Austin as a most setled and Catholick practise owned by S. Chrysost Athanas Ambr. Paulinus Gregory Nazian S. Basil Epiphanius so before them by Origen and Irenaeus Of whose testimonies I shall not need here to make more particular mention or repetition for they are in many books of late duly cited which have wrote in English and in Latin of this subject nor can any Anabaptists teeth so gnaw that chain and series of successive Infant-baptisme in the Church of Christ as to break any one link of it or instance in any one author or century where it appears to have been otherwise in the judgement or practise of any one Church or famous person 13. Which Catholick custome of the Church so fully consonant to Scripture and the evident mind of Christ set forth in all his Evangelicall dispensations both general to all men and specially to infants in the Church no judicious sober humble and charitable Christian can either doubt with any shew of reason or dispute against with any shew of modesty Considering that as the custome of the Churches of Christ is stamped with the authority of a law silencing all contradiction and suppressing all novelty by the Apostle S. Paul so Christ himself bids us to heare the Church which if it hold good in lesser censures and determinations of private Congregations how much more is it our duty to be attentive to and observant of the Churches directions which are Catholick whose authority is very great and sacred as the pillar and ground of Truth holding it forth by doctrine and example by Scripture and practise Nor do I doubt that Christ and his Apostles left many things as to the outward polity practise and ministration of Religion lesse clear and expresse in the letter of the Word that thereby the credit and authority of the Catholick Church might be more conspicuous and venerable with all peaceable and orderly Christians who may safely defer this honour to the Catholick Church and to every particular Church agreeing to it as to acquiesce in a conformity to its judgement and practise no way contrary to the Word of God from which it cannot be presumed that the Catholick Church of Christ from the beginning or in any Age did vary either through ignorance or wilfulnesse however particular Churches and Teachers might 14. The Catholick testimony of the Church of Christ is more than a bare humane or historick witnesse it is so sacred so divine so irrefragable that it is more to be valued than an Angels from heaven and therfore ought in all reason and conscience to end such controversies lately raised in the Church and so it would have done long ago if humane passions and interests had not swayed more with some men than matter of conscience and Religion or if the Baptisme of infants were the onely thing that some Anabaptists have an aking tooth at or a mind to pull down No that cannot much hurt them nor doth any mischief or inconvenience follow that pious custome either to parents or children yea much good and comfort accrues to both Religion never thrived but with it no point of faith is prejudiced by it no Evangelicall truth or mercy is diminished or over-stretched but rather asserted and magnified to its due and divine extent Yet Infant-baptisme must be still crucified between the policy of the Anabaptists and their partiality their partiality urgeth one or two limited places against many pregnant and large ones their policy I fear would attain something beyond and more to the advantage of their popular spirits and designes which have in many places been discovered as far from equity and charity in civil regards as they are in this of Baptisme far from verity modesty and antiquity scornfully slighting the testimony of the Churches of Christ in all ages for which undoubtedly they had sufficient warrant from Christ and his Apostles even before the letter of the New Testament was written or the Canon setled Nor did they either need or expect a more explicite commission of baptizing of infants of believing parents than that which was sufficiently expressed as in the generall command to make Disciples in all nations baptizing them so also by the particular words and actions of Christ toward infants not without check to his Disciples also by his requiring all to be born again of Water and the Spirit who pretend to be of the Kingdome of Heaven that is the visible Church and lastly by the former parallell-dispensations of Gods mercy in the Covenant of grace by Circumcision to the members of his Church as children of faithfull Abraham both young and old men and infants 15. Contrary to all which for a few new men spitefully peevishly and everlastingly thus to contest and indeed onely cavill I conceive is not onely a great irreverence and scorn put upon the Church of Christ which we should respect love and honour as the mother of us all but it is an high affront to Christ to his Word Truth and Promise to be ever with it even to the end of the world by his Spirit leading it into all Evangelicall Truths for precept and duty as well as promise and comfort also keeping it from all Catholick Apostasies into any errour destructive to the foundation If they that reject or despise any one of Christs Messengers despise himselfe and his father how much more they that disbelieve despise and discredit so many of his Messengers and Ministers who in all ages have by uniforme word and practise declared to us the mind of Christ as to this point of Infant-baptism By which unhappy Controversie as by many other the strange but just judgements of God have of late in full vials of wrath been poured upon this Church of England by the Anabaptistick spirit chiefly after so much light and truth peace and unity grace and piety poured forth upon us by Gods former munificent mercy sanctifying and sealing with his Spirit and grace in due time that Sacrament of Baptisme which thousands had received in their infancy to their parents comfort to the infants happinesse dying and living also to the great glory of God in this as other Churches in all ages Nor is there to this day after so many bickerings and contests so many publick heats and flames kindled upon this and other accounts any way of wisdome and meeknesse publickly used by which to quench these flames of wild-fire which threaten not onely to scorch but utterly to consume this Reformed and truly Catholick Church with all its true Ministers and holy ministrations in which the Anabaptists are highly subservient to the Papists grand projects and designs which is to deface disgrace and quite overthrow all the frame of Reformed Religion and the face of any either uniform or reformed Church in England CHAP. XII FOr my part I freely professe that if the administration of Baptisme in point of age and time
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
without which the welfare of this polity and intire Nation both in secular and religious regards could not be preserved by honest Magistrates conscientious Ministers or wise and valiant Princes Yet as our wise godly and sober Reformers first and last did worthy of the Honour and Piety of this Church and Nation vindicate the civil and religious Rights of both in all necessary points and interests of Doctrine and Government so their charity was no less cautious and commendable than their courage in this that as they did duly reforme what they thought amisse and establish what they judged in Piety and Prudence best so they did not by any heat and fury of popular transport either unnecessarily or uncharitably affect to give any offence to the Romanists by such distances as needlesse and groundlesse Innovations must needs occasion either to that or any other Christian Church in the world with all whom they ever aimed by their moderation to preserve merit a Christian communion correspondency not intending to schismatize or separate from them or their Christian Predecessors as to any Christian band and tie of Christian Verity or Charity not as to any point of Faith Morality or Sanctity not as to any right Order and Catholick succession of the Evangelicall Ministry not as to that Apostolick Government Inspection and Authority which either was of old or still is preserved in the Roman Church or any other nor last of all did they intend to vary from them in those things of honest policy and decent ceremony which were most commended by the Prudence and Piety of Antiquity onely they retained and rejected as they thought most became this Church in the use of its Liberty in matters Ceremonial wherein the Roman as all Churches have like freedome left them to be used with that Modesty Conscience and Charity which becomes all Christian Churches without giving or receiving any offence as St. Ambrose long ago expressed his sense to S. Austin But the aim of our wise Reformers who rather chose to be Martyrs Confessors for the Truth than popular Praters or Compliers with State-policies and private interests was onely this to purge away that drosse and dust which Christs floor had contracted by slovenly labourers in his husbandry They cast away the chaff but retained the wheat well winnowed they reformed those grosse Superstitions in Prayer Sacriledges in Sacraments Superfluities in Ceremonies Usurpations as to this Churches liberty and authority with all blind Innovations of later date compared to true primitive Antiquity all which were as evidently discernable by the reformed or restored light of Learning and Religion which God then brought into the Christian world to be upon the face of the then Roman Church as the leprosie of Naaman was upon Gehazi's forehead if neither they nor we may be judges but the pregnant testimonies of holy Scriptures evidently setting forth the institutions of Christ the Doctrine and Practises of the Apostles and the primitive constitutions of Churches All these further cleared to us if any thing be dark or dubious by the joynt and concurrent suffrages of the first Councils the ancient Fathers and all Ecclesiastical Historians which together ought to be valued far beyond the sense or example of the Roman or any one particular Church as the immovable bounds and unalterable measures of true Religion as to the substance and essentialls of it Nor doth any particular Church though heretofore never so justly famous as that of Rome was merit the honourable name and title of Christs Church or Catholick but rather of so far Apostatick and Antichristian when the Pastors and People of it do not by insensible degrees unawares slide into venial errours and small abuses but after so clear a light and conviction as the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regeneration of Learning and Religion hath afforded these parts of the world they yet wilfully and obstinately persist to corrupt no lesse than pervert the Doctrine and Institutions of Christ Jesus who is the great Pastor of his Church and chief Bishop of our Souls whose voice all parts of it ought readily to heare and humbly to obey at all times without regard to the antiquity or prevalency of any errours or abuses in former times to which no time or use can give authority or validity against the first appointments of Christ which are every way as the ancientest so the best for Truth Comfort and Safety to any Church and to every Christians Soul CHAP. XVI I Shall not need here to enumerate at large and in particular points those many and great differences in Religion which make your and your posterities return to the Roman compliance and communion impossible if you have judgements to understand or consciences to act according to their dictates out of the Word of God understood in the sense of the Catholick Doctors and Councils of the first 600 years after Christ The work is already done by so many able Writers in this Church that it is needlesse to repeat and scarce possible to adde more weight to what hath been by them alledged to justifie their protestation against and reformation of the errours abuses and corruptions of the Church of Rome He that seriously considers the Fraud Falsity and Pertinacy of the Romanists in that one grand point the Canon of the Scripture which is and must be when all is done that Policy and Art can invent the main pillar and standard of true Religion cannot but grow very jealous of their honesty in particular points of lesser concernments when he shall see beyond all reply or forehead that they have in the Council of Trent under the highest Anathema's or Curses of all that differ from them assumed into the Canon of Scriptures divinely inspired written and delivered to the Church as the Word of God those Apocryphal Books which however we with the Ancient Churches value according to their Worth Truth Credit and use yet we receive them not into the canon or rule of Faith because we find for certain that neither the Greek nor Latin Churches of old neither Jews nor Christians Councils nor Fathers for 1400 years did ever so own or receive them Which Truth after many others and beyond any other if I may say it without envy is exactly and fully cleared of late by a person whose reputation formerly clouded by some popular jealousies as to his Sincerity and Constancy in the Reformed Religion of the Church of England deserves to have its true lustre for Love and Honour with every true Protestant at home as he hath abroad for that learned Industry Courage and Honesty which he hath shewed in that particular to assert the main hinge of Religion the Canon of the Scriptures against the Papists effrontery in that particular which hath engaged them in such a Dilemma as is hard to be avoyded by the greatest sophisters of the Roman party For if the Canon of the Scriptures be such as
ἹεÏá½° ΔάκÏυα Ecclesiae Anglicanae Suspiria THE TEARS SIGHS COMPLAINTS AND PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Setting forth Her former Constitution compared with Her present Condition ALSO The visible Causes and probable Cures of Her Distempers In IV. BOOKS By JOHN GAUDEN D.D. of Bocking in Essex Jer. 8.28 Is there no Balm in Gilead is there no Physician there Why then is not the health of the Daughter of my people recovered DEPRESSA RESVRGO LONDON Printed by J. G. for R. ROYSTON at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1659. ECCLESIA ANGLICANA PROTEGE PASCE DUX MEA IN TENEBRAS ET GAUDIUM IN MEROREM VT PELLICANA IN DESERTO Proprio vos sanguine pasco Nunquam CHRISTO Charior quam sub Cruce gemens Illustrissimis ANGLICANAE GENTIS Nobilibus Omniúmque Ordinum Generosis ingenuis Qui Natales Eruditione Eruditionem Virtute Virtutem Fide Fidem Moribus Verè Christianis Sanctitate Suavitatéque conspicuis Vel exaequarunt vel exuperarunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnibus Religionis Christianae Tam à Romanistarum Faece Scabie Quà m Fanaticorum Spumâ Rabie Reformatae Professoribus Hoc est verbo vitâque vindicibus Haec ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE MATRIS Olim Florentissimae nunc Afflictissimae Lugentis Languentis Suspirantis Et tantum non Expirantis Lacrymas Suspiria Planctus Preces Summa cum Reverentia Debitáque Observantia Pro Charitate Sympathia Quâ decuit Humillimum in Christo Servum D. D. D. J. G. THE CONTENTS The Preface or Address p. 1 BOOK I. Setting forth the present Distresses of the Church of England CHAP. I. THE Name and Thing the Title and Truth of the Church of England asserted p. 23 II. Primitive Piety and Prudence utterly against Schismatick dividing or mincing of Churches into small bodies or parcels p. 35 III. The present afflictions of the Church of England no argument against Her National and well-Reformed Constitution p. 46 IV. The England's Complaint p. 51 V. The cruel and unjust enmity of some against the Church of England p. 60 VI. The causeless malice and ingratitude of the England's enemies p. 64 VII Of the excellent Constitution of the Church of England and her undeserved calamities p. 68 VIII A furtâ—â—â—â— scrutiny and discovery of the England's miseries and enemies p. 73 CHAP. IX A general Vindication of the England's former excellent Constitution although it be now afflicted p. 76 X. Mr. Hooker's Defense of the Church of England unanswered and unanswerable p. 83 XI The excellent Constitution of the Church of England as to its Doctrinals p. 86 XII The Devotionals of the Church of England asserted p. 87 XIII The Ceremonies of the Church of England no meritorious cause of Her miseries p. 96 XIV A second Objection against the Church of England from Church-mens personal failings p. 114 Book II. Searching the Causes and Occasions of the Church of England's Decayes CHAP. I. HOW farre they conveniently may not and how farre they may be searched into p. 137 II. Inordinate Liberty in religious affairs the chief cause of miseries in the Church of England p. 139 CHAP. III. What Christian liberty is desirable and tolerable among people p. 143 IV. Of Plebeian rudeness and licentiousness in Religion if left to themselves p. 150 V. Instances of abused Liberty in the vulgar neglect of reading the Scriptures p. 153 VI. Vulgar neglect and scorn of Ancient Forms of wholsom words in the Decalogue Creed and Lords-Prayer p. 156 VII The Innovations Usurpations and Vastations made by some upon the Order Office and Authority of the Evangelical Ministry p. 159 VIII The pretensions of Intruders to excuse their wants p. 167 IX Of Ministerial sufficiencies real or pretended p. 171 X. What caution Christians ought to use as to those Ministers with whom they intrust the care of their souls p. 175 XI Of late new models for making Ministers of the Gospel p. 181 XII The false and foolish pretensions urged against the Ministry of England p. 188 XIII An impartial balancing of the old and new Ministers p. 190 XIV A charitable plea for the ancient Clergie of the Church of England against the ingratitude and indifferency of some men p. 193 CHAP. XV. The best of the new Teachers compared with the Ministers of England p. 195 XVI A farther sifting of these new Teachers p. 197 XVII The modesty gravity sanctity and solidity of true Ministers c. p. 200 XVIII The designs ends of fanatick Libertines fatal to the Reformed Religion p. 202 XIX An humble and earnest expostulation in the behalf of the people and Church of England p. 204 XX. The rudeness irreverence expressed by some in religious duties as a part of their Liberty p. 211 XXI The sad exchange people make of their old Religion for new Raptures p. 212 XXII The foul mistakes abuses of Christian liberty in vulgar spirits p. 214 XXIII A further discovery of mischiefs from abused liberty in Religion p. 217 XXIV The contagion of abused or mistaken Liberty spread among Ministers to the dividing debasing and destroying of them p. 221 XXV Unavoidable contentions among Ministers of different ordinations p. 224 XXVI The folly and factions of Ministers evidently seen and punished in their common calamities p. 233 CHAP. XXVII The great diminutions of all sorts of Ministers in England as to all civil respects p. 235 XXVIII The sordid envy and grudging against Ministers Tithes and Glebes p. 240 XXIX Ministers condition not to be envied but pitied p. 243 XXX Experimental instances how petulant some people are to their Ministers p. 245 XXXI The personal sufferings of Ministers after all their pains merits and troubles p. 248 XXXII Discouragements to ingenuous men to be made Ministers in England in after-times p. 254 XXXIII A worthy Ministry not expectable unless there be a worthy usage and entertainment p. 257 BOOK III. Setting forth the Evil Consequences felt or feared from the Distractions of Religion in England CHAP. I. DEcays in Godliness as to the former generation of Christians p. 261 II. â— Decayes of godliness as to the new brood and later off-spring of meaner Christians p. 267 III. The evil consequences infesting Christians of better quality p. 270 CHAP. IV. Prophaneness the fruit of unsetledness in Religion p. 273 V. Ministers molested by endless vexatious disputes p. 275 VI. The endless bickerings with Anabaptists c. now in England p. 278 VII The perverse disputings of Anabaptists aganst Infant-baptism p. 281 VIII The weakness of Anabaptists grounds against Infant-Baptism p. 283 IX The Catholick strength for Infant-Baptism p. 286 X. Of right reasoning from Scripture p. 289 XI Of the Churches Catholick custome and testimony p. 291 XII The sin of presumptuous delaying and denying baptism to Infants p. 295 XIII The dangerous effects principles of Anabaptism p. 297 XIV The Romish advantages by the divisions and deformities of the Church of England p. 300 XV. The wide and just distances between the Reformed and Romanists p. 305 XVI
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
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
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
to the Counsel Communion and conjoyned Authority of those integrall and maine or nobler parts which made up the Catholick visible Church and sometimes convened in generall Councils Of all which rights blessings priviledges and advantages both for direction and protection which are best preserved in and vigorously derived from these ample combinations of Churches which are commended by the Apostolicall wisdome and spirit which was Christs for any Christian or Congregation needlesly to deprive themselves or to withdraw divide others from them must needs be First their Infelicity exposing and betraying solitary Christians and small separate parties of them to many dangerous temptations and disadvantages of weaknesse contempt subdivision animosities among themselves also injuries and indignities from others and at last dissipations and utter desolations still dividing to Atomes and mouldring themselves to nothing All which like continued ploughes and harrowes make long and fruitlesse furrowes of deformity upon the backs and faces of such Congregations and such Christians who foolishly forsake or refuse those remedies and assistances which arise from the larger combinations of Churches which are easily had when as whole Cities Provinces and Nations professe the faith of Christ and resolve to assert it Next it is their great sin called in Scripture by the odious name of Schisme Concision Sedition Separation withdrawing from forsaking and dividing of the Churches unity judged by the Apostle to be the works of the Flesh and of the Devil when they arise from and are carried on by wilfull weaknesse ignorance pride arrogancy popularity levity animosity despight study of revenge covetousnesse ambition uncharitablenesse or any other base lust unholy distemper inordinate passion sinister interest and secular designe under never so specious pretensions of Church Reformation of setting up Christ in greater power and purity which I am sure is not yet done in Old England nor like ever to be effected by such strange methods of new churching men and women which begins the first step with spurning at the mother that bred them and the fathers that begat and nourished them laying the first stone of their new building in the ruine of that Churches both Superstructures and Foundations out of which Quarry they were hewen and to whose Fabrick they were once orderly and handsomly conjoyned for many years as many thousands of good Christians still are whom they endeavour to scare and seduce with all the scandalls they can cast before them upon this Church of England Which they having once learned boldly to reproch and abase they must make good their words with deeds that their schisme may not savour of malice or ambition but conscience and Religion Hence mâ—â—y have fallen to tear themselves quite off from any communion with or relation to the Church of England and from all resemblance in the point of polity with any other ancient or modern and reformed Churches of any renown making not onely rents in them and objections against them but total ruptures and abscissions from them and the Catholick form of all Churches no less than from this of England not modestly forbearing the use of some things in which at present they are less satisfied but haughtily forsaking yea wholly disdaining communion and subordination in any things or Ecclesiasticall order and holy ministration And all this credulous Christians must needs do with the more confidence when they are furnished by potent Orators with such Apologies as may either silence their own consciences when they accuse them or plead as they think their excuse before Gods tribunall when they shall be there charged for the scandals defamations discouragements deformities divisions and vastations made or occasioned by them in such a Christian Reformed and united Church as England sometime was It is not amiss to hear the ground of their plea which is with as much reason as if the hand or foot should think themselves not to be of the body because in a fit and humour they so say and fancy I find the tenour of their Apology runs thus I am by many men of seeming gravity learning and piety accused of the sin of Schisme but very unjustly because very falsely I did not I do not make any division or rent in the Church of England which is properly and critically the sin of Schisme but I have totally chopped quite lopped my self off from it by Abscission or rupture I never troubled my self to reform or abstain from what I thought offensive and amisse in the old but I have wholly erected a new Church I was not as a wedge to cleave a little but as a saw to cut all quite in sunder past all closing with any such society as the reputed Nationall Church of England was which I do not so much as account to be any Church but rather a Chaos or colluvies of titular Christians out of whose masse I have by a new percolation of Independency extracted some such pure materials as are formable into a new and true Church-way Yet have I not made any formall Schisme for my work was not to rend the coat or scratch the skin of Christs Spouse but to break her very bones and quite dismember that so diseased and deformed body which pretended to be a nationall Church in its severall overgrown Limbs or Dioceses on each of which I saw a Bishop or Prelate sitting and presiding which I took to be a mark of the Beast and denoting a limb of Antichrist which I know should have no place or influence in any true Church or body of Christ So that to become a perfect Christian I became a perfect Separatist I hung by no string sinew ligature skin or fibre to the so-cryed-up Church of England no I aimed not to divide it but destroy it my design was not to weaken its integrity and unity but to nullifie and abolish its very name and being its polity ministry pâ—â—r and Ecclesiasticall authority if at least these amounted to any thing more than the Chimaera fancy and meer fiction of a Church However I chose rather to deprive my self of all the good in it than to bear with what seemed evil I did not carry my self to that Church in which after a superstitious fashion I was indeed Baptised and educated a Christian as became a son to his sick mother much lesse as a servant to Christs Spouse which might have her faintings But I counted her when I came to misunderstand her and my self as a deadly enemy I treated her as an Adulteresse I proclaimed her a putid Strumpet I withdrew from her as from a dead and noysome carkase which had long layen dead and buried in the old grave of Episcopacy these thirteen or fourteen hundred yeares even from her very nativity therefore I condemned and abhorred Her with all her Scriptures and Sacraments her Bishops and Preachers her Tithes and Universities her Books and Learning her Fathers and Histories her Languages and Sciences her seeming Gifts and specious Graces her Religion
all ages if his prohibition be not against Separation Apostasy and total forsaking of the Churches communion both in Discipline and Doctrine in Polity and Verity as well as against Schisme The difference is not much between S. Pauls censure of Schisme and division as carnall and a work of the flesh Gal. 5.20 and that of S. Jude against such as separate as being sensuall and not having the Spirit especially where such communion is offered and required by a Church Christian and Reformed as is no way against the Word of God the Apostles example and the Primitive Catholick practise of all Churches such I believe and hope to prove that of the Church of England was and is as to those main essentialls of Religion which constitute a true Church both in the being and well-being But I needed not and therefore I crave your pardon worthy Gentlemen have spent so much breath to blow up and break the late thin bladders or light bubbles these new Corpusculas of separate Churches compared to the Catholick eminency unity and solidity of the Church of England and others of like size An easie foot will serve to beat down such new-sprung Mushromes of late perked up in this English soyle through the licentiousnesse of times and luxuriancy of mens humours since it hath been watered with Humane and Christian blood whose ambition seems to be not onely to divide and share but wholly to possess and engross this good land or else to leave desolate that field out of which they are sprung which bare far better fruits than now it doth long before their name was heard of under the new titles or style of bodyed and congregated associated or independented and new-fangled Churches Who have now the confidence to cry down the Church of England in its late visible polity harmony order and unity as a meer name and notion an insignificant Idea and empty imagination as if it were neither bonum nor jucundum good nor pleasant for Brethren in Christ to dwell together in unity or for men in one nation to be Christians in one Church as if bonds of civil polity reached farther than Ecclesiastick Some are so vain and vulgar as to boast that all Church-fellowship in England is no better then floten milk when once they have taken off the cream of some Saintly professors which they think worthy to make up and coagulate into their new and small bodyed Churches which are carried on by some with so high an hand and brow that a young master of that sect hath been heard to say not more magisterially than uncharitably he would sooner renounce his Baptism than own the Church of England to be a true Church And this notwithstanding that it is evident these new Rabbies have added nothing new and true to the Doctrine of the Church of England nor yet to the divine Worship and holy Ministrations or Duties used and professed in it with as much solemnity judgement and sincerity I believe as they can pretend to without blushing on mans part and with infinite more spirituall blessings and proficiency in all graces so far as yet appeares on Gods part Nor have they ever shewn any cause why It should be denyed the name honour priviledge and comfort of a true Church of Christ both in its principall parts and in the whole visible community or polity afflicted indeed at present but sometime famous and flourishing as in favour both with God and good men nor did it ever recede from its love or apostatize by any publick act or vote from such a profession of Christian and Reformed Religion as gives her a good Title to be and to be called a true Church of Christ in spight of men and Devils If any still list to quarrell at the name of a Nationall Church the same schismaticall sophisters may as well slight all those proportions and expressions used in all the grand Combinations and visible Constitutions of such ancient Churches throughout all descents of Christian Religion which never doubted to cast themselves into and continue in such Ecclesiasticall forms and parallel distributions as they found laid out by the blessed Apostles and the Spirit of Christ which without doubt most eminently guided those Primitive Churches When these new projectors have answered the Scripture style and the Apostolick patterns and pens followed by all antiquity which call and account all those Christians conjoyned in one Churches communion in point of Ecclesiasticall polity subordination chief power and jurisdiction who yet were dispersed in many places and so distinguished no doubt into many congregations as to the duties of ordinary worship throughout their Cities respective Provinces which I am sure were many of them far larger than any one Diocese or Province in England yea and possibly not much lesse than all England as Ephesus Crete Jerusalem Antioch whose province was all Syria as Ignatius tells us so Corinth Philippi Laodicea Rome c. with their Suburbs Territories and Provinces which extended as far as their proconsulary jurisdictions reached in one of which that learned and pious but fancifull interpreter Mr. Brightman doubted not to find a prophetick Type representing the Nationall Church of England with much more aptitude than his other Satyrick correspondencies were applied When the wit and artifices of Independent brethren if they allow me that relation have shrunk those great and famous Churches so distinguished and nominated by the Scripture line and record into little handfulls such as one mans lungs can reach at one time in one place when the Presbyterian brethren who have cast off yea cast out their Fathers the Bishops can manifest that the severall Congregations of Christians in those Parishes Classes or Associations which they fancy had as many Bishops properly so called and fully impowered as there were Presbyters or Preachers when by their joynt skill and force they can evince out of any Ecclesiasticall Records or Scripturall that there was not some one eminent person as the Apostle Angel Bishop and President or chief Governour among them over all those people and Presbyters who lived within such large Scripture-combinations as Churches such as was Timothy in Ephesus Titiâ— in Crete S. James the Just in Jerusalem either succeeding the Apostles after death or supplying their places during their absence from particular Churches who in their severall lots portions or Episcopal charges and divisions had while they lived the chief inspection rule authority and jurisdiction When I say these grand difficulties are cleared and removed as scales from our eyes who still honour the Church of England then we shall be willing and able to turn the other lessening end of the Optick glasse and to look upon the great and goodly Church of England as fit to be shrunk into decimo sexto volumes or to be divided into small pamphleting Congregations and bound up in Calves leather which heretofore by an happy deception of sight appeared to us at
