instruments of this great worke Hereupon they framed unto themselves an assured hope that upon their preaching out of a pease-cart all the multitude would have presently joyned unto them and in amazement of mind have asked them Viri fratres quid agimus whereunto it is likely they would have returned an answer farre unlike to that of S. Peter such and such are men unworthy to govern pluck them down such and such are the deare children of God let them be advanced Of two of these men it is meet to speake with all commiseration yet so that others by their example may receive instruction and withall some light may appeare what stirring affections the Discipline is like to inspire if it light upon apt and prepared minds Now if any man doubt of what society they were or if the reformers disclaime them pretending that by them they were condemned let these points be considered 1. Whose associats were they before their entring into this frantick passion Whose Sermons did they frequent Whom did they admire 2. Even when they were entring into it Whose advise did they require and when they were in whose approbation Whom advertised they of their purpose Whose assistance by prayers did they request But wee deale injuriously with them to lay this to their charge for they reproved and condemned it How did they disclose it to the Magistrate that it might be suppressed or were they rather content to stand aloofe and see the end of it and loath to quench the spirit No doubt these mad practitioners were of their society with whom before and in the practise of their madnesse they had most affinity Hereof read Doct. Bancrofts book A third inducement may be to dislike of the Discipline if we consider not only how farre the reformers themselves have proceeded but what others upon their foundations have built Here come the Brownists in the first ranke their lineall descendants who have seised upon a number of strange opinions whereof although their Ancestors the reformers were never actually possessed yet by right and interest from them derived the Brownists and Barrowists hath taken possession of them For if the positions of the Reformers be true I cannot see how the maine and generall conclusions of Brownisme should be false For upon these two points as J conceive they stand 1. That because we have no Church they are to sever themselves from us 2. That without Civill authority they are to erect a Church of their owne And if the former of these be true the latter I suppose will follow For if above all things men be to regard their salvation and if out of the Church there be no salvation it followeth that if we have no Church we have no meanes of salvation and therefore separation from us in that respect both lawfull and necessary as also that men so separated from the false and counterfeit Church are to associate themselves unto some Church not to ours to the Popish much lesse therefore to one of their owne making Now the ground of all these inferences being this that in our Church there is no means of salvation is out of the Reformers Principles most clearely to be proved For wheresoever any matter of faith unto salvation necessary is denied there can be no meanes of salvation but in the Church of England the Discipline by them accounted a matter of Faith and necessary to salvation is not only denied but impugned and the professors thereof opprest Ergo Againe but this reason perhaps is weak Every true Church of Christ acknowledgeth the whole Gospell of Christ the discipline in their opinion is a part of the Gospell and yet by our Church resisted Ergo Againe The Discipline is essentially united to the Church by which terme essentially they must meane either an essentiall part or an essentiall property Both which waies it must needs be that where that essentiall Discipline is not neither is there any Church If therefore between them and the Brownists there should be appointed a solemne Disputation whereof with us they have been oftentimes so earnest Challengers it doth not yet appeare what other answer they could possibly frame to these and the like Arguments wherewith they might be pressed but fairely to deny the conclusion for all the premises are their own or rather ingeniously to reverse their own principles before laid whereon so foule absurdities have been so firmely built What further proofes you can bring out of their high words magnifying the Discipline I leave to your better remembrance but above all points I am desirous this one should be strongly inforced against them because it wringeth them most of all and is of all others for ought I see the most unanswerable You may notwithstanding say that you would be heartily glad these their positions might so be salved as the Brownists might not appeare to have issued out of their loines but untill that be done they must give us leave to thinke that they have cast the seed whereout these tares are growen Another sort of men there is which have been content to run on with the reformers for a time and to make them poore Instruments of their owne designes These are a sort of godlesse politicks who perceiving the plot of Discipline to consist of these two parts the overthrow of Episcopall and erection of Presbitriall Authority and that this later can take no place till the former be removed are content to joyn with them in the distructive part of Discipline bearing them in hand that in the other also they shall find them as ready But when time shall come it may be they would be as loath to be yoaked with that kind of regiment as now they are willing to be released from this These mens ends in all their actions is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} their pretence and colour Reformation Those things which