all other Apostles in their severall Bishopricks or Distributions To the second as Presbyters or a lesser kind of Bishops and Apostles over private and particular congregations they gave power to preach the Gospel administer Sacraments and assist their chief Pastor or Bishop in governing the Church according as they were required and appointed to their severall duties and charges But no where in Scripture that I see do we find either the sole or chief power of ordaining Ministers or of exercising any Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction over them by correption or rejection given to any one or more Presbyters as such unlesse men list for ever to play the children and cavill with the identity or samenesse of the names used of old which calls Apostles Presbyters as a word of honor and Presbyters Bishops as overseers and all of them Deacons as servants to Christ and the Church and all may be called Apostles too in some sense as sent by Christ on his work Which Crambe is so fulsome a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cavilling about words to confound all good sense and order that all sober men are now weary of it when they clearly see that all ages and actions of the Catholick Church have sufficiently declared beyond any fallacy of identity as to Names and titles the reall and actuall differences of persons and duties or offices to which words may at first be indifferently applied without implying any such confusion of places and powers in the Church any more than when the name of ruler is applyed to supreame and subordinate Magistrates or when the name of Officer is given to Corporalls Lieutenants Captaines Colonells and Generalls or that of Alderman to such as are so by age or office or estate just as if one should obstinately maintain that the petty Constables of every parish the High Constables of every Hundred and the Lord high Constable of England or France were the same things as to office power and honor because the same name of Constable is applyed to all of them It may with as much reason be urged that every Master of Arts in a Colledg and the Master of the Colledg are the same in office place and power or that every one who is called Father by nature age affinity adoption merit or relation either Domestick Civil or Ecclesiasticall presently may challenge the same Authority over us and the same Duty or Obedience from us as our naturall parents have and do expect because all are called Fathers So we shall have many Gods and Lords to justifie the Polytheisme of the heathens because there are many that are in Scripture called Gods and Lords as the Apostle tells us These Sophisticall equivocations from names and words have been indeed the bushes or thickets the borrowes and refuges a long time of those men who aimed to bring in all factions innovations and confusions into this and other Churches onely under such empty colours and fallacious pretentions out of all which they have been lately so stripped ferreted by many learned unanswerable assertors of Episcopacy in its just presidency and authority that they are now naked and ridiculous to all sober spectators who see that all the judgement and practice of antiquity besides the Scriptures analogy is so clear and distinct against all their petty cavillings and popular levellings that the reall differences of the powers orders degrees and offices in the Church as begun by Christ exercised by the Apostles also continued in that method and series through all ages are not lesse evident than their peevishnesse and pertinacy are who list to urge the first indifferency or latitude of words against the after and evident distinctions of things declared and confirmed by the constant judgement and practice of all Churches which is in my judgement the best and surest interpreter and distinguisher of what ever seems wrapped up or any way obscured and confused in Scripture-expressions otherwaies we must with the Papists own as many Sacraments and Mysteries as these words are applyed to in Scripture either in the Greek or Latine Presbyters might well enough be then called Bishops in a generall and lower sense when there were so many Apostles as chief Bishops above them which Name of Apostle the modesty of after Bishops refusing they contented themselves with the peculiar title of Bishops and confined that of Presbyter to that second order or degree of Clergy-men as that of Deacon to the third which yet in their latitude are applyed to Bishops and Apostles themselves I know there have been many things speciously urged for Presbytery and odiously against Episcopacy all which have been so abundantly answered that it is time they were forgotten and all enmity buried with them My aime in this pacificatory addresse to all worthy Ministers is not to revive the cavils and disputes but to reconcile all interests to compose all differences and to satisfie all demands Onely because I know there is no closing or glewing of pieces together with firmnesse where there is not first made an evennesse and smoothness on all sides for their apt meeting I shall here further endeavour fairly to take away some remaining roughnesse swelling and protuberancy which possibly may be still in some sober mens minds as great hinderances of the desired closure and composure of all sides I know it is further urged by some that every Presbyter singly and much more socially that is in a joynt body and Associate fraternity may be rationally thought to have the full power and divine authority of a Bishop to all ends offices and purposes since it is well known in all antiquity as St Jerome tells us and it is confessed by all Episcopall men that Presbyters as such primitively chose their respective Bishops as at Antioch Jerusalem Alexandria from S. Marks time in other places so that Bishops may seem primarily to receive all their authority and eminency from Presbyters who certainly can conferre no more upon any of Bishop than is radically seminally and eminently in themselves as a superiour Magistrate that nominates an inferiour or a Corporation that chooseth a Major or chief officer or as Fellowes of a Colledge who choose a Master or President over them or as an army which is St. Jeromes instance who choose their Imperator or Generall From this ancient and well-known priviledge of Presbyters to choose their respective Bishops many conclude their joynt power at least to be equall to any Bishops yea superiour to them as causall and efficient insomuch that they may if they please exercise it apart from and wholly without any Bishop by choosing none to be over them or among them but serving their occasionall meetings with a temporary Moderator rather than a constant Superintendent To this it is easily answered That however Presbyters of old did and of right as I conceive ought by the leave and permission of Christian Princes to choose and appove the persons of their Bishops as being the fittest men in
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
oath that he aimed at no more than his Duchy yet afterward aspired gained the Kingdom of England by the name of King Edward the fourth so some Presbyters at first pretended onely to claime a coordinate exercise of Counsell and assistance with Bishops in some things consisting with a modest and orderly subordination to them as chief Fathers of their Ecclesiasticall Tribes and Families yea I knew some chief Rabbies of them have professed that they cryed down and covenanted onely against the Tyrannick Government of Prelates and the over-grown train of their Officialls shewing some reason to regulate Episcopacy by reducing it to the modesty of Primitive patternes Yet this motion was no sooner begun among us but we see it increased to such a violence as kindled the ambition of some people and Presbyters so hot against all Bishops that the best of them and many of them were incomparable men excellent Christians and most admirable Bishops were counted Refractory Popish and Antichristian with all their abetters because they would not tamely contribute to their own utter destruction and presently consent to the reproch of this and all ancient Churches where Bishops I think were as well known and as long used as the Sacraments or the Scriptures Yea at last the contention grew so sharp that it not onely whetted many tongues and pens but it came to swords ending if it be ended in much blood Presbyters challenging to have not only a meet share and concurrent influence as was ancient in Ignatius and St. Cyprians and St. Austins times and which might be very fitting and usefull in Church-Government but they will have all or none and this upon Christs title Bishops as usurpers for 1600. years must have no faire quarter nay none at all but persons and power must be wholly exautorated extirpated impoverished contemned abased undone Though they had done nothing but what either the Lawes commanded or the Prince in whom by law was the chief Ecclesiasticall as well as civill power indulged yea and required them to do yet no medium no moderation can be expected between Caesar and Pompey Sylla and Marius Antonius and Augustus when mens Spirits are heightned by jealousies and emulations to seek each others destruction After all this the peremptory reign of Presbytery which cost this Church and Nation so deare was not long-liv'd nor could be well established though at first it looked so big and grasped on the sudden even at three Kingdomes For before it was warme in its nest or well seated in its Throne we see Independency got hold on one end of its Scepter or quarter-staffe rather threatning in the right of Christ Jesus and in the behalf of all Christian common people to wrest it quite out of the hands of Presbytery either by legerdemaine or maine force unlesse it might go at least halfe with it in the spoiles of Episcopacy and that share of Church-Government which they pleaded was due not onely to a few Preaching Parsons and ruling Elders but to the whole congregation as being holy the Lords people the body of Christ in particular This check made Presbytery much more tame and tractable than it was wont to be when it first whetted its tushes so sharply and brisled so fiercely against all Episcopacy root and branch hoofes and hornes no regulation no remission no moderation no merit of so many Godly Learned Moderate yea Martyrly Bishops heretofore and even then in England would serve the turn After all this trouble the more grave and sober sort even of those Presbyterian and Independent Ministers are brought as we see into no small straits and reduced to this great Dilemma of policy whether they should choose to put their heads again under the Bishops hands or under the common peoples feet whether it be more for the honor of their Ministry to be subordinate to grave and worthy Bishops as Learned Moderators Presidentiall Fathers and elder Brothers or to be thus everlastingly haunted with evill and unclean Spirits to be thus hampered with the giddy and ungratefull vulgar who are very petulant and saucy companions very soure and insolent masters Nor is this Triumvirate of Episcopall Presbyterian and Independent Antagonists and rivals the boundary of mens religious Ambition and contentions in England There are other Names and Titles and daily will be more and more new Sects and Factions which will have their Godly agonies and pretentions no lesse than those three have had Yea the least and most unsuspected the feeblest and silliest of them will serve either to kindle new or to continue successive fires of jealousies troubles seditions and wars in this Nation Take them all together and leave them equally to their severall principles and contrary operations they will be like the complication of many diseases in one body as the Quartanes Dropsies Scurvys Hectick Feavers and Consumptions of this State and Church not onely shaking oft and daily dispiriting but in time quite destroying the Beauty Health Strength Peace Safety and Honor of this Nation whatever it be Common-wealth or Kingdom Aristocracy Democracy or Monarchy For while mens Spirits are sharpned by daily contentions in Religion to anger emulations and ambitions who shall be greatest in popular esteem in prevalency of parties in number of Sectators in novelties of opinions and in presumptuous practises they not onely sowr to secret animosities but break out to open enmities from the least differences For the true life and power of Religion which consists in a Knowing Humble and Charitable Zeal for Gods glory and each others good this is taken off and extremely dulled as the edge of sharp knives by cutting of cork while mens head and hearts are wholly busied in whitling and hewing those small points and softer parts of Religion which consider at first it may be onely the ritualls externals and polities of it yet in time these continuall droppings undermine and overthrow the very fundamentals which consist in the Unity of the Faith the Sanctity of Manners and the Sincerity of Christians Charity to each other which held better in Unity Health Beauty and Strength amidst heathenish persecutions than they ever did or can do amidst Christians contentions needlesse and endlesse janglings of Preachers and Professors among themselves For these rising most-what not from the holy and humble warmth but the wantonnesse and luxuriancy of mens Spirits especially after long peace and setling upon their Lees do naturally break out to such boyles and tumors of Factions as swell every Opinionist and his party to the hope of having a turne or share at least in rule and Empire wherein the present prevalent party is ever jealous and impatient of having any equall or rivall either to affront or disturb them and the depressed parties still conceive they are injured and oft complaine of being persecuted Nay they are filled with Whisperings and Murmurings with Envies and Animosities though they be let alone and connived at by way of Toleration when they see the publick
would be established and the tranquillity of the Nation highly setled and confirmed upon the best foundation of peace that can be among mankind In all which things we have and do on all sides so far extremely suffer as we differ by such unreasonable distances and uncharitable defiances first among Ministers which are presently followed with all disorder lukewarmenesse irreligion profaneness arrogancy Atheism Affectation and Faction among the people in England chiefly as I conceive upon this account The needlesse variating shifting and changing of that Primitive plat-forme that Apostolick and Catholick order and succession of Ecclesiasticall Authority and Ministeriall power in this Church which hath ever been owned with religious reverence and conscience in Engl. ever since it was Christian preserved as sacred by the most pious Princes honored as Divine by the most Religious and reformed Parlaments prospered by the speciall benignity and grace of God peaceably enjoyed by all devout judicious and humble Christians to the unspeakable comfort of their souls living and dying when they knew who were their Bishops Pastors and spirituall Fathers owning them with all due respect and love as in Christs stead submitting to them for conscience sake as to the Lord and receiving from them good instructions just reproofes holy comforts and heavenly Mysteries not as from man but God after the rule of the Scriptures and the example of the best Christians in all ages who looked upon Episcopacy or the Government of the Church as fixed completed and exercised chiefly by Bishops assisted with worthy Presbyters not onely as a book of a larger volume greater print and fairer binding than Presbytery or Independency that is the sole power of Presbyters or people by themselves but they looked upon the Episcopall eminency as having more in it of Apostolick power and Ecclesiasticall Authority both in point of ordination and jurisdiction than is either in Presbyters or people by themselves Bishops and Presbyters being as the eyes and hands which are not more members of the body than the leggs and feet yet they are the more noble parts and have more of publick use and virtue as to inspection direction and operation for the common good of all parts in the body No wonder then if the honor of all Religion be much abated if the renown of this Reformed Church be thus abased no wonder that Presbytery it self is so baffled and Independency despised no wonder that all the Office Power and Authority of Ministers together with their persons be reduced to such a low ebb and almost quite exhausted when Bishops the grand Cisternes and chief Conduites of all Ecclesiasticall Orders and Ministeriall Authority as derived from Christ and his Apostles are not onely bruised and crackt but utterly broken cut off and cast away whom yet no Presbyter or Independent of any learning or forehead can deny actually to have been in all ages used and esteemed as the constant successors and immediate substitutes of the Apostles first invested with that power by the Apostles themselves after their decease chosen by the Presbyters and after consecrated by other Bishops to be as the prime receptacles conservators and conveyers of all Ecclesiasticall Power and Ministeriall Authority not onely as Teachers of Divine truths preachers of the Gospell and dispensers of holy Mysteries in common with Presbyters but as chief Fathers Pastors and Rulers of those larger flocks which constituted those famous ancient Churches which were not limited to the bounds of one family or one congregation or one little parish in which one Preacher or Presbyter may in ordinary duties suffice but they extended to such ample combinations as contained large Cities and their Territories in which were many thousands of Christians many congregations and many Presbyters who all made but one Church or polity Ecclesiasticall under one chief Pastor or Bishop residing with the Presbyters at first in the chief City afterward these were fixed to particular parishes or villages by the care of the Bishops Without whose authority and consent nothing of consequence was done by any in the publick managing of Religion without the just brand and censure of Schismaticall arrogancy it being ever judged that Bishops had derived to them an higher degree of Apostolick power and Church jurisdiction than ever was or could be in any one or many Presbyters or people without them who could not regularly nor never did unblamably ordaine of themselves or by their own sole Authority any Ministers or exercise the censures of the Church in a plenary and absolute jurisdiction without deriving their power from their respective Bishops without whom and against whom few ever acted in any age of the Church and never any good Christian refused subjection to and communion with their lawfull and orthodox Bishops no nor did ever any Hereticks or Schismaticks proceed to such extravagancy as to reject and disclaime all Episcopall order till of later yeares whose example hath little in it to make it compared with much lesse preferred before Catholick customes and Primitive patternes of all ancient Churches what ever glosses the wit of men or their craft or their successes or their Godly and necessary pretences may put upon their variations and schismes CHAP. XII IT is not now my design either to spin out or to wind and summe up that long and tedious thread of dispute which hath been so much snarled and entangled of late yeares in England by popular pens or cleared and unfolded by more able learned and impartiall Writers Who is not weary now and ashamed of those thread-bare allegations drawn from the samenesse or promiscuous use of Names which we know vary with time and must yield to use and custome as if Apostle Evangelist Bishop Presbyter Pastor Preacher Teacher and Ruler they may adde Deacon and Servant and Minister were all one in the equivalency of their power order and authority in the Church For any one nay all these names are in the latitude of their sense given to some one man or officer in the Church yet in the more strict precise and Emphatick sense they denote different gifts orders authorities dispensations and functions as well as degrees in the Church of Christ which did never confound Deacons with Presbyters nor Presbyters with Bishops nor all with the Apostles because the chief Apostles who contained in their ample authority and commission all Ecclesiasticall powers eminently under Christ are sometimes called Presbyters Compresbyters and also Deacons or Ministers of Jesus Christ and servants of the Church deriving all these powers in their severall degrees and orders to Bishops Presbyters and Deacons after them To the first as to a lesser sort of Apostles but chief Rulers or Overseers in the Church they gave the eminent and peculiar power of ordaining Presbyters and exercising spirituall jurisdiction over them as is evident in the power that Timothy and Titus had given them by Commission from the great Apostle St. Paul who certainly in this was conforme to
