Spiritus is not said in vain at this great Solemnity nor can we possibly overlook that visible instance of his peculiar Presence in the Consecration of this day For though we live in an Age wherein not only the work of the Ministry is become the derision of Fools but even wise Men pretend to discern the dreadful symptoms of a departing Candlestick and a tottering Church yet it hath pleased him who perfecteth strength in weakness and is nearest at hand in the greatest exigents to raise up the Sons of Nobles to become the Princes of his People to stop the Mouths of the one and to refute the Prognosticks of the other He places over us in the same persons both a glory and a defence by the one to take off scandal by the other to strengthen the Church Blessed therefore be the Name of our great God in whose Hand are the Hearts of Kings that hath stirred up the heart of Ours to make this closer connexion between the Civil and Ecclesiastical interests and in the same choice effectually to provide for the perpetuity of the Church and for the establishment of his Throne We have thus seen that God has not failed hitherto to make good his promise to his Church that the Comforter shall abide with it for ever But since these instances have not proved so successful as to silence the Contradiction of foolish and unreasonable men I shall briefly consider some of the most plausible pretences that are made use of to shake the stability of the Church and turn the Holy Ghost out of his Office First then the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops and therefore not the Civil Magistrate It is an objection of the Romanists against the English Reformation that the power of Order hath ceased in our Church ever since the departure from the Church of Rome as being now utterly dissolved into the Kings deputation of Commissioners for the Administration of Ecclesiastical Affairs And though the scandal be abundantly refuted by the sacred Rites and Solemnities of this day yet we have had those among our selves who in stead of denying the charge as they justly might have pretended to justifie the Church by owning the accusation For we are told by the Disputers of this World that the Church is nothing else but a Christian Common-wealth and that all pretence of Divine authority and obligation upon Conscience abstracted from the power of the Sword is a meer Imposture and destructive to the State Thus by the old Stratagem of the Enemy of Man-kind is the Church as was once its Author traduced as an enemy to Caesar Though I hope the Case may be so plainly stated between both as to vindicate the Rights of the one without incurring the Jealousie of the other The contrary assertion to what we have laid down can be maintained only upon one of these three Grounds First that there was no right for Christians to associate together for the Worship of God according to the profession of Christianity antecedent to the Command or Allowance of the Civil power Or Secondly supposing a Society of Christians that there was no right of Rule or Government vested in the Officers and Pastors of it Or thirdly supposing a Church power that it escheated to the supream Magistrate when the Church became incorporate into the Civil state The first of these though perhaps the ultimate resolution of the other two resolves it self into Blasphemies beyond the confutation of the Pulpit We must thence pronounce all the Conventions of Christians even those assemblings of themselves together which the Apostle commands his Hebrews not to forsake to be so many unlawful Conventicles and not exempt the first Council at Jerusalem from the accusation which we are sure was managed by the presiding of the Holy Ghost We must affix the blackest note of Infamy upon the Apostles and the Primitive Christians and ascribe a right to the Heathen Magistrates which shall justify the persecution of Christianity We must arraign the Noble Army of Martyrs whose Heroical Courage we hitherto solemnize of foul self-Murther as well as folly in being prodigal of their Blood to no purpose running upon the Sword without a warrant and laying down their lives in the defence of a proposition when they had no obligation to profess it and so execute their Names and Memories as the Heathen did their persons by owning that they suffered deservedly But surely if we have not forfeited our Faith as well as our Charity we may conclude they had hard measure enough at their Persecutors tribunals and therefore may be dismist from ours The second pretence is somewhat more plausible That there is such a Society as a Church and Officers placed in it but such whose only business it is to teach and to declare the will of God without any rule or authority committed to them over those who shal1 receive it Against which we might reason with the Learned Grotius upon Luke 6.22 that there is no necessity of assigning a positive and express Precept in Holy Scripture for granting the Society of the Church established by God all those things are virtually commanded in it which are absolutely necessary to preserve it in its purity and its being Such is the power of Discipline and Government as is evident from the common notion of Societies in general and the peculiar nature of this But not contenting our selves toargue merely from natural Reason in a positive Institution of this kind as transcends the sublimest disquisitions