sed improba virtutis invidia feruntur qui virtutem aspiciunt intabescuntque relicta Casaub For one century of scandalous Ministers which I fear was not so made up by exact sifting the pretioâ—â— from the vile but that it hudled up and kneaded some finer flowre with some bran How many hundreds were there then and are still of unblamable of commendable of excellent and most imitable Ministers in this Church As weighty as fair and as fit every way yea far beyond what any new stamp is likely to be for all holy admistrations But I finde it is not any new Truth or Gospel or Sacraments or Gifts or Graces or Virtues or Morals or Rationals or Reals which these new Ministers require or can with any forehead pretend All is but an affectation for the most part to have the same things in a new and worse way which because it is of their own invention they so eagerly quarrel at the former order maner of our Church and Ministry Many would have the same meat else they must starve Multi novitatis amore in veritatis odium praejudicium feruntur Quum illud pulcherrimum quòd verissimum id verissimum quòd antiquissimum Tert. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eurip. Hel. or feed upon the wind onely it must be new dressed and dished up to the mode of Familistick hashes and Socinians Quelques choses Keckshoes by more plain and popular hands than those of the learned Ministers They would have a generation of Teachers rise up unsown out of the dust whose father should be corruption and whose sister confusion More vulgar submiss precarious facile dependent Preachers who should more consider an act or ordinance of man than a command of Scripture or dictate and stroke of Conscience be more steered by the events and various successes of Providence than by the constant precepts and oracles of Gods written Word Whose common places of divinity must fit any Eutopian Common-wealth what ever any power and policy shall form to their new fancies and interests whose Preaching and Praying shall make Christ and the Scriptures and the Sacraments all holy things and the Ministry it self of the Church meanly servile and compliant to any State design and secular projects Just as the sorry Almanack-makers do who command the Sun and Moon and Stars and the whole host of Heaven to assist any party whom they list to flatter or hope to feed upon Such planetary Preachers all true Ministers abhor to be and such their enemies deserve to have or to be who observing the winds of worldly and State variations Eccles 11.4 shall never sow the good seed of true Religion nor ever serve the Lord while they slavishly and sinfully serve the times Not but that all good Ministers know as wise and humble men how to be content in what Staâ—â— soever they are and to be subject to civil powers in all honest things Phil. 4.11 Rom. 13.5 with gratitude and due respect yet not so as to prostrate God to level Christ to subject Conscience to debase the glorious Gospel its due Reformation and its true Ministry and divinâ— Authority to the boundless lusts and endless designs of violent and rest less mindes Against all which and chiefly against those plots and practises which aim to overthrow the Reformed Christian Religion of this Church and its Ministry I desire this Apology may be as a Pillar and Monument to posterity of my perfect abhorrency That when I am dead â—f it hath any spark in it of an immortal spirit or living genius it may testifie for me and my Brethren the Ministers of my minde Luke 23.50 in after ages that as Joseph of Arimathea we neither gave counsel nor consent to those wilde or wicked projects which the ages will afterward see attended with most sad and deplorable effects either of Atheism Profaneness Ignorance and Barbarity or of Popish superstitions Heretical oppressions and Schismatical confusions which will follow the alteration and rejection of the antient true and Catholike Ministry of this Reformed Church which cannot but be attended with the subversion of many souls as to all stability or soundness in true Religion with the unsatisfaction of many and with the unspeakable grief and scandal of all those good Christians who love and wish the prosperity of this Church which I shall now endeavor to prove to be of a most Christian and Evangelical constitution chiefly by answering what is alleged by those who look upon both Church and Ministry as reprobate and would fain have power to damn them both without redemption And this they endeavor with as much justice and truth as Satan accused Job Job 1. and would have provoked God to destroy him without a cause OBJECTION I. That we have no true Ministry because no true Church-way in England I Finde there are many and great things objected by the Antiministerial party through ignorance weakness mistake or malice not onely against the Ministers and the peculiar office of the Ministry but also against the whole frame of our Religion especially as to the extern social maner of our holy Administrations