it hath been delivered to me by the most credible testimony of the Catholick Church in the books of Canonicall Scripture truly so called Nor did I ever teach for Doctrines the Traditions of men which some have blasphemed As for the circumstantial and ceremonial parts of Religion I used in Them modestly cautiously and charitably that liberty and power for order and decency which I conceive Gods indulgence who is not the author of confusion but of peace allowed me no lesse than any of those Primitive or later Churches whose best examples I sought to follow If any of my children had discovered something in me lesse agreeable to that beauty order and gravity which had been desirable by them in a Christian and Reformed Church if any matter of reall uncomelinesse had been espied in me as what Church is there upon earth so fair but as the Moon it may have some spots wainings and eclipses what state of Christians so complete that God may not have a few things against them yet it had been their duty with the veile of Christian love and pity modestly to have covered silently concealed and dutifully reformed what was indeed amisse and not like so many Chams to have exposed such a parent such a mother to the petulancy and derision both of her enemies abroad and the plebs at home who are as prone as ever the Jews were to worship any new Calves they fancy to set up and to cast off Moses and Aaron that God and those Governours who had done such wonders among them If while men slept the enemy sowed some tares there where my Saviour had plentifully sowed good seed was I presently to be trampled under the feet of the beasts of the people or quite to be rooted up burnt and consumed because some tares appeared if my garments were in time a little spotted and sullied yet was my honour still unblemished and the sanctity of my profession as Christian and Reformed unviolated nor did my garments deserve thus to be rinced in the blood of my Children if the ceremonious lace and fringe of my coat were a little unript or torn with time yet there was no cause to rend it quite off or tear my coat in pieces if my garb and fashion seemed somewhat more grave Catholick and ancient than agreed with some mens singular and novellizing fancies yet did I not deserve to be stripp'd and stigmatiz'd to be thus exposed to shame and nakednesse much lesse to have my Flesh thus torn my Eyes pull'd out my Throat cut and my Skin to be flayed off which are the merciful endeavours of some of my reforming that is ruining enemies If some weak or unwise servants whom I trusted with the management of my affaires discharged their duties less piously or prudently than I expected or exacted of them as Church-Governours Ministers if the licentiousnesse of others was impatient to be governed so strictly as they should have been most men abhorring true Christian Discipline even then when they most clamoured for it intending extravagancies when they pretended severities yet was I not on the sudden to have been wholly deprived of all Church-government and order once duly established untill such time as my new Discipliners and wise Masters had found out some fitter way for me than that Catholick fabrick form and fashion which all Churches ever had and enjoyed from the Apostles times and constitutions Certainly the failings of Church-Governours ought not to have been so severely avenged upon the Church-government it self nor are any mens male-administrations to be laid to the charge of those good lawes and constitutions which are setled in either Church or State The very Apostolick Churches are oft blamed yea and threatened for their early degenerations without any reproch to their first institution which certainly was holy and good It savours too much of humane passion to pervert divine order under pretence of Reforming humane disorders Which in me were never so predominant as to remove me from that posture of Christian piety honour order and integrity wherein I stood firm and conspicuous in all the world as a Christian and well-Reformed Church hated indeed and many times opposed by my forraign adversaries of the Papall interest and perswasion but they despaired ever to prevail against me unlesse they first divided my children within me and armed my own bowels by home-bred and strange animosities against me These by infinite artifices and undiscerned stratagems have by them been heightened of late to such factious petulancies and furies as to adde scorns to the others thornes contempt to the others crosses gall to my vinegar scurrility to my agonies As if I could not be miserable enough to satisfie the malice of my enemies abroad unlesse I were made a scorn to my children and a shame to my friends both at home and abroad leaving me few that dare pity me fewer that can plead for me and fewest that are able and willing to relieve me My spitefull persecutors are so cruell that they are impatient to see any sympathize with me threatning those my children that dare yet own me for a true Church or their Mother the very name of which they seek to deprive me of hoping to make me quite forgotten who was sometime so renowned among the most celebrated Churches of the world Alas among some Furies it is not safe for sober Christians to speake one good word of me or for me they cannot endure any should pray for me no nor weep for me Teares are offensive and Charity it self is scandalous to my implacable enemies who labour to be my cruell and totall oppressors To this dreadfull height hath the Lord been pleased to afflict me with my children in the day of his fierce wrath in which He hath given me ashes for bread and mingled my drink with weeping filling me with blacknesse instead of beauty with war for peace with faction for union with confusion for order with impudent patricides and ungratefull matricides instead of modest thankfull and tender-hearted children Behold He hath smitten me into the place of Dragons and given me a cup of deadly wine to drink But it is the Lord let him do as seemeth good in his sight If my prayers and sighs and teares cannot yet possibly the exorbitant and implacable malice of my enemies who in the end will not appear Gods friends may provoke him to remember his tender mercies which have been ever of old and to repent him as a Father of the evil he hath suffered to be brought upon me by those that delight not in His justice but in their own sacrilegious advantages It may be he will return to be gracious as in former times and not shut up his loving kindnesse wholly from me since his oft-repeated mercy endureth for ever yea it is because his compassions fail not that I am not utterly consumed Though thou kill me yet will I trust in thee O Lord who hast wounded
both their cure and the preservation of the whole which may be still sound and entire as to the vitall more noble and principall parts I well know that it is not meet for the Church of England or the most deserving Member of it to dispute with Divine Justice nor is it either safe or wise to contest with his Omniscient and Almighty power but rather to lay our hands upon our hearts to put our mouths in the dust and to abhor our very righteousnesse than to quarrel with Gods judgements which are alwayes just though they are deep and dark past our finding out I think it an high presumption in the sawcy Criticks of these times who pretend to read the hand-writing upon the wall and to have such skill in sacred Palmestry as to know the mind of God by the operation of his hands conceiting both vainly and wickedly That God is such an one as themselves delighted with the spoiles and deformities the plunder and confusion of Churches they boldly interpret the meaning of all the troubles in England to be no other than this Gods anger against Bishops and Ceremonies against Steeple-houses and Common Prayer against Ordination and Ministry against the whole Polity and Constitution of the Church of England which they believe were so offensive and nauseous to God that he was forced to spue them out of his mouth justifying by this great argument of Gods providence as their chief shield and defence all their Schisms and Separations their Rapines and Sacriledges their Reproches and Blasphemies their Insolencies and Injuries committed and intended both against this Church in generall and against many most worthy and eminent Church-men in it I do not I dare not vindicate the Church of England before the most holy God whose pure eyes behold folly in his Saints and darknesse in his Angels as to the people in it either Preachers or Professors the Governours or governed the Shepherds or the Flock This is sure that where God had planted this Church as a pleasant Vine on a fruitfull hill where he had watered it with his Word as with the dew of Heaven fenced it by his speciall power and providence as with a wall expecting it should bring forth good grapes and good store there his contrary dealing with this his Vineyard taking away the hedge breaking down the wall thereof suffering it to be eaten up and trodden down to lie thus faâ— wast without its just pruning weeding and digging to be overgrown with briars and thornes commanding the clouds that they rain little or nothing upon it c. These sad dispensations and desolating experiments sufficiently proclaim Gods controversie with the Land and complaint against this Church that when he looked his vineyard should bring forth good grapes behold it brought forth wild grapes in so great a proportion that there was no remedy but God must be avenged on so unfruitfull so ungratefull a Nation which was second to none in temporall and spirituall mercies which are now become the aggravations of its sins and miseries it being condemned to punish it self by its own hands not for that it wanted the means of true Religion for what could the Lord have done more for his vineyard but for not using them yea for wantonly abusing those liberall advantages it enjoyed equall to if not beyond any Church or Nation under heaven Thus before the Bar and Tribunall of Divine Justice it is meet that we all as men and Christians confess our personall prevarications and cry out bitterly Wo unto us for we have sinned against the Lord. Yet as to mans judgement looking upon the Church of England not in the concrete or subject matter as consisting of many Preachers and Professors in many things possibly much depraved and deformed but considering it in the abstract in the reformed form and state of it in its former pious and prudent Constitution I must profess to You my honoured countrey-men and to all the World that in the greatest maturity of my judgement and integrity of my conscience as most redeemed now from juvenile fervours popular fallacies vulgar partialities and secular flatteries yea apart from the sense of my private obligations to the Church of England which are great and many I owing to it my Baptisme and Education as a Christian my office and ordination as a Minister all these laid aside and looking onely upon the consideration of its Religion as grounded upon Scriptures in the main and guided by the prudence of Primitive Antiquity I must profess that I cannot understand how the Church of England hath deserved to fall under those great reproches oppressions and miseries which the weakness wantonness and wickedness of some men hath sought to heap upon Her whose causeless malice and excessive passions against the Church of England are I think by a fatall blindness and most heavy judgement of God upon some men made the sorest punishers of their own and other mens sins their former unprofitableness ingratitude despite disorderliness and undutifulness against so venerable a Matron so good a Mother as the Church of England was at least it desired and offered it self to be so even to Her most ungracious and unthrifty children whom neither piping nor weeping prosperity or adversity she could ever move or affect with such conformities to Her or compassions for Her as she deserved of them I do here declare to the present age and to all posterity if any thing of my writing be worthy to survive me that since I was capable to move in so serious a search and weighty a disquisition as that of Religion is as my greatest design hath been and still is through Gods grace to find out and to persevere in such a profession of the Christian Religion as hath most of Truth and Order of Power and Peace of Sanctity and Solemnity of Divine Verity and Catholick Antiquity of true Charity and Martyr-like Constancy in it being farthest from Ignorance Errour Superstition Partiality Vulgarity Faction Confusion Injustice Immorality Hypocrisie Sacriledge Cruelty Inconstancy so I cannot apart from all prejudices and prepossessions find in any other Church or Church-way ancient or modern either more of the good I desire or less of the evil I endeavour to avoid than I have a long time discerned and daily do more and more since the contentions and winnowings of these times have put it and me upon a stricter scrutiny in the frame and form the constitution and setled dispensations of the Church of England No where diviner Mysteries or abler Ministers no where sounder Doctrinalls holier Morals warmer Devotionals apter Rituals comelier Ceremonials all which together by a meet and happy concurrence of piety and prudence brought forth such Spirituals and Graces both in their habits exercises and comforts as are the quintessence and life the soul and seal of true Religion those more immediate and special influxes of Gods holy Spirit upon the soul those joynt operations of the blessed
honour merited by the Emperours Diocletian Galerius for their extirpating Christian superstition restoring the worship of the Gods No pen saith Eusebius could equall the atrocity of those times against the Church of Christ Yet even then the gracious spirit of sincere Christians as the Ark in the deluge rose highest toward heaven then godly Bishops and Presbyters were as another Historian writes more ambitious of Martyrdome than now Presbyters are of being all made Bishops then were Christians more then conquerours and true Christianity most triumphant when it seemed most depressed despised and almost destroyed as Sulpitius Severus writes of the same times in his short but elegant History Thus Eusebius and others describe that horrid storm and black night which was relieved by the blessed day-star of Constantine the Great appearing In which dismall times learned men do not quarrell at the profession and state of Religion but at the irreligion and scandall of Christians lives the fault and provocation was not from the Faith Doctrine Liturgy Order and Government then established in the Churches of Christ but from the degenerous depraved and ungoverned passions of men as they all blamed these last whenever they appeared so they constantly asserted the other as was evident in the Synod of Antioch in which a little before Diocletians time the heresie of Paulus Samâ—satenus denying the Divinity of Christ was condemned by all being confuted by Malchion a learned man an accurate Disputant The Author or Heresiarch was excommunicated not onely from the Church of Antioch but also from the Catholick Church and separated from all Christian communion throughout the world by a just and unanimous severity Holy men then rightly judged that the meritorious cause of all those sore calamities arose not from the frame of Christian Churches which was holy uniform and Apostolick as yet but from the wantonness and wickedness of Christian professors neglecting so great means of salvation and abusing such Halcyon dayes as had been sometime afforded them Which censure I may without rashnesse or uncharitablenesse pass as to the present distresses incumbent upon the Church of England whose holy wise honourable and happy Reformation must ever be vindicated as much as in me lies against all such gain-sayers as make no scruple to condemne as all the generations of Gods children in former ages so those especially who worthily setled and valiantly maintained the Christian reformed Religion in the Church of England as against all Heathenish and Hereticall profaneness so against the more puissant and superstitious Papists also against the more peevish but then more feeble Schismaticks CHAP. X. IT were as impertinent a work for me in these times to insist upon every particular in the frame of the Church of England or to cry up every small lineament in Her for most rare and incomparable as it is unreasonable and spitefull in those that deny Her to have had any one handsome feature in Her or any thing grave comely Christian-like or Church-like in her main constitution and complexion Mr. Richard Hooker one of the ablest Pens and best Spirits that ever England employed or enjoyed hath besides many other worthy men abundantly examined every feature and dress of the Church of England asserting it by calm clear and unanswerable demonstrations of Reason and Scripture to have been very far from having any thing unchristian or uncomely deformed or intolerable which her then enemies declaimed and now have proclaimed whose wrathfull menaces the meekness and wisdome of that good man foresaw and in his Epistle foretold would be very fierce and cruell if once they got power answerable to their prejudices superstitions and passions against the Church of England which he fully proved to differ no more from the Primitive temper and prudence than was either lawfull convenient or necessary in the variation of times and occasions The excellent endeavours of that rarely-learned and godly Divine so full of the spirit and wisdome of Christ one would have thought might have been sufficient for ever to have kept up the peace order and honour of the Church of England also to have silenced the pratings and petulancies of her adversaries But alas few of those plebeian spirits and weaker capacities to whose errour anger and activity the Church of England now chiefly owes her miseries tears and fears were ever able to understand or bear away the weight strength and profoundnesse of that most ample mans reasonings and his eloquent writings Others of them that were more able were so cunning and partiall for the interest of their cause and faction as commonly to decry for obscure or to suspect as dangerous because prejudiciall to their interest or to bury in silence as their enemy that rare piece of Mr. Hookers Ecclesiasticall Polity which many of them had seldome either the courage or the honesty to read none of them the power ever to reply or the hardiness so much as to endeavour a just confutation of his mighty demonstrations Yea I have been credibly informed that some of the then-dissenters from the Church of England had the good or rather evil fortune utterly to suppress those now defective but by him promised and performed books touching the vindication of the Church of England in its Ordination Jurisdiction and Government by the way of Ancient Catholick Primitive and Apostolick Episcopacy Which one word Episcopacy hath of late years cost more blood and treasure in Scotland and England than all the enemies of Bishops and of this Church had in their veins or were worth 20. years ago whose importune clamours of old and endeavours of late to extirpate Primitive Catholick and Apostolicall Episcopacy out of this Church and to introduce by head and shoulders the exotick novelties and vanities of humane invention have brought themselves and this whole Church to so various and divided a posture as makes no setled or uniform Church-government at all by a popular precipitancy ruining an ancient and goodly Fabrick whose temporary decayes or defects might easily and wisely have been amended before they had agreed of a new model or seriously considered either their skill or their authority to erect a new one if they could find out a better which hitherto they have not done nor will they I believe ever be able to do as destitute in this point of any just commission direction power or precedent either from God or man I am sure the Supreme power of regulating all Ecclesiasticall affairs was under God by the laws of England invested in the Chief Magistrate and Governours of this Church without and against whose judgements consents and consciences no innovations were to be carried on nor indeed begun in this Church whose events or successes hitherto have been only worthy of such tumultuary beginnings the effects of them being full of dissolution confusion to all of injurious afflictions to many worthy men besides penall and perpetuall divisions among the Innovators themselves who
of the Book of Common-prayer Which very Title though agreeable to the style and mind of Antiquity as Ignatius Justin Martyr and S. Austin use it yet perhaps might in time something abate as to our English Dialect the reverence of common people toward it which probably might have been raised and preserved to an higher veneration if some Title more august solemn and sacred had been affixed to it as The holy Liturgy or The form of Gods publick worship or Divine service c. For ordinary people easily in time undervalue as triviall even in a religious satiety any thing which they are wonted to call and use as common which ought to be kept up by all prudent means to all due majesty sanctity solemnity veneration not onely in the use but in the very name and familiar appellation As to the substance and matter of this Book the wisdome of the Church of Engl. had first exactly adjusted it to the sense of Gods word nothing being there expressed as the mind of the Church which was not thought agreeable to the mind of Gods spirit in the Scriptures nor do I know any part of it to which a judicious Christian might not in faith say Amen taking the expressions of it in that pious and benigne sense which the Church intended and the words may well beare Next all the parts of it were so fitted both as to the language and the things contained in it to ordinary peoples capacities as well as all mens necessities that none had cause to complain of it as hard to be understood nor any to disdain it as too flat and easie Indeed the whole composure of the English Liturgie was in my judgement so holy so wholsome so handsome so complete so discreet so devout that I cannot but esteem it equal at least to yea I am prone with Gilbertus the German much to prefer it before any one Liturgie or publick form of serving God used in any Church ancient or later in Eastern or Western Greek or Latin Romish or Reformed that ever I saw Let any sober Christian that is able compare the Liturgie of England with those now extant as the Armenian the Constantinopolitan ascribed to S. Chrysostome the Greek Euchology used at this day that anciently ascribed to S. James those used by the Syrian and Egyptick Churches under the names of S. Basil or Gregory Nazianz. that of S. Cyril of which he gives a large account in his Catechisme the Gregorian or Roman Liturgie the Musarabick Liturgie of Spain composed by Isidore Hispalensis the Officium Ambrosianum by S. Ambrose that of Alcuinus in England which Bede mentions the Dutch French Suevick Danish any of the Lutheran or Calvinian Liturgies he will find nothing excellent in any of them but is in this of England many things which are less clear or necessary in them are better expressed or wisely omitted here As for the English Liturgies symbolizing with the Popish Missall as some have odiously and falsely calumniated it doth no more than our Communion or Lords Supper celebrated in England doth with the Masse at Rome or our doctrine about the Eucharist doth with theirs about Transubstantiation or our humble veneration of our God and Saviour in that mysterie doth with their strange Gesticulations and Superstitions In all which particulars how much the Church of Enland differed both in Doctrine and Devotion from that of Rome no man that is intelligent and honest can either deny or dissemble I am sure we differ as much as English doth from Latin Truth from Errour true Antiquity from Novelty Completeness from Defect Sanctity from Sacriledge the giving of the Cup to the people from the denying of it as much as the holy use of things doth from the superstitious abuse of them as much as Divine Faith doth from Humane Fancy or Scripture-plainnesse and proportions from Scholastick subtilties and inventions That the Church of England retained many things pious and proper to severall occasions which the Roman Devotionalls had received and retained from the ancient Liturgies is no more blamable than that we use and preserve those Scriptures Sacraments and other holy Services which the Church of Rome doth now profess to celebrate and use The wisdome of the Church of England did freely and justly assert to its use and to Gods glory whatever upon due triall it found to have the stamp of Gods Truth and Grace or the Churches Wisdome and Charity upon it as what it thought most fit for this Churches present benefit finding no cause peevishly to refuse any Good because it had been mixed with some evil but trying all things it held fast that which it judged good as it is commanded never thinking that the usurpations of Errour ought to be made any obstructions to Truth or that Humane inventions are any prejudice to Divine institutions It knew that though the holy vessels of the Temple had been captive at Babylon and there profaned by Belshazzar yet they might well be restored again and consecrated by Ezra to the service of God Some men possibly as conscientious others as curious and captious quarrelled perpetually at the Liturgie of the Church of England some at the whole form as prescribed others at some particular phrases and expressions as less proper and emphatick It is now an hundred years old and able to speak for it self justly alledging first the great joy devotion the piety thanks with which it was first received as an wholsome form of Prayer easie to be understood by English Christians next the great good it at first did ever since hath done for many years to many poor silly souls who otherwaies had been left in great blindness and barrennesse of devotion Further it pleads that it never intended to offend any good Christian since it studied in all things to be consonant to Gods holy will and word that as its order premeditatedness and constancy of devotion was never forbidden or dissallowed by God or any good men Jews of old or Christians of later times but rather approved exemplified and commanded in all their publick services both of prayers praises and benedictions so late experience abundantly teacheth how much the advantages of true Reformed Religion were generally carried on more happily by the publick and private use of that Liturgie than hath been of late years by the rejecting of it as many have done and introducing in its stead nothing but their own crude and extemporary prayers which being much unpremeditated are many times so confused so flat so flashy so affected so preposterous so improper so indiscreet so incomplete that they grow oft-times ridiculous sometimes profane bablings and battologies condemned by our Saviour when those men affect in publick extemporary prayers who have neither invention for the variety nor judgement for the solidity nor discretion for that gravity fitness and decency which are necessary in all our prayers especially when publick and social For some to