the necessity and use of Bishops yea they deny any flaw or defect to be in their new Presbyterian and popular ordinations for want of any other Bishops but themselves who are as pert in their novelty as ever any Prelates were in their antiquity That these Heteroclite or equivocall ordinations have of late been acted in England with much self applause and popular parade by meer Presbyters I well understand but quo jure by what right from God or man by what authority civill or Ecclesiasticall I could never yet see yea I am sure no law of God or men heretofore ever was thought to give any such power to meer Presbyters without yea against their lawfull Bishops insomuch that many learned and sober men have much blamed at least suspected these Presbyterian transactions for Schismaticall presumptions these ordinations for disorderly usurpations at least in such a Church as England was where there were and still are venerable Bishops of the orthodox faith reformed profession and ancient constitution willing and able to do their duty in the point of ordination Which in all ordinary cases appeares to have ever been their peculiar right specially derived to them as Bishops from the Apostles through all successions of times and Churches without any interruption except when some factious and insolent Presbyters ventured to be extravagant and usurpant whom all the learned Fathers venerable Councils and good Christians in the Church every where condemned as most injurious because usurping that Authority which no Apostle no Councill no Bishop ever gave to any that were meer Presbyters in their Ordination and Commission no more than the Lawes or Canons of this Church and State Nor is there as far as I can perceive any one place in Scripture that by any precept or example invests either one or more simple Presbyters with the power of trying and examining of laying on of hands of giving holy orders as from themselves alone of committing or transmitting what they had received to other faithfull men that should be able to teach All which were given to Timothy and Titus as chief Bishops The Pope of Rome indeed animated by those flatterers which would make him the sole Bishop by Divine right and all other Bishops as surrogates to him dependants upon him and derived from him as if there had not been 12 or 13 but onely one â—â—sion â—lick Chaire or prime seat of Episcopacy hath some â—eath given power of ordination to such as were but Presbyters as â—nd read of some Abbots and Priors but it was alwaies to the great scandall of the best Bishops and Presbyters of the Church as contrary to all ancient Orders Canons and Customes of the Church unlesse he first made them as Chorepiscopi or suffragane Bishops But in earnest it is hard to judge whether Popes or Presbyters be most enemies to Catholick Bishops As for the pious pomp and the specious apparences the formall dressings and verball adornings which they say are used by Presbyters in their late Ordinations in England though I never saw any of them yet I have heard and read so much of them as gives me to judge far less to be in them of authority true complete and valid than ought to be For besides the persons not impowered or commissionated to that office there is as I heare no transmitting and so no receiving of the holy Spirit as to that Ministeriall Order and Power which is thereby derived to Ministers as from Christ whatever there may be of godly solemnity and plausible formalities which are usually more studied and affected to please the people there where men are most conscious to the defect of authentick reall and righteous power But all these saintly shewes to wise men signifie nothing no nor the personal abilities either of the ordainers or ordained who cannot by their personall power knowledg virtues graces or private gifts make any Officer in State or in Armies in War or in Peace much lesse in the Church and Ministry of Jesus Christ Alas no private capacity in any man can make the least petty Constable or Bailiffe or Corporall or Serjeant without they first have a publick and lawfull Commission from the fountains of Authority to give them an Authority far beyond any private arrogancy and presumed sufficiency of their own Possibly extraordinary cases may in time be their own excuses in such Churches where Bishops may be all dead or banished or where such as are Orthodox cannot be had and they that are will not ordain any Presbyters without imposing upon them such things as are erroneous and unlawfull but nothing can be pleaded that I yet see no nor doth the candor and charity of Bishop Usher know how to excuse such Presbyters from being Schismaticks factious presumptuous and disorderly who first cast off and forsake such Bishops as are of the same faith and reformed profession worthy and willing able and ready every way authorized by Church and State to do their duty The contempt and rejecting of such Bishops is I fear a great sin before God I am sure a great grievance to such Churches as first suffer those distractions And no doubt it is as a great so a needlesse scandall to most Churches and the best Christians in all the world nor can it be other then a foule reproach and scorn cast on all pious antiquity nor will it prove other than a lasting misery to any Church and Nation that wilfully continues that guilt and defect upon themselves and their posterity especially when God â—s them sufficient meanes to remedy that mischief to supply thâ—â—fects and to compose those differences which are ever followâ—â—he waâ— much more the needlesse expulsion of Primitive Episcopacy For whose power and authority while either Presbyters or people are scrambling they do but make Religion a May-game bring as we see both themselves and their Ministry into contempt for no Presbyters or people can while the world stands ever stamp such an honor and Authority Ecclesiasticall upon themselves as was in all ages and by all Churches consent besides the Scripture-Character and Apostolick signature set upon Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which ever united centred and confirmed power in one man not over all which the Pope affects but over their Dioceses or Provinces A 4 th Objection much flourished by some popular Preachers against Bishops and all Episcopacy in any Authority and eminency above Presbyters is that Episcopacy is the root of Popery that Prelates were the parents of Antichrist that every Bishop hath a Pope in his belly and that the Pope is no other than an overgrown Bishop that to rout all Popery and raze the foundations of Romes pride all Prelacy or Episcopacy must be stubbed up My answer to this is that this objection sounds as little of truth as it savours much of malice especially in any Presbyters of any learning and ingenuity who well know the abasing of Bishops is the design and hath
Church in all Ages and places of which we have two expresse witnesses and great exemplifications in the commissions given by Saint Paul to Timothy and Titus both as to ordination and jurisdiction Such as hath been preserved in the Church through all times and places as a sacred depositum of Spirituall power enabling Bishops and Presbyters to act as Ministers of Christ in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit in those holy Offices and Mysteries which are instituted by them for the calling collecting constituting and governing of the Church in a regular society and visible polity which least of all affects or admits any novelty or variety in its holy orders or authority Which great Trust Power and Commission for duly ordaining and sending forth Ministers into the Church of Christ no man not wilfully blind but must confesse that it hath been in all times parts and states of the Church of Christ executed if not onely yet chiefly by the Ecclesiasticall presidents or Bishops in every grand distribution of the Churches polity So as it was never regularly warrantably or completely done by any Christian people or by any Presbyters or Preachers without the presence consent or permission of their respective Bishops in the severall limits or partitions Nor was this great sacred and solemn work of Ordination ever either usurped by Bishops as arrogant and imperious or executed by them as a thing arbitrary and precarious but it was alwaies owned esteemed and used by all true Christians both Ministers and People as an Authority Sacred and Divine fixed and exercised by way of spirituall Jurisdiction and power Ecclesiasticall specially inherent and eminently resident in Bishops as such that is so invested with the peculiar power of conferring holy orders to others even from the hands and times of the Blessed Apostles who had undoubtedly this power placed in them and as undoubtedly ordered such a transmission of it as to Timothy and Titus so to all those holy Bishops that were their Primitive Successors who did as they ought still continue that holy succession to all ages by laying on such Episcopall hands as were the unquestionable Conservators and chief distributers of that Ministeriall power ever esteemed Sacred Apostolick Catholick and Divine being from one fountain or source Jesus Christ and uniformly carried on by one orderly course without any perverting or interrupting from any good Christians either Presbyters or people Nor were they ever judged other than factious schismaticall irregular impudent and injurious who either usurped to themselves a power of Ordination or despised and neglected it in their lawfull and orthodox Bishops upon any pretence of parity or popularity as Learned Saravia proves unanswerably against Mr. Beza when to make good the new Presbyterian Consistory at Geneva he sought in this point to weaken the ancient Catholick and constant prerogative of Episcopall Ordination which never appeares either in Scripture to have been committed or in any Church-History to have been used by any Presbyters or People apart from much lesse in despite and affront of the respective Bishops which were over them This great power of Ordination which the Author to the Hebrewes signifies by the solemn ceremonie or laying on of hands is esteemed by that Apostolick writer as a maine principle or chief pillar of Christian Religion in respect of Ecclesiastick Order Polity Peace Authority and Comfort necessary for all Christians both as Ministers and as people in sociall and single capacities For there is ordinarily no true and orthodox believing without powerful and authoritative preaching and there can be no such preaching without a just mission or sending from those in whom that Sacred Commission hath ever been deposited exemplified and preserved which were the Bishops of the Church beyond all dispute who did not ordaine Presbyters in private and clandestine fashions but in a most publick and solemn manner after fasting preaching and praying so as might best satisfie the Presbyters assistant and the people present at that grand transaction both of them being highly concerned the first what Ministers or fellow labourers were joyned with them in the work of the Lord the other what Pastors and Teachers were set over them as from the Lord and not meerly from man in any natural morall or civill capacity whence the authority of the Christian Ministry cannot be since it is not of man or from man but from that Lord and God who is the great Teacher and Saviour of his Church who onely could give power as gifts meet for the Pastors Bishops and Teachers of it These serious weighty and undoubted perswasions touching one uniforme holy and divine ordination being fixed in the consciences of all wise and sober Christians it will follow without all peradventure that true Religion as Christian and Reformed will never be able to recover in this or any Christian Nation its pristine lustre and Primitive Majesty its ancient life and vigor its due credit and comfort much lesse its just Power and Authority over mens hearts and consciences untill this point of Ordination or solemn investiture of fit men into Ministeriall Office and Power be effectually vindicated and happily redeemed from those moderne intrusions usurpations variations and dissentions which are now so rife among Preachers themselves whence flow those licentious and insolent humors so predominant in common people who by dividing the other by usurping both by innovating in this point of Ordination have brought those infinite distractions contempts and indifferences upon Religion and its Ministry as Christian and Reformed which are at this day to be seen in England beyond any Nation that I know under Heaven It is most certain that the major part of mankind yea and of formall Christians too do not much care for the power of any Religion nor for the Authority of any Ministry no nor for any serious profession or form of Religion further than these may suite with their fancies lusts and interests If custome or education have dipped them in some tincture of Religion during their minority if the cords of counsell and example have bound them up to some form of godlinesse in their tender yeares and tamer tempers yet as they grow elder they are prone to grow bolder to sin and to affect such refractory liberties as may not onely dispute and quarrell some parts but despise and trample under feet all the frame of Religion that is not indulgent to their humors or compliant to their inordinate desires and designes Especially when once they find publick disorders distractions and disgraces cast upon that very Religion in which they were instituted when they see contumelies and affronts cast upon that whole Church in which they were baptized and all manner of contemptuous insolencies offered to those chief Church-men by whom they had received the derivations and dispensations of all Holy Orders Truths and Mysteries When men see new Religions new Churches new Ministers and new modes of Ordination set up to the reproch
among learned godly and wise men Nor doe I beleeve that in point of conscience they have hitherto found any great improvement of piety in themselves their families children and servants Yea I cannot but think they must be very sensible of those many breaches flawes and leakings which daily grow as upon their Country so upon their Parishes and Families by the extravagancies of their children strangenesse of their acquaintance and irreligiousnesse of their servants besides the factiousnesse of their neighbours and coldnesse of their very kindred who all affect according as they are cunning proud or simple the name of LIBERTY in Religion that is in some mens sense neither much to feare God nor to reverence Man However I wonder that any persons of great worth and prudence can with indifferency see the publique Nationall interests of Religion sinking which are the greatest jewels ornaments and honour of any Nation so as themselves may but have liberty to swim or paddle in what new pond puddle or plash of Religion they list to fancie 'T is strange to me that any persons of steady and sober brains should not easily foresee that these strange vertigo's these tempests and continuall tossings of Religion will in a short time if they have not already make the whole Nation quite giddie and as it were sea-sick even to a vomiting up of its Reformation But if there be indeed a Libertie indulged to every one for the picking and choosing what way of worship Religion Church and Ministery best likes them sure it will be the greatest honour and noblest freedome of all true English Christians to own and adhere to that solidly soberly Reformed Religion which was duly setled in this Church of England by better heads and I think as honest hearts as any either brochers or abetters of novelties can justly pretend to who as I conceive come vastly short in all their variations and new inventions of that Scripturall verity Catholick antiquity yea and of that Parlamentary authority and majesty which had once happily reformed and established Religion in this Church of England by the full counsell and free consent of all Estates Princes and People Clergy and Laity What is of late by Novellers pretended of an Apostolique rudenesse plainnesse illiteratenesse and simplicity which ought to be in Ministers of the Gospel is ridiculous unlesse these new Teachers could shew us their speciall gifts and extraordinary inspirations better than yet they have done which were indeed miraculously bestowed upon the Primitive Planters and Preachers but very superfluous in a Church so full and blest with the ordinary endowments of pious literature and all good learning both Humane and Divine as England was How childish an affectation were it in the Gentrie of England to forbeare to ride on good horses because Christ once rode upon an asse shewing that the greatest triumph of all Christians is humility lowlinesse and meeknesse How silly were it in them to expect that Asses should alwayes be able to instruct them because Balaams asse did once with great justice and a prodigious gravity rebuke his masters madnesse Much lesse should Gentlemen of worth and breeding be such silly sots and children as to fancie that every jingling hobby-horse will be sufficient to carry them to heaven No the ministery of your souls is a far greater work requiring greater ability and better authority to convince men of their sins to encounter their lusts to moderate their passions to purge