Some of them deny us to be any true Ministers because not in any way of a true Church not having any true Religion owned or established and exercised among us in any right Church-way as they call it So that it is not onely the main pillars of Christianity the learned and godly Ministry which they would change But the whole model of our Church and frame of our Religion is that which these men would remove either pulling it down by force or undermining by fraud Therefore I have thought it necessary in the first place to countermine against these Moles and to establish against these Shakers and Subverters of the very foundations of our Church and Religion Here I must crave leave of you Answ 1. to whose favor I have dedicated this work whose highest excellency is your Christian Reformed Religion who esteem it your greatest glory with the Emperor Theodosius That you are Members of this Reformed Church and in this of the true Catholike Church to give these fanatick and cavilling disputers against our Ministry some account of that Religion which we profess and of that so much disputed and by some despised Church-way wherein we take our selves to be as upon surer grounds of divine truth so with much more order and decency as to antient patern and prudence than themselves That so as good Christians may be comforted and confirmed in their holy Profession so the world may see That we are neither ignorant our selves nor willingly deceivers of others in so great a matter as Religion is Of true Religion Vera est religio quae uni vero Deo animas nostras religat Aug. de Relig. Micah 6.8 James 1.27 which we publickly have professed and preached in this Church both with science and conscience with judgement and integrity First then We esteem True Religion to be the right
fail in the matter of a Church the faithful and holy Thirdly In the essential Form an explicite Covenant or Church agreement to serve the Lord in such a way Fourthly and lastly In our chusing ordaining and appointing Ministers and other Church Officers In whom they say Church power is onely executively as to the exercise or dispensation but it is primarily and eminently in that Body of the people never so small which is so combined together Yea they complain that we in England have neglected and deprived the people of that glorious power and liberty by which every Christian is to shew himself both King and Priest and Prophet Thus the Tabernacles of Edom and the Ismalites Psal 83.6 7 8. Nunquam deorunt hostes ubi adest ecclesia nec inimici ubi veritas agâ—â—scitur Tert. of Moab and the Hagarenes Gebal and Ammon and Ammaleok the Philistims and they of Tyre Assur also Men of our own Tribes all conspire against the true Religion the antient orders and holy Ministry of the Church of England And finding this Church forely torn bruised and wounded they either leave it and its Ministry to die desolate by separating wholly from them or else they seek by their several instruments of death wholly to dispatch it as the Amalekites did King Saul But blessed be God though this Church and its true Ministers be thus afflicted and persecuted yet are they not quite forsaken of God or of all good Christians 2 Cor. 4.8 9. Though we be cast down yet we are not quite destroyed There want not many sons of Sion to mourn with their Mother and to comfort her if they cannot contend for her Although the Lord is righteous Lam. 1.2 Isai 30.19 who hath smitten us and to whom we will return and wait till he be gracious to this Church Yet these sons of Edom our unnatural Brethren Micah 7.8 9 19. are very injurious and uncharitable who seek to enflame the wrath of God more against her rejoycing in her calamities and crying now she is faln let her rise up no more But the Lord will remember his compassions of old which have not failed and will return to build her up nor shall this furnace of affliction be to consume this Reformed Church but onely to purge her from that dross which she had any way contracted As to these mens first quarrel 17. Of Religion as established and protected by Laws in England against the frame of our Church and Ministry as setled and defended by Civil Laws and Politick Constitutions They seem in this rather offended at the clothes and dress or the defence and guard than at the body and substance of the Church Possibly they are angry that they had not power or permission sooner to deform and destroy that flourishing polity of this Church which by the princely piety of nursing fathers and mothers hath been so long preserved to the envy of enemies and admiration of friends We never thought that any civil sanctions which were in favor of our Reformed Church Religion and Ministry ever constituted the Being of our Church which is from Christ by the Ministry but they onely established and preserved it in its Ministry and polity from those abuses and insolencies to which we see them miserably exposed if they should want Magistrates to be protecting fathers and indulgent mothers