under this colour they have effected to their own good are 1 by maintaining a contrary faction they have kept the Clergy alwaies in awe and thereby made them more pliable and willing to buy their peace 2. By maintaining an opinion of equality among Ministers they have made way to their own purposes for devouring Cathedrall Churches and Bps Livings 3. By exclaiming against abuses in the Church they have carried their own corrupt dealings in the civill state more covertly For such is the nature of the multitude they are not able to apprehend many things at once so as being possessed with dislike or liking of any one thing many other in the meane time may escape them without being perceived 4. They have sought to disgrace the Clergy in entertaining a conceit in mens minds and confirming it by continuall practise that men of learning and specially of the Clergy which are imployed in the chiefest kind of learning are not to be admitted or spareingly admitted to matters of State contrary to the practise of all well governed Common-wealths and of our own till these late yeares A
Iudges incompetent insufficient both to determine any thing amisse for want of skil and authority to amend it Which also discovereth their intent and purpose to be rather destructive than corrective Thirdly those very exceptions which they take are frivolous and impertinent Some things indeed they accuse as impious which if they may appeare to bee such God forbid they shoud be maintained Against the rest it is only alleadged that they are idle Ceremonies without use and that better and more profitable might be devised Wherein they are doubly deceived for neither is it a sufficient plea to say This must give place because a better may be devised and in our judgements of better and worse we oftentimes conceive amisse when we compare those things which are in devise with those which are in practise for the imperfections of the one are hid till by time and triall they be discovered the others are already manifest and open to all But last of all which is a point in my opinion of great regard and which I am desirous to have enlarged they doe not see that for the most part when they strike at the state Ecclesiasticall they secretly wound the Civill State For personall faults what can be said against the Church which may not also agree to the Common-wealth In both States men have alwaies been and will be alwaies men sometimes blinded with errour most commonly perverted by passions many unworthy have been and are advanced in both many worthy not regarded As for abuses which they pretend to be in the Lawes themselves when they inveigh against Non-residence doe they take it a matter lawfull or expedient in the Civill-state for a man to have a great and gainfull office in the North himselfe continually remaining in the South Hee that hath an office let him attend his office When they condemne plurality of livings spirituall to the pit of hell what think they of infinite of temporall promotions By the great Philosopher Pol. lib. 2. cap. 9. it is forbidden as a thing most dangerous to Commonwealths that by the same man many great offices should be exercised When they deride our Ceremonies as vaine and frivolous were it hard to apply their exceptions even to those civill ceremonies which at the Coronation in Parliament and all Courts of Iustice are used Were it hard to argue even against Circumcision the ordinance of God as being a cruell ceremony against the Passeover as being ridiculous shod girt a staffe in their hand to eat a lambe To conclude you may exhort the Clergy or what if you direct your Conclusion not to the Clergy in generall but only to the learned in or of both Universities you may exhort them to a due consideration of all things and to a right esteeme and valuing of each thing in that degree wherein it ought to stand for it oftentimes falleth out what men have either devised themselves or greatly delighted in the price and excellency thereof they doe admire above desert The chiefest labour of a Christian should be to know of a Minister to preach Christ crucified in regard whereof not only worldly things but even things otherwise precious even the Discipline it selfe is vile and base where as now by the heat of contention and violence of affection the zeale of men towards the one hath greatly decayed their love to the other Hereunto therefore they are to be exhorted to Preach Christ crucified the mortification of the flesh the renewing of the spirit not those things which in time of strife seeme precious but passions being allayed are vaine and childish FINIS
third sort of men there is though not descended from the reformers yet in part raised and greatly strengthened by them namely the cursed crew of Atheists This also is one of those points which J am desirous you should handle most effectually and straine your selfe therein to all points of motion and affection as in that of the Brownists to all strength and sinewes of reason This is a sort most damnable and yet by the generall suspition of the world at this day most common The causes of it which are in the parties themselves although you handle in the beginning of the fift booke yet here againe they may be touched but the occasions of helpe and furtherance which by the reformers have been yeilded unto them are as I conceive two sencelesse preaching and disgracing of the Ministry for how should not men dare to impugne that which neither by force of reason nor by authority of persons is maintained But in the parties themselves these two causes I conceive of Atheisme 1. More abundance of Wit than judgement and of Witty than Iudicious learning whereby they are more inclined to contradict any thing than willing to be informed of