Office and Authority of the Evangelical Ministry p. 159 VIII The pretensions of Intruders to excuse their wants p. 167 IX Of Ministerial sufficiencies real or pretended p. 171 X. What caution Christians ought to use as to those Ministers with whom they intrust the care of their souls p. 175 XI Of late new models for making Ministers of the Gospel p. 181 XII The false and foolish pretensions urged against the Ministry of England p. 188 XIII An impartial balancing of the old and new Ministers p. 190 XIV A charitable plea for the ancient Clergie of the Church of England against the ingratitude and indifferency of some men p. 193 CHAP. XV. The best of the new Teachers compared with the Ministers of England p. 195 XVI A farther sifting of these new Teachers p. 197 XVII The modesty gravity sanctity and solidity of true Ministers c. p. 200 XVIII The designs ends of fanatick Libertines fatal to the Reformed Religion p. 202 XIX An humble and earnest expostulation in the behalf of the people and Church of England p. 204 XX. The rudeness irreverence expressed by some in religious duties as a part of their Liberty p. 211 XXI The sad exchange people make of their old Religion for new Raptures p. 212 XXII The foul mistakes abuses of Christian liberty in vulgar spirits p. 214 XXIII A further discovery of mischiefs from abused liberty in Religion p. 217 XXIV The contagion of abused or mistaken Liberty spread among Ministers to the dividing debasing and destroying of them p. 221 XXV Unavoidable contentions among Ministers of different ordinations p. 224 XXVI The folly and factions of Ministers evidently seen and punished in their common calamities p. 233 CHAP. XXVII The great diminutions of all sorts of Ministers in England as to all civil respects p. 235 XXVIII The sordid envy and grudging against Ministers Tithes and Glebes p. 240 XXIX Ministers condition not to be envied but pitied p. 243 XXX Experimental instances how petulant some people are to their Ministers p. 245 XXXI The personal sufferings of Ministers after all their pains merits and troubles p. 248 XXXII Discouragements to ingenuous men to be made Ministers in England in after-times p. 254 XXXIII A worthy Ministry not expectable unless there be a worthy usage and entertainment p. 257 BOOK III. Setting forth the Evil Consequences felt or feared from the Distractions of Religion in England CHAP. I. DEcays in Godliness as to the former generation of Christians p. 261 II. â— Decayes of godliness as to the new brood and later off-spring of meaner Christians p. 267 III. The evil consequences infesting Christians of better quality p. 270 CHAP. IV. Prophaneness the fruit of unsetledness in Religion p. 273 V. Ministers molested by endless vexatious disputes p. 275 VI. The endless bickerings with Anabaptists c. now in England p. 278 VII The perverse disputings of Anabaptists aganst Infant-baptism p. 281 VIII The weakness of Anabaptists grounds against Infant-Baptism p. 283 IX The Catholick strength for Infant-Baptism p. 286 X. Of right reasoning from Scripture p. 289 XI Of the Churches Catholick custome and testimony p. 291 XII The sin of presumptuous delaying and denying baptism to Infants p. 295 XIII The dangerous effects principles of Anabaptism p. 297 XIV The Romish advantages by the divisions and deformities of the Church of England p. 300 XV. The wide and just distances between the Reformed and Romanists p. 305 XVI
well as in a triumphant Chariot Ambitious vanities are never seasonable or comely for any humble Christians and least for the Ministers of Christ who ought to be crucified to the world and the world to them Gal. 6.14 especially at my years and in my condition 'T is honour and grandeur enough for Me if I may next the advance of Gods glory promote Your and my Countries common good which I must tell you doth not a little depend upon the good order unity and government the honour peace and safety of the Reformed Religion duly established in this Church and Nation of England Of whose festred scratches and deep wounds since I cannot but have a great sense both of Grief and Shame and toward whose healing since I am indeed very ambitious to drop one drop of soveraigne balsome before I die I have here endeavoured to seek Your face and to recommend Her distress to Your compassions It is for Her sake and for Yours in Her that I again adventure for truly it is an adventure and no small one in this age thus to appeare in publique possibly with more forwardnesse and zeale than prudence and discretion in some mens censure Who it may be have not so much charity or courage in them as to own an afflicted friend an impoverished father or a distressed mother Yet to justifie my discretion this may be said That nothing seems to me in Policy as well as Piety more rationally and religiously necessary than a publique tender regard to the state of the Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation To me Noblemen and Gentlemen Citizens and Yeomen all sorts in their private and publique capacity seem if not to want yet to expect something in this kind from some of us Ministers of the Church of England which might handsomely excite to honest industry those sparks of piety and generosity which heretofore flamed in their Fore-fathers liberall breasts toward this Church of England as Christian and as Reformed Nor are they I presume quite extinct in yours who now succeed them whom I doe not arrogantly instruct as if I thought you ignorant but humbly provoke to doe what you know when opportunity shall answer your abilities and good will Not but that I have also pleasing speculations many times of that silent safetie and secure latencie in which I see others my betters or equals hug themselves I know there are men otherwayes of good worth and parts who dare not speak one good word either of or for the best Bishops the best Presbyters or the best Nationall Church in the world as this of England was These over-bred and too much Gentlemen may consider That a good man may be more wary than wise more fearfull than faithfull more cautious than consciencious The Prophet Jeremie resolved by reason of the danger and ingratitude of the Jewes to speak no more to them in the name of the Lord but the word of God was as fire in his breast he could not hold his peace and keep peace in his soule I could as easily wrap my self up in silence and privacie as some others doe if I did not feare sins of omission as well as commission which was the jealousie a most learned and godly person had of himself lately dying who yet had been an earnest intercessor for the relief of many distressed Ministers in England I would also covet the reputation of a wise man by keeping silence in an evill time if I had not many and great stimulations while my life is declining and my death approching to give what further constant and comely proofs I may to this and after-ages of my zeal for God of my love to my Saviour of my communion with his Catholick Church of my particular respect to this noble part of it The Church of England and in this of my due observance to my Reverend Fathers and beloved brethren the godly Bishops and orderly Presbyters of this Church yea and lastly of my charitable ambition to heap coals of fire not scorching and consuming but melting and refining even upon the heads of those who still professe to be remorslesse enemies to my calling and to the whole Church of England who seem to me as if they sought totally to debase the Clergie of England yea utterly to destroy the ancient Catholique order and government succession and authority of the Evangelicall Ministery in this Reformed Church while they endeavour to remove able ordained and autoritative Teachers into corners and to obtrude I know not what volâ—ntiers new and exotick intruders into that holy function These will certainly in a few years make the Sun goe down upon England at noon-day bringing upon this Nation the shadows of the night Superstition ignorance profanenesse irreligion and confusion leading Posterity to Popery by the way of popularity poverty parity despiciency and Anarchy falling upon the Ministery and the Reformed Religion of this Church In which blacknesse of darknesse debasings and disorders the Seers of this people will in time grow blind the guides unguided the teachers will be untaught the Pastors unbred the flock unfed by a mushrome and novell Ministery multiforme miserable mechanick Grows-up neither duly ordained nor decently maintained nor much deserving either of them being crest-faln in themselves and contemptible to others I cannot be satisfied in Reason or Religion in honour or conscience in policy or piety how it can be happy for You your Posterity and this whole Nation to live after a vagrant loose and indifferent way of Christian administrations and profession according to every mans private fancy choice and humour without any such Nationall setling and combination such publique Ecclesiasticall union as hath in all Ages and Nations best edified and fortified counselled and corrected excited and increased both gifts and graces in a most comely and most Christian order with such harmony unity majesty and authority as best becomes the Disciples and Churches of Christ I confesse I am ashamed to see and heare any Gentlemen of honour or other persons of commendable qualities of good estates of ingenuous parts and breeding poorly and meanly to forsake the waters of Siloah and to follow the brooks of Teman to discountenance at least if not quite discard their learned grave godly and experienced Ministers who are of the true metall and stamp too which a Minister of the Gospel ought to be that is really enabled and duly ordained or authorized to that great work And this most what not out of any serious advice and consciencious choise becoming Christians in so great a concernment but rather out of easinesse levity curiosity popularity or some pittifull complyances with novell upstarts and rude intruders into that Sacred office Among whom if they doe save their purses which is by some deserters of their lawfull Ministers much looked after yet I am afraid they too much venture their souls I am sure they lose much of their credit both in present and after-ages
by learned and godly men Bishops and other Ministers were notably discovered and by some Christian Princes or States happily amended with great order and by due authority as in other places so no where with more Wisdom Justice and Moderation than in England Where as in most of the Churches protesting against the Roman deformities especially those of the Lutheran denomination the ancient Orders and Authority both of Bishops and Presbyters were preserved as is evident in the Augustane confession which finds no fault with but highly approves the Government of the Church by Bishops under Episcopacy provided Bishops would joyn in a just Reformation of those gross abuses which were the Churches intolerable grievances as well as the dishonour of Christian Religion and Christian Bishops whose deserved Honours Estates and Eminencies in Authority they saw no cause to envie grudge or diminish So far were these first Reformers from hewing down Episcopacy as if it cumbred the ground that they onely digged about it and mended it that it might bring forth good fruit as it did in England and elsewhere While the Western Churches Reformation was yet but crude and in motion by Luthers means there arose Mr. John Calvin about the Year 1541. a man of good Learning acute Wit copious Eloquence great Industry quick Passions sharp Pen of reputed Piety and of no less Policy Him the people of Geneva thought the fittest man in the world to settle their distracted Church and State after they had with the wonted arts of tumultuating and discontented people forced Eustace their Bishop and Prince to flye from his Palace and City his Bishoprick and his Seigniorie because he would not presently gratifie them with such a Reformation as they imperiously demanded rather than modestly desired Mr. Calvin as Mr. R. Hooker hath excellently set it forth undertook with much difficulty and after many indignities worthy of popular levity fury and petulancy put upon him to settle their Church-affairs together with the civil State in such order as he thought not most Scriptural primitive and Catholick but most prudential plausible and probable in humane reason and honest policy to take and hold the tumultuating inconstancy of that people so to bring them to something of civil and religious order acting herein not upon any Wiclefian or the after Presbyterian and Antiepiscopal Principles as imagining either Episcopacy to be unlawful or sole Presbytery to be necessary as of Divine Institution neither of which were his judgement as is sufficiently and vehemently declared by his passionate approbation of reformed Bishops and his esteeming so honourably of regular Episcopacy that he passeth all Anathemas or curses on those that are against them so far was Calvin from laying the Axe to the root of this Tree which with Christianity had ever as he confessed born Episcopacy But he rather went upon Erastian principles and politick grounds looking it seems upon the Government of the Church as he did upon the Lords-day which is not elder nor more authentick or Catholick as to the Churches use and observation than Episcopacy to be in their nature mutable as of Ecclesiastick yet Divine prescription according as Times Occasions and Minds of men might fall out He well knew being a learned man and oft confesseth in his Writings the primitive blessing and universal authority of presidential Episcopacy in all Churches yet he neither thought it nor any forme of Government any more than clothes to be essential to the substance and body or any Church or of the Christian Religion but variable to several forms and polities as prudence might invite or necessity require so that he never set up any soveraign and unepiscopal Presbytery as an Idol or Moloch to which not onely the children but the Fathers of the Churches even very godly and reformed Bishops were all sacrificed He thought it did not misbecome his policy and prudence to serve the times and humors of the Citizens so far as to seem to vary the outward mode of their and all other Churches ancient government provided he served the Lord and that people in setling such a government as might preserve the Christian Reformed Religion among them in true Doctrine and good Manners which was the main work which Calvin seemed to mind most To have reconciled the City and their former Bishop was a matter impossible unless he or they had changed their minds in Religion to have perswaded them to elect a new Prince and Bishop of their own profession and opinion had been very imprudent considering either the fair offers they made to himself of being not titularly indeed but virtually and really both the Prince and Prelate or remembring that strong fancy of Liberty which had now so filled and intoxicated all sorts of Citizens In the last place to have set up himself in the pomp and formalities of a Bishop and a Prince had been an act of too much Impudence and Envy for a person of his Ingenuity Policy and Dexterity in publick managements it sufficed his design so far to gratifie both the Populacy with seeming Liberty and the Optimacy with some civil and Magistratick Authority all of them with such reformed purity in Religion as most pleased them and yet to keep up himself and his collegues of the Ministry to such an height of Ecclesiastical Influence and Church-power as made them far from being either slaves to the Vulgar or cyphers to the Government for all cases civil and criminal as well as religious were one way or other reducible and so responsible either by way of comprimising or upon scandal or repentance or satisfaction to the cognizance and consistory of him and his collegues himself being as the Caesar they as his Bibuli In effect his Wisdom Reputation Eloquence and Courage set him up in Geneva and other places to so high an eminency of respect and authority as he equalled yea exceeded most Bishops however his pomp train and pension were but small after the usual bounty expectable from any State or City that list to make their Reformations of Religion compleat by robbing the Church and Clergy of their ancient Lands and Revenues which doubtless in that City had been so great and princely as upon the confiscation of them to their Town-box or Exchequer they might well have allowed Mr. Calvin their great Reformer and chief Pastor and his Associates a Salary much beyond an hundred pounds per ann with a little provision of Corn. But he wisely dissembled this Indignity finding that as Riches Pomp and Luxury had undone former Bishops so a voluntary kind of Poverty and Austerity would now best conciliate to him and his collegues a greater Reverence and Authority nor was it considerable to have a gay or rich scabbard provided they had sharp and well metall'd swords their Ambition was rather to intend Gods work in reforming Religion of its Leprosie with Elisha than in taking mans rewards with Gehazi In this Presbyterian Prelacy or Prelatick Presbytery
bestowed on his Church in all the world who never till of later yeares knew any thing of other Church-governments besides that of Episcopacy any more than they saw new Suns or new Moons in the Heavens It may be these Parelii or Paraselenes these Meteors Comets and blazing Stars that now appear in despite of primitive Episcopacy will not be so long lasting nor so benign to this or any Church as that was though they seem to emulate yea and strive to eclipse nay quite to extinguish the shining of those ancient lights to which they owe their best light of sound Knowledge and Religion Episcopacy joyned with an orderly Presbytery Mean time what Inconveniencies yea Mischiefs and Miseries have or may attend these Fractions Diversities Divisions and Confusions upon the account of religious forms and Church-ambitions in this and other Churches between both Ministers and other sorts of Christians what spoyle and havock they may be tempted in time to make upon one another while they seek either to overdrop or to destroy each other as they have done beyond all moderation and mercy upon Episcopacy how little hopes there is that any or many or all of them can ever thrive and ascend to any height not of secular glory but of Christian proficiency in Truth and Love comparable to the pristine or modern Beauty Fruitfulnesse Usefulnesse and Goodlinesse of a right Episcopacy in England or any other Church is left to the sober judgement and prudent presages of all wise and worthy Christians that list to be spectators and Readers before whose eyes this Scheme is with Truth and Love plainly and impartially set forth as to the historick and politick Description of these several and unproportionable Figures which are lively Emblemes of the Catholick and ancient Unity and Uniformity under Episcopacy compared to moderne Diminutions Divisions and Deformities as to Ecclesiastical Polity Order and Government since Presbytery was planted in blood and Independency self-sown of late years in England whose Honor as a Church Christian and Reformed will then be most advanced together with its civil Peace when both Presbytery and Independency as to the just Interests of godly Ministers and people are re-ingrafted or re-incorporated with those of primitive Episcopacy which is beyond all dispute and ever was in the best and worst times the best Conservator as of Bishops Apostolick Authority and Succession so of Presbyters worthy priviledges and of all faithful peoples comely advantages so far as they are joyntly concerned in Ordination or Approbation of Ministers in Consecration and Communication in holy Mysteries in mutual Counsels Supports and Assistances both private and publick The just ballancing or even twisting of which three together makes Christian Churches and States at once ample honourable and happy both in Order and Unity in Strength and Beauty in Unanimity and Uniformity which are the best constitution and complexion of any Church that desires to thrive in Piety and Charity in Truth and Love which the wise and blessed God in mercy restore to us BOOK I. SETTING FORTH THE Present DISTRESSES OF THE CHURCH of ENGLAND CHAP. I. LEst any one should stumble at the very threshold of my Discourse and by their too much prejudice coynesse and easiness to take offence from Names should frustrate my whole design of doing them good by forbearing to read what I write upon such a subject I am at first as briefly and plainly as I can to assert the Name of the Church of Engl. Which Title is certainly the crown of our Country the honour of our Nation the highest holiest and happiest band of our society the surest foundation of our peace with God and men which under this name and in this relation becomes sacred as well as civil religious as wel as rational It was a very sad and bad exchange if this Nation then began to be no Ch. of Christ when it began to be a Common-wealth if it ceased at once to be an earthly heavenly kingdome which last as the Emperour Theodosius said was the greater honour of the two We eate and drink and sleep we beget our like we die or kill and devour one another as beasts we build and plant we buy and sell we rule and obey as meer men But we believe and worship the true God we professe the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ we are partakers of the gifts and graces of the blessed spirit we have an holy communion with that adorable Trinity and with one another in love and charity as Christians that is visible members of Christ our Head and of his Church which is his mysticall body our noblest life sweetest society and divinest fraternity is as we are Christians that is Emulators of the holy Angels Imitators of God children and servants in the family of Christ candidates of heaven expectants of happinesse partakers of grace and daily preparing for eternall glory All which are the dispensations capacities and priviledges of that nation and people onely which are and own themselves the Church of Christ A title of so much honour and reall advantages that in earnest no Nation or people once called and converted to be Christians and by publick vote or profession owning themselves to be such should ever be patient to be robbed or under any specious pretences and novel fallacies deprived of it since the Empire of the whole world and the riches of both Indies are not equivalent to this honour for a people to be called Gods people which were not his and for a Nation which sate in darknesse and in the shadow of death to be professedly and really the houshold of faith the Church of Christ as this of Engl. was heretofore owned to be by the solemn and publick profession of its Kings and Princes its Nobles and Peers its Parlaments and Synods its Magistrates and Ministers by the consent suffrages and submissions of all estates and degrees of people ever since its first conversion who never thought it any impropriety or barbarity of speech much lesse any disgrace to call themselves according to their joynt and declared profession of the name and faith of Christ The church of England Which Title I use according to the good old style and generall phrase of all learned godly and wise men both at home and abroad Ancient and Modern With which Inscription that excellent Bishop Jewell set forth his just and accurate Apologie ful of honest learning potent reasonings and unfeigned Antiquity besides Scripture-demonstrations which got It and this Church so great an applause both at home and abroad that all Reformed Churches and Divines admired it both this Church and that Book The more learned and modest Romanists either found they had not abilities to confute it or not confidence enough to despise it nor did any Non-conformists then boggle at this Title of The Church of England when they found it convenient to enjoy the benefit of Her shadow and protection however in some things they
all ages if his prohibition be not against Separation Apostasy and total forsaking of the Churches communion both in Discipline and Doctrine in Polity and Verity as well as against Schisme The difference is not much between S. Pauls censure of Schisme and division as carnall and a work of the flesh Gal. 5.20 and that of S. Jude against such as separate as being sensuall and not having the Spirit especially where such communion is offered and required by a Church Christian and Reformed as is no way against the Word of God the Apostles example and the Primitive Catholick practise of all Churches such I believe and hope to prove that of the Church of England was and is as to those main essentialls of Religion which constitute a true Church both in the being and well-being But I needed not and therefore I crave your pardon worthy Gentlemen have spent so much breath to blow up and break the late thin bladders or light bubbles these new Corpusculas of separate Churches compared to the Catholick eminency unity and solidity of the Church of England and others of like size An easie foot will serve to beat down such new-sprung Mushromes of late perked up in this English soyle through the licentiousnesse of times and luxuriancy of mens humours since it hath been watered with Humane and Christian blood whose ambition seems to be not onely to divide and share but wholly to possess and engross this good land or else to leave desolate that field out of which they are sprung which bare far better fruits than now it doth long before their name was heard of under the new titles or style of bodyed and congregated associated or independented and new-fangled Churches Who have now the confidence to cry down the Church of England in its late visible polity harmony order and unity as a meer name and notion an insignificant Idea and empty imagination as if it were neither bonum nor jucundum good nor pleasant for Brethren in Christ to dwell together in unity or for men in one nation to be Christians in one Church as if bonds of civil polity reached farther than Ecclesiastick Some are so vain and vulgar as to boast that all Church-fellowship in England is no better then floten milk when once they have taken off the cream of some Saintly professors which they think worthy to make up and coagulate into their new and small bodyed Churches which are carried on by some with so high an hand and brow that a young master of that sect hath been heard to say not more magisterially than uncharitably he would sooner renounce his Baptism than own the Church of England to be a true Church And this notwithstanding that it is evident these new Rabbies have added nothing new and true to the Doctrine of the Church of England nor yet to the divine Worship and holy Ministrations or Duties used and professed in it with as much solemnity judgement and sincerity I believe as they can pretend to without blushing on mans part and with infinite more spirituall blessings and proficiency in all graces so far as yet appeares on Gods part Nor have they ever shewn any cause why It should be denyed the name honour priviledge and comfort of a true Church of Christ both in its principall parts and in the whole visible community or polity afflicted indeed at present but sometime famous and flourishing as in favour both with God and good men nor did it ever recede from its love or apostatize by any publick act or vote from such a profession of Christian and Reformed Religion as gives her a good Title to be and to be called a true Church of Christ in spight of men and Devils If any still list to quarrell at the name of a Nationall Church the same schismaticall sophisters may as well slight all those proportions and expressions used in all the grand Combinations and visible Constitutions of such ancient Churches throughout all descents of Christian Religion which never doubted to cast themselves into and continue in such Ecclesiasticall forms and parallel distributions as they found laid out by the blessed Apostles and the Spirit of Christ which without doubt most eminently guided those Primitive Churches When these new projectors have answered the Scripture style and the Apostolick patterns and pens followed by all antiquity which call and account all those Christians conjoyned in one Churches communion in point of Ecclesiasticall polity subordination chief power and jurisdiction who yet were dispersed in many places and so distinguished no doubt into many congregations as to the duties of ordinary worship throughout their Cities respective Provinces which I am sure were many of them far larger than any one Diocese or Province in England yea and possibly not much lesse than all England as Ephesus Crete Jerusalem Antioch whose province was all Syria as Ignatius tells us so Corinth Philippi Laodicea Rome c. with their Suburbs Territories and Provinces which extended as far as their proconsulary jurisdictions reached in one of which that learned and pious but fancifull interpreter Mr. Brightman doubted not to find a prophetick Type representing the Nationall Church of England with much more aptitude than his other Satyrick correspondencies were applied When the wit and artifices of Independent brethren if they allow me that relation have shrunk those great and famous Churches so distinguished and nominated by the Scripture line and record into little handfulls such as one mans lungs can reach at one time in one place when the Presbyterian brethren who have cast off yea cast out their Fathers the Bishops can manifest that the severall Congregations of Christians in those Parishes Classes or Associations which they fancy had as many Bishops properly so called and fully impowered as there were Presbyters or Preachers when by their joynt skill and force they can evince out of any Ecclesiasticall Records or Scripturall that there was not some one eminent person as the Apostle Angel Bishop and President or chief Governour among them over all those people and Presbyters who lived within such large Scripture-combinations as Churches such as was Timothy in Ephesus Titiâ— in Crete S. James the Just in Jerusalem either succeeding the Apostles after death or supplying their places during their absence from particular Churches who in their severall lots portions or Episcopal charges and divisions had while they lived the chief inspection rule authority and jurisdiction When I say these grand difficulties are cleared and removed as scales from our eyes who still honour the Church of England then we shall be willing and able to turn the other lessening end of the Optick glasse and to look upon the great and goodly Church of England as fit to be shrunk into decimo sexto volumes or to be divided into small pamphleting Congregations and bound up in Calves leather which heretofore by an happy deception of sight appeared to us at
behold without seven dayes silence and astonishment like Job's friends the rufull and dismall spectacle of the Church of England which is like Job or Lazarus living indeed but almost buried in its Sores and Sorrowes not onely lying but even dying on its dunghill like the sometime lovely and beautifull Daughter of Zion now grovelling in the dust deserving another tender-hearted Jeremy who might write the book of England's Lamentations with his Teares since the History of her Fall and Ruine is written in blood Her own brood like the young Pelicans feeding upon her without any pity or remorse growing daily fiercer after they have once tasted of her flesh and more resolute as Absalom by the rapes they have rudely made upon a Matrone lately so comely chast and honourable whom Her destroyers dare now to count and call the filth and off-scouring of all Churches crying down Her holy habitations and conventions as cages and flocks of unclean birds Her holy Ministrations as impious and odious Her holy Bishops and Ministers as Antichristian usurpers and impostors Her whole Constitution as Babylonish and abominable worthy of nothing but their curses and comminations CHAP. VII HAth any Nation changed Her Gods though they are no Gods saith the Prophet expostulating with the inconstant and Apostatizing Jews who had despised the Word forsaken the Law and broken the everlasting covenant of God made with their forefathers What people that owns a God or a Saviour or a Soul immortall or any Divine Veneration under the name of their Religion was ever patient to heare their and their fore-fathers God blasphemed or to see that Religion wherein to the best of their understanding they agreed and professed publickly to serve and worship their God vulgarly baffled and contemned Was ever any part of mankind so stupidly barbarous as to behold without just grief and resentment their Oracles and Scriptures vilified and abused their solemn Prayers and Liturgies torn and burnt their Temples profaned and ruined their holy Services scorned and abhorred their Priests and Ministers of holy Mysteries impoverished and contemned In matters of Religion the light of nature hath taught every Nation to be commendably zealous and piously pertinacious esteeming this their highest honour to be very tender of any diminution dishonour or indignity offered to their Religion which reflects upon the majesty of their God whom every Nation may in charity be presumed to serve in such a way as they think to be most acceptable to their God every man being convinced that he ought to pay the highest respects to that Deity which he adores from which to be easily moved by vulgar clamours and inconstancy without grand and weighty demonstrations convincing a man of his own errour and his Countreys mistake or contrary to the dictates of conscience for any man shamefully to flatter or silently to comply with any such designs as appear first reproching their Religion next robbing their God and at last destructive to all publick Piety is certainly a temper so base so brutish so ignoble so servile so sordid so devilish that it is worse than professed or avowed Atheisme for he sins lesse that owns no God than he that mocks him or so treats him as the world may see he neither loves nor feares Him And can it I beseech you O noble Christians and worthy Gentlemen become the piety wisdome and honour of this so ancient and renowned Nation of England to behold with coldnesse and indifferency like Gallio the scamblings and prostitutions the levellings and abasings the scorns and calumnies so petulantly and prodigally cast by mechanick and plebeian spirits for the most part or by mercenary insolency upon that Christian and Reformed Religion which hath so long flourished among you and your fore-fathers and which was first setled among you not slightly nor superficially not by the preposterous policies passions and interests of our Princes not by the pusillanimity or partiality of over-awed Parlaments nor yet by the superstitious easinesse or tumultuary headinesse of the common people but upon learned publick and serious examination of every thing that was setled and owned as any point or part of our Religion There was godly grave mature and impartial counsel of most learned Divines used there was the full and free Parlamentary consent of all estates and degrees in this nation there was a strict and due regard had to the Word of God and the mind of Christ as to doctrine and duties to the faith and fundamentals of Religion without any regard to any such antique customes or traditions as seemed contrary to that rule As for the rituals and prudentials the circumstantiating and decorating of Religion great regard was had in them to the usages of pure and Primitive Antiquity so as became modest wise and humble Christians who seeing nothing in the ancient Churches Rites and Ceremonies contrary to Gods Word or beyond the liberty allowed them and all Churches in point of order and decency did discreetly and ingenuously study such compliance with them as shewed the least desire of novellizing or needless varying from and the greatest care of conforming to sober and venerable Antiquity Against all which sacred suffrages and ecclesiasticall attestations for the true Christian and Reformed Religion once setled in the Church of England now at last to oppose either popular giddinesse and desire of novelties or any secular policies and worldly designes or any brutish power that is neither rationall nor religious but meerly arbitrary and imperious altering and abolishing as the populacy listeth matters of Religion which are the highest concernments of any nation and so require the most publick counsels impartial debates and serious consent of all estates by such pitiful principles and the like unconscientious biasses for a Nation to be swayed in or swerved from the great and weighty matters of Religion once well established is certainly a perfect indication of present basenesse also an infallible presage of future unhappinesse Which I beseech God to divert from this Nation of England by your prayers and teares by your counsel and courage by your moderation and discretion who are too knowing to be ignorant and too ingenuous to be unsensible of your duty to God and your own souls of your respect and deserved gratitude to your Countrey and to this Church of England which was heretofore loved by its children applauded by its friends reverenced by its neigbours dreaded and envied by its enemies and this not onely for that long peace and prosperity it enjoyed which alone are no signs of Gods approbation but chiefly as Irenaeus observes for those rare spirituall gifts ministeriall devotionall and practicall which were evidently to be seen in Her those pious proficiencies those spirituall influences which preachers people found in their own hearts those gracious examples and frequent good works which they set forth to others those heavenly experiences they enjoyed in themselves those charitable simplicities they