to them Every rude and unclean beast delights to break in and waste the field of the Church when they see the fence of civil protection is low But this defence and provision made for this Church and its Ministry by Humane Laws doth no more lessen the strength and beauty of it than the Laws for property and safety do diminish any mans wisdom valor or care to defend his own Christians as men ought to be subject to Magistrates as men although they were Heathens Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2.13 Tit. 3.1 Hereticks or Persecutors that so in honest things they might merit their civil protection How much more as Christians ought they to be subject to Christian Magistrates that are Patrons and Professors of true Religion Isai 49.23 Whose civil protection and government is so far from being a blemish to it that is the greatest temporal blessing that God hath promised or the Church can enjoy in this World as it was in Constantine the Great 's time and some others after him And however we see that oft-times this sweet wine of civil favor is prone to sowre to the vinegar of factions even among Christians And the honey of peace plenty and prosperity easily turns to pride envy anger ambition and contention through the pravity of mans nature who contrary to the temper of the most savage beasts grows most fierce and offensive to God when he is best treated by him * Omnia comprebantur sactionibus seditionibus querelis odiu invidiis Suspi Sever. de sâ—â— tempor Epâ—s Presbyteris Hist Pace ecclesiis undique concessâ caepit invidia totius orbis communis inimica in media episcoporum frequentia tripudiate Eus in vit Const lib. 2. c. 60. as Eusebius and Sulpitius Severus tell in their times Yet we must not refuse or cast away all good things because evil mindes abuse them much less may we mistake the Being of a Church for its well-being That cannot turn in any reason to this Churches reproach which was the favor of good men and Gods indulgence to this Church Nor do we think these querulous Obâ—ecters are therefore like to be by so much the sooner weary of their new ways by how much they more enjoy connivance protection or countenance from any men The obtaining of which is the thing they so much court and solicite Sure the shining of the warm Sun on men need not make them therefore ashamed or weary of Gods blessing 18. The matter of a Church Saints 2. As for the matter of a Church which those Obâ—ecters say must be onely Saints in Truth as well as shew denying ours to be such I answer We wish all our people were such Saints as are formerly described in truth and power we endeavor to make them such as far as the pains prayers and examples of Ministers may work with the grace of God 2 Cor. 6.1 But we do not think that these severe censurers of this Church of England do believe That all the Churches mentioned in Scripture which were the best that ever were consisted onely of true Saints That in Christs family did not not that to which Ananias John 6.70 Have I not chosen you twelve and one of you is a Devil Acts 5.3 Peter to Ananias Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost Acts 9.13 Simon Magus believed and was baptised and continued with the Apostles c. V. 23. I perceive thou art in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity Saphyra and Simon Magus were joyned in profession nor all those in Corinth Galatia Laodicea and the rest
a miracle as Jerom saith in the Greek monuments defends against Appion the Jewish Church which was the old stock out of which the Christians are swarmed Hieron Ep. ad Mag. So Philo the Jew very learned and an eloquent assertor of the Jewish religion G. Nissen in vita Thaum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vit Th. Miltiades Hyppolitus Apollonius senator Rom. doctiss opuscula Chr stian relig contra Philosophos propugnabant Titus Bostrensis Amphilochius Philosophorum sententiis fuos libros refarciâ—bant Id. Hieron Ep. ad Magnum So Dionysius Bishop of Corinth and Tacianus who refuted the errors of Origen Shewing ex quibus fontibus philosophorum emanabant Hieron So Pantaenus Stoicus doctiss Christianus in Indian missus ut Brachmanis praedicaret Id. and others famous Bishops and Presbyters of most eminent learning piety and courage who undertook the defence of Christian Religion against the proud heathen the pestilent hereticks and the importune schismaticks of those dayes Which made Julian the Apostate elder brother to this illiterate fraternity the despisers and destroyers of good learning to become the Ravilliak the Faux of his times Theodoret l. 3. cap. 8. Propriis pennis configimur a Galilaeis inquit Julianus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Bibliotheca Georgii Episcopi Alexand. quam Julianus sibi exacte conquiri jubet Epist ad Porphyrium 36. the prime Assasinator and grand conspirator who sought to stab and blow up all Christian Religion by overthrowing all the nurseries of learning and suppressing the Schooles of