pretend speciall and immediate inspirations and divine dictates in their prayers is so impudent an imposturage that they may as well obtrude all they pray and preach for new Oracles of God and grounds of infallible verity for such are the Dictates of Gods Spirit not mixed with any thing of our own abilities The verbal dislikes which some had against the words and phrases of the Liturgie are easily salved if men will but consider the usual significancy of them at that time when the pious and prudent composers of it applied them to express their conceptions to common people Words as all things sublunary have their varyings and alterations even as to the benignity and property of their sense They are pittifull feeble Christians that stumble at such straws for want of so much candor and discretion in their devotions as must be allowed in ordinary usage and civility to the changeableness of all Languages which occasions so many new translations of the Bible as to the emendation of some words which time at length makes less proper significant or comely It argues the enemies of the Liturgie had no great fault to find with the matter of it in that they so carped at the words and manner of it which considering the speech and oratory of those plainer times was not onely good and grave but very apt and significant full of holy and pathetick expressions such as were most fit as to inform all peoples understandings so to excite their attentions and quicken their united devotions Indeed the rejection of this Liturgie as to publick use hath deprived multitudes of poor people of an excellent help both to prayer and all other duties of piety as well private as publick without any valid grounds of Reason or Religion alledged by any that I have seen to justifie their so doing I believe the greatest fault in earnest that the more lazy wanton and nauseating tempers of most men and women found in it was its length and solemnity which they thought tedious as taking up too much of their time yet sure not so much as did any way exclude the exercise of Ministers either praying or preaching gifts of which some were jealous But a more soft and delicate generation of Christians of later years is sprung up which hath found out a more easie and compendious way of Devotion which serves their turns and must be now obtruded upon all others for instead of so many Psalms Chapters Commandements Creeds Collects Litanies Epistles and Gospels constant and occasionall Prayers which in the Liturgie of the Church of England were prescribed men now make up their orisons in smaller cocks and bind up their devotions in far lesser volumes than the Ancients used contenting themselves for the most part either with long Prayers and Sermons of their own invention composure without reading any part of the holy Scripture or with such as are not now so prolix tedious as the fashion sometime was when weak men first affected publickly to exercise and shew their rare faculty that way which truly after the rate of some mens performing is so very vulgar empty and easie that if a wise learned and grave man could yet for shame he would not so far expose Prayer and Preaching to vulgar irreverence as some men have done by seeking to out-do the Devotionalls of the Church of England So that the pride and perfunctoriness of those popular affectations being now much discovered the graver sort even of Antiliturgicall Preachers and people too either confine themselves to a more constant method and form of prayer or they vary so little so cunningly and so easily that the best of their prayers in their greatest latitude for matter and variety is not beyond what may be parallel'd in the English Liturgie and was to be fully enjoyed by its help and constancy Whose cold entertainment in Scotland and disorderly rejection by some in England as they did at once highly justifie the Papists for their former Recusancy gratifie their future designes by reproching the Church of England yea openly condemning here all our reformed Predecessors for serving God so amiss that it is not now either longer tolerable or excusable in any Reason or Religion Conscience or Prudence so with unpassionate Christians all this doth not lessen the sacred dignity and reall worth of the English Liturgie which is and ever will be famous at home and abroad among sober wise and impartiall Christians who know how to serve God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all manner of prayer and supplication disdaining no way in which God hath testified his good pleasure that we should or may serve him as questionlesse He hath in this of publick and prescribed formes both of Prayer and Praises and Benedictions else neither of old to the Jews nor after to the Christians would the wisdom of God by Moses David and other of the Prophets or John Baptist the great Prophet or our Lord Jesus himself have so taught the Church or Disciples to have prayed to or praised and blessed God after such manners or in such set and solemn forms of words as are evidently recorded in Scripture Which Divine warrants as the ancient Christians in all Churches generally owned and followed as sufficient authority for their set Liturgies according to which Constantine the Great as Eusebius tells us in his life l. 4. c. 19. prescribed to his Christian Souldiers one solemne form of Latin Service yea our late Anti-liturgists thought set forms of prayer might do well at sea though not at land So the Church of England is not therefore to be blamed because some mens peevishness or petulancy hath pleased themselves in disgracing as well as disusing that holy and good way rather answering I fear the wantonness of their own and other peoples hearts than any way seriously considering the sad inconveniences following the want of such wholsome forms to be frequently inculcated upon common peoples understandings the better to inure their memories and to work upon their affections whom new and unwonted petitions rather loose and confound than so inform and affect as prayer should do few capacities among plain people going so fast as another mans tongue where usually a fresh petition crowds out the former before ever poor dull people have leisure to understand what it meant or can in judgement and faith say Amen It is not worth my answering what some alledge against the Liturgie that many godly people were weary of it that they could now go alone and so might well cast away their wooden legs stilts or crutches Yet by way of answer I may truly affirm that this was not nor ever will be the happiness of all or most Christian people in this nation or elsewhere to go upon their own legs without any stay or staff which might well help the weaker and I am sure could not hurt or hinder the stronger who may upon the same pretensions refuse the benefit of any one Ministers most
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
discreet limits and rules which it thought fittest to keep the visible profession of Christian Religion in due order and decency according as occasion required and the state of this particular Church would bear Nor was the Church of England in any of these things ever blamed or blamable by any well-reformed Church nor by any men that impartially professed Christianity among whom I cannot reckon either the politick Papist or the peevish Separatist much lesse those later rude rabbles of libertines and fanaticks who abhor all things in any Church or way of Religion which they suspect to be contrary to their loose principles and these must be conform to their several secular ends and interests which truly in England are now neither small nor poor nor modest but grand high and aspiring extremely inconsistent with those publick principles and ends of good order polity peace and unity which formerly were established and maintained in the Church of England as they ought to be in all well-ordered Churches whose work and design was not loosely to tolerate different publick professions of Religion in the same nation or community according as every man lists but seriously and impartially to constitute and authorize some one way grounded upon Gods Word and guided by the best examples as the publick standard of Religion for Doctrine Duties Worship Devotion Discipline Which methods of Piety and Charity were ever highly commended and cheerfully followed by the wisest and best Christian Magistrates in all ages and possibly they had been ere this recovered and renewed here in England if the beast of the people getting the bridle of liberty between its teeth had not so far run away with some riders who had too much pampered it that it is no easie matter not to be done by sudden checks or short turnes to reduce that heady and head-strong animal to the right postures of religious managing besides that wise men are taught by experience that nothing so soon tames the madnesse of people as their own fiercenesse and extravagancy which at length as S. Cyprian observes tires them by taking away their breath and vainly exhausting their ferocient spirits Time and patience oft facilitate those cures in Church and State which violent and unseasonable applications would but more enflame and exasperate I do not â—oubt but the greatest patrons for the peoples liberty in matters of Religion will in time if they do not already see how great a charity it is to put mercifull restraints of religious order and government upon them which are no lesse necessary than those sharper curbs and yokes of civil coercions No wise States-man will think it fit in honesty or safety to permit common people to do whatever seems good in their own eyes as if there were no King or supreme Magistrate in Israel nor can any good Christian think it fit that in Religion every man should be left to profess and patronize what he listeth as if there were no Christ as King and chief Bishop of our souls or as if he had not left us clear and setled foundations for faith also evident principles besides patterns of Christian prudence and Church-polity for order and office discipline and duty direction and correction subordination and union What these measures and proportions have been both as to the judgement and practise of the universall Church from the very Apostolicall times and their Primitive successors till this last century is so plain both in Scripture and other Ecclesiastick records that I wonder how men of any learning can be so ignorant or men of any honesty can be so partiall as by their doubting and disputing to divide the minds of Christian people and by rude innovations to raise so unhappy factions as have at this day overspread this Church and Nation like a leprosie which is a foul disease though it may seem white as snow blanched over with the shews of liberty but betraying men to the basest servitude of their own lusts and other mens corruptions as well as errours CHAP. III. I Know and allow that just plea which is made by learned and godly men for Christians mutuall bearing with and forbearing one another in cases of private and modest differings either in opinions or practises yea as S. Ambrose S. Austin S. Jerome and others observe there is a great latitude of Charity to be exercised among particular Churches in their different methods and outward forms of holy ministrations according as their severall polities are locally distinguished by Cities Countreys or Nations I willingly yield to all men much more to all Christians that liberty naturall civil and religious which may consist with Scripture-precept and right reason with grounds of morality and society which is as much as I desire to use or enjoy my self in point of private opinion or publick profession I have other where observed out of Tertullian that Religion is not to be forced but perswaded I admire the Princely and Christian temper of Constantine the Great who professed he would not have men cudgelled but convinced to be Christians that Religion was a matter of choice not of constraint that no tyranny no rape no force is more detestable than that which is committed upon mens consciences when once they come to be masters of so much reason as to chuse for themselves and to hold forth those principles upon which they state their Religion This indeed was the sense of that great and good Emperour But then withall he professed not to meddle by any Imperatorian or Senatorian power with matters of Religion either to alter and innovate or to dispute and decide them but left them to the piety and prudence of those holy and famous Bishops which were chief Pastors of the Church whose unanimous doctrine and uniform practise had carried on Christian Religion amidst all persecutions with so great splendour uniformity authority and majesty that few Christians were so impudent as to doubt much less contradict and openly dissent from their religious harmony publick order and profession which was grounded on Scripture-precepts and guided by Apostolicall patterns Yet amidst those primitive exactnesses to preserve the publick peace and unity of Churches nothing was more nourished and practised than that meeknesse of wisdome which every where sought to instruct men not to destroy them for their private differences in Religion when they were accompanied with humility modesty and charity not carried on with insolence and injury to immorality and publick perturbation in all which men shew malice and pride mixed with and sowring their opinions which easily and insensibly carry mens hearts from dissentings to emulations from emulations to anger from anger to enmity from enmity to despiciency from despising to damning one another Private perswasions like sticks when they come to vehement rubbings or agitations conceive heat and kindle to passionate flames whereas in a calm and Christian temper who so differs from me is in charity to be interpreted as desirous
conveniency When Religion is thus setled by publick counsel consent and sanction it ought in all reason and conscience to be preserved in wayes of honour peace and safety more carefully than those banks are which by keeping out the seas inundations preserve our pastures and cattel from drowning else every Polity and Nation pretending to be Christian proclaim to all the world that they think Religion to be no better than matters of Scepticall dispute and variable opinion having nothing in it clear or certain as to any divine truth or infallible Revelation Of which since their ignorance and weakness or passion and partiality to which every private man is subject makes them less capable either to search or judge to dispute or determine the wisdome of God hath alwayes either established or exemplarily directed his Church to use and enjoy some such constant Conservators of Religion besides the occasionall Reformers and restorers of it which were of old the Prophets extraordinarily sent besides those that were ordinarily brought up in the schooles of the Prophets which were the nurseries of those learned and wise men who made up the Sanhedrim or grand Council among the Jews consisting of seventy men who were for piety parts and place chief Fathers Doctors and Rabbies in the Church of the Jews and the great Conservators of their Law and Religion Answerably we read in the Primitive Churches and times this care and power was by the wisdome of Christ fixed and by all good Christians owned in the Apostles and Elders to whom in case of any dispute or difference in Religion address was made not onely to hear their counsel and judgement but to submit to their decisions and decrees which bound every man to preach no other doctrine different from much less contrary to what that venerable consistory both taught and summarily delivered to the Churches of Christ viz. wholsome formes and short summaries of sound doctrine as well as in their more diffused writings occasionally sent to particular Churches and divinely delivered to the use care and custody of the Catholick Church Agreeable to these holy precedents every Christian Church in after-ages had within their several distributions or dioceses distinguished by their Cities or Provinces their Synods or Ecclesiasticall Councils for all those emergencies or concernments of Religion which arose within their limits and combinations proportionably they had more extensive Conventions and generall Councils in cases of grand concernment for the comprimising of all differences in Religion and conservation of the Churches both purity and peace These methods of prudent piety and pious prudence as they were of divine Institution so they ought to be perpetuall in the Church of Christ as being the onely means left for the conservation and reformation of Religion 'T is true in the dimness of after-ages when the decay of Primitive zeal love sanctity and sincerity had too much prevailed over these Western Churches the Bishops of Rome taking the advantage of the higher ground whereon the fame of that City was raised not onely for being the Metropolis of the Roman Empire but for being a prime Church of Apostolicall plantation and high renown for the Faith and martyrly constancy of its first Bishops these with no great difficulty as with great art and policy contrary to the judgement and practise of Antiquity for the first 600. years sought to fix the Standard of Religion in the Popes chair and to make his breast the great Conservator of Religion certainly a very easie compendious and happy way to keep up the peace and honour of Christian Religion and Churches if the Bishop of Rome could in the noon-day-light of these times either convince the world of his speciall gift of Infallibility or make good his claim of being sole and supreme Judge of all controversies in Religion above any other Pastors and Bishops yea and above a generall Council This late prodigious pillar or huge Colosse of the Popes infallible sole and supreme power hath as of old so of late years not onely been much weakned by many Churches Greek and Latine dissenting but by some it hath been quite overthrown demolished and broken in pieces as an arrogant abuse and intolerable tyranny contrary to all rules of Scripture and reason never challenged by the first famous and holy Bishops of that Church nor owned in after-ages when Popes began to usurp upon other Bishops and Churches by the most learned and godly men of those times This justice being done to the honour and liberty of the Churches of Christ and their respective Bishops or Pastors against the Papall obtrusion of his sole judicature yet no Reformed Church of any repute hath been so transported by just indignation against the Papall usurpations as to expose themselves and their Religion to the various breach and giddy brains of the vulgar but every one hath both confined and setled their profession by some publick profession as the standard of Religion also they have some such Conservators of Religion either ordinary or extraordinary as do take care that the established Religion suffer no injury or detriment This authority or power seems now much wanting in England though it be very necessary in my judgement which should so preserve the publick stability of true Religion as not to invade any good mans private liberty which ought not to be too severely curbed yet not so indulged as to injure the common welfare contrary to all rules of reason justice and charity These Conservators of Religion should not exact of private Christians any explicite conformity or subscription under penalty of any mulct or prison much less with the terrour of fire and faggot which was the zealotry of Papal tyranny onely they should take care that people be duly taught that Religion which is setled that none be a publick Preacher that is a declared dissenter or opposer of it that no man do broach any novelty without their approbation that no man do petulantly blaspheme oppose scorn or perturb that constitution of Religion which is publickly setled as supposed to be the best that no man abuse the name of Christian liberty to the publick injury All sober and wise Christians do see and feel by late sad experience that liberty in the vulgar sense and notion is but a golden Calf which licentious minds set up to themselves under that specious name as the Israelites did their abominable Idoll under the popular title and acclamation of These are thy Gods O Israel If common people be indulged in what freedome they will challenge to themselves wise men will soon find that their Christian liberty is no better than an Image of jealousie a Teraphim a Tamuz or Adonis offensive to the God of reason order law and government destructive to humane society dishonourable to the name of Christ and that holy profession which was so renowned of old as Christian that is the most regular meek harmlesse strict peaceable and charitable Religion in
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
these must exercise all Church-power and Divine authority over your consciences whereas for my part I do not think that the best of these new Masters and Ministers can have from their own fancies or peoples forwardness so much authority because they have none either from God or the Church of Christ or the laws of this Land as would make them petty Constables or Bom-baylies a Lay-elder or an Apparitor This I am sure that in the purest and primitive times as Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian S. Cyprian and others assure us the holy mysteries of Christian Religion the power of the Keyes the sacrating of Sacraments the pastorall ruling and preaching as of office duty and necessity to any part of Christs flock was esteemed the peculiar and proper work of Bishops and Presbyters in their order and degree as the true and onely Pastors and Teachers that succeeded the twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples in their ordinary Ministry nor were men branded for other how able soever than insolent and execrable usurpers who did adventure to officiate unordained that is not duly authorised as Ministers Such intruders Tertullian notes both some men and women to have been in his time who were leavened with Schisme and Heresie so Epiphanius and S. Austin tell us of the Quintilliani Pepuziani and Colliridiani who were confounders of the Ministeriall order Sozomen Socrates Nicephorus and other Church-historians sharply censure one Ischyras or Ischyrion who unordained pretended to be a Presbyter and so to officiate calling him a detestable person and worthy of more than one death whom Athanasius finding about to consecrate or rather desecrate the Eucharist he in an holy and heroick zeal as Christ in the Temple brake the Communion Cup overthrew the Table and repressed his insolent impiety counting him as another Judas Iscariot a traitor to Christ and the Church Yet in the place of the Ministers of the Church of England I beseech you how few Athanasiusses how many Ischyrasses may you now see challenging to themselves the care of mens souls as Ministers of Christ undertaking the managerie of mens eternall interests confident to interpret Scriptures to resolve doubts to decide controversies to satisfie mens consciences to keep up the truth power and majesty of Christian Religion by new undue and exotick wayes against the torrent and impetuous force of ignorance Atheism profaneness errour malice and madness of men and Devils For all which grand designs of Gods glory and the Churches good those men are as fit agitators as Phaeton was to drive Phoebus his Chariot and truly with like success they will do it for instead of enlightening the world these Incendiaries will set all on fire as far as they meet with any combustible matter in which sad conflagrations begun and blown up by them in this Church of England some of them are so vain as to glory calling them the spirituall day of judgement an invisible doomesday a coming of Christ in the spirit of burning and refining to purge his Church For this purpose they say the Sun must be turned into darknesse and the Moon into blood government of Church and State must be subverted nor do they according to their severall fancies and interests fail to presage and expect a glorious Resurrection to their parties which they hope shall reign with Christ if not a thousand years yet as long as they can prevail so as to get power and preserve those liberties they have ravished to themselves CHAP. VIII NOr are these novell undertakers ever more ridiculous than when they sow pillowes under their own rustick arms and others elbows excusing yea abetting their illiterate rudeness and idiotick confidence with the primitive plainness and simplicity of the Apostles when Christ first chose them who were Fishermen Tent-makers or the like Which is truly but very impertinently alledged as any parallel case with these impotent and pragmatick intruders unless they could manifest to the world which they never yet did nor ever will such miraculous endowments such power and anointing from above as came upon the Apostles which in one moment was able to furnish them with more sufficiency and authority than all study and industry can ever do any of us which are the now ordinary means appointed and blessed by God succeeding in the place of miraculous gifts where Churches are once fully planted and Christianity setled To all which the constant testimony of an uninterrupted Ministery and holy succession of ordained Bishops and Presbyters from the very Apostles as they from Christ is a more pregnant witnesse and conviction than any new miracles could be much more than any such pittifull accounts can be as these wonders of ignorance and arrogancy can give to the world of any extraordinary matters they say or do either as Ministers or Christians The best of some of whose lives would deform I fear the golden legend which seems to be written by a man of a brazen forehead a leaden wit and an iron heart We the despised Clergie of England do profess to use and pray God to bless our long preparative studies meditations writings readings also our immediate care concomitant labours in this kind habitually to fit us for that dreadfull work and for every actuall discharge of it We find these methods practised by the most famous lights of the Church recommended by S. Paul to Timothy though a person in some things extraordinarily gifted that he should attend didiligently to those exercises that his profiting might appear We do not now expect fire from heaven with Elias to come down upon our sacrifices but we are glad to take the ordinary coals of Gods altar which may by his Word and Spirit going along with our pains and prayers both enlighten our minds and kindle our hearts so as to make us burning and shining lights in Gods house which is his Church Truly those proud and poor wretches who know no coals but those of their own chimney-corners may possibly have a few embers on their hearths or in their potsheards they may like dark lanthorns have a bit of a farthing-candle in them that shines with a little dim and dubious light on one side onely as in the smatterings of some plain primer-knowledge which they have gathered either by superficiall reading the Scriptures or by hearing some Sermons heretofore from the able Ministers of England or by gleaning a little out of the plainest of their writings but 't is most apparent that on three sides of them that is for Grammaticall skill historicall knowledge and polemicall learning they are so horridly black and dark that they seem fitter implements to bring in such ignorance irreverence Atheism superstition and confusion as shall quite put out the Christian and Reformed Religion in this nation reducing all to pristine darkness deformity and barbarity than probable ever to be either propagators purgators or preservers of it which had long ago been over-run with the rank weeds of
sacred office charge and ministration how infinitely ought you to be ashamed and regretted to see them usurped many times by the dogs of your flocks by your hinds and foot-men your grooms and serving-men by threshers weavers and coblers by taylors tinkers and tapsters any mean and mechanick people whose parts and spirits are onely fit for those trades to which their breeding and necessities have confined them Not that I despise or reproch these honest though mean employments but I highly blame their insolence and other mens patience to see these usurp upon the dignity of the Ministry Certainly such proud poor wretches may to some men possibly seem fittest Ministers in a disordered State and decaying Church as factors for Satan and Antichrist setters for Ignorance and Superstition turning Faith into Faction but they will never prove after that fashion of preparing and admitting either able or faithfull or fruitfull Ministers of Christ or his Church seeming themselves and making others despisers of Christ with the blasphemous Jews while they so look upon him and treat him as under the notion of the Carpenters son as their equall or inferiour in some handicraft forgetting his divine glory and majesty as the onely-begotten son of God to whom all power is given in heaven and earth who hath executed this power most visibly in sending forth his Ministers to teach and baptize all nations out of which to gather and govern his Church in his name They rudely slight Christs ministerial authority in such as are truly excellent and duly ordained Ministers that they may proudly challenge it to themselves without any reason or Scripture law or order command or example either from Christ or his Church These men who say they are Apostles Prophets and Preachers and are not will be in the end and already are found liars against God and their own souls deceitfull workers false Apostles Mock-ministers Pseudo-pastors disorderly walkers authors of infinite scandall and confusion of scorn and contempt to Christian and Reformed Religion both here and elsewhere many of them serving their bellies and gratifying their carnall lusts and momentary wants much more than designing to advance the glory of God the Kingdome of Christ or the eternall good of mens souls which are not to be carried on save in Gods way that is by fit abilities and with due authority both are required as necessary for a true Minister the first though reall is not sufficient without the second For as the meer outward materiall action cannot be a divine sacramentall or ministerial transaction more than every killing of an Ox was a sacrificing so nor are meer naturall or personall abilities sufficient to acquire any office or authority much less this of the Ministry which is divine or none any more than every able Butcher was presently enabled to be a Priest Any mans ability fully to understand or handsomely to relate the mind of his Prince makes him not presently an Embassador or Minister of State unless there be a commission or letters of credence to authorize the person The blessed Apostle S. Paul who was extraordinarily converted called and sent of God as a Christian a Minister or Apostle yet we see did not take upon him the exercise or office till first Ananias had by Gods speciall command laid his hands on him and he became endowed with the ministerial gift or power of the holy Ghost which were afterward in like sort solemnly confirmed and increased by the express command of God when Paul and Barnabas were separated and sent upon special service with fasting prayer and laying on of the hands of some Prophets and Teachers in Antioch where the Apostle had formerly preached in the Church a whole year among much people This same Apostle oft blames and bids Christians beware of false Apostles not onely false in their doctrine but in their ordination and mission as the Prophets of the Lord did of old the false Prophets whom God had not sent yet they ran The Spirit of Christ commends the Angel of the Church of Ephesus where as Irenaeus and others tell us S. John lived long and left the most pregnant examples of Ecclesiasticall order Episcopall power and Ministeriall succession for trying those that said they were Apostles and were not for finding esteeming and declaring them as liars no way listning and adhering to or communicating with them as being Falsaries and Impostors enemies at once to the truth order and peace of Christs Church For 't is seldome that a bastardly generation of Preachers doth not bring forth some false and base doctrines for it is observable in this as in civil Histories that Bastards in nature and so in office are commonly most daring and adventurous spirits Certainly the late illegitimate Ministers or spurious Preachers of new and strange originals in England have in less than fifteen years brought more monsters of opinions and factions in Religion than have arose in so many hundred years before in any one Church I know some Christians are prone to gratifie their curiosity as those do who sometime go to see monsters in making some triall and essay of these pretended Preachers that once knowing their ignorance and insolence they may upon juster grounds ever after abhor them If this be tolerable for some persons of able and sober judgements yet it is no better than a snare and dangerous temptation for others that are weak and unstable nor may the venture be oft made by the more steddy Christians lest they seem thereby to countenance and encourage so great a confusion innovation usurpation and scandal in the Church of Christ besides the abetting of that high profanation of holy duties and mysteries which ought not to be transacted but in the name power and authority of our God and Saviour Certainly good Christians ought not at any hand to communicate with such usurping intruders in any sacramentall action nor ought they to own any thing more of a Minister of Jesus Christ in them than they would of a King or Magistrate in a Stage-player Doubtless as no good Christian so least of all those that profess to be Ministers of Christ ought to live as sons of Belial disorderly refractory unruly after the arbitrary rude and presumptuous dictates of their own wills The spirit of true Ministers and Prophets will be subject as it ought to that rule order and custome which in all ages hath been the canon measure and commission of all Evangelical Ministers and Pastors of Christs Church As naturall and morall endowments are no plea to invest any man into any office military or civil much less into any power and authority Ecclesiastical The pretenses of new and extraordinary calls of missions immediate from God are not in any reason expectable nor in Christian Religion credible where the ordinary power and commission was continued and might duly be had as it was and yet is in the Church of England