and confession that the Philosopher confessed himself evicted convicted converted Such a solitary rock of Christian constancy was that one great Athanasius deservedly master of an immortall name because in the sea and inundation of Arian perfidy and the Apostasy of most He He persisted a constant professor a couragious Confessor a patient Martyr by his sufferings for so great a truth which is of greater price than all Christians temporall lives better all men die as to their mortality than Christ be deprived of the honour of his Divinity which is the life of a believers faith and hope for eternall life by the meritorious excellency and infinite goodness of the blessed Jesus both God and man Notwithstanding these instances in cases of great concernment which had the Scriptures testimony the consent of all the ancient Churches to buoy up their undertakers against all the oppositions of men or devils yet in things of a lesse nature which being indifferent in their kind are best determinable by publick prudence it argues as S. Austin speaks insolentissimam insaniam no small pride and arrogancy which is the mother of folly and faction for any one man or some few men whom all order and polity hath made inferiour to others either as their betters or as the rulers and representatives of the whole Society to prefer their own private opinions and judgements before the well-advised results and solemn sanctions of those that are far more in number and every way as eminent for piety prudence and integrity besides the advantage they have of more publick influence and just authority Such indeed were the first Reformers and Constituters of the Church of England both as to its fundamentals and what they thought ornamentals or ceremonies who I believe had much more religious reason for what they then approved and appointed both as to piety and policy than we at this distance of times and different state of things can well discern I am sure they were masters of as much learning and as great searchers of divine verities as any of those new masters who now so much blame them and pert upon them yea and I believe they had much more of true zeal and meekness of humility and charity attending their learned counsels and pious endeavours than will be at last found in those men who are so far from suffering as martyrs for Christ and his Church that they seek to make this Church one of the greatest sufferers and martyrs that ever was of any Christian and Reformed Church Those forenamed gifts and graces which sowed by Gods blessing those good seeds of Piety and Peace whence a long and plentifull harvest of Blessings spiritual and temporal did grow and was reaped for many years in England by us and our fore-fathers those I believe will carry the honest and humble Conformists sooner and nearer to heaven than the pride passion and petulancy of these is like to do who now seem the most supercilious and triumphant Non-conformists against the Church of England to some of whose violences immoderations and imprudencies that I name not sacriledges profanenesses and cruelties the Church of England and its Children next their sins do now owe so much of their miseries dangers and undoings for which I doubt not but in the day of impartiall doom they will find that Gods thoughts were not as their thoughts nor his wayes as their wayes To the jealousie and contempt which some men expressed against the Ceremonies of the Church of England they added their perpetual quarrelling with those Festival solemnities which were appointed to be annually observed in a religious way to Gods glory and Christians improvement by fasting or feasting by prayer preaching and communicating which uses and ends being sufficient to justifie all things that any Church particularly appoints or observes agreeable to the generall tenour of Gods Word yet some mens divinity hath been alwayes bent to condemn and discountenance even the solemn and speciall memorials of Christs Nativity Passion Resurrection Ascension and sending of the holy Ghost which celebrate no other mysteries or memorials than those which the grand Articles of Christian faith do teach us The wisdome and piety of the Church having in all ages written in Dominicall or great Letters those most remarkable Histories of our Saviours transactions on earth in order to our Redemption which certainly are never more observed by common people than when they are set forth in such Holidayes and are kept with more than ordinary solemnity and festivity or joy such as becomes sober Christians for which we have not onely the ancient Churches general practice but Gods own command and precedent among the Jews to prevent forgetting or slighting of Gods signall mercies Against all which some men are so envious among Christians that they will not endure either Ministers or neighbour-Christians to benefit their own and others souls by preaching upon any of those speciall dayes or occasions and subjects They can allow State Fasts Civil Festivals and Common-wealths Thanksgivings upon petty and inconsiderable accounts comparatively but by no means upon such as are purely Christian either for mortification or gratulation in which they are so peevishly partiall that they superciliously fancy their not observing such a day to be a service to the Lord but they have not so much charity as to grant that anothers observing such a day is an observing it to the Lord which affirmative the blessed Apostle allows no less than the others negative whose uncharitableness seems in this not onely superstitious as to their own liberty but injurious against anothers while they count them Jewish and ceremonious in observing those dayes which all the world knows do not look forward to Christ as yet to come but backward as to Christ already come both in the Flesh and in the Spirit having as to his meritorious part finished the glorious work of our Redemption which ought to be had in everlasting remembrance and left such a ministeriall authority in his Church as ought to preserve the memorials of his Incarnation Passion Resurrection and Ascension untill his coming again by all such means both ordinary and extraordinary which may with most piety and prudence best attain that great end Which the ancient and Primitive Churches undoubtedly did among whom so early and eager a controversie rose as to the punctuall day of Christs Resurrection nor have the modern and best reformed Churches failed in these grand celebrations to conform as the Ch. of Engl. did to pious Antiquity finding no reason or Religion why they should in such lawfull and laudable customes affect to vary from the Catholick patterne so conform to the word and will of God From which private Christians would not so easily dissent if they did not too much lean to their own understandings and so fall under that woe of being wise in their own conceits which biasses easily betray weak and wilfull men to count good evil and evil good to
think their own refractoriness to be Religion and other mens honest devotion to be but superstition of which I confess I never thought either this Church or any other to be in the least degree guilty while they did observe such holy memorials with publick celebrity as were appointed to the honour of God and to the imitation of those graces which were remarkable in the eminentest servants of God renowned in the Gospel such as are the blessed Virgin and Mother of our Lord as also his prime Apostles by whose means the light of the Gospel shone through all the world Nor do we find our Saviour himself withdrawing in such cases his conformity to the Churches practise in those Encaenia or Feasts of dedication which were thankfull and joyfull memorials of the restauration of that material Temple which was to be demolished whereas these holiday-celebrations used in this Church have respect to such things as are never to be forgotten abolished or changed while the world continues and Christ hath any Church upon earth which I believe he will have to the end of the world according to his promised assistance to all his faithfull Ministers who continue in the fellowship and succession both for doctrine and authority of the blessed Apostles But I have done with these long and unhappy debates about the sacred Festivalls and other Ceremonies authorized by the Church of England on which some flesh-flies mistaking them for galls and sores when they were but decent variations of beautifull colours in its garment have so importunely fastened especially in the hotter season of these late dog-dayes that they have very much flye-blown the reformed Religion and endangered not onely the putrefaction but the utter corruption of the whole state of this Church of England whose quarrel and right in these things I should not have thus far revived or vindicated if I had not thought it necessary by this salt of sound speech to represse those further putrifying principles which upon this account are daily suggested to simple and well-meaning people against the whole frame and constitution of the Church of England Whose publick commands and setled constitutions as I alwayes approved and obeyed but most readily since I best understood them in their late fiery triall because I have found them in great and weighty matters serious solid scripturall in lesser things moderate discreet and charitable so I never had either heart or hand tongue or pen to assert any thing that was by private or particular mens fancies brought in either to a peevish non-conformity or to a pragmatick super-conformity Though I willingly allow many of my calling to be much wiser and better than my self yet I cannot look upon them as wiser than the whole Church of England which saw with many more eyes both forward and backward than any one Bishop or Presbyter can do whose reall Innovations in later times beyond what either the letter or usage of this Church which best interprets Its meaning did enjoyn and authorize I am no way concerned to maintain nor was I ever discontent to have them both gainsaid and removed as insolencies mis-becoming any Church-man never so wise or great to impose upon the Majesty of so famous a Church as England was which never needed any other additions innovations or decorations either in Doctrine or Discipline or Worship than those which It self had soberly chosen as a wise Mother and grave Matron which justly disdains to be made gayer or finer by such ribbands feathers and toyes as any of her Children shall list to pin upon her It had better become in my judgement the learning gravity and discretion of those men who most admired and obtruded their own supernumerary and unwonted ceremonies to have confined themselves to the Churches known Injunctions and Customes for it were endless if every man never so good should be gratified in his Church-projects and religious inventions which became the great pest and oppression of the Western Churches when the Bishops of Rome by their own incroachments and other Bishops connivence undertook to innovate or regulate all things in all Churches which should have been ordered either by generall Councils or by the Synods of particular Churches as was most convenient for them Nor in England could ever prudent men with reason have doâ—ed on any of their novelties when they plainly saw that even those few sparks of ancient Ceremonies with which the Church of England contented her self and which neither made nor marr'd Religion being rather spangles than spots on the Churches garments even these I say have a long time been made beyond their merit not onely occasions for some to rail others to scorn a third sort to blaspheme the purity and honour of the Church of England but also to schismatize in Her and separate wholy from Her Yea from the later obtrusions of some mens either renovations of things antiquated or innovations of Ceremonies never enjoyned by the Church those dreadful conflagrations have grown which have almost quite consumed Her the quenching of which deserves as it needs not onely these drops of my pen but of all your tears and prayers most worthy Gentlemen who find your selves as I am very much concerned for the honour and happiness of this Church which was in all points prudently reformed and excellently constituted CHAP. XIV A Second grand Objection very popular and plausible which the enemies of the Church of England have made great use of to decry and destroy if possible the whole frame constitution of It is taken from the private infirmities personall failings male-administrations which some men have either suspected or really observed in some of the Clergie either Arch-bishops Bishops or Presbyters of the Church of England against whom it is objected that either they were not so warm and voluble Preachers as those men do most fancy or possibly less learned and industrious then was fit for Ministers or not so prudent it may be and compassionate toward weaker Christians as became those that were stronger in the faith or lastly not so morally strict unblamable in their lives as indeed all Ministers of the Gospel ought to be at all times Hence the Adversaries of the Church of England do conclude that both head and heart were sick that there was no sound part that all was full of bruises and putrified sores that in the Church of England nothing could be found worthy of a true Church a true Minister or a true Christian My answer is That all the modest Clergie in England desire to be so humble so ingenuous so impartial as not to forget their own infirmities while they coÌ„plain of others injuries For my self being conscious how little removed I am from fallings as a mâ—n and Minister I shall willingly confess and strive to amend what any mans charity shall with truth convince me of and for others my Fathers and Brethren I presume I have because I humbly crave their leaves to
Luciferian hereticks flatter themselves that they are meet and competent judges since they find themselves no way directed by any Catholick interpretation nor limited and circumscribed by any joynt wisdome and publick profession of this Church and Nation which heretofore was established and set forth in such a publick confession of their faith such Articles and Canons rules and boundaries of Religion as served for the orderly and unanimous carrying on and preserving Christian Doctrine Discipline Worship Ministry or Government This wide doore once opened and still kept open by the crowding and impetuosity of a people so full of fancy and fury spirit and animosity so wilfull and surly as the English generally are besides that they are naturally lovers and extremely fond as children of new fashions as in all things so in Religion it self it is not I say imaginable as at the pulling up of a great sluce or opening of a flood-gate what vortices voragines opinionum floods and torrents of opinions what precipitant rushings and impetuous whirlings both in mind and manners have every where carried a heady and head-strong people quite headlong in Religion not onely to veniall novelties softer whimsies and lesser extravagances in Religion which are very uncomely though not very pernicious but also to rank blasphemies to gross immoralities to rude licentiousnesse to insolent scandals to endless janglings to proud usurpations to an utter irreligion to a totall distracting confounding and subverting of the Church of Engl. All this under the notion of enjoying whatever liberty they list to take to themselves under the name and colour of Religion which anciently imported an holy Obligation of Christians to God and to each other carried on by a Catholick confession an unanimous profession an uniform tradition an holy ordination and orderly subjection but now they say it is to be learned and reformed not by the old wayes of pious education and Ecclesiastick instruction not from the Bishops or Ministers of this or any nationall Church but either by the new wayes of every private spirit's interpreting of Scriptures or by those new lights of some speciall inspirations which they say are daily held forth by themselves and others of their severall factions or according to the various policies of Lay-men and those pragmatick sanctions which serve the prevalent interests of parties This this is the project so cried up by some men for propagating the Gospel and advancing the Kingdome of Jesus Christ so rare so new so untried so unheard-of in any Christian Church ancient or later that it is no wonder if neither the Church of England nor its learned Clergy nor its dutifull children can either approve admire or follow such dubious and dangerous methods or labyrinths rather of Religion any more than they can canonize for Saints those vagrants and fanaticks of old who were justly stigmatized for damnable hereticks or desperate schismaticks for their deserting that Catholick faith tradition order and communion of the Churches of Christ which were clearly expressed in their Creeds and Canons founded upon Scripture and conform to Apostolick example The Gnosticks Cerinthians Valentinians Carpocratians Circumcellians Montanists Manichees Novatians Donatists Arians and others were esteemed by the Primitive Churches as Foxes and Wolves creatures of a wild and ferine nature impatient of the kindest restraints not induring to be kept in any folds or bounds of Christs flock which ever had an holy authentick and authoritative succession of ordained Bishops and Presbyters as its Pastors and Teachers also it had its safe and known limits for Religion in faith and manners Doctrine and Discipline for order and government both in lesser Congregations and larger Combinations The true Christian liberty anciently enjoyed by Primitive Christians and Churches was fullest of verity charity unity modesty humility sanctity sobriety harmonious subordination and holy subjection according to the stations in which God had placed every part or member in those bodies they were the farthest that could be from Schism Separation mutiny novelty ambition rebellion while every one kept the true temper order and decorum of a Christian Certainly if either particular Congregations or private Christians liberty had consisted in being exposed or betrayed as Sheep without their Shepherds to all manner of extravagancies incident to vulgar petulancy and humane infirmity those Primitive Churches and ancient Fathers those godly Bishops and blessed Martyrs those pious Emperours and Christian Princes of old might have spared a great deal of care cost pains and time which were spent in their severall Councils and Synods Parlaments Diets and Conventions whose design was not to make new but to renew those Scripture-Canons and Apostolicall constitutions which were necessary to preserve the faith once delivered to the Saints and to assert not onely the common salvation but also that Catholick succession communion and order of Churches transmitted from the Apostles in which endeavour the piety and wisdome the care and charity of ancient Councils expressed in their many Canons made for the keeping of the unity of the Spirits truth in the bond of peace among Christians were so far in my judgement from being meer heaps of hay straw and stubble burying and over-laying the foundations of Christian soundnesse and simplicity which seems to be the late censure of one whom I am as sorry to see in a posture of difference from the Church of England as any person of these times because I esteem his learning and abilities above most that have appeared adversaries to or dissenters from Her that I rather judge with Mr. Calvin a person far more learned judicious and impartiall in this case They were for the most part very sober wise and suitable superstructures little deviating from no way demolishing any of those grand foundations of Faith Holiness or Charity which were laid by Christ and his blessed Apostles which ever continued the same and were so owned by their pious successors however they used that liberty and authority in lesser matters which was given them by the Scriptures and derived to them by their Apostlick mission or succession for the prudent accommodating of such things as concerned the outward polity uniformity order and peace of the Church or for those decent celebrations and solemnities of Religioâ— which were most agreeable to the severall geniu'ses and civil rites of people and the mutable temper of times all which who so neglects to consider will never rightly judge of the severall counsels customes and constitutions of either ancient or later Churches The best of whose piety and prudence the Reformed Church of England chose to follow as exactly as it could first in Her decerning declaring determining translating and communicating to her children those Canonicall Books of holy Scripture also in the owning professing and propounding to them those Ancient Catholick and received Creeds which are as the summaries and boundaries of Christian Faith containing those articles which are necessary to be believed by all after this it used those
the Churches of Christ both as to good doctrine and orderly conversation First if you consider the Magna Charta grand charter of your souls the holy Scriptures Those lively oracles which were given by inspiration and direction of Gods Spirit which beyond all books in the world have been most desperately persecuted and most divinely preserved having in them the clearest characters of divine Truth love mercy wisdome power majesty and glory the impressions and manifestations of greatest goodness grace both in morals mysteries in the prophecies and their accomplishment in the admirable harmony of prescience performance of Prophets Apostles setting forth the blessed Messias as the prefigured Sacrifice the promised Saviour the desire of the world those Books which have been delivered to us by the most credible testimony in the world the uniform consent of the pillar and ground of Truth the Catholick Church of God which the Apostle S. Paul prefers before that of an Angel from Heaven that divine Record which hath been confirmed to us by so many miracles sealed by the faith and confession the repentance and conversion the doctrine and example the gracious lives and glorious deaths of so many holy Confessors and Martyrs in all ages besides an innumerable company of other humble professors who have been perfected sanctified and saved by that word of life dwelling richly in them in all wisdome Yet even in this grand concernment of Religion the holy Scriptures whose two Testaments are as the two poles on which all morality and Christianity turn the two hinges on which all our piety and felicity depend much negligence indifferency and coldness is of late used by many not onely people but their heaps of Preachers under the notion and imagination of their Christian liberty that is seldome or never seriously to read either privately or publickly any part of the holy Scripture unless it be a short Text or Theame for fashion sake which like a broken morsell they list to chew a while in their mouths but the solemn attentive grave devout and distinct reading of Psalms or Chapters or any other set portion of the holy Scriptures old or new to which S. Chrysostome S. Jerome S. Austin and the other ancient Fathers both Greek and Latin so oft and so earnestly exhorted all Christians this they esteem as a poor and puerile business onely fit for children at school not for Christians at Church unless it be attended with some exposition or gloss upon it though never so superficiall simple and extemporary which is like painting over well-polished marble being more prone to wrest darken and pervert than rightly to explain clear or interpret the Scriptures which of themselves are in most places easie to be understood obscure places are rather more perplexed than expounded when they are undertaken by persons not very learned or not well prepared for that work which was the employment anciently as Justin Martyr tells us chiefly of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop or President then present whose office was far above the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Readers who having done his duty the other as Pastor of the flock either opened or applyed such parts of the Scripture as he thought best to insist upon Yet there are now many such supercilious and nauseous Christians who utterly despise the bare reading or reciting of the Word of God to the Congregation as if no beauty were on it no life or power in it no good or vertue to be gotten by it unlesse the breath of a poore man further inspire it unlesse a poore worm like a snaile flightly passing over it set a slimy varnish upon it as if the saving truth and self-shining light of Gods Word in the precepts examples promises prophecies and histories were not most cleare and easie of it self as to all things necessary to be believed obeyed or hoped as if honest and pure-hearted Christians could not easily perceive the mind of God in the Scriptures unlesse they used alwayes such extemporary spectacles as some men glory to put upon their own or their auditors noses Certainly such new masters in our Israel forget how much they symbolize with the Papists in this fancy while denying or disdaining all reading of Scriptures in publick unless some expound them though never so sorrily slovenly and suddenly they must by consequence highly discourage yea and utterly forbid common people the reading of any portion of them privately in their closets or families where they can have no other expositors but themselves and it may be are not themselves so confident as to undertake the work of expounding the hard and obscurer places as for other places which are more necessary and easie sure they explain themselves sufficiently to every humble diligent and attentive reader or hearer the blessed use and effects of which if these supercilious Rabbies had found in themselves while the Word of God is publickly distinctly and solemnly read in the Church to them doubtlesly they would not have so much disused despised and decried this godly custome in the Church of England of emphatick reading the Word of God in the audience of Christian Congregations O rare and unheard of Christian Liberty which dares to cast so great a slighting and despiciency upon the publick reading of the Scriptures which are the Churches chiefest Jewel so esteemed and used by Jewes and Gentiles full of its own sacred innate and divine lustre then indeed most spendid and illustrious when handsomely set that is when the Priests lips preserve the knowledge of them and duly impart them to Christian people both by discreet reading and preaching that is explaining and applying them CHAP. VI. AFter these vulgar slightings and depreciatings cast upon the publick reading of the Word of God by some novellers I shall in vain set forth to You what is less strange yet very strange and new in the Church of Christ that is the supercilious contempt and total rejection of all those ancient venerable forms of sound words and wholsome doctrine either literally contained and expresly commanded in the Scripture such as are the Ten Commandements and Lords Prayer or evidently grounded and anciently deduced out of the Scriptures such as are the Apostles Creed with other ancient Symbols and Doxologies which were bounds and marks of all Christians unity and soundness in the faith generally used by all pristine and modern Churches of any renown who mixed with their publick Services of God these great pillars and chief foundations of piety these constant rules standards and measures of Religion by which they took the scantlings or proportions of all their duties and devotions of their sins and repentance of their faith and hope hence the humble confession of their sins the sincere agnition of their duties the earnest deprecations of divine vengeance the fervent supplications for mercy and pardon the hearty invocations for grace the solemn consecration of the sacramentall elements