the Church forbidding any Christians children to be educated in humane and ingenuous studies which he saw were become as the outworks to the citadell of Christian Religion which sometime indeed needed not these humane guards and defences while the terrible and miraculous gifts of the Spirit were like a pillar of fire and cloud round about Christian Religion during its wandring in the wildernesse of persecution no more than the * Exod. 13.21 Israelites needed trenches for their camp when the more immediate presence of Gods salvation was among them beyond all wals and bulworks or then * 2 King 1. Elias wanted a troop of souldiers when he was armed with fire from heaven against the ruder Captaines and their fifties Those extraordinary dispensations ceasing when the Lord brought his Church to the land of Canaan to a condition of worldly peace and tranquillity through the Imperiall favour and secular protection under which Halcyon dayes Christians had liberty to attend those improvements which are to be attained by study and learning in all manner of ingenuous as well as religious education But when the Dragon saw he could not by open persecuting power destroy the * Revel 1â— woman and her child he then turned to other shifts seeking by the flouds of corrupt doctrin to poison those streams which he could not stop And so to furnish out his new modelled Militia with the better train and ammunition he stirred up learned adversaries against the Churches true and ancient faith not only without as * Origen answered Celsus and Methodius Eusebius and Apollinaris wrote with great strength and dexâ—erity of learning against Po phyrieâ— who was one of the most eloquent in his time and wrote against Christian religion 15. books Suidaâ— St. Jeâ—om St. Ambrose and Prudentius answered Symmachus his Oratory against Christian Religion Celsus Porphyrie Proclus Symmachus and others but even from within as Arius Nestorius Apollinaris Macedonius Eutyches Pelagius Donatus and others very many This master-piece he carryed on with most powerfull suggestions and successes sometimes knowing well what force Error hath as well as Truth when it is charged and discharged with skill and learning In so much that he not onely overthrew the Faith of many ordinary Christians but robbed the true Church in part and turned at last upon the Orthodox party those whole Canons great and incomparable pieces of all learning both divine humane Tertullian and * Vincent Lyrin lib. 1. Immortale Origenis ingentum Jeron in Ep. ad Tit. In Origene adeo praeclara adeo fingularia adeo mira extiterunt ut omnes pene multum longéque superavit Vin. Lyr. c. 23. So of Tertullian c. 24. Quid illo doctius quid in divinis atque humanis exercitatius Apud Latinos nostrorum omnium facile princeps ut Origenes apud Gracos Origen the converter of St. Ambrose who formerly had by their accurate and learned labours both in preaching and writing bravely asserted Christianity both by demolishing the old remaining forts of heathenish Idolatry and prejudice as also battering the new rising works of heresies and schisms So that our moderate illiterate factors for an old crafty Daemon doe not or will not consider that there ever hath been still are and ever may be learned adversaries opposing or Apostatizing from the true Christian Religion both in its fundamentalls and its reformations There are very learned Jesuites and other Papists of all orders there are learned Socinians renewed Palagians revived Arians and others who want not learning against whom the learned Ministers of this and other reformed Churches are often put upon necessary though uncomfortable and unhappy contests Not for any malice envy or displeasure against any of their persons for learned men cannot but love and esteem whatever is good and excellent in others but onely from that Conscience of Truth which the Ministers of this and other reformed Churches doe conceive upon Scripture grounds and by the consent of the primitive and purest Churches of Christ they ought in all duty to God to their own and other soules yet with charity to their Adversaries to maintain And although the warne in Christian Religion ought to be managed by learned men on all sides with all possible fairnesse candor and civility such as the honour of the Christian name and profession requires for the more illiterate men are the more rudely they bray and rail against one another if it were a great sin to be supine and negligent in so great an engagement which we think to be for Gods cause the truth of Christ and the good of soules for which we ought to be prudently vigilant and honorably valiant It would ill become us while we see the adverse partie daily arming themselves with all possible compleatnâ—sse in languages arts and sciences in Fathers councels and histories for us to fit still in our lazy and unlearned ignorance expecting either miraculous illuminations and assistances as idle vain and proud mindes do or else most inevitable ruine and certain overthrow of that truth and reformed Religion which we professe to maintain which in honour and conscience besides the bonds of nature humanity and charity we are bound to transmit to posterity if not much improved by our diligence and studies yet at least not sottishly impaired to a just impeachment of waste against us in this age from those that in after times may succeed us who will have no great honour or happinesse by