of living waters which they digged not that they might dig to themselves broken Cisterns which can hold little or no water And this they delight to do not onely against those daily instances which miserable and manifest experience gives them of the sad and decayed condition of the Christian and Reformed Religion in this Ch. of Engl. since these new Ministers have intruded and divided but contrary also to all those pregnant testimonies undeniable demonstrations which both our pious fore-fathers in Engl. and all other Christian Churches in all ages have afforded us in the practises and writings of the Fathers testimonies of all Church-historians who with one mouth every where unanimously tell us what was the Apostolick ancient true and onely beginning of the Ministeriall order what the holy and happy way of its descent derivation and succession by duly consecrated Bishops and ordained Presbyters Contrary to all which plain and perpetual remonstrances for nothing is in them dubious or dark I am amazed I confess to see not the giddy and heady vulgar ungratefully engaged who are alwaies like tinder ready to take fire at any sparks of innovations diminutions and extirpations especially of their laws and governours but I find some men of worth yea and Ministers of good learning and seeming ingenuity either so over-awed by the vulgar or over-biassed by their own private interests inclinations and passions that after so much light of Scripture and antiquity shining both in the divine Originals and the Ecclesiastick copies of Ministeriall order and succession after their own former solemn approbations and subscriptions after their late experience of the sad consequences already too much felt in this Church as fruits of those innovations and usurpations made upon that unity power and authority of the Evangelicall Ministry yet I grieve and am ashamed to see that such men should still pitifully comply with consent to yea and promote those dangerous alterations and desperate extirpations which are designed by the enemies of this Church whose aim is to baffle and deprive this Reformed Church in so main a point and hinge of Religion as the ancient sacred orders the constant Ecclesiasticall methods of the Evangelicall Ministry must needs be which what they ever have been in this and all Catholick Churches no man of moderate learning humble piety and honest principles can be ignorant of CHAP. XI THose new unwonted and exotick fashions which some men have studied of late to introduce or incourage in England as to this point of Ministeriall office and power besides that they are all of them new some of them monstrous to this and all ancient Churches they plainly savour more of humane faction than of Christian faith else they would not they could not in any conscience or charity be so mischievously bent and malapertly spitefull against those worthy Bishops and other excellent Ministers who still adhere to the Ancient and Catholick order of the Church of England nor yet could they be so mis-shapen multiform and many-headed in themselves changing every day almost as Proteus by an innate principle of mutability which follows the fancies and interests of new and present projectors but not the judgement and grave example of our ancient and impartial predecessors And however some of these new ways not of successive procreating but new creating Ministers may seem first brewed by domestick discontents next broached by a forreign sword at length fostered by a partiall and over-awed Assembly at last fomented for a season by scattered and divided houses Parlaments in very broken touchy and bloody times when every new thing was made triall of which might as toyes and bables best please the peevish and petulant parties of people in England however others have further challenged to themselves a particular liberty and arbitrary authority such as best likes them in this point of the Ministry which no man of any wisdome piety or gravity can allow under any pretensions of gifts or graces ministeriall in any man Yet all these novell inventions whatever title they pretend from God or man from policy or necessity may not in any reason or Religion in any honour or conscience in any piety or prudence be put into the balance with much less be thought fit to out-vie that clear primitive pattern that Catholick constant succession that Apostolick and divine prescription which do all preponderate for the Ministry of the Church of England in the true scale of regular and authentick ordination of Ministers who are never so completely and indisputably invested with that power as when by the imposition of hands solemnly done by Episcopall Presidents and Presbyterian Assistants who after due examination and serious monition and fervent supplication do in prescript words commit that ministeriall power spirit and authority of Christ which ought to be rightly imparted to those that undertake Evangelical ministrations in Christs name to any part of his Church if they desire to avoid the sin and scandall of being intruders traitours usurpers and counterfeiters of Christs ministeriall dignity and authority Secular or civil powers which are but the products of the sword and managed chiefly by the policy and arm of flesh may indeed confer what honour office and authority they please on any man in civil things yea they may and ought in conscience to take care of and regulate the exercise of Ecclesiastical power in reference to Gods glory and the publick good both of Church and State but they cannot as from themselves by any naturall morall or civil capacity confer holy orders or bestow Ministerial authority on any man much less may they or as Christian Magistrates will they make a new broad Seal of Christianity or commence any new way of ministeriall authority nor may they in conscience cancel or abrogate the good old way no nor yet alter in any materiall part the Catholick way of its right derivation and succession which was by the hands of those who had first received that holy deposition which certainly is of as much higher nature orb and sphere beyond any naturall moral or secular power as the celestial light of sun and stars is above that which is from candles or that holy fire on Gods altar was above that which is but culinary All good Christians agree that its originall is in Christ its commission from Christ its first delegation to the twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples from the Apostles we read its transmission to others in the Apostolicall Acts and Epistles How it was afterward continued and by what means derived to an uninterrupted Catholick succession in all Churches for 1500 years is not indeed to be learned so not decided by Scripture whose records except the Apocalyps extend not above 28 or 30 years after Christs ascension but being a thing now of late so hotly disputed in this and some other Churches there is no rationall satisfaction to be had as to matter of fact but by the after-histories of the Church
Bishops and Presbyters of the Catholick Church the East and West the old and new the Greeks and Latines the Roman and Reformed that all these have conspired to erre so great so universall so constant an errour themselves and to mis-guide you me and all the Christian world in such wayes of receiving and conferring Ecclesiastick order Evangelicall Ministry Church-government as were unchristian yea Antichristian diverse from Christs mind yea contrary to it offensive to the godly odious to God himself as some men have lewdly declamed whose tongues I judge to be no slander since they appear persons of so little conscience and less forehead either grosly ignorant of the practise and platform of Antiquity or most uncharitably impudent in branding so many thousands of godly Bishops and other gracious Ministers both in England and all other places who were justly famous in their generations for their learning and piety as if they were either so many blind guides or so many bold intruders meer usurpers juglers impostors hypocrites as if to gratifie their own private ambitions they had from the very beginning in the sight and in despite of S. John and other Apostolick Pastors perverted the way of Christ as to that Ministeriall power Church-order which he had appointed setting up of their own heads a paternall presidency or Episcopall eminency instead of these newly discovered wayes of either a Presbyterian parity or a popular Independency by which Presbyters and people in common challenge to themselves the sole possession dispensation and managery of all Ecclesiasticall office power and authority inventions so pragmatick so turbulent so contrariant to one another as well as to the ancient orders of the Church that we in England were happily unacquainted with them till of late years as were all other Churches in the world till this last century who cannot be thought in all former ages to have wanted such Pastors and Teachers such Rulers and Governours as were after Gods own heart to carry on his great work of saving souls in the preserving and propagating of his Church by the Ministers of it If the great cloud of ancient and Catholick witnesses who ever owned all Ecclesiastick power to be magisterially indeed and primarily in Christ but ministerially and secondarily in the Apostles and their successors as to all Church-ministration ordination and jurisdiction which power resided chiefly in Bishops and from them was regularly derived to Presbyters if these I say can fall under your hard censure as either deceived or deceivers yet truly their errour in this point may be the more veniall because the case was not so much as once doubted or disputed for three hundred years in those best and first ages of the Church It will be more charity in their censurers to suspect they wanted ability to see the light of Christs mind and the Apostles examples than honesty to follow them But for my self and other Ministers my Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England who after so high contests about the Ministry of the Church both as to ordination and jurisdiction in which we have examined all Scriptures and rifled all Antiquity if we do still bona fide humbly honestly and conscientiously chuse to follow what seems to us Christian Catholick and uniform antiquity rather than any partiall and divided wayes of novelty I hope we are excusable to you if not commendable how ignorant or obstinate soever we seem to others who think we ought to be confounded if we will not be converted or rather perverted by them But if you do indeed judge that after so clear demonstrations and potent convictions from Scripture and Antiquity which either Geneva or Edenburgh or Amsterdam or New-England have alledged we do still persist in our Primitive opinions and Catholick Errours touching the office power and derivation of the Evangelicall Ministry and Authority such as was established in this Church of England meerly out of either passion pertinacy and obstinacy or for private interests sinister ends and secular policies if you can think us so base and false such sots and beasts so unworthy of the names of Ministers Christians Englishmen or men if this be your sense of us truly you and the whole State shall do but an act of high Justice speedily to cast us all out as well Presbyters as Bishops for unsavoury salt to expose us yet more upon the dunghill of vulgar contempt and worldly poverty which some Satyrick tongues and pens have earnestly importuned and petulantly endeavoured against all the ancient Ministers and orderly Clergie of England under the name of Prelaticks and Episcopall If the bitter and bold invectives of spitefull Papists and fierce Separatists of rash Presbyterians and rude Independents of Erastians and Anabaptists if these have been or can be made good to you against the Ministry and ordination of the Church of England against all its Bishops and Presbyters both in office and exercise as if we had not either before or since the Reformation any due ministeriall office or authority no true ordination or succession little of ministeriall gifts and less of graces no sound doctrine faithfully preached no Sacraments rightly consecrated no holy mysteries lawfully celebrated no Church-discipline dispensed no right government constituted no true Ministry or authoritative Ministers any way deserving either love or honour from you and your posterity If all your and our faith repentance charity and other graces be in vain if your Christian peace and hopes be all but imaginary if neither we are made true Ministers of Christ nor you true Members or Disciples of Christ if all your and your fore-fathers piety devotion charity Christianity hath been onely a fantastick pageantry a mummery and mockery of Religion Christianity and Reformation if hitherto you have onely been deluded and abused in so high concernments of your consciences and souls to eternity truly 't is but high time for you and your new Common-weale to offer up the wretched remnant of those Bishops and Presbyters who have yet survived the calamities and contempts of these times and who yet retain their former judgement ministeriall office and holy orders conformably to the Church of England to be an acceptable Sacrifice a welcome Holocaust or much longed-for Burnt-offering to the malice of their adversaries and persecutors both Gog and Magog first to the more secret but implacable despite of Papists who have infinitely longed and no less rejoyce to see poverty obscurity silence scorn division confusion extirpation to be the portion of the English Clergie whom they heretofore either envied or dreaded beyond the Ministry of any Christian or Reformed Church in all the world next you shall in so doing highly gratifie the bitter and bolder enmity the fouler-mouth'd fury of all other sharp-tongu'd brazen-fac'd and heavy-handed Schismaticks who have a long time grudged at the Clergie of England envying both Bishops and Presbyters their honours liberties livelihoods and lives prompted hereto partly by their own
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
very vigilant and active doth then move most potently upon the face of our English waters when there is to be seen nothing but a sea of confusion a meer Chaos of the Christian and Reformed Religion Which feared deluge and by wise men foreseen devastation of the Reformed Religion once wisely established honourably maintained and mightily prospered in the Church of England is already much spread and prevalent among many people under the plea and colour of I know not what liberty to own any or no Minister any or no Religion any none or many Churches in England The visible decayes and debasings of the true and Reformed Religion in England as to piety equity unity and charity as to the authority of its Ministry and solemnity of its Ministrations are so palpable both in the outward peace and profession also in the inward warmth and perswasion that it is high time for all sober and wise men that love God Religion and their Countrey mightily to importune the mercies of God that breathing upon us with a spirit of meeknesse and wisdome truth and love humility and honesty he would at length asswage that deluge of contempt and confusion the troubled and bitter waters of wrath and contention which have over-whelmed the highest mountains of this Church over-topping by their salt waves and aspersions the gravest wisest most learned and religious both Preachers and professors of the Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation Which licentious insolencies have made all sober Christians so sick weary and ashamed of them that they cannot but be infinitely grieved to see and foresee the low ebbe to which the Reformed Religion in its purity and power must in time fall in England while the pristine dignity and authority of the Evangelicall Ministry is so invaded baffled and despised while the authentick derivation and Catholick succession of that holy power is so interrupted innovated divided destroyed while the reverence of primitive customes and examples is so slighted abated by fanatick innovators while the cords of Christian harmony and Church-polity are so loosened and ravelled on every side while the just honour and encouragements of learning and learned men are so much damped and exhausted while the Ecclesiastick Glory of this Nation which was its chiefest in being and owning it self as a true and Reformed Church of Christ is so much eclipsed to the great reproch of this present age and the infinite hazard of posterity which will hardly ever recover the honour order beauty and unity of Christian and Reformed Religion formerly enjoyed in this Church and Nation when once the Jewels of it the learned ordained orderly and authoritative Ministers of the Gospel with all their Ministry and Ministrations come to be either trampled under feet by Schismaticall fury or invaded and usurped by vulgar insolency which in time will rake them all up and bury them in the dunghill of Romish superstitions and Papal usurpations CHAP. XIX HOw far in humane policy or reason of State this popular liberty or rather insolency usurpation and anarchy in Religion is to be indulged I know not as not pretending to any of those depths of secular wisdome which will be found shallow at last if Gods glory and the good of mens souls be not in the bottom of them But thus far I conceive I may after so many years sad experience which all sober Christians have had of the retrogradations of the Reformed Religion in England appeal as to you who are the most generous and judicious persons in this Nation so to all prudent and well-advised persons of all sizes and conditions who are capable to weigh the true interests and future concernments of their Countrey and Posterity both as to Piety and Peace Honour and Happiness by way of an humble and earnest expostulation Hath not I beseech you this English world Prince and peasant Pastors and people great and small had enough both in cities and in villages of these late Hashshes Olives and Queckshoes of Religion in the mixture and dressing of which every foul hand must have a finger Do you not perceive a different face of Christian and Reformed Religion from what was heretofore in England when it had less experience of vulgar licentiousness but more true Christian liberty when in my memory most of yours Engl. was so full and flourishing with excellent Christians of all sorts young and old plain and polite learned and illiterate noble and ignoble in the Nobility Gentry Yeomanry and Peasantry whose setled judicious piety was the fruit of the labours cares counsels and inspection of those learned grave and godly Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters with whom you were blessed Have not all of you had enough and too much of these new flashes these fluttering squibs these erratick Planets these wandering Stars these pretenders to rarities novelties superfluities super-reformings raptures revelations and Enthusiasmes in Religion To all which you may easily see that a fancifull invention a melancholy pride a popular itching a profane spirit a loose temper and a glib tongue are very prone to betray men being as sufficient to furnish them in those trades as a little stock will go far to make up a pedlars pack yet have they so great confidence of themselves as if they exceeded not onely all former Christians all Ministers all Councils all Churches but even all holy Scriptures themselves whose darkness or incompleteness must as some men say be cleared and supplied by their speciall illuminations an old artifice of the Devil most used by those men and in those times which being most destitute of true reason good learning and Religion did most vapour of their visions and revelations their traditions and superstitions witness those Cimmerian Centuries or blinder ages of these Western Churches in which there were as many visions revelations and miracles daily obtruded on the credulous vulgar as there were Monasteries and Nunneries which in stead of Seminaries and Nurseries became dark dungeons wherein Christian Religion and Devotion were for many ages sadly confined and almost smothered with superstition idleness and luxury Have we not had enough too much of vulgar playings with piety of triflings with Christian and Reformed Religion of baffling abusing and abasing the Christian Ministry of buffetings of Christ of mockings of God by impudent pratings and insolent intrudings by confused rhapsodies and shuffling sanctities by endless janglings and refined blasphemies vented in some mens writings preachings prayings practisings so far from the light weight and height the sobriety sanctity and majesty of true Religion that they are most-what void of ordinary reason and common sense of equity and modesty of humanity and civility being little else but the froth of futile and fanatick spirits who blind poor people to enlighten them captivate them to make them free and ruine them under pretense of building them after new wayes and models of Religion sanctity salvation Have we not had enough of passionate transports popular
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
heavy sharp persecutions fixed by the solidity and patience honoured by the charity and constancy of Christian people even all these solid supports of Religion are sought by some men to be either sawn in sunder or to be cut into chips and shavings by their infinite scrupulosities by their importune longing after novelties by their affectations of Schisms and separations and usurpations Alas how many poor souls rather weak than wicked of easie heads yet honest hearts have in these later years since the vertigo of Religion befell this Nation ravelled out their time and ended their dayes in Obs and Sols in cavilling and contending in shifting their sides and parties in seeking and shaking in ranting and raving in quarrelling and jangling about their Religion What new models of Churches what new methods of worshipping God what new forms for Ministry and Ministers have distracted and distorted them while they have been picking and chusing what way they could best fancy and with most advantages follow Thus poor mortalls who have infinite sins to be pardoned and infinite wants to be supplied who have precious and immortal souls to be saved by the happy improvement of their short uncertain moment are by a pragmatick vanity continually itching and scratching while they should be cleansing and healing sceptically and miserably disputing and doubting while they are decaying and dying while they should in all piety and prudence by sound faith and serious repentance be doing that great work which is evidently set forth in the Word of God and faithfully delivered unto them by the Ministers of his Church Behold the terrours of death prevent them Eternity presseth upon them before they are resolved what side to take when to begin where to fix what to hold fast the flower of age passeth gray hairs are here and there giddiness in their heads stupor in their minds hardness in their hearts searedness in their conscience a Manichean dotage and delirancy seiseth upon them before ever they are resolved whether the Scriptures be the true onely and sufficient revelation of the Word and will of God whether it be their duty to live righteously soberly and holily in this present world toward all men whether this Church of England and all the Churches of Christ in all ages have not till now cheated them and all the world whether there be any Ministers in the Church of England that are duly set over Christian people in the Lord to whom they owe double honour whether they may not in some cases follow their own fallacious fancies and other mens flattering suggestions rather than the Scriptures plain and pregnant precepts in order to carry on the covetous ambitious factious fanatick and novell designs of such as call themselves godly whether they may not in some junctures of times and things when opportunity suits with their lusts and worldly interests dispense with Gods revealed will in his word that they may fulfill his secret will hinted as they suppose by his providences whether in order to advance the glory of God men may not sometimes break his express commands presuming that then they please God best when they most please or profit themselves as the onely people of God These strange scrupulosities or extravagancies rather in Religion do ordinarily not onely intangle but debauch the minds of common people when once they please themselves with inordinate liberties and ramblings in Religion which fill their heads and hearts with such snarlings and intrigues as resemble those deformed knots of burres which colts get upon their manes and tails when they run loose upon heaths or commons they are easily got on but very hardly shaken off or cleared mens interests lusts and passions once leavening their Religion and blinding no less than biassing their judgments it is not imaginable what sport the Devil makes with them and with what compasses and fetches of godliness he plays his game by them Have we not enough and too much hitherto in England of verball sanctity and titular Saints not after the Catholick Christian account which was Scripturall and orderly unblamable and charitable most imitable and honourable in an uniform and constant holiness full of equity and charity purity and sincerity but upon new notions names and factions We have sects of self-canonizing Saints as well as self-ordaining Ministers every petty Schismatick every solitary Seeker every extatick Quaker every Independent Noveller every Presbyterian temporiser each of these have learned of late to tip their tongues crown the heads of their parties with these precious names which are the ambition of Angels the beauties of heaven and glory of God himself And this they do not in a way of charitable communion and Christian emulation as allowing others with them an interest in that honour which I have the charity to believe some of the soberest in most of those sects may deserve but peculiarly and exclusively as if none that had or still have communion with the Church of Engl. either as Bishops or Presbyters or people ever had or have any right or claim to be called or esteemed Saints yea some of the most noysome weeds of late grown up in the garden of this Church the most vile polluted and profane wretches affect to style themselves the onely herbs of grace hereby causing the silly people to mistake hemlock for parsley and to gather hen-bane for hearts-ease Thus while either with great superstition many men scruple or with great pride they disdain to give the name honor of Saints to those holy men and women whom the judgement of the Catholick Church or the Scripture-Records have ever counted and called Saints yet they very superciliously and Pharisaically arrogate nay some monopolize these Titles to themselves and their comrades as absolutely and magisterially as Popes have done that of His Holinesse though they be never so black and abominable as some Popes even by Roman writers are reported to have been in the darkness and degeneracy of times very monsters of men and prodigies of all impiety such as Guicciardine describes Pope Alexan. the sixth a Father worthier of such a Son as Caesar Borgia or the Duke of Valentinois was than to enjoy so high a place of paternal presidency in the Church of Christ For what I pray can be more unsaintly than to desire yea delight and glory as some in England now do in most unjust and uncharitable actions in immoderate revenges in the poverties disgraces and dejections of their lawfull Pastors in the divisions distractions and destructions of that nobly Christian and Reformed Church in whose bosome they were duly baptized and instructed legitimately begotten wholsomely nourished and carefully educated as Christians and as Reformed to all excellent proportions of piety What is less Saintly than for Christians to mutiny nay rebell as S. Cyprian calls it against those reverend Fathers orthodox and godly Bishops and other worthy yea excellent Ministers to whom they and their fore-fathers do really owe themselves as