out their corruptions to break and soften their hearts to terrifie and appease their consciences to prepare them for God to graft them by true faith into a crucified God and Saviour to wean them from the world to win them to goodnesse to pull them out of hell and the devils snares to bring them to heaven and into the arms of Christ All which are the great works of true able and authoritative Ministers requiring other-gates workmen than are now in many places much in fashion among common people though not so in favour with the wiser and better sort of Christians in England as to prefer these mens new and various fancies before the wise constitutions the ancient customes the Catholick and Religious Orders of the Church of England established by their pious and prosperous Progenitors All the world at home and abroad sees that after all the many changes and troublesome essayes of new-modelling the civill state of this Nation yet true reason of State and publique peace doe command yea inforce us to justifie the wisdome of our Fore-fathers by bringing back matters of Soveraigntie power and government to the former plat-form and polity as to reality onely changing a few formalities Truly this makes me not despaire but when all new fangles of Religion and popular models of Churches have been tryed in vain and are found as they will be both impertinent and incompetent for the happy state of Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation we may by Gods blessing return to those pristine and primitive forms of sound doctrine uniform order and government which were never taken up by any private inventions here or elsewhere but were of Catholick observation and so no doubt of Apostolique direction and divine institution Which if all men should silently forsake and in so doing reproch not onely the Church of England but the very first Catholique and Apostolique Churches yet let me cease to live when I cease to sympathize with them in their unjust reproches and with Her in her great distresses and 't is fit my tongue should cleave to my mouth when I forbear or am afraid to pray for the peace and happy restitution of our Jerusalem I who have seen Her in such order beauty peace plenty honour prosperity and piety I who have received in her bosome and tuition so many and great mercies not onely temporall but I hope spirituall and eternall I who desire my posterity kindred friends and countrey may never have other God or Saviour than what was owned and worshipped in the Church of England no other Scriptures and Gospel than what have here been excellently preached and comfortably believed no other Sacraments than such as were here duly administred and devoutly received no other Liturgie or prayers and holy offices than such as were here both publiquely proposed and privately used no better Bishops Presbyters pastors and guides of their souls both for learned abilities exemplary life than such as I have known frequent and flourishing in the Church of England I pray God they may but have as good for better Ministers and better means of salvation as they shall not need them so they cannot have them without miracles of which God is no prodigall I should greatly sin if I should not daily sigh and weep over the Church of England if I should not poure our my soule to the God and Father of Mercies for Her since she is now counted by many as Jeremie complains an out-cast and forsaken whom no
Christian Emperors the Churches Polity and Government being carried on by the same Apostolical power and Episcopal spirit was highly promoted even to secular Dignities and Estates Bishops being not onely every where unfeignedly venerated by all sorts of Christians as chief Pastors and spiritual Fathers succeeding to the chief Apostles by an uninterrupted and undoubted succession of which every Church had pregnant Records and Memorials but they were invested in such civil honors as make them Peers to the Senators Nobles or Patricians of the Empire which was more to their pomp and lustre but not more to their Episcopal authority and that filial respect which was paid to Bishops by all good Christians even then when they and their Clergy had nothing to live upon but the dona Matronarum oblationes Communicantium the contributions and offerings of devout people In this fair and sun-shine-weather as secular Peace and Plenty increased to the Church so Christianity spread very far as to the Fashion Profession and Form of it in branches and leaves but grew among many less fruitful in the real effects of Piety and Charity many now thronged into Christs Church but fewer touched him with the hand of Faith so as to heal their infirmities Yea as in the very first times under the Apostolical Episcopacy the Simonians Nicolaitans Gnosticks Corinthians and others afterward during the still-persecuting Ages the Marcionites Carpocratians Valentinians Montanists and others so in the most prosperous times the Manichees Novatians Donatists Arrians and Pelagians with diverse others became as branches either miserably split and slivered by their own schismatick and separate humors or quite wholy broken off by blasphemous Apostasies and the just sentences of Excommunication from that one Catholick Church and the unanimous Bishops of its communion for whom one Bishop did rightly excommunicate by the lesser or greater câ—nsure all Bishops Presbyters and Christians in all the world did the same virtually Hence many lesser and greater branches even some Bishops with their whole Presbyters and Churches grew sometimes scare and withered twice dead and pulled up by the roots by Error and Obstinacy by voluntary Desertion and Ecclesiastick Abdication as many Arrian and Donatist Bishopâ— Yet still by the correspondence and care of the excellently learned resolute and unanimous Bishops of the fourth fifth and sixth Centuries with their orderly Presbyters and faithful Flocks the Church ceased not to flourish for the most part in Verity and Unity in Piety and Charity as well as in civil Peace Plenty and Honour the holy and good Bishops every where still clearing the mosse and cankers which grew upon this fair Tree they pruned the Excrescencies and superfluities both of Jewish presumptions and Heathenish superstitions all and every one being prudently intent as far as times and the manners of men would bear to preserve his lot part or Diocese committed to him by consent of the people by the choice of his Presbyters and by the comprecation or consecration of his collegues the Neighbour-bishops so as became the relation they had to the whole Church after the grand patterns and models received from the blessed Apostles who first as Bishops of equal size and authority yet as men using an orderly precedency sprang from that one Root Christ Jesus and by their united Ministry spread abroad the Church far and neer 'T is true the primitive severity and rigour of Christian discipline much abated in times of greater peace and plenty many primitive signs of Christian love and communion as the Holy Kisse their Love-feasts their Oblations their Hospitality to all Christian strangers and the like were crowded out by the Wantonness Factiousness Hypocrisie Luxury and Avarice of some Christians besides Church-mens Ambition and Hereticall Furie none of whom would indure the sharp yoke of primitive Pennances Abstentions Castigations and many wayes of Mortification by Watching Sackcloth Fasting Prostrating Weeping Confessing c. At length Mahometan poyson and power cruelly pressed upon the divided and debauched Eastern Churches after this the Papal policy and power by insensible degrees in ignorant and turbulent Ages so prevailed upon the blindness and credulity of these Western Churches who were much wasted also with wars in Spain Italy Franee and here in Britanny by domestick Rebellions and barbarous Invasions that the face of this goodly Tree was much battered and altered from the primitive floridnesse and fruitfulnesse the Roman Church and its Bishop or Patriarch being like an Hydropick body swoln by secular Pride and Usurpation so much beyond its pristine comelinesse and honor that in stead of an holy and humble Apostolick Bishop of the same Order and Authority with his other brethren he must be owned in a superecclesiastical and a superepiscopal and a superimperial height as Lord and Soveraign and Prince above that is called God in Church and State Yet still while this Papal branch presumed thus to grow beyond its proportions to the over-dropping and dwindling of all other parts of the Church its form or fashion as a Tree in its winter or less-thrifty state remained even under those sad seasons of Papal perturbations and presumptions God never suffering the Church to be quite deformed much less hewen down because it was never so barren even in those dayes but it brought forth some tolerable Bishops Presbyters and other Christians yea many of them very commendable ones Neither Papal Foxes nor Mahometane Wild Bores had ever power to lay it quite wast or overthrow it both root and branch as to its saving foundations or its orderly constitutions or its authoritative successions in Bishops Presbyters and Deacons still holy Mysterys and holy Orders the holy Ministry and holy Scriptures holy Examples holy Doctrines holy Duties and holy Lives were continued in such order and by such conduct as easily represented the primitive pattern and Apostolick figure of this Tree though with many accressions and some deformities which time and ignorance and superstition or humane policy and secular pride had affixed to some main Branches of it in these Western parts of the Church yet the ancient Lineaments and true Model were very visible in Christian People Christian Deacons Christian Presbyters and Christian Bishops directed into several stations as Helps for the more orderly carrying on of the Churches Government in grand and national combinations In this posture stood the state of the Catholick Church as in all other places where the Vastations of Saracens and Turks had left any miserable Remnants of Christian Churches so most eminently in this Western world which the Providence of God had not yet wholly delivered over to Gog or Magog none of these Churches were without their Deacons Presbyters and Bishops untill that great Reparation rather than Alteration of Christian Religion began in these Western Churches about the Year 1520. which was justly called a blessed Reformation in many respects as to clearing the corruptions of Doctrine and Manners which had been contracted every where which
a steddy judgement and unpopular spirit who pressed upon his Unepiscopal much more against his Antiepiscopal Presbytery so strongly that he forced his Antagonist to stoop and subscribe to Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy yea and to acknowledge Bishops even from the Apostles dayes to have been the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ◠Presidents or chief Rulers among Presbyters in all Churches Mr. Beza's Essayes not so much to have undermined Episcopacy as to have fixed or earthed his Presbytery better being thus notably countermined yet upon his very breaking the earth and promising at least pretending to spring some rich Mine of Scripture and Antiquity to prove if not the sole yet at least the concurrent Divine right of Presbytery on both sides of it both as to its preaching ruling Elders as stamped with the mark of Christ and his Apostles besides his and others terrifying the world as if Popery had begun with Prelacy and Antichrist had sucked the breasts of Episcopacy it is not imaginable what industrious Pioneers and Souldiers followed these charms this alarme for Presbytery against Episcopacy who sifting every name of Bishop Presbyter Elder Evangelist Messenger Apostle Prophet Pastor Teacher Ruler Governments Helps c. in Scripture and Antiquity found or fancied upon all of them something that made very much if not onely for Presbytery and very much if not wholly against Episcopacy so far that they would not allow so much as the twelve or thirteen prime Apostles any Episcopal Presidency Eminency or Authority above the seventy Disciples or any Presbyters whom they ordained much less any Bishop after them above the youngest meanest and pettiest Presbyter rather suspecting yea aspersing all Antiquity even in the primitive and purest times for Ignorance and Error or Falsity and Ambition in following the Catholick custom of Episcopacy after the great Apostolical pattern which was in them given to all Churches by the Spirit of Christ and after continued by the Apostles own appointment than any way admitting any Innovation Flaw or Defect to be in their new-formed Presbytery Heats unhappily growing great and Eruptions many from the Etna or Vesuvius of mens passions the sulphur and ashes at last came from Geneva Franckfort and Edenborough over to England where at first they onley fell upon the square Caps and Rochets of our excellent reformed and reforming Bishops but at last they flew in their very Faces and Eyes without any respect to their Age Learning Piety Sanctity and Martyrly Constancy besides the honourable places they still held both in Church and State according to our Laws For the Undertakers for the Cause as they called it of Jesus Christ first picking at the outworks of Ceremonies next at the spiriritual Courts or Jurisdictions of Bishops after that at the excellent Liturgy at last they laid amain at the whole Body as well as the Branches of Episcopacy going much further than ever their first Founders of Presbytery abroad or the modester Non-conformists at home ever designed or desired Thus a bolder Generation of men stopping their ears against all the charms of Scripture Antiquity Universality Prudence personal Merits publick Blessings and all proportions of Government and Polity only urging a peremptory necessity and a self-inforcing novelty perfected that in a dreadful War which was neither begun nor promoted nor desired by the chief Magistrate nor by his chief Council in its pristine fulness and freedom nor ever before was acted in any reformed Church whatsoever against their reformed Bishops After much bustling and blood-shed in perilous times this crooked and low shrub of Presbytery which having never much thriven or grown handsomly in Scotland or in any other Kingdom where it had been happily and handsomly grafted by King James with a renewed and well-reformed Episcopacy this bitten mangled and mis-shapen was brought over on the swords point and wrapped up in the cover of a Covenant as Plants in Mats to be set in this good soyl of England after sweating Smectymnuus and the industrious Assembly with many Heads Hands Tongues and Pens had digged and prepared the ground for it by gaining the minds of some wel-affected Members in the two Houses and others in other places About the Year 1649. the Fasces Imperiales and the Sacrae Secures the Holy Rods and Imperial Axes of Presbytery were displayed to England in their Ruling and Teaching Elders in their High and Mighty Consistories Parochial Classical Provincial National Oecumenical for the Presbyterian power was in all the world to prevail against Episcopacy as Daniels He-goat did against the Ram casting him to the ground and stamping upon him Every Presbyter young and old ripe and raw was to have not onely a sword in his mouth but a switch of correption in his hand which lest he should use too rashly and sharply he was to be pinioned and surrounded with certain Lay-Elders each of them furnished also with a Rod of Disciplinarian or ruling power equal to the Minister All this dreadful dispensation of Presbyterian discipline was pontifically and punctually set out by many discourses to the no small wonder of all wise men who knew the disproportions to all Government generally which were both in younger Ministers and in most Lay-men of plain parts and plebeian breeding such as in most places these herds of ruling Elders must be into whom the spirit of Government must presently enter And no less terrible was this paradox and parado of Presbyterian Discipline and Severity even to Common-people yea and to the most of the ablest Gentry and Nobility except some few whose itch and ambition of a Lay-elderships place had possibly biassed them to smile upon their persons and their now Presbytery to which they were invited solemnly to be Gossips Thus armed and marshalled in its Ranks and Regiments Presbytery began to hasten its March in its might furiously enough setting up its Conventions Ordinations Jurisdictions trying the metal and temper of its Censures by Ebaptizations Correptions Abstentions Excommunications and new Examinations even of ancient Christians old and eminent Disciples to whom they had formerly given the Sacrament twenty times some of which they sought to win by fair speeches some people they perswaded others they menaced and scared to submit to their new Scepter Daily Intelligences and brotherly Correspondencies were zealously kept every where very quick and warm among the Presbyterian Fraternity Bishops never so aged learned unblameable venerable and meritorious for their Labours and good Examples were as Underlings and conquered Vassals not so much as pittied but despised and trampled under foot exautorated and vilified by every young stripling that had got the switch of Presbytery in his hand which he saw now was beyond the Bishops Keyes or Crosier Presbytery thus driving at Jehu's rate for some time some of its wheels or pins like Pharaohs began to drop off which forced it to drive more heavily than its natural genius can well bear being spirited like Ezekiel's wheels with so