and closest deductions of it if we consult the pattern in the Mount or the settlement of the Church in the New Testament which contains the Covenant of Grace whereupon it is founded we shall find in the Church as in the Ark which was the Type of it the rod of Aaron as well as the Tables of the Law and discover in it the manifest traces of a paternal and imperative though no coercive Jurisdiction We shall there find the Enacting of Laws as in the first Council at Jerusalem a promulgation of the Decrees that were made by the Apostle and Elders which was done by Paul and Barnabas through the Cities Acts 16.4 a Judiciary process against offenders I. Tim. 5.19 a punishment of the guilty as appears in the incestuous Corinthian and in the same instance the absolution of the Penitent and relaxation of the Censure We shall find there the persons with whom the management of these great affairs was intrusted dignified and distinguished by the Titles of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all which import Rule and Authority whereto they were solemnly Sanctified and set apart by a visible and Sacred Rite of Imposition of hands All which if they are duly and impartially considered will sufficiently evidence that these things were something more than Pageantry and Show that there was a Government in the World subsisting upon a different claim from that of the Roman Empire that Christ sent forth his Apostles not only as Sheep among Wolves but
as Pastors among Sheep and that he had a Kingdom though not of this World Thirdly therefore that this Spiritual Authority was dissolved and melted down into the Civil when the World came into the Church and the Empire became Christian must be made out one of these three wayes either from the original right of the Empire the revelation of God or the reason of the thing The right of the Empire stands upon this basis that the Power of the Church depended upon the confederation and consent of Christians which the Supream Magistrate may at his pleasure draw back and resume into himself But first against this pretended agreement of the Primitive Christians we may argue from all those instances of the agency of the Holy Ghost in constituting Church Officers which we have mentioned already All which bear evident Testimony to a positive Institution and a Divine Authority But secondly supposing it for the present I demand Whether the Primitive Christians had a right to enter into those confederacies antecedent to the command or allowance of the Empire or no If not we are brought back again to the Apostate Principles of the Leviathan And though I should grant Mr. Selden that Christians after the death of our Lord had the allowance of the State by that Act of the Empire which tolerated the Jews Yet to say that the Society was legally dissolved when they came more narrowly to be enquired into is to take off the Glory of Martyrdom from those who notwithstanding the Edicts of the Empire kept on the Assemblies of the Church and the brand of Apostacy from others who pleaded for themselves that they had left them If it be said that the Society of the Church had this right of mutual Confederation the case is just where it was For whether the Governours of the Church subsist immediately by Divine Right or no yet if the Church as a Society for the better maintaining of Christianity by Divine Right be enabled to appoint them obedience is justly due to them in the Affairs of Christianity independent upon the Powers of this World And surely water will rise no higher than the place from whence it descended nor can the Empire ever come to challenge the Rights of the Church which were antecedent to any Act of it unless it have pleased the Great Soveraign of both to declare his Pleasure for transferring them For if the Church be a Society immediately constituted by God then can it not be dissolved in time but by the same Power which established it at the beginning But where is there to be found in Scripture any shadow of an Ordinance for this Temporary condition of the Church Surely all things there seem to run in another strain If Timothy be instructed by St. Pauls how to behave himself in the Church of God he is forthwith charged to keep the Commandment unblameable untill the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ If the Angel of Thyatira be reprehended for the remiss exercise of his Authority he has likewise a command from our Saviour to hold it fast and maintain it 'till his coming Christ did not appoint Pastors in his Church only 'till the time of Constantine but 'till we all come in the unity of Faith and the Knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man Which woful experience will assure us was not effected in Constantine's dayes nor will it ever be 'till the consummation of all things The darkness which over-spreads our understandings can never be dispelled but by the Light of Glory nor can our hearts be entirely reunited but by that Charity which never fails There remains therefore only the last way of arguing and that is from the reason of the thing For thus it is pleaded that unless both Powers reside intirely in the same Persons they must both expect the same Fate which attends a Kingdom divided against it self by reason of daily and vexatious contentions between the Church and Common-wealth the Sword of Justice and the Shield of Faith and which is more than