endeavoured to set forth the sad and just complaints of the Ch. of Engl. therefore just because her calamities are neither deserved by nor descended from Her former well-reformed constitution having also in the SECOND BOOK enquired after and in great part discovered as I suppose the genuine and proper causes together with the unhappy occasions of Her calamitous distresses and decayes I am now in this THIRD BOOK to set before you my honoured Countrey-men as to honest Englishmen and worthy Christians those evil consequences which already are greatly felt or may rationally be feared as to the interest of the true Christian and Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation Which I shall chiefly reduce to these four heads First the palpable decayes of Religion as to the power of godlinesse in the proficiency and practicks of piety and charity together with the daily encrease of Atheisme with a supine neglect and irreverence towards all Religion in all sorts of people Secondly the unprofitable scandalous vexatious endless disputes about Religion Thirdly the Romish advantages and Papal prevailings which are unavoidable Fourthly the civil dangers and dissentions necessarily following religious differences if once they come to be fomented by numerous parties as they will be if fit remedies be not seasonably applied to restore establish incourage and unite the pretensions and interests of the Reformed Religion according to some order polity and discipline in the Church of Engl. such as may be most agreeable to Scripture to reason and to the patternes of primitive Antiquity all which pious and prudent methods our Fore-fathers very commendably and wisely followed as I conceive in that excellent Reformation which after the fiery trial of Queen Mary's dayes came forth of that furnace pure in its Doctrine complete in its Liturgie comely in its Order solemn in its Worship and duties authoritative in its Discipline harmonious in its Government sound in the Faith fervent in all Charity full of good works abounding in the gifts and transcending in the graces of Gods Spirit It was as Gods darling for many years highly prospered with all temporall and spirituall blessings as the beloved Disciple lying in the bosome of Jesus Christ to so extraordinary indulgences of divine favour that all Reformed Churches admired her yea the Greek Patriarchs and Churches though in a depressed and distant state yet highly revered her so pious so prosperous so prudent so primitive constitution and condition in all which how it now is impaired and daily will further decay will best appeare by taking an impartiall view of those sad effects and bad consequences which either already attend or further threaten the divided distracted and distressed state of Christian Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation The first of which is the great abatement and palpable retrogradation of godliness as to the proficiency power of it both in mens hearts and lives The sweet savour and fragrancy of Religion which ariseth from truth and peace from inward sanctity and outward harmony these are grown infinitely sowred by the leaven of differences embittered to factions and despites to mutual despiciencies and eternal animosities Where envy and strife are there must needs be as Saint James tells us confusion and every evil work heightening men by spirituall pride and evil jealousies to a kind of zealous malice and cruel charity which choke as the Devils tares and thorns the good seed giving great and daily advantages to all manner of evil temptations even to gross fedities and barbarous immoralities for where Religion is once poysoned with passion swoln to factious emulations men count it a great part of their own godliness to censure others for ungodly it is made a master-piece of piety to cover their own impieties by the sharp and severe imputations they cast upon other mens opinions or profession thinking it no small assurance even of their own salvation confidently to condemn all that differ from their party in opinion or communion By this means the root and fruit of true charity which is the life and soul of Christianity the milk and marrow of all graces this first growes mortally infected through the pestilence of divisions and distractions in Religion this vitall and naturall Balsam of piety once decayed dried up or exhausted by unchristian calentures no wonder if the whole constitution of Religion grow weak ricketly and consumptuous For as planting and good husbandry are commonly neglected where war rageth men being more intent to killing than tilling so in parties and factions of Religion Christians study to live more upon the insolent plundering of other mens opinions upon the rifling and harrasing of others consciences than upon their own pious industry or humble devotion every one is so eager to make good their side and contests that they cannot much intend the great work of grace and truth in their own hearts which most thrive in faire and clean weather in the summers serenity and tranquillity of Religion As the hot and scorching beams of the sun soon drie up the morning dew or as violent flames instantly lick up the water cast upon them so are controversies in Religion to the sweet distillations of grace and heavenly diffusions of Gods Spirit Gods still voice or those silent and secret whispers of his love to the soul are not to be heard in the clamour and tintamar of controverted Religion in the same house or Church The work of grace both in private hearts publick congregations and greater Churches is best carried on like Solomons Temple with least noyse and knocking the furthest from such contention and confusion which are onely proper for the building of Babels They are most preposterous and unevangelical methods by which Christians beat their plough-shares of mortification into swords of destruction and their pruning-hooks of repentance into sharp spears by which they may smite and pierce to the heart one another While mens heads are so hotly busied in disputations against others tenets their hearts and hands easily grow cold and idle as to that work of sanctification which they owe to their own souls and that exemplary conversation in all holiness which they owe to others The lilly indeed of Christian Religion did mightily thrive amidst the thorns of heathenish persecutions but it was soon choked by those of uncharitable janglings and contentions which grew up among Christians which commonly prove so sharp and hot like that between Paul and Barnabas that even good men separate one from the other the bellowes of disputes blowing up sparks of native passions to uncomfortable dissociatings distances and damnings At last the daily whettings of mens wits and exasperatings of their spirits tongues or pens against each other do infinitely blunt the edge of their charity and dull the brightness of all their graces both solitary and sociall as to the holy improvement of their own or other mens souls for all things of Religion are disputed and acted as between rivals or enemies
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
nature and in regard of the offer of Evangelick grace by Christ as much need and as much capacity of Baptisme as the Jewish children had of Circumcision so far as both those initial Sacraments betoken the taking away of sin the supply of righteousness and other benefits attainable by sinners young or old through the covenant made in the blood of J. Christ between God and his Church both Jewish and Christian Only they put in these three popular barres against Infants partaking of those benefits which they need and are otherwayes capable of by Christ but not as the Anabaptists say in the way of Baptisme at that age in which they have no right or capacity to be baptised because First They alledge there is no precise or nominall command in the New Testament to baptize any Infants by name Secondly Baptisme is limited to such as are first taught and professe to believe which must ever exclude Infants Thirdly There is no one expresse and nominall instance of any one example where Christ or his Apostles baptized any infant which if they could finde they confesse they should then with us interpret all places in favour of infants as contained under the expression of all nations and whole housholds and you and your children c. since they confesse the tenour of the Gospel the extent or proportions of Evangelicall mercies the sufficiencie of Christs merits and the sinfull state of infants by nature yea their damnable estate unlesse they be washed and saved by the blood of Christ all these make much for infants enjoying the Sign and Seal as well as the Thing signified Grace and Glory too if they had but one example or could be convinced that ever any Apostle did baptize any one infant CHAP. VIII THis in brief is the whole strength as I conceive of the Anabaptists whereto they so pertinaciously hold meerly as to the literall silence of the name Infant in the point of Baptisme and at the same rate they may deny many other points of Christian doctrine and practise which yet I suppose they do not which not having the express and individual letter of the word for them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the generall tenour and inclusive command namely the reason of the Scripture and Analogie of Faith to justifie them besides the constant practise and judgement of the Catholick Church whose fidelity is not to be questioned by any sober man upon such slight and captious pretensions of the Scriptures silence in point of particular enumerations when yet it is full as to generall and comprehensive expressions which are many and valid foundations on which to build Infant-baptisme no more to be justly overthrown by the most subtill Anabaptists in the world than the Saducees might deny and overthrow the resurrection against Christ or the Psychopannuchists the souls immortality or the Antidominicarians the Lords day or the Antiscripturists the received Scriptures or the Antitrinitarians the Trinity or the Arians the coessentiality of the Son with the Father as God because none of these are as the Arians urged in those very words names and syllables so set down as possibly cavilling Sophisters would require or else they will not believe The silence or not express naming of Infants is no more to be urged against them in this case than the silence of Christ as to the partakers of the Lords Supper who gave it onely to the twelve Disciples with command to them to do it c. without speaking of any Women or Lay-men yet were not these hereby excluded from the Communion as to matter of fact before it was so recorded in the Acts as an History The Church of Christ alwayes understood the latitudes of Baptism expressions as well as graces to include Infants of Christians no less than the institution of the other Sacrament did Lay-men and Women which were neither present at first institution nor are nominated in any particular command of Christ As for the condition limiting persons baptizable which is actual believing this also the Church of Christ understood in a limited temporary sense as reaching only to those who were the first fruits or plants of the Christian Church who were first as Abraham to be taught the nature of the covenant duty and seal before they could reasonably receive the sign or communicate it rightly to their children who come to their claim and priviledge as of Circumcision so of Baptisme not by vertue of their personal knowledge and faith which Abraham and men grown but not their children first had and so the first called and converted Christians as parents ought to have but by that federal relation which they have even in their ignorance and infancy to believing parents and by them to God as his people part of his flock and Church And this not by a naturall or civil right which yet descends to and upon children when they know nothing but by an Evangelicall right as to that covenant made by God in the blood of Christ with his Church both of old and of late with Jews and Christians inclusive of children yea even Infants of eight dayes old as is evident in Circumcision which signified the same grace under another signe or ceremony as the Apostle declares it at large Rom. 4. Leaving therefore the cavilling and pervicacious insistings of the Anabaptists about the letters names and syllables which they must have or they will not believe Infant-Baptism more than Thomas Christs Resurrection till he felt his wounds although we grant what they alledge as to the nominal silence of the word Infants wrested by their perverse disputations yet nothing is abated as to the right and use of Infant-baptisme which is grounded upon so many grand reasonings and right deductions from Scripture-sense which being explicite and clear in many places ought to over-rule that silence of the name Infants and seeming but misunderstood limitation of taught and believing which is all the force upon the point that ever the Anabaptists could muster together against the Churches Catholick judgement and practise conform to the whole tenour of Gods mind and will his love and mercy Christs grace and merits dispensed to his Church by some initiall Sacrament including Infants as well as the adulti of riper years That you may better see upon what little mole-hills the Anabaptists stand so on tip-toes as of late they have done in England pretending to over-top the mountain of the Lord which hath been established in all lands I mean the judgement and practise of the Catholick Church I will briefly set down as in a matter largely handled by many others both late long since what are the grand deductions and Scriptural reasonings upon which the Church of God hath as I conceive alwayes maintained the right priviledge and comfort of Infant-baptisme and this without any scruple or dispute for 1500 years not but that the Anabaptists objections from the silence of
the Scripture as to the name Infant were then as obvious as now nor were there wanting heretical spirits of the Jews and Gnosticks who would have cavilled in this as other points against the true and Orthodox profession if they had not been so palpably over-born and convinced by the pregnancy of the Churches practise and judgement agreeable to the Apostolical Tradition in this point who without doubt had baptized many Infants some years before there was any part of the New Testament written which the Anabaptists so much urge that it had been an intolerable impudence to doubt or deny Infant-baptism or to oppose the after-letter of the N. Testament against the constant and precedent practise of the Apostles and their Successors whose actions were a clear and sufficient yea the best interpretation in the world of the letter of the Scripture in case of any thing that seemed lesse explicite or any way dubious Nor do I doubt but the Church was ever in this so far commendable as it was conformable to the Apostles practise and went upon the same grounds as they did not once erring so Catholick and great an errour as to apply a Sacrament to such as Christ never intended yea denied and forbad it as is pretended and onely therefore pertinacious in all ages after yea so stupid as not to be sensible of so grand an errour or misapplication that it might not be thought to have erred but rather the Church continued constant and without scruple in the doctrine of the Apostles and practise of Infant-baptism as S. Austin urges against Pelagius because they were assured from the beginning it was the mind of Christ which the Apostles best understood and according to which they did constantly practise the baptizing of Infants from the beginning where once the faith was planted in the parents the branches or seed being presently holy in Gods claim or covenant and by the childrens relation to them and to God so soon as the parents were believers and had by receiving the faith and being baptized been brought into the visible fold or flock of Christ The Scriptural Religious and rationall grounds which this and all true Churches went upon in baptizing Infants of believing parents not apostated or excommunicated were these which I oppose to the petty and capricious cavils of the Anabaptists as a mighty wall or bulwark planted with great canon against so many pot-guns or bulrushes CHAP. IX 1. FIrst The Church of God considered the nature of that Evangelical and perpetual Covenant which was explicitely made with Abraham and his seed also confirmed to him and his children by another parallel Ceremony or Sacrament namely of Circumcision which Sign or Seale being as the Anabaptists confesse long ago abrogated rather by the consent practise of the Church than any personal command of Christ that can be alledged who himself was both circumcised and baptized yet 't is certain that the Covenant still continues to Abraham and his seed as eminently contained in Christ by relation to him derived not onely to the Jews after the flesh but to those that are Jews inwardly the Israel of God or spiritual seed of Abrah as he had his name augmented and was to be the Father of many nations not by natural succession but by fiduciary imitation of his faith who is called and commended to Christians as the father of the faithfull whose priviledges Evangelical descend to all those who after Abrahams example do believe the Evangelical promises of blessednesse by Christ these being of the household of faith Abrahams children have right to Abrahams covenant the priviledges of his spirituall seed which reached as to the naturall sons of Abraham and their Infants Jews so to these imitative sons and their infants whom since no word of restraint or forbidding hath excluded from the relation covenant rights priviledges comforts Evangelicall once given to Abraham and to all the family of Faith there was no cause for the Church-Christian to exclude infants of believing parents from partaking that Evangelicall new sign and visible seal which is Baptism set to the ancient Covenant with which either Anabapt must affirm no Infants now have any thing to do no right to it or the benefits by it or they must think infants have this in so tacite blind implicite a way as they nor their parents have any visible sign seal and token of it now in the Christian Church unless they will fall to circumcise their children again who so obstinately deny baptism for that end to infants whatever they think of it as to those of riper years 2. However the Anabaptistick flourishes ratlings as to the crambe of their negations that neither precept nor practise is found in Scripture mentioning Infant-baptism make a great shew noise with common people of small capacities and short-sighted yet the Anabapt have no cause to flatter themselves that they are wiser than all those Divines of Engl. other Churches who can render valid cogent unanswerable both Historick instances and reasons for the Catholick practise of this all Churches in this point and these drawn from the twisted and concurrent sense of Scripture set forth in the words of Christ confirmed by his actions best interpreted by the constant practise of the universal Church as in the second Cent. Orig. tells us the Church alwayes used Infant-bapt which may not be thought to have erred from the Apostles practise in this any more than the Apostles did from Christs mind 3. So that the Anabaptists erre partly by not understanding the Scriptures partly by wresting them They wrest the letter of one or two places to an exclusive sense contrary to the meaning of many other which are inclusive of Infants upon very great reasons and to avoid many absurd consequences as to the state Evangelicall They urge against Infants Baptisme the Scriptures not expresly naming them in precept or practise We might as well urge for them the like silence of Scripture no where by name excluding forbidding or excepting Infants where in common sense they are included as in all nations whole families or housholds where they are either actually baptized or commanded to be baptized by the Apostles without any reserve limitation or exclusion as to Infants 4. The usual parallel also of Circumcision and Baptism which S. Paul urgeth and S. Austin oft observes is of great force to those who consider that this latter Sacrament or sign of Gods covenant to his Church-Christian succeeding to the former as to its end use and vertues may not in reason be thought lesse extensive to Infants in the Church of God than the former was nor may the Antitype be straitned short of the Type In this all the Jewes Church even Infants as well as others were baptized to Moses in the red Sea and the cloud so must all to Christ in the Baptisme of his Blood now in the Church
which was by that sea represented 5. Nor is it inconsiderable in this point the custome of washing or baptizing among the Jews as a religious ceremony used in admitting proselytes of the Gate which were not circumcised these were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 baptized with their whole houshold servants and children as the Talmudists report This usuall ceremony and custome of Baptisme chosen by Christ for an Evangelical Sacrament or sign of admittance to his Church may justly be thought in Christs use and intention to extend to the like latitude in its use or applying to Infants among Christians as it did among the Jewes especially where neither Christ nor the Apostles make any restraint or exception in the case of Infants 6. Who under the Gospel as S. Austin proves against the Pelagians are in as much want by nature of Evangelical mercy as they were under the Law and Jewish polity Nor is it to be imagined without great absurdity that Christ lessened Gods mercy or favour to them under the Gospel short of what was under the Law seeing they are every way as capable of this new Sign and Seal as they were of the former and want this as much which Origen urgeth as the ground of Infant-baptisme 7. Neither the Analogie of the Scripture nor the proportion of Gods dispensations of grace to his Church-Christian will allow us to think that God under the Gospel denies to believing parents or their children such latitudes of mercy and holy priviledges in the visible means of grace and salvation which were in another form afforded to the Jews that God hath no regard or makes no claim to children as his or any parts of his Church till they come to years of discretion that he would have the children of Christians while Infants now in no better state and capacity of his mercy by Christ than the children of meer Heathens and Infidels that either no Infants are now to be saved or not by the Blood of Christ or by no visible sign and means or by the Spirit alone without Water which Christ joyns together affirming that none can enter into the Kingdome of Heaven either the Kingdome of Grace or Glory the visible or invisible Church in the ordinary methods of Gods dispensation of grace now under the Gospel unlesse they be born again of Water and the Spirit 8. If children are capable to be sanctified by the Spirit they are no lesse capable to be washed by baptismall water which is consecrated by the Word and Spirit or power of Christ in his Church to so holy an use and spirituall washing away of sin as is attained by his blood represented by baptismall water for the sign is of less value than the thing signified as the wax and parchment are far less than the land or estate consigned and conveyed by them Since then Christ hath joyned these together in so full express and large a manner extending to all it must needs appear not onely a petulancy but arrogancy in any Christians to separate them and in order to gratifie a novell fancy or exotick opinion to run counter to all these proportions of Evangelicall Truth and Mercy which evidently crosse all those mentioned absurdities as inconsistent with Evangelicall promises favours and dispensations of grace which are much ampliated and enlarged but no way straitned or abated 9. This general tenour and scope of the Scriptures so highly favouring Christian Infants as a great part of those many nations and families which are prophecied and promised shall come in to Christ is in my judgement sufficient to satisfie all those that list not to be contentious especially where the words and actions of Christ do further expresly intimate yea largely declare his speciall favour indulgence toward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little Infants in his Church as Irenaeus justly urgeth in favour of them who lived anno 150. Christ having himself been an Infant and received then the seal of Circumcision as an Infant to denote his grace for them and favour to them suffering and shedding his blood in infancy for infants he afterward as three Evangelists tell us invited infants to come or be brought to him testified a favour for them blessed them and declares them capable of the Kingdome of Heaven as members of the Church both in grace and glory For as Infants have the spirit and principles of reason even then when they cannot exercise or exert them so may they have as Tertullian observes the spirit and principles of grace and glory of sanctification and salvation even then when they are as under Circumcision onely passive receivers not active employers of the grace of God given them by Christs merits The magnetick vertue may be communicated to a needle although it be not presently put into such an even posture or aequilibrium as will actually shew it so is the grace of God in Infants Which mercy and indulgence of God to the Infants of his Church is a gracious counterpoizing of that native misery and pravity which as Origen and Austin observe they derive from the old Adam to which they are not actively contributive but passively receptive In like manner by the second Adam Christ Jesus the Antidote or remedy is early and so preventive of their agency that as S. Cyprian urgeth the means of life and salvation is dispensed to them also in Baptisme before they can know their calamity CHAP. X. 10. ALl which weight and strength of reasoning drawn from Scripture in many instances and most conform to the love grace philanthropy mercy and benignity of God through Christ to his Church under the Gospel are sufficient to out-weigh those two small and weak cavils urged by the Anabaptists either from the Scriptures silence not naming Infants in the precept or history of Baptisme or limiting as they fancy for ever which was but in the first planting of Churches Baptism only to such as are taught and actually believe which is true as in Abrahams case and such as were men grown in his house he and they were first taught of God the meaning of that Evangelicall mystery but the Infants who in the second place received it could not be instructed and yet were circumcised that is owned for Gods dedicated to him distinguished by this visible sign from the children of Aliens and by this means of grace brought no doubt to glory so is it in Baptisme where the root of parents believing is once holy by baptismall relation and dedication to God keeping communion with Christ and his Church there the branches or children are also holy and belong to the Lord. 11. Nor is this reasoning from Scripture as to the harmony and concurrent sense of it either scepticall or curious or infirm but farre more pregnant and potent in Religion both as to faith and manners than any urging of one or two particular places contrary to this tenour and Analogie of faith or those proportions
of truth and mercy which are so manifest in the Scriptures that the contrary opinion or practise however seemingly drawn from some Scripture as Tertull. Cyprian S. Austin observed in the quotations of Hereticks yet carries great incongruities and absurdities such as are inconsistent with the Evangelical dispensations many wayes in other Scriptures declared and easily to be observed by those that bring no prejudice or prepossessions with them Our blessed Saviours wisdome hath taught us thus to understand the mind of God by this collective or deductive sense of Scriptures Thus he evinceth a grand article of Christian faith the resurrection of the dead against the blind cavils of the Sadduces first by alledging such Scriptures as named not but implied the Resurrection yea rather the souls immortality then he doth by principles and consequences of right reason draw forth the force of those places shewing as the souls existence so the possibility and certainty of the Resurrection also the state of those that are once risen and in glory In like manner our Saviour by comparing Scriptures proves Gods dispensations of labour as to works of piety charity and necessity both to God to man and to beasts even on the Sabbath where the letter of the command was expresse and fully negative Thou shalt doe no manner of work c. yet doth Christ redargue those Sabbaticall rigours which were by the Pharisees both hypocritically and uncharitably urged from the letter of that command Christ tells them they erred though they insisted on the letter of the command not knowing the Scriptures in their harmonious and concurrent sense which is by sober and right reasonings to be fairly understood rather than by harsh and dissonant exactings so urged as to make one part of Scripture clash with another or one place enterfeare and jarre with the whole tenour and Analogie of Divine wisdome truth mercy and grace Which in this point of Baptisme the Anabaptists do if not to their own damnation yet very much to the subversion of the faith of many to the dividing undermining and destroying of a famous and well-setled Church which hath suffered infinitely of late by some Anabaptistick petulancy pertinacy and peevishnesse Which in this point of Baptisme is much upon the same lock as they are in the point of Ministers maintenance under the Gospel by Tithes which is clear by the Analogie equity and intent of the Scriptures comparing the old and new together in which the mind and measure of the just and gracious God is evidently as liberall to the Gospel-Ministers as to the Jewish as S. Paul urgeth Even so hath the Lord ordained c. The force of which place I have unanswerably proved in a particular discourse upon Tithes Yet what out-cries and clamours what reproches and calumnies what a Tragick and Judaick businesse hath the covetous scrupulosity and sacrilegious nicety of some men made against Tithes and Ministers now receiving them pretending Scriptures against them which are most fully for them still wresting in this as other things the Scriptures silence or letter by the bias and scrue or rack of their own prejudices or depraved lusts and passions against the equity force and reasonings of Scripture concurrent and manifest from many places CHAP. XI 12. BUt in case the Scripture-meaning and letter were lesse clear in this point of Infant-baptisme than indeed they are if severall places do seem to stand in such defiance and opposition against each other that it were necessary to have an umpire to reconcile them so as might moderate limit and qualifie the seeming literall difference of some places in order to bring them to a compliance with others which are possibly lesse explicite in the letter but more comprehensive of and conform to the generall tenour sense and meaning of them and that Analogie of Faith or Evangelicall dispensations which are the whole scope and design of the Scriptures In this case to quiet the consciences of Christians and to compose the state of the Church of Christ in a way most charitable most comfortable and no way inconform to the will of God in his Word I appeal to all sober minds whether the constant practise Catholick custome of the Church of Christ in all ages and places be not the best interpreter and reconciler of Scripture when so Universall and Primitive as this of Infant-baptism is owned by all witnesses that it must needs be derived from Apostolick men yea and Apostles themselves who best knew the mind of Christ and without doubt most exactly in this as all things conformed to it No Anabaptist ever did or can prove by any one ancient Writer that from the beginning it was not so that Christian parents either ordinarily did not or that any one Doctor of the Church held it unlawfull to baptize their infants no not Tertullian the onely ancient which the Anabaptists urge in favour of their novel fancy who yet doth acknowledge otherwhere the prerogative of Christian Infants wholly yea and the use and practise of the Church in his dayes to baptize Infants with eagerness and hast even in that place where rather with wit and fancy than with argument he speaks of the inconvenience and impertinency of committing heavenly riches to those that are not capable to manage earthly and urgeth their innocency not having any sin and so needing no remission which was true as to actuall but not to originall sin for which cause as Origen Cyprian and Saint Austin urge Baptisme is applied to Infants The same flourish might have been made against the Covenant and grace of Circumcision yea against Christs blessing the little children when brought to him yea and it may as well be urged against giving the right or investiture of any estate temporall to Infants which is usuall and good in law because they cannot use or manage them at present These are strains of wit not weight of reason or Religion in Tertullian or any man nor may they sway with any Christian in this or any case contrary to the judgement and practise of the Church even then and at all times Which S. Cyprian in his large Epistle to Fidus owns as his own and others uniform judgement without any question as to Infant-baptisme who certainly in this differed not from his beloved Master Tertullian as he called him yea he would not so fully have allowed baptisme of Infants without any limitation to the eighth day which was the question put to him if he had thought Tertullian seriously doubting in the main of their being at all to be baptized I am sure Cyprian is as valid a testimony for it as Tertullian against it who yet is not against it unlesse it may be in some cases where persecution may hinder parents care of their childrens education and so there may be danger of childrens Apostasie The judgement of Cyprian with 66. Bishops is followed and commended by S. Hier. and S.