piety than in the barren heights of uselesse sublimities Then was it that the sweet and fruitfull dews of heaven crowned those true Ministers labours with all spiritual proficiencies and heavenly blessings then was the Church of England and thousands of pious souls in it like Gideons fleece full of holy distillations or like the garden of Eden liberally watered with the rivers of God I mean the faithful endeavours of able honest and Orthodox Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters duly ordained and divinely authorized for that service then was the time common people had less of curiosity and liberty but more of piety and charity they were more kept to their bounds and inclosures but enjoyed far better pastures than they now find in the ramblings and extravagances of those commons where they have chosen to enjoy their Pastors and Preachers after their own heart Nor is this insolency of people any wonder though it be a great grief to sober Christians when they consider how far this gangrene of abused liberty hath spread among men and women too the meanest and most mechanick He or She as Tertullian observes of some bolder Hereticks and Schismaticks in his dayes dare contrary to all Primitive pattern and Scriptural precept to preach to baptize to consecrate to censure to excommunicate scorning and opposing all things that are not branded with their schismaticall marks their novell badges and factious discriminations Wherewith so soon as any silly men or women come once to be dubbed and signalized their first vow and adventure is against the whole frame and constitution of the Church of England but specially against the orderly ancient and Catholick Ministry of it which is the rind or bark of Religion by which the sap life and nourishment of it is preserved and conveyed from the root Christ Jesus to the severall branches of his Church in every place This this must by all means be peeled round stripped off and cast away under pretence of Christian liberty and a better because freer course of deriving Chirstian Religion to peoples eares and hearts by another Ministry than that Ancient Apostolick Catholick and Primitive way of an orderly ordained Ministry which consisted of Bishops Presbyters Deacons be brought in Against the constitution succession of all these as corrupt adulterous Popish Babylonish spurious and superstitious in England whole troops of plebeian spirits have been and still are engaged whose fierce onsets and encounters were at first begun and are still carried on with as great resolution and errour as his that assaulted a Windmill instead of a Giant The great alarm given by their chief leaders is First to rail bitterly against the whole Clergie and all sacred orders used in the Church of England thence they proceed to wipe off their Baptisme as vain and invalid to vomit up their Lords Supper as nauseous and superstitious to read their Creeds backward to an unbelief of all things have been preached next they cancell the Decalogue as a Judaick phylactery a legall prescription lastly they learn to account and call the Lords Prayer a kind of spell and conjuration being perfect enemies to any thing that looks like a Liturgy or set form of prayer and devotion After this with stiff necks and haughty looks they scornfully defie all ancient ordination all Catholick succession all Apostolick commission derived to any Bishops and Presbyters as Ministers of Christ altering and annulling as much as in them lies all the order descent and power of the Evangelicall Ministry both in this and all other Christian Churches since the Apostles dayes the right of resumption and redemption of which they challenge to themselves according as their severall fancies list to make themselves or others Ministers or to have none at all which is the highest pitch of their Christian liberty counting all Ministers to be but their curbs and manacles Having thus commenced Masters of mis-rule their next work is to tuâ—n the garden of God any setled Church as this of Engl. was into ruinous heaps or a very dunghil to expel the Priests of the Lord out of his Temple to make Churches of Stables and Stables of Churches to bring in the lips of bleating calves there where the calves of learned devout and eloquent lips were wont to be offered It is not liberty enough for them to separate from the Church of England and apostatize from those Ministers that baptized them unless they utterly destroy them both setting up instead of one National and renowned one uniform and flourishing Church in which were truth and order unity and beauty strength and safety all Christian gifts and graces every good word and work to admiration innumerable little swarms in severall Conventicles with Ministers strangely multiform mutable and mis-shapen in which novell confederacies both Preachers and people rather catch and hang together by chance like burres in confused knots than grow like Olive-branches or the kernels of Pomgranates with order and comeliness from the same root Christ Jesus after the methods of those ancient Churches which were the prime and exemplary branches whereto after-successions should conform themselves As these factious people are so must their new Priests and Ministers be Grave and godly Bishops with their learned Presbyters must be set aside as broken vessels that they may set up by popular and plebeian suffrages some miserable mechanicks some antick engines some pittifull praters and parasites of the vulgar who have had no higher breeding or degree in Church or State than that of poore tradesmen for the better bred and more ingenuous sort of men abhor such impudence and usurpation their shop hath been their school their hammers or shuttles or needles have been their books At last coachmen footmen ostlers and grooms despair not to become Preachers by a rare and sudden metamorphosis coming from the office of rubbing horses heeles to take care of mens souls as some Farriers in time turn Physicians It matters not how sordid how silly how slovenly how mercenary how illiterate they are provided they have cunning enough to pretend a call impudence enough to display their ignorance and hypocrisie enough by much talk of Gods grace in them to supply the reall wants of all competent ability as well as authority to be Ministers of the Gospel Yet these these O my noble Countrey-men are in many places rude intruders insolent usurpers doughty undertakers to discharge the duty of Evangelicall Ministers in any one of these you must seek and may find as they pretend a Bishop a Presbyter and a Deacon all Evangelicall power Ecclesiasticall offices and Ministeriall authority these are the new-invented Machines or Engines which the Church of England and all others since the Apostles times were not so happy as to know or use which must set up the decayed Kingdome of Jesus Christ these must propagate the glorious Gospel these must exalt Christ crucified these must consecrate for you holy Elements these must administer to you the blessed Sacraments
extremely watered with which prodigy of sacriledge they have been big a long time nor do they yet think they are quite miscarried or that this godly gainful project is wholly abortive although they have not yet been able to get a publick law or Parlamentary sanction to be their Midwife nor I hope ever shall be able so far to blind and abuse the whole Nation no less than abase the Ministry of the Gospel But the frequent tamperings and essays which some men still make in these kinds for what dare not the meanest wretches meditate and adventure against the best yea all the sober Ministers of England these as the clouds did Deucalion after the Flood do still so terrifie the minds of the better sort of Ministers till they shall see a clearer rain-bow of assurance appearing in the English firmament for their favour and security than yet hath been seen that they have continual damps on all their spirits great and daily checks in their studies industry and ingenuity Few of them can be so good husbands in these times as to lay up any thing out of their livings for posterity nor dare they be so provident as to lay out any thing upon the glebes or houses of their livings either for their after-benefit or present conveniency because they know not besides the hazards of mortality what a day or a night may bring forth uncertain how soon they may be undermined and together with their miserable families turned out of that house and home which heretofore was counted their free-hold by law till by law they had forfeited them Many Ministers have been suddenly conformed to our Saviours condition who had not of his own where to lay his head which was not his necessity or impotency but his gracious choice by being poor to enrich us but poor Ministers are not armed as Christ was with miraculous supplies when they please nor may they now expect to be courted with such devout donaries and charitable oblations as in primitive times were remarkable for their munificence amplitude and splendour of which the Acts of the Apostles the after-Church-histories and Ammianus Marcellinus in the fourth Century give us accounts Alas this age is an iron age and mens estates are not generally more impaired than their hands are withered and their hearts petrified these are hardned in many the others are exhausted in most Mens minds are every where indifferent towards their Ministers in many places they are divided from them and their spirits exasperated against them No wonder then if charity be grown cold if popular stipends and arbitrary alms like morning dews be soon dryed up The Devil is so crafty that he knows if once he can take away that ancient legal and Evangelical maintenance of Ministers by Tithes he shall soon by starving take that royal Citadell and Sanctuary of Gods Church that ancient Fort of Christian Religion the Ministry it self which above all things in the world he aims to slight undermine and utterly demolish and hopes to do it by the help of such crafty and cruell engineers who have as Satans mouls and pioneers done all they could in these times to undermine and batter down that firm pillar and support of Religion a legal and certain maintenance by Glebes and Tithes which are yet left to carry on any Church-work and Ministry with any comfort or cheerfulness CHAP. XXVIII YEt how cruelly do these still stick in some mens teeth and stomachs onely because they cannot yet devour them I have other-where largely shewed to the publick view how endlesly and earnestly some covetous and sacrilegious sophisters have disputed or rather cavilled against Tithes as paid to the Ministers of the Gospel either in a civil or religious right as given to them and deserved by them as Gods proportion and mans assignation O what swines-flesh what abominable broth are they still to some mens squeamish stomachs not as to their receiving them or to their detaining them against all Law Justice and Conscience but as to their paying of them to those to whom they are many wayes and onely due O how Legall how Judaicall how Ceremoniall how Popish how Antichristian are Tithes in Ministers hands Let these holy Harpies once get them into their own clutches either by impropriation or sequestration or hard compositions by fraud force or by any way never so illegall and injurious O then how sweet is the sacred sop to them how quiet is the Cerberus of their tongues and consciences in the point of Tithes when paid to themselves These as all things are a portion meet for such Saints if they can but get them by any means though neither God nor man Law nor Gospel Reason nor Religion give them any true right or title to them Nothing is more halting more partiall more subtill more sinister than covetous hearts and sacrilegious spirits as is evident in this one instance of Tithes which hath been long debated to and fro by the perverse disputations of men of corrupt minds who have been told a thousand times that the Ministers of the Gospel do not plead any right of Tithes as the Jewish Priests did by any Mosaick Law and Jewish Institution for our service our sacrifice our Ministry are all changed to an higher and more noble Priesthood than that of Aaron or Levi was We plead that Tithes weve prae-Mosaical and so may be post-Mosaical before Moses and after him in the Church of God they are due to the Melchisedechian Priesthood of Christ they were paid to the Type or Shadow and so much more may be to the Antitype or Substance that they are Gods proportion even by a genenerall law of naturall gratitude besides Gods special choice and assignation that as they were ever owned and confessed as due to the Divine Majesty by an innate principle or a traditionall dictate of all nations almost in all ages confirmed by a parallel law of God among the Jews so they are no where in the Gospel abrogated or denied but confirmed as to Evangelical uses and respects in as much as the Christian hath no less cause to pay such an homage to God and his Ministers now than the Jew had of old the Ministry of the Gospel which is a more excellent Ministry deserving as much and as well of mankind as that of the Law besides in all reason Gods ancient demand and unrepealed proportion is rather to be chosen than any other as most pleasing to God most equall in it self and every way best both for Minister and people more agreeable to good conscience and least subject to cavill grudging or exception on either side especially when 't is most evident that it is confirmed by Evangelical sanctions and Apostolick orders even so hath the Lord ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel as those that served at the Altar did live of the Altar If these repiners do not like Gods assignation and Christs right to
its strength and materialls from the Scripture its model manner and composure from the counsell wisdome experience and authority not onely of this Church of England but of the Primitive Ancient Catholick Church in all ages and places against all which few men had heretofore the confidence or indeed impudence in any grand part much lesse in the whole to oppose their private fancies and suggestions Now no petty people are so clownish or inconsiderable but they dare to cavil question or deny almost every point owned as Religion in the Church of England I shall not need to instance in the grand Mysteries of the Trinity Christs Divinity his satisfaction to divine justice in the resurrection of the body or the souls immortality nor yet in the point of Originall Sin or naturall depravedness and defects of the necessity of Divine Grace of Christians imperfection in the best state of this life of the right use of the Morall Law and the true bounds of Evangelicall Liberties All which with many other grand concernments of Religion are daily not onely ventilated and discussed but contradicted and denyed by many Modern Arrians Socinians Pelagians Antinomians Novatians and others besides the constant Controversies of Papists so far that nothing almost is left sound or setled among us nothing that any Minister can preach or practice as Religion but somewhere or other it finds much snarling quarrelling and gain-saying Every crosse-grain'd piece of pride or peevishnesse or ignorance adventures to bark at what they list yea to bite tear and worry the reputation and integrity together with the learning and ability of any yea all the true Ministers of England who are become miserable not onely by that great and unintermitted pains which they must take if they will be faithfull to their own and other mens souls nor yet by that biting poverty or tenuity of their worldly condition for the most part of them which is so hardly to be relieved by those dribliting pittances which with tedious attendings and shamefull importunings they can get in But beyond both these Ministers are in such a state of perpetuall inquietude as is like that of very poore people who are onely rich in vermine and so troubled with them that they are not permitted night or day to take their rest or to enjoy that sweet sleep and quiet repose indulged to all creatures by which they might sometime deceive their sore labour and forget both their miseries and their sorrowes For when all is done that belongs to a sober Ministers ministeriall duty and charge after indefatigable paines continuall studies invincible patience which like Ostridges must digest the iron morsels and manners of this age when despairing and made incapable of any honorary rewards in Church or State answerable to his gravity and merit every way he onely covets for some ingenuous rest and tranquillity under the shadow and protection of that Church and State which he hath a long time faithfully served yet then even in his age and at all times he must be summoned with daily alarmes and provoked to successive duels by all sorts of factious and fanatick Spirits new or old who list to be contentious T. though he be wearied and almost tired with the long and constant fatigations of his Ministery though he be almost naked and unarmed as to the polemick or controversall part of Divinity yet must he be compassed with Briars and Thornes frequently molested with the perverse disputes and endlesse janglings of those who have no reverence to this Church nor the Catholick Churches constant opinion or practise grounded upon Scripture and manifested by undeniable Tradition The Ministers of England are the common Butt at which every fooles bolt is presently shot If any be lesse apt for disputation through unwontednesse weaknesse depressions poverty and infinite dis-spiritings and so possibly lesse able on the sudden to defend that truth and that Church for which he hath dared to be a suffering Martyr and Confessour against the bitter arrowes and subtill Sophistries of his many-mouthed Adversaries modern Sectaries who make what use they can of the Philistines files and grindstones the wonted cavils sophistries and fallacies of the Papists and Jesuits against this Church the seeming disadvantages of any one Minister when he is publickly surprized and in the very Church assaulted by such impudent Antagonists these are presently voted among the vulgar as the totall rout baffle and disparagement of the whole Ministeriall order yea and of the Church of England As if none of its Fathers or Sons its Bishops or Presbyters so cried up heretofore for their excellent learning dexâ—â—rous fortitude were able to encounter these doughty Champions these men of Gath whose glory now is rather to defie and over-awe the Israel of God by force than to fight lawfully by the rules of right disputation from Scripture or Reason If the enemies of the Church of England would lay aside their Swords and Pistols their Troopers and Musketeers their Guns and Canons which have been so oft their Seconds and so alwaies a terror to the true Clergy of England if they would keep to the lists and weapons of Scripture and reason of Catholick example and constant tradition which armes are proper for Religious contests I believe they would be easily so matched in every point that they would have no cause long to boast of having the better of any Learned and Grave Minister who undertakes to assert the cause of the Church of England both in its Doctrine and Discipline Which is indeed assisted not onely by the Spirit and suffrage of all estates in this Church as Christian and reformed as ancient and modern but also by the wisdome and consent the judgement and practise of all the famous and flourishing Primitive Churches throughout the world so that the justification and honour of the Church of England depends not upon any one Ministers weaknesse or ability but upon that solidity juncture and conformity it hath in all the main parts of it with the Catholick Church of Christ in all Ages He that fights against one fighteth against all he must confute them all before he can justly condemn the Church of England which hath for so many years laboured between the Furnace and the Anvill under the restlesse files and hammers of its various Adversaries who have resolved sooner to die than to suffer the Church of England or its orderly Ministers to live in peace CHAP. VI. AMong other Sects that like swarms are of late risen up against the Church of England and its ancient Ministery none are more numerous petulant and importune none more busie bold and bitter than the haughty-spirited and hotter-headed Anabaptists For all of them have not at least shew not the like horns and hoofs some are persons of more calm grave and charitable tempers These novel Disputers against and despisers of all Infant-Baptisme whom no ancient Church ever knew no lateâ— Reformed Church but ever spewed out and abhorred
as to question the usual and approved practise of it from all times which S. Austin so vehemently affirmes that in his Epistle to Volusia he sayes The custom of our Mother the Church in baptizing Infants as it is not to be neglected as superfluous so nor would it have been either practised or believed unlesse it had been so delivered by the Apostles as their undoubted sense and practise which Pelagius did not yea could not with any colour deny as S. Austin observes though it had much served his design about original sin if he could in that point have baffled the credit custome and authority of the Catholick Church which S. Cyprian who lived in the second Century so beyond all cavill or scruple so industriously and fully sets down that if there were no other testimonies of the Ancients that alone would satisfie any sober man being written not upon any heat of dispute but calmly and clearly as of a matter ever done and never under dispute in the Church to his dayes But I have in this part done more than I designed in order to advance not strifes and further contention but Christian peace and charity on all sides in this Church and Nation as to those religious differences which are a great occasion of our miseries CHAP. XIV FRom the Deformities Divisions and Degeneration of Religion also the Falsifications Usurpations and Devastations which of later years have been made by the violent sort of Anabaptists and other furious Sectaries against the Unity and Authority the Sanctity and Majesty of the Church of England destroying its Primitive Order and Apostolick Government its Catholick Succession its holy Ordination its happy and most successfull Ministry to the great neglect and contempt of all holy ministrations and duties of Religion I cannot but further intimate to your piety and prudence O my honoured Countrey-men that which is most notorious and no lesse dangerous both in religious and civil respects namely the great Advantages Applauses and Increases which the Roman or Papal party daily gain against the Reformed Religion as it was once wisely honourably and happily established professed and maintained here in England which is now looked upon by the more subtill superstitious and malicious sort of Papists as deformed divided dissolved desolated so conclamate for dead that they fail not with scorn to boast that in England we have now no Church no Pastors no Bishops no Presbyters no true Ministry no holy Ministrations no Order no Unity no Authority no Reverence as to things Divine or Ecclesiastick Insomuch that we must in this sad posture not onely despair of ever getting ground against the Romanists by converting any of them from the errours of their way to the true Reformed Religion but we must daily expect to lose ground to the Popish party and their Proselytes there being no banks or piles now sufficient to keep the Sea of Rome from over-flowing or undermining us in order to advance their restlesse interests which have been and still are mightily promoted not by the reverend Bishops and the other Episcopal Clergie who are men of Learning Piety Prudence and Martyr-like constancy as some men with more Heat than Wit more Spite than Truth have in their mechanick and vulgar Oratory of late miserably and falsely declaimed but by those who have most done the Popes work while they have seemed most furiously to flie in the Popes face as popularly zealous against Popery and yet at the same time by a strange giddinesse headinesse and madnesse they have risen up against that Mother-Church which bare them and those Fathers in it who heretofore mightily defended them and theirs from the talons and gripes of that Roman Eagle and this not with childish scufflings or light skirmishings to which manner of fight the illiterate weaknesse and rudenesse of our new Masters and Champions hath reduced those Controversies but with such a Panoply or compleat Armour of proof such sharp Weapons such ponderous Engines such rare dexterity of well-managed Powers raised from all Learning both Divine and Humane that the high places and defences of Rome were not able to stand before them heretofore when they were battered by our Jewels our Lakes our Davenants our Whites our Halls our Mortons our Andrews and the late invincible Usher who deserved to be Primate not onely of Ireland but of all the Protestant Forces in the world All these were Bishops Worthies of the first three seconded in their ranks by able and orderly Presbyters as Whitakers Perkins Reynolds Whites Crakanthorps Sutliffs and innumerable others while our Regiments were orderly our Marchings comely and our Forces both united and encouraged Whereas now there is no doubt but the mercilesse mowing down and scattering of the Clergie of England like Hay with the withering and decay of Government Regularity and Order in this Church these have infinitely contributed to the Papall harvest and Romish agitations the gleanings of whose Emissaries will soon amount to more than the sheaves of any the most zealous and reformed Ministers in England By the Papall interests and advantages I doe not mean the Roman Clergies preaching or propagating those Truths of Christian Doctrine Duties which for the main they profess in common with us and all Christian Churches if any of them be thus piously industrious I neither quarrell at them nor envy their successes but rather I should rejoyce in them with S. Paul because however Christ crucified is preached by some whom common people will either more reverence or sooner believe than they generally doe the decayed despised divided Ministers of Engl. who seem to have many of them so small abilities and carrying so little shew or pretence of any good authority for their work ministeriall nor can they be potent or esteemed abroad who are so impotent and disesteemed at home But I mean that Papall Monarchy or Ecclesiasticall Tyranny by which the Church or rather the Court of Rome by such sinister Arts and unjust Policies as were shamefully used and discovered in the Tridentine conventicle seeks to usurp and continue an imperiall power over all Churches and Bishops as if there had been but one Apostle or one Apostolick Church planted in the world also to corrupt abuse that ancient Purity Simplicity and Liberty of Religion which was preserved among Primitive Churches and their coordinate Bishops Further without fear of God or reverence of man opposing some Divine Truths and undoubted institutions of Christ also imposing such erroneous Doctrines and superstitious Opinions upon all Christians to be believed and accordingly practised as become not the severity and sanctity of true Religion adding to that holy foundation which was indeed first laid by the great Apostles and continued happily for many hundred years by the successive Bishops of Rome those after superstructures not of ceremonies onely which are tolerable many of them like feathers making but little weight in Religion but of corrupt Doctrines and
without which the welfare of this polity and intire Nation both in secular and religious regards could not be preserved by honest Magistrates conscientious Ministers or wise and valiant Princes Yet as our wise godly and sober Reformers first and last did worthy of the Honour and Piety of this Church and Nation vindicate the civil and religious Rights of both in all necessary points and interests of Doctrine and Government so their charity was no less cautious and commendable than their courage in this that as they did duly reforme what they thought amisse and establish what they judged in Piety and Prudence best so they did not by any heat and fury of popular transport either unnecessarily or uncharitably affect to give any offence to the Romanists by such distances as needlesse and groundlesse Innovations must needs occasion either to that or any other Christian Church in the world with all whom they ever aimed by their moderation to preserve merit a Christian communion correspondency not intending to schismatize or separate from them or their Christian Predecessors as to any Christian band and tie of Christian Verity or Charity not as to any point of Faith Morality or Sanctity not as to any right Order and Catholick succession of the Evangelicall Ministry not as to that Apostolick Government Inspection and Authority which either was of old or still is preserved in the Roman Church or any other nor last of all did they intend to vary from them in those things of honest policy and decent ceremony which were most commended by the Prudence and Piety of Antiquity onely they retained and rejected as they thought most became this Church in the use of its Liberty in matters Ceremonial wherein the Roman as all Churches have like freedome left them to be used with that Modesty Conscience and Charity which becomes all Christian Churches without giving or receiving any offence as St. Ambrose long ago expressed his sense to S. Austin But the aim of our wise Reformers who rather chose to be Martyrs Confessors for the Truth than popular Praters or Compliers with State-policies and private interests was onely this to purge away that drosse and dust which Christs floor had contracted by slovenly labourers in his husbandry They cast away the chaff but retained the wheat well winnowed they reformed those grosse Superstitions in Prayer Sacriledges in Sacraments Superfluities in Ceremonies Usurpations as to this Churches liberty and authority with all blind Innovations of later date compared to true primitive Antiquity all which were as evidently discernable by the reformed or restored light of Learning and Religion which God then brought into the Christian world to be upon the face of the then Roman Church as the leprosie of Naaman was upon Gehazi's forehead if neither they nor we may be judges but the pregnant testimonies of holy Scriptures evidently setting forth the institutions of Christ the Doctrine and Practises of the Apostles and the primitive constitutions of Churches All these further cleared to us if any thing be dark or dubious by the joynt and concurrent suffrages of the first Councils the ancient Fathers and all Ecclesiastical Historians which together ought to be valued far beyond the sense or example of the Roman or any one particular Church as the immovable bounds and unalterable measures of true Religion as to the substance and essentialls of it Nor doth any particular Church though heretofore never so justly famous as that of Rome was merit the honourable name and title of Christs Church or Catholick but rather of so far Apostatick and Antichristian when the Pastors and People of it do not by insensible degrees unawares slide into venial errours and small abuses but after so clear a light and conviction as the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regeneration of Learning and Religion hath afforded these parts of the world they yet wilfully and obstinately persist to corrupt no lesse than pervert the Doctrine and Institutions of Christ Jesus who is the great Pastor of his Church and chief Bishop of our Souls whose voice all parts of it ought readily to heare and humbly to obey at all times without regard to the antiquity or prevalency of any errours or abuses in former times to which no time or use can give authority or validity against the first appointments of Christ which are every way as the ancientest so the best for Truth Comfort and Safety to any Church and to every Christians Soul CHAP. XVI I Shall not need here to enumerate at large and in particular points those many and great differences in Religion which make your and your posterities return to the Roman compliance and communion impossible if you have judgements to understand or consciences to act according to their dictates out of the Word of God understood in the sense of the Catholick Doctors and Councils of the first 600 years after Christ The work is already done by so many able Writers in this Church that it is needlesse to repeat and scarce possible to adde more weight to what hath been by them alledged to justifie their protestation against and reformation of the errours abuses and corruptions of the Church of Rome He that seriously considers the Fraud Falsity and Pertinacy of the Romanists in that one grand point the Canon of the Scripture which is and must be when all is done that Policy and Art can invent the main pillar and standard of true Religion cannot but grow very jealous of their honesty in particular points of lesser concernments when he shall see beyond all reply or forehead that they have in the Council of Trent under the highest Anathema's or Curses of all that differ from them assumed into the Canon of Scriptures divinely inspired written and delivered to the Church as the Word of God those Apocryphal Books which however we with the Ancient Churches value according to their Worth Truth Credit and use yet we receive them not into the canon or rule of Faith because we find for certain that neither the Greek nor Latin Churches of old neither Jews nor Christians Councils nor Fathers for 1400 years did ever so own or receive them Which Truth after many others and beyond any other if I may say it without envy is exactly and fully cleared of late by a person whose reputation formerly clouded by some popular jealousies as to his Sincerity and Constancy in the Reformed Religion of the Church of England deserves to have its true lustre for Love and Honour with every true Protestant at home as he hath abroad for that learned Industry Courage and Honesty which he hath shewed in that particular to assert the main hinge of Religion the Canon of the Scriptures against the Papists effrontery in that particular which hath engaged them in such a Dilemma as is hard to be avoyded by the greatest sophisters of the Roman party For if the Canon of the Scriptures be such as