this in the breast of every Christian between the Christian and the Man Thus what we deny to Nature shall be effected by Grace the Gospel of Peace shall retrieve a State of War and this pretended Order and Government become but another name for Confusion And though I have before barred this Method of Reasoning by supposing Christianity to be a positive Constitution of Divine Grace albeit Religion in general be a moral Virtue yet because the Charge is of so high a Nature as if the Churches claim of Power from God rendred it uncapable of the Protection of his Vice-gerent and Christs coming to fit Inhabitants for another World were a means to dis-people this I am obliged for the removal of suspition to propose these following considerations First therefore though other Religions may be justly presumed prejudicial to the publick Peace in as much as the Devil who is the Inventor of them is withal the Author of Confusion in the Government of the World yet such is the peculiar genius of Christianity that where-event is either Preached or Received it can create no Jealousie in in the State The ground upon which this Assertion stands is this that it disclaims all title to the Sword but leave him that takes it to perish with it though it be drawn in the defence of Christ himself Surely he that had legions of Angels at his command in stead of sending forth Apostles to Convert men to the Faith might have Commissioned Generals to destroy the Unbelievers But this in the esteem of Infinite Wisdom was judged more Military than Religious and the way of Propagating his Gospel had been inconsistent with the design of it This therefore being supposed that Christianity leaves the power of the Sword in those hands in which it finds it how can it possibly make any alteration as to any Temporal Condition vhich is professedly maintained by it And therefore that great bugbear of Imperium in Imperio need not be so terrible as men would make it as long as their Objects Ends and Offices stand as really distinguished as their Obligations And these were the Thoughts that Christians had of their Religion as long as Christianity was understood In the Church then as of old in Israel there was no Smith to provide Swords and Spears though against their persecuting Philistins And though this intire renunciation of all claim to any thing wherein the Civil Power was concerned proved unable to protect them either from Slander or Persecution yet that which exited the rage and fury of their Enemies was rather an averseness to the Christians Doctrine than any jealous concern for their own safety It being abundantly evinced by the ancient Apologies of the Church Writers against the Gentiles that though they did not believe the Christian Faith they could not in Civil justice persecute a Christian No their Lives then were a Transcript of their Doctrin and their Obedience was
look'd upon as a tryal of their Faith To obey Authority was taught and practised under a Nero and their Submissions were as unparalelled as their Provocations And we may truly suppose under the Roman Emperours that had the Doctrine of Obedience been as throughly received by their Heathen Subjects as it was Preached by St. Paul and practised by his believing Romans they had effectually provided for the publick tranquility without any farther need of Forts and Armies to secure it But secondly the supposal of Divine Right in the Governours of the Church where Christianity is received into the State abates nothing of the natural Right of the Civil Power in matters of Religion This assertion depends upon the foregoing For if Christianity makes no change at all in any Temporal concern of the World then a Christian State has the same right of ordering the Affairs of Christianity so that nothing be done by virtue of it which may create a prejudice to the State as any other Kingdoms of the World have in that Religion which they profess For no Nation ever yet openly pretended that great holdness with their Gods as to make Religion at pleasure become either true or false but they therefore profess any Religion because they first suppose it to be true Religion therefore being first establish'd whatsoever it be all that afterwards follows is a nomination of persons to dispence it giving Laws for the due Administration o it setting bounds and limits to the exercise calling Assemblies to consult about it ratifying their Decrees with civil Sanctions and receiving Appeals in case of a corrupt Management and an unjust Sentence All which Christianity so entirely devolves upon the Magistrate that those who have taken the greatest pains to clear the fundamental Right of the Church have withal proved the most able and vigorous Assertors of those inherent Prerogatives of the Crown And whenever they come to be disowned through the Christian World then and not before let the Church lye for ever under that guilt and odium which men now make it their business to cast upon it Let Kings cease to be her nursing Fathers and Queens her nursing Mothers In the mean time it bears the same notion with Religion in general in reference to the powers of the World save only in this that it addresses it self to them with greater obligations to take it into their protection that is with greater evidence of a Divine Authority Thirdly however it has come to pass through the Debaucheries of Men and the Malice of the Devil that