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
they now obtrude including the Apocryphall books then did their Church erre for so many hundred years before it so owned them for properly Canonicall as Cardinall Cajetan confesseth who saith that all Fathers and Councils in their expressions as to the larger Canon of Scriptures must be reduced ad Hieronymi limam to S. Jeroms file If the Canon be such as we with the Ancient Churches with Josephus S. Jerom Ruffinus the Council of Laodicea Gregory Nazianzen S. Austin in his riper years and others did and do hold as to the Old Testament then is the Church of Rome now in a very great and obstinate errour So that one way or other the Popes Infallibility and his party is shrewdly endangered unless they distinguish to salve their credit the books into Protocanonicos Deuterocanonicos Books of Divine Authority and Ecclesiasticall use as Sixtus Sen. Bibl. l. 1. and Stapleton Fid. doct l. 9. c. 6. do To tell you further how undigestible to sober Christians because Preter-scripturall and Anti-scripturall the Roman practise and opinion is of worshipping and praying to Saints departed and to Angels of worshipping with Divine worship the Images Crosses and Reliques which they so credulously and highly prize their so unprofitable using of a Language in their Divine and publick Services which to common people is not understood so far from Religion and the Apostles Rule that it is against all sense and reason against the end of speech and devotion which is to instruct or edifie the hearers their snares of celibacy and such vowes as many have cause to repent full sore either that they made them or no better kept them Adde to these their profitable and popular imaginations of Purgatory they applying not onely Prayers but Masses and Oblations Pardons and Indulgences yea other mens merits besides Christs to those that are dead as well as to the living and this in so mercenary a way as makes the most ingenuous Papists not a little ashamed to see Piety so much a servant to Policy and Religion a lacquay to Superstition Adde to all these so oft decantated Instances of Papall errours and presumptions which have so little Scripture for them one enormous Errour both in practise and opinion which hath so much Scripture-evidence against it as nothing can be desired more yet in this when we would have healed Babylon she refused to be healed This is their so great rude and sacrilegious maiming of the Lords Supper by their partial communicating of the Bread only to the people without the Cup then their strange racking of Christians Faith against all sense and reason nay beyond all Scripture-phrase and proportion of Sacramentall expressions or mysterious predications to believe they doe not receive so much as Bread but another substance under the accidents and shews of Bread What learned Romanist can deny but that both Clergy and Laity did for above a thousand years receive the Lords Supper in both kinds after the constant use of all Primitive Churches the Apostles Practise and Christs Institution Nor is there any more doubt but that the ancient Churches received those holy Mysteries with an high veneration indeed of that Body and Blood of Christ which was thereby signified conveyed and sealed to them in the truth and merits of his Passion but yet without any Divine Adoration of the Bread and Wine or any imagination that they were transubstantiated from their own seeming Essence and Nature to the very Body and Blood of Christ. Which fancy of Metemsomasis changing the Body and Substance of Sacramental signes into the bodily Substance of the Thing signified and represented by them as the incomparable Primate of Ireland hath observed out of Irenaeus began from the juglings of one Marcus a Greek Impostor or jugling Presbyter who using long Prayers at the Celebration of the Eucharist had some device to make the Cup and Wine appear of a purple or red and bloody colour that the people might think at his invocation the Grace from above did distill Blood into the Cup. After this the imagination spred from Greeks to Latins by popular and credulous fancies promoted much by one Paschasius Radhertus who in a legendary spirit tells us of Flesh and Blood of a Lamb and a little Child of appearing to those Receivers that were doubtfull of Christs corporall presence so he tells of limbs and little fingers found in the hands and mouths of Communicants From hence Damascen among the Greeks and P. Lumbard among the Latins carried on this credulity or vain curiosity using all their wits to make good this strange and impossible transmutation of disparate subjects and substances in which having nothing from Sense or Reason Nature or Philosophy from Scripture-Analogy or Sacramentall and Typicall predications frequent in Scripture as the Lamb is called the Passeover so Christ our Passeover Christ the Rock Vine Door these drie bones are the house of Israel the seven eares of corne are seven years c. the Tree is thou O King to prove the Miracle they flie to absolute omnipotency whether God will or no and shut out all reasoning from Sense Philosophy Scripture Nor do they regard ancient Fathers and Councils all which though highly and justly magnifying the great Mystery yea and the Elements consecrated as related to and united with the Body of Christ as Signs and Seals of its Reality Truth use and merit to a sinner yet generally they held them to be substantially and physically Bread and Wine but Sacramentally relatively or representatively onely the Body and Blood of Christ as the Council of Constantinople anno 754 consisting of 338 Bishops did affirm the Bread to be the Body of Christ not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in substance but in resemblance use and appointment Which Doctrine as Catholick was maintained to the Emperour Carolus Calvus by Bertramus or Patrannus anno 880. which was also maintained in England by Johannes Scotus in King Alfreds time untill Lanfranks days anno 1060. who condemned that Book of Scotus about the Sacrament agreeable to the opinion of Bertram whose Homily expressing his judgement at large against Transubstantiation was formerly read publickly in Churches on Easter day in order to prepare men for the right understanding and due receiving the Lords Supper Nor did the Doctrine of Transubstantiation obtain in the Church untill the year 1225. when Pope Innocent the third in the Council of Lateran published it for an Oracle That the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are truly contained under the forms of Bread and Wine the Bread being transubstantiated into the Body of Christ and the Wine into the Blood of Christ by the power of God Hence followed the invention of Concomitancy which presuming that the Communicant received under the accidents and shew of Bread the whole Body of Christ and so his Blood it was judged rather superfluous than necessary yea and
most industriously promote such a Christian and Catholick accord as were most for the honour of Christ and the peace of Christendome I know the youthfull fervours of some are jealous of all such motions and for fear of seeming luke-warme they resolve to boyle over all bounds till they quench both Truth and Charity among Christians and make way for Atheisme Turcisme Confusion and Barbarity These hotter heads possibly dread what I calmly desire that such a grand Catholick Convention of able Ecclesiasticks in these Western Churches might by the consent of Princes and chief Magistrates be so orderly convened with Freedome Impartiality and due Authority as might enable them to consent in one Canon or rule of Faith and good manners that the clear and concurrent sense of Scriptures might be owned by all in which all things necessary are contained either literally or by just deductions that what is dark or dubious should be left indifferently to Christians use and judgements that all would agree in the same ancient fundamentall Articles of Faith contained in primitive Creeds also in the same Sacraments or holy Mysteries to be devoutly celebrated so in the same way of good works to be practised that we might all have the same Catechise the same publick Liturgies so composed that all Christians might with Faith and Charity say Amen to them and in their severall Languages understand them that a Commentary on Scriptures and Sermons containing all Christian necessary Doctrine might be agreed upon that neither curiosities nor controversies should be couched in publick Prayers or Preachings that all might enjoy the same Catholick Source and course of Ecclesiastick Ordination Ministry and Authority so tempering Government and Discipline in the Church that none should justly think others too much exalted nor themselves too much depressed that Catholick Customes ancient Ceremonies and Traditions truly such being consonant to Gods Word and practically interpreting the meaning of it might be observed by all leaving yet such freedome in other things to particular Churches as might be most convenient yet still subordinate to and to be regulated by the judgement of such a General Council contrary to which none should affect extravagant liberty to the ruine of Christian Charity Blessed Lord What good Christian could be injured by such a Christian accord in the main concernments of Religion which cannot be impossible in the nature of the thing because it was of old enjoyed and many hundreds of years generally preserved among all Christians and Churches of any name and repute in all the world Nor did either the heat of Persecution or Prosperity as warm and soultry weather dispirit this charity of Christians who might still be as capable subjects of so great a blessing from God on earth if Passion Prejudice Partiality and private interests on all hands were laid aside without parting with any true and reall interest that concerns a wise or good man either in Conscience or Honour in civil or religious regards CHAP. XVIII WHich blessed accord so good and so pleasant to behold how much more to enjoy being not onely possible but most desirable and commendable among all good Christians two great Impediments or obstructions seem to me chiefly to hinder as to man besides our ill deservings on all sides at Gods hands which however I do not hope by my weak shoulders to remove they being like the Grave-stone on Christs Sepulchre whose sad and massy weight requires some mighty Angel from heaven to do it yet I cannot but here express my sense of them the more sensibly by how much I see the miserable distractions of the poor Church of England and the advantages given by some mens late immoderations and madnesses to alienate the very best and soberest of the Roman party from all propensity or thoughts of any happy close by reforming and so reconciling the parts of divided and distracted Christendome Which evil effect now more exasperated than ever I here instance in as one of the saddest consequences following the divided dissolved and deplored state of this Church of Engl. which was the grand mirrour or example of Christianity and Reformation from which neither Romanists nor others did so much withdraw by many degrees heretofore as now they do The first great hinderance is that exteme pertinacy and height of those of the Roman party who so much magnifie themselves their chief Bishop their Church and Communion upon the specious names of Antiquity Infallibility and Primacy as if no Church or Christians in the world were to be considered other then as novices ignorants and underlings in comparison of the Roman Name and Majesty Their Antiquity is not denied by sober men but their great Age is evidently attended with many decayes and infirmities which are novelties from which even primitive Churches were not wholly free both as to Humane frailty and Divine reproofs as we read in the Epistles of the Apostles and of Christ to the seven Churches Nor doe I know any priviledge the Roman Church hath above others unlesse they could make good their Infallibility either as to their chief Bishop or as to any Council in which he should preside That their persons have erred in Doctrine and Moralities that they have varied from and clashed against each other in their publick Decrees and Councils yea and from not onely pious Antiquity but the Scripture-verity is so evident in what my self have here lightly touched and others amply demonstrated that no ingenuous and honest Romanist at this day can deny it For the affected Supremacy or Primacy which they so glory in and challenge not onely before but above and over all Churches not as a matter of order and precedency but of power and authority as there is no Law of God which requires this or any Church so farre to own that of Rome or to be subject to it so nor did the ancient Ecclesiastical Lawes and distinctions lay more to the Roman Inspection or Jurisdiction than the Suburbicarian Regions which extended 100 miles from the City That the Roman Bishop was owned as the first or chief Patriarch in Order and Precedency in Place or Vote was not a regard to the persons of the Bishops or their authority as if it were more than other Bishops by any Divine or Humane right but a regard to the pristine Majesty of the City and the Apostolick eminency of that Church in which the two great Apostles S. Peter S. Paul had not onely placed much of their pains but ended their lives Lay aside the Roman pomp and insolency no sober man but will allow the Bishop of Rome his Civil and Ecclesiastical Primacy as King James and other Protestant Princes offered long ago nor would any of the great Reformers Luther or Calvin or Cranmer have grudged this if the Bishop of Rome would have submitted either to a General Council or to the Word of Christ If the Roman Arrogancy will needs claim and usurp more than its due which
and trade in Sacriledge-alley that Church-lands afford as good Crops and Rents as any other that many prosper under this imaginary curse which is rather in Church-mens fretfull fancies than in Gods displeasure that if it be a sin in the first Alienators yet the after-Purchasers are not concerned in the guilt many of them thriving and leaving their substance to their children My answer is It is very true as King John scoffingly said That Stagg may be fat which never heard Masse Belshazzar might drink pleasant Wine out of the Vesssels of the Temple many Pirates as the ancient Moralists observed had fair winds after they had pillaged the Temples of their Gods many enjoy the warm sun who are out of Gods blessing without which not onely leanenesse enters into mens souls amidst their greatest worldly enjoyments but terrour also sooner or later seizeth on them No mans Estate can be justly esteemed prosperous which lies obnoxious to Gods curse as theirs expresly doth Mal. 3.9 even to an whole Nation who are robbers of God Without he continuall feast of a good conscience fulnesse it self becomes famine No man can with comfort build or dwell· there where the beams and stones out of the wall cry against him as a sacrilegious invader or possessor There must needs be gravell between those teeth which eat that bread which belongs to the nourishment of those who ought to feed the flock of Christ I am sure no sacriledge can at present enjoy a secure and serene title before God and for the future it is in many instances to be verified vix gaudet tertius haeres such estates seldome descend and if they do are seldome enjoyed with Blessing and Comfort by the third heirs whose teeth are set on edge by those sower grapes which their fathers have eaten A Serpent doth sometime or other bite the hand head or heart of such who break down the hedge and fence of Gods Church and Vineyard which cannot be duly dressed if Gods Husbandmen the Pastors and Ministers be weakened and impoverished with whose spoiles as I resolve by Gods grace never to be enriched either by Purchase or Gift upon any terms so I wish the like resolution to all my friends as a Father I do impose it by way of solemn charge upon my posterity lesse arbitrary than that injunction of drinking no Wine observed by the Rechabites that they never buy or accept any thing which they find is by any pretence power or presumption whatsoever alienated from Gods Right or the Churches Patrimony that is such things as have according to the Evangelical tenour of Gods will and Word been dedicated or given to Gods glory and worship either in piety or charity either for the maintenance and support of Christs Ministers in particular or for the general honor polity order and government of them and the whole Church which is in my judgement as sacred and inviolable both in Equity and Charity Honour and Humanity as what is once and so irrevocably if lawfully given by way of almes to the poor for this concerns but the momentary the other the eternall life of poor mortals In earnest no Religion can be carried on with due reputation which turns godlinesse into unjust gain or makes secular advantages by perverting of things devoted to Divine uses to spirituall and sacred ends of which sin I fear too many in England have been and still are guilty both as actors and abettors under the name and pretence of I know not what Reformation But men of Consciences rather Legall than Evangelicall will be ready to object in behalf of such Proprietors as have given valuable prices rather than good consideration for such Revenues as have been alienated in the heat and roughnesse of times from the Church as Amaziah King of Judah did to the man of God What shall I doe for the hundred talents which I have given c. What shall Purchasers do to have recompence who have adventured their Estates in such Bargains upon publick justice Protection and faith Must they be wholly losers of their bargaines yea and must their money like Magus's perish with them as will follow if they hold not what they have thus bought My Answer is First many of them had such Bargains as they can be no great losers if they should freely restore the peeled and remaining Lands to the Church as it might perhaps lessen their Profit a little so possibly it might much encrease their Peace and Comfort But to make the way of Restitution lesse clamorous and most equitably conscientious I humbly conceive that as the publick Purse to save mens secular Estates had the benefit of those Church-confiscations and sales in most expensive thrift which seemes to me lesse commendable and lesse comfortable so the Wisdome Justice Piety and Honour of the Publick shall do worthy of it self to find some such way both to buy in Impropriations and to make such restitutions as may be least oppressive to any particular man which is no very hard work much lesse impossible if mens Hearts were as large and their Purses as free for the means of saving their souls as for their civil safety which every year costs as much as in one yeare for all would in great part effect this most Honourable Just and Religious work of restoring to God his Ministers and his Church those things which fall under so dubious a title at best that few Lawyers of Learning and Conscience can find salvoes sufficient to satisfie those grand Objections which Reason Scripture Ecclesiasticall and Imperiall Laws make against the dispossessing any Church of those Donations and Enjoyments which are Gods in chief CHAP. XXIV WHat sober wise and wary Christian not wholly carried down the stream of Envy and an evil Covetousnesse can henceforth wonder to see those of the Roman party obstinate in their errours and hating to be reformed while they see Reformation thus marching like Jehu furiously looking in every quarter for the prey and spoiles of the Church as if it were carried on not by the meeknesse and bounty of primitive Christians and Pious Princes such as Constantine Theodosius Valentian and others of former times but by Achmats and Selimusses by Saracens Tartars Turks and Crabats men like evening-wolves devouring all they can rap and rend from the Church where ever they prevaile such spirits of burning which like flaming fire leave all things like a parched heath and barren wildernesse behind them which they found well planted and watered beautifull and plentifull like the Garden of God while the Church enjoyed its nursing fathers and carefull preservers of its Polity and Support its Order and Honour its Revenues and Rights both Humane and Divine The Ecclesiasticks of the Roman party are not onely very numerous but many of them persons of noble families excellent breeding great learning generous spirits and choice abilities for Affaires civil and sacred every way as well meriting
have to the place where his Honour dwels as to visible Service and outward Communion lastly they serve to tell the world how large-hearted and liberall-handed true Christians and well-reformed ones can be toward their God and Saviour not onely equall to but beyond if need be to what Heathenish devotion and Romish superstition did pretend If such costly and stately fabricks of Churches were lesse needfull in respect of the proportions of Love and Respect we ought to bear and expresse to the Glory and Service of God if Christians at first might well want them when they could not in their Poverty and Persecution either have or enjoy them yet in a setled and flourishing State as Eusebius and others tell us Christians were ashamed and most impatient not to shew forth by the cost and state of their Churches what was their zeal for God and high honour to their crucified Saviour Goodly Churches and Princely Cathedrals every where grew up on the sudden in all the Christian world like Tulips or fair Flowers in a Garden when the winter of persecution was gone and when the spring-time of peace began to shine as in the blessed time of the Great Constantine then began Christian Churches Oratories or Dominicals to out-shine the Temples of the Heathen Gods the Palaces of Princes the Balneos and Theatres of free Cities these great and lasting Foundations were the Trophies or triumphant Arches of Christian Religion every where erected and witnessing that it had by the blood of the Lamb and the patience of primitive Martyrs happily conquered the malice of Satan the wisdome and power of the World Lastly if we Christians needed no such Churches for Christs Honour and our own conveniency yet Jews Turks Heathens do need them as notable marks of our high and honourable regard to our God and Crucified Saviour yea they are indeed notable pregnant Monuments to all spectators of the Antiquity of Christian Religion and of the munificent Devotion used by our Forefathers To me I confesse any Countrey seems desolate that hath not the fair Land-marks of Churches nor can it ever be either Honour to our Nation or any Advantage to the true Reformed Religion as it will be a great scandall to all that are not Christians also a great advantage to the Popish party and profession for us in England or elsewhere now to soile and deform our Reformation by the Rapine and Ruine of those Churches which our Forefathers builded I find that in point of Thrift men of narrow hearts seem so much children in understanding that they usually alledge Scripture as the Devil did partially and fallaciously which ought to be applied according to its severall scopes and intents not so to magnifie Gods transcendent and invisible Majesty as therefore to avile or debase his outward and visible Ministry or Glory which is specially present at such times and in such places where his Worship and Praise are celebrated These sharking Sophisters cannot but remember that our blessed Saviour chose for the first Celebration of his Supper which is the highest Mystery and solemn solemnity of Christian Religion a large upper room ready furnished the fairest no doubt for Space and Ornament in that House To shew us that Christians are not confined to Caves and Cottages nor ought they to affect Barnes and Stables for their holy Conventions when Gods indulgence gives them means and opportunities to enjoy other accommodations more becoming that Order and Decency which God requires and expects of us in his Service unlesse himself hinder and deny us those comely advantages No men are branded with blacker and juster marks of Vilenesse and Unworthinesse than those who either grudged at or secretly defrauded or forcibly took away what was once dedicated or given to the Worship of God the Honour of Christ and the Benefit of his Church Thus Christ the Disciples and all Christians ever counted and called Judas a Thief a Traitor and a Devil so Ananias and Sapphira by their sacriledge gave occasion to the first thunderbolts of Church-censures which strook them dead upon the place Who was ever more odious than Diocletian and Julian the Apostate a man otherwayes of great Learning severe Justice and Stoicall Moralities as Ammianus gives us account of him who followed him to his death yet is his name execrable for a witty Persecutor and a perfidious Sacrilegist while he scoffed at those goodly vessels of Gold and Silver also at the fair Basilica's or Cathedrals in which the Galilean as he called our blessed Saviour was served when he had a mind to confiscate the Churches Goods and Treasures that he might the better pay his Souldiers CHAP. XXVI CErtainly there are pious prodigalities and holy superfluities not only lawfull and convenient but most comely and commendable among Christians yea in some respects necessary when Gods indulgence gives them peace and plenty then they ought to be ashamed to serve God niggardly to serve themselves with the best and God with the refuse to afford him onely such expressions of their Duty Honour and Devotion as cost them little or nothing it is then a sin arguing a Nabalitick and vile heart to meditate nothing but vile and illiberall things for God to use in Christian solemnities no other but vulgar conveniences and Kitchin accommodations such as their extemporary and every-dayes thrift allowes to their very Beasts and Servants no way proportionable to the bounty or God or answerable to that Majesty they professe to adore in their Redeemer Jesus Christ who not onely expects as a free-will-offering but requires as a proportionable and acceptable service that we honour him as becomes us even before the Sons of men that the glory of the Gentiles may be brought to Christ and such munificence of Gold Myrrhe Frankincense and things equivalent as may import to Aliens that Christians esteem their Saviour as a great King Priest and Prophet yea as a God deserving to be worshipped with the best we can present him withall which as Isidore Hispal observes after S. Austin in his Civ Dei and others out of Varro and other Heathens were the methods they were taught even by the light of Nature to exalt and magnifie the Names and Honour of their Gods by Houses far more costly and stately than private Edifices judging it fit to pray in better rooms than they eat and drank and slept in They added to their Temples Images of their Gods more ample than humane and ordinary Dimensions they adorned all with solemn Ceremonies and such accurate Eloquence as chose rather to set forth the Praise and Majesty of their Gods in the Grandeur and exactnesse of Verse than in the flatness vulgarity and loosenesse of Prose that by all means they might conciliate an high Respect and Veneration to their Gods not onely from the Worshippers but from the very Spectators It is a shame that Jupiter Apollo Diana Venus and Aesculapius Gods that never lived nor died
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
rewards of Valour Learning Industry Parts and as they think of Piety it self onely or chiefly bestowed on those that adhere to and symbolize with the prevailing party which is the onely rising side all others despairing to rise till the great Resurrection unlesse by power or policy they can undermine or overthrow the predominant faction In these nests of Religious differences and zealous emulations are the eggs of all civill discontents popular seditions and pernicious rebellions commonly layed and hatched to the infinite hazard and many times utter ruine of civill States which are never so safe as when all parts of them like the parts of a globe or sphere fairly correspond with each other by the unity and intirenesse of the same Religion whose content or orbe is the holy Scripture whose centre is Gods glory and whose circumference is Christian love unanimity or Charity without any of which Religion is but a Rhapsody of mens opinions passions and ambition From these holy confinements when once Christians come to divide as to their Religion they soon fall to defie to destroy yea to damne one another Every party hath such high paroxysmes of zealous hopes and presumptions for their way that they presently ascend Gods Throne and Christs Tribunall severely judging all men but themselves which judiciall and uncharitable arrogancies have as we see at this day not onely in England but in all the Christian world so filled and inflamed mens minds with cruell counter-curses and angry Anathema's against each other that if Gods last doome should echo after the clamours and censures of Christians passions we must all be damned every mothers child of us notwithstanding that we all professe to believe and serve the same God and Saviour If not every particular person of each party who may have more moderation and charity yet to be sure the froth and scumme the populacy and vulgarity of them which are alwaies boyled highest these mutually condemne each other not to a Purgatory or a Limbo onely but to a very Hell of infernall and eternall torments Thus many Protestants utterly damne all Papists as if God had no people in that Babylon of Popery the Honesty Humility and Simplicity of whose Faith Works and Hearts may bring them out of the contagion of Romes Plagues Policies and Superstitions Papists on the other side universally damne all Protestants though they hold all the ancient Creeds and Articles of Faith though they practise all Christian necessary duties and keep to the Primitive Order of the Catholick Church onely because they will not tye the keyes of Faith Conscience Scripture Religion and Church-Government to the Popes girdle or absolutely submit to him in a blind obedience against Reason Scripture and History as to the surly Jaylour rather than the safe keeper of Christian and true Religon In like manner the violent Lutherans call the Calvinists Devils and the passionate Calvinists defie the Lutherans as luke-warme Protestants and smelling too rank of Rome Look to the eager and acute Arminians the Socinians the moderne Pelagians the Anabaptists Catabaptists Familists the Seekers Ranters and Quakers As the Independent Presbyterian and Episcopall hands so these are generally full either of firebrands from hell or thunderbolts from heaven which are eagerly cast by the more violent Spirits in each others faces as Hereticks or Schismaticks as Antichrists and Hypocrites as deceived and deceiving Nor will the Zealots and bigots on any side make any great scruple if they have power to destroy those whom they account no better than desperate and damnable even in their Religion Amidst and against all which factious discriminations of Religion every Nation and Polity which either is or would seem to be wise must seek to preserve its safety by establishing some Uniformity and Unity in its publick profession For no nation is farre from misery that is pestred with variety of Religions and is fixed at no certainty The sad example of this Church and State of England besides our neighbours is an instance as unanswerable as palpable for the Church of England stood Neuter as to all the sides and factions of Christendom yet held so far Communion with Greek and Latine Reformed and Romane Lutheran and Calvinian Churches as it saw they held communion with the Scriptures and with the ancient Catholick Symbols or Councils which were the best boundaries of Christian Religion It had if not more yet as much Solidity and Sincerity Piety and Proficiency Gifts and Graces Charity and Moderation Order and Good polity as any yea all of them farre lesse of Partiality Popularity Novelty Oppression Superstition and Confusion than almost any one of them while the favour of God and man shined upon her strangely blest with Peace Plenty Honor and Prosperity while it kept its Ecclesiastick Order and Uniformity in Religion which was the chief soder or cement of civill Tranquillity This Palladium once stolne away by the Jesuitick subtilties and other factious policies how have the Temples and Towers of our Troy the Churches and Palaces of our Jerusalem the Oratories and Houses both of God and man falne to the ground not with their own age infirmity or weight but battered and subverted chiefly by those Engines which factious fury and devout ambition puts into all mens hands upon the score of their Religion a fate which still threatens all the remaines of Religion and Peace that have yet escaped if God be not so mercifull to this Land as to shew us some Balsam that may heale the Divisions and Wounds of our Church and Religion which will easily fester and inflame the body politick of any Nation for civil Peace cannot be firm where publick Piety is not sound and setled nor can any Kingdom or Common-weale be established in which true Religion is either baffled or abased by being divided and distracted But suppose that you O my Noble Countrymen and your posterity should enjoy a moments miserable prosperity and a pitifull kind of peace meerly upon the account of a meer Mahometan power and Gladiatorian Prevalency of one side possibly over-awing all other parties and pretensions of Religion or so counterpoising them by secular policies to some consistency as doth rather distort and depresse than advance or encourage the progresse of that true Piety and Christian Charity which are the surest marks of Christianity and of Gods favour to any people yet I presume you are so piously prudent as to consider First that such worldly tranquillity and prosperity are scarce worth owning or enjoying apart from that sweet harmony and fruition which goes with true Religion and flowes from it when it keeps the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace when its sacred oyntment is diffused from the head Christ Jesus not onely to the chief members of his body but even to the skirts of his clothing the use and capacity of the meanest believer in an holy Unity and happy Uniformity not onely of true Doctrine but of comely Order and charitable