violence wrested the staffe out of its hands Presbytery seeming like the plant called Touch me not which flies in the face and breaks in the fingers of those that presse it but Independency as the sensible plant rather yielding to then resisting any hand that is applyed to it This later and softer plant no sooner almost began to be set on foot in England about the year 1650. but it soon gained much ground of Presbytery which had been an old bitten shrub ill rooted and never very florishing or fruitfull and lesse apt to be now at last transplanted But Independency as a new slip or full-shoot springs up apace spreads its roots and branches without any noise erects its Churches as fast as Presbytery could its Consistories out of the ruines of Presbyterians Parishes as well as of Bishops Dioceses Independency hath no great line or out-work to maintain and so can do it with fewer numbers and lesse noise it desired onely in Peace to enjoy it self affecting no forced ambition or unvoluntary Rule over others as did Presbytery it professeth to aime at nothing but a nearer and greater strictnesse of Sanctity Unity and Charity among Christians in their Church-way than it thought could well be had among the larger combinations of Presbyterian or Episcopall Churches which they think are not easily managed without much labour and toile besides offence and complaint because they urge many things as of duty and by constraint when this is onely by every ones free will and consent Nothing is more soft and supple than Independency in its first render branches and blossomes nor is it other than a little Embryo of Episcopacy in a little Parish or Diocese For Bishops Presbyters and People did of old and at first so neerly correspond as Fathers Brethren and Sons of a Family when they were but few and scarce made up one great Congregation in a City where one Minister at first was both Pastor and Teacher Bishop and Presbyter who as Christians increased ordained them Presbyters to carry on the work and yet to keep a filial Correspondency with him and respect to him as became them The pomp and solemnity of Independent Episcopacy is lesse but the Power and Authority Ecclesiasticall is though broken and abrupt yet full as great and absolute as to all Church-uses and intents as ever Bishops challenged How far this willow will grow an oake more rough and robust as it growes Elder Bigger Higher and Stronger no man knowes I presume it cannot have better beginnings of Order Unity Purity Piety Charity Meekness and Wisdom than Episcopacy had in its first Institution which is owned by all learned men to be at least Apostolicall both as to the enlarged Churches made up of many Congregations and the enlarged Authority of one Bishop placed by the Apostles over many Presbyters and Congregations so gathered by them into one Ecclesiastick Society or Combination as those Primitive Churches were in the Scripture Nor can it have more specious and modest beginnings for Purity and Sanctity than some former sects have professed such as were the Novatians and Donatists of which St. Cyprian and Optatus with St. Austin and others give us liberall accounts whose procedings did not answer their beginnings either in Modesty Charity or Equity but from rending from they fell to reviling and ruining all Churches but their own From the rise and advantages which these two new and now almost parallel plants in England Presbytery and Independency neither of which are yet any way grown up comparable to the Procerity Height and Goodliness which Episcopacy had and yet hath as in many Churches of Christ so in many English mens minds notwithstanding that both of them as notable suckers strive all they can to draw away all sap and succour from the old root of Episcopacy that it may quite wither and be extirpated every where as it hath been lately with Swords and Pickaxes terribly lopped and almost quite stubbed up in England From these two I say which have so much pleased either some Ministers or People with shewes of Novelty Liberty and share of Authority other Parties Sects and Factions have began to set up their scaling ladders and for a time staying one of their feet either on the standards of Presbytery or Independency they fall amaine with their hatchets to hack and hew down the remaines of all Episcopal order and Communion in Churches to cut off the battered stript and bare branches of that Ancient and goodly Tree which contained once the Catholick Church under its boughs and shade Thus these petty planters begin their new plantations that every one set up new Churches and Pastors after their own Hearts Opinions and Fancies making use of what seare barren and Schismatick slips or abscissions they are able to break or cut off aiming still to plant as they say further off from the root and bulk of Episcopacy as a notable character of more perfect Reformation than either Presbytery or Independency seem to have done who sometime professe they can comply with something in Episcopacy Hence first Erastians or Polititians begin to resolve all Churches into States all Ministry into Magistracy making no other origine of Church-power than that of the Common-wealth nor of any Ministers Bishops or Presbyters Authority than of a Justice or a Captaine or a Constable After this Anabaptists Quakers Enthusiasts Seekers Ranters all sorts of Fanatick Errors and lazy Libertines pursue their severall designes and interests under the notions of some new-found Church Sprigs and better plantations filling all places in England like a wood or thicket with Bushes and Briers and Thornes of Separations Abscissions Raptures Ruptures Novelties Varieties Contentions Contradictions Inordinations Reordinations Deordinations and Inordinations no Ordinations scarce owning any Church or Christians which are not just of their way and form as Optatus tells us the Donatist Bishop Parmenian and his party did All of them agreeing with Presbytery and Independency in this one thing however differing in others as in the matter of Tithes which these are reconciled to that they are enemies against all Diocesan Ruling Episcopacy quarrelling even the Honesty and Credit of Primitive Churches on that account despising all the Fathers and all the Councils and Canons of all Churches as levened with Episcopacy The reason in all of them is one and the same because true Episcopacy was a notable curb and restraint and remedy equally against all Schisms and Innovations in the Church of Christ as St. Hierom tells us And further by its venerable Authority so Famous so Ancient so Universal so Primitive so truely Apostolick it infinitely and intolerably upbraids all their Novelties and Extravagancies besides they are conscious that they shall hardly ever one for a hundred either equallize or exceed in many Ages the useful and excellent Abilities Gifts Graces and Miracles or the Benefits and Blessings which by and under regular and holy Episcopacy the Lord was pleased to bestow if ever any were
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
liberty as to endanger their own and other mens safety they are like Porpuices pleased with storms especially of their own raising they joy in the tossings of Religion and hope for a prey by the wrecks both of well-built Churches and well-setled States they fancy it a precious liberty to swim in a wide sea though they be drowned at last or swallowed up by sharks they triumph to see other poor souls dancing upon the waves of the dead sea to be overwhelmed with ignorance idleness Atheism profaneness perdition which is the usual and almost unavoidable fate of those giddy-headed mad-brain'd people who being happily embarqued and orderly guided in any well-setled Church do either put their ablest Pilots under hatches or cast them over-boord which hath been of late years the religious ambition of many thousands in order forsooth to recover and enjoy their imaginary Christian liberties which soon make common people the sad objects of wise mens grief and pity rather than of their joy or envy For like wandring sheep they naturally affect an erroneous and dangerous freedome from their shepherds and their folds that they may be free for foxes wolves and doggs yea some of them by a strange metamorphosis that they may seem Christs sheep turn wolves seizing upon and destroying their own shepherds which the true flock of Christ never did either in the most persecuted or the most peacefull times of the Church but were ever subject with all humility and charity to those godly Bishops and Presbyters which were by Apostolicall succession and Divine authority over them in the Lord whom they were so far from stripping robbing or devouring that both Christian Princes and faithfull people endowed them with most gratefull and munificent expressions of their loves and esteem even in primitive and necessitous times as a due and deserved honour to men of learning piety and gravity who watched over their souls being both wel enabled and duly ordained to be their rulers and guides to heaven But now who sees not by the sad experience of the Church of England how the plebs or common people yea all persons of plebeian spirits of base and narrow minds who are the greatest sticklers for those enormous and pernicious liberties who sees not how much they would be pleased to set up Jeroboams calves if they may have liberty to chuse the meanest of the people to be their Priests or some scabbed and stragling sheep to be their shepherds if they may make some of their mechanick comrades to be their Pastors and Ministers examined and ordained by their silly selves O how willing are they poor wretches in their thirst for novelty liberty and variety as Theophylact observes to suffer any pitifull piece of prating impudence who walketh in the spirit of falshood to impose upon them so far as to be their Preacher and Prophet if he will but prophecy to them of liberty and soveraignty of sacred and civil Independency of corn wine and strong drink of good bargains and purchases to be gained out of the ruines of the Church and the spoils of Church-men O how little regret would it be to such sacrilegious Libertines to have no Christian Sabbath or Lords dayes as well as no Holy-dayes or solemn memorials of Evangelical mercies How contented would they be with no preaching no praying no Sermons no Sacraments no Scriptures no Presbyters as well as no Bishops with no Ministers or holy Ministrations with no Church no Saviour no God further than they list to fancy thē in the freedom of some sudden flashes and extemporary heats There are that would still be as glad to see the poor remainder of Church-lands and Revenues all Tithes and Glebes quite alienated and confiscated as those men were who got good estates by the former ruines of Monasteries or the later spoylings of Bishops and Cathedrals nothing is sacred nothing sacrilegious to the all-craving all-devouring maw of vulgar covetousness and licentiousness O how glorious a liberty would it be in some mens eyes to pay no Tithes to any Minister much more precious liberty would it be to purchase them and by good penniworths to patch up their private fortunes Nothing in very deed is less valuable to the shameless sordid and dissolute spirits of some people than their souls eternall state or the service of their God and Saviour whom not seeing they are not very solicitous to seek or to serve further than may consist with their profit ease and liberty They rather chuse to go blindfold wandring and dancing to hell in the licentious frolicks of their fancifull Religions than to live under those holy orders and wholsome restraints which in all Ages preserved the unity and honour of true Christian Religion both by sober Discipline and sound Doctrine In the later of these the Clergy of England most eminently abounded and in the former of them they were not so much negligent which some complaine as too much checkt and curbed few men being so good Christians as to be patient of that severe Discipline which was used in the Primitive Churches which if any Bishop or Minister should have revived how would the rabble of Libertines cry out Depart from us we will none of your wayes neither Discipline nor Doctrine neither your Ministrations nor Ministry neither Bishops nor Presbyters let us break these Priestly bonds in sunder and cast these Christian cords from us our liberty is to lead our tame teachers by their noses to pull our asinine Preachers by their luculent ears to rule our precarious Rulers if they pretend to have or use any Ecclesiasticall authority so as to cross our liberties to curb our consciences or to bridle our extravagancies we look upon them as men come to torment us before our time who seek to lead us away captive to deprive us of our dear God Mammon as Micah cried out after the Danites or of our great Goddess Liberty according to the jealousie which Demetrius and the Ephesine rabble had for their Diana against the Apostles This is the Idea of that petulant profane and fanatick liberty which vulgar people most fancy and affect for the enjoying of which they have made so many horrid clamours and ventured upon so many dangerous confusions both to their own and other mens souls in matter of Religion CHAP. V. I Shall not need by particular instances further to demonstrate to You my honoured Countrey-men what your own observation daily proclaims namely the strange pranks cabrioles or freaks which the vulgar wantonnesse hath plaid of late years under the colour and confidence of liberty in Religion provided they profess no other Popery or Prelacy than what is in their own ambitious hearts insolent manners Nor is this petulancy onely exercised in the smaller circumstances or disputable matters of Religion but even in the very main foundations such as have been established of old in all the generations and successions of
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
the firm ground less indeed to vulgar admiration but more to their own safety and others benefit S. Paul seriously represseth the vanity of knowledge falsly so called when men intrude themselves into things they understand not being puffed up as those primitive Gnosticks in their fleshly minds not holding the Truths as they are in Jesus nor content with the simplicity of the Gospel as it hath been delivered received understood believed and practised by the Catholick Church of Christ this check the Apostle gave to humane curiosities and Satanick subtilties even then when speciall gifts and revelations were at the highest tide CHAP. XVII THe better learned and more humble Ministers of the Church of England both Bishops and Presbyters ever professed with S. Austin and the renowned Ancients an holy nescience or modest ignorance in many things no less becoming the best Christians the acutest Scholars and profoundest Divines than their otherwayes vast knowledge and accurate diligence to search the Scriptures and find out things revealed by God which belong to the Church The modesty and gravity of their learning commends the vastness and variety of it as dark shadowes and deep grounds set off the lustre of fair pictures to the greater height They were not ashamed to subscribe to Saint Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfathomable depth the divine Abyss of unsearchable wisdome and knowledge they were not curious to pry into things above them or to stretch their wits and fancies beyond that line and measure of truth which God had set forth to his Church in his written Word and in those Catholick summaries thence extracted as the rule of Christian Faith Manners and Devotion whereto the spirits of all good Christians great and small learned and idiots were willingly confined of old as Irenaeus tells us they never boasted of raptures revelations new lights visions inspirations special missions and secret impulses from Gods Spirit beyond or contrary to Gods Word and the good order of his Church thereby to exercise their supposed liberties and presumptuous abilities that is indeed to satisfie their lusts disorders and extravagances in things civil and sacred to discover their immodesties and impudicities like the Cainites Ophites Judaites and Adamites to gratifie their luxuries and injuries their sacriledges and oppressions their cruelties against man and blasphemies against God their separations divisions and desolations intended against this Church The godly Pastors and people of Christs flock never professed any such impudent piety or pious impudence because they were evidently contrary to sound Doctrine and holy Discipline beyond and against the sacred precepts and excellent patterns of true Ministers sincere Saints and upright Christians whose everlasting limits are the holy Scriptures sufficient to make the man of God and Minister of Christ perfect to salvation They were not like children taken with any of these odde maskings and mummeries of the Devil who is an old master of these arts in false Prophets and false Apostles with their followers whose craft ever sought to advance their credits against the Orthodox Bishops Presbyters and professors of true Religion by such ostentations of novelties and unheard of curiosities in Religion which never of old or late made any man more honest holy humble or heavenly they never advanced Christians comforts solitary or sociall living or dying but kept both their Masters and Disciples in perpetual inquietudes perplexities and presumptions which usually ended in villanies outrages and despairs Nor will these new Masters late discoveries prove much better whereof they boast with so insolent and loud an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for all their rarities are but dead carkases which are become mummy by being long dried in the sands or wrapped up in searcloths they are not less dead though they seem less putrified to those whose simplicity or curiosity tempts them thus to rake into the skulls and sepulchres of old Hereticks idle Ecstaticks such as the very primitive times were infinitely pestred withal but blessed be God they were all long ago either extinct of themselves and gone down to the pit or crucified dead buried and descended into hell by the just censures Anathemaes and condemnations passed against them by the godly Bishops and Ministers of the Church in those ages Nor have these Spectres ever much appeared in this Church of England till these later years in which by the ruines and rendings of this Church they have gained a rotten kind of resurrection not to their glory but to their renewed shame and eternall infamy I trust in Gods due time when once the honour of the true Christian and Reformed Religion once happily setled and professed in the Church of England shall be again worthily asserted and re-established by your piety and prudence my noble and religious Countrey-men who have been and I hope ever will be the chief professors and constant Patrons of it under your God and your pious Governours Your prudence and piety your justice and generosity is best able to see through all those transports which are so transparent those specious pretences those artificiall mists and vapours which are used by some novel Teachers to abuse the common people that engaging them into eternall parties animosities and factions they may more easily by many mouths and hands not onely cry but utterly pull down this Reformed Church of England in its sound Doctrine wholsome Discipline Catholick Ministry sacred Order solemn Worship and Apostolick Government All which must now be represented to the world by these new Remonstrants as poor and pittifull carnall and common meer empty forms and beggarly elements fit to be cast out with scorn as reaching no further than Christ in the letter Jesus in the flesh Truth in the outward court Religion in the story or legend but they say the Ministers and other Christians of Old England are not come within the vaile to the Spirit and Mystery they have not that light within which far out-shines the paper-lanthern of Gods word without them CHAP. XVIII THese and such like are the uncouth expressions used to usher in under the names of liberty curiosity sublimity nothing but ignorance idlenesse Atheisme barbarity irreligion and utter confusion in this Church or at best as I shall afterward more fully demonstrate they are but van-courriers or agitators for Romish superstitions and Papall usurpations the end of all this gibberish is Venient Romani Put all these fine fancies and affected phrases together with all those strange phantasms in Religion which of late have haunted this Church like so many unquiet vermin or unclean spirits truly they spell nothing but first popular extravagances which are the embasings and embroylings of all true and Reformed Religion next they portend Popish interests and policies prevailing against this Church and State whose future advantages are cunningly but notably wrapt up in these plebeian furies and fondnesses as grocery wares are in brown paper Be confident the spirit of Rome which is