is the root of all evil for it doth not onely famish the souls of such rapacious wretches of all true grace and comforts rising either from the love of God or the care of their own and their brothers spiritual and eternal good but it prompts them to all manner of injurious evils it being impossible they should be truly holy in any kind who are so unjust and unthankfull in the highest degree despising their God whose property or peculiar Church-revenues are also his chief Ministers who being by God and man appointed to feed the flock of Christ ought not themselves to be famished or debased no nor should they want much lesse be undeservedly deprived of those temporall encouragements in the work of the Lord or Gods husbandry which give both credit authority and comfort to true Religion in times of Peace and in a land of Plenty Of which Blessings when once true Religion is miserably spoyled and so exposed in its Ministry and Order to all Distresses and Scorns no man can wonder if Popish Superstition and all Factions of ungodly Appetites do mightily thrive and improve by the ruines of such Reformed Religion no wonder if Atheisme and Irreligion if barrennesse and leannesse if Egyptian darknesse and death prevail in a short time over such people and their poor plebeian Pastors too whose blood will be required of those sacrilegious Reformers who shall thus deform reformed Religion impoverish a famous Church and flourishing Clergy embase a rich a renowned and an ancient Christian Nation to the indignity and injury of the publick as well as the danger of their own private souls to whom that sin of Sacriledge is rarely forgiven because they seldome have the grace truly to repent of it for Repentance cannot be true as S. Austin saith unlesse restitution be made which few Sacrilegists ever do or dream of Hence as the learned Sir Henry Spelman observes by instances of his particular experience in many Families further growes that moth not onely of mens consciences but of their Estates which devours them unsensibly a secret pest of Families which destroyes at length all their encrease which that learned Knight had observed within sixteen miles compasse of his own dwelling in Norfolk where so many Estates first raised out of Abbey-lands were now quite extinct or almost undone but so many others in the same compasse continued in flourishing or competent conditions who were of far ancienter standing and not enriched with any Sacriledge for so he esteemed the dissolving of religious Houses destroying of Churches c. of whose Superstition and Forfeiture true Religion should have had the advantage as the censers were holy in which strange Fire was offer'd Yet might that former Confiscation which devoured so many Churches Chappels and Religious and Superstitious Houses seem modest and veniall in respect of some mens later attempts and designes against all setled maintenance of Ministers A Christian Church might well subsist as those in primitive times did without Monks and Nuns without Monasteries and Nunneries without Abbots and Abbesses without Abbies and Priories but not well if at all without Pastors and Governours Bishops and Presbyters these were Primitive Apostolick after Christs own pattern followed by all Churches in the world necessary to the well-being yea to the complete being of a Church in any Order Polity and regular Communion Nor is the honourable support of Church-Governours and Ministers more comely than necessary upon politick as well as Ecclesiastick Principles either by occasionall Donatives and spontaneous Oblations as in times of primitive Zeal and Persecution or else by setled Dedications and fixed Revenues which were afterward in times of Peace plentifully given to God and his Church for the support and honour of an Able Hospitable and Charitable Ministry As it had been high Sacriledge to have taken away by stealth or force those portions which were given to Ministers when their Presbyters were yet sportularii depending on the bag and basket of Christians oblations and the Bishops dispensations so is it no less sin to take away those setled Revenues which were invested in God for the use of his Servants the Governours Guides and Ministers of his Church both for their Maintenance and Honour Injuries are no less in taking away Lands than Goods from men that are the just owners of them nor doth the Clergy in these evil times more stand in need of convenient Sustenance than due Respect and Reverence which is hardly had where Poverty appeares Yet since the noon-day of Reformation hath gloriously shined and continued in this Western world this Meridianus Daemon sin of Sacriledge as rankest vermine breed in warmest weather and horridest Monsters are gendred in richest Soiles hath grown most bold and violent an Epidemicall unblushing sin aspiring to so full and unrestrained a Liberty as hath not onely much afflicted other Reformed Churches long ago of which great complaint was made by Luther in Germany and Knox in Scotland before they died but the venome and infection is come into the rich and generous Nation of England to so pernicious a measure and degree that it reacheth from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot Heretofore indeed Sacriledge was not so much a Plebeian as Princely sin the attempt not of Pygmies but of Giants not of the Populacy but of Popes of Kings of great Noblemen and Gentlemen these onely durst adventure to put so rude affronts on God and his Church by alienating defrauding detaining impropriating confiscating what they could of holy things against which adventurous Sin many learned and worthy men in all Ages and Countreys as in Engl. as well Lay-men as Ecclesiasticks have wrote by most unrepliable demonstrations from the Law of Nature and Nations from principles of Reason and Religion from Scripture Canons and imperiall Constitutions all which nothing but a covetous violence and blind fury can gainsay or resist But now while the Prince abhorred Sacriledge no less than Idolatry every petty pragmatick yea poor pesant dares to adventure upon sacrilegious projects and practises 't is sport to common people to plunder pull down Churches to deprive Ministers of their legal Evangelical Maintenance to strip this Church of its ancient Portion and honorable Patrimony which is the fewel and oyl to keep the holy Fire of Devotion on the Altar of God and the bright-shining Flame of true Doctrine in the Lamps of the Temple 't is now the Presumption and Ambition of mechanick and vulgar Spirits to rob God of his Service People of their able and honourable Ministers the Flock of Christ of its worthy Shepherds and the Souls of people of those sacred Portions and Provisions which are in order to an Eternal Life The meanest peoples impudence dares now to dispute detract usurp profane confound and challenge as their own all things sacred both the Work and the Reward by a Spirit so licentious and insolent that it is thought by many
rewards of Valour Learning Industry Parts and as they think of Piety it self onely or chiefly bestowed on those that adhere to and symbolize with the prevailing party which is the onely rising side all others despairing to rise till the great Resurrection unlesse by power or policy they can undermine or overthrow the predominant faction In these nests of Religious differences and zealous emulations are the eggs of all civill discontents popular seditions and pernicious rebellions commonly layed and hatched to the infinite hazard and many times utter ruine of civill States which are never so safe as when all parts of them like the parts of a globe or sphere fairly correspond with each other by the unity and intirenesse of the same Religion whose content or orbe is the holy Scripture whose centre is Gods glory and whose circumference is Christian love unanimity or Charity without any of which Religion is but a Rhapsody of mens opinions passions and ambition From these holy confinements when once Christians come to divide as to their Religion they soon fall to defie to destroy yea to damne one another Every party hath such high paroxysmes of zealous hopes and presumptions for their way that they presently ascend Gods Throne and Christs Tribunall severely judging all men but themselves which judiciall and uncharitable arrogancies have as we see at this day not onely in England but in all the Christian world so filled and inflamed mens minds with cruell counter-curses and angry Anathema's against each other that if Gods last doome should echo after the clamours and censures of Christians passions we must all be damned every mothers child of us notwithstanding that we all professe to believe and serve the same God and Saviour If not every particular person of each party who may have more moderation and charity yet to be sure the froth and scumme the populacy and vulgarity of them which are alwaies boyled highest these mutually condemne each other not to a Purgatory or a Limbo onely but to a very Hell of infernall and eternall torments Thus many Protestants utterly damne all Papists as if God had no people in that Babylon of Popery the Honesty Humility and Simplicity of whose Faith Works and Hearts may bring them out of the contagion of Romes Plagues Policies and Superstitions Papists on the other side universally damne all Protestants though they hold all the ancient Creeds and Articles of Faith though they practise all Christian necessary duties and keep to the Primitive Order of the Catholick Church onely because they will not tye the keyes of Faith Conscience Scripture Religion and Church-Government to the Popes girdle or absolutely submit to him in a blind obedience against Reason Scripture and History as to the surly Jaylour rather than the safe keeper of Christian and true Religon In like manner the violent Lutherans call the Calvinists Devils and the passionate Calvinists defie the Lutherans as luke-warme Protestants and smelling too rank of Rome Look to the eager and acute Arminians the Socinians the moderne Pelagians the Anabaptists Catabaptists Familists the Seekers Ranters and Quakers As the Independent Presbyterian and Episcopall hands so these are generally full either of firebrands from hell or thunderbolts from heaven which are eagerly cast by the more violent Spirits in each others faces as Hereticks or Schismaticks as Antichrists and Hypocrites as deceived and deceiving Nor will the Zealots and bigots on any side make any great scruple if they have power to destroy those whom they account no better than desperate and damnable even in their Religion Amidst and against all which factious discriminations of Religion every Nation and Polity which either is or would seem to be wise must seek to preserve its safety by establishing some Uniformity and Unity in its publick profession For no nation is farre from misery that is pestred with variety of Religions and is fixed at no certainty The sad example of this Church and State of England besides our neighbours is an instance as unanswerable as palpable for the Church of England stood Neuter as to all the sides and factions of Christendom yet held so far Communion with Greek and Latine Reformed and Romane Lutheran and Calvinian Churches as it saw they held communion with the Scriptures and with the ancient Catholick Symbols or Councils which were the best boundaries of Christian Religion It had if not more yet as much Solidity and Sincerity Piety and Proficiency Gifts and Graces Charity and Moderation Order and Good polity as any yea all of them farre lesse of Partiality Popularity Novelty Oppression Superstition and Confusion than almost any one of them while the favour of God and man shined upon her strangely blest with Peace Plenty Honor and Prosperity while it kept its Ecclesiastick Order and Uniformity in Religion which was the chief soder or cement of civill Tranquillity This Palladium once stolne away by the Jesuitick subtilties and other factious policies how have the Temples and Towers of our Troy the Churches and Palaces of our Jerusalem the Oratories and Houses both of God and man falne to the ground not with their own age infirmity or weight but battered and subverted chiefly by those Engines which factious fury and devout ambition puts into all mens hands upon the score of their Religion a fate which still threatens all the remaines of Religion and Peace that have yet escaped if God be not so mercifull to this Land as to shew us some Balsam that may heale the Divisions and Wounds of our Church and Religion which will easily fester and inflame the body politick of any Nation for civil Peace cannot be firm where publick Piety is not sound and setled nor can any Kingdom or Common-weale be established in which true Religion is either baffled or abased by being divided and distracted But suppose that you O my Noble Countrymen and your posterity should enjoy a moments miserable prosperity and a pitifull kind of peace meerly upon the account of a meer Mahometan power and Gladiatorian Prevalency of one side possibly over-awing all other parties and pretensions of Religion or so counterpoising them by secular policies to some consistency as doth rather distort and depresse than advance or encourage the progresse of that true Piety and Christian Charity which are the surest marks of Christianity and of Gods favour to any people yet I presume you are so piously prudent as to consider First that such worldly tranquillity and prosperity are scarce worth owning or enjoying apart from that sweet harmony and fruition which goes with true Religion and flowes from it when it keeps the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace when its sacred oyntment is diffused from the head Christ Jesus not onely to the chief members of his body but even to the skirts of his clothing the use and capacity of the meanest believer in an holy Unity and happy Uniformity not onely of true Doctrine but of comely Order and charitable
dissensions among us but must needs be now not onely out of love with them but in as great feare and abhorrence of them as he hath any favour and good will to the peace and prosperity either of his Country or this Church to the promoting of which as conscience binds him so all prudence and policy invites him CHAP. IV. THirdly to these I may further adde that great spur of generous industry which we call Sense of Honor or an impatience that worthy persons have to come short in any thing of that which doth best become them or is by God and good men expected from them I know how touchy even small minds and petty-spirited men are in point of reputation there where no true honor lies But meer shadowes and imaginary punctilio's deceive them under the notions of honor after that vulgar rate and esteem which gives many Gentlemen quicker resentments of any affronts neglects indignities or injuries done to themselves than of blasphemy to their God and Saviour more sensible for the honor of their mistresses of pleasure than for their Mother or Fathers I mean not so much naturall and politicall as Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall the Church and the Pastors of it such by whose care they have been bred and born to Christ baptised in the Name of the blessed Trinity brought up in the true Christian Faith nourished confirmed and sealed by the body the blood and Spirit of Christ directed in the waies of Holinesse and Eternall Happinesse Certainly the Command binds all Christians to Honour these parents as much as any No sense of Honor should be more quick and sensible than that which reflects upon our highest concernments in which not onely our private but our publick not onely our temporall but our eternall welfare is wrapped up and so confined that if in this we faile or miscarry all is lost that a great and gracious soul can consider If you were a Nation pinched with poverty over-awed with slavery despicable for your weaknesse base for your cowardise brutish for your ignorance dull with stupidity dejected by tenuity or barbarous through want of learning and civility if you were now to begin the principles of Christianity and knew not what belonged to true Religion which is the highest honor and happinesse of any Nation if that were the present State of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of England that they were now beginning to be Civilized and Catechized I should think my labour lost my oratory vaine and my importunity improper thus to conjure you by the highest sense of Honor to study the settlement of true Religion before you were acquainted with the sense of Civility Religion or Honor Or if I thought you had not so much pregnant light of Religion as might make you sensible of the truest and highest points of honor or not so much apprehension of honor as might make you most zealously tender in the behalfe of true Religion I would not be so impertinent as to think to move you beyond your inward principles But when I consider you as a people pampered with plenty exalted with liberty renowned for strength dreaded for valour enlightned with knowledge in all kinds accurately vigorous actively industrious as the chief of the Nations as the princesse of all Islands heightned to all magnificence polished with all good literature and civility old Disciples of Jesus Christ many hundred yeares agoe converted to Christianity and never wholly either perverted by Hereticks or subverted by the many barbarous invasions and warlike confusions which you have endured when I contemplate the grandeur the power the wisdome the majesty the publick piety heretofore of this Nation the antiquity of this Church and the prosperity of its reformed condition heretofore I cannot but with all humble and faithfull respects tell you That it is not worthy the name and honor of the English Nation so famous for Learning and Religion for Scholars and Souldiers for Magistrates and Ministers for Christian Princes and Christian people scarce to be parallel'd in all the world It is not for the Honor of such a Nation to halt between not two but twenty opinions to variate thus between the true God and the many new Baalims between Christ and the many Belials who will endure no publick yoak of Religion or Church-government but what themselves fancy and frame though never so different from that which this and the Catholick Church in all ages not onely used and submitted to but highly rejoyced in as the onely order that Jesus Christ and his Apostles had setled in all parts of his Church It is a shamefull posture for wise and sober men for ancient and renowned Christians to be thus inconsistent as divided between a doting upon former superstitions which some impute to us and indulging moderne innovations which others reproch us for 'T is ridiculous to be alwaies dancing the rounds of Religion and giddily moving in the mazes of endlesse Innovations which are but private and for the most part Childish inventions the effects either of proud and imperious or of peevish popular and plebeian Spirits who aime not at the publick Peace Piety and Honor of the Nation so much as at the gratifying their own little Fancies Humors Opinions and interests whose Novelties never so specious and plausible at first yet soon appeare pernicious to the publick so farre from mending and reforming the State of Religion that they threaten to marre all if the goodnesse of God and the moderation of wise men do not prevent Private formes and inventions never duly examined or solemnly allowed by the publick Representatives of any Church in Nationall Synods or Councills nor from thence recommended to and approved by the Representatives of the civill States in full and free Parliaments but surreptitiously broched at first afterward Magisterially obtruded by some pragmatick Preachers upon any Church or Christian people these prove no other in the end than like the ashes scattered over Egypt productive of sores and boyles swelling to great paine and insolency Especially in such a Church and Nation as this which was of the highest forme both for Christianity and reformation where God had to our admiration and his eternall praise blessed the former setled State of Religion and the Churches excellent constitution under those reverend and renowned Bishops assisted by Learned Orderly and Worthy Presbyters whose pious and profitable endeavours had long agoe advanced this Churches honor and happinesse to as high a pitch in point of Doctrine and Devotion and all spirituall experiences as any Church ever attained and further had improved its welfare in point of Discipline if they had not been ever curbed and hindered by the jealousies and impatiences of some Princes or people who would by no meanes endure the ancient just and holy Severities of Christian Discipline should be exercised by the Clergy against their Haughty and Licentious manners no not when the Ecclesiastick State of England was in its highest elevation and
most clearly his good pleasure and liking to this Church of England its Religion Reformation and Ministry namely by those eminent gifts and undeniable graces of his Spirit which in great and various measures he hath plentifully poured forth upon the Godly Bishops and other good Ministers of this Church who were subject to them to the edification of his faithfull people among you in all spirituall blessings even to the admiration of our neighbours the joy of our friends and regret of our enemies If the excellently Learned and Godly Bishops whose names and memories are blessed assisted by other able orderly and painefull Ministers of this Church who being duly sent and ordained by them were humbly obedient to them as to spirituall Fathers if they have carefully and happily steered for many yeares the sometimes faire and rich Ship of the Church of England in which so many thousand precious soules have been imbarked for heaven and eternity between these two dangerous gulphs the Scylla and Charybdis of Papall Superstitions and uncharitable Separations steering it by the compasse of Gods word with such Christian prudence order and decency as is therein commanded or allowed in which happy conduct they and their successors were still very able willing and worthy to have proceeded if the wrath of God highly offended for the wantonness wickednesse and unthankfulnesse of the generality of people under so great meanes and mercies had not justly suffered so rude stormes of both religious factions and civil dissensions to arise which having torne the tackling rent the sailes loosened the junctures unhinged the rudder broke the maine mast cast the chiefest Pilots and skilfullest Marriners over-board quite defaced the lesser card or compasse of Ecclesiasticall Canons and civill lawes have at last driven her within the reach and danger of both these dreadfull extremes which she most declined leaving this poor weather beaten Church after infinite tossings like a founder'd ship in a troubled Sea of confusion attending one of these two sad fates either a Schismaticall dissolution or a Papall absorption either to be utterly shattered in pieces by endlesse factions or to be swallowed up at last in the greater gulph of Romane power and Policy which cannot but have alwaies a very vigilant and intentive eye what becomes of the Church of England If the Ministry of the Church of England whilest it was yet flourishing and entire as a City united in it self as an orderly family or holy corporation consisting of Fathers and Brethren of Bishops and Presbyters might justly challenge before God and all good men this merit and acknowledgement from you and your fore-fathers that for Learning and Eloquence both in preaching and writing for acutenesse and dexterity in disputing for solidity and plainnesse in teaching for prudent and pathetick fervency in praying for just terror in moving hard hearts to softnesse and feared consciences to repentance for judicious tendernesse in comforting the afflicted and healing the wounded Spirit lastly for exemplary living in all holy and good waies in all which particulars becoming a Christian Church neither you nor they have had any cause to envy the most Christian and best Reformed Churches in the world as to that honour and happinesse which consists in the excellent abilities honest industry due authority regular order of Ministers also in the decency usefulnesse and power of holy Ministrations all which blessings experience sufficiently tells you were formerly enjoyed by many gracious and judicious Christians farre beyond what hath been or ever can be hoped under these moderne divisions deformities distractions and dissolutions which do indeed threaten in time utter desolation to this Church and the true Reformed Religion if Gods mercy and wise mens care do not prevent If nothing but ignorance or malice blindnesse or uncharitablenesse barrennesse or bitternesse of Spirit in any men can deny this great truth this honest humble just and modest boasting to which the injuries indignities and ingratitudes of these last and worst times have compelled sober Ministers as they did St. Paul who ought to have been better valued and commended by them If you O Noblemen Gentlemen and Yeomen of England are so knowing that you cannot be ignorant of this truth and so ingenuous that you cannot but acknowledge it in behalfe of the Church of England and its worthy Clergy while you and they enjoyed Piety Peace and Prosperity if beyond all cavill or contradiction this right ought to be done to Gods glory this Churches honour the ancient Clergies merit and your own with your fore-fathers renowne that after-ages may not suspect them for Hereticks or Schismaticks nor you for Separates or Apostates as forsaking that good way in which they were reformed and established in the purity power and polity of true Religion If all these suppositions be true as I know you think they are how I beseech you can it be in the sight of your most just God and mercifull Saviour who so abundantly blest this Church and his servants the Ministers of it in teaching comforting and guiding you and your pious predecessors soules to heaven to change and cast off such a Ministry and such Ministers Yea how can it be in the censure of pious and impartiall men other than a most degenerous negligence a Mechanick meannesse a most unholy unthankfulness for you or any Christians to passe by with silence and senselesnesse with carelesnesse and indifferency all those sad spectacles of Church-divisions and distractions of Church-mens diminutions debasements and discouragements lately befaln them by a divine fatality and justice partly through the imprudence of some Clergy-men severely revenged by the malice or mistake of some Lay-men whose heavy and immoderate pressures have faln chiefly upon those Ecclesiasticks who were Christs principall Vicegerents Messengers Ministers and Embassadors his faithfull Stewards his diligent Overseers his vigilant watchmen his wife dispensers of heavenly Mysteries to your Soules From whom so many Apostasies have been commenced and carried on by infinite calumnies indignities and injuries against them and their orderly authority and function as if you and your Children had lately found more grace and virtue better Ministeriall sufficiencies and proficiencies in some Tradesmen Troopers in Mechanick ignorance illiterate impudence in the glib tongues the giddy heads empty hearts of such fellowes as are scarce fit to be your servants in the meanest civill offices as if these were now fit to be your Pastors and Teachers your Spirituall inspectors and rulers of your Soules beyond any of those Reverend Bishops and Learned Doctors and other Grave Divines who heretofore through the grace of God dispensed to you by their incomparable gifts and reall abilities those inestimable treasures of all sound knowledge and saving wisdome of grace and truth which were carried on with comely order and bound up with Christian unity Doubtlesse the forgetting of those Josephs who have been so wise storerâ—s and so liberall distributers of the food of eternall life to our hungry soules
who have brought forth as good Scribes instructed for the Kingdom of Heaven out of the good treasuries of their hearts things both new old the Learning of the ancient Fathers Councills and Historians set off with later Experiments and Improvements of all spirituall operations and gracious comforts the forgetting I say of these Ministers cannot be worthy of that pious gratitude which becomes noble-minded Christian How meane uncomely and much below you must it needs appeare to all wise and sober Christians in the present age and all posterity if you suffer their holy orders to be despised their spirituall offices to be neglected their divine authority to be usurped their primitive orders and constant succession to be interrupted their persons to be abused and shamefully treated their support as to double honour to be so abuted that their maintetenance shall be very small sharking and uncertaine also their respect and esteem none at all especially among the common people whose civil and religious regards are much measured either by the bag and bushell or by the examples of their betters their Landlords and Governours The wilfull dividing debasing discrediting disordering and discarding of the ancient Clergy as to their Ordination Government Ministry Authority and succession in England which was most Christian Catholick and reformed must needs be as the sin and shame so the great injury and misery of you and your posterity being the ready way to bring in First a scrupulous unsatisfiednesse and unsetlednesse as to our former Religion as if either not true or not reformed Secondly next it raiseth a jealousie and suspicion of any Religion under the name of Reformation as if it would not long hold and had no bottom or bounds Thirdly after this followes a lukewarmenesse coldnesse and indifferency as to all Religion whatsoever as Reformed and as Christian Fourthly then will there creep in by secret steps a generall Apostasie at least from our pristine wise Reformation and happy constitution of Religion to the Roman errors superstitions and usurpations which wait for such a time and temper in England whereby to make their advance upon peoples mindes wildred and confounded when they shall see the shamefull retreates recoilings and variations made in England by the Reformed Religion upon it self whose disorders disgraces and deformities necessarily following the contempt of their Ministers or the change and rupture of their Ministeriall descent and succession will make most if not all men in time to recede from it and rather adhere to its grand Roman rival its implacable enemie Popery whose policies will bring you and your posterity by the contempt and want of true Bishops to have no Pastors or Ministers of any uniforme validity of Catholick complete and most undoubted authority If any man may be a preacher that listeth to pirk up into a Pulpit certainly in a few yeares you shall have no Preachers worth your hearing no Ministers of any reputation and authority either among the Idiots and vulgar or among the more ingenious and wiser sort of people who are not naturally either very solicitous or industrious in the concernments of Religion or the choise of their Ministers If neither God nor good men have any further pleasure in their servants the ancient Clergy of England if they really are as uselesse and worthlesse as they have been made vile and reproched by some mens tongues and pens if they have deserved to be thus tossed in an eternall tempest of factious divisions vulgar depressions and endlesse confusions beyond any other order or rank of men if this be their evill fate and merit after all their studies and paines after all their Praying Preaching Writing and Living to the honor of this Nation and the great advantages of the Reformed Religion if to have equalled at least if not exceeded the Clergy of any Church in any age since the Apostles departure be the unpardonable fault of the Reformed Bishops and their Clergy in England if their very sufferings as the vipers seizing on St. Pauls hand make them appear to barbarous and vulgar minds as sinners therefore despicable because they are so much despised and so thought fit to be destroyed if this lingring and shamefull death of being thus Crucified is that by which the Clergy of England must glorifie God if this bitter cup must not passe from them truly it will be a mercifull severity to hold them no longer in ambiguous calamities but rather wholly to expose them to the last outrages of Fanatick Popular and Schismatick fury the Lions that hunger and roare to have these Daniels wholly cast into their dens and jawes that so your eyes may no longer see your poor despised distressed and miserable Clergy many of whom both Bishops and Presbyters are forced as you know to embrace the dunghil being destitute of order honour and estate some of them having neither food convenient nor any abiding place nor any fitting employment that so that Episcopall Clergy now rendred so odious who under God formerly redeemed you and your fore-fathers out of the bondage and darknesse of Egyptian superstition may by an Egyptian Magick and fate be drowned in the Red-Sea of vulgar contempt popular confusion and inordinate oppressions that thus the new Jannes and Jambres may not onely resist but wholly prevaile by their inchantments against your Moses and Aarons But if your Consciences O worthy Gentlemen who are the Beauty Strength and Honour of this Nation do on the other side tell you not with faint and dubious whispers but by loud and manifest experiences proclaiming to all the world that the ancient Clergy of England have generally deserved better of you by their Learning Preaching Praying Writing and Living what I beseech you can be more worthy of the Wisdome Justice Piety Honour and Gratitude of this Nation than to assert with their publick love and favour the dignity of their worthy Divines the honour of their Clergy the Sanctity of their Religion and Reformation against that plebeian petulancy and insolency which hath so pressed upon them and daily depresseth all their Authority not onely by reason of some Lay-mens folly and insolency but even by their variations and inconstancy who presumed to be Preachers and challenge upon what score they please a share or lot in the Evangelicall Ministry Truly it is high time to redeeme the Sacred Orders the Divine Authority the Catholick succession the ancient and authentick dignity of the Evangelicall Ministry in the Church of England from the obloquies contempts and oppressions of ignorant and unreasonable men who are great enemies to the piety and prosperity of this Nation and but back friends to the Reformed Religion being at so deadly a fewd against the ancient Clergy and Catholick Ministry of this Church whose totall extirpation both root and branch Bishops and Presbyters they have so resolutely designed and restlessely endeavoured that they long for nothing more than the natural death of all the reverend Bishops and all Episcopall