Last of all I appeal to all sober Ministers whether they do not think that Episcopacy as now it is stripped and devested of all secular greatnesse and reduced to Primitive poverty might be as safely restored as any of their crude and new Associations in their severall stations and formations with their mutable moderators and temporary Presidents either in greater or lesser Circles which are but the thin parings small shreds and weaker shivers of Episcopacy whether they do not in their consciences think that some righteous and just compensation ought to be done to good Bishops and to the case of true Episcopacy which have suffered so hard measure a long time now in England that so we might not in this nation beyond any place in the Christian world cast eternall and indeleble reproches not onely upon this Church since its first plantation but upon the Catholick Church of Christ in all ages and places as if wilfully for ignorantly they could not they had from the beginning swerved from the Apostles prescript and example in the Order and Government Discipline and Authority which was to be in the Church of Christ I will not suspect any honest-hearted or worthy Minister of having been so base and sacrilegious in his Spirit as therefore to cry down Episcopacy root and branch new and old good and bad out of secret hopes of filthy lucre and secular glory expecting some benefit by plundring the personall estates of Bishops or by sequestring the revenues of their Churches or gaging to buy at last some good peniworths of them These temptations were so black and base so sordid and Plutonian that they may not be suspected of any Ministers or other men but those whose notorious actions have put them beyond all suspicion Presuming therefore in charity that those precipitant alterations in Church-Government which have produced so sad consequences and calamities in this Church were from principles of honesty and purposes of integrity in the best Ministers on all sides at first and finding now that the itch of former novelties is past and the pleasure of Ministers scratching one another is now very little because of the rawnesse and sorenesse of all their common conditions besides the distractions and confusions of ordinary people and foreseeing that this painfull posture is not onely very grievous to all honest Protestants but dangerous to this Church and Nation if they be not speedily healed Give me further leave to ask of the greatest Zelots and sticklers against all Episcopacy and the admirers of either Presbytery or Independency whether after they reflect upon the rough meanes used and the sad events which have followed the design of extirpating Episcopacy and introducing any other waies they do still believe was pretended that either the God of order or the Saviour of his Church who is the Bishop of our soules and the exemplary Institutor of Episcopall eminency in his chief Apostles for Power and Authority over all parts of his Church who accordingly transmitted their ordinary power and superintendency to others as Bishops or successive or minor Apostles in all Churches whether I say they do in earnest believe that God or Christ or the Apostles ever were or are such enemies to all Episcopall order and presidentiall eminency as hath been vulgarly clamored and passionately pretended so that now after 1600. yeares prescription and succession of Episcopacy in all Churches God is not to be pleased unlesse Episcopacy be extirpated and Presbytery or Independency as waies of parity and popularity be brought in Can they sufficiently wonder at the patience of God and our Saviour Christ that for 1500. yeares bare with Episcopacy yea continued it in the peaceable possession of Church-Government as to the Primacy and priority of it both in Order and Authority without any notable check from any Martyr or holy man T is strange that Aarons Rod should never bud before nor Presbytery challenge its Divine right in all that time nor Christ ever enjoy the freedome of his Kingdom and Scepter till these last and worst times Do they in earnest think that no Scripture no word of God old or new no precepts and paternes of the Apostles no Primitive practise no true testimonies of Fathers Councils and credible historians do any way favour a right Episcopacy further than they were misunderstood warped and wrested by all antiquity from the mind of God the will of Christ and the way of the Apostles onely to gratifie the ambition of some few Bishops and Clergy-men who made way for Popes and Antichrists T is strange all should conspire thus to eject Christ from his Kingdom and Government or to abuse the whole Christian world from holy Polycarp Polycrates and Ignatius his daies all Primitive Bishops yea from St. Johns dayes and yet none detect or decry the fraud none persevere in the first way if it were as is now pretended Independent or Presbyterian in the many shepherds or many sheep without any prime pastors and Governours among them as Bishops Yea further I demand whether their divisions at least into such a Dichotomy as they now are in be not a just jealousie to sober men that both of these novelties may be in the wrong since both of them cannot be in the right whether regular Episcopacy may not yet be as the virtue or medium between these vicious extremes which are made up either of parity popularity or of Tyrannick and Papall Episcopacy whether they now find that either of thse new waies have any thihg so much to plead out of Scripture for themselves as Episcopacy hath or the thousandth part so much out of any good Antiquity whether they be not pure novelties of later invention and unprosperous use hardly yet formed and never well setled in this or any other famous or Reformed Church that enjoyed its just freedom without the oppression of either sacrilegious Princes or heady and mutinous people Can any learned and sober Minister either Presbyterian or Independent now flatter himselfe that there is no light or shadow no shew of Reason or Religion of Scripture or Antiquity for Episcopacy Can they any longer wonder without ignorance or impudence that learned and moderate Episcopall Divines are so firme to their first principles and perswasions which are not easily answered or with any reason overthrown by any ancient example at least Episcopall men are very excusable in adhering to their ancient and Primitive way till they find these novell opposites to Episcopacy and rivals to each other so well reconciled by a firme Associating together as may wholly supply the Office Power and place of Episcopacy which yet they have not done as to the Order Polity Peace and Unity of the Church or to the satisfaction of the most learned and godly men at home and abroad Where I beseech you O my good and gracious brethren of Presbyterian and Independent principles where do you think were the Eyes the Learning the Wits the Hearts the Honesty the Conscience
all other Apostles in their severall Bishopricks or Distributions To the second as Presbyters or a lesser kind of Bishops and Apostles over private and particular congregations they gave power to preach the Gospel administer Sacraments and assist their chief Pastor or Bishop in governing the Church according as they were required and appointed to their severall duties and charges But no where in Scripture that I see do we find either the sole or chief power of ordaining Ministers or of exercising any Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction over them by correption or rejection given to any one or more Presbyters as such unlesse men list for ever to play the children and cavill with the identity or samenesse of the names used of old which calls Apostles Presbyters as a word of honor and Presbyters Bishops as overseers and all of them Deacons as servants to Christ and the Church and all may be called Apostles too in some sense as sent by Christ on his work Which Crambe is so fulsome a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cavilling about words to confound all good sense and order that all sober men are now weary of it when they clearly see that all ages and actions of the Catholick Church have sufficiently declared beyond any fallacy of identity as to Names and titles the reall and actuall differences of persons and duties or offices to which words may at first be indifferently applied without implying any such confusion of places and powers in the Church any more than when the name of ruler is applyed to supreame and subordinate Magistrates or when the name of Officer is given to Corporalls Lieutenants Captaines Colonells and Generalls or that of Alderman to such as are so by age or office or estate just as if one should obstinately maintain that the petty Constables of every parish the High Constables of every Hundred and the Lord high Constable of England or France were the same things as to office power and honor because the same name of Constable is applyed to all of them It may with as much reason be urged that every Master of Arts in a Colledg and the Master of the Colledg are the same in office place and power or that every one who is called Father by nature age affinity adoption merit or relation either Domestick Civil or Ecclesiasticall presently may challenge the same Authority over us and the same Duty or Obedience from us as our naturall parents have and do expect because all are called Fathers So we shall have many Gods and Lords to justifie the Polytheisme of the heathens because there are many that are in Scripture called Gods and Lords as the Apostle tells us These Sophisticall equivocations from names and words have been indeed the bushes or thickets the borrowes and refuges a long time of those men who aimed to bring in all factions innovations and confusions into this and other Churches onely under such empty colours and fallacious pretentions out of all which they have been lately so stripped ferreted by many learned unanswerable assertors of Episcopacy in its just presidency and authority that they are now naked and ridiculous to all sober spectators who see that all the judgement and practice of antiquity besides the Scriptures analogy is so clear and distinct against all their petty cavillings and popular levellings that the reall differences of the powers orders degrees and offices in the Church as begun by Christ exercised by the Apostles also continued in that method and series through all ages are not lesse evident than their peevishnesse and pertinacy are who list to urge the first indifferency or latitude of words against the after and evident distinctions of things declared and confirmed by the constant judgement and practice of all Churches which is in my judgement the best and surest interpreter and distinguisher of what ever seems wrapped up or any way obscured and confused in Scripture-expressions otherwaies we must with the Papists own as many Sacraments and Mysteries as these words are applyed to in Scripture either in the Greek or Latine Presbyters might well enough be then called Bishops in a generall and lower sense when there were so many Apostles as chief Bishops above them which Name of Apostle the modesty of after Bishops refusing they contented themselves with the peculiar title of Bishops and confined that of Presbyter to that second order or degree of Clergy-men as that of Deacon to the third which yet in their latitude are applyed to Bishops and Apostles themselves I know there have been many things speciously urged for Presbytery and odiously against Episcopacy all which have been so abundantly answered that it is time they were forgotten and all enmity buried with them My aime in this pacificatory addresse to all worthy Ministers is not to revive the cavils and disputes but to reconcile all interests to compose all differences and to satisfie all demands Onely because I know there is no closing or glewing of pieces together with firmnesse where there is not first made an evennesse and smoothness on all sides for their apt meeting I shall here further endeavour fairly to take away some remaining roughnesse swelling and protuberancy which possibly may be still in some sober mens minds as great hinderances of the desired closure and composure of all sides I know it is further urged by some that every Presbyter singly and much more socially that is in a joynt body and Associate fraternity may be rationally thought to have the full power and divine authority of a Bishop to all ends offices and purposes since it is well known in all antiquity as St Jerome tells us and it is confessed by all Episcopall men that Presbyters as such primitively chose their respective Bishops as at Antioch Jerusalem Alexandria from S. Marks time in other places so that Bishops may seem primarily to receive all their authority and eminency from Presbyters who certainly can conferre no more upon any of Bishop than is radically seminally and eminently in themselves as a superiour Magistrate that nominates an inferiour or a Corporation that chooseth a Major or chief officer or as Fellowes of a Colledge who choose a Master or President over them or as an army which is St. Jeromes instance who choose their Imperator or Generall From this ancient and well-known priviledge of Presbyters to choose their respective Bishops many conclude their joynt power at least to be equall to any Bishops yea superiour to them as causall and efficient insomuch that they may if they please exercise it apart from and wholly without any Bishop by choosing none to be over them or among them but serving their occasionall meetings with a temporary Moderator rather than a constant Superintendent To this it is easily answered That however Presbyters of old did and of right as I conceive ought by the leave and permission of Christian Princes to choose and appove the persons of their Bishops as being the fittest men in
the necessity and use of Bishops yea they deny any flaw or defect to be in their new Presbyterian and popular ordinations for want of any other Bishops but themselves who are as pert in their novelty as ever any Prelates were in their antiquity That these Heteroclite or equivocall ordinations have of late been acted in England with much self applause and popular parade by meer Presbyters I well understand but quo jure by what right from God or man by what authority civill or Ecclesiasticall I could never yet see yea I am sure no law of God or men heretofore ever was thought to give any such power to meer Presbyters without yea against their lawfull Bishops insomuch that many learned and sober men have much blamed at least suspected these Presbyterian transactions for Schismaticall presumptions these ordinations for disorderly usurpations at least in such a Church as England was where there were and still are venerable Bishops of the orthodox faith reformed profession and ancient constitution willing and able to do their duty in the point of ordination Which in all ordinary cases appeares to have ever been their peculiar right specially derived to them as Bishops from the Apostles through all successions of times and Churches without any interruption except when some factious and insolent Presbyters ventured to be extravagant and usurpant whom all the learned Fathers venerable Councils and good Christians in the Church every where condemned as most injurious because usurping that Authority which no Apostle no Councill no Bishop ever gave to any that were meer Presbyters in their Ordination and Commission no more than the Lawes or Canons of this Church and State Nor is there as far as I can perceive any one place in Scripture that by any precept or example invests either one or more simple Presbyters with the power of trying and examining of laying on of hands of giving holy orders as from themselves alone of committing or transmitting what they had received to other faithfull men that should be able to teach All which were given to Timothy and Titus as chief Bishops The Pope of Rome indeed animated by those flatterers which would make him the sole Bishop by Divine right and all other Bishops as surrogates to him dependants upon him and derived from him as if there had not been 12 or 13 but onely one â—â—sion â—lick Chaire or prime seat of Episcopacy hath some â—eath given power of ordination to such as were but Presbyters as â—nd read of some Abbots and Priors but it was alwaies to the great scandall of the best Bishops and Presbyters of the Church as contrary to all ancient Orders Canons and Customes of the Church unlesse he first made them as Chorepiscopi or suffragane Bishops But in earnest it is hard to judge whether Popes or Presbyters be most enemies to Catholick Bishops As for the pious pomp and the specious apparences the formall dressings and verball adornings which they say are used by Presbyters in their late Ordinations in England though I never saw any of them yet I have heard and read so much of them as gives me to judge far less to be in them of authority true complete and valid than ought to be For besides the persons not impowered or commissionated to that office there is as I heare no transmitting and so no receiving of the holy Spirit as to that Ministeriall Order and Power which is thereby derived to Ministers as from Christ whatever there may be of godly solemnity and plausible formalities which are usually more studied and affected to please the people there where men are most conscious to the defect of authentick reall and righteous power But all these saintly shewes to wise men signifie nothing no nor the personal abilities either of the ordainers or ordained who cannot by their personall power knowledg virtues graces or private gifts make any Officer in State or in Armies in War or in Peace much lesse in the Church and Ministry of Jesus Christ Alas no private capacity in any man can make the least petty Constable or Bailiffe or Corporall or Serjeant without they first have a publick and lawfull Commission from the fountains of Authority to give them an Authority far beyond any private arrogancy and presumed sufficiency of their own Possibly extraordinary cases may in time be their own excuses in such Churches where Bishops may be all dead or banished or where such as are Orthodox cannot be had and they that are will not ordain any Presbyters without imposing upon them such things as are erroneous and unlawfull but nothing can be pleaded that I yet see no nor doth the candor and charity of Bishop Usher know how to excuse such Presbyters from being Schismaticks factious presumptuous and disorderly who first cast off and forsake such Bishops as are of the same faith and reformed profession worthy and willing able and ready every way authorized by Church and State to do their duty The contempt and rejecting of such Bishops is I fear a great sin before God I am sure a great grievance to such Churches as first suffer those distractions And no doubt it is as a great so a needlesse scandall to most Churches and the best Christians in all the world nor can it be other then a foule reproach and scorn cast on all pious antiquity nor will it prove other than a lasting misery to any Church and Nation that wilfully continues that guilt and defect upon themselves and their posterity especially when God â—s them sufficient meanes to remedy that mischief to supply thâ—â—fects and to compose those differences which are ever followâ—â—he waâ— much more the needlesse expulsion of Primitive Episcopacy For whose power and authority while either Presbyters or people are scrambling they do but make Religion a May-game bring as we see both themselves and their Ministry into contempt for no Presbyters or people can while the world stands ever stamp such an honor and Authority Ecclesiasticall upon themselves as was in all ages and by all Churches consent besides the Scripture-Character and Apostolick signature set upon Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which ever united centred and confirmed power in one man not over all which the Pope affects but over their Dioceses or Provinces A 4 th Objection much flourished by some popular Preachers against Bishops and all Episcopacy in any Authority and eminency above Presbyters is that Episcopacy is the root of Popery that Prelates were the parents of Antichrist that every Bishop hath a Pope in his belly and that the Pope is no other than an overgrown Bishop that to rout all Popery and raze the foundations of Romes pride all Prelacy or Episcopacy must be stubbed up My answer to this is that this objection sounds as little of truth as it savours much of malice especially in any Presbyters of any learning and ingenuity who well know the abasing of Bishops is the design and hath
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
the very beasts of the people are so far flattered as to be suffered with their foule feet daily to trouble and confound that cleare fountain and constant streame of Ministeriall Authority and Ecclesiasticall succession by way of Episcopall Ordination which was ever of so solemn and conspicuous use in all Churches of so venerable a succession of so ancient and uninterrupted a derivation from the very Apostles dayes and hands that it never failed to keep its course as some rivers do through salt waters amidst all the confusions which either heathenish hereticall or schismaticall persecutions raised in the Church Yea no Hereticks no Schismaticks except Aerius and his few complices who discontent for not obtaining a Bishoprick which â—e sought and turning Arrian was the first the onely and the fitâ—â—st engine to oppose Episcopacy as Epiphanius observes were ever so wild so fanatick so desperate as to cast off all Episcopall succession Authority over them both in Ordination and jurisdiction yea they knew no meanes to keep their confederacies and factions better together than that which they saw had alwaies been serviceable to preserve the true Churches communion Though the Manicheans Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Pelagians and others together with the Novatians Donatists withdrew from or were justly excluded by the Bishops of the sound and orthodox profession yet still these Heterodox Opiniasters had not onely Deacons and Presbyters but Bishops of their own Some of which Bishops afterward returning to the Catholick Communion were not degraded from their Episcopall power but onely suspended from the exercise of it in another Bishops jurisdiction or Diocese without his leave which being granted to some of them gave occasion to those Chorepiscopi which were Bishops without particular title and locall jurisdiction but yet enjoying and using this power of Ordination in some Country-Townes and Villages by the permission of the Bishop or Metropolitane of the Diocese or Province residing in the chief City which indulgence was after as the Church-Histories tell us taken away from the Chorepiscopi when it was found to occasion great inconveniences by admitting two Bishops in one Precinct or Diocese Certainly what is so pregnantly Catholick and usefull that not onely all good men but even such as were evill could not but approve and use it it were not onely folly but frenzy to cast quite away if it were the full vote and free act of the Nation What Apology could be sufficient to excuse this Nation either among Churches abroad or to posterity at home when they should see that by a rash partiall and popular precipitancy we have been hurried against all Reason Honor and Religion to forsake or to stop up the ancient fountaines of living waters which have alwaies flowed from Episcopall Ordination supplying this as all Churches in all places and offices with orderly Presbyters and usefull Deacons onely to try what those pits will afford which novellers have digged to themselves and which they eagerly obtrude upon this Church notwithstanding they are already found by sad experience to hold no such cleare and pure waters either for Doctrine or Discipline for Authority or Unity for Order or Peace as those were which the Apostles digged and the Catholick Church ever used and esteemed for sacred In this great point then of Right Ordination and true Ministeriall Authority of which the Learned Mr. Mason professeth next his salvation he desires to be assured it is as I humbly conceive not onely piously but prudently necessary for our Reformed Church Religion and Ministry to be effectually vindicated and by all possible meanes fairly united If there were ever any other way of Ordination used or allowed in the Church of Christ let the Authors Histories and instances be produced either as to their grounds or their practise If there were never any other either used or approved or thought of besides that which was in the Church of England managed by Bishops as necessary and chief agents in it truly it is but Justice Reason Conscience and Honor to own this Truth to follow this Catholick precedent to returne to an holy conformity with pious Antiquity which neither invented nor induced Bishops or Episcopall Ordination and jurisdiction as an affected novelty or a studied variety but they followed doubtlesse herein what was received from the very first Bishops who succeeded to the Apostles as authorized and placed by them So that as the succession of Bishops was lineally reducible to the Apostles which Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian Eusebius Nicephorus and others evidently prove not onely by their publick Registers but by their private memories when the names of Bishops were fresh in Christians minds and not very numerous as in the second and third Centuries No lesse may be affirmed of Ordination by Bishops it had its precept and pattern from the Apostles expresly committed and enjoyned to some persons as chief Bishops never trusted to meer Presbyters alone much less to people in common so far as any Record of the Church Sacred or Ecclesiastick doth informe us whose constant silence in this case is a better Testimony against all innovation of Ecclesiasticall Ordination than all the Sorites the Rhapsodies heapes and scamblings of I know not what broken scraps and wrested allegations out of any Scriptures or Fathers can be by which I see some men have sought with much dust sweat and blood to bring in their new uncertaine unaccustomed and unauthentick formes of Ordination exclusive of any President or Bishop who ever was as the principall Verb in a sentence which cannot be wanting without making the sense of all other words very lame defective incoherent and insignificant These grand perswasions joyned to the sad experiences made in Englands late variations do thus far command me to be more intent and earnest that in this point of valid complete undoubted and most authoritative Ordination we might be made uniform that all Ministers like currant money might have the same image and superscription upon them It is most certaine that the Christian and Reformed Religion will never be able to shine either clearly or constantly or comfortably upon the consciences of Christians either as Ministers or people while it is in this great point of Ordination so darkned clouded and eclipsed that it lookes like the Sun wrapped in sackcloth or the Moon turned into blood What Ministry what Ministers what Ordination what Ordained what Ordainers what Ordinances of Christ will in time be much esteemed in England by the Nobility Gentry or Yeomanry when they shall see various waies of Ordination daily invented and obtruded pittifull Novelties induced uniform Antiquity discarded Primitive Episcopacy exautorated a subordinate Presbytery scorned a popular parity and petulancy indulged every where to make what extemporary Priests and Preachers they list of the dregs and meanest of the people as little God knowes to their own soules benefit as to the Churches peace or to the honor of this Nation though they do it with as much
faith or manners they may more testifie their distances from and animosities against each other as Ministers Men of very good parts yea and of piety many times as Saint Jerome and Ruffinus from lesser disputes and differences are transported to wide and sharp defiances not onely as to their persons but as to their perswasions Hence we see Ministers of different descents commonly affect to be known by some different points Doctrines Presbyterians and Independents are thought generally to follow Mr. Calvin in all points as sworne to his dictates or determinations who was a man though of excellent parts yet not of Divine and infallible perfections but mixed with humane infirmities passions and imperfections Episcopall Divines are suspected most-what to have at least a tang and relish of Lutheran Arminian Pelagian opinions some are said to run out to a ranknesse of Socinianisme though the most and best of them I know do confine themselves to the Doctrine of their Mother the Church of England which was neither inconstant curious nor superfluous but cleare necessary and constant owning no Dictator but Christ and no Canon of Faith but the Scriptures doing and determining all things of Religion with great gravity counsell moderation charity and circumspection besides a just soveraigne Authority which swayes much with the Episcopall Clergy As the Church of England did not despise Luthers Melanchthons or Calvins judgement so it justly preferred its own before theirs or any one mans being alwaies guided by the concurrent Wisdome and Piety of many Learned and Godly Clergy-men both Bishops and Presbyters no way inferiour to those or any forraigne Divines and in some things far their superiours not onely as to the eminent places they held in this Church but as to the great discretion and temper of their Spirits which made many of them fitter for the glorious Crown of Martyrdome which they enjoyed than either of those two hotter-spirited yet renowned men who died in their beds who had not onely to contend with the Papall errors and superstitions which then extreamely pestered them and all Christendome but with their own passions and transports yea and with those many popular extravagancies which they rather occasioned I hope than designed among the vulgar who presently fancyed that they had the precepts and patternes of those great men Luther and Calvin to animate them to popular seditious rude injurious and rebellious methods of Reformation in which the very plebs or populacy imagined themselves better able to judge of Religion than any of their Governours in Church or State and because they had more hands therefore they must needs have better hearts and heads to do that work when and how they listed Which mad methods as the Church of England never used in its practise so it perfectly abhorred in its Doctrine to which few Ministers do heartily ingenuously and fully conforme who have forsaken its Discipline and Ordination from which who so flies furthest commonly wanders and wilders most in Enthusiastick Familistick and Anabaptistick opinions In order to this designe of restoring an uniforme and Authoritative Ordination O how ingenuous how religious how prudent how just how charitable how noble a work would it be on all sides for wise and worthy men to have some regard to those few clusters of Episcopacy which are yet remaining in England as a seed in which may be a blessing if the learned and venerable Bishops yet living among us were fairely treated and invited to such a concurrence and common union in this point of Ordination as might transmit both it and their Authority without any flaw or scruple of schisme interruption or fraction as most valid complete and authentick to posterity according to the Catholick and Primitive patterne O how great a security and satisfaction would this conjuncture and derivation completion of holy orders by Bishops with Presbyters give to many learned mens scruples and to many good Christians consciences without any injury or offence that I know to such of any party as are truly pious and peaceable who no doubt would be glad to see that no disorder or discord might be in holy orders from which as from a good well-tempered spring in a Watch all the regular motions of the wheeles and the true indications of the hand are derived directed and depending There can be nothing but clashings enterferings and confusions in any Church or society of Christians where there are crosse-grained contradictive or counterfeited Ministers as to their Ordination Here must be laid the principall and corner binding-stone of our happy Constitution and Communion as a Christian Church or Ecclesiasticall polity The affecting of novelty and variety in this as to the maine of the Ministeriall Order Power and Authority had been the way to have made at first a very crasie and weak Reformation in England and is now the way to deforme yea to destroy all again giving infinite advantages to the projects and policies of Rome also to the licentious distempers of mens own hearts and manners which considerations have made me the more large and importune as in a point of no lesse consequence and importance as to the visible constitution and managery of any Church than the unity and uniformity of civill power or Magistratick Authority is necessary for any Commonwealth or Kingdom where divided magistracy doth certainly tend to distraction and so to destruction as our own late miseries do abundantly convince us as to our civill peace and secular interest And truly no lesse will a divided Ministry infallibly tend to the distraction first and then the destruction of this Church and the Reformed Religion a new Ministry portends either no Ministry or no true one And where most Reverend Episcopacy which hath so many glorious marks of Primitive Antiquity Rare Piety Signall Prosperity Undisputable Universality Apostolick Order Scripturall Authority and Divine benediction upon it where this comes after 1600. years of Christianity and one hundred yeares of an happy Reformation to be questioned baffled exautorated there is no great likelihood that the novices and punyes Presbytery or Independency or Anabaptisme or Enthusiasme should take any great root in the love and esteem of any Christians who if Learned Wise and Upright must needs have greater confidence of and reverence for an Episcopall Ministry than for any new-modes which never yet had at their best any thing either very desirable or very commendable in them as to Wise and Grave mens affections and judgements And take them in their passions pragmaticalnesse popularities partialities novelties varieties inconstancies confusions and injuriousness and insolencies by which they have either begun or increased their parties waies and designes in many places many times against the will and Authority of lawfull Magistrates and Soveraigne Princes no lesse than against the dignity authority of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church look upon the best of them I say under these marks which are almost inseparable from them