zelotries Anarchicall furies deformed reformings and desperate hypocrisies by which some men have like very foul chimneys not onely taken fire themselves according as their own lusts kindled them but they have sought to set this whole house of God the Reformed Church of England on fire under pretence forsooth of cleansing the soile and soot of it which appear now to have been more in their own hearts than any where else Have we not had enough of insolent railings bitter calumnies odious indignities and endless divisions brought upon this Reformed Church of England upon its Apostolick Ministry and all its Evangelical Ministrations as invalid superstitious Popish Antichristian abominable Besides the tragick depressions and undoings of many sober Ministers in their persons credits and estates who were justly esteemed by good Christians for very pious painfull and peaceable men yet have the storms of times not onely faln heavily upon them during the paroxysme of our civil wars but even since that tempest hath been allayed many poor Ministers beyond all other men have been afflicted with the strifes of tongues with schismatical despites with opinionative and disputative besides operative persecutions so far that many a grave and godly Minister hath not known whither to flie not so much for employment as for his safety or quiet that he might in any corner or cottage of the land be free from the molestations of those importune wasps those ill-natur'd Factionists who are his eternall Antagonists who first separating from him at length they preach or prate against him against his office orders and function counting themselves as a new swarm of Teachers sent of God to be to the former stock of Preachers like the hornets sent against the Canaanites that driving all the ancient orthodox duly ordained and well-learned Ministers out of the employment and communion of the Church this Canaan of England this good land this famous Church may wholly be in their possession Have we not had enough and too much of petulant practises scurrilous expressions and blasphemous insolencies cast even upon that God that Saviour that holy Spirit that blessed Trinity whom we adore and admire besides the neglects contempts and profanations cast upon our Sacraments our Sermons our Prayers I need not to adde and repeat the diminutions and indignities under which many worthy Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters do lie together with that whole Evangelical order and office which planted preserved and reformed this Church of England How many have questioned others derided a third sort divided from and not a few have utterly denied and as much as in them lies destroyed them all Hence many are grown to esteem all our Religion all our Reformation all Christian duties all Worship and Devotion no better than meer politick frauds specious fables popular fallacies cunning captivities witty mockeries and delusions of the people Yea that nothing might be wanting which malice can invent or act there are some so fierce and cunning enemies of the Church of England that to bring our Reformation into further defiance and disgrace among Papists Atheists and profane livers they dare to impute even their most putid errours their most extravagant fancies their most factious and flagitious practises either to reforming principles or to Gods Spirit and divine impulses O what astonishment what stupor what a lethargie what a dumbnesse what searednesse what deadnesse must needs possess the spirit of any Nation so Christian so Reformed so knowing and enlightened as the people of England sometime was to hear with patience yea with silence yea with connivence yea with smiles and seeming approbation such insolencies such extravagancies imputed to their Religion yea to their Reformation nay to the Spirit of their God and Saviour horrid and black enormities which deserve to be expiated with teares of blood as Gregory Nazianzen speaks of some abuses of Religion in his times O blessed God stir up such a pious shame sorrow and abhorrence in the generality of the people that these fedities may not become the sins of the nation Have we not had enough and too much of scepticall disputes and unedifying contests of unhealing questions and uncharitable quarrellings of bitter strifes and bloody contradictions of evil eyes and envious emulations prevailing like gangrenes or cancerous distempers even among those that profess to be godly and contend for the superiority of Sanctity By all which as S. Hilary passionately complains after the Arian fury had poysoned the Church in his times not onely unkind distances but mutuall defyances and damnings the Christian Reformed Religion sometime setled uniform and flourishing with verity charity decency divine authority and publick majesty in the Church of England is now made an annual menstruall and diurnall Faith or Religion as S. Hilary aptly deplores All things are either so snarled and intangled by infinite doubts and scruples or so wire-drawn by popular and petty disputes or so broken in sunder by factious divisions or so horrid by reciprocall Anathemaes like thunder-bolts cast on all sides in each others faces that the common sort of people know not what to make of Christian or Reformed Religion nor to what Ministers or Ministry to apply themselves with comfort and conscience The solid masse of pure gold which was the highest riches and honour of this nation the true and invaluable treasure of your souls while Religion as Christian and Reformed was carefully preserved as a precious and holy depositum this well-refined gold is now so dim and embased with dross or so malleated and beaten thin by perverse disputations that most men use Religion onely as leaf-gold to tip their tongues or gild over the superficies of their conversation withall or to set off as S. Austin observed of old in the crafty Manichees and others both Hereticks and Schismaticks of his time with the shew and lustre of Christian Religion all the new fancies projects policies and opinions of severall parties which are presently by their authors and abettors cryed up as the pure Ordinances of Jesus Christ the perfect mind of the Spirit the true meaning of the Scripture Gospel-truths hidden treasures Evangelick rarities yea that nothing might be thought to have been Christian Catholick clear and constant setled and indisputable as to Religion in this or any other Church of any other frame and fashion some men have sought not onely to shake and batter but to demolish and utterly overthrow the whole house of wisdome beating down all the grand and goodly pillars on the one side of faith repentance charity good works on the other side of Scriptures Ministry Worship and Sacramentall Mysteries as to the validity authority majesty sanctity solemnity and saving efficacy of them all Upon which the Catholick Church was every where anciently built even then when it was by the hands of the Apostles their successors the Primitive Bishops Presbyters Martyrs Confessors hewn out of the rock of heathenish barbarity idolatry polished by
grave godly and industrious men fit to govern and apt to teach the Church of Christ are still maintained and repeated daily yea raked up and increased by the popular oratory of some novel Ministers so far as to raise eternall prejudices and antipathies even against all those Presbyters which were or are of Episcopall ordination And the better to justifie these Novelties and Schisms in the Church of England which some were so eager and easie to begin so loth and unwilling to retract they still entertain their nauseous credulous and itching Disciples with all those odious stale and envious Crambes which are most welcome to vulgar ears and sacrilegious aims as how unfit it was for the Ministers of Jesus Christ who was the great pattern of piety and poverty to have great revenues stately Palaces and noble Lordships which more godly men do want for Preachers to have any titles of honour and respect as Lords to have any part of civil power or indeed of Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction All which honest employments and enjoyments I conceive under favour the excellent Bishops and other deserving Clergie-men in England were as worthy to enjoy and as able to use with honour conscience and charity as any of those men either military or civil who were most zealous to deprive to debase and to destroy the Hierarchy or just honour of the Ecclesiastick state in England Nor do I think it was any way displeasing to God or in the least kind unbecoming the name of Christ for Bishops and other Ministers of his Church to have such ample estates and honourable preferments for their double honour in so plentifull a land as England was this I am sure it was far less beseeming any good Christian to repine at them and unjustly to deprive them of them If this envious vein of popular oratory grow at length fulsome vile and ridiculous as it is now to all sober and judicious auditors then the Anti-episcopall parties of Ministers devoutly rip up and sadly repeat whatever they have heard or others invented of any Bishops faults or the Episcopall Clergies past infirmities whatever they can they rake up though long ago buried as it ought to be in the charitable forgetfulness of all good men who either consider their own frailties or remember how many holy Bishops were Martyrs and Confessors in all ages of persecution how learned how diligent how commendable how admirable how useful they were to this Church for their preaching writing and living in times of persecution as well as peace even here in England All good Bishops and other Clergie as I have formerly expressed confess themselves as men to be subject to infirmities and temptations the best Bishops and Ministers least deny this truth being every day most vigilant to resist the one and amend the other These allegations then like the Devils quoting of Scripture though they may have some squint-ey'd truth in them yet they are spitefully partially and most impertinently alledged against all Bishops especially by those fierce Presbyterians or other implacable Preachers who have now liberally taught the English world that however the riches pomp and honours of Presbyterian or Independent or other Preachers are much against their wills far less than those which God and man reason and Religion order and polity devotion and gratitude Law and Gospel allowed to Bishops and Presbyters heretofore that the eminency of their office and place in the Church might have something of honourable splendour and hospitable magnificence proportionable to its venerable authority and great antiquity yet men are not so blinded by that popular dust stirred up against the faults and names of Bishops as not to see that the pride covetousness and imperiousness of the most furious and factious Anti-episcopall Ministers come not one jot behind any of those Bishops whom they look upon and represent with the most malignant aspect O how magisteriall are many new masters in their opinions how authoritative in their decisions how supercilious in their conversations how severe in their censures how inexorable in their passions how implacable in their wrath how inflexible in their factions how irrevocable in their transports though never so rash heady plebeian and unsuccessfull by which they at once forsook their duties to others and their own mercies And this many of them did to please others or themselves contrary to their former judgements their sworn and avowed subjection to Bishops for many years when they paid that respect to those Fathers and Governours of this Church which the laws of God and man required long before either Presbytery was hatched or Independency gendered in England The sharp severities and early rigours of both which parties and their Consectaries grew quickly both remarkable and intolerable to sober Christians for as they were bred and born like Pallas armed full of anger revenge and ambitious fierceness so they have acted even in their infancy and minority far beyond what regular sober and true Episcopacy ever did in its greatest age and procerity here in England yea its greatest passion and transports did not exceed the aims of these new masters both Ecclesiastical civil which was either to rule all or to ruine all Bishops commonly justified their reall or seeming severities by those lawes either civil or Ecclesiasticall which were in force against all such as did not conform to them Hence were occasioned much I am confident to the grief and against the desire of the most grave and godly Bishops sometimes those so oft declaimed against and aggravated persecutions of some unconformable yet otherwayes godly Ministers by silencings suspensions deprivations c. which sometimes were but just and necessary exercises of Discipline as I conceive if men will maintain any order and government in any Church or State sometimes it may be some Bishops pressed too much upon the strictness and rigour of law aggravated by their private passions beyond what might with charity and moderation safely have been indulged to some able and peaceable Ministers though in some things dissenters yet as to the main good and usefull to the Church Yet all these old Almanacks these stale and posthumous calculations of Episcopall severities did not upon true account no not in one hundred years equal the number and measure of those pressures and miseries which have been acted or designed in one fifteen years by such as now profess Presbyterian and Independent principles against all Bishops and all those Ministers which are of the Episcopal perswasion I think it may without any stroke of Rhetorick or Hyperbole be said with sober truth that the little finger of Presbytery and Independency with the warts and wens of other factions growing upon them hath been heavier upon the Episcopal which was the onely legal Clergie of England of late years than the loins of any sober and godly Bishops ever were for any one century yea and equal to the burdens of the most passionate and immoderate Bishops whatsoever in any age
use of any such plank or rafter which might serve to buoy them up from utter sinking and starving though it were but teaching school in a belfrey yet after all these personall sufferings and extremities behold they must live to hear and see their very calling and orders their whole function and fraternity disgraced and disordered yea as to some mens desires and endeavours quite routed and abolished the primitive pipes and ancient conduits of all Ecclesiastick power quite broken and new cisterns set up which hold no water comparable to that brazen sea of Apostolick Episcopacy and orderly Presbytery which ever served the Sanctuary of Christs Church in all ages places and offices It might possibly break the quiet the cheerfulness the estates of many worthy Ministers to see their persons preaching pains prayers and holy ministrations neglected by many despised by some and trampled under foot by not a few who after the rate of plebeian spirits following the revolutions of mens fortunes think there can be no worth meriting their value and respect either civil or religious but onely under the characters of riches honour and power soon ebbing in their love and esteem of the Clergie when they see the tide of honour and munificence so turned and abated even to the lowest water-mark almost as now it seems in England But it breaks the very hearts and spirits of worthy Ministers like old Elies to hear and see Philistines take by violence the Ark of God and carry it captive to their Dagons the Idols that every ones fancy lists to set up in private Conventicles under the title of Ministeriall power and holy ordination this at present infinitely dejects all sober Christians and true Ministers this for the future quite sinks them in despair CHAP. XXXII O How high and holy an ambition I beseech you my worthy Countrymen will it be in after-times and already is for any man of parts of learning of conscience guided by Scripture and by all ancient practices of the Catholick Church no lesse than that of this Reformed and famous Church of England to devote himself to be a Minister of the Gospel when he shall see no Reverend Bishops no subordinate Presbyters left to ordain him few or no people left to entertain him with due respect to his calling some doubting others denying a third sort wholly despising all his Ministeriall power and authority of which next to our salvation Ministers and other Christians should study to be assured that it is valid and divine upon good and authentick grounds which may both merit their acknowledgment and oblige them to submission If any man that is fit and willing to be a Minister in England if I say he can dispense with the Novelties irregularities and inconformities of his ordination as to all Antiquity no less than the orders of the Church of England which ever was by Bishops as the Apostolick Conduits the chief Fathers and proper Conveyors so confessed by all Reformed Churches if he can bear the tedious journeys from the remoter Counties the long delayes the unexpected scrutinies and the strange questions he shall meet with before he be allowed and admitted to officiate which are very hard trials to men that are tolerably learned and not intolerably necessitated for a small living if these difficulties can be digested which we see of late have deterred many good scholars and hopefull students from entring upon the Ministry rather diverting their thoughts to other employments which are more easie profitable and honourable now in England yet still whatever doore he comes in at he is a great and bold adventurer daring at once to undertake so tedious and dreadful an employment in which he must daily undergo many oppositions many abuses many injuries many indignities incident from one side or other to any Minister what stamp soever he bears He must be fortified with invincible patience with heroick resolutions with humble constancy with Hermeticall content with Martyrly charity while he contends with many causeless enemies with all those difficulties of poverty and contempt which are very unwelcome to flesh and blood though never so spiritualized and refined these do and ever will attend him as a Minister while common people take so great liberties and confidences to baffle to dispute to despise to disturb and to undo their Ministers besides their daring to obtrude themselves into his place and office The meanest tradesman or handy-craft mechanick bears the labour of his hands and that sore travail of his soul during his mortall pilgrimage cheerfully and comfortably while being willing and able to work for his living he gets his wages without any mans grudging and enjoyes himself without any envy or obloquy in honest wayes of industry though possibly it reach no further than making of ribbands or points or buttons or babies for the use of the Common-weal onely the poor Minister especially if he dare own the Church of England or assert his authority from an higher origine than what is novel secular and popular after twice seven years rigging and preparing himself for so rough and hazardous a voyage after he hath many nights and dayes by studying watching fasting praying weeping furnished himself as a workman that needeth not to be ashamed before men after he hath wholly and onely devoted himself to that heavy plough and employment the care and culture of mens souls which are naturally hard as fallow grounds full of weeds and thorns which work may well take up the whole time ability and industry of the best of men after he hath so followed this holy husbandry as to neglect all other means and opportunities to advance his worldly condition thinking it would be enough for him to merit well of his Countrey and the publick and as a learned grave and serious Minister to serve God and mankind by setting forth and communicating to the world the inestimable riches and excellencies of his and their Saviour which service might well deserve as good salaries and encouragements as those enjoy who have offices in the Customes Excise Exchecquers and treasuries of unrighteous mammon after he hath thus denied exhausted and macerated himself in order to promote the highest interests of God and man which is the eternall salvation of sinfull souls and this at no great charge or expence of mens estates after his modesty charity and hospitality hath convinced all men that he covets them not theirs condescending oft below himself in order to captate the love and civil favour of people that he might gain more advantages to save their souls Yet still this good Ministers condition will of all mens in Engl. be most miserable for while he is daily doing his duty and doing it well with meekness of wisdome with good conscience and discretion yet he shall be sure to contract many enemies without a cause Many that are meere strangers to him will hate him out of anti-ministeriall Antipathies and Epidemick principles which are so rife and in fashion