seat faire Cathedrall or Mother-Church with which England formerly abounded to the great honour of the Nation no lesse than of the Clergy and Ministry of all degrees the Slips and Shrubs of Churches which some have lately planted thrive so ill that they wish them fairly removed and reingrafted into that ancient stock that goodly and venerable tree of Episcopacy which was so flourishing and so fruitfull to all orders of Christians in England and in all ancient Churches ever since the first plantation of Religion in this Island or the other world O how would all sober Ministers and others rejoyce to come under that shade and superintendency which might not sadly over-drop but gently protect every Minister and member of the Church in their severall branches and boughs Who sees not by experience that verified which St. Jerom told them long agoe That a regular Episcopacy is the best if not the onely defensative both in the Catholick and particular Churches from the scorching heates of factions and schismes to keep men from those shiftings and tossings in Religion from those uncharitable rendings and separations which are so uncomely and inconvenient yea so noxious to the Churches of Christ and therefore to be conscienciously avoided by all good Christians Besides this constitution containing in its bosome the true interests of Presbyters and people as well as of Bishops redeemes the Clergy beyond any other form of Church-order and Government from that which is very intolerable to men of learned piety and ingenuous Spirits that is the sordid dependence upon yea and slavish subjection even in religious concernments unto those Lay-dictators and plebeian humors who are generally very crosse-grained and spitefully peevish to men of more learning than themselves Vulgar minds are alwaies contemptuous to their teachers and rugged to their Monitors but most unsufferably insolent when they find either Magistrates or Ministers dependants upon their benevolence never triumphing more unfeignedly than when they see those deformed spectacles which this last age hath oft shewen them namely those grave and worthy Ministers who taught them in the name of Christ on the Lords-day the very next day pale and trembling to appeare before them in some Country Committee compounded of Lay-men yea and of some Trades-men who are generally not guilty of much learning in any kind and least in Divinity yet these are the men that must catechise examine censure and condemn Ministers in the sight of their people both in points of Doctrine and in practises Ministeriall for which some one Minister is able to say more in one houre than most of those Assessors or silly Spectators can understand in ten or ever have read in all their lives What ingenuous Christian blusheth not to see Ministers of excellent learning and lives so disparaged so degraded so discouraged by the Incompetency of those who must be their Judges when many of them cannot so much as understand the state of the question or matter in dispute What Christian is there of so popular plebeian triviall and mechanick a spirit as not to desire to see proper and meet judges set to examine and determine matters of Religion for doctrines manners and discipline in all which there are many cases so obscure and intricate that they require men of very good learning of composed minds of sober judgements and unbiassed consciences to debate and determine them being very dubious and disputable in truth and holinesse in faith and morality which when some silly Saints and devout bunglers will undertake to manage and modelize beyond their line and measure after their rash rude and slovenly fashion it is not to be expressed how much detriment both Religion and its sacred Ministry suffer through the ignorance and passion the rusticity and confidence the petulancy and impertinency of such ridiculous arbitrators and incompetent judges who are so farre from being fit for any such Authority and Judicature that they are not onely not equals but in most points very much inferiours to those whose doctrine and manners whose callings and consciences they presume not so much to search as to insult over with as much unfitnesse and unreasonablenesse as if Divines should arrogate to themselves the Judicature of Common-Law or of persons and cases Martiall so that both Pleaders and Judges Souldiers and Commanders should fall under Ministers decision in all debates incident to their functions and affaires Every man not ambitiously vain and fulsomely foolish doth now wish in his soul to see that grave solemne idoneous and equable dispensation of Religion both in its Mysteries and Ministry its Doctrine and Controversies its Scandals and Indignities as may best become the Honour and Majesty of Christianity most avoiding those improprieties and absurdities which have been sufficiently manifested in our late confusions which have chiefly risen from want of that wise settlement in Religious administrations which would lay out every part and parcell of them so as is proper for them both as to persons places and proportions after the order and method anciently used both in Gods Tabernacle and his Temple Indeed nothing can be managed orderly and happily in Church or State in Civill or Ecclesiastick affaires unlesse they passe through such wise hearts and pure hands as can both well understand them and discreetly discharge them so as may conciliate in all mens mindes an inward reverence to their persons that do dispence them Which respect ariseth not from parchment Commissions or popular approbations but from personall and reall sufficiencies which appearing to all sober men both in reason and Religion give them the greatest satisfaction and thereby as it were charme the common people not more by feare than love and shame to preserve that peace and to observe those orders which they see wisely setled and authoritatively used in any Church or Christian Common-wealth CHAP. VI. THe happinesse and honour of which religious harmony and authoritative order as every Christian is ashamed not to seem at least to desire and all honest men no doubt do really intend as their chiefe end and designe so the greatest differences now perpetuating our Religious distractions in England seem to arise from the severall meanes propounded and methods prosecuted by men possibly of honest meanings but of differing minds who each presuming their own waies to be best for the Reforming reconciling and establishing of Religion grow so divided in the use of their meanes as still to hinder the attaining of the end just like Physitians who honestly and heartily aime at the cure of their patient but every one of them so urgeth the taking of his particular receipt that either they give him no physick at all or so various and contrary prescriptions as first confound and at last kill him more by the mutuall repugnancy of their Medicines than by the Malignity of the disease Such is the state and fate of the Church of England as to my observation having I hope many honest and upright hearts in it but
conferences occasion better understanding between many of them and so by Gods blessing in time produce some such counsels as may be worthy of them and the publick But if their aime be slily to get into some hands such popular advantages by their soft insinuations of seeming equanimity and moderation as shall further displace and disparage the former Catholick Government of this and all ancient Churches they will be but as new patches put to an old garment which will make the rent and deformity the greater Certainly the state of the Reformed Religion in England will never be happy till it is setled nor setled till it be uniform nor uniform till the office and authority of Ministers be valid and venerable nor will this ever be untill the sanctity and samenesse of ordination together with the use of Ecclesiasticall power and holy Ministrations be rendred so August so Sacred and Complete as may be most conforme to Scripture and to pure Antiquity for while Ministers are of diverse makes and moulds they will be of diverse minds nor can they produce other than multiforme Christians of different fashions and deformed factions in Religion which do as necessarily bring forth infinite mischiefs in any Church or Christian State as the itch breeds scratching and scratching fetches blood As the blessed Apostles so their holy successors kept to one way of Religious Order and Power which preserved the unity of faith and love among Christian Bishops Presbyters and people I confess I do sometimes in my sad and retired solitudes hope that our common calamities may by Gods softning and calming grace upon mens spirits make both all Godly Ministers and all good people so wise as humbly sincerely and charitably to search into the cleare steps of Primitive prudence Apostolicall order and Ecclesiacall Authority which had due and tender regard to all sorts of Christians so as to keep up a meet subordination with a Christian communion To which end I was willing to hope this shew of Association might conduce But when I find in some of them nothing that looks civilly upon Episcopacy many things cast reprochfully and scornfully upon the excellent Bishops of England and all the Episcopall Clergy who were not inferiour in any regard to the best Associators when I find that some of them have the confidence to exclude all that have of late yeares been ordained by any Bishop with Presbyters though such an one as the late most venerable Bishop of Norwich Dr. Hall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when I see that some rigid Presbyterians and popular Independents affect with great Magistery to Duopolize all Church-power to grasp into their hands and bosomes as the sides of a drag-net meeting together all Ministeriall Authority not onely not owning the best surviving Bishops with any respect nor yet in any faire way applying to any of them after all their undeserved indignities but spitefully and professedly abdicating all communion with them under the name of Bishops reducing them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the levell and parallel of Presbyters which the 630. Orthodox Fathers in the fourth generall famous Councell of Chalcedon which all Ministers of England approved and I think subscribed to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an absurd and unreasonable practise yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great sacriledge and Zonaras upon that Canon makes it a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fighting as Giants against God as a dethroning of Christ the Bishops eminent authority and presidency in the Church being a lively representation of Christs sitting in the midst of the throne who did undoubtedly delegate his visible authority of governing the Church to the chief Apostles above the 70. and all other Teachers after which manner and proportion these chief Apostles who were the first and great Bishops after Christ did both commit and derive their authority to the following Bishops their successors who were a lesser sort or second edition of Apostles when I see what an Idol some Ministers and people make of their Scotch-Covenant by which great Engine or Military Ram they still think themselves bound to batter Episcopacy as if their Covenanting against it as it then stood in England were an obligation to persecute all Episcopacy for ever when in earnest the least variation of its former constitution both satisfies and absolves from that bond which some men still superstitiously venerate as if it were an image faln from heaven a matter of divine precept and institution and not rather of humane machination and politick invention which we are sure it was as if it were the solemn result of the pious or of the peaceable and publick sense of this Nation and not rather the issue of troubled braines and broken times indeed many forget that the Covenant smells more of fire smoke of sulphur and gun-powder than of the Spouses myrrh and perfumes of Christian Love and Charity Again when I consider how passion and pride betrayes many men to rashnesse rashnesse to folly folly to obstinacy obstinacy to presumption presumption to animosities and these to unchristian fewds everlasting despite and bitternesse which must still be vented as cholerick humors once in a month against the most innocent and Primitive Episcopacy yea against the most deserving and yet most suffering Bishops of this Church and of all the world old and new when I see the personall errata's and exorbitances or infirmities of some few Bishops by most uncharitable Synecdoches which put a part for the whole are in a pittifull fallacious way of vulgar oratory urged against all Episcopacy and Bishops in any orderly eminency or presidentiall authority in the Church contrary to the faith and honour of all antiquity and the former happy experiences of this Reformed Church when I find how wary and shy some Ministers are in their zeal and forwardnesse for their petty Associations to seem to own even their own judgements and reall inclinations toward any such condescentions and close with Episcopacy as may reflect upon their former transports how loth they are really and freely to offer such proposals as are equable and ingenuous pure and peaceable to the Episcopall party who aim at no more than such a paternall presidency and order as may best preserve the undoubted power of ordination and Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction as it was Primitively setled in and transmitted by the hands of the first Bishops who immediately succeeded the Apostles When I see as I plainly do this partiality restivenesse and cowardise in some Ministers of good parts then do I almost sink in despaire ever to see or enjoy while I live in England any thing in the Order Government and Discipline of this Church that may look like the Primitive pattern which was indeed a Catholicon approved in all Churches used in all ages and submitted to by all sorts of good Christians the onely proper Antidote I think against the poysons of our times farre beyond any of these kind of new confections which tampering and partiall Empiricks
desire may be extended to themselves The contentions and confusions in Religion must needs be endlesse if they be left to the naturall passions of most men Then they may find happy conclusions when those that are Rulers and Teachers of others and so not onely more learned but more prudent unpassionate and composed as Magistrates and Ministers ought to be beyond any men when I say these men do apply the utmost of their Piety Power Parts Zeal and Discretion by fit meanes to compose all controversies among themselves which will then soon decay and dye among the common people The Spirits and reputation of Ministers are commonly the chiefe sparks and bellowes that first kindle and after increase to publick flames the fires of dissentions and disaffections both among themselves and the people once extinguish or moderate these enormous heates among Ministers there will be no such conflagrations of Religion among ordinary people which have of late been more like the black and confused eructations of mount Aetna than the sweet and holy fires of mount Sion or the flames and perfumes of Gods Altar and Temple Which that I might be some meanes to restore to this Church and Nation I have thus made my amicable humble and Christian addresse as to all good men so chiefly to all my Brethren and Fathers of the Ministry in England who are persons of any competent abilities and considerable worth as to the duty and dignity of that great and holy that dreadfull Angelick Divine employment I confesse I cannot but passionately deplore as other mens so my own solitude for these many yeares by reason of that uncorrespondency as to any fraternall meeting with any of them in any publick way being hereby deprived of that great Comfort Improvement Joy and benefit which might be had by those excellent abilities and graces which are in many of them It is great pitty good and able Ministers should be longer severed whose brotherly union and frequent convenings in orderly and publick meetings would not onely set a greater edge and brightness on their studies and parts which alone and confined onely to Country-auditors and associates grow rusty flat and dull but they would highly advance the progresse of the Reformed Religion both in profession and power giving hereby a mighty check as to the encrease of profaneness atheism so of Popery and superstition mightily conducing also to the generall peace of the Nation by allaying those unchristian feuds and uncivill heates which every where so much at present affect infect and disaffect the minds both of Ministers and people But these meetings of Ministers must be authoritative not arbitrary not precarious but subpenall otherwise the restiveness laziness wantonness and factiousness of some will mar all either forbearing all meetings or perturbing them if they be not kept in some awe as well as order by their betters and superiours If I knew any Motives more prevalent any words more pathetick any charmes of love more effectuall any grounds of piety or polity more pregnant if Writing Preaching Praying Beseeching if any Words any Teares any Sighs might work upon Ministers of all sides to bring them to this blessed accord to publick friendly and fraternall meetings to grave orderly and comely conventions which would be of great use as well as honor to them I should in nothing be more prodigall of my time spirits and paines Then would Ministers be able to redeeme their Persons their Office their Orders their Sacred Authority their Religion from vulgar contempt from mechanick arrogancy from those base prostitutions and levellings to which those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 terrae filii sons of the earth vile and mâ—ane men have of late yeares debased as the holy Ministry so all heavenly Mysteries then would that rust and rusticity that plebeian Spirit and ungenerous temper which possesseth many Ministers out of feare and flattery be removed then would that scurfe and mosse that barrenness and canker which is now upon Christian and Reformed Religion be taken away and that floridness with fruitfulnesse that beauty with holinesse be restored which Tertullian so excellently sets forth among Primitive and persecuted Christians in their assemblies In which were highly conspicuous a reverentiall fear of God a modest and mutuall regard to each other a most intentive diligence to duties a most solicitous care of themselves and others a most prepared and deliberate communicating in holy things carried on by the most deserving eminency of some and the most religious subordination or consciencious subjection of others all parts of the Church and Clergy were happily united and God was all in all his glory the centre his love the circle or band of all their aimes and actions their hearts and thoughts The venerable piety and almost Divine Majesty of such conventions wherein Bishops Ministers and people were of one heart and one mind in the Lord advanced the reverence of their censures monitions reproofes abstentions and excommunications to so great a regard and just dread that no good Christian great or small disdained the authority of the Bishop or slighted the judgement of the Clergy which judged and declared the mind of the whole Church because according to the mind of the Lord Christ and of God himself Then was it that lapsed and scandalous sinners were soonest brought to be penitents in so humble yet comfortable a manner that as St. Jerom saith of Fabiola and St. Ambrose of others They furrowed their faces with sorrowes and plowed their cheeks with teares they paved the Churches with their prostrate bodies which were so penitently pallid and deplorable that they seemed only living corpses and breathing carkases So few Christians did then entertain their sins with smiles or laugh at those Teachers that reproved them or schismatically separate from those Orthodox Bishops with the Clergy that justly censured them as obnoxious to Gods judgements and unworthy of Christian Communion till they amended no man or woman ever lived or died in peace of conscience whose soul was justly wounded with these arrowes the censures of the Church they either drank up their sensuall and proud Spirits and brought them to repentance or they sank them into a desperate state both of obstinate sin and eternall horror Such holy and happy Assemblies of Ministers consisting of authoritative Bishops and orderly Presbyters were farre more to their honor and comfort more befitting their breeding and learning their labours and industry their parts and worth their sacred function and dignity than to be pittifully scared and over-awed by Country-Committees and a new sort of Tryars where grave Ministers are oft catechised chastised and contemned by such men as are some of them at least of very moderate that I say not meane abilities except their estates be instead of all reason and Religion all learning worth and wisdome very incompetent judges God knowes of the Doctrine and Manners of Ministers unlesse in matters of civill misdemeanors for which there
are higher courts and abler judges appointed to heare and determine matters according to law with more honor and lesse partiality than Ministers can expect from such men as are very sorry Magistrates and worse Ministers This is a certaine maxime the cheapnesse and despicablenesse of Ministers ariseth chiefly from their mutuall divisions and dissociations Their union and harmony will be their Honor Safety and Happinesse I pray God shew us all and guide us in the waies of his and our own peace And in earnest it is high time for us as Ministers of Christ and as sober men to give over our popular Projects and pragmatick activities our secular policies and state agitations by which we have all gained far lesse than if we had onely intended the Crosse of Christ and imitated the patience as of our great Master so of the best of our predecessors not to concerne our selves so much in Crownes and Soveraignties in Kingdomes and Commonweales in Parlaments and Armies in Killing and Slaying our brethren upon Christs score as in saving our own and others souls What was of old falsely and odiously objected hath of late been too much verified in many of us You take too much upon you O you Sons of Levi both in sacred and civill affaires Let us learne to rule our own passions to obey actively in all lawfull and honest things our superiours and passively in others Leave it to God to rule this as all States and Kingdomes by what hands heads and hearts he pleaseth Let us in all times do all things rather in a Ministeriall then military fashion Honestly Humbly Meekly Charitably Unanimously and the God of peace will be with us in this private and publick posture we shall better beare the frownes or favours either of Princes or people who will never be our friends if we be our own enemies CHAP. XIV HAving done my duty to those that are of my own profession as Ministers how ever they differ at present in the derivation of their orders and exercise of their Ministeriall Authority my next addresse must be to those persons whose influence sociall or solitary personall or Parlamentary either is or may be most effectuall by their Counsels or Commands by their proposals or power to recover the Purity Order Unity and Stability of Religion in this Nation It is not fit for me to presume to suggest to persons so much above me in prudence and experience as well as power and reputation any thing that lookes like counsel or advise I know Superiours are prone to take those suggestions for affronts from inferiours as if they thought themselves wiser than those that rule them But yet our humble petitions have acceptance with Godâ— himself not as suggestions to his wisdome but submissions to his will and supplications of his goodnesse No Christian Empire was ever so imperious as to disdaine the prayers of any that craved their favour and assistance in just and faire waies And since I find few Ministers of any party will begin or joyne with me in such a request to those that are our Superiours better I presume to supplicate alone than that no man of any calling should importune the Soveraignty Nobility and Gentry of this Nation in a businesse of so great and publick concern before the mischief spread too farre and the cure be desperate which will then be when there shall be few sound minds honest hearts and whole parts left in the Land all or most being infected with Ignorance Irreligion Atheisme Profanenesse Popery or indifferency the inevitable effects that will follow the divisions distractions and debasings of the Clergy both among themselves and the common people To you therefore that are the highest and greatest the honorablest and richest the wisest and strongest the most noble and generous the most knowing and ingenuous persons do I with all humble importunity recommend this reall Cause of God and of Christ our Saviour the cause of the Christian and Reformed Religion the cause of this Church and Nation the cause of your own and your posterities welfare Is it not high time after so many tossings and Tragedies in which this Church and its Ministers have had so great a share at last to speak comfortably to Sion to tell her that her warfare is accomplished to take off the filthy garments wherewith her Ministers of all sorts have been clothed to cover their shame to bury their mutuall reproaches to restore the honor and authority of their calling to encourage and improve in waies of publick conspicuity and harmony those excellent abilities which are in many of them which divided and at distance from each other are either quite lost or perverted to maintaine popular parties and factions against each other Many Ministers have been and are silenced being thereby driven to extreme poverty most are dispersed and despised not onely by vulgar insolencies but by mutuall animosities jealousies distances and defiances Few of us have that Christian courage and constancy by which the Primitive Bishops and Presbyters as an united Clergy were still preserved entire among themselves when most persecuted by enemies we are so divided that we are justly dejected and easily destroyed Many of us have by our follies forfeited the honor of our function some of us by our secular policies and compliances have prostituted the sanctity of it to the fedities and insolencies of Lay-men We have digged those pits into which we are faln and filled those dungeons with mire in which we now stick It is a memoriall of everlasting honor to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian that he helped with great tendernesse and humanity to draw the Prophet Jeremy out of the dungeon where he was ready to perish England hath now for many yeares had many Prophets in dungeons of disgrace and darknesse yea all are sunk into the dirt and mire of obloquy and contempt on one side or other I beseech you be not tediously or anxiously inquisitive how we came there but apply of your goodnesse and noblenesse fit meanes to draw us out Let not the Christian and Reformed Ministry of this Church which was the most renowned in all the world without any doubt offence or envy I speak it let not this be like Elisha the scorne of fooles the mocking-stock of children the May-game of Papists the laughter of Atheists the object of fanatick petulancy and vulgar insolency the wonder and gaze of all forrainers the grief and astonishment of all sober men at home and abroad who for some yeares have beheld the factious and divided the disputed and despised state of Ministers the poor and pittiful shifts they have made to keep their heads above the waters not to be quite overwhelmed with Poverty Anarchy and Contempt while alone and solitary they signifie not much and joyntly or socially they are now nothing at all having no publick harmony or fraternall correspondency no concurrent counsel no Synodicall convention or Ecclesiasticall Authority being never summoned by
Roman Communion must not the fate of your either miscreant or miserable posterity necessarily be such that their teeth will be so set on edge by the sowre grapes you have eaten and left for them that they will not endure sound Doctrine much lesse wholesome Discipline Thus untaught and ungoverned unbred and unfed in Religion can you expect other from them than all debaucheries immoralities and such Atheisticall indifferences and impudencies as the heart of man easily runs into if left to it self as the Horse and Mule without bit or bridle of Religion and conscience to restraine them May they not have cause in their sad reflections upon the Beauty Order Honor and Happinesse of Religion in England which they may read of in former daies besides the many afflictions and civill dissentions which have and will inevitably follow divided Religion to an irreligion in any Nation may they not in their doubting dying and despairing retreates have cause to count you yea and to curse you as their carelesse and cruell parents who are never quiet or content till you settle your honors estates and civill affaires in some safe posture as you imagine but are wholly negligent as to any religious establishment which many men feare oppose and abhorre lest in cleare waters their faces should appeare the fouler varieties and uncertainties of Religion being most fomented by those whose piety is wholly resolved into policy who never tasted how gracious the Lord is in the waies meanes and fruites of true Religion But for you O my noble Countrimen that have seen and rejoyced in that glorious light of Reformed Religion which shined so long and illustriously in the Church of England how can you with any conscience or comfort leave the world and leave your posterity with your Country exposed to such variety uncertainties distractions deformities and confusions as to the Reformed Religion and its Ministry which makes them look like the Temple of God in Jerusalem after Nebucadnezzar and Nebuzaradan had visited it with fire and sword so defacing and deforming it that it was the pitty of all good men and the scorn of the wicked As Augustus Caesar was wont in his most impotent passion of grief and vexation to teare his haire and cry out Ridde Vare Legiones O Varus restore the Legions of brave and veterane souldiers which thou hast so unadvisedly or unworthily lost when they were slaine by the Germane surprises so may you heare the soberest Christians and truest-hearted English-men in their grief and shame cry out Reddite nobis Religionem Reformatam Uniformem Christianam primaevam Catholicam Reddite Ecclesiae Anglicana priscam pietatem pacem ordinem pulchritudinem patrimonium regimen Majestatem debitam decus antiquum Reddite nobis patres fratres filios spiritales Episcopos atate virtute authoritate venerandos Presbyteros literatura industria humilitate unitate ordine conspicuos Plebem probe instructam modestam sobriam mutua charitate amulam non effrâ—nem infrunitam laceram non erroribus lascivam non novitatibus foedam non scabie rigentem non nimia petulantia deformem non irreligiose Religiosam c. This was the voice of the Church of England while it dared to speake Latine which being now scandalous and reprochfull to many as the language of the Beast not understood by them She is forced to expresse her Prayer in English for mens better understanding Restore restore I beseech you to me to your selves to your country to your posterity the purity the peace the sanctity the solemnity the sobriety the order the honor the unity the solidity the stability the power the efficacy the fruites and works of true Christian and Reformed Religion Restore to us the happinesse of living not onely united in one civill polity as men but in one Ecclesiasticall Correspondency Combination and Communion as Christians It is more for our honor and peace to be Members of one Church than of one Commonwealth to have the same Religion and Devotion than the same Lawes and Statutes Restore to us those prime veines and Catholick conduits of Ecclesiasticall order of Church-power and spirituall authority under Christ those paternall Pastors those Primitive Bishops those successive Apostles That so we may have such Presbyters as have the Catholick Character of due Ordination and the most undoubted Derivation of Ministeriall Authority upon them being at once able and willing duly proved and empowered by Christs deputed Ministers and the whole Church to consecrate and dispense holy Mysteries to us not in the new names of Presbyters or people or Parlaments or Princes onely but in the name of Christ and his Church according to the commission he first gave to the Apostles and they transmitted to their successors in a constant undoubted and uninterrupted succession to this day Redeeme this ancient Church and renowned Nation from those lice and flies those locusts and frogs whose importune malice and wantonnesse seeks to deface and devour whatever yet remaines of the Reformed Religion in England Redeeme all sober Christians whose little life affords them no leisure to play with Religion redeeme them from the Rents and Schismes the raggs and tatters the breaks and divisions the fragments and fractions the chaines and fetters the childish and ridiculous janglings the scandalous and pernicious liberties with which pragmatick Spirits seek to poyson and to imprison their judgements and consciences Nothing is at least ought to be more pressive and urging upon your Honors and Consciences who are persons sensible of these two great regards to God and man than these concernments of true Religion whose influence reacheth to the eternall interest of your own and your posterities soules Nor is their lapsed estate to be helped by faire words and soft pretentions by demure silences and â—ary reserves by State-stratagems and politick artifices by vaporing of reformations and conniving at popular insolencies as if they were tendernesses and liberties due to conscience No the recovery of Religion is to be effected by potent convictions and impartiall suppressions of all enormous opinions and actions by serious trying of errors and establishing of sound Doctrine by just restraining all inordinate liberties by incouraging an able and uniform Ministry by discountenancing all fanatick novelties by composing al uncharitable divisions and by punishing all pragmatick arrogancies which evidently vary from or run counter against that truth order ministry authority and holy Discipline of Religion which Scripture and all Catholick conformity to it have commended to all Christians as Christs will and appointment which being accordingly setled in this Church and State ought not to be contradicted or rudely contemned by any new lights by pretended inspirations or the novel inventions of any man or men whatsoever seem they never so holy so devout so well-affected so sincere so saintly This and other true Churches of Christ did know very well what belonged to the unity sanctity charity and constancy of Religion as Christian and Reformed long before