Seates they had most evidently continued in all Churches without any interruption or variation of the forme or power however the persons had been oft changed by mortality Certainly it is most easie for all learned honest and unbiassed men to see what the uniform and Catholick form then was of all Churches orderly combinations I dare appeale to Independents and Presbyterians as well as Episcopall men to declare bona fide what they find it was in the first and best times after Churches were once fully formed and setled in their severall partitions No man not more bold than bayard or more blind than a beetle but must see and confesse that according to the first platform which we read of in the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles the Order Polity and Government of the Church was completed setled and continued first in Deacons who had the lowest degree of Church-office order and Ministry consisting in reading the Scriptures in making collections for the poor in distributing of charity in visiting the sick in providing things necessary safe convenient and decent for Christian Ministers and people when they met to serve the Lord in one place which place or house from hence was called Dominicum or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Church or House of the Lord. Next these in order degree and office were Presbyters that is ordained preachers to whom was committed by the Apostles first and after by Bishops their successors the Charge and Office of Catechizing the younger of Preaching to the elder of Baptizing believers and their children of consecrating the holy Elements of the Lords Supper and of admitting worthy Communicants to receive them besides the grave and venerable Presbyters had as brethren the priviledge of electing their Bishops also of counsell confessions and assistance with their respective Bishop's in publick concernment and grand transactions of the Church Above both these in eminency of place degree and power as to gubernative Authority were those prime Bishops or overseers of the Church first called by the name of Apostles as immediately set by Christ in that Episcopacy next were those that were personally appointed by the Apostles to supply their absence or to succeed them in that ordinary presidency and constant jurisdiction which was necessary for the Churches peace union and good Government of which we have two pregnant instances in Timothy and Titus who to be sure had Episcopall power given them not as Evangelists or Preachers but as Ordainers and Rulers of many Presbyters After these Bishops of a lesser size constantly succeeded being first chosen by the Presbyters of each grand Church or Diocese to that power and office and then consecrated to it or confirmed in it by neighbour-Bishops who solemnly imparted to them and invested them in that Eminency of Ordaining and Ruling power which is properly Episcopall not onely for the dispensing of holy mysteries for the preaching of the word and absolving penitents as Presbyters who were a minor sort of Bishops but for confirming those who had in infancy been baptized for solemn excommunication and absolution for examining and ordaining Presbyters and Deacons for transmitting that Episcopall and Ministeriall power in a constant and holy succession according as they had received it so for judging of and inflicting publick censures and reproofes likewise for all Synodal Conventions and representations of the Churches lastly for the authoritative enacting and executing of all Ecclesiasticall decrees and Church-disciplines all which things Bishops did as a Major sort of Presbyters though a Minor sort of Apostles if we may believe the judgment practise and testimony of all Antiquity in the purest times which are diligently collected evidently set down and unanswerably urged by many late writers who have brought forth such a cloud of witnesses as to this point of Ecclesiasticall Order and Government by Deacons Presbyters and Bishops a threefold cord not to be broken that men may as well deny the Evangelicall History as the Original Institution and Succession of the Evangelicall Ministry and the orderly constant Government of the Church by the service of Deacons the assistance of Presbyters and the superintendency of the Apostles whom no sober man denies to have been while they lived the eminent Rulers authoritative Overseers and chief Governours and Bishops of all the Churches where they were fixed or which they had under their particular care and charge Nor may it with any more shadow of reason or truth be denied that Bishops in a distinct place and eminent power were a successive and secondary sort of Apostles inferiour to them in their immediate call in their extraordinary gifts and the latitude of their power but equall to them in that ordinary constant and regular jurisdiction which was and is ever necessary for the Churches good Order and Government If all sorts and sides would look beyond their own later prejudices and presumptions to this holy patterne this so cleare constant and Catholick prescription they would be ashamed of such grosse ignorance or impudence such peevishnesse or partiality as should beyond all forehead or modesty affect any novelty or variety from an Ecclesiastick custome and an Apostolick precedent so undeniably Primitive so famous so glorious so prosperous so never altered or innovated as to the maine that all true believers all humble Deacons all orderly Presbyters all Confessors all Martyrs all Synods all Councils submitted and subscribed to the same form and kind of Government in its severall stations and degrees according as the wisdome of the Church saw cause to use its prudence power and liberty as Calvin Zanchy and Bucer tell us in having not onely Bishops but Metropolitanes or Arch-Bishops Primates and Patriarchs ad conservandam disciplinam as Calvin ownes for the better Order Unity and Correspondency of the Church in all its parts which were never quarrelled at till pride begat oppression and envy schisme in the Church till foolish and factious spirits chose to walk contrary to the true principles and proportions of all right Reason and Religion of all prudence and polity which are to be observed in all Societies sacred or civil which the Divine wisdome as St. Jerom observes had exemplified in the ancient Church of the Jewes and directed us to as Salmasius confesseth in all successions of Churches by the Spirit of wisdom which Christ gave to his Apostles and all their immediate successors the Bishops who were conform to them and impowered by them to be a kind of Tutelary Angels of presidentiall Intelligences in the larger circles and higher orbes of the Church where as in Ephesus and the other grand Metropolitane Churches which are denominated by the Spirit of Christ and the pen of the Apostle from the chief Cities in those Provinces there were no doubt many Christian people Presbyters and Deacons yet all these subject as Beza glossing on St. Jerom confesseth to that one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Provost or President as their
of revenge whence arise publick seditions therefore I rather chuse a speedy and safe accommodation than any dilatory and dangerous Toleration which will but increase disputes and distances animosities and asperities among good men And because I find it is not any thing really burdensome noxious or offensive in Primitive Episcopacy which makes many so shy and jealous of it but onely the ignorance errors and prejudices of some men who have sought to make It of later yeares especially obnoxious to all manner of popular jealousies calumnies and reproches which have endeavoured so to hide all the pristine beauty and true excellency of it that many look upon Prelacy that is Episcopacy as if it were in the same Form with Popery and think most sillily that they may no more in conscience comply with any regular Episcopacy than with the Popes irregular Primacy in that arrogant and imperious sense which he now challengeth beyond the modesty and humility of his Primitive Predecessors who were then greatest Bishops when least in their ambitions It will be therefore as I suppose not an act of partiality as to any one side but of justice and charity to all sorts of Christians for me a little further to sweeten the name and cleare the cause of Primitive Episcopacy such as I have stated it and as all Antiquity ever esteemed it to be the chiefest support of Religious safety honor and order the Center Crown and Consummation of the Churches peace authority unity and prosperity It is pitty so Primitive so Apostolick so Venerable an Order so universally used in this as all Churches heretofore should any further lye under the dirt and disguises of vulgar prejudices popular reproches or any mens personall faults and infirmities especially when all wise men know that the usuall distasts which have vitiated most mens palates do arise rather from their own or other mens cholerick and revengefull distempers and the diffusions of their redundant galls than from any reall defect or demerit of true Episcopacy or from any just blame imputable to worthy men either of that place and office or of that perswasion and Communion in the Church of England CHAP. XIX THere are severall grand pleas in behalf of Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which I here crave leave to produce and urge in a way different from other mens pens before all Learned Godly and Consciencious Christians Ministers and others not onely in order to relieve oppressed Episcopacy but also to reduce them to an happy reconciliation and this Church to the state of a setled and uniform Reformation or Religion which will hardly ever be obtained in England by the violent and partiall exclusion of the ancient Rights pristine Power and evident priviledges of Episcopacy unlesse the Antiepiscopall parties can take care to burn or smother all Monuments of true Antiquity or to banish all excellent books ancient and modern which have asserted it or at least forbid their new seminaries and all Scholars the reading of them If they cannot rid the world of these bookes then they must make some sharp Index expurgatorius which shall blot out the words of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Episcopus Antistes Praepositus summus Sacerdos Pastor Pater with those of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—aternitas Eminentia Dignitas Sanctitas Authoritas and other like expressions setting forth the eminent dignity and ancient authority of Episcopacy in all Churches which expressions are so frequent and conspicuous in all Ecclesiastick writers Greek and Latin that the starres in the firmament are not more numerous or more illustrious in a clear night or the Sun-beames shining at bright noon The Native Primitive Apostolick Catholick and Divine splendor of Episcopacy cannot be eclipsed without darkning the faces of all Churches and all Christians Nor in effect will it ever be done unlesse its implacable enemies can take care by their cunning activity that none shall be Students or Preachers or Professors of Christianity or of true Divinity in England but such as will be content first to be blinded and hoodwinckt as to all knowledge of Antiquity next that their Disciples shall take the measures of their Religion Ordination Church-order Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and Christian Communion not from Jerusalem or Antioch or Ephesus or old Rome or any other famous Catholick Primitive Churches which were all under Episcopall inspection and in its Communion but from Geneva Francfort Amsterdam Arnheim or Edenbrough and this since they have pretended of later yeares to be wiser than their Teachers and first Founders in Christianity grown more Eagle-ey'd in Church-affaires than all Antiquity and all Churches in the world whose constant consent and Catholick Testimony in the point of Episcopacy as an Apostolick institution custome and succession is I conceive as much to be credited for the certainty and fidelity of it as it is for the Scripture-Canon received preserved and delivered to us or for the two Sacraments to be used or for the Lords day to be observed or for Presbytery it self or for any ordained Ministry distinct and authoritative for none of these as to the Historick and Catholick attestation of them is more ancient or more evident than Episcopacy Sure if the ancient Church were faithfull in all other things of universal use and reception it is not to be suspected as to this great depositum of Ecclesiastick Order for gubernative Power Authority and Jurisdiction in what hands it was setled and deposited for the Churches future peace and constant good Government to all posterity it being equally impertinent to affirm first that Church-Government and Governours were needlesse for the Church or that it was not ordered by the Apostles that is by the Spirit and wisdome of Christ or that it is arbitrary and mutable every year as men have a mind to novelty and sedition or lastly that those holy men who immediately succeeded the Apostles did vary from their rule and prescription changing Presbytery or Independency into a Presidentiall or Episcopall primacy which is a thing incredible considering the purity exactness and holy pertinacy of Primitive Churches as to what was of Apostolicall Tradition as Tertullian rarely expresseth it in his book of Prescription against Heresies So that my first pregnant consideration perswading you O worthy Gentlemen with my brethren of the Ministry and all my religious Countrymen to look upon right Episcopacy with a more propitious and favourable eye is taken from the great credit and just veneration which is due to Antiquity there where we find a Primitive practise and Catholick consent and this not onely no way contrary to or diverse from but most consonant and every way agreeable to the mind of Christ and the wisdome of God which the Church hath delivered to us in the holy Scriptures It is not to be doubted but the streame of Christianity ran clearest the neerer it was to the Apostolick fountaines as in purity of Doctrine and simplicity of Devotion so in the Discipline Order
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
themselves high upon the confidence of Christs Scepter Call and Kingdome which they say admits no stop delay or obstruction whenever Providence opens a door not to the Gospel which is already professed but to such a Form and way as they like to have it in as to Discipline Government and Church-Order and this if not to be had by Princes favour and consent yet by the suffrages and assistance of common people where they may be had who in such cases are not to regard their obedience to any worldly Princes or powers who stand in opposition to or competition with Jesus Christ or any thing that some godly men shall fancy to be an ordinance of his though never heretofore owned or used as such in his Church What is there so fond so fanatick so foolish so mad which such presumptuous fury will not bring into Church or State that is not of their mind That these have been the principles and in many places the endeavours or practises of many for I dare not impute them to all is not to be doubted being evident by their writings and the Histories of those who have truly told the world what their sense agencies and aimes are Nor is there any great cause to expect that other petty parties or novel sects which are generally the spawne of Presbytery should deny themselves that Gospel-Power and Liberty as they call it since every one sees it hath been affected and acted though with no very great or glorious success by their grand-fire Presbytery which both in Scotl. and in England besides other places hath not been sparing to proclaime to all the world what zeal they have for their and Christs cause for his that is their Discipline even to the consuming of their foes their friends and themselves as Penry Udal Hacket and others did in Queen Elizabeths daies of which Mr. Cambden and others give us sufficient account as Sleidan and others do of the like agitations in Germany by such as were first Schismaticks from the Church and then Rebels to their lawfull Magistrates But the true Episcopall principles are wholly Evangelical they neither preach nor practise other than what they have learned from Christ and his Apostles in the Scripture they know no voyce of Providence ever calling them to act contrary to those Rules of civil obedience and good conscience which are signall expresse and emphatick in Gods word to be subject to every Ordinance or Law of man for the Lords sake to obey Kings as supreme and all under them for conscience sake if in any thing they cannot freely and cheerfully act there they must and will patiently suffer what penalties or pressures are laid upon them Thus did all Bishops and all Presbyters of old both pray and preach obey and suffer as Tertullian tells us at large in his Apology whose example and Doctrine all good Christians followed in their constant subjection and submission to civill though persecuting powers even then when Christians wanted not power and numbers to have invited them to have asserted themselves against both persecuting people and Princes Yet still godly Bishops with all Presbyters and people subordinate to them in Religious respects followed exactly the precepts of the two great Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul yea and of their great Master and Saviour Jesus Christ rather suffering by many persecutions than breaking out to any one act or thought of sedition or rebellion No injuries ever made good Bishops forget their Duty and Loyalty to Soveraigne powers though they might have had Legions to have sided with them yet as Christ they chose the Crosse as the best refuge of Christian subjects Thus all holy Bishops both held and did in Primitive times Yea and since the later spring of Reformation in England I am confident there is not one instance of any one Bishop or Episcopall Divine that either wrote or instigated any Christian Subjects to act upon any religious pretentions contrary to the Rules of civil subjection to that Prince or State under which they lived no not to bring in or restore Episcopacy it self which hath far more pleas for it from Catholick Antiquity and Universall prescription from actuall possession in all times and places from the pattern of Christ and the practise of the Apostles from the imitation and uninterrupted succession of after-Ages besides the proportions of Gods wisdome and mans prudence in all setled polities and good Government together with its own Ancient Catholick and Nationall Rights which aggravate its injuries and exasperate mens spirits yet these are not enough to animate or heighten Episcopacy so far as to make or restore its way into any Nation Church State or Kingdom by armed power or tumultuary violence against the will of the chief Magistrate or the Lawes in force it humbly attends Gods time and the Soveraignes pleasure for its reception or restitution So false and foul are the odious aspersions of Fellonies Treasons Seditions and Rebellions which the loosenesse and choler of a Presbyterian Gentlemans Pen then more passionate and popular then now it seems hath cast upon all the Bishops of England as such in that rude immodest and uncharitable pamphlet which he then set forth by a preposterous zeal when having surfeited of an immoderate revenge against one Bishop he aymed so to disguise venerable Episcopacy and to degrade all the most excellent Bishops of Engl. with their Clergy as to expose them all to be the more cruelly baited and worried even to death by the enraged beasts of the people even then when they were to be diverted from considering the actuall combustions which then were raised by and for his Presbytery Such Declamatory and partiall papers were certainly very unbecoming a man of Learning Religion or Ingenuity especially toward such Bishops in his own Country which were men most-what his equals in all things and in many things much his betters and superiours being Peeres of the Kingdome and chief Fathers of that Church with which he held Communion vested in their Authority by our Laws as well as conforme to all Ecclesiastick ancient Constitutions being persons famous most of them for their worth every way answerable to the Piety and Learning of their best Predecessors who were great Preachers wise Governours learned Writers and valiant Martyrs as well as venerable Bishops I confesse this one instance makes me see with horror what a dreadfull tyrant and temptation passion and faction revenge ambition popularity and discontent are when once they transport men of parts beyond the true bounds of Reason and Religion of Charity Patience and Civility which is as apparent in that virulent charging of all Bishops for seditious Traytors as if one should condemn all Lawyers for corrupt and covetous for bribery and oppression as if all were Trissilians Empsons and Dudleys which were a reproch most unjust and false there having been and still are many of them men of great justice and integrity I well know it is
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
shining Truly I find the calmeness and gravity of sober mens judgements is prone to improve much by Age Experience Reading of the Ancients hereby working out that juvenile leaven and lee which is prone to puffe up and work over younger spirits and lesse decocted tempers in their first fervors and agitations Possibly the Archbishop and some other Bishops of his mind did rightly judge that the giving an enemy faire play by just safe and honorable concessions was not to yield the cause or conquest to him but the more to convince him of his weakness when no honest yieldings could help him any more than they did indamage the true cause or courage of his Antagonist For my part I think the Archbishop of Canterbury was neither Calvinist nor Lutheran nor Papist as to any side and partie but all so far as he saw they agreed with the Reformed Church of England either in fundamentalls or innocent and decent superstructures yet I believe he was so far a Protestant and of the Reformed Religion as he saw the Church of England did protest against the Errors Corruptions Usurpations and Superstitions of the Church of Rome or against the novel opinions and practises of any party whatsoever And certainly he did with as much Honor as Justice so far own the Authentick Authority Liberty and Majesty of the Church of England in its Reforming and Setling of its Religion that he did not think fit any private new Masters whatever should obtrude any Forraine or Domestick Dictates to her or force her to take her Copy of Religion from so petty a place as Geneva was or Francfort or Amsterdam or Wittenberg or Edenborough no nor from Augsburg or Arnheim nor any Forraine City or Town any more than from Trent or Rome none of which had any Dictatorian Authority over this great and famous Nation or Church of England further than they offered sober Counsels or suggested good Reasons or cleared true Religion by Scripture and confirmed it by good Antiquity as the best interpreter and decider of obscure places and dubious cases Nor did his Lordship esteem any thing as the voice of the Church of England which was not publickly agreed to and declared by King and Parlament according to the advice and determinate judgement of a Nationall Synod and lawfull Convocation convened and approved by the chief Magistrate which together made up the complete Representative the full sense and suffrage of the Church of England His Lordship no doubt thought it as indeed it is a most pedling partiall and mechanick way of Religion for any Church or Nation once well setled to be swayed and tossed to and fro by the private opinions of any men whatsoever never so godly contrary to Publick Nationall and Ecclesiasticall Constitutions which carried with them as infinitely more Authority so far more maturity prudence and impartiality of Counsel than was to be found or expected by any wise men in any single person or in any little juncto's of Assemblies or select Committees of Lay-men whatsoever And truly in this I am so wholly of his Lordships opinion that I think we haâ—e in nothing weakned and disparaged more our Religion as Reformed in England than by listning too much to and crying up beyond measure private Preachers or Professors be they what they will for their grace gifts or zeal who by popular insinuations here and there aime to set up with great confidence their own or other mens pious it may be I am sure presumptuous novelties against the solemn and publick Constitutions or determinations of such a Church as England was These these agitations and adherencies have undermined our Firmeness and Unity by insensible degrees What was Luther or Calvin or Zuinglius or Knox or Beza or Cartwright or Baines or Sparkes or Brightman not to disparage the worth which I believe was really in any of them or their Disciples to be put into the balance against the whole Church of England when it had once Reformed and setled it self to its content by joynt Counsel publick consent and supreme Authority Which hath had in all Ages and eminently since the Reformation both Bishops and other Ministers of its Communion no way singly inferiour to the best of those men and joyntly far beyond them all whose concurrent judgment and determination I would an hundred times sooner follow than all much more any one of those men yea possibly I could name some one man whom I might without injury prefer to any one of those fore-named persons such was Melanchthon abroad and such was our Bishop Jewel at home And indeed the Church of England had blessed be God so many such Jewels of her own that she needed not to borrow any little gems from any forreigners nor might any of them without very great Arrogancy Vanity and Imodesty as I conceive seek to strip her of her own Ornaments and impose theirs upon her or her Clergy Which high value it is probable as to his Mother the Church of England and her Constitutions was so potent in the Archbishop of Canterbury that as he thought it not fit to subject her to the insolency of the Church of Rome so nor to the impertinencies of any other Church or Doctor of far less name and repute in the Christian world No doubt his Lordship thought it not handsome in Mr. Calvin to be so far 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 censorious of the Church of England as to brand its devotion or Liturgy with his tolerabiles ineptiae who knew not the temper of the Nation requiring then not what was absolutely best but most conveniently good and such not onely the Liturgy was but those things which he calls tolerable toyes This charitable sense I suppose I may justly have of this very active and very unfortunate Prelate as he stood at a great distance from me and eminence above me against whom I confess I was prone in my greener years to receive many popular prejudices upon the common report and interpretation of his publick actions In one of which I was never satisfied as to the Piety or Policy of it that when his Lordship endeavoured to commend the Liturgy of England to the Church of Scotland which was a worthy design as to the uniformity of Devotion yet he should affect some such alterations as he might be sure like Coloquintida would make all distastful Such was that in the Prayer of Consecration and Distribution at the Lords Supper which was after the old form of Sarum and expunged by our Reformers as too much favouring Transubstantiation besides some other changes in that and other things of which possibly his Lordship could give a better reason than I can imagine or have yet heard Toward his decline I had occasion to come a little neerer to his Lordship where I wel remember that a few daies after his first confinement when he seemed not at all to despaire of his innocency or safety having
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
which can by no persons of any right understanding be thought to be the temper of any thing that is worthy to bear the name inscription of the true God or the Christian and Reformed Religion This is not the pulse of piety nor can be the influence of Gods holy wise and peaceable spirit No Christian can be so uncatechised as not to know that these wounds and scarres which are upon the face of Religion and made by Christians of the same countrey and communion are not the marks of Christs sheep nor the characters of his Disciples who have been in all ages most eminent for all graces and vertues for all things true comely orderly just generous benigne charitable none exceeded or equalled them for mutuall love while they were neer or far off insomuch that primitive Assemblies of Bishops Presbyters and people were most lively resemblances of that Angelick Order Quire and Harmony which is in Heaven before the Throne of God and of the Lamb. This union and subordination kept up the reverence of Religion and the dignity of the Evangelicall Ministry among Christians even then when persecution most raged against them when the persons of holy Bishops and Presbyters were imprisoned banished mangled and massacred by Heathenish and Jewish persecutors yet then was the authority of Ministers looked upon as sacred and divine not from the earth but heaven not from Kings and Princes not from Parlaments and civil Senates not from Protectors and Major-Generals or new Triers much lesse from any principle or power which is now challenged by popular arrogancy and vulgar usurpation but from Christ Jesus and so from the blessed God who sent his Son and He his Apostles and other Ministers as his Father sent him for the same end and work in those measures and proportions of his Spirit which were necessary for the calling converting continuing and perfecting the Church as the Body of Christ While these continued in an holy and uninterrupted succession of undoubted Authority as Apostles Bishops Pastors and Teachers of one mind and mission of one ordination and succession they easily preserved the doctrine of Christian Religion uncorrupted the Mysteries unprophaned the Ministry unviolated the reverence of Religion unabased but these once divided against each other in opinions and factions their ranks and order broken their succession interrupted their commission counterfeited or varied their office invaded their authority doubted denied and destroyed who knowes not what spring-tides what whole seas of faction and fury of negligence and irreverence of Atheisme and irreligion must necessarily flow in upon the face of any Church when the truest and compleatest Ministers shall be questioned or scorned the dubious defective or false ones magnified by secular policy or popular levity when Lay-men shall either think there are no Ministers invested with any due authority or themselves as good as the best set up after some novell and arbitrary modes of their own invention which must not onely vye with the true ancient and Catholick ordination of 1500 years standing but justle it quite out of the Church like the bastard Abimelech who slew all the legitimate issue of Gideon his Father Who can heare with trembling or pray with devotion or receive with reverence or be reproved with patience or be comforted with peace or be terrified with judgement or mortified to any lust or moderated to any passion or confined to new obedience or won to true repentance or moved in conscience or raised in hope when he applies to any or all these duties out of faction novelty curiosity levity custome affectation or hypocrisie when he thinks the Minister that officiates hath no more power than himself or his groom and footman when he looks upon his Minister as a poor man confined to his teddar staked to his petty living dependant upon mens charity exposed to plebeian contempt at best but an almesman of the State a publick pensioner or an Evangelicall Trooper whose commission is ad placitum hominum after the will of man having no divine power or authority to his office and work no legall right or title as to certainty or perpetuity in any thing he enjoyes as his wages further than the arbitrary favours or frowns of men are dispensed to him a very trembling and precarious orator whose pulpit is like the Ara Lugdunensis soon made his scene his coffin and his sepulchre especially if either fervently praying or faithfully preaching or justly yet wisely reproving he displease any captious and peevish Auditor who hath confidence enough to make him an offender for a word and influence enough to sequester to silence yea to starve him and his family if he use an honest and innocent parrhesy or freedome of speaking such as becomes the Messenger of heaven the Minister of Christ and the Ambassadour of God When the mouths of Gods oxen are thus easily muzled when his Prophets are so cheaply despised when his neerest servants are thus despitefully used no wonder if irreverence Atheisme and profanenesse in all sorts of people attend all religious exercises as necessarily as shadows doe those grosse bodies which intervene between the sight and light which is the first sad and bad consequence following and flowing from the inconstancie and unsetlednesse of Religion CHAP. V. BEsides the decayes of Piety and Charity in mens hearts both as to the principles power and practice becoming Christians which like a Lethargick numbnesse and stupor is come upon the old stock of Christians in England together with that unsetlednesse irreverence contempt Atheisme and profanenesse which grows upon the younger sort of people who have been bred amidst these our divisions distractions and extravagancies of Religion to very much of irreligion the lusts and vanities of their minds being not any way so curbed and repressed by the incumbent majesty and authority of any such setled and uniform Religion as is necessary either to perswade men to be good or to over-awe and restrain them from being so bad as they would be Besides these mischiefes which I have already set forth to you my Honoured Countrymen there is a second sad and bad consequence which like a Gangrene or spreading Canker daily frets the spirits and as it were eats up the very substance and vitals of Religion in this Nation by reason of those endlesse and vexatious disputes which agitate the spirits and exasperate the minds of all sorts of Christians and of none so much as Ministers who are looked upon as those that expose and offer themselves to be the chief heads or Champions of Religion in their severall parties who are to undertake the combates and challenges of all opposers which truly were no very hard province if either Ministers were unanimous and mutually assisted by concurrent judgement among themselves or if they were protected by the shield of this Churches declared Doctrine and uniform profession of Religion Which heretofore was justly esteemed as sacred inviolable and invulnerable having