assertion That no part of the Catholike Church of Christ in any age or place was ever setled or flourished without a constant peculiar Order and Ordination of Ministers who were consecrated to the receiving and exercise of that power in the Church as from Christ although by man which have continued to this day Theodoret. hist l. 1. c. 22. De Aedesio Frumentio apud Indos dâ—vina Ministeria â—bierunt Laicii cum erant Frumentius postea ab Athanasio ep factus Cap. 23. Captivamulier apud Iberos Evangelium praedicabet miracula edebat His Const M. Episcopos misit There are indeed three or four examples in cases extraordinary of some private unordained Christians in the Primitive times who occasionally trading to Heathens were means first to teach them the Mysteries of Christ so as they desired to be baptized which was after done by such Bishops and Ordained Ministers as were sent them upon their request from other Churches To produce particulâ—r testimonies out of each Author Father Council and Historian in every age to prove the constant succession the high veneration and the unfeigned love which was every where conferred upon the Bishops and Ministers of the Church also to shew forth that devout care and religious regard which the ordainers the faithful people and those to be ordained to the office had in their several relations and duties when Ministers were to be ordained and consecrated such allegations were easie being very many and obvious but I hold the pains needless considering that to learned men they are so well known and all ingenuous Christians will believe my solemn asseveration that as in the presence of God what I write is Truth As for those weak or wilful men who are in this my onely opposers I know they consider not any heaps of authorities which they account onely as humane which they cannot examine nor do they value them when convinced of the certainty and harmony of them were there never so sweet and many flowers gathered from the testimony of Antiquity and Authority of the Fathers these supercilious novellers will not vouchsafe to smell to them It is well if I can make them savor any thing well out of the Scriptures which favors the Function of the Ministry 4. Catholike custom confirmed by Scripture as to the Office of the Ministry 2. So then in the next place This Defence of the Churches clear constant and Catholike Testimony in this point of the peculiar Office of the Ministry as in any other becomes a brazen wall an impregnable bulwark able to break in pieces or to retort all engines and batteries made against it when it appears to be exactly drawn according to the scale line and measure set down in the holy Scripture which are therefore much sleighted by some who despise the Ministry because like well-planted Canons they defend the Church and its constant Ministry as on the other side the Churches fidelity and constancy are the ground-work and platforms on which the Scriptures are planted 1 Tim. 3.15 The Church of Christ bearing up as the ground and holding forth as a pillar that divine Truth Power and Authority which from God they have in them of which the Church is the Herald or Publisher but not the Author or Inditer Conferring nothing to their internal Truth which is from their revealer and inspirer God but much to their external credit and historick reception which we have tendered to us daily not as immediately from God or Angels or inspired Prophets but by the veracity and fidelity of the Church chiefly in its publick Ministry which in this point of so necessary constant and universal practise for the good of all faithful people in all Ages and Churches cannot be thought in any reason either to have had no rule divinely appointed or that all Churches have been wholly ignorant of it or knowingly have so wholly swerved from it that never any Church either in its Teachers and Pastors or in its people and believers were followers of the Scripture-Precept and Patern till these last and worst days whereas the clear and pregnant light of the Scripture is in this point of a setled Ministry so agreeing with the use and practice of the Catholike Church that as no error can be suspected in the one so no obscurity can be pretended in the other by any Christians who will allow the divine Authority and infallible Truth of those Scriptures which we call the New Testament In all which nothing is more evident Christ sent of the Father as a Minister of Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.25 Heb. 12.2 Matth. 17.5 Jâ—hn 4.34 5.36 6.57 7.16 Heb. 5.4 No mantaketh this honor to himself but he that is called of God as Aaron V. 5. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest but c. Matth. 3.17 and self-demonstrating beyond any cavil or contradiction than That our Lord Jesus Christ the promised Messias the beloved Son of God the Angel of the new and better Covenant the Minister of Righteousness the great Apostle the chief Bishop and Father of our souls the Author and Finisher of our Faith the supreme Lord and King the eternal and compassionate High Priest the unerring Prophet of his Church whose voice we are onely to hear and obey in all things he commands us That I say this Lord Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to a personal accomplishment of all Prophecies fulfilling of all righteousness to a visible Ministration of holy things for the Churches good That he came not in his own Name as a man to be Mediator and Teacher nor did he as a man take this honor of Prophet Priest or King of his Church upon him but had his mission or appointment from his Father God who gave evident testimonies from Heaven of him not onely before and at his birth but afterward at his solemn and publick inauguration by Baptism into the Work of his Ministry where a voice from Heaven was heard and a visible representation of the Holy Spirit was seen testifying him to be the beloved Son of God the anointed with the gifts of the Spirit above all as Head of the Church These after were followed with infallible signs and wonders while Jesus went about doing good teaching the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven instituting holy rites for the distinguishing of his Church from the world and for the comforting of the faithful in the world by those seals pledges and memorials of his love in dying for the Church and shedding both water and blood upon the Cross Christs sending his Apostles as Ministers Acts 1. Phil. 2.9 Christ having thus personally finished the suffering and meritorious part of his Ministry after his Resurrection being now no more to converse in a visible humane way of presence with his Church on Earth but ascending as was meet to that glory of the Father which as God he had ever with him as man he had
like wilde-fire running even to all extremes greater jealousies and impatiences of sufferings than of sinning Fierceness to be revenged upon any by whom they sometimes thought themselves injured in the least measure when it may be it was not the man as the Law by which they suffered Yea when some Ministers were gratified with such measures of revenge as might move even envy it self to pity those persons who suffered indeed justly from God for their sins yet from man they chose affliction rather than sin Yet still many Ministers followed with severe censures and harsh declamings even the miseries of those their Brethren or Fathers who were in all true worth equal to them and in many things as well as in an envied authority above them Yet in those sad ruines of some learned grave and godly men they seemed to glory casting faggots of calumnies into their fires shewing so little pity and so much severity to them in calamities Judges 1.7 That it will be no wonder to see many of their own Thumbs and Toes cut off and themselves brought to creep under even enemies tables for their Bread who helped or joyed so cruelly in maiming others and bringing them even to a morsel of bread Shewing less pity and humanity to their destroyed Brethren and Fathers than the Israelites did to the wasted Benjamites Judges 22.2 more rejoycing in the victory of a party than deploring the sin disorders and miseries of the whole The mean complyings also of some Ministers with those weaknesses and extravagancies of some mens opinions and practises in Religion which they then knew or suspected to be evil and dangerous of which they have since been forced oft to complain with bitterness of soul for want of timely reproving and resolute opposing Adde to these what is frequently observed and with great scandal Their shiftings and variatings from one living to another under pretence of Gods or the peoples call where the greater benefice is always the louder voice and most effectual call being always deaf to any thing that may in any kinde diminish their profit or preferment Still seising like ravenous Birds and Beasts or cunning Woodmen on any prey they can espie upon which they gain by a thousand windings and wily ambushes though never so injurious to the true owners even their Fellow Ministers and their whole Families These and such like frequent publick passages together with some Ministers most imprudent neglects of opportunities sometimes offered and much in their power by which to have brought differences to an happy composure especially in matters of Religion which were neither great nor hard to have been reconciled by men of true Prudence and Christian moderation which virtues have great influence in things of extern form and policy in the Church of Christ The fatal omissions and rejections of fair offers those cruel defeats also which have followed after and the unsuccessful blastings of all those plausible projects and specious designs which many of them had for some time driven on as Jehu very furiously and as they thought very triumphantly These I say and the like notorious imprudences if not scandalous impieties seem to many sober men to have been among the chief mists and clouds both of folly and infamy which have risen from too many Ministers lives and maners and so much eclipsed the glory and face of their whole Function which they have rendred too many men suspected as having more of the Jesuitick cunning and activity than of that meek and quiet spirit which was so eminent in Jesus Christ That from a pragmatical fierceness which sought to have an Oar in every Boat many Ministers are by many thought so superfluous both in Church and State that they are ready to throw them all over-board as thinking there is no use of them neither in the sad solemnities of Christians burial who beyond all men dying in the Lord and in hope of a blessed Resurrection ought not to be buried with the burial of an Ass or an Infidel nor in the joyful celebrities of mariage where there needs not onely much of humane prudence as to choice but more of divine benediction as to the holy use and happy success of mariage which among true Christians ought to be in the Lord and so may very well bear the publick benediction of those who are to bless the people in the name of the Lord yea even in matters peculiar to their office and over so esteemed and used in the Church of Christ both as to the Church-Government Discipline and holy Ministrations of Prayer Preaching and Sacramental Celebrations are Ministers by many thought more easily to be spared and dispenced withal as to any publick necessity than any Bailiff in an Hundred Praecept est vulgi animâ—â— insaâ—o impetu à rerum abusis adversus usum ipsum propelluntur Petrarch or a Constable in a Village And no wonder for nothing is more ordinary than for the most excellent things once degenerated to abuses so far to lapse in the opinion and esteem of vulgar and passionate mindes that they are ready foolishly to wish and greedily to welcome the total disuse and abolition of them I cannot write it and I hope no good Protestant 9. The dishonor cast by some upon the Ministers of England or true English heart will read it without grief and shame That I have lived to see that verified and fulfilled in too great measure which * Campian 10. Ratio Nihil Clero Anlicano puâ—idius Campian an Eloquent railer sometimes wrote not with more malice than apparent falsity at that time when the state of the Ministry in England had not more of publick favor than of true honor and merit both for learning piety and order Nothing saith he is more putid and contemptible than the English Clergy O that this reproach were with truth now to be contradicted or confuted which hath so heavily befaln us and so justly since too many Ministers became so tragmatick so impertinent so unsuccessful in State policies in worldly projects in secular agitations in counsels and actions of war and blood which they have agitated more intensively than Church affairs and matters properly religious How odious must it needs be when they are publickly seen so vastly differing from that Spirit of the Gospel which they Preach So disguised in their Habit so degenerating from their Calling so different from the rule and example of the Lord Jesus Christ of the holy Apostles of the blessed Martyrs of the primitive Bishops Presbyters and Confessors These might be seen possibly after the patern of their Saviour riding meekly on an Ass or as Ignatius on some vile beast to be crucified but they were never met on red and pale and black horses threatning blood Rev. 6. and war and famine and death to the Ages and Churches in which they lived By the imitation of whose wisdom from above Jam. 3.17 Church-men by Civil and Canon Laws were
know how to use them unless it be to break their heads with them whom Christ hath set as stewards in his houshold These rustick and rash undertakers to reform and controul all are onely probable to shipwrack themselves and many others and the whole Ship of this Church by driving the skilful Pilots the true Bishops and Ministers from the Helm and putting in their places every bold Boatswain and simple Swobber Yet are the populacy flattered by some to this dangerous insolency and error who putting fire to this thatch instead of the Chimney do but provoke the poor people to their own hurt to forsake their own mercies and to injure both their own and others souls Mean time sober and wise Christians cannot but smile with shame sorrow and indignation to see how some Plebeian Preachers who are new risen as from the slime of the earth in whom no Prometheus hath breathed any spark of heavenly fire of spiritual divine and truly ministerial power to see I say how these Teachers have brought themselves by a voluntary humility to depend on peoples suffrages and charity not onely for maintenance but for their very Ministry being now sunk so low as to flatter their good Masters with this paradox or strange principle That they as the people or body be they never so few and mean have a reciprocal power to beget those who are to be their Spiritual Fathers that by a more than Pythagorean Metemphycosis the Power Spirit and Authority of Jesus Christ who was sent by his Father John 20.21 and so sent his Apostles and they others in the same Spirit to be Fathers Pastors Rulers Stewards c. That at length this Spirit and Authority should transmigrate we know not how nor when into the very mass and bulk of common people if they be but Christians of the lowest form animating them in the whole and in every part or parcel of them with such plenitude of Church power as enables them to be all Kings and Priests Pastors and Teachers Prophets and Apostles if need be and if they list and if they have leisure or if not to act so in their own persons having more profitable employments yet they have virtually and eminently in them as much power as Christ had and used or left to any men whereby to consecrate and ordain true Ministers to try and teach those that are to teach them to rule their Rulers to discipline their Shepherds to govern their Governors to turn not onely Religion out of doors but even all Reason Order and Civility upside down rather than not exercise this imaginary power especially if it serve to secular advantages And all this because they are told they are the Church and so may erect all Church power as in them and from them This fancy is able to make a plain Country-Christian stand on his Tiptoes and to bring all his family to see him and his other-like members making up this glorious Body which he calls his Church that they may be witnesses with how much folly and simplicity and clamor and confidence he with his Neighbors examines approves or reproves refuseth or chooseth and ordains all officers and some new fashioned Minister or Pastor Who poor-man must neither Preach nor Pray not eat nor look otherways than pleaseth these sad and silly yet very supercilious pieces of popular pride and itching arrogancy nor can such an hungry and timorous Pastor ever be setled or safe in this Pastoral Authority 26. Common people not fit to manage Church power in chief unless he have the trick of Faction which is still to ingratiate with the major part of this his flock who will otherways as easily push and beat him out of this fold or break all to pieces as ever they admitted him by a profane easiness and popular insolency But I must with less flattery and more honesty tell this Generation of perverse Usurpers this truth which is not unwelcome to sober spirited Christians That the weight of Christianity doth not at all hang on this popular pin which is no where to be found but in their light heads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. and heavy hands neither Reason nor Religion since men were redeemed from the barbarity of Acorns Nakedness and Dens ever thought the plebs or common people ought to be all in all if any thing at all either in conferring or managing either Civil or Church power but least of all that part of Church power which is proper for the making of a Minister in the way of due Ordination of which I shall after give a fuller account For this is that to which they generally have least proportion either of knowledge learning holiness or discretion Besides it would thence follow that so soon as any Sect or Faction of people can get but numbers and courage they may do what they list in this plenitude of power without the leave of Magistrates or Ministers in Church or State These are pestilent principles which are not onely pernicious to the Church but to any civil Societies threatning not our faith onely but our purses and throats Nor did ever any wise men what ever is pretended at any time to amuse the people and to serve an occasion intend or suffer the community or vulgar people with their massie bodies and numerous hands really to attain use or enjoy any such supreme power in civil administrations If once soverain power be gotten though by the means of such credulous assistants yet whatever the populacy may flatter themselves with it never is nor can wisely and happily be managed by them but rather without them above them and many times against them Power precarious that is such as depends upon a popular principle or plebeian account such as sometime was among the Grecian State and Romans is for the most part but an Empire of beggery or flattery or falsity Where at best wise and valiant men may oft be forced to prostrate themse ves to the arbitrement of the vulgar who are injurious esteemers and ungrateful requiters even of the most publick merits But oftentimes the peoples pretended power and interest is made use of in specious terms and cunning agitations onely to serve the turn of turbulent ambitious and factious spirits in Church and State whose envy or ambition easily teacheth the credulous community to esteem the over-meriting of the best men and Magistrate◠to be their greatest oppression and most deserving Ostracism banishment or disgrace Per paucorum hominum virtute crevit Imperium Salust Rom. 13.4 The Life of Government and Soul of Dominion is that real power and resolution which is in the hand of one or more wise and potent men who are always intent to deserve well of the people yet always able to curb and repress their insolency and inconstancy Without this