the truth They are not therefore men of sound learning for the most part but smatterers neither is their kind of Dispute so much by force of argument as by scoffing Which humour of scoffing and turning matters most serious into merriment is now become so common as we are not to marvaile what the Prophet meanes by the seat of scorners nor what the Apostels by fore-telling of scorners to come our own age hath verified their speech unto us Which also may be an Argument against these scoffers and Atheists themselves seeing it hath been so many ages agoe foretold that such men the later daies of the world should afford which could not be done by any other spirit save that whereunto things future and present are alike And even for the maine question of the Resurrection whereat they stick so mightily was it not plainly fore-told that men should in the later times say Where is the promise of his coming Against the Creation the Arke and divers other points exceptions are said to be taken the ground whereof is superfluity of wit without ground of learning and judgement A second cause of Atheisme is sensuality which maketh men desirous to remove all stops and impediments of their wicked life among which because Religion is the chiefest so as neither in this life without shame they can persist therein nor if that be true without torment in the life to come they whet their wits to annihilate the joyes of Heaven wherein they see if any such be they can have no part and likewise the pains of hell wherein their portion must needs be very great They labour therefore not that they may not deserve those pains but that deserving them there may be no such pains to seize upon them But what conceit can be imagined more base then that man should strive to perswade himselfe even against the secret instinct no doubt of his own mind that his soule is as the soule of a beast mortall and corruptible with the body Against which barbarous opinion their own Atheisme is a very strong argument For were not the soule a nature separable from the body how could it enter into discourse of things meerely spirituall and nothing at all pertaining to the body Surely the soule were not able to conceive any thing of heaven no not so much as to dispute against heaven and against God if there were not in it somewhat heavenly and derived from God The last which have received strength encouragement from the reformers are Papists against whom although they are most bitter enemies yet unwittingly they have given them great advantage For what can any enemy rather desire then the breach and dissention of those which are Confederates against him wherein they are to remember that if our Communion with Papists in some few Ceremonies doe so much strengthen them as is pretended how much more doth this division and rent among our selves especially seeing it is maintained to be not in light matters only but even in matter of faith and salvation Which over-reaching speech of theirs because it is so open to advantage both for the Barrowist and the Papist we are to wish and hope for that they will acknowledge it to have been spoken rather in heat of Affection then with soundnesse of judgement and that through their exceeding love to that creature of Discipline which themselves have bred nourished and maintained their mouth in commendation of her did somewhat overflow From hence you may proceed but the means of connextion I leave to your selfe to another discourse which I think very meet to be handled either here or elsewhere at large the parts whereof may be these 1. That in this cause between them and us men are to sever the proper and essentiall points and controversy from those which are accidentall The most essentiall and proper are these two overthrow of Episcopall erection of Presbyteriall authority But in these two points whosoever joyneth with them is accompted of their number whosoever in all other points agreeth with them yet thinketh the authority of Bishops not unlawfull and of Elders not necessary may justly be severed from their retinew Those things therefore which either in the persons or in the Lawes and orders themselves are faulty may be complained on acknowledged and amended yet they no whit the neere their maine purpose For what if all errors by them supposed in our Liturgy were amended even according to their own hearts desire if Non-residence Pluralities and the like were utterly taken away are their Lay-elders therefore presently authorized their Soveraigne Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction established But even in their complaining against the outward and accidentall matters in Church-government they are many waies faulty 1. In their end which they propose to themselves For in declaiming against abuses their meaning is not to have them redressed but by disgracing the present state to make way for their own Discipline As therefore in Venice if any Senator should discourse against the power of their Senate as being either too Soveraigne or too weake in government with purpose to draw their authority to a moderation it might well be suffered but not so if it should appeare he spake with purpose to induce another State by depraving the present so in all causes belonging either to Church or Common-wealth wee are to have regard what mind the complaining part doth beare whether of amendment or of innovation and accordingly either to suffer or suppresse it Their objection therefore is frivolous Why may not men speake against abuses Yes but with desire to cure the part affected not to destroy the whole 2. A second fault is in their manner of complaining not only because it is for the most part in bitter and reproachfull termes but also because it is unto the common people