Religion as a Learned man observes has been a politick Engin in some mens hands and made use of for the battery as by others for the defence of the State yet the Government of the Church of England which is the subject of our present debate stands as clear and justifiable to the World altogether as our common Christianity For as for the Essentials of it if once Religion be dismist from the Accusation of turning the World upside down I would fain know what further latent mischief can be in this that one man in a certain Precinct or Diocess take care that all who profess Religion live in obedience and conformity to the Rules of it And this is all which we claim as essentially pertaining to Episcopal Jurisdiction As for the Secular advantages of Temporal Priviledges and Power since we thankfully own them to be the meer accessions of Humane bounty they can cause no jealousie in the Author of them 'till we see the Streams contend with the Fountain and the Beams of the Sun with the Sun it self Our Church never owned their Religion who compare the Church to the Sun and the Empire to the Moon but Receives all these Temporall favours as the Arbitrary donatives of the Civil Power not in any wise her own but entirely a borrowed lustre And which is for the Eternal reputation of our Church she has learn'd to want them as well as to abound with them and can be equally loyal both in the loss and the enjoyment Which we need go no further for a proof of then her Canons and her Practice Both which have given us an evident demonstration that she was the surest support during the standing of the English Monarchy and next to the Royal Family the greatest sufferer in the fall But fourthly if we take this Principle that has raised such great clamours against the Divine right of the Church and view it in those conclusions which unavoidably flow from it we shall find it the most contumelious and destructive to Government of any thing that has appeared against it And though I do not charge the conclusions upon all who have owned the Principle yet we may be allowed to take them from one who well enough understands and is not ashmed to speak out the just consequence of his premises Does not he then who denies the Obligation of Christianity upon this ground that there is no Law antecedent to the Civil Sanction at the same time take the Law of Nature out of Mens heart and a God out of the World who is the Author and Avenger of it And does he not thereby put a People that should profess it out of the protection of the Law of Nations For what Faith can be expected from him who does not yet own it to be his Duty And how can he acknowledge it to be his Duty who denies a God to revenge and punish the violation of it Does not he who makes the arbitrary pleasure of the Magistrate the sole Rule and Standard of Good and Evil take away from the Prince the deserved commendations of Justice and Wisdom and all those other Virtues which are the most sparkling Diamonds in his Crown making no difference at all between Tiberius and Antoninus Nero and Titus the pest and the darling of Mankind Is the Prince any thing beholding to him for this pretended extent of the bounds of the Civil Power who at the same time places that power in possession and strength and the same right in an usurping Tyrant and the undoubted Soveraign Does not he who holds it his duty to forswear Christianity at the command of the Magistrate declare himself perfidious to the Government as well as an Apostate from the Faith For what trust can be reposed in him in Civil Matters who can renounce that solemn Covenant into which he was Baptized and openly professes his Oath is not to be believed when his Religion is called in question Or what tye can the Magistrate have upon him who can make so bold with his God So fatal and pernicious is this exorbitant right of the Leviathan's Common-wealth It is a two edged Sword which he puts into the Magistrates hands the one merely pretending to protect the People the other really designed to destroy the Prince Such are the absurd Paradoxes which the denyal of Church-power resolves it self into All which with a great many others are so gross and
prodigious that if ever the Church hath show'd her self undutiful to the State it is in suffering such a pestilent Enemy to Government to enjoy the benefit of her Communion There is a second pretence against the interest of the Holy Ghost in a Bishops Consecration That Christ gave the fulness of his Spirit only to St. Peter and his Successors but nothing to the other Apostles who seem to be joyned in Commission with him So that whatever power and authority is enjoyed by Bishops who succeed them they hold it not immediately from Christ but only as Suffragans of his pretended Vicar But since this is a point in which the Roman Schools are divided among themselves as appears by the contrary assertions of Soto Victoria Alphonsus à Castro and others and the Dispute seems at last to be resolved rather into the exercise of the Power or as the Schools love to speak the application of the matter of it than the power it self it is properly the subject of another consideration and does not so directly contradict what we have hitherto concluded from the Text. And therefore I shall proceed to raise an inference or two from the Holy Ghosts Concerment in the collation of Episcopal Power which will likewise take in the remaining