former times In all which we finde there ever was a peculiar Office of the holy Ministry and a peculiar Order of Persons both ordaining and ordained to be Ministers and both so used and so esteemed by all good Christians in all setled Churches Clemens in Saint Pauls time after him writing from Rome to the Corinthians where faction was kindled Exhorting people and Presbyters to peace tells them That the Apostles appointed some in all Countreys 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 trying and approving them by the Spirit to be Bishops and Deacons for those that after should believe Pag. 54. Edit Pat. Jun. Id sine dubio tenendum quod ecclesia ab Apostolis Apostoli à Christos Christus à Deo suscepit Reliâ—ua omnis doctrina de mendacio praejudicanda quae sapit contra vâ—ritatem ecclesiae Apostolorum Christu Dei Tertul. de prae ad Hae. c. 21. Omnes praepositi Apostolis Vicaria Ordinatione succedunt Cyp. l. 4. ep 9. Jer. Com. in 1. cap. ep ad Gal. Isidor Hispal off eccle l. 2. c. 5. Radix Christianae societatis per sedes Apostolorum successiones Episcoporum certa per orbem propagatione diffunditur Aug. ep 42. The Lord saâ—th Clemens will have us to perform our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 off g ings and services 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 none rashly and disorderly but in due time and season 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where also and by whom his wâ—ll and supreme pleasure hath appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Faction or Schism began in Saint Pauls time then renewed or had continued which Clemens shews citing the Apostle Pauls Epistle to the Corinthians and telling them That the Apostles setled approved Ministers Bishops and Deacons after them and ordered for a succession to follow when those were dead whom they ordained immediately p. 57. Edit Pat. Jun. Clemens R. ep ad Corinth Ignat. ep ad Hieron in aliis ep Just. Mar. Apol. 2. Tertul. Apol. lib. De Baptismo Cyprian l. 1. ep 2 9. l. 3. ep 5. Eis qui sunt in Ecclesia Presbyteris obaudire oportet his qui successionem habent ab Apostolis qui cum Episcopatus succâ—ssime charisma veritatis certum secundum beneplacitum patris acceperunt Reliquos vero qui absistunt à principali successione quocunque loco colliguntur suspectos habere vel haereticos malae sententiae vel quasi sciudentes elatos sibi placentes Aut rursus ut hypocritae quoestus gratia vanae gloriae hic operantes omnes autem hâ—decidunt à veritate ut Nadab Abihu Koram Jeroboam c. Irenaeus l. 4. c. 43. Agnitio vera est Apostolorum doctrina antiquus Ecclesiae status in universo mundo secundum successiones Episcoporum quibus illi eam quae in unoquoque loco est Ecclesiam tradiderunt Iren. l. 4. c. 63. Chrysost de Sacerdotio Basil Mag. Symoni Mago comparat illos qui 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who take money for Ordination and calls that gain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conduct money for Hell Ep. 78. And in his 181. Epist chalenges to himself the power of Ordination from the Corepiscopi So Epist 187. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The antient custom of the Church receives none to be Ministers but with strict examination in their Ordination Epiphan Hae. 79. Jeron Dialog ad Lucifer St. Ambrose De Dignitate Sacerdotali Liber St. Austine Ep. 42. and in many places St. Gregory the Great De Cura Pastorali lib. Quomodo valebit secularis homo sacerdotis magisterium adimplere cujus nec officium tenuit nec disciplinam agnovit Is Hisp off eccl l. 2. c. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Nullatenus nobis Christianis permissum est ut quis in ecclesia sen publicè Scripturas explanet nisi qui in clericalem ordinem adscitus suerit Suid. in l. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Thaumaturgus juvenum quendam pium Philosophum sub forma carbonarii obscurum in sacerdotem ordinavit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 juxta solemnes ritus Greg. Nis in vita Theum Which Catholike practise and judgment as it is a great satisfaction to all sober Christians who itch not after novelties so it must needs be a vehement prejudice with any wisemen against those yesterday novelties raised by some few men of great passions and presumptions but of no great reputation that ever I could learn for either such learning piety or impartiality as may be put into the ballance against the clear and concurrent Testimonies of all the Antients and the universal practise of all Churches which all Histories all Fathers all Councils all Learned and Godly men both Antient and Modern do with one Spirit and one Mouth abundantly testifie agreeable to that of Saint Jerom St. Augustine Isidore Hispal and many others Who speaking of the Calling of Ministers from those words Called to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ reckon up four sorts First Some that are sent immediately from God and not by men as Moses many Prophets the Twelve Apostles and Saint Paul Secondly Some by Gods appointment yet by Mans hand and Ordination as Aaron Joshuah Elisha Timothy Thirdly Others in the ordinary way and succession of the Church as it is appointed by Jesus Christ are by men onely ordained Ministers either according to real merit partial favor and vulgar affection Fourthly There be some whom neither God nor man sends but they run of themselves Such saith St. Jerom were and are false Prophets and false Apostles deceitful workers Ministers of Satan transforming themselves into Angels of light who say Thus saith the Lord when the Lord hath not spoken to them or sent them To this sense Saint Jerom St. Austine and accordingly all the Antients before and after them as they have occasion to speak of the office duty and dignity of Ministers in the Church Which Catholike Testimony and Tradition or Custom of the Church for any Christian to contradict without shew of reason is intollerable impudence and not to believe it is most inhumane and unchristian uncharitableness to disparage and causlesly to derogate from it can be no other but profane and perverse insolence unless there can be produced such clear testimonies from immediate divine revelations confirmed by miracles or from the received Written Word of God to the contrary as will easily and ought justly to overweigh all after inventions or constitutions which are built meerly upon humane custom and authority as that was of giving the Lords Supper to Infants and to the dead sometimes Which counterbalancing of Custom by Reason or Scripture is not yet in the least kinde done by these men that are the opposers of the Ministry of England Who by the same proud or peevish incredulity by which they oppose the Catholike consent and practical Testimony of the Church in this great point of the holy Ministry do overthrow by a sceptical folly and disputative madness the very foundation
Instituted or to encourage any Christians to entertain those proud and spitefull Peninnahs of pretenders to be gifted men thereby to grieve and vex the Souls of the true and faithfull Ministers as she did Hannahs devout meekness 1 Sam. 1. with her malipert insolency It is no argument to perswade the Church therefore to cast out of Christs family the Stewards and dispensers of holy mysteries which he hath appointed because Christians have sometime in their enforced wandrings Multum differunt lex necessitatis ordinis quod ita fieri debet quod aliter fieri non potest Reg. Iu. been relieved by some strangers or private and mutuall Charity which may in such cases be great though their gifts and provision be but moderate However it were madness for Christians now where no necessity or disorder presseth and when neither gifts are so good nor Charity so great in any of these new men to venture themselves upon their powers for supplyes who like the foolish Virgins have too little for themselves however they boast of their full Lamps and Oyl to spare Such small and feeble oppositions then Lib. de praesc adv Haere Proprium hoc est haereticorum ex pancioribus Scriptura locis plura intelligi velle Tert. ad Praxeam which as Tertullian tels us either Hereticks or Schismaticks are wont to bring from broken and abused Scriptures for their novell opinions their proud and pragmatick confusions against the antient and Catholick sense which the Church hath alwaies held forth by its practise agreeable to the many clear and unquestionable places do no more weaken the divine authority of those things which the Catholick Church upon lively grounds observeth as it alwaies hath this of a constant ordeined Ministry no more I say than if Dalilah should have plucked two or three of Sampsons hairs Judges 16. instead of cutting off his goodly locks and prodigious tresses Nor may these false and flattering Dalilahs of our times who by cauponating Religion and handling the Scriptures deceitfully 2 Cor. 2.17 seek to betray the strength honour and order of this reformed Church in England under pretences of great kindness think that by twitching thus one or two hairs the Ministers strength will fail them or that the Anti-ministeriall Philistins shall presently be upon them so as easily to prevail against the whole function of the setled Ministry which being divinely instituted and derived will ever be divinely assisted No Mat. 28.20 we find yet through the might of Gods grace and the testimony of good consciences so great a strength and holy courage in all true and faithfull Ministers as is abundantly able to assert themselves their function and the reformed Religion of this Church of England against all these Apollyons and Abaddons We are not so dispirited nor distressed but that we can still rowse up our selfs in the strength of God and in the Spirit of Jesus Christ and in the authority of our holy function so as easily to break in-sunder all such wit hs and cords by which the enemies not so much of our persons as of our calling and Religion hope to afflict us so that these uncircumcised in hearts and lips shall not safely touch us or mock us Judges 15.17 Only as Sampson did of the men of Judah we humbly crave of the secular powers which are now over us that their hands may not be against us to fall upon us themselves however they expose us thus to contend with those men of Ashdâ—d alone Ps 118.12 Et multitudine inimicorum magnitudine pressus viribus numero valentium Ps 22.12 Ps 68.30 Who came about us first like Bees with their importune stings their vexatious disputings But now they threaten to come upon us like fat Buls of Basan on every side with their horns lifted up on high to destroy us But the Lord will be on our side so that we shall not need greatly to fear what these beasts of the people these unreasonable men can do unto us Who will soon be extinguished as fire among the thorns when once the Lord shall arise to plead his own cause not only by the zeal and patience and constancy of his servants the true Ministers but also by stirring up the spirit of wisdom in the hearts of all true Christians who will soon be asham'd of that levity contempt and confusion which these mens vanity or impiety and hypocrisy would fain bring upon them and their posterity in this great concernment of the setâ—ed Ministry and the true reformed Religion The evill designs of such captious disputers against the Ministry 1 Sam. 5. There are no doubt who of a long time have endeavoured and sought opportunity when they might bring with Carts and high shoos by the illiterate rudeness of the seduced vulgar the Ark of our Reformed Church and Re igion into the house of their mishâ—pen Dagon which hath upper parts like a mans but the lower as a Fish the head adorned with Christian Religion but the tayl deformed with superstition They softly and fairly pretend liberty and improvement with mens faces and womens hair as the Locusts which rose out of the bottomless pit but they will end in the Scorpious tayl of licentiousness Rev. 9.7 superstition and profaness Such Reformation will soon prove deformity They speak of bread but it will proove stones Mat. 7.10 and Serpents instead of Fishes Such manifestations of private gifts in wanton and presumptuous Spirits will soon turn to the quenching and resisting of the true light and heat of Gods Spirit whose purer flames are only fed with that holy Oyl which flows from the golden vessel of the Scriptures Zach. 4 12. divinely infused into them and diffused into the humble hearts of all good Christians by those pipes of the Ministry which Christ hath appointed for that service This Anti-ministeriall Liberty which some seek thus to dress up by an adulterous and wanton bravery against the calling of the Ministry is like the woman which sits in the midst of the Ephah of wickedness Zach. 5.7 upon the mouth of which God will ere long cast such a talent of lead as shall cover and stop it up by the just indignation and abhorrence of all good Christians to see themselves this Church the Ministers of it and the Reformed Religion so much wasted and abused by such prodigies of profaness as some of them are who speak nothing but proud and perverse things full of bold blasphemies and Anti christian confusions under the colour of gifts and Liberties of prophecying whereto as the wisdom and holy order set forth in Scripture give me countenance so in the next place neither do these mens gifts which they so boast and vapour of give any incouragement For first no wise man doubts of those mens emptiness which their great noyse and sounding sets forth every where 4. The vanity and emptiness of these Anti-Ministerials as to
Over whose Walls the crafty malice of Jesuitick Foxes and any other enemies will easily go and break them down Neh. 4.3 when ever they pass which makes many men suspect that these Lay Preachers are but the left hand of Babels builders fit instruments to divide Muros dum erigunt mores negligunt Bern. confound and destroy the Reformed Religion in these British Churches and all those who study to preserve it Which they only can with any shew of reason effectually do by Gods blessing who are workmen that for their Authority and approved skill as well as their good will and readiness to build need not to be ashamed 2 Tim. 2.15 Of whose reall sufficiencies these new bunglers are most impatient hearers and perfect haters because from those Ministers exactness these mens bungling receives the severest reproaches and justest oppositions A man may as well hope that hogs by their rootings and moles by their castings will Plow and till his ground as that such Arbitrary Casuall and contingent forwardness or such inordinate activities of poor but proudly gifted men will any way help on the great work of Christian Religion the propagating of the Gospell or the Reformation of hearts or Churches which require indeed the greatest competency and compleatness both for gifts learning and due Authority that can be had both for the Majesty of Religion and for the defence of the truth as also for the binding to diligence and exactness the conscience of the Ministers no less than for the satisfaction of other mens consciences in point of the validity of Sacraments and other holy Ministrations which have not any Physicall or naturall vertue but a mysticall and Religious only which depends upon the relation they have to the word and Spirit of the holy Institutor and Commander Jesus Christ So that it is indeed a very strange bewitchedness and depravedness in many mens appetites that they should so cry up those mush-room Prophets and Teachers who need more sauce to make them safe or savory than their bodies are worth who are self-planted soon started up in one night as if they were beyond all those former Goodly plants for beauty sweetness and wholesomness which much study care learning pains and prayers have planted in the Church Or that Christians should so far flatter themselves that the soyl here in England since it was watered with civill bloud is so well natured and fruitfull that there needs no such care and culture as was antiently used in the Garden of God either in setting watering preparing or transplanting those trees of the Ministry which should be full of life Rev. 22.2 Supersâ—minationes satanae whose leaves should be for the healing as well as their fruits for the nourishing of mens souls So confident the devill seems to be of the giddiness folly negligence and simplicity of these times that he stirs up the very thistles the most useless and most offensive burthens of the earth which the foot of every vile beast is ready to crush and trample upon to chalenge and contemn the Cedars of Lebanon 2 Kings 14.9 And he would fain perswade reformed Christians to cut down and stub up those goodly trees of the Lord which are tall strait and full of sap as cumbring the ground that those sharp and sorry shrubs those dry and sapless kexes may have the more room and thrive the better pretending that they will at easier rates and with less pains supply all the Churches occasions when the Lord knows and all excellent Christians see by sad experience that they are so far from that length strength and straitness required in the beams and pillars of the Temple that their crooked and knotty shortness will scarce afford a pin on which to hang the least vessell of the Sanctuary Excellent Christians I protest before the Lord that I write not thus out of any desire to grieve quench or exasperate any mans Spirit 17. No design in the Author to grieve any good mans Spirit or discourage his gifts 1 Joh. 4.1 in whom the wise and sanctifying graces or usefull gifts of Gods Spirit do dwell in the least measure with truth and humility but only in the way of trying the gifts and Spirits whether they be of God or no if they be found by the word of God to be proud foolish evill unclean unruly refusing to be bound with any bonds of good order and government such as seems to have possessed some in this Church who seek to bewitch others and to trouble all God forbid we should not all of us strive by fasting prayer preaching writing and all just rebukes of them to cast them out Luke 9.42 notwithstanding their cryings tearings and foamings It is far I hope from my Soul by any envy or undervaluing of any good Christians to damp the Spirit of Christ in them I would have every one study to improove the talents he hath and to be employed according to his reall improovement of which no man being naturally proud and self flatterers is fit to be judge himself but ought to be subject to the tryall and judgement of others both as to that light and heat knowledge and zeal gifts and graces which any may pretend to and wherein they may be really usefull to the publike or any community of Christians whose edifying in faith and love we have all cause both in conscience and prudence dayly to nourish and increase in Gods way which is an orderly peaceable and blessed way wherein only either private Christians or Church societies can hope to thrive and flourish Num. 11.29 I wish with Moses all the Lords people were Prophets Both able to give an account of their knowledge in the mysteries of Christ and also to help on in an orderly way as every wheel or pin doth in the motions of a watch the great and weighty work of saving souls which is the main end of the Ministers calling and pains Better we Ministers be despised than the Spirit of Christ in any gracious heart be justly grieved or any good work of God in the Church hindred But we are well assured by good experience that none would be less despisers or more encouragers lovers and zealous preservers of the true Evangelicall Ministry and its divine Authority than such men who have graces with their gifts and are both able and humble none are more slow to speak to others in the name of Christ James 1.19 than they who cannot hear others Preaching with due abilities and authority without fear and trembling as reverencing God and the Lord Jesus Christ in their Ministers There is no danger of able parts where there are humble and honest hearts no more than we need fear the strength of any part in the body will hurt or offend the whole body or disorder and violate any other Member which is above it in place in honour and in operation or function Reason teacheth us that the ability or
ostentabat miranda quaedam Magicis artiâ—us patrabat prunas subinde è manica excutiebat coâ—am populo Car. Sigon ad an 1057. Avent pag. 455. 470. 2 Pet. 2.21 than to lye against it and blaspheme it or oppose and resist it after some knowledge of the Truth It had been better for such men not to have known the way of Christs Spirit in the Scriptures and the Church It is far more veniall to erre for want of the Spirits guidance and light than to shut our eyes against it and to impute our Errors Dreams and Darknesses to it 'T is better to have the heart wholly barren than to lay our adulterous bastards to the Spirits charge when they indeed are issues of nothing but Pride joined to Ignorance 4. Like pretentions of old confuted by mens practises Nothing indeed is easier and cheaper at the World now goes than for * Portentiloquium haereticorum vain and proud men to pretend to speciall Inspirations and Motions of Gods Spirit on them as many in the old times did who yet were sensuall not having the Spirit * Se spiritales esse asserebant Valentiniani Demiurgum animalem virginales Gnosticoâ—um spiritus gloriabantur Iren. l. 1. 