the new fry of any Factionists or Enthusiasts were known in the English or Christian world Then will the honor of the Reformed Religion recover take root flourish and fructifie again in England when it is by due authority and just severity cleared of all that rust and canker that mossy and barren accretion which of later yeares it hath contracted chiefly for want of those Ecclesiasticall Councils sacred Synods and Religious Conventions which being called and incouraged by civill authority will best do this great work of God and the Church freely and impartially solidly and sincerely learnedly and honestly discussing all things of difference disorder or deformity in Religion These these would by Gods blessing and your encouragement remove in a short time all that putid matter from which the scandals offences and factions do chiefly arise and by which they are nourished in the licentious hearts and lives of some men who dare do any thing that they safely may against Religion These as the ablest and meetest Judges of Religion would soon discerne between the vile and the precious and separate the wheat and the chaffe in Christs floore wisely using the flaile and fan of his word and Spirit CHAP. XV. THerefore is our Religion so miserably lapsed and decayed through the ignorance negligence and impudence of men because it hath not for these many yeares been under such hands as are most proper either for its care and preservation or its cure and recovery Courts of Princes and Councels of State the Spirit of Armies and the Genius of Parliaments are not alone apt agents or instruments for this work though they may be happy promoters and authoritative designers and contrivers of it Saint Ambrose and others of the Ancients observe that it never went well with the sound part of the Church when the disputes of Religion as between the Arrians and the Orthodox were brought into Princes Courts and determined by their Counsellors and Courtiers It was not more piety and modesty than prudence and generosity in Constantine the Great when he had conquered Licinius with other enemies and entirely obtained the Roman Empire when he had power absolute and soveraign enough to have made what Edicts he listed for Religion yet that he then called the Bishops of the Church throughout the Roman world and other venerable Teachers attending them to discusse the differences in Religion to compose the breaches to allay the jealousies to reforme the disorders to search and establish the true faith to confirme the ancient Government to adde vigor to the just Discipline of the Church and due authority to its true Pastors or Bishops All which were happily done by the wisdome piety and moderation of the famous Nicene Council in which Constantine himself was oft present as to his person and Counsell though he never voted or determined any thing of Religion among the Fathers of that glorious Assembly lest he should seem to over-balance or over-awe the truth by his authority or to eclipse the Church by the State This this was that Primitive and Catholick way of Ecclesiasticall Councills and Synods used first by the Apostles and after by all their successors the Martyrly Bishops and Pastorly Confessors of the Church which endured the fiery trialls of heathenish and hereticall persecutions who had Ecclesiasticall Councills and Synods of Church-men for their reliefe and remedy before they had the favour of Christian Princes for their refuge or defence To this proper method for Reforming of any Church and restoring Religion all Princes that were true Patrons and Protectors of the true Church have applied their powers and counsels for the repairing of decayes rectifying disorders condemning heresies vindicating fundamentall truths composing differences and restoring peace in the Church of Christ calling together such Synods and conventions of the Clergy as did beare most proportion to those inconveniences or mischiefes which they sought to remedy either in greater or lesser circuits according as the poyson and infection of Heresie or Schisme had spread it self The welfare of Religion and healing of the Church of Christ was never heretofore left to every private Christians fancy or to particular Presbyters nor yet to single Bishops to act according as their opinions passions and interests might sway them nor was it ever betrayed into the hands of onely secular men either Civill Magistrates or Gentlemen or Tradesmen who are as fit generally for Church-work as Clergy-men are to marshall Armies or to manage battels The building of Gods Tabernacle and his Temple required men of extraordinary gifts and excellent Spirits proper and proportionate to those works As the Leviticall Priests of old did judge not onely of plagues and leprosies but of all controversies about the Law and Religion to whose determination all men were to submit under paine of death And as Aaron standing between the living and the dead stopped the spreading of a plague and mortality among the people even so hath the Lord ordained the Evangelicall Ministers to be as shepherds feeders defenders and rulers in his Church also as Physitians and Fathers of the flock of God whose lips ought to preserve knowledge so as to discerne both the contagion and the cure applying as their duty is such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sound Doctrine and Discipline as are both wholesome food and healing physick Certainly all other Lay-undertakers and tamperers with Reformation and Religion are but as Empiricks and Mountebanks having neither that ability nor that authority which is requisite in Religious undertakings But after much paines and charge they alwaies leave Reformation and Religion Church and Clergy more unsearched and unsound unbound and ulcerous than they found them God never following those with the blessing of the end who disdaine to use those orderly meanes which his holy wisdome hath directed them to who lay the Ark of God upon the cart and think to draw it by the beasts of the people when it should be orderly and solemnly born by the shoulders and hands of those that are consecrated to that holy service as the Priests of the Lord which method is not onely more for the honor and solemnity of Christian Religion than for the glory of the blessed God that his name might be sanctified even before the world in the managing of true Religion not flightly or slovenly not with unwashen hands and preposterous confusions but with that holy respect and humble reverence which is due to the Majesty of that God and Saviour whom Christians professe to worship T is ridiculous for Princes and States-men to have the best Musitians for their pleasure the most learned and experienced Physitians for their bodily health the most able and renowned Lawyers for their secular Counsels the gallantest souldiers for their military officers the best Mathematicians for their Engineers and the best Mariners for their Pilots that so these things might succeed to their worldly honor and happinesse and yet in matters of Religion
to content themselves either with no idoneous Physitians and fit medicines or with such quacking applications and applicators as are no way apt for the work having neither skill nor dexterity to handle so tender yet so dangerous sores and wounds as those of Religion many times are not onely affecting the heads of men but coming neerest the very hearts of them yea and I may say these Church-distempers affect the very heart of Christ himself both God and man We find secular Magistrates and Judges many times with Herod and Pilate ready to set Christ at nought and condemne him souldiers we know have mocked him buffeted him crucified him and parted his garments among them But they were his choise Apostles with other ordained Ministers that professed and preached him These these first planted fenced and watered Christian Religion these preserved propagated and pruned the Church of Christ to this day as the husbandmen or labourers of Christs own sending into his vineyard as workers together with God in the great work of saving soules with these Apostles and Ministers he promised to be meaning them and their true successors to the end of the world as he hath been to this day never failing to assist Godly Bishops and other faithfull Presbyters of his Church to do his work as in private so in publick when they did orderly meet as his servants in his name to his glory and his Churches good suffering themselves to be impartially guided by his word and Spirit without serving the factious interests and sinister policies either of Prince or people Then then was it that Councils and Synods appeared to all sober-minded and humble-hearted Christians as the Starre did to the wise men at Jerusalem guiding them to Christ with exceeding great joy in orderly waies of truth and peace becoming Christian Ministers and people which was the blessed effect of the first Church Council we read of where James Bishop of Jerusalem with the Apostles of the Lord as chief and other Elders or Presbyters being met in the presence of Christian people did so consult discusse and resolve the dissensions then risen in the Churches as to send their determinations with this style and title It seemed good to the holy Ghost and to us whose Canons were read and received not onely with reverence and conscience but with joy and consolation So welcome and usefull to all good Christians are those meanes which are fitly and wisely applied after Gods method and the Apostles pattern to the reliefe and recovery of the Church The care of summoning and convocating such Ecclesiasticall Parlaments when need requires is worthy the piety and Majesty of Christian Princes and soveraigne Magistrates in whom that Authority resides as nursing Fathers of the Church but certainly the management and transaction of Religious affaires in them by way of devotion disputation and determination is the proper work of Church-men that are Godly Learned Wise and Honest both of Bishops as fixed and chief Rulers of the Church and of grave Presbyters as the Representees of the other Clergy chosen deputed intrusted and empowered by them fully and freely to deliberate and determine in those great concernments as Gods word and their own consciences shall direct them without any to over-awe them or to dictate to them I am not ignorant of the jealousies and prejudices that many even wise and good Christians have of such Assemblies Synods Convocations or Councils as are made up onely of Ecclesiasticks or Clergy-men Whos 's oft unhappy successes Gregory Nazianzen that great Divine and good Bishop complaines of in his dayes when the Arrian faction by the partiality of Emperours infected with their poyson strongly vyed in their Conventions against the Orthodox decisions the ancient Faith and Catholick customes of the Church setting up ever and anon in their juncto's and conventicles as St. Hilary expresseth it Diurnall Creeds and Menstruous Faiths being many times but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 theevish Synods furtive Conventicles suborned and slavish Assemblies either transported by humane passions or biassed by partiall affections or levened with popular factions or over-awed by secular powers and sacrilegious policies which made such conventions as the hills of the robbers predatorious oppressors of true Religion pillagers and spoilers of the Church of Christ of which too many sad instances have been in ancient and later daies both at home and abroad Especially when such Assemblies meet not summoned by lawfull Authority not chosen with Ecclesiastick freedome not sitting with completeness of members not voting or disputing with rationall ingenuous and Christian liberties but all things must be carried not after the Nicene but Tridentine fashion as if the holy Ghost were sent to the Assessors in a carriers cloke-bag or a souldiers knapsack the most learned and sober men must be mute and not dare freely to speak their minds without being posted and exposed to popular hatred even to the outraging and hazard of their persons unlesse they speak to that key and tune to which the organe of faction is set These methods of Church Councils and Assemblies I confesse are so Mechanick so Tyrannick so Satanick that nothing is more mischievous to the Church of Christ and true Religion whose condition instead of being thus mended is alwaies marred and betrayed to further errors factions and confusions I pray God deliver his Church from such Conventions where either Lay-men shall over-number and over-awe the Clergy or Clergy-men shall vassalate their consciences to gratifie any potent party and novell faction to the prejudice of that truth faith order ministry and government which were once delivered to the Churches of Christ Not onely England but all Christendome hath cause to curse the day when such snares and stratagems of Satan began to be laid in Synods and Assemblies from thence to take effect on the whole or any part of the Christian Church as eminently in the second Council of Nice the last of Trent and that at Westminster the first setting up Images in Christian Churches to the scandall of Religion the other a thousand new imaginations never owned before as of Christian faith the last which is the first of any that cryed down Episcopacy or Prelacy But the abuses incident to good things through the distempers of men and evill hearts must not exterminate or deprive us of the right use of them for then we should not onely forsake our wits and reason but our meat and drink our clothes and sleep yea and the light of the Sun and breathing in the aire yea our very Sacraments and Scriptures our frequent Sermons and extemporary as well as set prayers yea our Presbyters as well as our Bishops for in all these hony-combes or hives do hornets wasps and drones very oft shrowd themselves by these as St. Austin observes all errors heresies and schismes seek to support and shelter themselves But where such Ecclesiasticall Synods and Councils as were the first so famous Generall ones of
corners and dissolved the face of any visible Church on earth if after the severall sad dispersions and vastations of them the chief Pastors and Bishops of the Church succeeding to the ordinary power of Apostles had not either in Oecumenick Councills or in their particular Diocess Provinces taken care with their brethren to call together and settle in Holy Communion of faith and manners the remaines of their dispersed Presbyters and disordered people To which good work of calling Councils and Synods for the rectifying and restoring of Religion all good Christian Emperours besides the Bishops did cheerfully contribute both their favour and Treasure as the most noble way in the world to employ them Shall the Counsels and powers the tributes and revenues of Christian Magistrates and people be onely laid out in making war at home and abroad onely to recover or keep up their civill peace or to build their own houses and is nothing to be laid out to maintain the Faith of Christ to keep the fort of Sion and to build the Towers and Temple of Jerusalem to restore and preserve the Purity and Peace the Sanctity and Solemnity the Order and Authority of Christian yea Reformed Religion Must that be left like Pauls to impaire or repaire it self as well as it can or onely be committed to the care of such men as are commonly better at pulling down than building up Churches who neither know how to begin nor how to end any Church-work having neither heads nor hands materialls nor skill line nor rule fit for such businesse And when they have done all they can in bungling and new waies neither the Clergy or Ministers under their power nor the Laity or people under their command will much more regard as to conscience what is so done by only Lay-mens magisterial decrees and imperial appointments than they now do consider the Covenant and Holy League or the Directory and Engagement new models for Religion cut out not so much by nationall Synods and Councils as by swords and pistols and accordingly both esteemed and used by all men that are of sound and judicious minds not corrupted with partiality credulity popularity and novelty For how can those bind the conscience of the Nation in the most indifferent things of Religion who never had the choice counsell or consent of all Estates in the nation either to advise or determine or enjoyne any such things which require to make them valid and conscientiously obligatory the Soveraignes call the Clergies counsell and the Parlaments sanction CHAP. XVI I Well know how hard a work it is for the best and wisest of men to stop the leakes of Religion to repaire a broken Church or to buoy up a sunk and lapsed Clergy when once they are either overwhelmed with the corrupt Doctrines and licentious manners of Preachers and Professors or split with intestine Schismes and Divisions or debased with vulgar usurpations and presumptions or oppressed with the secular policies and sacrilegious injuries of violent and unreasonable men who are alwaies afraid lest the renewed light and restored vigor of true Religion with the due Authority of its Ministry in the Church should give any stop or check to their extravagant lusts and enormous actions To which purpose such pragmaticks will be sure either utterly to hinder all good meanes that may effectually recover the true interests of Religion and its Ministry or else they labour impertinently to apply such onely as they know will render them more uncurable and set them next doore to an impossibility Which will be the State of the Church of England if the Recovery of Religion as to its visible Beauty Order Unity and Polity be either managed by Lay-mens Counsels and activities onely excluding all Ministers from all publick equall and impartiall consultations or if on the other side Church-affaires be wholly left to the various heads divided hands and partiall designes of such as are now called Preachers and pretend to be Ministers among whom commonly the weakest heads have the most pragmatick hands and men of least abilities are greatest sticklers though it be but more to puzzle confound and destroy themselves and others On the other side such Clergy-men as have most of solid Learning sober Piety sacred Authority and real Sufficiencies for such a work will be either afraid or ashamed to act or assist in it if they have not some publick Commission with equall and impartiall incouragement from those in power For certaine meer mechanick and illiterate preachers such as some people now most affect will never be able if willing to do any good in so great and good a work no more than wasps are like to make honey Ignorance and disorder faction and confusion being for their interest as muddy places are best for Eeles Other Ministers though never so willing and able yet as tooles that are blunt and have no edge set on them can never carry on such a work handsomely unlesse their late rust and dis-spiriting their poverty and depression be taken off unlesse their mutuall contempts distances and jealousies be fairly removed unlesse they be restored to such Charity Comfort and Courage as becomes Learned and Godly Ministers Such a constitution as was heretofore most eminently to be seen in the Ecclesiasticall Synods and Convocations of the English Clergy while they enjoyed by the favours of munificent Princes and the assistance of unanimous Parlaments those many noble priviledges both of Honor and Estate together with their undoubted Ecclesiasticall Authority which were by ancient and moderne Lawes setled upon them which kept up the Learning and Religion the Credit and Comfort of the Clergy of this Nation to so great an height both of Love and Reputation that neither the petulancy of people nor the arrogancy of any parasitick preachers either dared or were able thus to divide and wound them and the Church through the pretences of such Liberties and Reformations as knew no bounds of modesty or common honesty so far were they from any true grounds of piety or Christianity Nor will the divided and depressed State of Religion in this Church ever recover its pristine vigor its due authority its holy influence or its honorable esteem unlesse you O my noble and honored Countrymen who are persons of most publick eminence and influence be pleased to make it one of the chiefest objects of your Counsells Prayers and endeavours to revive the drooping Spirits to raise the dejected estate and to re-compose the shattered posture of the Clergy or Ministry of England in whose ruine the Reformed Religion will be ruined and in whose recovery true Christian Religion will be recovered to its just harmony stability and honor for it is impossible that Religion as Christian and Reformed should enjoy either unity reverence or authority while the chief Pastors Preachers and Professors of it are in so dubious debased and divided a condition Since then the Religious happinesse of this Church and Nation chiefly depends
pull down and rob buy and sell squander and embezell Bishops besides their temporary daily and occasionall bounty founded and erected many costly works of durable and Monumentall Charity in Colledges Libraries Free-Schooles Hospitals Almes-Houses and the like many noble endowments they began many they encreased many they perfected to Gods glory the Nations Honor the incouragement of Learning and Religion as well as the relief of many poor people They took as much pleasure in their works of Charity as others can do in their sacriledge or robbery taking away those things from the Church and all religious uses to which neither they nor any of their progenitors ever gave one farthing for they are commonly persons of the meanest blood and ignoblest descents as well as minds and manners who are most repiners at the Churches patrimony which all persons of generous piety both feare and abhor to do knowing that those penurious practises and sacrilegious principles which some men follow are as much Antievangelicall as they are Antiepiscopall against Christ and his Gospel as much as against the Clergy and true Christian Charity It being impossible than Christian or Reformed Religion should ever flourish except by miracle as Aarons dry Rod did when it was nourished by no earth or dew when the Ministers of it are such diminutives kept alwaies in a mendicant Minority and in a plebeian parity as well as poverty when Pastors of the Church are so pittifully penurious and inconspicuous that they are alwaies driven like vermine to be creeping and biting crying and whining craving and coveting crouching and complaining rather than giving or distributing any thing with charity and cheerfulnesse to men or consecrating any free-will offering to God the Church and their Country O how perfect a Blessing how complete a Reformation how Triumphant a Church how glorious a Ministry how pretious Predicants must there needs be then in England when the visible order sociall beauty politick harmony and ancient Government of Religion being first deprived of all honors and amplenesses Ministers are reduced to meannesse and tenuity either wholly scattered into fragments of Independency or molded up in the Masse and Chaos of Presbytery where every Ministers principle and practise must necessarily tend either to rule in Common or else to rend from the Community where there shall be no further motive to any Loyalty Subjection and Peaceablenesse than what either the terror and necessity of others power or the tenuity and paucity of their own party and sides imposeth upon such Ministers and their various Sectators who thus levelled or ravelled or hudled up without any due Subordination to Ecclesiasticall Governours of any Eminency or Authority must needs sow all seeds of Faction Sedition civil Troubles and Disloyalty toward civil Magistrates whatever Title or Majesty they affect to be clothed withall They cannot avoid to be alwaies exposed to and exercised with their peoples mutuall emulations contrarieties contradictions and contempts which are raised and exercised upon the score of different Teachers and Religious disputes for the determining of which there are no men of venerable worth and conspicuity appointed such as Bishops and Synods of old were in all Ages Men cannot long have a consciencious regard to Civil Governours when either they have not or they will not endure any Ecclesiasticall They that see nothing deserving honor love and submission to a Worthy Learned Grave and Godly Bishop will hardly see much in any Justice Judge or Prince especially when Duty Obedience and Fidelity shall be measured by mens parties and opinions in Religion by their civil and secular interests which is alwaies expectable from any people that affect irregular liberties and formidable freedomes in any Church or State As Princes that ever have been Episcopal do hardly suite with the novelties and intrusions of either Presbytery or Independency so t is certain Presbyterian Preachers will as hardly comply with an Episcopall or an Independent Prince as with a Bishop and the like may be imagined of Independents when neither of them enduring any order or subjection as to Religious polity beyond their own fancy must needs be lesse pliable to that obedience which is legal and civil especially when it is exacted by those Princes that are not of their perswasion and way Nor can there be indeed any aptitude in such mens spirits or tempers to any stability of loyalty when their very conjunctions are like the first confused concretion of all things rather an heap of contraries or novelties daily emerging than a composure of any noble orderly and constant harmony in Religion which is never to be expected where there must ever be either a combination of folly and faction of juvenility and simplicity onely none being admitted to some confederacies that do not first renounce much of their Learning and Reading if they have any or of their credit and esteem as to all Ancient Churches or else like lumps of yce they must be compacted and governed as it hits by Gravity and Levity by Age and Youth by Weaknesse and Ability by Steadiness and Giddiness by Rashnesse and Wariness by Passion and Judgement by Prudence and Confidence by Modesty and Impudence Hemp and Silk Course and Fine Linnen and Woollen being twisted and jumbled together these at the best must make up the associating and fluctuating methods of any levelled Ministry or else they must be like sand and stones without lime rather cast into severall little heaps than built up in a joynt and grand fabrick by just Rules Orders and proportions truly edifying when there shall be nothing of Authority among Ministers proportionate to the different Ages Capacities Gifts or Offices and Merits of any of them which make up the true harmony of Government and internall Majesty of all Authority but all things of Religious and Church-order must be left in such a popular and plebeian posture as shall most incourage whatever is most Turbulent Factious Seditious and Rebellious in any mens spirits who will be prone either to affect more Rule than is their due or else be impatient that any should govern them in Church or State further than they list or think is agreeable to those principles and perswasions of Religion or Reformation which they strongly fancy to themselves and aime as strongly to set up and impose on others when they shall be able not by the approbation and permission of the chief Magistrate onely where it may be fairly had but in case he be so blind wilfull obstinate and unconvertible as some have been for Episcopacy against Presbytery they will find a call from God and some speciall impulsives to obtrude their opinions and designes without yea against the expresse will of the Soveraigne Governour whose obstinacy against any such supposed waies of God and pretended Discipline of Jesus Christ is thought by many a sufficient Absolution and Dispensation from their civil Loyalty Oathes and Subjection Thus looking for God in fires and Earth-quakes of civil combustions
sad effects have shewed us and all the world the want of them if in any Nation sure in this where some of the very enemies of all Episcopacy heretofore and the eager extirpators of it do now expresse which they have done to me as the other Tribes did to that of Benjamin when they had almost quite destroyed it something of mercy and pitty of moderation and retractation Alas saving a few Ministers most-what Lecturers and some scrupulous people here and there which had been a little bitten by some Bishops either for their inconformity or extravagancy and saving a few other men that had a mind to Bishops Lands and Houses both which were not the hundredth part of the people of this Nation saving these I say who had and have most implacable picques and feuds and jealousies against all Episcopacy the rest which are the most and best of the Nation I perswade my self have been and are so just and ingenuous as not to take up vulgar causeless and yet eternall hatreds against such worthy men as our Bishops most-what were and so Venerable a Function as they were invested with Yea at this day as much as I perceive the Names of Episcopacy and of every worthy Bishop are like spices bruised and like sweet oyntment whose box is broken more fragrant and diffused just as an agreeable perfume would be after one hath been much afflicted with Assafetida The very stench which hath risen every where from the heaps and dunghils of factious confusions in religion both as to mens minds and manners since the routing of Episcopacy and Bishops these have rendred that primitive Order and Catholick Presidency more savoury and acceptable then heretofore it was to some men when their weaker brains were cloyed with the constancy of so great a blessing as some are brought to fainting spirits by long smelling of the sweetest smells Episcopacy like the body of holy Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna and placed there by St. John when it was burned hath filled the English and all the world with a sweet odour It is like the bodies that have been well embalmed many hundred years past never capable to putrifie but will ever remain uncorrupt as a sacred kind of Mummy for a memorial to all generations Though the Lands and Lordships the flesh and skin which adorned Episcopacy by humane bounty be either devoured by worms or so wasted and dissipated as the ashes of some Martyrs were by which their persecutors hoped to defeat them of a blessed resurrection yet still the Divine donations and endowments the Spirit and Soul of pastoral power is remaining to Episcopacy and its honor will be both Immortal and Glorious when all its enemies shall be ingloriously either forgotten or remembred The Apostolick Antiquity the Catholick Dignity of Episcopacy is not abated nor ever can be The Divine Wisdom Beauty Order Authority Usefulness and Blessing by it in it and upon it do still survive and ever will in all Histories in all Times in all Churches and in none more justly than in this of England where the experience of all sober Christians hath brought them to that sense which venerable Beda expresseth was had in his dayes that is eight hundred years agoe of Episcopacy and good Bishops That any Province or Church destitute of its Bishops was so far destitute of the Divine protection and benediction As this Age hath brought forth such as dare to despise decry and destroy what all former Ages have happily used and highly magnified so after-Ages in the revolution of not many years may admire adore and restore with great devotion the primitive honor of Episcopacy which some men have sought to lay in the dust and bury in oblivion Whose resurrection is not to be despaired of even to its ancient glory when sober Christians of all sorts shall seriously consider and compare with former times in England the present State of this Church and the Reformed Religion in it full of divisions distractions disaffections of animosities envyes and jealousies of offences murmurings and complainings running to ignorance negligence irreligion and at best to Romish Superstition where Ministers are multi-form people mutually scandalized and scattered Christians not so much united by any bond of uniform Religion or Worship as over-awed from doing those insolencies and affronts to which their parties and passions eagerly tempt them Nothing of Ecclesiastical Order Discipline and Authority further then a sword or a gun or a private fancy afford nothing of the Clergies authoritative convention correspondency or communion as brethren no joynt counsel no blessed harmony no comely subordination among them all proclaim a Chaos and confusion Compare I say all these deformed distempers into which we are fallen since we abdicated or lost venerable Episcopacy with that Piety Plenty Harmony Unity Order Decency Proficiency Respect Honour and Authority which were heretofore so eminent and illustrious in the Church and Church-men of England while it enjoyed the blessing of Episcopacy in whose preservation and honour the honour of true Religion the Majesty of any Christian Church the dignity of the ordained Ministry the validity of sacred Mysteries the completeness of Ecclesiastical power the Authority of all holy Ministrations and the measure of all just Reformations in Religion besides the civil peace were heretofore thought to be very much bound up as in all Churches and Nations that are Christian so in none more than in these of England if we consider the native greatness and generosity of some mens spirits the roughness and stubbornness of others all of them disdaining to be either abused by the simplicity or curbed by the arrogance of any men as their Church-governours of whose Religious ability and Ecclesiastick authority they are in no sort satisfied It is not good to tempt either the Sea or the Populacy by keeping too low banks which are easily over-run and occasion much ruine to all sorts I may further adde to convince my Brethren the Ministers and all my worthy Countrymen how agreeable and honourable Episcopacy in its due place posture authority was to the genius of Engl. by putting them in mind of that vast disproportion for Love Respect Countenance Maintenance Encouragement and Honor which now are paid as generally to the function of the Ministry so particularly to the person of any Minister of whatever quality or preferment title or party he be comparing things to what the deserving Clergy generally enjoyed heretofore while under God and their Kings their worthy Bishops protected them according to Law in well-doing Heretofore even in my memory a grave learned and godly Bishop was as the centre of his Diocese the tutelary Angel of his Clergy the good genius of every able and faithful Minister under him He was the grand Oracle of the honest Gentry the honoured Father and ghostly Counseller of the true-hearted Nobility he was the admiration and veneration of the most plain-hearted and peaceful Common-people Notwithstanding all the scurrilous