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
were in it self free and indifferent so as men might be baptized when they will and so baptize their children sooner or later as they please deferring it as some of old did even to their decrepit age and death-beds because they would not sin after it if this were left to an indifferency which I doe no way think it is any more than all other duties of the Lords Supper prayer hearing the Word preached c. are which have no precise measure and limited time set because they oblige alwayes as opportunity is offered Gods favours and indulgences import mans duty to accept and use them as soon as the Lord offers them to us and ours though Baptisme be not as S. Cyprian tells Fidus confined to the eighth day after infants birth nor yet to the eighth year yet when it may be duly had in the way of Gods providence it may not be delayed to the death of the child unbaptized without a great detriment to the infant so dying and crime to the parents or guardians so delaying and by their sottish negligence depriving the child of that visible means of grace which God hath allowed in his Church both to parents and their children which is the judgement of Gregory Nazianzen one of the ablest Divines that the Church ever had As a due debt unlimited to any day of payment is every day due so the favours of God and priviledges of his Church not precisely confined but daily offered us and not accepted contract upon us a great sin either of unbelief under the means or affected negligence undervaluing and ingratitude toward Divine Mercies sins under which no Christian of a truly tender conscience will dare to lie seven yeares no nor seven dayes meerly upon the delayes and scruples of his own or other mens both foolish and sluggish hearts As that soul among the Jews was precisely cut off from the Church of God both parents and children who was not unlesse in Gods connivence and speciall dispensation as in the fourty yeares pilgrimage in the wildernesse circumcised the eighth day so may those among Christians justly seem to be cut off from the Church of Christ here and hereafter which do presume to slight neglect and so not at all use Baptisme to their children according as God gives them in the uncertainties of life both opportunity and conveniency Gods leaving some things to our choice discretion and ingenuity must not be any remission but an excitation to speedy duty especially in setled Churches where daily at least weekly opportunities are offered which if denied by hot persecutions the delay is more excusable and it may be in some cases commendable where parents have just cause to fear lest their baptized children shall never attain by their paternall care such education as is correspondent to their Baptisme In which cases I conceive it was of old deferred not because it was thought either unlawfull or undesirable in it self to baptize infants born in the Church but for feare of the mischiefs attending persecution and sometimes the parents were cold and negligent in their duty If I say the time of Baptisme were left to our freedome which it is not as I have shewed yet still the black brand and grosse impudence of such a reproch contempt and errour as the ruder and spitefuller sort of Anabaptists cast upon this and all other Christian Churches is most intolerable while they dare to re-baptize such who have been once duly baptized if it be indifferent when in their infancy which re-baptizing of such as were once duly baptized in the Church was ever judged as much a monster and most insolent in all Christian Churches as it would have been to renew or repeat circumcision among the Jews which was not so much in expresse letter of Scripture forbidden as made indeed impossible in nature nor is repeating of Baptism so expresly forbidden in the Word of God where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Baptisme is mentioned which place the Hemerobaptists or daily dippers slighted as indeed it is and alwayes was excluded by the interpretation tradition and practise of the Catholick Church which no more allowed any to be twice baptized in Religion or twice ordained to the Ministry than twice born in nature yea this fancy heresie and novell insolency was looked upon as the setting up of a new Gospel another Jesus and more Gods than one as the ancient Councils and Fathers alwayes determined even in the case of S. Cyprians candid errour Against whose judgement for invalidating and so repeating Baptisme where administred by Hereticks and obstinate Schismaticks the Councils both of Africk Europe and Asia determined upon the ground of Scripture and Primitive custome both as to the use of Infant-baptisme and the not repeating of that or any other true baptisme once received Both which being such Catholick determinations of the Church it is with me not in the least degree disputable whether I should chuse to conform to the Churches universall testimony constant practise and primitive tradition in this and other modern disputes as that of the government of Churches in larger distributions by Bishops above Presbyters and Deacons so the use of the Lords day instead of the Judaick Sabath c. which are conforme to the generall scope tenour and direction of Scripture or rather comply both sillily and shamefully with those modern captious novelties and perverse disputings of some private spirits of yesterday who dare to cast so great jealousies blame and dishonour upon the Catholick Churches of Christ in all ages and places as not onely to suspect but to proclaime them both socially and singly to have been either grosly ignorant or most basely unfaithfull as to what the Apostles had delivered to them for the mind and will of the Lord either by Epistle word or Example No I had far rather with humility and charity though in infirmity and ignorance conform to the Catholick Church in errours and mistakes not fundamentall or immorall of which it never was guilty nor will be rather I say than by proud and pernicious curiosity or by scepticall and schismaticall novelty either blemish the Churches Integrity or break its Unity Both which the Anabaptists ever have done and ever will doe since their first eggshell and spawning in Germany by their endlesse and peevish litigations touching Infant-baptisme which though to some it seem but a small and circumstantiall businesse in point of time yet the scorn contempt and abhorrency of the Sacrament as applied to infants is an errour as I have shewed of so spreading a venome and dangerous consequences that it tends to overthrow all that is or hath been of religious polity and power too of essence and order in this and all true Churches of which we have any record in Scripture or other Writers CHAP. XIII BEsides this poysonous and now so swoln errour of the Anabaptists in Engl. against Infant-baptism is further sowred by other seditious principles
infamous practises attending that opinion wherewith some of them have taught the world long ago in Germany as lately in England to beware lest in stead of water they baptize both infants and elder people with blood and fire as proclaiming all to be no Christians nor better than Heathens who will not come to their new dippings Their errour is not solitary nor the sting of their schisme either soft or blunt or unvenomous which doth not a little discover their opinion to be as far from the Spirit of Christ as it is from the mind meaning and intent of Christ in his Word nor are they now excusable as Luther at first thought but afterward recanted when he saw the bad and bitter fruits of their new doctrine they cannot now with any colour plead simple or invincible ignorance which now is boyled up by the heat of their spirits to obstinacy contumacy and insolency against this and all Churches both peace and practise for they doe still boldly persist in their tedious errour after so many Scripture-demonstrations cleared and confirmed by the Catholick testimony and practise of the Church of Christ Nor is their judgement or practise in other things accompanied with such meeknesse modesty charity humility and innocency as might render this a veniall errour or tolerable difference which may grow as a weed not very noxious or unsavoury among many sweet flowers of Graces Vertues and good Works like that of S. Cyprian in point of rebaptizing such as Hereticks had baptized which S. Austin calls in that holy man and Martyr a wart or mole in a fair and candid breast to be covered with the vaile of Christian charity But the Anabaptistick fury flies in the very face of this and all Churches pulling out the very eyes of Christians by which they obtained their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first illumination as Baptisme was anciently called by the Fathers and the Apostolick Author to the Hebrews it not onely sliely picks at but violently strives to overthrow the first foundation of all Christian Faith Profession Polity Order and Church-communion Hence besides its novelty and heterodoxie it riseth naturally from so presumptuous an errour to pertness sharpness tumultuariness sedition haughtiness contempt of all Christian men and Magistrates too who wil not either receive or connive at this and other their imperious errours Who is the◠Minister or other that differs from them be he never so sober grave and holy but he must be vilified reproched and openly railed at by their libellous scurrilous either pens or tongues Their greatest spite and malice lies as the Jesuits most levelled and implacable against the best and ablest Ministers who retain both Catholick Ordination and Baptisme whose successfull labours and excellent lives do most confute this and all other novell fancies while themselves are by the blessing of God justified to all the Christian world not willingly blind to be Ministers not onely of the Letter and Water but of the Spirit Grace and Power Such as desert Catholick Ordination and Government by Bishops give greatest advantage to Anabaptists for the pulling out of one corner-stone in a wall makes way for others easily to follow As all Anabaptists are against Bishops so all the Ancients who are for Infant-baptism as Catholick are for Episcopall Government even S. Jerome himself Not that I think all men who it may be lesse approve Infant-baptisme than that of elder years conceiving that practise to be more clear in the letter of the Scripture have the same calentures and cruell distempers many of them I hope may have sincerity to God-ward and charity to those Christians who in this differ from them But I conceive the tumultuating rude violent and uncharitable Anabaptists with all their Spawn of other Sects have greatly sinned against the Lord Christ and against his Church both in England and elsewhere also against his servants the Ministers of all ages and places whom they have most injuriously slandered and shamefully treated with great scorn malice and all manner of indignities that were within their reach and power whom I pray God to forgive giving them that true repentance which may redeem them from that gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity in which they seem to lie this is the worst I wish any of them In order to which good desire I thought it not amisse thus far to expresse my judgement and as much as in me lies to justifie after many others in the point of Infant-baptisme the doctrine and practise of my Mother the Church of England and both its Fathers and Sons who have suffered so undeservedly and therefore complain so justly of the mischiefs and miseries befaln and threatening them from this dangerous party and faction who resolve never to be satisfied in their perverse disputes and endlesse janglings who with one puffe blow away all that concurrent strength which in the behalf of Infant-baptisme is truly and solidly mustered up from the Covenant of Grace from the tenour of Scriptures from the proportion of Evangelicall priviledges from the relation which Christians in the Church have to God by Christ from the Catholick custome and practise of all Churches old and new from the joynt suffrages of all Councils Fathers and Church-Historians Against all which cloud and army of Witnesses they bring onely two or three literall allegations partially and incompleatly interpreted They boast much but falsely of Tertullian in this point whom they forsake in many others who was a person though excellently learned and of high parts yet immoderately passionate easily transported and in that very point as I have shewed is either different from himself in other places or to be understood in a meaning limited and occasionall either to the children of Heathens yet untaught and unprofessing Christian Religion or the children of Christians hurried up and down by persecutions which in Tertullians times were if not constant yet very frequent After him they have found in six hundred years one Walafridus Strabo who seemed to scruple Infant-baptism as not of primitive use but shews no grounds of his scruple and at last Ludovicus Vives in his notes of late on S. Austin de civitate Dei is produced as a witnesse against Antiquity a Papist in all things else and in this point differing from his own Church and Communion if it were his opinion and judgement which I see no cause to believe because he proveth nothing he not thinking it unlawfull or vain but perhaps not absolutely necessary to baptize all in infancy to which Nazianzen inclines except in case of death But all these are either single Doctors and private opinions or petty Pygmies and Mushromes compared to those many Heroes that Lebanon of tall Cedars which were all advocates of Infant-baptisme in all Ages and Churches from the Apostles dayes There is not any one of the Ancients doth dogmatically deny it as lawfull or so far doubt and dispute it
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
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
and defiance of all that went before who I beseech you of most ordinary Christians who are yet agitated by their youthfull lusts and unbridled passions will be so constant as to hold fast that profession which formerly they had taken up Who will continue to venerate that Church and Clergy whose heads they see crowned with thornes and their faces besmeared with blood and dirt whose comelinesse is deformed with the spittings buffetings and scornes of those that seek to expose them to open shame and to fasten them to the Crosse of death and infamy Alas they will not at all regard in a short time any orders of the Church or any ordination of Ministers or any sacred ordinances and mysteries dispensed by them since no pleas never so pregnant and unanswerable for the Antiquity Uniformity and Constancy of that way and method which was used in all ages and places of the Church of Christ since no gracious and glorious successes attending such ordaining Bishops and such ordained Presbyters since nothing prevailes against vulgar prejudices and extravagancies provoked by that impatient itch they alwaies have after novelties Many we see will have no Ordination no Ministers no Sacraments rather than Bishops should have any hand in ordaining The honor of that Ordination which was in all ancient Churches must be cruelly sacrificed with all ancient and Catholick Episcopacy rather then some mens passions for a parity or popularity or an Anarchy in the Church be not gratified All Bishops as such and all Presbyters and all Christians and all Churches and all holy duties performed by them in that station and communion must be cryed down yea thrown down as the adulteratings and prostitutions of the Churches Liberty and of the purity of Christs Ordinances The hands of Bishops and Presbyters too though joyned and imposed in Ordination must be declared as impure vile and invalid yea a flat novel and impertinent distinction must be found out to vacate the Bishops eminency and yet to assert the Presbyters parity and sole power as resting in any three two or one of them though never so petty poor and pittifull men in all respects naturall and civill sacred and morall Yet these forsooth some fancy as Presbyters may still ordain because a Bishop say they did so meerly as a Presbyter of the same degree and order not as having any eminency of office degree authority or jurisdiction above the meanest Minister which St. Jerom and all antiquity acknowledged as a branch of Apostolicall dignity and eminency peculiar to a Bishop above any one or more Presbyters Which reproches against the persons power and practise of Bishops in England as usurpers and monopolizers in this point of ordination which they ever challenged and exercised as their peculiar honor office and dignity in this as all Churches if they could by any Reason or Scripture by Law of God or Man by any judgement or practise of any one Church or of any one godly and renowned Christian in any age or History of the Church be verified so as to make their power of ordination to be but a subtile or forcible usurpation in Bishops it would have been not onely an act of high