3. So the Gnosticks called themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual men as well as knowing men So the Marcionites and Montanists pretended that their Master Montanus knew more than the Apostles had more of the Comforter was the Comâ—orter it self and told him what Christ said his Disciples could not then bear Joh. 16.12 The like lying fancies had the Valentinians Austin de Haeret. Epiphan l. 4. de Haer. c. 40. and Circumcelliones and Manichees who being idle-handed grew idle-headed too not caring what they said nor what they did for they fathered all on the Spirit So the Cathari and Encratitae calling themselves Chast and Pure and Apostolici Apostolicall and above the Gospels both of old and in * Sermo 66. in Câ—ntica Cerdom Apelles Marciontae privatas lecturas habuerunt quas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apellant cujusdam Phihamenae puellae prophetissa libium syllogismorum quibus pâ—obare vult quod omnia quae Moses scripseritâ— de Deo falsa sunt Tertul. prae ad Hae. â— 44. St. Bernards time time and in later times too both in Germany and other places rising to ostentation of Prophesying speciall Inspirations strange Revelations shews of Miracles and lying Wonders fulfilling and interpreting of Prophecies enthronings of Christ c. by which strong delusions they sought to deceive the very Elect if it had been possible but they could never perswade truly excellent and choise Christians to any belief of their forgegeries and follies since neither the temper of their spirits nor their works nor their words were like the rules marks or fruits Sleid an Com. l. 4. Cainit◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fingebant Epiph. Hae. 38. The Cainites pretended they had a book containing the Raptures of Saint Paul what he then heard c. of that holy and unchangeable Spirit of Jesus Christ set forth in his Word and owned in the Church But rather the effects of that depraved spirit which is most contrary to God and most inconstant in it self which after all its fair glozings and praefacings of Purity Gifts and Inspirations is still but * Borboritae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coenoli Tertul. and Austin call those hereticks the Gnosticks Cathatists and others who called themselves Apostolici Pneumatici Angelici purgatores electi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Longinus Manes the Father of the Maniches called himself an Apostle of Christ the Comforter and Spirit chose twelve Disciples despised water Baptism said the Body was none of Gods work but of some evill Genius and his followers full of impure lusts and errours yet said they were called Maniches from flowing with Manna 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They said the soul was the substance of God to be purified to that end they mixed the Eucharisticall bread with their seed in obscene pollutions and â—apesâ— ut isto modâ— Dei substantia in homine purgetur Aust de Hae. Borborites a swinish and unclean spirit and differs as much from the Purity Truth Beauty and Order of the true Spirit of Christ which shines in the Word as the most noisome Jakes and filthy sink doth from the most sweet and Crystall fountain of everflowing waters True Ministers find it hard having done all 5. True fruits of the Spirit to obtain those competent Ministeriall gifts and graces of the Spirit which are necessary to carry on that great work of their own and others Salvation to any decorum and comfort which these Gloriosoes pretend as if they were bred and born to * Venit vadit prout vult nemo facile scit unde venit aut quo vadat Ber. Brevis mora rata hora mira subtilitate sua vitate divinae suae artis ircessanter actitat in intimo nostri Idem or were suddenly and at once endowed withall few of these ever think they want the Spirit if they have but confidence to undertake any Ministeriall work and publique Office Yea and the best Christians no lesse than the ablest Ministers find it hard in truth to obtain the sanctifying gracious influenâ—es of Gods Spirit by which with much diligence and prayer they are enabled to private duties nor doe they find it so easie to flesh and bloud to obey those holy directions of the Spirit or in conflicts to take its part against the flesh and to rejoice in the victories and prevalencies of the Spirit Whose publique donations for the common good of Christians edifying them in truth and charity are chiefly manifested not onely by his servants the true Ministers but in the blessing of that very Order Office appointment and function of the Ministry Eph. 4.8 11. both as instituted and aâ— continued so long time by the wisdome and power of this Spirit of Christ And by this great Gift of gifts as by the Sunne in the Firmament all others are ordinarily conveyed to private Christians which chiefly consist and are manifested in true beleevers not in quick strokes of fancy passionate raptures strange allusions and allegoricall interpretations confused obscurings of Scriptures which some men with Origen make so much of In veritate qua illuminaris in virtute qua immutaris in charitate qua inflammaris serenata conscientia subita insolita mentis latitudinâ— praesentem spiritum intellige Ber. but in bringing men from this childish futility of Religion to a manly seriousnesse which sets the heart soberly to attend read hear study and meditate on the Word of God to prefer that Jewell before all the hidden treasure of their own or others Fairy fancies to assent to the saving Truths both of Law and Gospell zealously to love them strictly to obey them by hearty repentance for sins against God or man ingnuous confessions of them honest compensations for them
sincere amendment of them hence it brings to a quiescency and comfort in no way but such as is conform to the Word of Christ burning with an unfaigned charity toward all men most fervently to the Churches service and welfare with an * In humili spiritu pura mente spaciose habitat immensus Deus high esteem of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ his Institutions and Ministry his Word and Spirit and Grace with a gratefull value and high respect of those * Phil. 3.7 1 Thes 15.12.12 13. Heb. 13.17 by whose Ministry they have been called baptized taught converted and are still guided in the paths light and breathings of the Spirit to the hopes of salvation the blessed expectation of which in Christs way raiseth them up many times to high yet holy resolutions to deny themselves and suffer any thing for Christs sake and the testimony of the Truth These and such like I conceive are the best fruits of Gods Spirit which are not the lesse excellent because they are common Gods children are not oft entertained with novelties and never pleased with such new toyes and ratles or hobbey horses in Religion which some men bragge of The wandering clouds which some mens fancies exhale of spirituall Motions and Manifestations beyond plain and ordinary Christians either for private comfort Iude 12. or for publique benefit are for the most part without water they darken but moisten not the Church or the soul they have so much of earthy or fiery exhalations in them that they have little of the dew of heaven with them Nor may they without great injury and high indignity be imputed to the Spirit of Christ Nor doe such sorry flowers which grow in every dunghill adorn the Garden of God the Soul or the Church not justly crown any with the most honourable name of holy or spirituall Which titles vain men much affect and boldly challenge sober and humble Christians do earnestly desire and seriously endeavour to merit Being an honour so farre above the naturall capacity of sinfull mortality that nothing but a Divine bounty and supernaturall power can conferre the Truth of that Beauty which is in holinesse and the right to that glory which is in every True Saint who are often hid as orient Pearles in rough shels in great plainnesse lowlinesse and simplicity which makes such as are truly Saints and spirituall as ashamed to challenge the name as they are afraid to come short of the grace Studying not applause and admiration from men but the approbation of a sincere and good conscience 2 Cor. 1.12 Iam. 1.17 Him they look upon as the father of every good and perfect gift the sender of the blessed Spirit by the due Ministry of the Word into mens hearts The searcher also of all hearts and tryer of the spirits of men far beyond what is set out in paints and outward appearances of extraordinary gifts of the Spirit under which mask and disguises Achitophel Heb. 4.13 and Jehu and Judas and Simon Magus and the sons of Sheva and Demas and the self-made Prophetesse Jezebel and Diotrephes all false Christs false Prophets and false Apostles all true Antichrists and true Ministers of Satan grievous Wolves studied to appear and did so for a while till the Lord stirred up the Spirit of discerning in his true Ministers and true Saints Which Spirit of Wisdome teacheth us to measure and judge of spirituall gifts and true holinesse 6. Reall power of the Spirit how discerned 2 Tim. 3 5. not by bare and barren forms but by the power and practise of godlinesse not by soft-expressions and gentle insinuations or melancholy sowrenesse and severer brows not by Ahabs sackcloth or Jehus triumphs or Pharisaick frownes Not by bold assertions lowd clamours confident calumnies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 teâ—ico aut tristi vulus vultuosi Pharisai Simplicissima est spiritus sancti virtus sine suco sine fraude omnia agit nulli gravis piis suavis omnibus utilis Ber. Nil tamâ— metuit quam ne dubitare de aliqua re videretur de Vellcio Quomodo certissimi esse possunt quum nihil certius est quam certos illos non esse de salute Ber. Certi non sunt qui solliciti non sunt Cyp. Sola integra fides secura esse potest Tertul. de Ba. precipitant zeal audacious adventures successefull insolencies Not by heaps of Teachers popular Sermonings long Prayers wrested Scriptures crowds of Quotations high Notions Origenick Allegorizings Not by admired Novelties vulgar satisfactions splendid shews of Religion empty noises of Reformation Nor yet by arrogant boastings uncharitable despisings confident presumptions hasty assurances proud perswasions pretended Revelations fanatick confusions All these either in affected Liberties or Monastick rigors oft bear up mens fancie of the Spirit and sanctitie like bladders meerly by their emptinesse Nothing being more prone to dispose a vain mind to fancy strongly that it hath Gods Spirit than the not having it indeed * 2 Tim. 3.13 Deceiving and being deceived To make men presume they are Saints than the not serious considering what true holinesse is Splendore magis quam fervore delectantur hypocritae Ber. Dum fallunt maxime falluntur and the way of the Spirit of Christ is In its infallible rule the Scripture in its noblest pattern Jesus Christ in its foundation Humility in its beauty Order and Symmetry in its perfection Sincerity in its glory Love and Charity in its transcendent excellency the Divine Nature The Devils Piracles are made as much by the frauds and fallacies of hanging out Gods colours the flags of the Spirit Hypocritae sanctitatis tineae cui adhaerere videntur v stâ—m tu piter viciant remedia in morbos sanctitatem in crimen vertunt Chrysost and shews of holinesse as by the open defiances of persecution and batteries of profanenesse Delusions in Religion as Dalilahs charms on Samson are oft stronger than the Philistins force against the Church Else our blessed Saviour would not have so carefully fore-warned and fore-armed his little flock against those grand Impostors whose deceit is no lesse than this * Luk. 17.21 Loe here is Christ and there is Christ As if he were no where in England or in all the former Catholick Church but only in the corners and Conventicles of new Donatists Loe here is Christ a most potent and plausible pretention indeed able by its native force and mans credulous frailty to deceive even the very Elect Mark 13.22 whom would it not move and tempt strongly to hear of a new Christ in New lights and new Gospels new Church wayes new Manifestations new Ministry and new Ministers Yea to heare of a Christ without means above means beyond the Scriptures deadnesse the old Sacramentall forms the Ministeriall Keyes and Authority Christ in the Spirit risen from the grave of dead duties of expired Ordinances and from the Carkuses of ancient Churches A
Christ who is already come to judgement with whom his Saints are now risen and dayly rising seeing him not as in a glasse of means darkly but by immediate Visions glorious Manifestations speciall Inspirations plenary Inhabitations thus fitting on Thrones and Reigning with Christ in his Kingdom Whom would not these Trumpets awake and these alarms call forth if we were not forewarned by Christ and if we had not seen such follies formerly acted and manifested to all the Christian world and sufficiently confuted in all ages which never amounted to more than Religious Tragedies Gâ—miâ—a deformitas at nocumentum tragicum miserorum religiosa delicta for when the masks of personated Prophets and necessâ—tous Saints and hungry Enthusiasts and idle Seraphicks were taken off which they put on either by the power or presumptions they had among the Vulgar presently there appeared the horns of the Beast in pride ambition luxury polygamy cruelty Cyp. Ep. 2. Sleidan Com. l. 4. tyranny confusion That those who seemed to have come down from heaven in the shews of the Spirit and pretentions of Sanctity were but Satans lightnings falling down from heaven and his most abominable eructations out of the bottomelesse pit If we other poor Christians who still remain on the other side of this Jordan which those Spiritosoes pretend to have passed if wee who creep on the ground as worms and no men who have dayly cause to abhor our selves in dust and ashes who are forced dayly to strengthen our faith to renew our repentance to poure forth our souls oft in sighs tears prayers with broken hearts and contrite spirits contending with corruptions wresting with temptations having enough to doe to fortifie our selves with the compleat armour of Gods Word in Precepts and Promises and of his Spirit in gracious habits excitations to and assistances in duties 2 Pet. 1.10 Thus giving all diligence to make our calling and election sure not counting our selves to have comprehended but pressing on to the mark of the price of the high calling in Christ Jesus Glorying in nothing but in the crosse of Jesus Christ Phil. 3.14 Gal. 6.14 by which we are crucified to the honours riches policies successes flatteries and glories of this inglorious world yea to the Liberties Religions Devotions Sanctities new Churches new Reformations and new Ministers of this world who forsaking the wayes of Christ and the holy Apostles and the ancient Churches and the true succession of Ministers and all Power have turned grace into wantonnesse liberty into licentiousnesse godlinesse into gain and very much embraced the present world falling down before Mammon and worshipping the false gods of this world If we who when we have suffered much and done something in our endeavours and purposes of holinesse yet find cause to cry out Wretched men that we are who shall deliver us from this body of death Rom. 7.24 if we could indeed believe or find by experience that the exaltations and Raptures of these new pretenders to the Spirit were more comfortable than the bufferings of those good old Christians That their triumphs in the world were beyond the others sufferings from the world that there were more of Christ in their new Crowns of glory which they boast of than in the others Crosses which they patiently bare If we could discern a more self-denying Spirit a more Christ-enjoying Sanctity That they were Saints that is Not crucifiers of the world but crucified to the world If we could see the wounds of Christ in these glorious apparitions these Christ-like phantasms as Antony the Hermite required Non credam esse Christum nisi vulnera videam crucifixi in vita Anâ— when Satan appeared to him like Christ in glory If that Purity Chastity Justice Honesty Contentednesse Patience Charity Meeknesse Humility Peaceablenesse Fidelity Constancy and Orderlinesse shined in them wherein those holy men and women of old the Professors Confessors and Martyrs not getting but loosing Saints imitated the holy Lord Jesus and the most holy God according to the lively characters of true holinesse set down in the Scriptures If we saw such fruits of reall holinesse in their words pens and actions in their Doctrines and duties in their self-denials and Mortifications in their meetings and Fraternities in their Church Orders and Ministrations as might convince us that these pretenders to the Spirit and despisers of the Ministers have indeed more oâ— that light life and power of the holy Spirit of God than either true Christians or godly Ministers formerly had or now have in this or any other true Church of Christ How should we envy their blessednesse with an holy emulation How should we as Saint John to the Angell whom it may be he took for Jesus Christ be even ready to fall at their feet Revel 19 10. to kisse their footsteps to attend their directions to imitate their examples to partake of their raptures to pry into their third heavens to rise ascend reign and triumph to enjoy the holy Spirit and Christ and God with them to all which they in word and fancy pretend 7. Fallacies in this kind frequent among Enthusiasts But the triple Crown of meer titular and verball holinesse which is but copper gilded over moves us not further than to pity the sinner and to scorn the pride The Gnosticks Montanists Catharists of old the later rude and cruell phanaticks in Germany cryed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy holy holy to their parties and factions As if there were holy ambitions holy seditions holy covetousnesses holy sacriâ—edges holy obscenities holy cruelties holy confusions in the conversations of true Christians and spirituall men Or holy ignorances holy errours holy darknesses holy heresies holy schisms holy hypocrisies in their hearts and spirits As if no duties no Scriptures no Sacraments no Ministry or Ministers no Government or Governours of the Church were heretofore holy which were primitively and universally and constantly owned and observed in the Church of Christ as derived from him As if private fancies and solitary dreams and single imaginations of weak and silly men or women were now holyer or had more in them of the Spirit than the publique Oracles of the sure Word of God which the Catholick Church hath received from God by the hands of holy men and by a constant succession of an holy Ministry hath delivered to us with constancy and fidelity as to the main however particular branches or members of this Church may have failed and withered If these Antiministeriall Novellists have nothing whereby to set off their pretended gifts of the Spirit and singular holinesse but only novelty fancy and uncertain Inspirations nothing to cry down all former holy ways of the Church but this that they are conform to all Antiquity and Scripture regulations The least beam of whose glorious light alwayes either equalls or far exceeds their new either superfluous or dubious illuminations Truly they must give all learned and godly Ministers together
have a name to * Revel 3.1 live by the Spirit and covet to be called spirituall who are dead in their lusts and walk after the flesh * Prov. 30 12. They seem pure in their own eyes and yet are not washed from their filthinesse Yea there is a generation O how lofty are their eyes yet are their teeth swords and their jaw teeth as knives Nothing is more cruell than supercilious hypocrisie * Ioh. 18.28 They were forward to crucifie Christ who were shy of being defiled by entring into the Judgement Hall They are most zealous to destroy the true Ministers yea the very function and succession who seem most devoted to be Teachers Prophets and Preachers of a new Spirit and form Many seem rich in gifts and increased in spirituall endowments thinking they need nothing of Christs true Ministry Revel 3.17 when they know not that they are poore and naked and blind and miserable Ephes 6.12 There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirituall wickednesses usurpant in the high places of mens soules as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more sordid and swinish spirits that dwell in the lower region of mens lusts It is expresly stigmatized on the foreheads of some pretenders to the Spirit Iude 19. which was the glory of those first and purest times that they are sensuall not having the Spirit Irenaeus l. 3. c. 1. of the Gnasticks andValentinians Gloriantur se â—mendatores esse Apostolorum perfectam cognitionmen non habuisse Apostolos cap. 2. Dicunt se non tantum Presbyteris sed Apostolis sapientiores sinceram invenisse veritatem So the Circumcelliones Quae non viderunt confingunt opiniones suâ—s habentes pro Deo honores quos non habuerunt se habuisse protestantur Isid Hisp de off Eccl. l. 3. c. 15. Vain and proud ignorance as we see in primitive times is not onely content to be without the true wise humble and orderly Spirit of God but they must also study to cover their follies disorders and hypocrisies with the shews of it as if it were not enough to sin against its manifest rules and examples in the Word which have alwayes been observed in the Church unlesse they impute also to it their simplicities fondnesses impudencies filthy dreams extravagancies and confusions Counting it no shame to ascribe those unreasonable and absurd motions speeches and actions to Gods most wise and holy Spirit which any man of right reason and sober sense or common ingenuity and modesty would be ashamed to owne Our humble prayer is that these new modellers and pretenders to the Spirit may learn not to blaspheme not to grieve resist and doe despite to the Spirit of God which hath been and still is evidently manifest in the true Ministers of this Church and our earnest study shall be that we may be truly endued with such gifts graces and fruits of the Spirit of Christ that we may both speak and doe and suffer as becomes good Christians and true Ministers after the example of holy men and of our great Master Bishop and Ordainer Jesus Christ That so the judicious Charity of those that excell in vertue wisdome faith and humility may have cause to say the Lord hath sent us in the power as well as in the order and office of the Ministry to which we were rightly ordained On the other side we fear that the great earthquakes in the Church and darknesse over the Reformed Religion which may follow the true Ministers being set at naught and crucified by the malice and wantonnesse of men may in after times give too much cause to those Mat. 27.54 that now neglect us or afflict us to say as the Centurion did of Christ Doubtlesse these were the messengers of the most high God the true Ministers of Jesus Christ and of his Gospell to this Church While we have any liberty and leave to live as Ministers it will become us not to be so discouraged by the impotent malice of any enemies as to desert this holy calling whereto the Lord by a right ordination in this Church hath duly called us Not to look back to the world having once put our hands to this plough to consider our persecutors no further than to pity them and pray for them notwithstanding all the injuries and blasphemies not against us so much as against God while they fear not to ascribe the great and good effects which the Lord hath vouchsafed to work by his Ministers upon the hearts of thousands in England to Beelzebub Mat. 12.24 to the spirit of Antichrist or to any thing rather than to own the Spirit of Christ among us which hee hath promised should ever be with his true and faithfull Ministers in an holy succession of authority and power to the end of the world Scandalous inconstancy of Professors Indeed the greatest grief to the Soules of all godly Ministers and which hath brought the greatest scandall and dehonestation on their Ministry next to some of their own grosse failings is this when the world sees so many of those who seemed to be baptized with water and with the Spirit to have been illuminated and sanctified by their teaching to have tasted of the heavenly gift Heb. 6.5 and the powers of the world to come that is of the authority and efficacy of the Evangelicall Ministry which was to come after the Leviticall and Aaronicall order Many who seemed to have rejoiced for many years in those burning and shining lights of this Churches Ministers to have by their Ministry been well instructed reformed washed and escaped from the pollutions of this world That I say some of these like Jesuruâ— should thus lift up the heel and thus kick against the Ministers and Ministry like Demasses thus to forsake them like Judasses thus to betray them whom lately they kissed and followed as Disciples like Swine that they should thus turn and revile those that cast pearl before them returning to the wallowing in the mire and dirt of unjust covetous ambitious erroneous seditious licentious perjurious malicious and sacrilegious courses No more now ashamed of their lusts then those unclean beasts are of their filthinesse in the midst of the fairest Sun-shine day and when they are neerest to the most pure and Crystall streams But the light which they will not see in this their day shining on them and discovering the frauds and evill of their wayes they may after see in that darknesse to which they are hastning and to which they seem even of God to bee condemned But to conclude my answer in this particular 15. Conclusion and resignation of our Ministry if c. wherein the Antiministeriall adversaries pretend to such spirituall gifts and speciall calling beyond the ordained and setled Ministry if any excellent Christians or any of those that have either wisdome to discern or power to dispose of things to the advantage of this Church and State if they doe in