Scotland and Ireland who is so blind as not to see this one illustrious Bishop the Primate of Armagh capble as to the true cause of Episcopacy to have over-shined both as to his Learning Judgement and Life as the Sun in the firmament all those Comets and Meteors those blazing and falling Stars which either then did or since have appeared eccentrick or opposite to Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy Take them in their stragling novelties or in their associating confederacies or in their congregational conventicles however they may seem by false glasses or grosser mediums to be magnified in some mens imaginations and so set off to vulgar admiration among weak and womanly apprehensions yet neither for Scripture-proportions nor for Catholick practise nor for right reason nor for true prudence and Christian polity are they any way to be compared either to the Antiquity or Majesty of true Episcopacy For which the Judgement Humility Moderation and Integrity of this excellent Bishop is so clearly set forth both by his constant practise and all his writings wherein for peace sake he willingly joyned an orderly Presbytery with a Venerable Episcopacy that neither grave Counsell nor comely Order nor just Authority nor Christian Unity should be wanting in the Churches Government that it is an error worse than the first for men not yet to returne from their Paroxysmes and Transports against all Presidentiall Episcopacy or not to close with so great a judgement so grave an Oracle as this holy Bishop was Who however he held a Fraternall Correspondency and Actuall Communion as occasion offered with those Reformed Churches and those Ministers who approved yea desired Episcopacy though they could not enjoy any Bishops properly so called after the custome of all ancient Churches yet with St. Cyprian he flatly condemned and branded with the sin and Scandal of Schisme all those who wilfully cast off and injustly separated from their lawfull Bishops who professed the same Orthodox Faith and Reformed Religion affirming as I have been further most credibly informed that he would not because with comfort and good conscience he could not receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper from such Ministers hands whose Odination he esteemed irregular and incomplete or for their consecration inauthoritative because partiall and schismaticall against that Episcopall power which ever was and still might be had in this Church Nor was this his censure heightned or sharpned by any anger or vindicative passion though he was unhandsomely used by some men who heretofore much applauded him from such distempers his Mosaick meeknesse was most remote especially in cases of Religion and the Churches publick concernments for the advance of which he could have cheerfully sacrificed all his private interest of honor or profit and have been reduced to teach School in a belfry as his phrase was But he ever held to his pristine and constant judgement in the most prosperous times which enjoyed him the same as did his adversities no losses and distresses to which the Fatality Fury Folly or Ingratitude of this Age reduced him being able to cloud his judgement or discompose his tranquillity in any other or in this sharp controversie touching Episcopacy And indeed to adde to the further weight and crown of this excellent Bishop who deserved to be esteemed one of the Primates of all Learning Piety and Vertue in the Christian world he was by Gods wonderfull dispensations to be made a Primate in sufferings and to be more illustrious by those darknings which on all hands were cast upon his person and profession as a Preacher and as a Prelate He lived to see yea to feel his Venerable person by some men shamefully slighted who saw more brightness in a sharp sword than in all Learned vertues his function as a Bishop exautorated decryed depressed despised his Revenues first stopped then alienated and confiscated his moderate stock of moveables all except his excellent Librarie and at last a reserve of some monies about 2000. pound seized and swept away by the Irish The newes of which last as I was witnesse at the first coming of it he received with so no trouble or emotion that it made me see in this holy man that the patience of Job might well be a true history and not a Tragick parable After this the profits of the Bishoprick of Carlile then vacant being conferred upon him by the late King for the support of his age and exile even these were taken from him by those that took all Church-revenues from all Bishops yet for shame a Pension of four hundred pounds a year as his Lordship hath told me was promised him when he was forced to yield up his Interest in the Revenues of Carlile which Pension after a year or two was never paid him At last this great Personage the Primate of Armagh whom Cardinal Richelieu with many other great Princes and States had invited with very honorary propositions to make onely his residence with them as an honor to their Country was reduced to a small stipend or salary of about two hundred pounds a year which he was to earn by preaching as long as his sight and strength served him These failing him and in him all the learned and better world he lived upon Gods Providence and the Contributions for the most part of some noble Personages wherein I was happy to do him some service among whom none hath merited and erected a more lasting Monument of Honour than the Countesse of Peterborough under whose grateful and hospitable roof this Mortal Angel this incomparable Bishop left as the English so all the World which was not worthy of him having of later years treated him with so little publick value that while Merchants Military men and mean Mechanicks either get fair Estates or have good pay pensions and gainful imployments while young Presbyterian and Independent Preachers possess themselves some by dispossessing others of the best Livings they can seize this aged Bishop this inestimable Jewel of men this brightest Star of the British Churches and Christian World this Paragon of Prelates this Glory of Episcopacy was suffered to be so eclipsed that with St. Paul he knew what it was to want as well as to abound He had not with our Blessed Saviour any house to rest his head in nor a foot of land which he might call his own He seemed to live as St. Chrysostom sayes of St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only with a naked soul or a sublimated Spirit as much above the glory of the world as he had been stripped of it and by it being carefull in nothing save only to discharge a good conscience to God and men as he did both living and dying esteeming this the greatest Treasure and Honour to those that are daily dying to the world even while they live in it He was equally remote from Lucifer and Mammon from Haughtinesse as from Covetousnesse as he complained not of Tenuity so he owned not that deserved Eminency
then quarrelled at Her garb and fashion If any of these be now grown so wilfully ignorant that they need to be informed in this point they may please to know That the Name of the Church of Engl. is more ancient more honourable and every way as proper as the new style and title of the Common-wealth of England Which denomination imports not the agreement of all private mens aims desires and interests in all civil things any more than the other doth all mens agreement in every opinion and point of Religion But it denotes the declared profession of far the major part which is esteemed as the whole whose consent is declared in the Laws and publick constitutions So by the name of the Church of Engl. it is not imported or implyed that we judge every particular person in this Nation to be inwardly a good Christian or a true Israelite that is really sanctified or spiritually a member of Christ and his mysticall body the Church Catholick invisible No we are not so rude understanders or uncriticall speakers But we plainly and charitably mean that part of mankind in this Polity or Nation which having been called baptized and instructed by lawfull Ministers in the mysteries and duties of the Gospel maketh a joynt and publick profession of the Christian faith and reformed Religion in the name and as the sense of the whole Nation as it is grounded upon the holy Scriptures guided also and administred by that uniform order due authority and holy Ministry for worship and government which according to the mind of Christ the pattern of the Apostles and the practise of all Primitive Churches hath been lawfully established by the wisdom and consent of all estates in this Nation in order to Gods glory the publick peace and the common good of mens souls I know there are some supercilious censors and supercriticall criticks who cavill at disown disgrace and deny this glorious Name of the Church of England allowing God no Title to any such Nationall Church nor any Nation such a relation to God since that of the Jews was dissolved nor doe they much approve the Name or believe the Article of the Catholique Church The truth and property of both which titles and expressions I know there is no need for me largely to vindicate among judicious sober and well catechized Christians who doe not drive on any design by the fractions parcellings and confusions of Nationall Churches as those seem to doe who are still affectedly ignorant for this subject hath been fully handled and cleared by many late excellent pens in England besides the ancient and forrein writers that the name of Church of Christ next to the highest sense which denotes all that holy and successionall society in heaven and earth who are or shall be gathered into one as the mysticall invisible body of Christ that is purchased sanctified and saved by him which is never at one intuition visible in this world this is also in a lower sense not more usually than aptly applyed to expresse that whole visible company of Christian Professors upon earth whose historicall faith declared profession and avowed obedience to the Gospel of Christ like a great body or goodly tree in its severall extensive parts and branches stretcheth forth it self throughout the whole world This collectively taken as derived from one root or bulk is called the visible Catholick militant Church of Christ being to particular Churches not as a genus to the species but as an integrall or whole to the parts of it Besides these the name of the Church of Christ serves to expresse any one of those more noble parts or eminent branches belonging to that Catholick visible Church which being similary or partaking of the same nature by the common faith have yet their convenient limits distinctions and confinements as to neerer society and locall communion for their better order unity peace and safety either in particular Cities or Countries Provinces or Nations each of which holding communion of faith and charity with the Catholick Church were in that respect anciently called Catholick Churches so were their Synods and Bishops called Catholick long before the Bishop or Church of Rome monopolized that name as that of Smyrna is styled in its commendatory Letter touching their holy Bishop and Martyr Polycarpus I deny not but the name of the Church of Christ is in Scripture and in common use may be applied in the lowest and least proper or complete sense to particular congregations and small families especially where others met to serve the Lord which may in some sense as Noahs family in the Ark be called Cities Common-wealths Kingdomes Nations as well as Churches being the Substrata Seminaries and Nurseries of both yet this in a defective improper and diminutive sense onely as apart from or compared to those larger combinations and ampler Communions which all reason besides the expresse wisdome of Christs Spirit and the practise of the blessed Apostles followed by all the Primitive Churches invites all Christians in any nation or polity unto for mutual peace good order safety and edification both as to Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government far beyond what can be enjoyed or expected in smaller parcels or separated societies whose meer locall advantages by neighbourhood or neerness of dwelling and actual meeting together in one place make them not any whit more a Church of Christ or in and of a Church than it makes them men or citizens but only gives them some conveniences for the exercise of some of those duties and priviledges which they enjoy not as Members of that single Congregation but as Branches of the Catholick Church of Christ to which Mystical Body they were admitted when they were baptized and to whose head Jesus Christ they are related and united so far as they are believers either in profession or in power Being further capable to enjoy all those benefits and advantages necessary for the publick Peace Order Government and well-being of a Church All which Christ intended it and which are not to be had in the small parcels of Christians but in the joynt authority of larger combinations Such sober Christians as live above capricious niceties captious sophistries and popular affectation of novel formes and termes do well understand That as little slips grow great trees and small families multiply to populous Cities and Nations whose strength honour safety and happinesse consists not in their living apart reserved and severed from one another in their private houses or parishes and Townships but in their joynt counsels large Fraternities and solemn Combinations under the same publick Lawes and Governours without which they cannot attaine or enjoy Peace and Safety the noblest fruits and highest ends of humane Societies and civil Polities whose Dangers Mischiefs and Miseries are such as cannot be avoyded or resisted save onely by united Counsels and Assistances to which just appeals and addresses may be made for redress of such
true ministeriall authority precious liberties what sober men count defections from the ancient Catholick Apostolick pattern they boast of as perfections what plain-hearted Christians esteem as decayings of the Reformed Religion and ill omens and presages of its ruine these Seraphicks affirm to be edifyings and repairings of that structure which since the Apostles times they pretend was alwayes decaying and dropping down to Apostasy being overladen with the fair roof or covering of Episcopacy of which burthen some blessed Reformers seek totally to have lightened this Church as they have done some Cathedrals of their Leads that they may leave this Church and the Reformed Religion as without any roof and defence against the injuries of foul weather so without any band or coping to keep the walls and sides together What others call Extirpations these magnifie as rare Plantations in which they fell down Cedars and set up Shrubs they root up Vines and plant Brambles rejecting venerable Bishops and orderly Presbyters who are of the Primitive Stock and Apostolick descent that they may bring in a novel brood of Heteroclite Teachers equivocall Pastors and new-moulded Ministers whose late Origine without all doubt ariseth no higher at best than Geneva or Frankfort or Amsteldam or Arneheim or New England some are such popular pieces so much terrae filii of obscure rise of base and mean extraction that they have no name of men or place to render them remarkable being like Mushromes perking up in every molehill and in a moment making themselves the Ministers of Jesus Christ To whose strange and novell productions in Old England the late civill distractions finding it seemes much prepared matter gave not onely life and activity but so great petulancy and insolency that many do not onely change their former profession and utterly abdicate their Church-standing and communion in England but as meer changelings they prefer the saddest Succubaes and Empusa's the most fanatick apparitions of modern fancies in their poor and pitifull Conventicles before the Church of England as some children do the Queen of Fairies before their genuine Mothers instead of whose sound Doctrine sacred Order and Catholick Councils they betake themselves each to their private dotages and ravings to meer nonsense and blasphemies which some cry up as strong reasonings high raptures extatick illuminations to which all men must subscribe though no wise man know what they mean Such confidence some men have that Christians in England have lost not onely their Religion but their Reason upon whom they hope so rudely and grosly to impose their most childish novelties and frivolous follies that as Erasmus speaks of some monkish corrupters or interpolators of S. Jeroms works who had made it harder for him to find out what that acute and learned Father wrote than ever it was for him to write his excellent works so in England what was formerly plain and easie sound and wholsome orderly and Catholick as to true Religion both in Faith Manners Ministry and Government the modern Novelties Whimseys Factions Intricacies and Extravagancies of some men have made not onely perplexed confused but contemptible and ridiculous Yet these are the trash and husks which some mens nauseo us wanton palates in this age do prefer and chuse rather than that wholsome food and sincere milk of Gods word with which the Reformed Church of England alwayes entertained her children untill an high-minded and stiff-necked generation of rank appetites like Jewes growing sick of quailes and surfeited of manna longed for the garlick and onions of Egypt legendary visions fabulous revelations and fanatick inspirations Which Egyptian diet hath of late by a just anger of Heaven upon mens ingratefull murmurings and wanton longings brought many in England to those high calentures and distempers in Religion that like frantick people they flye in the faces of their Fathers and tear the very flesh of their Mother Though civil troubles and State-furies seem much allayed yet these Clero-masticks and Church-destroyers still maintain a most implacable war against the Church of England thinking yea professing some of them that they shall do God good service utterly to destroy it with all its assistants and adherents In order to which design they have sought every where to vilifie and set at nought to crown with thorns and crucifie or at best to counterfeit and disguise the merit worth and majesty of all the sacred Solemnities and Rites the Peace and Polity the Ministry and Ministrations of the Church of England yea and fancying they have a liberty to mock them first and after to naile them to the Cross Good God! how have they buffeted them how importunely do they obtrude upon them amidst their many Agonies gall and vinegar to drink what cruell contempts what virulent pamphlets what scandalous and scurrilous petitions do they frequently vent against all Churches and Church-men relating to or depending upon the Church of England some of them ripping up by a Neronean cruelty the womb that bare them others cutting off by a more than Amazonian barbarity the breasts that gave them suck Nor do they despair to pierce at last this bleeding Church to the very heart if ever the power of the sword come into such hands as are professed enemies to all other Reformed Churches as well as this of England whose languishing but living fate they now behold as with great pleasure so with no small impatience while they see that notwithstanding all their sedulous and industrious machinations against learning and Religion against the Church and Universities of England against Ministers and their maintenance yet there is still some life and spirit some liberty and hope left through the mercy of God and the moderation of some men in power for those Christians that have the courage and conscience to own the Reformed Church of England as their Mother and the Reformed Clergy as their spirituall Fathers Whose just Honour and Interests as I must never desert while I live because I think them linked with those of Gods Glory my Redeemers Honour the Catholick Churches veracity the peace of my conscience and my countrey's happinesse both as to the present age and to posterity so I have thought it my duty in her deplorable condition and in the despondency of many mens spirits to apply the cordiall of this confection mingled with her teares and with her sighs presented to you my most honoured Countrey-men by the help of which you may both fortify your own honest minds and oppose that diffusive venome which you cannot but daily meet in some mens restlesse malice who neither know how to speak well of the Church of England nor how to hold their peace By the example of your judicious favour and generous compassion I doubt not to excite like affections of courage and constancy in all worthy Protestants honest-hearted English whose duty it is amidst the pertinacy of all other parties and factions who like Burres hang together to hold fast that holy and
very good graceful having the honour of ancient venerable and gray-headed Episcopacy upon it that they might the better induce Christianity which is now above 1500 years old to put on and wear a la mode the new peruques either of young Presbytery or younger Independency rather than Religion should go quite bald and be ridiculous by its deformity and confusion though the pristine polity peace purity majesty severity sanctity and solemnity of Religion as Christian and Reformed in England be infinitely baffled and abased by the petulancy of those that affect licentious liberties and unsaintly extravagances though all these evils as Daemones meridiani are pregnant and every day proclaimed by the loud Herauld of Experience which themselves declaime against and deplore as well as other men Yet many Ministers in other respects not to be despised or much blamed do still as to the point of Church-order discipline government and polity which is the outward centre of unity and visible band of peace passionately desire and solicitously endeavour that those wild oats and tares which some men have of late years sown watered and cherished while the Nation and Church were not aware as being engaged in war and blood during whose heats great wounds of Religion are little felt might for ever grow up spread and shed abroad like thistle-down yea and succeed to after-generations in this nation that so England might be more famous for variety of parties and opinions in Religion than either Poland is or Amsterdam How few nominal or real Ministers that have been either Authors or great sticklers and abettors not of any modest just and sober Reformations but of needless endless innovations schisms deformities and defections in the Church of England can yet find in their hearts meekly to retreat by any humble ingenuous and happy wayes of Christian meekness and wisdom to a sweet accord from their first heady extravagances and unhappy transports in which the heat and passion of mens spirits as is usual in all quarrels made even at first the differences jealousies and offences far greater than the real injury or inconvenience indeed was which is most clearly evident now not onely by our comparing the former happy estate of this Church and of the Reformed Religion here besides those comforts which the generality of all good Ministers and sober Christians in former times enjoyed in England under Episcopacy but further by our serious considering those fair offers those great moderations those self-denials and Christian condescentions with which all worthy and wise Bishops with all Episcopal Ministers were and are ready to gratifie the peace of this Church and the desires of all good Christians even of those who have been most their enemies and destroyers whom they forgive the more readily because they believe most of them as the crucifiers of Christ did it ignorantly ignorant of the laws of this Nation and of the good constitutions of this Church ignorant of the customes practise and judgement of all ancient Catholick Churches ignorant of that equity and charity which they owed to others ignorant of that honest policy and discretion which they owed to themselves and their order lastly ignorant of that pious grateful and prudent regard they should have had of the honour peace and prosperity of this Church both at present and in after-ages But however the exorbitancies of some ignorant men at first might be so far venial as they were led on by the pious and specious pretences of others rather than their own principles yet they are less excusable now since the sad events have so fully confuted all those prejudices and pretensions since popular looseness avarice and madness hath as a rude broom swept away all the fine-spun and speciously spread cobwebs of Reformation either as to the state of this Church or the Reformed Religion professed here in England or as to the promised amendment of the Ministerial order and office either for ability duty authority or maintenance Ministers first tearings and rendings of themselves asunder are not yet sewed together yea Religion it self is faln to rags and preachers are become as so many pie-bald patches of several colours and antick figures which wretched division and fundamental deformity in Religion cannot but daily grow as a Gangrene to greater maladies mischiefs and miseries which will be bitterness in the later end For as no City so no Church can prosper that is divided against it self neither grace nor peace can advance where Preachers of Religion are mutual persecutors where while Ministers teach people to believe to love and to live Christ crucified they are daily crucifying one another It is a deplorable and desperate state of any Church where as in Babels building the builders tongues heads hands and hearts are divided yea the very builders are self-destroyers mutually ruining themselves under pretence of zeal to build or repaire the Church of Christ what one rears with the right hand another pulls down with the left when they frequently leave their trowels and fall to their pick-axes and ponyards when they fling lime and sand in one anothers eyes when they build or dawb rather with untempered mortar when every one is ambitious to be a Master-builder a new modeller of Religion of Churches of Ministers and of Ministry contrary to the wisdome and piety of such a Church and Nation as England was Leaving poor people mean while infinitely amazed jealous unsatisfied perplexed as to Religion Some are sadly grieved others are quite confounded many are zealous for the newest fashion others are for the good old way a third sort is glad of the occasion to cast off all Religion while they see those Ministers cut the Catholick cords of charity and unity in sunder in order to bind Christians up to new parties and factions or to private interests and opinions which like Sampsons wit hs will not serve to bind the lusts or consciences of men to their good behaviour These these are the sad effects which follow those deformities of Preachers turning Pioneers of Ministers being underminers and demolishers of one another and their Mother-Church when those that should be Gods Ambassadours forgetting the majesty of their mission and sanctity of their errand fall to railing and reproching calumniating and declaiming against one another like so many eager Baristers and mercenary Lawyers who are resolved being once fee'd to defend their cause and their client whatever the merits of them be because they have once undertaken them without any regard to that justice honour wisdome gravity charity meekness harmony joynt counsel and ingenuous correspondency which ought to be preserved in all fraternities and honest callings or mysteries but chiefly among the Ministers of Christs glorious Gospel Preachers should be of the highest form of Christs Disciples the most exemplary in all piety meekness and prudence in all gravity equity and charity for want of which even as to matters of outward polity order civility and ministration they are and ever
Foxes and wild Boars of Romish Power and Policy to enter in and not onely secretly but openly as occasion shall serve to destroy all the remaining stock of the true Protestants and Professors of the Reformed Religion who at first soberly protesting against Popish Errours and Deformities afterwards praying in-vain for a joynt and just Reformation did at last reform themselves after the rule of Gods Word interpreted by the Catholick Practise of purest Antiquity What without a miracle can hinder the Papall prevalency in England when once sound Doctrine is shaken corrupted despised when Scriptures are wrested by every private interpreter when the ancient Creeds and Symbols the Lords Prayer and Ten Commandements all wholsome forms of sound Doctrine and Devotion the Articles and Liturgy of such a Church together with the first famous Councils all are slighted vilified despised and abhorred by such English-men as pretend to be great Reformers when neither pristine Respect nor Support Credit nor Countenance Maintenance nor Reverence shall be left either to the Reformed Religion or the Ministry of it without which they will hardly be carried on beyond the fate of Pharaohs Chariots when their wheeles were taken off which is to be overwhelmed and drowned in the Romish red Sea which will certainly overflow all when once England is become not onely a dunghill and Tophet of Hereticall filth and Schismaticall fire but an Aceldama or field of blood by mutuall Animosities and civil Dissentions arising from the variations and confusions of Religions All which as the Roman Eagle now foresees and so followes the camp of Sectaries as Vultures and Birds of prey are wont to doe Armies so no man not blinded with private passions and present interest is so simple as not to know that it will in time terribly seize upon the blind dying or dead carkase of this Church and Nation whose expiration will be very visible when the Purity Order and Unity of Religion the Respect Support and Authority of the Ministry is vanished and banished out of England by the neglect of some the Malice Madnesse and Ingratitude of others your most unhappy Countrey-men Then shall the Israel of England return to the Egypt of Rome then shall the beauty of our Sion be captive to the bondage of Babylons either Superstition or Persecution from both which I beseech God to deliver us As an Omen of the future fate how many persons of fair Estates others of good parts and hopefull Learning are already shrewdly warped and inclined to the Church of Rome and either actually reconciled or in a great readinesse to embrace that Communion which excommunicates all Greek and Latine Churches Eastern Western and African Christians which will not submit to its Dominion and Superstition chiefly moved hereto because they know not what to make of or expect from the Religion and Reformation of the Church of England which they see so many zealous to reproch and ruine so few concerned to relieve restore or pity As for the return of you my noble Countrey-men and your Posterity to the Roman Subjection and Superstition I doubt not but many of you most of you all of you that are persons of judicious and consciencious Piety doe heartily deprecate it and would seriously avoid it to the best of your skill and power as indeed you have great cause both in Prudence and Conscience in Piety and Policy yet I believe none of you can flatter your selves that the next Century shall defend the Reformed Religion in England from Romish Pretensions Perswasions and Prevalencies as the last hath done while the Dignity Order and Authority of the Ministry the Government of excellent Bishops the Majesty and Unity of this reformed Church and its Religion were all maintained by the unanimous vote consent and power of all Estates Nay the Dilemma and distressed choice of Religion is now reduced to this that many peaceable and well-minded Christians having been so long harrassed bitten and worried with novell Factions and pretended Reformations would rather chuse that their Posterity if they may but have the excuse of ignorance in the main controversies to plead for Gods mercy in their joining to that Communion which hath so strong a relish of Egyptian Leeks and Onions of Idolatry and Superstition besides unchristian Arrogancy and intolerable Ambition that their Posterity I say should return to the Roman party which hath something among them setled orderly and uniform becoming Religion than to have them ever turning and tortured upon Ixions wheel catching in vain at fancifull Reformations as Tantalus at the deceitfull waters rolling with infinite paines and hazard the Reformed Religion like Sisyphus his stone sometime asserting it by Law and Power otherwhile exposing it to popular Liberty and Loosenesse than to have them tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine with the Fedities Blasphemies Animosities Anarchies Dangers and Confusions attending fanatick Fancies quotidian Reformations which like botches or boiles from surfeited and unwholsome bodies do daily break out among those Christians who have no rule of Religion but their own humours and no bounds of their Reformations but their own Interests the first makes them ridiculous the second pernicious to all sober Christians Whereas the Roman Church however tainted with rank Errours and dangerous Corruptions in Doctrine and Manners which forbid us under our present convictions to have in those things any visible sacred communion with them though we have a great charity and pity for them Charity in what they still retain good Pity in what they have erred from the Rule and Example of Christ and his Catholick Church yet it cannot be denied without a brutish blindnesse and injurious slander which onely serves to gratifie the grosse Antipathies of the gaping vulgar that the Church of Rome among its Tares and Cockle its Weeds and Thornes hath many wholsome Herbs and holy Plants growing much more of Reason and Religion of good Learning and sober Industry of Order and Polity of Morality and Constancy of Christian Candor and Civility of common Honesty and Humanity becoming grave men and Christians by which to invite after-Ages and your Posterity to adhere to it and them rather then to be everlastingly exposed to the profane bablings endless janglings miserable manglings childing confusions Atheisticall indifferencies and sacrilegious furies of some later spirits which are equally greedy and giddy making both a play and a prey of Religion who have nothing in them comparable to the Papall party to deserve your or your Posterities admiration or imitation but rather their greatest caution and prevention for you will finde what not I onely but sad experience of others may tell you that the sithes and pitch-forks of these petty Sects and plebeian Factions will be as sharp and heavy as the Papists Swords and Faggots heretofore were both to your religious and civil Happinesse CHAP. XXIX FOr however the feeblenesse and paucity of lesser Sects and Factions in Religion in some places their mutuall