Justice to have abrogated all the pretensions of Bishops to that or any power in the Church but it will be a work of admiration yea of astonishment to the worlds end in all after-ages and successions of Christian Religion which will hardly last another 1500 yeares to consider the long and strong delusion which possessed the Christian world in this point of Ordination as onely regular and complete by Bishops where their presence and power might be enjoyed Nor will it be more matter of everlasting wonder to ponder not onely Gods long permission of such a strong delusion but his prospering it so much and so long as a principall meanes to preserve and propagate the Ministry Order Government Peace and Power of true Religion and the true Churches of Christ which were never without Bishops as Spirituall Fathers begetting as Epiphanius speakes both Presbyters and people to the Church Nor will it be the work of an ordinary wit whether Presbyterian or Independent to salve all those aspersions and diminutions of either ignorance and blindness or fatuity and credulity or weaknesse and impotency which must necessarily fall from this account not onely upon the wisest and best Church-men but upon the most Christian and wise Princes the most zealous and reformed Parlaments of England who in the grand Reformation of this Church and ever since for neer an 100. yeares have after grave counsell and mature debate approved and appointed countenanced by a law and incouraged by their actuall submission the ordination of Ministers chiefly by the authority of Bishops never without them And this they did certainly not out of policy but piety not in prudence onely but in conscience convinced not only of the lawfulnesse of Bishops but of the necessity of them where Providence doth not absolutely hinder or deny them as it never did in England or elsewhere by the example of the Apostles by the ancient constant and uniform practise of this and all Churches by the suffrages of all Learned and Godly men of any account in all ages To all which were added as great preponderatings in behalfe of Episcopacy the many and most incomparable Bishops that have been in all successions of the Church the many Martyrs Confessors excellent Preachers Writers and Governours of that order lastly the unspeakable blessings which by their Ordination Consultation and Jurisdiction have been derived to the Church of Christ If all Estates in the Reformed Church of England have been hitherto deceived as to this point of Episcopall Ordination by Bishops sure they are the more excusable because they have erred with all the Christian world Nor could they be justly blamed if when they reformed superfluous Superstition they yet abhorred in this point so great and dangerous an innovation which must needs shake and overthrow the faith of many if the peculiar office and power of Bishops to ordaine Ministers and governe the Church were either onely usurped or wholly invalid as some of late have pretended not with more clamor than falsity But if all these jealousies and reproches cast upon Bishops and their Authoritative Ordination as a peculiar office and exercise of power eminently residing in them be most false and by some mens calumnies heightned to such impudent lies that no eructations of Hell or belchings of Beelzebub had ever more blackness of darknesse in them or more affrontive to the glory God and the Honor of the Catholick Church whence I beseech you O my Noble and worthy Countrymen is that dulness stupor and indifferency come upon us in England so far as not onely connives at the arrogancy of some Presbyters who without Scripture-precept or Catholick-patterne challenge this ordaining and Governing power as onely and wholly due to themselves discarding all Episcopall Eminency and Authority above them but
Directory of Ecclesiasticall prudence and practise 8. What if the Great God of order peace and truth as well as so many learned and godly men so many famous and flourishing Churches in all Ages should by beating or scaring men from their popular prejudices pitiful subterfuges and sinister designes thus mightily plead the cause of true Episcopacy against all those who have spoken and done so many perverse things against that excellent government What if he should by some powerful means rebuke their confidences as he did Job's justly demanding of these Destroyers Where is that Wisdom that Modesty that Gentleness that Charity that Moderation that Humility that Gravity and Christian Caution which became godly men to their betters to such a Church and to such worthy Bishops as were the Governours of it under God and the King Could you be ignorant of the learning graces virtues merits and worth which were in Bishops suitable to their lawful Autority Did you not know and with some repining see how justly they were preferred before Presbyters and People as every way fittest to be over and above them Are these immoderations and injuries the wayes of true Religion and Reformation Can there be true piety without charity yea without equity or pitty If evil men are not to be injured much less good men good Ministers and least of all good Bishops which were not wanting among you May not thus the lightnings of Gods rebukes be clearly seen and the terrors of his thunders be justly heard and the blastings of his displeasure be felt by all the unjust tumultuary malicious and implacable enemies of venerable Episcopacy Methinks I hear the Divine Majesty thus uttering his glorious voice against them O foolish People O unthankful Nation O degenerous Christians or deformed Church not worthy to be beloved of God or happily governed by wise men Do you thus requite the Lord and thus despise all the ancient Churches of Christ by forsaking yea rejecting your own mercies and happiness Is it a small thing that you have broken through all Laws and the arm of mans civil authority but will you also contend against the power of God and the wisdom of Christ whose out-stretched arm in the way of Episcopacy hath been in all Ages a defence and refuge to his Church Should you beyond the boldnesse of Balaam dare to curse what God hath not cursed or to defie what God hath not defied but signally owned with his blessing in all Ages and Churches In seeing do you not see and in reading do you not understand the constant methods of Gods guiding and governing both this and all other Christian Churches How hath a novel zeal but not according to knowledge blinded your minds Who called the first Apostles to be chief Bishops over all Churches Who supplied the Apostasie of Judas by the Election of Matthias to his Episcopacy Upon whom did the power of the Holy Ghost first come Who placed Bishops immediately after them in all completed Churches through the world What planted preserved united and reformed them but that Apostolical that is the Episcopal autority assisted by such Presbyters whom they ordained to part of the Office Labour Honour and Ministry Who were the chief Champions of the Gospel but the venerable Bishops in all Ages Who were the most resolute Confessors holy Bishops Who the most glorious Martyrs excellent Bishops Who were the most Learned and Valiant Asserters of the Orthodox faith Primitive purity sanctity order and harmony becoming Christian Churches but admirable Bishops Who were counted the prime Starres in the hand of Christ Who were called by way of eminency Angels by him but the chief Presidents and Bishops of the seven Churches To whom was Divine Power first given and after derived not onely to teach and feed but to ordain Presbyters and Deacons also to rebuke rule and govern both Presbyters Deacons and People as St. Paul enjoynes but to holy Bishops in the persons and patterns of Timothy and Titus Archippus and others whose Authority as such no man ought to despise Who were they that wounded and destroyed the Great Behemoth and Leviathans of prodigious errors and spreading heresies in the four first Centuries but incomparable Bishops such as were Irenaeus Athanasius Epiphanius Augustine Ambrose Hilary Prosper both the Cyrils the Basils the Gregories and others Who quenched the wild-fires of Schisme and faction among Christian people and Ministers but excellent Bishops such as Clemens Ignatius Cyprian both the Dionysiu's Austin Optatus Fulgentius and others By whose sweat and blood next after the Apostles were the plantations and necessary Reformations of Churches watered and weeded but by the vigilancy and industry of worthy Bishops both in their single capacity and in their joynt Synods or Councills wherein Bishops as the Representatives or chief Fathers of all Churches as the families of Christ might orderly meet duly deliberate and autoritatively determine what seemed good to the Spirit of God and to them for the Churches Purity and Peace according to the Scriptures precept and Catholick practise Who were those renowned Pastors and Preachers of old that mitigated the Spirits of great Princes that converted many Nations that baptized mighty Kings and Emperours that advanced the Gospel beyond their Empires and set up the Crosse of Christ above their Crownes not in soveraignty or civill power but in the Divine Empire of Verity Sanctity and Charity Who moderated the Spirits and passions of persecutors Who convinced them of their errors resolved their scruples who condemned their sins who terrified their consciences and who either raised or restored them through repentance to the peace of Christ and his Church but heroick wise and invincible Bishops Who have been the chief Luminaries in all Churches in all Ages the Chariots and Horsemen of Israel the prime Pillars of Piety and Peace of Hospitality and Honour of Order and good Government but wise and renowned Bishops Who furnished all Churches with fervent Prayers devout Liturgies convenient Catechises learned Homilies practical Sermons accurate Commentaries and excellent Epistles with sound Decisions of Controversies and Cases arising in the Church or any private Conscience Who made up with charitable Composures all uncomfortable breaches and unkind differences among Christians but pious and prudent Bishops whose autority was ever esteemed as sacred being experienced in all Ages to be sanative and soveraign to Religion and the Church where they had freedom and encouragements to act as became the chief Pastors Counsellors and Governours of the Church in all Ecclesiastick concernments Sure if God would have them utterly destroyed he would not so long have accepted such sacrifices from the hands of Bishops both ancient and modern nor thus mightily have pleaded the cause of Episcopacy in all Ages and in this both as to Gods wisdom in and his blessing upon that way of Church-government and Governours But possibly our later Bishops especially in England whose cause is here chiefly pleaded were such
Custom and Canons of this as of all Churches also by the ancient Lawes of this Nation thus splitting even their dear Presbytery in pieces which was best embarqued with Episcopacy while they ran this on ground upon the Rocks Quick-sands the oppositions of power and the despiciencies of people between which all Church-government and publick respect is now removed from both Bishops and Presbyters Alas how pitiful a part of any Government have any of these Ministers now to act and please themselves with who affected to play a new game at Chesse in this Church onely with pawns and rooks without Kings or Bishops whose unseparable fate at least as to the Genius of England King James very wisely foresaw would stand and fall together if he had as wisely prevented the danger and damage of both it being very hard for any Soveraign Prince to govern such an head-strong people unless he have power over their minds as well as their bodies This a Prince cannot have but by Preachers who as the weekly Musterers Orators and Commanders of the populacy do exercise by the Scepter of their tongues a secret and swasive yet potent Empire over most peoples soules These preachers he knew were not easily kept either in good order or in just honor being men of quick fancies of daring and active confidences great valuers of themselves and ambitious to be many Masters yea popular and petty Monarchs in the Thrones of their Pulpits and Territories of their Parishes unlesse there were some men over them who are fittest to be above them as being too hard for them in their own sphere and mystery best able to judge of Ministers Learning Opinions Preaching Praying and Living men for yeares of Gravity and Prudence rewarded with Estates and Honors And such were Bishops without whom Christian Monarchs are like those Kings who had their thumbs and great toes cut off it being not possible for a Prince immediately to correspond with every petty Presbyter nor is it comely to contest with them nor can he be quiet from their pragmatick janglings unlesse they be curbed by some such Learned Authoritative and Venerable Superiours as are properest for them who were the fittest mediums between the King and his other Clergy both to perswade Princes to favour the Church and to perswade Church-men to preach and practise loyalty toward their Princes which tends to the honor of both Magistracy and Ministry So that it was no other then an obvious conjecture to foretel No Bishop no King since the same Scriptures and Principles of both reason and religion piety and policy lead men to obey both as rulers over them in the Lord or to reject both by affecting popular parities and communities as in Church so in State Which abatement of Kingly or Soveraign power in one person as to its civil Magistratick and Monarchical eminency hath by late experience been found so inconsistent with the Genius of this English Nation that the Representatives of the People have not onely importunely petitioned the restitution of Monarchical yea Kingly government but they have actually setled the main authority in one person under an other Name and Title justly fearing lest the dividing and diminishing of Soveraignty Majesty and Authority as to the chief Governour should in time make a dissolution of the civil Government by frequent emulations and ambitions incident to any such Nation as England is which hath so many great and rival Spirits in it prone to contemn or contest with any thing that looks like their Equal Nor do I doubt but Time will further shew us if it hath not done it already sufficiently that no less inconveniences and mischiefs both as to Church and State may follow the debasing and destroying of Ecclesiastical power and authority in England dividing and mincing it so diverting the ample and fair the ancient and potent stream of Episcopacy which flowed from the Throne of Christ and of Christian Kings into the new rivulets small channels and weak currents either of Presbytery or Independency The Scepter of Government in Church or State like the staff or rod of Moses when it is cast out of his hand on the Earth or populacy turns to a serpent Democracy being a very terrible Daemogorgon untill it be resumed into Moses his hand as King in Iesurun it doth not return to its former beauty strength and use which that did after it had justly devoured the rods and serpents of the Magicians as in time Monarchical Government will do all other kinds or essayes in Engl. which are but the effects of popular passions and encroachments carried on more by some Preachers Inchantments then by Lay-mens Ambitions Strabo and others tell us that the people of Cappadocia when the Romanes had conquered their Kings and offered them their Liberty as a Province or free State under them they refused the favour affirming the temper of their Country was such that the people in it could not live if they were not governed by a King So pertinacious were they as indeed most people in the world have been and are at this day to retaine the sacred Tradition of Kingly or Monarchicall Government which being parentall and Patriarchall is most naturall and divine derived to us by nature and confirmed by good experience ever since Noah and Adam who had their just Soveraignty as Fathers and Kings over all mankind derived to them from God the Great Father and Eternall King over all from whom Monarchy and so Episcopacy derive their Majesty and Authority Primogeniture carrying with it as Princely so Priestly power which made the same name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 41.45 Exod. 3.1 to signifie both Prince and Priest The want of either of which and the swerving from either of them commonly occasioneth infinite distractions in any Nation and Church especially if they have been in all times wonted to be governed by them To avoid which miseries among Mankind the Wisdom of God hath guided as most Nations to Monarchy so this and all primitive Churches to the royall Priesthood of Episcopacy from the very cradle or beginning of Christianity At which time S. Jerom to Euagrius confesseth it was toto orbe decretum a Catholick Decree and Order through all the Christian world which could be no other then Apostolical at least And however other Reformed Churches may make a shift to live and some of them thrive without the formal name and title of Bishops though most of them have the efficacy of the power and the reality of the authority in their Superintendents yet I am confident till English Spirits are wholly cow'd and depressed with war and such exhaustings as utterly dis-spirit and embase the Nobility Gentry and Communalty nothing will be more inconsistent with them than what savours of parity and popularity in Church-Government They will rather affect to have every one what they list which in effect will be no Government properly Ecclesiastick further then they may be commanded