should rather have done than in the least kinde have kindled or fomented such unnatural flames and unchristian fewds rudely intruding themselves into all Councels full of restless sticklings State agitatings politick plottings cunning insinuatings putâ—d flatterings secret whisperings evil surmisings uncomly clamors and rude exasperatings of fears to fewds of jealousies to enmities of misapprehensions to irreconcilable distances especially in matters wherein their proper interests as in those of Church-Government and Discipline might seem any stop or difficulty to peace or any occasion to war Who concludes not that in such violent deeds and demands Ministers forgat and forsook the greatest honor and duty of their Function which is Matth. 5.9 2 Cor. 5.20 to be blessed peace-makers to beseech men to be reconciled to God and for Christs sake to one another by whose pretious blood they above all men should shew they are redeemed from those fierce wraths and cruel angers which cannot but be cursed and merit to be seriously and deeply repented lest for them Ministers be divided in Jacob Gen. 49.7 and scattered in Israel And however many hotter spirited Ministers might have honest hearts to God and man yet it appears they had but weak heads and were not aware That secular policies and worldly interests though they begin never so plausibly and ascend like vapors from fair grounds yet they presently thicken like mists into black clouds drawing on jealousies and fears like strong winds These drive men to new counsels after they plead necessities and from necessity obtain what indulgences and dispensations soever either prosperity or adversity require in order to that great Idol Self-preservation which even in the Church of Christ exalts it self above all that is called God far different from primitive practises which were in ways of self-denial Christian patience and civil subjection losing their lives to save them following of Christ in taking up his cross * Tert. Apol. de Christianis cap. 37. Omnia vestra implevimus urbes insulas castella municipia castra palatium senatum forum c. Et tamen libenter trucidamur Et Cap. 30. Precâ—ntes sumus semper pro omnibus Imperatoribus c. when they wanted not numbers All which holy Christian arts by the unnecessary designs precipitant counsels and rash adventures of some passionate weak or self-seeking men are oft forced to vale and give place to that which is falsly called Reason of State which loves not to be too straight-laced with any ties of true and self-denying Religion whose passiveness is the best preservative both of the Church and of any true Minister whatsoever 11. Ministers much â—ow to themselves their shame All true and wise Ministers teach and so they should practise That it is better patiently to suffer * Mûlta tollerâ—â—us quae non probamus Aug. some deformities in Church and pressures in State than to be violent actors of any new ones as a means to reform the old And since the mindes of men are generally prone to measure counsels and purposes by the events they do easily conclude That God never leaves a good cause wherein his glory and Churches good were said to be so highly interessed so in the loss and lapse as now the Presbyterian cause seems to be unless it were carried on by impure hearts or unwashen hands either hypocrisie levening the end or iniquity defiling the means Truly it is seldom that God waters good plants with so last streams as he hath done that which some Ministers sought so resolutely to plant in the Garden of this Church what pains or perils soever it cost them or the publick So that the present dangers distresses and complaints of many Ministers seem to most people to be but as the just retributions of vengeance upon the rude frowardness and factious forwardness of many of them in civil troubles which was far different from the tender and wise charity of the good Samaritan Luke 10.30 For these men finding this Church and State much wounded as it was going from the Jericho of some grievances to the Jerusalem of a through Reformation as was pretended were too liberal of their vinegar and too nigardly of their oyl by rash infusions by undiscreet and unskilful searching the wounds they made them deeper wider more festred and incurable Clergy-mens hands usually poysoning those light hurts in State which they touch or undertake to cure with neglect of their Spiritual cures and callings Thus justly and usually there follows the black shadow of shame and confusion when Ministers of the Church had rather appear cuning active Statesmen than honest quiet Churchmen studying matchiavel more than the Gospel as if they were ashamed of the still * Mat. 12.19 He shall not strive nor cry neither shall any men hear his voice in the streets Acts 2.2 voice and quiet spirit of Jesus Christ which descended upon his Apostles not in the shape of flaming and dividing swords but off * Linguâ— Evangelica propitiis ignibus mollissimo servore potenter at suaviter illuminare perpurgare debent mentes ac mores hominum Greg. fiery cloven tongues And this not to set the world on fire or to scorch and burn men but softly to enlighten them and by variety of gifts and graces sweetly to warm them to a love of God and mutual charity Which is far from bringing in either Christian Religion or any Reformations with wilde-fires whirl-winds and earth-quakes wherein Christians had rather quite cast off the cross of Christ from their shoulders than bear it with any thing which they count a civil burthen and wherein the meanest Ministers are more ambitious to wear a peece of the Popes Triple Crown on their heads in an imaginary parity of power than either that of thorns or that of olive branches the one an embleme of their patience the other of their peaceableness When the very Novices and Beardless striplings in the Ministry which have but lately been manumitted from the rod and ferula are more eager to rule and govern all in an absolute community and Country parity than either able to rule themselves or patient to be ruled even by those that are worthy to be their Fathers as every way their Elders and Betters whom Age and Nature Custom Law Reason Religion all order and polity among men would have set as over-seers over them howsoever to some uses and ends those the yonger Preachers may be fit to be set over others as Vshers of lower Forms When the passions and exorbitancies of some Ministers shall punish other mens failings and sins with greater of their own and exceed what was most blamable in others by such defects of charity or excesses of cruelty as are most condemnable in such as hold forth the love of God and mercies of Christ to the World What stability can be hoped in mens esteem and love to such as are of so variable tempers that they are not double Jam. 1.8 but
yet punctually been fulfilled chiefly in the coming of the Messias the sum center and consummation of all prophecies and promises which setting forth the nature love life and death of Jesus Christ were all most exactly accomplished in him and by him on whom were those notable signatures and characters of the divine wisdom and power John 1.14 that his glory appeared to men as the glory of the onely begotten Son of God full of grace and truth The freeness and fulness of this Evangelical grace and truth by Jesus Christ the faithful Soul further discerns in the sacred emblems and seals of the holy Sacraments by which the divine goodness is represented and conveyed to us under the notions and efficacy of those things which are most necessary to our lives either for Being or Ornament to nourish us to cleanse us and to chear us Moreover the pious Soul sees God in the exemplary patience of the holy Martyrs in the miraculous constancy of the heroick Confessors in the humility of true Penitents in the purity and amendment of real Converts in the contentedness of true Believers in the mertifulness and charity of true Christians in the mortifyings and self-denyings as to this world of all true Saints which are followers of Christ and lastly in that holy ordination and succession of the Evangelical Ministry which as Christ instituted for the Churches good so he hath through all the vicissitudes of times amidst all oppositions preserved it to these days and by it the knowledge of God and the faith of Christ in the World The devout Soul still guided and going on by the light of the Ministry discerns something of God which is yet more retired secret and ineffable in the enlightnings softnings serenities enlargements calmings and comforts which are made by a divine power and supernatural influence upon it self where it beholds the brightest glimpses of divine glory through the face of Jesus Christ and by the efficacies of his most sweet and holy Spirit who is both God and man subject to our infirmities sensible of them and victorious over them Him the Soul answerably loves as man with a love of union and complacency as God with the love of admiration and extasie as both God and man with a love of adherence and satisfaction Heb. 7.25 As one that hath undertaken and is able to save it to the uttermost reconciling it with preparing it for and uniting it to the supreme Good God All these excellencies of Christ it sees diffused and derived to it by convenient means instituted and continued in the Church which as pipes laid into the Oceans unexhaustible fulness draw from it not to what measure it can give but to what we want and can receive At length this devout Soul by this daily confluence of many heavenly Meditations holy Motions and happy Experiments flowing like lesser rivolets from all parts of the Creation from Scripture and from its own with others experiences to this stream of the knowledge of God It findes it self by degrees advanced like Ezekiels Ezek. 47. waters from vulgar and shallow conceptions and answerable affections to mighty and profound contemplations which gathering strength by their daily increasings like an imperious and irresistible torrent carry away the devout Soul in its holy propensities and impetuous fervencies toward God Impatient of any stop or hinderance till at last it comes as all Rivers into the Ocean to be wholly resigned and happily resolved into its Alpha and Omega its principle and perfection its fountain and its fulness God So then when the Soul in ways of true Religion comes to know and love and serve God it is not conversant in vagrant fancies in uncertain speculations in in-significant notions but it so far really enjoys him as it loves him and loves him as it sees him and sees him as it seriously and deliberately observes him there being nothing of true Religion in volatile spirits and transient glances which it doth most evidently though not perfectly darkly yet truly in those glasses of the Creatures in the Scriptures 1 Cor. 13.12 and in its own Conscience in all ways of Goodness Truth and Holiness in lights Natural Moral and Evangelical by all which the Soul as the Eye sees somewhat of the divine glory of that invisible Sun in the descents scatterings and aptitudes of its beams whose infinite and intire brightness it cannot without injury to it self fully and immediately behold Exod. 33.20 So that herein we see true and solid Religion both by its light and holiness its truth and practise abundantly discovers the fancifulness levity pride vanity fondness and futility of all those giddy opinions and pretensions by which some men seek to amuse the world and to abuse honest hearts And also it shews its own real worth beauty dignity fulness usefulness wisdom and power by all which it fits and fills the Souls various faculties and vast capacity And in so doing it gives the devout Soul the greatest evidences and surest demonstrations of its own immortality Malunt impii extingui quà m ad supplicia reparari Mi. Fael Souls immortality discovered in true Religion beyond what any arguments drawn from ordinary reason and philosophy can do All which the Atheistical impudence of some men easily eâ—ude having no experimental knowledge of God and living without God in the world they are content to imagine an utter extinction of their souls Whereas the sanctified Soul concludes and glories in its immortality which it endeavors to improve to a blessed eternity when it considers seriously and alone whence can those high and holy enlargements desires and designs arise so far above and beyond all worldly objects and enjoyments whence that unsatisfiedness which carries the soul of man with ambitious impatiencies to this height of coveting after a blessed eternity Rom. 2.7 and the supreme Good God blessed for ever Whence this magnetick tendency and divine traction of love to God and to his infinite goodness but onely from the Father of our spirits and Fountain of our souls God And why all these meditations desires and motions planted in us by so good and wise a Creator if never to be enjoyed by us in those satisfactions which onely can flow from some divine and perfective object Sure it is all one to omnipotent goodness to fill us with the perfect good desired as to endue us with the desires of that good which are but our torments and imperfections if never to be in completion Our very desires of Heaven would else be our Hell and our longings after happiness our misery Nor is it agreeable to the methods of divine wisdom and goodness to plant frustaneous and vain desires or Tantalising tendencies in mans nature which he hath done in no other Creature who attain whatever they naturally covet or have innate propensities to The same divine power having prepared the object hath also implanted the desire This unproportionableness of the Creators dealing with
banishment prison captivity sickness c. Yet that Christian belief love and charity which such an one bears to Christ and to the Catholike Church of Christ scattered in many places and different in many ceremonial rites and observations These I say do infallibly invest this solitary Christian in communion and holy fellowship with the whole Church of Christ in all the World as brethren and sisters are related as near kinred when they are never so far a sunder in place which owns the same God believes the same common salvation by the same Lord Jesus useth the same seals of the blessed Sacraments Ephes 4.5 Jude 2. professeth the same ground of faith and rule of holiness the written Word of God and bears the like gracious and charitable temper to others as sanctified by same Spirit of Christ which really unites every charitable and true believer to Christ and so to every Mâ—mber of true Church however it may want opportunities to express this communion in actual and visible conversation either civil or sacred by enjoying that society as men or that ordinary ministry as Christians which is by Christ appointed in the Church as well for its outward profession distinction and mutual assistance as for its inward comfort and communion with himself The willing neglect of all such extern communion and the causeless separation from all Church-fellowship in Word Sacraments Prayer Order and charitable Offices must needs be inconsistent with any comfort because against charity and so far against true Religion and the hopes of salvation For those inward graces wherein the life and soul of Religion do consist are not ordinarily attained or maintained but by those outward means and ministrations which the wisdom of God in Christ hath appointed for the Churches social good and edification together In the right enjoyment of which consists that extern and joynt celebration or profession of Christian Religion which gives Being name and distinction to that society which we call The Church of Christ on Earth And this indeed is that Church properly which is called out of the World which as men we may discern and of which both in elder and later times so many disputes have been raised which we may describe to be An holy company or fraternity of Christians who being called by the Ministry of the Gospel to the knowledge of God in Christ do publickly profess in all holy ways and orderly institutions that inward sense of duty and devotion which they ow to God by believing and obeying his Word Also that charity which they ow to all men especially to those that profess to be Christs Disciples and hold communion with his Body the Catholike Church Herein I conceive That the social outward profession of Religion 7. Of the Church as a visible society of Professors believing in Christ. Ea est Catholica ecclesia quae unicam candem semper ubique fidem in Christo veram Scripturis sundatam profitetur Vâ—n Lyrin Eph. 2.9 As Fellow-Citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God Ye are built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone c. as it is held forth in the Word of God in its Truths Seals Duties and Ministry makes a true Church among men And the true Church as Catholike yea any part or branch of this true Catholike Church whose Head Foundation Rites Seals Duties and Ministry are for the main of the same kinde in all times and places cannot but make a right profession of true Religion as to the main essence and fundamentals which consists in truth holiness and charity However there may be many variations differences and deformities in superstructures both of opinion and practise For however particular Churches which have their limits of time and place and persons circumstances which necessarily circumscribe all things in this world are still as distinct arms and branches of a great Tree issuing from one and the same root Jesus Christ and have the same sap of truth and life conveyed in some measure to them 1 Cor. 3.12 If any man build upon this foundation gold c. stâ—bble c. V. 15. If his work be burnt he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved Eph. 4.4 There is one Body and one Spirit one Lord one Faith one Baptism c. V. 16. The whole body is fitly joyned together according to the effectual working in the measure of every part c. Uâ—us Deus unam sidem tradidit unam ecclesiam toto orbe diffudit hanc aspicit hanc diligit hanc dâ—fendit Quolibet se quisque nomine tegat si huic non societur alienus est si hanc impugnet inimicus est Oros 7. c. 35. Joh. 15.2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit my Father taketh away 2 Pet. 2.1 2 Tim. 2.18 1 Cor. 12.25 That there should be no schism in the body 2 Joh. 9. Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ hath the Father and the Son by the same way of the right Ministry of the Word Sacraments and Spirit so that in these respects they are all of one and the same Catholike Body communion descent and derivation yet as these have their external distinctions and severings in time place persons and maners or any outward rites of profession and worship so they usually have distinct denominations and are subject to different accidents as well as proportions Some branches of the same Tree may be withering mossy cancred peeled broken and barren yea almost dead yet old and great and true Others may be more flourishing fruitful clean and entire though of a latter shooting for time and of a lesser extension for number and place yet still of the same Tree so far as they have really or onely seemingly and in the judgement of charity communion with relation to and dependance on the Root and bulk being neither quite broken off and dead by Heretical Apostacies denying the Lord that bought them or damnable errors which overthrow the Faith nor yet slivered and rent by Schismatical uncharitableness proud or peevish rents and divisions Which last although they do not wholly kill and câ—op off from all communion with the Church of Christ yet they so far weaken and wither Religion in the fruits and comforts of it as each Schism pares off from its sect and faction that Rinde and Bark as it were of Christian love and mutual charity through which chiefly the sap and juyce of true Religion with the graces and comforts of it are happily and most thrivingly conveyed to every living branch of the Catholike Church so as to make it live at least and bring forth some good fruit however it be not so strong fair and ample as others may be As the Church of Sardis which had a * Rev. 3.1 name to live and was dead in some part and proportion