part of my Division First then if the Holy Ghost has made you Bishops you may hence infer the weight and burden of your Calling It is sure no ordinary employment where the Commission for it comes under the Broad Seal of Heaven 'T was God that gave the Law upon Mount Sinai and therefore Moses who was to deliver it to the People exceedingly quakes and trembles And if St. Paul be rapt up into the third Heaven to receive Instructions for the Gospel we presently hear of his Reproaches and Distresses and the great trouble coming upon him from the care of all the Churches No wonder therefore if when he had acquainted the persons here in the Text with the derivation of their Authority he forthwith presents them with a prospect of their danger His own encounter at Ephesus could not procure that rest and quiet for the Bishops he left behind him but that after his departure there were beasts to be fought with still For this I know that grievous Wolves shall enter in among you I shall not here take upon me the work of an Historian nor give an account how in all Ages of the Church the lusts of the Flesh and the Devils of Hell have with their utmost Malice set themselves against it If we do but open our Eyes and behold the present face of Religion among our selves we shall find arguments enough to call forth your utmost circumspection A great door is open to you and many adversaries For if that turbulent Spirit of Rebellion and Disobedience which not long since possest rent and tore this Nation and was by a Miracle of his Providence a while since cast out walks about night and day seeking to return to the place from whence he came with seven other Spirits more wicked than himself so to make our last estate prove worse than the former If there are so many Tobiahs and Sanballats that envy the remainders of the prosperity of Sion so many Zebahs and Zalmunahs that say to one another Let us take unto our selves the houses of God in possession that seek to alienate or diminish the Churches Rights robbing God in Tithes and Offerings and then say Wherein have we robb'd him If the fiery Jesuit on the one hand and the restless Fanatick on the other bend all their wit and power first to smite the Shepherd and then to scatter and glean up the Sheep compassing Sea and Land to make Proselytes and when they have gained them making them ten times more the Children of Hell than themselves If what St. Paul Prophesied at Ephesus be now fulfilled with us that of our selves men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them and stretching the Articles of the Church of England to so much a greater latitude than the Catholick Church allows that for as much as in them lies Pelagius and Socinus shall find here both shelter and encouragement Lastly if there be so many Hereticks in the World that corrupt the Church of Christ Schismaticks that divide it and Atheists that contemn it It is then surely high time for you to look about you to contend earnestly for the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints to joyn your Heads your Hearts and your Hands together to support the tottering Ark which is now no longer Criminal and keep it from ever returning into the Tents of the Philistins which we have seen so miraculously redeemed from them But secondly notwithstanding all these disadvantages if the Holy Ghost have called you to your Office you may rest assured that he will own and protect you in the discharge If you held your Callings from the World the frowns of the World might discourage you But since 't is God that sets his Seal to your Commission you serve a Master who let the World be never so impatient will assuredly make good your Patent assert and justifie your Authority When God says concerning Cyrus I have called him Isa 48.15 it follows in the Text and I will make his way prosperous If God say to Jacob I have called thee no wonder to hear the encouragement he forth with gives him When thou goest through the water I am with thee and through the Rivers they shall not overflow thee It seems to be an opinion among the Ancient Fathers that every Bishop hath two Guardian Angels For besides that which is common to him with every man he has another as he is a Bishop appointed him at his Consecration But the stability of your Function Holy Fathers has a surer ground than in these fancies of men Even the God of Angels vouchsafes to become your peculiar Guardian And if the Church like Jacob's Ladder though the foot of it be on Earth has its head in Heaven there are not only Angels ascending and descending but God himself leans upon the top of it and keeps it firm A consideration this of great weight and moment especially under the apprehensions of publick danger It being usual with men in such exigents as those to betake themselves to their own Counsels and Contrivances and when these fail to despond and give over nay sometimes with a more preposterous piece of Policy to make Ship-wrack of a good Conscience in hopes to escape the storm But surely if we own such a thing as Divine Protection which is never forfeited but by distrust we shall ever find it try it when we will that the best way to secure our selves from danger is to be doing our duty For this infallibly engages God of our side who will be with us as long as we are with him It is safer for the Mariner in a Tempest to ride out the Storm then to strike to Shore And we