not many good Bishops then when worse and harder measure befell them and their Order than since England was Christian Indeed many yea most of our Bishops were as Noahs Sems and Japhets yet have all these been drowned in the Presbyterian Deluge Even these made up the so odious so unpopular so decryed Bishops in England The pest and contagion of whose fate as it came first from Scotland where no doubt there were many Bishops of equal vertues though inferiour revenues to the worthy and well-known Dr. Spotswood Archbishop of St. Andrews and Lord Chancellour of Scotland so it reached to Ireland where there wanted not Bishops worthy of the fraternity of Bishop Usher Bishop Bedel and Bishop Bramhal all cruelly persecuted first by Papists and after by Antipapists though persons of the highest form for all excellencies yet must all these be destroyed their whole Order with the destruction of Sodom Although more than ten righteous Bishops I am sure were to be found in each of these British Churches yet all must be routed all rooted up as guilty of the unpardonable sin of Prelacy a new sin and unheard of in the Church of Christ but now to be put into the black Catalogue of scandalous sins when Heresie Schism Sacriledge and Sedition must be left out These these and such like Bishops are the men whose fate I passionately pitty men famous in their generation either for solid Preaching or weighty writing or grave counselling or holy living or prudent governing or charitable giving all of them for some and some of them for all these excellencies These are made the most unsound the most infamous and superfluous parts of this body politick and Ecclesiastick these must be one and all represented to vulgar simplicity and scurrility as the Popes the Antichrists the Bite-sheeps the Oppressors the Tyrants the Greedy and dumb dogs the Cretians the Slow-bellies the Devourers the Destroyers of all godliness and true Religion These foule glosses first made by Martin Mar-prelate of old against Episcopacy and the Bishops of England are now set forth in a new and second edition with larger notes and exquisite Commentaries upon them intimating that these are the men who have by their Learned Grave and Godly Misdemeanours as Bishops forfeited not by any Law but by absolute will and pleasure meerly as Bishops all their Houses and Revenues all their Honors and Preferments yea their good Name and Reputation which by Law and desert they had obtained and enjoyed yea all the Ancient Dignity Apostolick Authority and Constant Succession of their Place and Function in the Church which had not more of eminency than of necessity nor more of necessity than of Primitive and Catholick Antiquity For the reall faults of some and the imaginary of other Bishops whose name was their onely crime must all Ages after them be for ever punished with the want of such Grave Learned Godly and Venerable Bishops as have been destroyed for better cannot be had or desired and posterity must be ever exposed in these British Churches to all those Factions Fedities Divisions Disorders and Confusions which follow the want of due Episcopal order and Government in the Church But Bishops qua tales were enemies to the power of Godlinesse the worst of them and the best of them were men too much devoted to empty formes of Religion they urged Ceremonies so far as to neglect substances straining at gnats and swallowing Camels they justled out preaching by Catechizing and over-layed Ministers private prayers by their long Liturgies they did not kindle but quench damp and resist that spirit of Zeal and Reformation which for many years hath burned in the breasts of many godly Christians by whose flamings and refinings at last all Bishops as drosse with all their ornaments and adherents have been justly consumed I confesse I cannot tell how to answer for all the actions and expressions of every Bishop they were of age and able to have answered for themselves if any of them as offendors of our Lawes had been brought to plead for themselves which not one of them was as to Ecclesiasticall matters that I ever heard of for the weight of the Archbishops charge was chiefly upon civil or secular affaires Who knowes not that Bishops were but men that if left to their private spirits and single Counsels they might as easily over or under-do as their Adversaries have done beyond or short of what becomes wise and good men The greatest blame that I perceive among any of them was that they would injoyne or exact or remit any thing as to publick Order Discipline and Government of the Church without a joynt agreement and uniformity among themselves according to what the Law allowed or commanded This fraternall concurrence and mutuall correspondence had been worthy of Grave Wise and Learned men for all private fancies obtruded by any one or two Bishops in so tender a case as Religion is and upon so touchy a people as the English now are do but breed variety this differences these disputes these dissentions these despites these oppositions these breed confusions All the actions and injunctions all the Articles and disquisitions of Bishops as such should have been as exactly consonant and uniforme as possibly could be But as to the crimination That Bishops like Hernshaws abounded in the wing and feather of Ceremony but had little substance or body as to the power of Godlinesse First Scripture and Christs example teach us that decent and apt Ceremonies publick or private are not in their nature enemies but helps to the power of Godlinesse as putting off all Ornaments eating the bread of Sorrow putting on Sackcloth and Ashes Fasting Weeping Smiting the breast Bowing Kneeling Prostrating to the ground being all night in Solitude and Darkness lying in the Dust c. all these were and are helps to an humble broken contrite penitent and devout temper of Soul Contrary Company Wine and Oyle Singing and Musick Dancing Discourse and Laughter were and are helps to holy joy and thankful jubilations so are lifting up the eyes and hands to Heaven Sighing and Groning to fervency of Prayer and Praises It is but a rude affected and fanatick imagination of clownish Christians that decent Ceremonies of Religion wisely appointed in any Church or fitly applied by any private Christian in his private devotions these cannot stand but the substance and sincerity of Godliness must fall that there can be no forms of Godlinesse but the power of it must vanish or be banished They may as well imagine that they cannot put on their clothes or dresse themselves handsomly but they must presently cease to be wise men or honest men and good women but must turn either spectres or dishonest Do we not find that many such Christians who have of later years cast off all the former decent and wholesome formes of Godliness either by Profaneness or Preciseness or Peevishness or Faction or Atheism or Superstition are most apparently now
forraine and impertinent to us rather than the publick Authority and wisdome of the Church of England in its religious determinations and injunctions which were not more Moderate than Orthodox Orderly and Comely not partaking of the Romish contagion though it did not abhor the Romane or any Christians Communion so far as Rome kept any Communion with Jerusalem I meane with the Primitive Catholick and true Church of Christ I do not pretend to search the hearts of any Bishops nor it may be should I have approved some things which some of them said or did as to the unseasonablenesse rigor and excesse yet this I affirm that those men must have foreheads of flint hearts of brasse and pens of Iron who dare to charge with Popery any one of those excellent Bishops whom I have mentioned with honor besides many more whom I have omitted who better knew the true Medium of Religion and Measures of Reformation between Superstition and Profanenesse Affectation and Irreverence Indevoutnesse and Rudenesse than any of their fiercest opposers and unjust destroyers And since I have thus far undertaken not the Patrociny which is a work far above me but such a parentation at the Funerall of my Fathers as may I hope not misbecome me I shall further adventure to do so much right to some Bishops to whom I was most a stranger as to this foule suspicion of Popery which being first fixed upon them was easily diffused to all the Bishops of England by the wonted spreading of all envious and evil reports which easier find entertainment in mens hearts and tongues than any that are good For these seem to men to lessen themselves by commending others the others help either to cover or excuse mens own faults or to set off their seeming zeal and vertues The first and greatest was the last Archbishop of Canterbury who was by many suspected and charged not onely as Popishly affected himself but as a poysoner of the whole streame and current of the Reformed Religion in England at last he was treated either as a Heretick or a Traitor or both to Church and State It becomes not me to sentence either the sentenced or sentencers that adjudged him to death his and their judgement is with the Lord onely as to the aspersion of his being Popish in his judgement which reflected in the repute and event upon all the Bishops of England truly his own Book may best of any and sufficiently vindicate him to be a very great Antipapist great I say because it seemes by that Learned dispute that he dissented from Popery not upon popular surmises and easie prejudices but very learned and solid grounds which true Reason and Religion make good agreeable to the judgement of the Catholick Church in the purest and best times And in this the Archbishop doth to my judgement so very impartially weigh the state and weight of all the considerable differences between the Papists and the English Protestants not such as are simple futile and fanatick but learned serious and sober that he neither gratifies the Romanist nor exasperates him beyond what is just neither warping to a novel and needless super-reformation which is a deformity on the right hand nor to a sub-reformation which is a deformity on the left but keeping that golden Meane which was held by the Church of England and the greatest defenders of it As to his secret designe of working up this Church by little and little to a Romish conformity and captivity I do not believe he had any such purpose or approved thought because besides his declared judgement and conscience I find no secular policy or interest which he could thereby gaine either private or publick but rather lose much of the greatnesse and freedome which he and other Bishops with the whole Church had without which temptation no man in charity may be suspected to act contrary to so cleare convictions so deliberate and declared determinations of his conscience and judgement in Religion as the Archbishop expresses in that very excellent Book I am indeed prone to think that possibly He wished there could have been any faire close or accommodation between all Christian Churches the same which many grave and learned men have much desired And it may be his Lordship thought himself no unfit instrument to make way for so great and good a work considering the eminencies of parts power and favour which he had Haply he judged as many learned and moderate men have that in some things between Papists and Protestants differences are made wider and kept more open raw and sore than need be by the private pens and passions of some men and the interests of some little parties whose partial policies really neglect the publick and true interest of the Catholick Church and Christian Religion which consists much in peace as well as in purity in charity as in verity he found that where Papists were silenced and convinced in the more grand and pregnant disputes that they are novel partial and unconforme to the Catholick Church in ancient times as in the Cup withdrawing in the peremptory defining of Transubstantiation in publick Latine prayers such as common people understand not what is prayed or said in praying to Angels and Saints in worshipping Reliques and Images with divine worship in challenging of a Primacy of Divine Power and Jurisdiction to the Bishop of Rome over all in their adding Apocryphall Bookes to the proper and ancient Canon of the Scripture in their forbidding marriage to the Clergy and the like when in these points the Romanists were tired discountenanced and convinced then he found they recovered spirits and contested afresh against the unreasonable transports violences and immoderations of some professing to be Protestants who to avoid Idolatry and Superstition run to sacriledge and rudeness in Religion denying many things that are just honest safe true and reasonable meerly out of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excessive Antipathy to Papists Hence some are run so far that they will have as no materiall Churches built or used or consecrated so no Liturgy never so sound solemn and easie to be understood so as no Bishops never so holy and Orthodox so no Ministers rightly ordained by them no orderly Ceremonies or decent Rites whatsoever used by the Papists though they first had these from those Churches which were yet beautifull and pure in their Primitive health and integrity The truth is it would make a wise man mad to fall under the sinister censures and oppressions of all vulgar opinions who still urge in things indifferent that unsociableness which is between light and darkness truth and error Reformation and Superstition never suspecting themselves for superstitious in being so Anticeremonious Antiliturgicall and Antiepiscopall nor are they jealous lest any thing that hath the heat of their zeal might want the light of true judgement and be like a Taylors goose or pressing iron hot and heavy enough but neither bright nor light neither seeing nor
and Reformed hath suffered very much in England when it was best setled we have upon us the wounds both of peace and war As our former long peace and undeserved prosperity treasured up much morbifick matter so the civil war by mutual chafings and exasperatings did breed higher inflammations and festrings yea and our late truce rather than tranquillity hath been so far from a serious consideration and well-advised setling of our distractions in Religion that many men have had but more leisure and liberty to scratch their own and other mens scabious itchings and to make wider the gaping corifices of our religious Ulcers Indeed private hands can do no other who besides their petulant passions being under no publick restraint and modesty have infinite partialities both as to self-flatteries and designs It must be the Gravity and Majesty the Nobleness and Ampleness of publick Wisdom and Authority which must by prudence and impartiality both in counsels and actions reach the depth and equal the proportions either of our maladies or our remedies to which if wise and worthy men do not in time contribute their counsels prayers and endeavours for the help and healing of our Religious Affairs doubtless the disorders and sinister policies of either weak or wicked men will utterly ruine the very remains and ruines of this Church Nor can the Civil State be ever steddy or permanent where Prince and Subjects Preachers and People are so divided in their principles and practises of Religion both as to their Ministry and Ministration as to the original and exercise of all Ecclesiastical Authority and Communion that they still think it a great part of their Religion either to reform or ruine each other It is observed to be one main pillar of the Turkish Polity Peace and Empire which is so vast and diffused yet generally so peaceable and unanimous that their Religion or Holy Law as they call it being once setled is never permitted by any man to be shaken or disputed much less altered or innovated in the least kind I know it is not fit for Christians to follow all Mahometan rigors and severities no more than their follies and simplicities yet if the setledness of so wild a Rhapsody of Religion as the Alcoran contains which is made up of Truth and Falshood of Fables and Fancies of Dreams and Dotages be of so great moment to preserve their civil peace where no wise man can be much concerned what is believed or disbelieved by him or any man in such a meer Romance of Religion of how much more consequence and conscience would it be to all Christians in any Polity or Nation to have their Religion well fixed and setled which is so Ancient so Holy so True so Venerable so Divine so in its Nature Centre and Circumference but one so deserving to be most United and Uniform both as to its Doctrine and Profession It is a shame to see Mahometans wiser in their generation than Christians who are or ought to be the children of that Wisdom and that Light which shines upon them all by the Scriptures as the Beams of the Sun of Righteousness It is childish for us who are cunning careful enough to preserve civil peace to be so careless of religious Unity and Harmony as to be tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine according to the sleight of men who lye in wait to deceive the hearts of the simple serving not the Lord but their own bellies We should rather study to be rooted and grounded in the Catholick Truth which is according to Holiness Justice Order and Charity after the primitive pattern and constant practise of all true Churches Preachers and Professors whose Authority and Reverence ought to sway more with us than any new and private mens Inventions which no man will admire that well understands the old which were so founded upon Verity so fortified by Charity so edified in Unity so reverend for Antiquity so permanent in their Constancy according to the particular constitutions of every Church which still kept the great and Catholick Communion as to the main amidst some little varieties of outward profession not as to substance but onely in Circumstances or Ceremony For as to the main every Christian Layical or Clerical Catechumens Penitents and Communicants Deacons and Presbyters kept the stations in which God and the Church had set them Every member kept to its Congregation every Congregation to its ordained Presbyter or lawfull Minister every Presbyter to his own Bishop every Bishop to his Metropolitane every Metropolitane to his Patriarch every Patriarch not to the Pope but to the Generall Councills and every Generall Councill to the Scriptures and those Apostolick Traditions which were Catholick and so agreeable to them All which orderly gradations were certainly in the Catholick Church as lawfull as those which the policy of Presbytery hath invented for Congregationall Classicall Provinciall and Nationall Consistories I am sure they were much more usefull For those of old preserved every private Christian every Family every City every Country every Province every Nation that was Christian not onely in a Church-way or Ecclesiasticall Communion and Correspondency as to their particular bounds and neerer relations in every Parish or Congregation or City or Country but as to that Catholick bond of Charity which binds up all Christians in all the world in one fellowship of one body and one Church whose head is Christ to whom every true believer and visible Professor in the whole latitude of the Church being by the Word and Spirit of Christ fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectuall working in the measure of every part doth both edifie and increase it self and others in Truth and Love without which all Churches all Religion and all Reformation are but like parts or members separate from their body not without flesh sinewes substance or bones but yet without blood and Spirits Life and Soul For as the particular parts and members of the naturall body do not live thrive and move onely by that particular substance spirit life and aptitude which is apart in them but by a concurrence with an influence from and a participation of that common Spirit Life Virtue which they have from the whole while they are in Communion with it so is it with Christians singly and severally considered their virtue is small and separated none at all because they want so much of Authority and Validity as they want of Catholick Unity and Ecclesiasticall harmony which keep Christians and Churches intire to Christ and to each other by that one and common spirit which runs through all true Christians by virtue of which and not of any private spirit all publick transactions which concern any nobler part or portion of Christs Church are to be carried on and anciently were in all orderly Churches as branches of the Catholick This this great and publick Communion in the