us naked and wounded Though we have not only forsaken thee but driven thee from us not only lost thee but are loth to find thee and joy in thy loss and are afraid of thy return yet since thou art Charity that is all divine sweetness kindness and goodness doe not utterly forsake us the scattered and torn remnant of surviving Christians Are our distances more unreconcileable than those were between God and Sinners yet these thou hast composed by that blood of attonement which Christ the Son and love of God shed for us to redeem us out of all Nations tongues and people who hath given us this badge of his Disciciples to love one another Joh. 13.35 not with private and Schismaticall factiousness but with publike and Catholick affections which reach as far as the Name of Christ is owned Thou art not only an Angell ascending up to Heaven in the love of God but also descending down to men chiefly to the fraternities of Christians Nor is the stream of thy sweetness which flows with Milk and Honey only diffused upon the Church triumphant the blessed Angels and Souls of just men made perfect who are ever bathed in an Ocean of thy Nectar which is infinite love but thou hast also received gifts for men and hast effusions of love to soften our hard hearts to supple our brawny hands to clear out polluted consciences and to chear up our Cainish countenances Better we had been among the slain Procellae tenebrae mortes tormenta Gehennaein sunt animae in qua charitas non remanet regnat Fulg. that are gone down to the Pit and covered in darkness with the dust of death than to live without thee whose presence makes our moment here to be Heaven and thy absence makes our after eternity to be Hell O let not the cruell factious profane and Atheisticall world say That thou the Charity of Christians wert never beyond a fable a meteor in their fancies a morning dew falling from their lips or a melancholy softness a pusillanimous pitty a devout cowardise As if Christians were kind no longer than they wanted power to be cruell and humbly obeyed no longer than they wanted opportunity to be proudly rebellious against those whom they feared more as slaves than loved as Christians Is there nothing in thy ingenuous wisdom which delightest to doe best and most where men merit least by which to bring back those Theriandri Anthropophagi or Lycanthropi those men that are become savage of civill those Christians that are turned Tygers and Lions and Bears and Wolves degenerated far from the pristine shape and forms which they had of meek Lambs and Sheep O bring forth those excellent eye salves by which thou didst of old open the eyes of the blind and barbarous Heathens Shew to the deformed Christians of this metamorphosed age thy primitive beauties the attractives of thy meekness the charms of thy gentleness the trophies of thy patience forbearances and brotherly kindness bring forth the Magazins of thy mercies bowels of pitty tenderness tears use thy honest frauds thy pious crafts 2 Cor. 12.16 thy Dove-like arts thy Saint-like policies of self denyall courtesy modesty giving and forgiving Quanto magis regnum cupiditatis destruitur tanto charitatis augetur Austin de doct Christiano 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Christianis Just M. ad Diog. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just in Apol. Mark 13.22 by which means Christians ever flourished in grace abounded in comforts and though they were destroyed and persecuted yet still they were emulated and renowned O remove the paints and veils and masks and shadows the deceits and dawbings which are upon the face of Christian Religion which is indeed nothing without thee a meer mockery of graces a pageantry of virtue a phantasm of courage a delusion of zeal a shadow of reformation fitted only to deceive if it were possible even the very elect If thy torments and blood-sheds and deaths of old will not serve to moysten and enlarge the dryed and contracted bowels of modern Christians to mollify their hearts to calm their spirits and to sweeten their looks to one another O shew them thy later foul scratches thy fresh wounds thy grievous reproches thy many bleedings thy deep stigmatizings thy prisons thy piercings thy dyings thy crucifyings all which thou hast received in the house of thy friends by the hands of thy friends even such as are called Christians but can hardly be counted charitable which have brought thee and us to these fears and tremblings and paleness and despairs as if God and Christ and Gospell and Ministry and Heaven and salvation and true Religion were all departing with thee which are thy inseparable companions 1 Pet. 1.29 Obstinati animi adamantina corda minis duriora monicis pejora solo Christi sanguine conspersa emolliuntur Bern. O duri indurati obdurati filii Adam quos non emollit tanta benignitas tanta flamma tam ingens ardor tam vehemâ—ns amator quem nec agon â—e crux nec mors terruit quin te amaret Acts 3.15 19. 1 Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 3.19 If these will not move Christians to look after thee or at least to pitty thee and to pray for thee or rather for themselves in thee yet hast thou one holy Relique of infinite merit incomparable worth and inestimable valew set forth this to the blood-shotten eyes of the Christian world even Jesus Christ crucified for them and professed by them to be their common Saviour Possibly his precious bloud sprinkled on their consciences may as water on lime slake and dissolve that firy Spirit and flinty Heart which is among them Nothing can work such miracles as this age wants but only the cross and wounds and agony and sweats and tears and blood and death of Jesus Christ whose love used the malice and cruelty of his enemies for an instrument to kill him that he being slain by them might merit life for them that by this act of highest uncharitableness in man to kill his Saviour Christ might set forth his other-wayes unexpressible Charity toward men by saving his destroyers his love being stronger than death and giving us hereby a patern how we should be disposed to one another not only when friends but also when enemies Rather to dye for them in away of charity which is a beam of divine mercy than to kill them even in away of equity which is but a stroke of humane justice but least of all should we destroy our Brother in away of policy passion and malice which is devillish cruelty Since to hate our Brother is murther as he is a man sure not only to hate but even for Religion sake to kill our brother a Christian must be a crucifying afresh the Lord of Life who died for his Church So then uncharitable destroyers of Christians are rather Deicides than Homicides If all this move not those that are called Christians 1 John
abilities and willingness would make a Minister of Christ which they will not Certainly no men are so good natured of themselves without hopes of gain or some benefit as of their own good will to undertake and constantly to persevere in so hard and hazardous besides so holy a service as this of holding forth to a vain proud carnal hypocritical Vera cruce digni qui crucifixum adorant Insana religio Cecil Exitiabilis supeâ—stitio Tacit. Annal. l. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Julius Imp. ep 7. 1 Cor. 2.14 Exitiabilis superstitio Author ejus Christus qui Tiberio imperantâ— per procuratorem Pontiuâ— Pilatum supplicio affectus Tac. l. 15. Annal. Miranda etiam pudenda credit Christianus cujus fides impudens esse debet Tert. de Bapt. Sacra sacrilegiis omnibus tetriâ—ra Cecil de Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb hist l. 4. c. 14. Else Christian Religion would have failed Multi barbarorum in Christum credunt sine charactere vel atramento scriptum habentes per spiritum in cordibus suis salutem veterum traditionem diligenter custodientes quà m Apostoli tradiderunt iis quibus committebant ecclesias cui ordinationi assentiunt multae gentes Tren l. 4. c. 4. persecuting and devilish world so de picable and ridiculous a doctrine as this of a crucified Saviour at first was and still seems to the natural or onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rational man unless there were by the wisdom and authority of Christ such ties of duty and calling laid upon some mens consciences as onely the mission and mandate of God can lay upon men who are not naturally more disposed to go on Gods errand than Moses or Jeremy or Jonah were And however now the peace warmth and serenity of times hath made the Ministry of the Gospel a matter of covetousness or popular ambition or curiosity or wantonness to many of these new Preachers who with rashness levity and a kinde of frolickness undertake that work which the best men and Angels themselves would not without much weeping as Saint Austine that day when he was ordained a Presbyter or with fear and trembling undertake yet the rigor and storms of primitive times it is very probable would have quenched the now so forward heats and flashes of these mens spirits When to Preach the Gospel and to preside as a Bishop or Presbyter in the Church was to expose a mans self to the front of persecution to stand in the gap against the violent incursions of malicious men and cruel devils To be a Minister of Jesus Christ was presently to forsake all and to take up the Cross and follow Christ to adopt with holy orders famine and nakedness banishment prisons beasts racks fires torments many deaths in one so that unless there had been divine authority enjoyning power enabling and special grace assisting the Ordainers in the Name of Christ sending and so in conscience binding together with gracious promises of a reward in Heaven incouraging the ordained doubtless the glorious Gospel of mans salvation had ere this been buried in oblivion none had believed that report nor heard of it if none had dared to preach it and none would of his own good will have been so hardy or prodigal of all worldly interests honor liberty safety estate and life as to adventure all needlessly and spontaneously on such a message to others so unwonted so unwelcome so offensive to the ears and hearts of men unless he had been conscious to a speâ—ial dâ—ty laid upon him by divine authority which was always derived in that holy and solemn Ordination which was the inauguration of Ministers to that great and sacred Work This indeed gave so great confirmation and courage to the true and ordâ—ined Ministers of the Gospel that believing what they preached of a crucified Saviour and knowing whose work it was in whose Name they were ordained by whose power they were sent to how great ends their labors were designed even to save souls they willingly bare the Cross of Christ Acts 5.41 and counted it a crown and honorary addition to their Ministry to be thought worthy to suffer for the Name of Christ that what any of them wanted in the power of miracles was made up in the wonder of their patience when no Armies no State favored them and both opposed them when they had no temptations of getting a better living by preaching than any other way but rather losing of what they had when they expected few applauders of their boldness and forwardness many persecutors and opposers of their consciencious endeavors to do the duty which Christ by the Church had laid on them when they might not grow restive and lazy and knock off when they pleased but a wo and a necessity and an heavy account to be given to the great Pastor of the Church Christ Jesus always founded in their ears and beat upon their mindes These put them upon those Heroick resolutions to endure all things for Christs sake 2 Tim. 2.10 I endure all things for the elects sake c. 2 Cor. 11. 12. Phil. 1. Tit. 1.11 1 Tim. 6.5 Rom. 16.17 I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them Vers 18. For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple 1 Cor. 4.1 2. John 10.1 2. and the Churches sake and the good of those souls committed to their charge Nor did they remit their care or slacken the conscience of their duty in preaching diligently the Gospel because of the forwardness and seeming zeal of those that were false Brethren and false Apostles who out of envy or spight or for filthy lucre or any vain-glory among Christians set up the trade of preaching upon their own stock of boldness without any mission from Christ or those to whom he had delegated that power to ordain fit and able men Their seeming good will and readiness to preach did not free them from the brand of false Apostles and deceitful workers Satans ministers and messengers sent to buffet not to build the Church Wolves in sheeps clothing serving their bellies and not the Lord Christ or the Churches good whose order and authority they despise Nor can they be faithful to Gods work unless they keep to his word both as to the truths delivered and the order prescribed and the duties enjoyned and the authority established Christ doth not onely provide food for his family but stewards also and dispensers of it who may and must see to give every one their portion in due season rightly dividing the Word of truth There is not onely plenty but order and government in Christs house nothing less becomes the servants of Christ than this sharking and scrambling way of these new men who will snatch and carve for themselves and dispence to others what when
fully satisfyed they are ready to dispute and neglect even that divine Authority which is in the calling of true Ministers What little or no good effects the usurpers against and opposers of the Ministry of this Church can boast off with truth either as to speaking judiciously or writing solidly or walking exactly so as tends any way to the advantages of piety truth charity or peace in the Reformed Churches or to the honour and happiness of this Nation either converting or establishing any in truth or holiness I leave to the judgement of all considerate and wise Christians whose prayers sighs tears complaints griefs and fears of future darkness are in nothing more exercised than in the present deplored aspect and almost desperate State of the Reformed Religion in many places of Christendom and in none more than what is threatned in this Church of England Jer. 6. â— Fearing lest the shadows of the evening being encreased and those day stars which formerly shined in a learned successive and Authoritative Ministry being darkned and Eclipsed the evening Wolves should also encrease Jer. 5.6 and the Beasts of the Forrest multiply upon us every one seeking for their prey whom they may deceive and devour Such as loathed Manna were justly stung soon after with fiery Serpents Numb 21.6 On the other side ask the looser and profaner Spirits what restrayning power or converting influence they feel from the charmings of these new-gifted exorcists who undertake in the name of Christ but indeed in their own name and after their own fancies to call over and cast out the devils of ignorance Atheism unbelief profaness and hypocrisy which are in mens hearts or lives You may hear them with one voyce answering as those did Jesus we know and Paul we know the learned and duly ordeined Ministers Acts 19.13.15 in a successive power from Christ and his holy Apostles we know but who are you self flatterers self lovers self senders self seekers self ordeiners Merito à Diabolis plectantur qui à Deo non mittuntur Aust nor is it to be expected but that at last these Sons of Sheva will find those evill Spirits in mens hearts of pride unbelief Atheism enmity against God and all true holiness any whit milder or better natured than those were who contemning the bare sound of the Name Jesus Omnem praeter Dei temnâ—â— Autoritatem Satanas nec nomen Jesus syllabarum sonâ— terret sed divina illa quâ armantur potestas qui in Christi nomine Ministrant Ieron when destitute of the Authority from Jesus and mocking at the presumption of those censurers flew upon them wounded and expulsed them So unsafe and in the end so thankless and comfortless an undertaking it is to attempt this good work even of casting out devils from men where there is nothing but a mock-power and no reall divine Authority to do it The devils which felt torment at Christs presence and were subject to the Apostles whom Christ sent falling down like lightning had the pleasure to beat and baffle those who would chain them up or cast them out without divine Authority And no wonder if these Estrick Birds Mat. 8.29 Daemones Christi praesentia cruciantur ut malefici ad conspectum judicis Nondum enim judicis sententia daemnatos propria condemnat torquet conscientia Pelarg. who set forth their soft and gay feathers having but little bodies and less brains by wandring from their Nests their shops and looms and flayls and mills the honest stations and no way despicable callings wherein God and man have set them and from which they have no sufficient call either from God or man to moove them no wonder I say if they fall themselves and lead others into many snares and divers temptations which they can hardly avoyd being in good earnest most of them very blind leaders of the blind Imagining as the Turks do of blind and mad men that they have speciall visions because they want their eyes and extraordinary revelations Facile in laqueos Diaboli incidunt qui à viâ Domini decedunt Aust because they are destitute of common reason Indeed it is feared that most of these mens Prophecying and Preaching is either design to bring all confusion on these Reformed Churches or else meerly out of wantonness in jest as a kind of recreation and diversion Mat. 15.14 Caecos à cacis duci non Major est in seducentibus arrogantia quam in seductis insania in utrisquis summum periculum nec minus dolendum quà m merito ridendum Aust Geminae plerunque caecitates concurrunt ut qui non vident quae sunt videre videantur quae non sunt Tertul. Apol. but not as any business or matter of duty and conscience In one thing they are in good earnest and most serious that is to carry on their perfect contempt and malice against all true Ministers Who sees not what weakness it is for sober Christians 16 The weakness and sin of Christians to follow delusions and forsake realities after so great light of truth hath shined so long among them to imagine that such a disorderly Company of people who for the most part by secret stimulations of pride vain glory envy covetousness or some worse Spirit no less than by apparent over-weenings of their small and at best but very moderate gifts not tried or approved by any wise men but only blown up by the pittifull applauses of some silly men and women who have with levity and unthankfulness forsook their true guides and Pastors Invidiae stimulis motus Arrius contra Alex. ep Alex. haeresin occae pit Theod. hist l. 1. c. 2. 2 Tim. 4.3 and not enduring sound doctrine and holy order deserve for their itching ears to be condemned to follow such heaps of Teachers ever learning and never comming to a sound and setled knowledge of the Truth who sees not I say what sin it is to follow countenance or incourage such dangerous and disorderly seducers and what weakness and meer folly it is to imagin that such as neither have skill to handle trowell or sword should either build or defend our Jerusalem When they dayly pull down better work than they can erect And what they seem to build as of such unpolished rubbidge such rude Aedificant aedificantur Haeretici in ruinam Tertul. Quale potest essè aedificium quod de ruinâ construitur Optar and rough-hewen stuff with such intempered merâ—ur that it is as sand without lime undigested unprepared uneven neither for matter not manner considerable without rule plumbline or levell neither according to Scripture precept nor the holy example and Catholick practise of the Churches of Christ So that the gapings flaws swellings lowness hollowness uneveness crookedness and weakness together with the dayly mouldrings of their Childish structures shew what wise builders they are and how fit to be made publike Architects or Master-builders in this Church