set up their new way against all others never so ancient never so approved by good men and prospered by Gods grace and blessing Yea all old things must be done away they must make all things new and their way must needs be the new Jerusalem meant in the Revelation Thus factions in Religion like Crocodiles from small eggs at length grow to great and formidable serpents with wide jawes and long tayles threatning to devour all that will not submit and conforme to them warrs blood-shed and death being the stings of those Scorpions whose faces at first seemed as the faces of men faire-mannered good-natured and well-minded which was St. Austins charitable censure of the Euchites and Circumcellions simplicity so Luthers of the Anabaptists sincerity till they saw them growing numerous like Locusts and appearing like horses prepared for Battail having haire and soft dresses like women but teeth like Lions violent exacters of their own Liberty but insolent oppressors of other mens 'T is evident in all ages and places That as few men when they grow many are capable to use and enjoy with modesty and humility that Christian liberty which in their paucity and minority they craved of their superiours for themselves so few are willing to grant the same freedom to others now their inferiours in number and power morosely denying what they once importunely desired which partiality riseth out of such pregnant jealousies and reasons of State as dictate to all men thus much That publick differings in matters of Religion are very dangerous to the civill peace of those that enjoy power and are quiet under it which every party secretly envies repines at and seeks to obtain to it self that it may have its Triumph as well as others and not alwaies be a Punie or Underling We our selves have lived to see upon this account the Tables so turned in England that many who heretofore desired a favourable connivence at non-conformity to the Church of England are now most jealous and impatient to grant it to those who are still conforme to it in their judgements and inoffensive in their practises The like temper and carriage is expected by all from those they count Recusants to them whom they therefore study to suppresse either secretly undermining or openly exitrpating them as rivals and enemies Not onely those greater birds Popery and Prelacy who are thought to affect rule in the Church of Christ of which they are most unworthy if they deserve to be linked with blasphemy and other villanies but all those little birds who first defiled their own nests then made new ones and laid their eggs in the branches of such Christian liberty as is hardly granted by them to those that still adhere to the Church of England even these no sooner live and flutter but they cluck and flock together ayming to grow as numerous as they can nor will any one of these faile to be dangerous in respect of the civll peace when once they are confident of the power as well as the superlative Piety of their party if the present policies of State did not poyse and balance one party with another yea awe one by the other none of them is of so small courage and tame Spirits as not to ayme at the Converting Reforming Ruling and subduing of all others The least of these feeble people like Coneys in some Islands of Greece would make a shift to extirpate all the Inhabitants but themselves They no sooner grow up increase and multiply but they are ready to fight as the serpents teeth sowed by Cadmus which fable imported as learned Bochart tells us nothing else but the Phoenician Colonies armed with brasse and arriving in the Greek Islands who presently sought by force to subdue all the Pristine and Native Inhabitans the same Phoenician and Hebrew word signifying brasse and a Serpent This principle being bred with all pretenders to mend Religion that there is no conscience to be made of any civill or Ecclesiastick subjection no use of Christian patience and submission longer than they want power to subdue all things under their feet and to assert their due soveraignty Those parties separations Sects and divisions which have of later yeares unanimously set themselves against the former constitution of the Church of England which was once far above them are now grown not onely very pert and rigorous but so various and each of them so strangely vigorous that they are not like the twinnes strugling in Rebeca's womb but like the brats which a Countesse in Flanders is reported to bring forth equall in number to the dayes of the year Nor are they Infants striving without much strength and with lesse malice but they are grown adult manly Gladiatorian Cyclopick the balancing of whose Spirits is indeed a great piece of art and policy and may hold while there is so great a Master of Power and Prudence as can do it But 't is certain every party affects prevalency not content to truckle under any other since they have equally emancipated themselves from the authority and subjection to yea from the Charity Communion with the Church of England whose authority and eminency was sometime as conspicuous as its order merit and glory Such as now disdain her and seek to destroy her are veniall if by a retaliation of divine vengeance they ambitiously strive for mastery against each other each aiming to be like the Master Pike in a Pond which they think may lawfully devour those that are of lesser size and growth 'T is certain that every faction in Religion hath its feares of oppression whetting them to mutuall emulations and ambitions not knowing what party may like the beasts in Daniel get the better over others if not by arguments yet by armes nothing more frequent than those civill conflagrations or burnings of Cities and Countries whose first fires are kindled from the Coales of the Altars from Religious fire-brands cast by Christians in each others faces We need not go farther to verifie this presumption than to the late great Instances so remarkable among our selves here in England sufficiently proving that there can be no civill security where there is such a Religious variety as serves to give both occasion and confidence to different parties both to excite their private ambitions and in time to exert them in waies of open hostility whensoever opportunity is given by any negligence offence or distemper in government or governours upon the least bruise the ill humours as in foul bodies will have such confluence to the disaffected part as easily causes terrible inflammations and many times such gangrenes of poysonous and indigestible humours as nothing but the sword can cure Not onely Germany and France heretofore have felt the sad effects of these Religious factions frequently embrued in the blood of their Countries but Scotland Ireland and England have heretofore had many shaking fits of these Religious feavers though never any that cost each of them so
part of the whole body so it exerciseth this authority with such confusion and passion with so much Childishnesse and petulancy that there is little or nothing of due subordination feare reverence and submission as to any Divine Authority as of Conscience of or for Christs sake but every one takes offence when he listeth growes froward and insolent divides and so destroyes as much as in him lyes and at as easie a rate as one doth crush a worme those petty bodies and puny Churches which are indeed but Infants Embryo's and Pygmies compared to that stature and strength that procerity and puissance which of old was preserved and ever ought to be in the Church of Christ when it hath its peace and growth not shred into poor patches and pittifull parcels but united maintained and managed in conspicuous combinations in ample and august proportions in which may well be contained many thousands of Christian people some hundreds of worthy Presbyters and Deacons under some one or more venerable Bishops in so holy so happy and so handsome a subordination or dependency as was of old that whatever was done by the Authority of those that ruled or the Humility of those that obeyed all was done with Charity and Unanimity while excellent Bishops knew how to keep the true temper of Christian Government and both Presbyters and people concurred with them in filial obedience and fraternall love CHAP. X. THus we see every party or side however it justifie or magnifie it selfe yet it falls under either the blame or jealousie of its rivals as defective or excessive yet not so much in the fundamentals of Religion or main points either for Doctrine Worship Duty or Manners as chiefly in matters of Ordination Discipline and Government Nor is the difference here so broad that any side denies them as necessary both in the parts and whole in greater and lesser proportions for the Church of Christ but the reall dispute is who shall mannage and execute them in whom the chief power and Authority shall reside whether eminently in Bishops or solely in Presbyters or supremely in the people as the Alpha and Omega the first recipient and the last result of Church-power All sides except Fanaticks Seekers and Enthusiasts seem to agree as in the Canon of the Scripture so in the soundnesse of the faith in the sanctity of divine mysteries in the celebration of them by such as are some way ordained and authorised for that holy service also in the participation of them by such onely as are in the judgement of Charity worthy or meet to be partakers of them All agree in the main Christian graces virtues and morals required in a good Christians practise yet still each party is suspected and reproched by others the brisk Independent boasts of the Liberty simplicity and purity of his way yet is blamed for Novelty Subtilty Vulgarity Anarchy the rigid Presbyterian glories in his Aristocratick Parity and levelling community which makes every petty Presbyter a Pope and a Prince though he disdain to be a Priest yet is taxed for petulancy popularity arrogancy and novelty casting off that Catholick and ancient order which God and Nature Reason and Religion all civill and military policy both require and observe among all societies Episcopacy justly challengeth the advantages right and honor of Apostolick and Primitive Antiquity of universality and unity beyond any pretenders yet is this condemned by some for undue incrochments and oppressions upon both Ministers and peoples ingenuous Liberty and Christian priviledge by a kind of secular height and arbitrary soveraignty to which many Bishops in after-ages have been betrayed as by their own pride and ambition so by the indulgence of times the munificence of Christian Princes and sometimes by the flatteries of people Take away the popular principle of the first which prostrates Government to the vulgar Take away the levelling ambition of the second which degrades Government to a very preposterous and unproportionate parity Take away the monopoly of the third which seems to ingrosse to one man more than is meet for the whole each of them will be sufficiently purged as I conceive of what is most dangerous or noxious in them for which they are most jealous of and divided from each other Restore to people their Liberty in some such way of choosing or at least approving their Ministers and assenting to Church-censures as may become them in reason and conscience restore to Presbyters their priviledges in such publick counsel and concurrence with their Bishops as may become them lastly restore to Bishops that Primitive precedency and Catholick presidency which they ever had among and above Presbyters both for that chief Authority or Eminency which they ever had in ordaining of Presbyters and Deacons also in exercising such Ecclesiasticall Discipline and Censures that nothing be done without them I see no cause why any sober Ministers and wise men should be unsatisfied nor why they should longer stand at such distances and defiances as if the Liberties of Christian people the Privileges of Christian Presbyters and the Dignity of Christian Bishops were wholly inconsistent whereas they are easily reconciled and as a threefold cord may be so handsomely twisted together that none should have cause to complaine or be jealous all should have cause to joy in and enjoy each other Bishops should deserve their eminency with the assistance counsel and respect of their Presbyters Bishops and Presbyters might enjoy the love reverence and submission of Christian people both people and Presbyters might be blessed with the orderly direction and fatherly protection of the Bishops all should have the blessings of that sweet subordination harmony and unity which best becomes the Church of Jesus Christ both in the Governors and Governed in Ministers and People wherein we see the most Antiepiscopall Presbyters and refractory people cannot but be so sensible by their own sufferings of the want of some principle of order some band of unity and some ground of due Authority among them that they are forced to make use of some Moderator Chaire-man or Prolocutor as a kind of temporary Pilot and arbitrary Bishop there being no regular moving of popular bodies in Church or State without such an head or President as the rudder of a ship whose order as it is usefull so then most when it is fixed and confirmed with a valid power and venerable authority which are the maine wheeles of all Government As for the Sacramentall scrutinies and other holy severities to be used in any part of Christian Discipline with charity and discretion however the Presbyterian and Independent preachers have very much sought in this point to captate popular applause and exalt themselves above measure as if they exacted farre greater rigors of preparatory sufficiency and sanctity than the Episcopall Clergy ever did or do either require or practise Yet is this but either a vapour or a fallacy or a calumny in respect of the
and tyrannies of some Bishops as if all were to be blamed none to be commended and highly magnifying the zeal themselves have for a through Reformation that is that they might freely and fully gratifie their own and peoples ambitions by setting Episcopacy and all Bishops quite beside the saddle on purpose to make way for themselves who are for the most part as fit to governe Churches alone as apes are to build houses I crave leave in order to promote a faire and firme accommodation with all ingenuous freedom and candor to make some more particular application of my desire and designs to those Ministers of the Presbyterian and Independent waies who have opposed their faces sharpned their tongues or pens and hardened their hearts most against all Episcopacy even in the most innocent usefull regular and moderate constitution of it I meane that Primitive order and paternall residency which was universally acknowledged to be eminently in one President as Bishop or chief Pastor over many Presbyters in his Diocese after the pattern of the 12. Apostles who were by Christs appointment above the 70. and so their declared successors as Timothy Titus Archippus those others who are called the Angels of the 7. Asian Churches with many others to whom they derived not onely their example and practical constitution but their Authority and Power Ecclesiastical as is evident by the Canons and Rules set forth not onely in ancient Councils but in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus for the setling and managing of Church-order Discipline and Government in such a way as clearly gives not to any consistory or company of Presbyters and people but to one man a Paramount Authority as Bishop or Superiour both in Ordination and Jurisdiction above others as his inferiours and so subordinate to his spirituall power so far as to reprove examine censure reject c. All which being to me immoveable and immutable foundations for the establishing of Episcopall presidency as the onely succession of that ordinary Apostolick power and authority which is necessary to be alwaies in the Church of Christ they do make me dayly by these considerations more restive and lesse compliant to any new waies or Associatings than perhaps otherwise I should be both by the sociablenesse of my temper and my earnest desire for another way of happy union among Ministers of worth and moderation This uncorrespondency to which I am upon those grounds compelled is with the greater regret to me because I know the learning the industry the zeal the piety the ingenuity the potency of some of those my dissenting brethren in their preaching writing praying and living I am charitably perswaded of many of their sincerity in aiming at Gods Glory and at the purity of holy Ministrations I do not see wherein many of them differ from the best Episcopall Divines ancient or modern as to any main matter of Religion in doctrine or duty Nor can I find any reason yet alledged by any of them sufficient to justifie that pertinacious distance and defiance which of later yeares onely they have taken up against Episcopacy meerly upon the account of jealousie and impatiency to choose and admit a learned grave and worthy Bishop as a fixed Father or constant Governour and Grave Moderator authoritatively to preside among them in their severall grand distributions or Dioceses after that order and eminency which were most comely for them and most unquestionable as to the fixing and completing of Church-order and Government to all sober Christians satisfaction I will not tax or suspect the soberest of my Presbyterian or Independent brethren of such pride and arrogancy as can endure no superiour or chief among them I rather conceive it was a Sympathethick impulse at first from those Scotish motions and pretentions which swerved them not onely from the former good constitution of the Church of England to which they heretofore very orderly and happily submitted but also from their conformity to the Catholick Church in that point to which I believe their judgement heretofore ahd inclination now may incline and lead them as apparently best for their publick and private interests Some are prone to suspect that the best of them did not heretofore submit so humbly and heartily to their Lawfull Superiours and Governours in the Church as in duty and conscience by the lawes of God and man they ought to have done others challenge them for want as of piety and honesty so of Christian charity yea and of common humanity or compasâ—ion for their forwardnesse and fiercenesse to undoe all Bishops and all dignified Clergy-men at least for their ready consent to their utter ruine holding the garments of those that stoned them to death never so much as praying heartily for them while they were in power nor yet pittying them in their miscarriages or calamities no nor so far interceding for or listning to any just moderation which was oft proposed and offered as might have been not more happy for the Bishops than for themselves as Presbyters yea for this whole Church and all Christian people in England I am willing to hope that many Ministers mutations began with good affections and were carried on at first with principles of sincerity and zeal though not with that knowledge meekness and wisdome which was requisite But to many of them that are now the most haughty stiffe and obstinaâ—e against all accommodating with Episcopacy I cannot but still appeale whether they do not in their consiences find that either at first or afterward some secular advantages and private hopes did not a little warp and sway their inclinations to novelties whether they felt not the secret but dissembled strokes of discontent anger envy revenge popularity ambition feigned jealousies inordinate affectations of liberty exciting and animating them to the utter extirpation of Episcopacy whether they did not by a self-conceit generally imagin themselves not onely jointly but severally as fit and able to govern the Church in the whole or in parcels as any yea all the Bishops in England whether any of them do believe the case of Episcopacy to have ever been fully heard freely discussed and impartially stated by the peaceable wisdom and piety of this nation whether many of these Ministers as Politicians and Statesmen did not rather comply with the streame and vogue of times running fiercely against Episcopacy than with their own clear convictions in reason law scripture antiquity conscience whether they kept that equanimity and moderation in all things of this nature which became wise and good men of an Evangelicall Spirit and temper or were not biassed yea transported by something that was popular and sinister whether they do not think that the violence and precipitancy of some of their examples was beyond all solid arguments to drive many well-meaning Ministers and People to such heady and hot petitionings against Episcopacy and to such pittilesse Antipathies against all the most excellent Bishops which were then and still are England
greater difficulties and necessities as to his Estate yet never any had greater Antipathies against what he thought Sacriledge nor a less longing to tast of the Priests portion which he esteemed sacred because it was Gods dedicated to him and so vested in him both by Law and Conscience by true Divinity and just Humanity that he judged no power on earth could without manifest sin and robbery alienate it from God and his Church This made him so zealous not onely to preserve Bishops upon his Fathers principles but their Rights and Estates also because he thought them to be Gods and his Churches to maintaine whose right he remembred himself to have sworne in the first place at his Coronation and so was no lesse bound to them than to the rest of the people as to their civil Properties Lawes and Priviledges Certainly however some have denyed this King the Title of Pater Patriae yet he seemes to have deserved that of Filius Ecclesiae both Alumnus and Patronus of which he appeared more ambitious than of any earthly glory or Kingdom or Life For whence I beseech you before God Angels and Men do you think arose that his Princely and Christian pertinacy even to the death in the point of Episcopacy and Church-Lands Henry the Fourth of France could change the whole scene of his Religion from the Reformed to the Roman meerly upon reasons of State dispensing with conscience to preserve his Kingdom and his short-liv'd greatnesse yet is he cryed up for Henry le Grand how much greater is that King to be esteemed whose consciencious constancy which some counted obstinacy lessened him to nothing when to the very last he maintained those sharp Agonies Contests and Disputes he had as to the interests of the Church and Episcopacy which he counted his greatest concerns as to Religion Justice and Honor How did he encounter Mr. Henderson Mr. Marshall and others upon this point chiefly how indeed did he confound them by Scripturall grounds by Ecclesiasticall precedents by Catholick consent by the sacred venerable and unanswerable custome of all Churches till his daies What answers what offers of moderation and conciliation did he make as to this point of Church-Government to the admiration yea astonishment of his Antagonists Although as to Military successes and Civil concessions he yeilded much to an over powering power yet as to this rock of Ecclesiasticall affaires like the Ark upon mountaines of Ararat where he rested there he fixed there he continued rooted unmoveable invincible chusing rather to be dashed in pieces than to renounce his principles or to move contrary to those conscientious perswasions for which he thought he had such cleare and valid grounds such ancient prescriptions such constant presumptions that he thought nothing in Religion could be safe or certaine if in this point of Church-Government the Catholick Church were not to be believed or imitated in Episcopacy Good God! whence should it be that a Prince so knowing so sensible of his dangers when he saw the Presbyterian proposalls power and interests so pressing upon him for Independency that little stone was not then cut out of the Mountains whence had so great a restivenesse and obstinacy seised upon so great a Prince in a posture of so great storms and danger which would in all likelihood at first have been appeased if he would have cast this Jonas Episcopacy over-board and swallowed the Church-Lands into the Sea of the Exchequer He that could as to civil and Regall concernments much deny himself why should he chuse upon the Churches account to suffer so long a war so many wounds so tedious prisons so sad Tragedies living and dying For however differences at last were inflamed upon other accounts in the procedure of the war which necessarily multiplies offences on the conquered party yet certainly the maine propose and motion first of the Scots and then of the English Presbyterians was this Destroy the Temples of Episcopacy and set up the Synagogues of Presbytery Which any politick Prince would speedily have done at least when he saw so terrible a tempest in present pressing upon him yea and prevailing against him What Prince was ever so in love with any Bishops or any Church-men as to love them better then himself which in Reason he could not and in Religion he ought not to do nor would certainly have done so far as he did if he had not had such perswasions deeply rooted in his conscience of a justice gratitude and duty he owed to God to his Saviour and to the Church more than to the persons of a few Clergy-men which he solemnly avowed as in Gods presence to Mr. Marshall of Finchfield in Essex after a long conference at Newcastle as I take it had with him touching Episcopacy as Mr. Marshall himself soon after told me assuring him and conjuring him to assure others of his Majesties uprightnesse and resolvednesse in this point of Episcopacy as to matter of Conscience and not of State or Policy else in point of secular advantages his own peace and preservation the publick tranquillity the increase of his revenue by the Confiscation of Bishops and Cathedral-Lands would have amounted to much more benefit than ever he or his could expect from a few Bishops Deans and Prebends Thus riveted was the Kings Conscience to Episcopacy unable upon any terms till convinced not by Arms but Arguments to consent to the utter extirpation of it although he offered condescended to many moderations which were from him as much in vain for nothing but root and branch would serve as all the Extirpators Allegations to his Majesty against Episcopacy to prove it not to have been the Primitive Catholick and Apostolick Government of the Church were in vain for indeed nothing was produced new all were trivial and thred-bare arguments which had been answered ten times by learned men in this Church and had for ever silenced all sober and modest men if they had had so great regard to the Churches Catholick and constant Testimony or to the Scripture-rule and Apostolick pattern as indeed they should have had Besides this insuperable difficulty fortifying Episcopacy in his Conscience his Majesty no doubt had prejudices enough against Presbytery as to its novelty its first violent intrusion his Fathers vexation it s now armed obtrusion upon himself a Soveraign Prince and chief Governour of Church as well as State to these were added all the former Troubles and Tragedies in Scotland by the scufflings of Presbytery against Episcopacy besides he saw the destroyers of Episcopacy already divided among themselves neither Presbytery nor Independency could agree whose the child should be yea he lived to see Presbytery when it had been set up in the House of God faln like Dagon with its hands and head broken off before the captive Ark of Episcopacy Mean while His Majesty and all the World at home and abroad saw the miserable Distractions Confusions Luxations and Licentiousnesse which brake in daily
who commonly were most imperious when the Church had most peace and civil prosperity but the Presbyterian thunder and Independent lightning urged most upon all Bishops and all Episcopall Ministers then when they were most scared pillaged and harrased by a civil war when most tossed by those sad storms and almost overwhelmed by the impressions of those sad dissentions Then then was it that Bishops and other Episcopall Ministers whose consciences were guided in their judgements by the wisdome of this Church and Nation together with all other Christian Churches in all ages having lost their clokes in the wars must be deprived of their coats also chiefly for their innocent opinion and honest adherency to Catholick Episcopacy then was it that where Episcopacy had at any time and that by special command from their Governours silenced or sequestred refractory or turbulent Ministers by tens or hundreds possibly Presbytery and Independency inflicted either those mulcts or terrours at least upon thousands of Ministers dissenting from them not as to the Religion established or Laws in force in England but meerly as to their private opinions and principles about Church-government Hence so many learned pious and painful Preachers since the civil digladiations ceased had been condemned to chains of everlasting darkness to remediless distresses both they and their families if there had not been some more generous mercy and connivence shewed than those mens spirits intended or can well bear Through which miseries and terrours many Ministers gray hairs have been brought down with sorrow to their graves After all which dreadful severities either intended or executed against the Episcopall Clergie yet as far as I can see the condition of any sort of Ministers now in England is not any whit better as to the generality nor comparable to what the Clergie enjoyed in former times who in my judgement might well have born the yoke of Episcopacy with as little disparagement and with as much ease and honour every way as they have for some years done the examination and inspection the rebukes and frowns the terrours and jurisdictions of Major Generals or Countrey Committees not onely in secular and military but even in religious respects among which few I believe were to be found equal or exceeding such Bishops and other grave Divines as England afforded both able Preachers and excellent Governours much more fitted in all respects except their swords to be the superintendents of Ministers being of the same education office and calling than most of those men can be who are generally so much Heteroclites different from learned men both in their breeding learning studies and course of living that even from hence they have sometimes secret Antipathies even against all Ministers or Clergy-men as persons of another genius of more refined minds and if men were impartially weighed of greater worth and merits As then I cannot find that Ministers of any new name form title and extractions whatsoever have much mended their condition by that great alteration they have made or sought in this Church and State so I am sure their mutual enmities and divisions do very much heighten their common afflictions and add exceedingly to that general darkness and diminution in all respects civil and sacred which is come or coming upon them as upon wicked men in the strict account of Gods justice or as weak men in the vulgar process of mans severity Indeed the worst of Ministers miseries they generally owe to themselves who in piety and prudence above all men should by united counsels and cares avoid them because it is sport to the most and worst of men to see those men together by the ears hating despising biting and devouring one another who are esteemed the severe censurers of other mens sins and follies sharp curbs to the childish petulant and licentious humours of people Ministers scufflings and contests with one another is beyond any Cock-fighting or Bear-baiting to the vulgar envy malice profanenesse and petulancy In the midst of all which sufferings first from Divine Justice which calls upon every one to examine the plague of his own heart next from humane ingratitude and insolency though every sober and prudent Minister cannot but see that precipice and gulph of irreligion irreverence and contempt to which the Reformed Religion and the whole office of the Ministry is now falling in England through the endless capricios and extravagances chiefly of some Ministers though most Ministers on all sides that have any learning worth or abilities for that office do generally agree in the same Scriptures and Sacraments in the same Faith and Salvation in the same God and Saviour in the same Graces and Vertues in the same Doctrine for morals and Mysteries in the same Precepts and Promises in the same holy duties and blessed hopes yet even these Ministers which is a thousand pities are sharply and for ought I can see unless God work miracles upon some of their spirits and tempers resolutely and eternally divided by those wedges of differences touching external Church-order and Discipline the manner of worship and power of managing of Church-government so that the way of peace few have known nor are they patient to learn contrary to their presumptions To recant their errours they are ashamed remit their rigour they must not lest they abate their parties and followers exchange their animosities as men for moderations becoming brethren and Christians they will not lest their credit decay and their factions abate lest those shews and shadows of popular empire vanish which they have seemed or fancied themselves to enjoy upon these accounts of rare inventions and new models of Reformation Ministry c. All which must by some men be kept up though all things else do fall to the ground though the Church of England lies languishing and sighing weeping and bleeding though the Reformed Religion is deformed decaying dying though both piety and sincerity be much dispirited though they cannot but see Ichabod wrote upon all their foreheads though all Ministerial order office employment and authority as to mens inward respect and consciences no less than in their outward reverence and obedience is infinitely slackned and in many places as well as in many hearts quite dissolved though the Catholick Character or Christs cognizance of Christians which is sincere charity be much defaced the Devils badges of factious confederacies be much worn though the purity and simplicity the warmth and worth the words and works of true Religion be much out of fashion giving way to fanatick follies and impudent vanities daily vented in every place though the beauty serenity of the true Christian Religion as of old and of the well-reformed Religion as it was of later years well established in Engl. be much hidden defaced disguised by many hypocritical masks new dresses though the palpable cunning of some men hath taught them to abuse this credulous age by shaving off the hair primitive ornament of this Church which was