hath brought forth If the honour and order of the highest branch the Episcopall eminency had been preserved with it Not so as to over-drop and oppress all other boughs and branches which are of the same root but so as to adorn them all and to be most eminent in Christian graces and Ministeriall gifts no less than in priority of place superiority of power and amplitude of honour and estate As many Excellent Bishops both antient and modern were against whose incomparable worth while some young and petty Presbyters do scornfully declame and disgracefully insult they appear like so many Jackdaws perking on the top of Pauls steeple or like living Dogs snarling at and trampling upon dead Lions Petulantissima est insaniae paucorum malorum odio in bonos omnes dehacâ—hari Nor do indeed such impotent tongues and miserable partialities of some men tuned to the most vulgar ears and humours against all even good Bishops and against a right or regulated Episcopacy such as was for the main and substance here in England they do not in any sort become men that pretend to any true piety learning gravity or civility I neither approve nor excuse the personall faults of any particular Bishops as to the exercise of their power and authority which ought not in weighty matters to be managed without the presence counsell and suffrages of Presbyters such as are fit for that assistance The neglect of this St. Ambrose and St. Jerom and all sober men justly reprove as unsafe for the Bishops the Presbyters and the whole Church For in multitude of counsell is safety and honour too Rom. 11.14 I am sure much good they might all have done as many of them did whom these touchy times were not worthy of No wonder if the very best of them displeased some mens humours who were impatient to be kept any longer in order but like waters Hieron Communi concilio Praesbyterorum Ecclesiae regebantur Concilio Carthag 4. c. 3. Nil faciat Episcopus c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not other Concil Ancyran assisted the Bishop in government long pent up they sweld to such discontents as disdaining to pass the allowed bounds and floudgates of publick Lawes they resolved to blow up and bear away the whole head and sluce of Government Bishops had three Enemies to contend with some Presbyters ambition some Laymens covetousness and their own Infirmities And it may be Bishops faults had been less in some mens eyes if their estates and honours had not been so great I write not thus to reproach any of my Fathers or Brethren the Ministers who begin many of them no doubt to be of my mind for moderate Episcopacy if they have not alwayes been so finding that the fruit of the Summer doth not alwayes answer the blossoms of the Spring cruell frosts may nip and blast those pregnant hopes of bettering which men are prone secretly to nourish whereby to excuse or justifie their desires of change and novely In which truly I never saw any thing of right reason or religion produced for the extirpation of primitive Episcopacy The main things that pressed upon it were Forein power domestick pride the failings of some Bishops the envious angers of some Presbyters and the wonted inconstancy of the vulgar If any men Ministers or others are as loth to see and recant their excesses and errors as they were forward to run into them but still resolve to keep that partiall bias on their judgement which shall sway all their learning and other excellent Ministeriall gifts against their own true interests and this Church with all reformed Religion which consisted in due moderation and peace I shall yet with my pity of their wilfulness or weakness alwayes love and reverence what I see in them of Christ and only wish that temper and moderation from them which may most contribute in common to the vindication of the Order and Function of learned grave and peaceable ministers This they may at last easily see That every soft gratification of vulgar ignorance envy and inconstancy set forth with the forms of zeal and reformation is usually returned with vilifyings and diminutions of their betters who did vouchsafe to flatter them as if they indeed feared them I heartily wish a greater harmony a sweet moderation and Fraternal accord among all true and godly Ministers who dare to own and do still adorn their office and calling I should be glad to see the counsell and assistance of well setled Presbyters crowned with the order and lustre of Episcopall presidency which was antiently as the Jewel wel set in a ring of Gold or as a fair guard and handle to a good Sword adding to its compleatness comliness and usefulness Alas the ordinary Ministers seem now like younger brethren who sometimes lived handsomly under their Fathers or elder Brothers care and inspection so scattered and divided that they are extremely weakned and exposed to all injuries Pro. 16.18 Pride goes before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall yea many of them like Prodigall sons having riotously wasted their own and their Fathers portion begin to consider what husks of popular favour they may feed on So is Insolency the high way to indigence and arrogancy soon knocks at the dore of contempt Ministers must not wonder or repine at the measure they measured to others when offered to themselves Secundas habeat poenitentiae tabulas qui non habuit primas impeccantiae Amb. I am far from reproaching any mens defeats or Calamities wherein the Justice of divine vengeance is seen retaliating I am glad if the occasioners of our common shipwrack may have any fair planks or rafters to save themselves and the honour of their Ministry either by recanting the errors of their judgements or repenting the transports of their manners If they retein their Antiepiscopall opinion with modesty and charity yet I am not disposed to fly in any godly mans face because he is not exactly like me or to pull out his eyes Multa tolleramus quae non probamus Aust because they are not just of the colour of mine I pray to be of that Christian temper for moderation and charity which can allow many latitudes of Prudence in extern things of religion where no evident sins for their immoralities nor evident errors against the fundamentals of Christianity nor evident confusions against charity and order which is necessary for the Churches peace do appear I wish that while Ministers or other Christians differ in things of extern mode and order they may all find and walk in that holy way by which we may with one shoulder of truth and charity carry on that great work of saving Souls both our own and those that hear us that while we dispense saving truths to others we may not for want of humility and charity be cast-aways our selves More of those calming and moderating graces on all sides had no doubt preserved both Bishops and
the Lord to the Church and set apart or Consecrated by the Church to the Lords speciall service 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 13. to serve the Lord and the Church in holy publick ministrations as the Apostles first did into whose order Mathias was by Lot chosen to supply the place of Judas Iscariot Acts 1. To which end Ministers in an holy Succession have ever been placed over the people in the name of Christ by the power of his Holy Spirit yet Good Ministers disdain not to be reckoned among Gods People as children of the same Spirituall Father and brethren in the same Family or houshold of Faith nor will any humble Christians being not in holy orders affect to be called Clergy men by a confusion of language or disdain to be called Gods commons or Lay-men which hath a sober Christian and charitable sense in the dialect of those Christians who know how to call and account their true Bishops and Ministers as Fathers Instructers Overseers and Guides of the Church c. These names then or distinctive titles do but fairly follow according to the use and nature of words and decently express those things which the mind of Christ in the Scripture and all Custom or use of the Church have distinguished for order sake De verbis contendere non est curare quomodo error veritate vincatur sed quomodo tua dictio alterius dictioni praeferatur Aust de doct Christ l. 4. c. 28. Quid est conteâ—tiosius quam ubi constâ—t dâ—re certare de nomine â—ust cp 1. 74. De verbis syllabis intemperantius litigare solent qui res ipsas Ecclesia pâ—cem negligunt Sub 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 umbra 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suam occultâ—re dissimulare student quod et Arrianorum pertinaâ— astutiâ— olim fecit Amb. lib. de fide Jeron de Arrian Hyp. Insignis est indolis in verbis verum amare non verba Aust Sic vigeat humilitas ut non minuatur Autoritas Aust 1 Cor. 12.23 Error est bonestuâ— magnos in loquendo duces sequi Quintil. Orat. Inst l. 1. c. 6. The same supercriticall men will boggle at the words Trinity Three Persons and Sacraments which are not in the letter but in the sense and truth of the Scripture And certainly no religion forbids us to adopt convenient and compendious words to the Churches use since we do safely translate the whole originall Scriptures to any ordinary languages in which most Christians may best use them not in the literall words but in the Intellectuall sense or mind of God A strife about words and syllabicall scruples fits only women or children or peevish passionate men As the Arrians of old who caviled much at the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose syllables were new but their sense old orthodox and sound expressing the same divine Nature in Christ the Son with the Father and that our Emanuel who was born of the virgin Mary was both God and Man But this quarrel about names and words is a very tedious impertinency to those Christians whose serious piety studies only this by apt and usuall words to comprehend and express the truths and orders of Religion who are ready alwayes so to give to each other the right hand of Charity and Unity as members of the same body whose head is Christ as yet to preserve that order and authority in the Church which is divinely Instituted and is as necessary for the Church as it is for the body to have head eyes and mouth distinct from other parts of less honour yet not less usefull in their place As for this pretended grievance then of these words Clergy and Laity We desire not to quarrell farther with our Adversaries and we shall not need to dispute with others that are wise and humble only we pitty the simplicity of people who are thus easily cheated and scared by some sophistry when they are told by their great scrupulosity and censorian gravity that words are as bad as Spels that what ever tearms or Names are not in the Scriptures as they have them translated are not the speech of Canaan but the language of the beast Thus these severe Momusses Thus the Antiministeriall factors for error ignorance and confusion These are among the other small artifices used by those miserable Rabbyes who to ingratiate with the vulgar and lead dâ—sciples after them are content to take away the antient marks of bounds and known distinction of names between Minister and People that so people may take the greater confidence to cast quite away both the name and thing the holy Ordination with all distinction of Office and Function Ministeriall in the Church which if I can solidly maintain against these underminers of Religion despisers of Ordination and vastators of all true ministry I doubt not but I and others may still use these Names of Clergy and Laity without sin or scandall to any sober and good Christians To the main therefore of the Objection which is made against the vertue and efficacy of Ordination 16 Prophane minds prone to cavil at all holy mysteries aswel as the Ordination of Ministers 2 Pet. 3.4 by the Catholick and Antient way of Bishops and Presbyters which they so slight I answer That at the same rate of prophane and Atheisticall reasonings they may as well dispute as Julian would have done and those Scoffers daily do which are foretold should be in the later dayes What vertue is there in the water of Baptism more than any other by which to regenerate a sinner to wash away sins to seal comforts to confer grace to represent the blood of Christ of which a man may meditate every time he sees any water or washeth his hands Hence the mean esteem and contempt indeed with proud and presumptuous Catabaptists have against that holy Mysterie of Baptism which all Churches in all ages have used with reverence and comfort according to Christs Institution and the Apostolicall custome So also the spirituall pride of those prophane Cavillers will argue what efficacy can there be in the Bread and Wine at the Lords Supper more than in other of the same Elements at our ordinary Tables and in every Tavern What doth the form of Consecration by the words of Christ and prayers add to them or alter them Nay since the blasphemous boldness of proud and wicked men will count nothing of outward form sacred no wonder if by the same contradictive spirit they quarrel at not only the Humanity or flesh but also the Majesty and divinity of our Saviour Jesus Christ and seeing the outward meanness poverty and ingloriousness of his life and death many of them scarce own him for a Saviour or for the true Messias And no further than is agreeable to their Seraphick fancies Against whom Irenaus d sputes by which they labour after the like fondness of some in antient times to
be faithfull to their Masters profit and credit to do their duty and to maintain that place and authority in which the Lord hath set them nor is it any thing of a pious easiness but an impious baseness in them as Bishops and Ministers voluntarily to desert their station and to suffer every one to usurp upon them and to do what they list Nor is any thing more intolerable than the rudeness riot and impudence of those inferior servants who pretending Christian liberty and not induring those officers and Ministers whom the Master hath orderly placed over them neither will they long indure the Lord or Master himself to rule over them we read Mat. 21.38 They kill the Son who first beat and shamefully intreated the servants which were sent But thirdly as to the persons duly ordeined This holy Ordination gâ—ves a reall divine power which is necessarily to be delegated and derived from Christ since no man hath it in and of himself or of any will of men by which he is enabled to perform those duties which Christ only hath injoyned in his word to be done and to be thus done by such men and in such a manner and no other 1 Tim. 5.22 Lay hands suddainly on no man i. e. by way of Ordination Ergo no man is of that office or hath that authority and power till ordeined be his parts and gifts never so great and good So 2 Tim. 2.2 These things commit to faithfull men who may be able to teach others ergo some peculiar Commission must be given to these and to no other to perform Ministeriall duties with authority Such are those of making Disciples by Preaching the Gospell by distinguishing from others and also confirming and uniting together among themselves in holy Communion those Disciples with the holy seals of Baptism and the Lords Supper To edify confirm and preserve them by teaching reprooving praying for them comforting guiding governing binding and loosing by the use of that power of the Keys which is committed only to them both in doctrine and discipline doing all things toward penitents and impenitents believers and unbelievers Tit. 2.15 not magisterially but ministerially as from Christ and for the Churches good yet not precariously and arbitrarily oâ— depending on mans pleasure Iren. l. 4. c. 43. Episcopalus sucâ—essionâ—m ab Apostolis habentes Charisma veritatis certuÌ„ acceperunt Ubi charisâ—ata domini posita sunt ibi discere oportet veritatem apud quos est successio ab Apostoliâ— sanum ac irreprobabile sermonis Cap. 45. 1 Tâ—m 4.14 but autoritatively and conscientiously as doing the work of the Lord knowing the power they have received of the Lord the duties enjoyned them the care required in them the account to be exacted of them as to the Stewardship of the souls solemnly committed to their care which is done by that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or ministeriall gift of the holy Ghost which Christ gave to the Apostles John 20.22 and by their hands as by St. Pauls to Timothy 2 Tim. 1.6.14 to others and so to a perpetuall succession For without this gift or power of the holy Spirit of Truth 18. The holy Spirit given in right Ordination how whose property it is to lead the faithfull into all truth no man is truly a Minister of holy things in the Church So that it is a pittifull piece of ignorance or putid scurrility and profaness for any that profess Christianity much more for those that pretend to be Ministers in the Church to slight and expose to vulgar scorn that passage used as of antient times in all Churches so in the Church of Englands manner of ordeining Ministers Receive ye the holy Spirit As if this were a meer mockery and insignificancy in point of any sanctity conferred When it is expressed to be meant as it ever was in the Church understood not of sanctifying graces infused qualities or habits of inward holiness which are immediatly from God and not by man to be conferred nor from man to be communicated to another nor do they invest any one that hath them in any Church office or publick power over others for then every holy man and woman should have this power but it is only meant of those peculiar gifts or powers of the holy Spirit Eph. 4.8 which are properly ministeriall and officiative as from Christ and in his name not by internall infusion but by externall separation or sanction not endâ—ing with grace but investing in a new relation and authority distinct from the common Christians duty place and officers of charity c. which are as parchment wax and writing usefull in their kind but not valid as to any conveyance till sealed subscribed delivered and witnessed as the act and deeâ— of the conveyer who lawfully hereby confers to an other his right and power of acting possessing or enjoying c. So by a form of such Commission or delegation as Christ instituted that power and ministeriall gift of the holy Spirit is continued which was first committed to the Apostles by Christ who only would do it Nor can this power be understood so much for extraordinary miracles which were to cease as for that ordinary Ministry which was to continue as necessary for the Church in all ages This power or gift of the Holy Ghost as ministeriall and officiating in Christs name as that of miracles may be where there is no sanctifying grace as was in Judas and probably in Demas and others who might be sheep as to their profession Acts 1.17 and shepheards as to their office or Episcopacy of which Judas had a part and fell from it and yet wolves as to the inward habits and graces 1 Cor. 5.4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my Spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ c. When the Spirit of Paul was joyned with the Corinthian Ministers and believers in excommunicating the incestuous persons it was not the sanctifying Spirit or grace of the Apostle but that ministeriall power which he had eminently in and joyntly with the Church The power and Spirit of Christ as it is given so received in right Ordination by every true Minister that is worthily promoted not as to grace and inward vertue of which man judgeth not but as to office and relative power from Christ in the publike service or Ministry to his Church As every officer civill or military that hath commission acts in the Spirit name and power of those by whom authority is primarily derived to them In this sense and to this use the Spirit of Moses was put on the 70. Elders Num. 11.25 and Elias on Elisha 2 Kings 11.9 3. Yea further I doubt not but the solemn and right manner of Ordination by fasting Deus largitur gratiam homo imponit manus Sacerdos imponit supplicem dextram Deus benediâ— potents dentre Episcopus initiat ordinem Deus tribuit
of those strange speculations those unwonted notions those pretty legerdemaines in Religion which some men aâ— Juglers study more than any solid trade of Piety they are hardly able to know a long time where they are as to true Religion or to find and owne any faire path of holy Truth and Order which might lead them out of that Fooles paradise wherein some men take delight to lose themselves and others 2. False and proud pretentions of the Spirit The ordinary Sophistry and craft when men want solid ground and true Principles of right Reason Order Law and Justice of Scripture Precept and holy examples from Christ or any truly gracious Christians whereby to justifie their opinions or practises their * Transgressor pâ—aecepti Dominici spurios sibi sociat Spiritus ad aerendo eis unus efficitur Daemon Bern. Ser. Ben. Ab. retreat is as Foxes when eagerly hunted to hide and earth themselves in this The spirit hath taught and dictated these things to them or impulsed and driven them upon such and such ways which are in congruous uncomely unwonted to and inconsistent with either the Catholick Ten t s or Examples generally held forth in the Church of Christ according to the plain sense and tenor of the Scriptures * The Fryers Mendicant p etended they had a fifth Gospell which they called the Aeternum Evangelium this they preached and defended saying the old Gospels must be abolished and theirs received Mat. Paris an 1154. Nauclerus an 1â—54 This is done with the same falsity yet gravity and confidence as Mahomet perswaded the credulous Vulgar by the help of Sergius a Monk that his fits of Falling-sickness and the device of his Pigeon coming to his Ear where he had accustomed to feed it were Monitions and Inspirations which he had from God by his Blessed Spirit * Whose hypocriticall sanctity Gâ—ilielmus De Sancto Amore vir doctrina pietate illustris opposed Pope Alex. 4. caused their blasphemous book to be burnt Platina Vit Al. 4. Just as weak and confused Writers of Romances having not well laid the plot and design of their Fancifull story are wont to relieve their over venturous Knights with unexpected enchantments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which salve all inconveniences superate all hyperbolies and transcend all difficulties as well as all rules of Reason or Providence So many men defective in their Intellectuall Morall and gracious Principles of true and sound Religion which all sober Christians own to be derived from and directed only by the holy Scriptures both in Faith and Manners they presently pretend the Spirit to be Patron of their most extravagant fancies and deeds the Deviser of their most incredible opinions the Dictator of their most indemonstrable dreams which no Jew or credulous Greek or Gypsy would ever beleive nor any man who were not willing to depose his reason and to suffer a rash and fancifull credulity to usurp the Throne and Soveraignty of his Soul This in generall I may reply to all those that forsake ordinary Precepts and follow New Revelations or pretend the speciall motions of the Spirit against the constant Rules and Institutions of Christ in the Word and I may tell it upon grounds of far greater certainty both of Reason and Religion than any of them can assure me or any man that they have these speciall impulses and graces of the Spirit beyond others who walk in the ordinary way of means and received methods of Christian Religion 1 Joh. 4.1 First discovery by the Word of God V. 3. First We are forbidden to beleive every Spirit because the Spirit of Antichrist may pretend to the Spirit of Christ we are commanded to try the Spirits whether they be of God or no we are told that every spirit which confesseth not that Christ is come in the flesh is not of God but is of that Spirit of Antichrist which is to come into the world as Christ foretold many should come in his Name and say loe here is Christ and there is Christ But beleive them not Mat. 24.23 What I pray doth more deny the coming of Christ in the flesh that is by a visible way of the Ministry to his Church in his person and in his succession then to say he is gone away again without taking any Order or leaving any Command or Institution for his Worship and Service to be continued in the Church by which his first coming might be made known in Preaching the Gospell and confirmed by the Seals of the Sacraments to his Church To say that Christ is so come now in the Spirit here and there by speciall Inspirations that he never came in that other old way of the outward and Ordained Ministry of Word and Sacraments hath so much of the spirit of Antichrist as it is against the evident testimony of the Word of Christ against the practice and the command of the Apostles and against the Catholick custome of the Church of Christ which hath always thus set forth and witnessed the first coming of Christ and must ever doe so till his coming again Which second coming onely shall put a period to the Word Sacraments and that true Evangelicall Ministry which now is by Christ Ordained in the Church As the first coming of Christ did to the Leviticall Priesthood and Ministry by Sacrifices c. We know That as the Illuminating Spirit of God guideth the humble 2. Joh. 16 13. Ioh. 17.17 Sanctifie them through thy truth thy Word is truth meek and industrious souls into all saving necessary Truths so these Truths are confined to and contained in the compasse of those which are already once revealed to the Church by the Spirit in the Word of God and which are by the Ministry of the Church dayly manifested and in this way are sufficient to make the man of God perfect to salvation 2 Tim. 3.17 Which is that one anointing from Christ and the Father which hath lead the Church into all truth by the sure Word which the Apostles taught and wrote so that no Christians have need that any man by any other spirit or as from this Spirit should teach them more or other as to salvation 1 Joh. 2.27 They that gape to heaven for the Manna of speciall Revelations when they are not in the Wildernesse but in the Canaan of Christs true Church may easily starve themselves or feed on the wind and ashes of fancifull presumptions while they neglect and despise the ordinary provisions God hath made in his Church It is clear that whatsoever is said or done beyond or against this written Word of Christ and surest rule of the Church is to be accounted no other then apocryphal lying vanities and damnable hypocrisies * Hoc prius câ—edimus non esse ultra Scripturas quod credere debeamus Nobis curiositate non opâ—â— est post Christum nec inquisitione post Evangelium Tertul. de prae ad Hae. c. 3. No
with all judicious and sober Christians leave Potius vetera tuta quam periculosa nova sectemur Tac. to passe by the Idoll of their new dressed Spiritually and Sanctity without any admiration devotion or the least salutation Nor can we at all consider private spirits warped from and bent against the publique Spirit of Christ in the Scripture in the practise of the Catholick Church and in the most eminent Christians both ancient and modern We shall content our selves with that plain and pristine holynesse and manifestations of the Spirit True holinesse and true Saints Sanctitas est scientia colendorum deorun Tul. de Nat. D. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato in Eutyp which are expressed in the Word deposited in the Church preserved in an holy Ministry exemplified in all true Christians and most eminently in Jesus Christ and his Apostles the great and famous Founders Teachers and Establishers of holy Truths holy Duties holy Sacraments holy Orders and holy Ministry in the Church And this with divine Power and Authority not onely personall but successionall without which the instituted Service and Worship of Christ had ere this failed These being ever since Christs time in all the world imployed in Teaching Gathering Baptizing Governing Feeding Preserving and Perfecting the Body of Christ which is his Church We know not and so we cannot desire other holinesse than that by which we beleived the Truths obeyed the Commands feared the Threatnings observed the Duties preserved the Institutions continued the Orders reverenced the Embassadors joyed in the Graces hoped in the Promises and were led conformably to Christ by that Spirit which Jesus Christ had given to his Church long before these new coyners had graven the stamps or set up their Mintâ— We are glad and blesse God when we attain unfaignedly to that Spirit of Holynesse which hears the Word of God with fear and trembling from the mouth of those able and godly Ministers which are the Messengers or Angels sent from Christ by the Churches Ordination Which teacheth us to pray with understanding constancy fervently and comelinesse to receive the pledges of Gods love in Christ from their hands duly consecrating the holy mysteries with reverence preparednesse and thankfulnesse That holinesse which loves with sincerity gives with cheerfulnesse rejoyceth in well doing suffers with patience lives by Faith acts by Charity is holy with order contentednesse and humility without any fury faction or confusion That holinesse which hath nothing in it novell or praeterscripturall nothing fancifull verball tumultuary violent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. Euâ—yph Sâ—nctum est quod deo gratum schismaticall disorderly partiall pernicious or injurious to any which chuseth to be a Martyr for Charity and Unity as well as Verity in the Church rather suffering much than giving scandall or making a schism according to the pious and excellent couâ—sâ—ll of Dionysius to Novatus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dionys Epâ—st Auâ—ea apud Eusch l. 6. hist c. 38. That holinesse which is old as the Ancient of dayes reall rationall demonstrative from the Word of God and exemplified in the lives of former Saints Which is meek courteous charitable humble just to all men abounding with all righteousnesse and the fruits of righteousnesse peace and establishment both to private consciences and publique Churches That holinesse which hath nothing in it supercilious calumniating defamatory insolent bitter or burthensome to any true Christians true Churches and true Ministers which know how to reprove what is amisse without rejecting all that is well to reform the crooked without ruining what is right That holinesse which as the Sun-beams is always like it self like the Father of spirituall light uniform and constant in all true Saints in all ages and in all administrations Divine either immediate or mediate as to its rule the Will and Word of God as to its end the glory of God in Gods way as to its Epitome or sum the love of God and its neighbour as to its happy fruits and effects the good of mankinde chiefly of the Church of Christ These have ever been the same for kind however differing in degrees according to the measure which God hath given to his true Saints and servants who never differed from God or the Word or one another as they were holy and spirituall however as men and carnall in part they had their crookednesse unevennesses and dissentings These are the fruits of Gods Spirit this that true Holinesse for which we pray of which we dare not boast These are the Saints whose shadows we count Soveraign whose presence a blessing whose wayes unblameable whose joyes unspeakable whose works most imitable whose conversation most amiable heavenly and divine who chuse rather to suffer than any way to act in cases dubious as to secular dissensions which have much of the Beast somewhat of the Man and little of the true Christian The worth of these Pearls is infinitely beyond some mens counterfeit forgeries whose lustre is chiefly from worldly glory and secular advantages who out of ashes are melted up to the shining and bricklenesse of glasse by the fervour of some spirits who think it enough to glister with novelties and to boast of Inspirations fancying all is reformed which is but changed though much to the worse who are forced to set off themselves by the soil of severe censuring of others Fearing nothing so much as a true light and those discoveries which are made of them by serious and judicious Christians who judge not by mens lips and appearances but by their lives and practises compared to the Word of God For which true Ministers most eminently and impartially holding forth to the discovery of all mens deformities are of all men most abhorred by these pretenders who at a true and full view will not onely not appear to other such gifted men and spirituall as they pretend but they will be ashamed of their arrogance and despite against those good Christians and those true Minisers whom they have so much vilified and contemned The common mistake of proud weak or fancifull men 8. Vulgar mistakes of spirituall influences Luk. 9.55 Impudentiam pâ—o pietate jactitant quasi eo sanctiores essent quo verbosiores Bern. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thucid. hist l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas de Sp. s. whose tongues are onely tipt with Sanctity and the name of the Spirit is this That they know not indeed of what Spirit they are as to Profession Nor consider of what Spirit they ought to be as to temper if they will be truly Christs Disciples Contenting themselves with light and airy presumptions in stead of serious and searching examinations of truth comparing themselves with themselves they fancy they grow holyer as they grow bolder in their opinions or actions Hence they are easily flattered into high Imaginations and cheated with strong Presumptions as if some common gifts of knowledge some Scepticall quicknesse some volubility of utterance
some Scripturall expressions which they have attained beyond their former selves or their equals were rare immediate and speciall gifts of the Spirit Then because they should seem no body if they carry their small wares in an old pack * Quos diabolus a veritatis via in veleri charitate detinere non pâ—tuit novi itineneris erroâ—e circumscribit decipit Cyp. they invent some new fashion of Religion or some modell of a Church-way which they strongly fancy after they have once brought forth their fancy to any form and shape they are strangely inamored with it all old figures never so uniform Catholick and comely seem deformed ugly Antichristian Then follows those quick emotions and stirrings upon their spirits which have the quicknings only of Self in them these are presently cryed up for motions and * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Marcionites had private lectures which they called Manifestations or Illuminations from a Prophetesse Philumena Tertul. prae ad Hae. c. 44. manifestations and excitations and impulses of Gods Spirit on them then they are easily moved to extraordinary heats and irregular vehemencies as counterfeit possessed are by the looking on and applauses of others whose sillinesse makes them gentle spectators and obsequious admirers of any thing that seems new to them or is above them Nothing troubles these pretenders so much as if you look too neer and too narrowly on their practises * Impostoribus nihil est lumine inimicitius Nothing angers them so much as what they fear may discover them you must not ask them where are their miracles where their Empire over Devils where their languages where their prophecies either as predictions of things to come or as interpretations of obscure Prophecies in the Scripture referring to Jesus Christ These questions though they are but just to be put where extraordinary Inspirations are pretended are too hard for them these pose them and afflict them when they are thus urged by Ministers or any sober Christians who expect no satisfactory answer in any of those particulars which are the proper effects and demonstrations of the Spirit in its extraordinary motions when indeed they observe in these pretenders so little of ordinary sound and saving knowledge so nothing of that meeknesse of wisdome which every true Christian in whom the Spirit of Christ dwels injoyes in some measure so utter desolation of any thing that may argue any thing extraordinary and excellent which may justly own the Spirit of Christ for its speciall Author and infuser But quite contrary grosse ignorance in many things yet puffed up with intolerable pride poysoned with errors kindled with passions sharpned with violence delighting in furies boasting in discords schisms and confusions either begun or increased or continued by the restlesse agitations of their fierce and unquiet spirits whose impetuous temper is impatient of nothing so much as true Christian patience of Peace Order and charitable harmony in any part of the Church of Christ There is nothing they can lesse endure Magi Augures nihil suis actibus successurum Iuliano affirmabant nisi Athanasium primo velut omnium obstaculum sustulisset Ruff. l. 1. c. 32. Hist Ecc. Gal. 1.7 than able learned godly and resolute Ministers in whom dwels indeed a far more excellent Spirit of God full of wisdome of power of courage full of Christ who can and dare detect the deceits and juglings of these vain mindes manifesting their folly discovering their nakednesse emptinesse and nothingnesse in respect of any extraordinary Illuminations or Inspirations of Gods holy Spirit in any way of Religion After all the cry and noise and glorying of these mens inspirings at the best all amounts to no more than the same Gospell the same Duties the same Sacraments the same Jesus the same God who was with far more knowledge purity peace love zeal and constancy owned served and honoured in this and other Churches in that ancient way and holy Ministry which the Church ever used which Christ instituted and with which God was so well pleased that he blessed it as the means to preach the Gospell to plant Religion to settle and govern the Church in first and after times amidst all the persecutions and heresies that opposed it This is the best of their Inspirings the setting of some new glosse and fashion on Christian Religion whose purity and simplicity like gold cares not be thus painted over But take these Inspired men in their degenerations depravings and worstings of Religion and you will easily see how such equivocall generations and imperfect mixtures and meer monsters of Religion presently putrifie and pervert to error faction licentiousnesse violence rapine civill oppressions tyrannies against all that applaud not or approve not the rarity of their conceits and inventions which first kindle with modest sparks Modestiora sunt errorum initia blandientia venena Lactant as if they would enlighten warm and refine the Church Religion and Ministry but after they have got to them vulgar fewell they arise to such dreadfull flames and conflagrations as threaten to consume all that was ever built before them that so the goodly Palaces of ancient and true Religion being demolished they may have a clearer ground where on to set up the feeble cottages of their new framing and erecting Poor men thus once * Omnes tument omnes scientiam pollicentur ante sunt perfecti quam eslocti Tertul. de Hae c. 41. puffed up with their tympanies of self conceptions and getting into some warmer Sun having once over-looked their first errors they never after have leisure patience or humility to discern the grosse yet secret distempers which are in their spirits * Not raptures and gifts but humility and charity give the greatest evidences and surest instances of Gods Spirit and of salvation the many distinctions and disguises and windings by which worldly lusts passions and interests slily creep in and concealedly worke in their hearts even then most securely and so most dangerously when under this blind of Gods Spirit when the Lord shall be intitled to the whole plot and project of their follies and furies both in its softer beginnings and its rougher proceedings Of these fallacies in point of speciall Inspirings and motions of Gods Spirit there are no surer detections than these 1. 9. Evidences of their folly That these so moved and active spirits do always finde lesse content and pleasure in have lesse zeal and contention for the great things of God which are Faith Righteousnesse Peace and Holinesse than they doe for their little novelties and fancies 2. They finde lesse comfort and joy in themselves to be kept within and humbly to walk in those holy bounds of religious Truth and Order which the Word of God hath clearly set before them and all holy Christians and the purest Churches alwayes observed than to be alwayes busily disputing for and acting over those petty parts of their scruples
these cheats in the pillory of publique infamy that they may loose their Ears that is their * Vt tandem male audiant qui male diâ—â—â—nt agunt hearing well that credit and fame of gifts which they cover and captate among the Vulgar and which they would enjoy by reason of their many wiles and artifices by which they ly in wait to deceive with good words and fair speeches as the Divels setting Dogs the well affected and plain hearted Christians Rom. 16.18 if they were not every where routed and confounded by the Ministers of the Church who are both far abler and honester men and to whose charge the flock of Christ in its severall divisions and places is committed that they may take care it suffer no detriment either in truth or in peace in faith or manners in Doctrine or in holy order Thus then although the soules and faith of the meanest true Christians be alike pretious and dear to God 2 Pet. 1.1 as the most learned men's yet they are not pieces of the same weight for gifts of the same extension for endowments of the same polishings for studies nor of the same stamp and authority for their calling and office All which as they are not to the essence of true grace and religion so they are much to the lustre power beauty order usefulnesse and communicativenesse of those gifts which goe with true Religion and are by the Lords munificence bestowed on the Church and faithfull for their well being safety and comfort even in this world besides their happinesse in another which ought to be the grand design of all true Christians both Laymen and Churchmen both learned and unlearned both Governours and governed But these Illiterato's further object with open mouth 11. Object Christ and his Apostles had no humane Learning That they are sure neither Christ nor his Apostles had themselves or commended to the Churches use humane learning Answ My answer is They needed none as humane that is acquired by ordinary education or industry being far above it by those glorious and miraculous endowmenâ—s of the Spirit of wisedome which can easily shine in a moment through the darkest lanterns men of the meanest parts and grossest capacities So that those might as well dispense with the absence of all acquired humane learning as he that hath the Suns light needs not the Moon or Stars or Candles or he that had Angels wings and swiftnesse would not want the legge of man or beast to carry him or he that is neer a living and inexhaustible spring needs not labour to dig wels as Isaac did and so must we too Gen. 26 1â— in the barren and dry land where we live which none but inhumane Philistims would stop up This therefore of Christ and his Apostles is not more peevishly than impertinently alledged by these men in these times against the use of good learning in the Churches Ministers unlesse the reall experiences of these men pretended Apostolicall gifts extraordinary endowments and immediate sufficiencies from the Spirit of God could justifie these allegations either as fitted to them as to the present dispensations of Christ to his Church Although the Lord sometime gave his Church water out of a rock and refreshed wearied Samson by a miraculous fountain which suddenly sprung up in Lehi not in the Jaw-bone but in the place so called from Lehi i.e. the Jaw-bone Iudg. 15.19 by which instrument he had obtained so great a victory there where it continnued afterward yet I beleeve these men will think it no argument to expect every day such wonderfull emanations and neglecting all ordinary means to expect from the Jaw-bones of Asses water or drink to quench their thirst I am sure this Church hath not yet found any such flowings forth or refreshing from the mouths of these Objecters whose lips never yet dropped like Hermon so much as a Dew of sweet and wholesome knowledge upon any place and how should they whose tongues are for the most part set on fire and breathe out with much terrour nothing but ashes and cinders like Vesuvius or Etna whose eruptions are vastatious to all neere them Col. 2.3 Matth. 12.42 Unus verus magnus est magister Christus qui selus non didicit quod omnes doceret Amb. off l. 1. Matth. 5 45. As for our blessed Lord Christ we know he was filled with all the treasures of wisedome both divine and humane for being greater than Solomon he could not come short of Solomons wisdome in any thing who was in all his glory but a Type and shadow of Christ and no way comparable to him Our Saviours design indeed was not as Platos or Aristotles to advance naturall Philosophy meer morality humane learning and eloquence the beams of which Sun by common providence God had already made to shine by other wayes on the bad as well as the good on the heathens as well as the Jews and Christians but Christs intent was Mal. 4. 1 Cor. 1.26 by word and deed to set forth the beams of the Sunne of righteousnesse the wisdome of the Father the saving mysteries of his Crosse and sufferings in order to mans improvement not by humane learning but by divine grace And however our Blessed Saviour hath crucified as it were the flesh and pride of humane learning as well as of riches honour and all worldly excellencies which are infinitely short of the knowledge and love of God in Christ yet he quickned and raised them all by the Spirit which teacheth a sanctified and gracious use of them all to his Church Luk. 2.48 and true beleevers Our Lord Jesus did not disdain to converse with the learned Doctors and Rabbies of his time among whom he was found after his parents had sought him sorrowing because in vain otherwhere yet our wanderers and seekers are loth to seek afraid to find and disdain to own Jesus Christ when they have found him among the learned men and Ministers of this Church lest in so doing they should seem to confesse they had lost Christ and true Religion 12. The objecters may not argue from the Apostles gifts against learning now since they have neither of them in their illiterate Conventicles and ignorant presumptions As for the blessed Apostles who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immediately taught of God by conversing with the Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ the Christian world well knowes their miraculous and extraordinary fulnesse of all gifts and powers of the Spirit both habituall and occasionall so that they wanted neither any language nor learning which was then necessary to carry on the great work of preaching and planting the Gospell And no lesse doth the wiser world know the emptinesse and ridiculous penury of these disputers against good learning even as to the common gifts of sober reason and judicious understanding wherewith the blessing of heaven is now wont to crown onely the prayers
the beams of his Spirit in the light of Truth as well as in the heat of Love how and where and to whom he will yea and oft doth reveale his secret and hidden things not to the wise and learned but to the babes and foolish Therefore a publique liberty at least and fair toleration ought to be granted to any men to opine to teach and accordingly to act as they are inwardly perswaded and moved And this without any such tyrannous restraints as commonly learned men and Scholars Ministers especially have sought themselves and taught Magistrates to lay upon both the judgement conscience and practise of people both in their first education and after profession studying to make all things in Religion or manners as bastards and illegitimate which have not their Certificate for their ligitimation whereas the Spirit of God ought not to be so strict laced stinted and restrained least of all curbed and constrained by any prohibitions or impositions on mens judgements and consciences which in matters of Religion are onely to be drawn with the cords of a man such as mens reasons or Scriptures or the Spirits perswasion may afford to every ones capacity and not to tye them up by any Creeds Articles Catechismes or Injunctions of Religion much lesse by penall and coercive Statutas which like Persian sheep carry tailes of injurious mulcts and penalties after them that are heavier then their bodies Answ Answ Of Christian Liberty Nil tam voluntarium quam religio cogi non potest longâ— diversa sunt carnificina est charitas nec potest veritas cum vi aut justitia cum crudelitate conjungi Defendenda est religio non occidenda sed monendo non savitia sed sapientia non scelere sed fide Si animus a versus sit jam sublata est jam nulla religio Lactant. li. Just 5. c. 20. Religionis non est cogere religionem quae spâ—nte suscipi debet non vi Tertul. l. ad Scap. So Constâ—â—tine the Great would have no man compeld but perswaded to Religion Aliâ—d est certamen pro religione sponte suscipere aliud supplicii metu cogi Euseb Eccl. l. 10. cap. 5. There is no Jewell which Swine delight more to weare in their Snouts than this of Liberty which how well it becomes such sordid and indocible cattel those excellent Christians can best judge who are worthy to enjoy so pretious a token of Christs love to his Church as knowing best how to value it and use it I know well that true Christian Religion ought not to be made a snare or an harrow or a rack or an heavy yoak or an Egyptian bondage to mens mindes and Consciences this were to turn the sweetest vine into a sharp bramble and the figtree into a thorn Nor is there any thing which Christians should be more tender of as the * 1. Concil Eph. cap. ◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephesme Fathers most piously admonish than their own and others true liberties which Christ hath purchased with his pretious bloud of which both Christian Magistrates and chiefly Ministers should be most exact keepers and conscientious defenders lest piety prove an oppression and the bracelets or ornaments of Religion become the chains of hypocrisie and manacles of superstition binding such heavy burthens on mens consciences which God hath not imposed wherein the severer heights and tyrannies of men are prone to usurp upon the ingenuous kingdome and gracious dominion of Christ where none is a subject but he that enjoyes that free Spirit which David prayes to be established with Psal 51.12 and none is free but he that willingly takes up Christs yoak and burthen Matth. 11.30 which are light and easie but yet not loose or slack For Jesus Christ having redeemed us from the greatest slavery and spirituall bondage hath indeed invested his Church with the noblest immunities and governs it by the divinest liberties which drawing is by the cords of Gods love to us set forth in his Word and binding us with love to God and for his sake to one another by so much includes all true liberty Libera est apud Deum servitus cum non necessitas sed charitas servit Aust Quo sanctior quisque eo solutior Gibe Beata servitus quae dominatienem generat sempiternam Chrys l. 114. as it wholly consists of love whose very life and essence is liberty It being impossible to command consent or to compell love which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most absolute Soveraigne of it selfe and under no Empire but that of God who is love and perfect liberty And our Liberty is then truly Christian and divine which onely is desirable because onely true when it is such as Christ hath purchased for and God hath revealed to his Church in his Word with which men must seriously advise and not with their own wanton and extravagant fancies if they would bee informed what that liberty is which onely becomes true Christians who of all men have the least sinfull licentiousnesse indulged to them I finde there are no people more vehement boasters of and sticklers for this which they call Christian liberty than those who least understand it Tertuâ—lian tels of the Gnosticks promiscuous lusts in their Agapae Extincta lucerna in promiscuos amplexus taunt Hinc in Christianos ista infamia Scorpia fo Clem. Alex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. So S. Austin of the Gnosticks Manichees and others who held nisi iniquissima quaque operenâ—ur Diaboli vimse non posse effagere Hanc esse redemptionem hanc vitam sine tremore So Irenaeus of the Carpâ—eratians and others that held nothing morally good or evill all actions lawfull onely they must beleive in Christ Sela humana opinione negotia mala bona esse dicunt Lib. 1. c. 24. most abuse it themselves and are most impatient to allow it to others if once they get such power as makes them able to oppresse none are more insolent or lesse tolerating those things even in Religion to others for which they plead more of conscience both as to Gods and mans Laws than these objectors themselves can doe Nor can any the most modest plea for Christian liberty be heard by those who were formerly so lowdly clamorous for the name when indeed they did not either intend or rightly understand what the thing is It will be then a work of Charity and an effect of that love which I owe to these men for Christs sake in whom alone our liberties are sounded and conserved to free them from that captivity of errors and bondage of extravagant passions wherewith they are oppressed and abused even in this great point of Christian Liberty Then which as there is nothing which sinfull men could lesse deserve so nor is there any thing they can naturally lesse rightly use or more grossely mistake and abuse There is no Jewell with which Christ hath endowed his Spouse the Church and every true beleever for
enemies as a matter of pomp and scandall that he rode in the City upon an Asse to ease his age It will be lesse offence when the world shall see holy Bishops and deserving Presbyters go on foot Psal 45.16 Eccles 10.7 and asses riding upon them Princes which Saint Jerome interprets Bishops on foot and servants on horseback Though we be never so low let us doe nothing below the dignity of our Ministry which depends not on externall pomp but inward power the same faith which shewes to a true beleiver the honour and excellency of Christ sets forth also the love and reverence due to his true Ministers of the Gospell who are in Christs stead when they are in Christs work and way and need not doubt of Christs and all good Christians love to them An high point of wisdome For Verity and piety would be in all true Ministers of what degree soever * As Constantine the Great burned all the bils of complaints exhibited by the Bishops and Churchmen one against another Euseb vit Const Privatae simultates publicis utilitatibus condonandae Tac. would be to take the advantage of this Antiperistasis by the snow and salt as it were of papall and popular ambition they should be the more congealed and compacted together into one body and fraternity Having so many unjust enemies on every side against every true Minister of this Church whether Bishop or Presbyter all prudence invites us to compose those unkinde jealousies breaches and disputes which have been among us because we own our selves as brethren among whom some may be elder in nature or superior in authority without the injury of any This subordination if Scripture doe not precisely command yet it exemplarily proposeth Reason adviseth and Religion alloweth and certainly Christ cannot but approve the more because the pride of Papall Antichrists on one side and the unrulinesse of popular Antichrists on the other side studies to overthrow it and are the most impatient of it I know some mens folly will not depart from them though they be brayed in a morter But sober men will think it time to bury as * Salvae fidei Regula de disciplina contendentibus suprema lex est Ecclesiae paex Blondel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 14. Vincamur ut vincamus de dissid Christianorum Constantine the Great burned all unkinde disputes breaches and jealousies which have almost destroyed not onely the Government but the very Ministry it self of this Church No doubt passions have darkened many of our judgements earthly distempers have eclipsed our glory secular and carnall divisions have battered our defenses discovered our weaknesses and invited these violent assaults from enemies round about that none is so weak as to despaire of his malices sufficiency to doe us Clergy men some mischief the most tatling Gossips the sillyest shee s who are ever learning and never come to the knowledge of the truth undertake * Clemens in his Apostolike Epistle advised any one to depart if he findes for his sake the dissension is in the Church Ruffin Eccles hist l. 1. c. 2. Discordiae in unitatem trahant plagae in remedia vertantur unde metuit Ecclesia periculum inde sumat augmentum Amb. voc gen l. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Ipsae mulieres eorum quam procaces quae endeant docere contendere for fitan tinguere Tertul. praef ad Haer. cap. 41. not only to be teachers but to teach their teachers as Tertullian observed yea and to Ordain their Ministers such no doubt as they do deserve having such Preachers for their greatest punishments The kinde closing and Christian composing of passionate and needlesse differences among learned and pious Ministers by mutuall condescending about matters of sociall prudence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 13. order and government to be used in the Church which have chiefly if not onely brought so great misgovernment upon us in Enggland would be a great and effectuall means to recover the happinesse of this Church and the honour of the Ministry which consists in an holy fraternity and godly harmony of love no lesse than in truth of doctrine and holynesse of manners By our own leaks and rents we first let in these waters which have sunk us so low that every wave rakes over us No man that is truly humble wise and holy will be ashamed to retract any errour and transport whereof he hath been guilty and of which he hath cause to be most ashamed Greg. Nazianzem offered himself to be the Jonas to the Church then troubled with sedition in vita Naz. Ingenuous offers of fraternall agreement and mutuall condescendings to each other had beene exceedingly worthy of the best Ministers both of the Episcopall Presbyterian and Independent way whose wisdome and humility might easily have reconciled and united the severall interests which they pretend to support of Bishops Presbyters and Christian people But who sees not that secular designes and civill interests have too much leavened the dissensions of many Ministers though in the conclusion they have not on any side much made up their cake by the match while Church men Bishops and Presbyters had no such worldly concernments to engage them they had no such disputes and mutinies as to the order and government of the Church which no Councell no particular Bishops nor Presbyters no one Church or Congregation of Christians began of themselves but all by Catholick and undisputed consent conformed themselves to that order Irenaeus l. 4. c. 43. c. 45. which the Apostles and Apostolicall men left in common to the Churches in every place most sutable to their either beginning or increasing to their setling or their setlednesse It is easie to see what Christ would have in the Church as to extern order and policy if Christians would look with a single eye at Christs ends You may easily see how the worlds various interests which are as hardly commixt with Christ's and true religion's as oil with water serve themselves with Ministers tongues pens and active spirits who should rather serve the Lord Jesus and his Church in truth simplicity peace and unity without any adherences to secular policies parties and studies of sides by which sudden and inconsiderate rowlings to and fro as foolish and fearefull passengers in a tottering boat some Ministers of England have welnigh overturned the Vessell of this reformed Christian Church which might easily as the most famous and flourishing Churches anciently were have been uprightly ballanced and safely steered by a just fitnesse and proportion of every one in their place either for Ministry or Government and Discipline where of old the paternall presidency of Bishops stood at the helm the grave and industrious Presbyters rowed as it were at the Oares and the faithfull people as the passengers kept all even by keeping themselves in quietnesse order and due subjection Nor was
merited of him by suffering on the Cross and enduring the shame for his Churches salvation yet he left not his Disciples comfortless but as he promised sent his Spirit publickly and eminently upon the Twelve principal Apostles Acts 2. John 20.21 whom he had formerly chosen and appointed in his and his Fathers Name to Preach the Gospel to whom he gave the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven as to the Stewards and chief Deputies or Ministers of his houshold in his absence instructing them what to do on what foundation of faith in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Authority i. e. Legitima potentia Matth. 28.18 19 20. Mark 16.15 to build his Church by what Sacramental seals to confirm believers giving them full power and commission to go into all the world by Teaching and Baptising to make Disciples confirming this power to them by breathing on them and conferring farther Ministerial gifts of the Spirit upon them promising also to be with them to the end of the world which could not be meant of their persons who soon died but of their successors in that Office and Ministry that the same power authority and assistance should be with them in that holy way to which he thus ordeined and sent them by a divine charter and durable commission After all this for further publication of this great Authority and Ministerial power given to the Apostles and their Successors and for the confirmation of it both to their own consciences John 14.17 Acts 2. and to all the world the holy Spirit as was promised came upon them in the shape of fiery cloven tongues filling them with miraculous gifts and all Ministerial power both extraordinary in their persons and ordinary derivable to their Successors such as the wisdom of Christ thought most fit both for the first planting of the Church with miraculous gifts attending the Ministry of the Gospel and the after propagating of it by the same Ministry confirmed by the constancy of the Martyrs and Confessors which were in stead of daily miracles This whole frame polity and divine constitution of the order power and Ministry that should succeed Christ Jesus in his Church was no other than the proper effects of Christs prophetick power and wisdom for the instructing his Church an act or ordinance of his Kingly power for the governing of it and a fruit of his Priestly power and care for a right Liturgy or officiating to be continued in his Church thus furnishing it with an holy Succession of Evangelical Priests and Ministers in his name and authority who might always teach guide and govern also supplicate for consecrate and offer holy things with the faithful and for them namely the sacrifices of prayers thanksgiving and praises especially Heb. 9.14 10.12 that Eucharistical memorial of that one great oblation of himself once made on the Altar of the Cross for the Redemption of the World which is the great accomplishment of the Jewish Prophecies the abolishing of their Types and Ceremonies the main foundation of the Christians Religion and the chief subject of that Evangelical Ministry which Jesus Christ himself hath thus evidently instituted and sealed in his Church For whose sake he hath given those Ministerial gifts with a distinct power and authority making some not all either Apostles or Prophets or Evangelists or Pastors and Teachers Eph. 4.11 12. 1 Cor. 12.4 5 21 28. For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ c. And this by as manifest a distinction both for gifts and place and use as is in the parts of the body between the eyes and the hands the head and the feet Vers 29. So that all are not Apostles nor Prophets nor Teachers that are Believers and Members of the Body of Christ his Church no more than every part is an eye in the natural body however it partake of the same Soul as Believers do of the same Spirit 1 Cor. 12.6 7. yet in different manifestations of which difference of gifts and office those onely are to judge whom the Spirit of Christ hath enabled with gifts and indued successively in the Church with power from Christ to judge of them and accordingly to invest them 1 Cor. 14.32 The spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Propheâ—â— V. 33. For God is not the Author of confusion c. by solemn and holy ordination into the orderly power of exercising those gifts which they are judged to have received from the Spirit of Christ for the good of the Church both for Instruction and for Government of it Without which divinely-constituted Order and Office of Ministry began in Christ by him derived to the Apostles and by them and their successors constantly and duly observed to these days the Church of Christ had long ere this been a monster made up of confused excrescencies a very heap and huddle of Ignorance Heresies Schisms all maner of erroneous blindness and extravagant madness like those mishapen prodigies which we may often see among those who having cast off the lawful succession the sacred and antient order of the Ministry do in their varieties exceed even the mixtures and productions of Africa After Christs Ascension 5. The Apostles ordain and command other to ordain Ministers we have no less evidence of Scripture for the undoubted practise of the blessed Apostles when they had by a divine lot first filled up that place and part of the Ministry from which Judas had faln Acts 1.25 For having received power Ministerial immediately from Christ they did duly conscientiously orderly and effectually fulfil their own Ministry and also took care to ordain others that might do so too both in their times and after them distributing their own labors into several Countreys and to several sorts of people Gal. 2.7 some to the Circumcision of the Jews others to those of the uncircumcised Gentiles Among whom they exercised their Office and Ministry 1 Coâ— 5.20 As Aâ—â—â—â—sadors â—oâ— Christ as though God did be eech you by us we pray y u in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God 1 Cor. 3.9 2 Cor. 11.2 Esth 7.8 Eph. 4.11 Acts 14.23 And when they had ordained them Presbyters in every Church in Lystra Iconium Antioch c. Acts 20.28 Take heed to your selves and to all the flock over which the holy Ghost hath made you Bishops or overseers to feed the Church of God c. Pauls speech to the Presbyters of the Church of Ephesus V. 17. 1 Tim. 3. 5.22 Lay hands i. e. by way of ordination to the Ministry 2 Tim. 2.2 The things thou hast heard of me commit thou the same to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also Tit. 1.5 I left thee in Creet that thou shouldst ordain Elders in every City as I had appointed thee Non tam solicitus de cura Timothei sed propter successores ejus ut