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
with most charity to any others that have for the foundation of their faith the Scriptures and the Sacraments for the seals and a true Ministry for the ordering and right dispensing of holy things professing such latitudes of charity always as exclude no such Christians from communion with them Notwithstanding they have many and different superstructures in lesser things Without this Christian charity it is evident all ostentations of true Religion of Churches purity and of Reformation though accompanied with tongues miracles and martyrdoms 1 Cor. 14.1 3 c. are in vain and profit men nothing As it is not enough to make men of the true Church to say They are the onely true Church and in the onely Church-way or to censure condemn and exclude all other Christians who may be in the same path-way to Heaven though the paving be different of grass or gravel or stone c. So it is enough to exclude any party sect or faction of seeming Christians from being any sound part of the true Church to say in a Schismatical pride and uncharitable severity That they are the onely true Church Excidisti ab ecclesia ubi à charitate excideris quum à Christo ipso inde excidisti Aug. as the ring-leaders of the Novatians and Donatists did excommunicating by malicious proud and passionate principles or in any other novelizing ways vexing and disturbing the quiet of those Christians and Churches who have the true Means and Ministry the true Grounds and Seals of Faith with other holy and orderly Ministrations though with some different rites yet professing holiness of life and this with Christian charity to all others Col. 3.14 which is the very bond of perfection The want of which cannot consist with those other graces of true faith and love repentance and humility by which men pretend to be united to Christ The ready way not to be any part or true Member of the Catholike Church is Isai 65.4 They eat abominable things yet they say Stand by thy self come not neer me for I am holier than thou These saith the Lord are a smoke in my nose and a fire that burneth all the day To chalenge to be the onely true Church and to separate from all others both by non-communion with them and a total condemning or abdicating of them As the way for any branch to wither and come to nothing is To break it self off by a rude Schism or violent fraction from the Tree that it may have the glory to grow by it self and to say with a Pharisaick pride to all others stand by I am holier than you Thus parting from that Root and Body Christ and the Catholike Church in the communion with which by Truth and Charity its Life and Beauty did consist However then the unholy love of novelty proud curiosity cold charity and distempered zeal of some men dare cast off unchurch and anathematise not onely single persons and private Congregations but even greater associations of Christians bound together by the bonds of civil as well as Church societies in Nations and Kingdoms yea and to despise that Catholike form of all the Churches in the World 2 Cor. 10.12 They measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise of antient as well as present times Yet this vain-glorying through a verbal ignorant proud and uncharitable confidence of themselves and contempt of all others seems to have more in it of Belial and Antichrist than of Jesus Christ more of Lucifer than of the Father of Lights who also is the Father of Love who hath therefore shined on men with the light of his grace and love of Christ that he might lead them by this powerful patern of divine love to love one another as men and as Christians with all meekness and charity with all good hope forbearance and long-suffering toward those especially that profess to be of the houshold of faith who hold the foundation Christ crucified though they may have many additions of hay 1 Cor. 3.15 straw and stubble since Those may save though these suffer loss God will easily discern between his gold and our dross between the errors rising from simplicity and the truths joyned with charity and humility He will easily distinguish between the humble ignorance of many upright-hearted Christians who are seduced to wandrings and the subtilty pride or malice of Arch-hereticks and Schismaticks who seduce others for sinister ends All wise humble and charitable Christians should so order their judgements and censures if at any time they are forced to declare them that they must above all things take heed that they nourish not nor discover any uncharitable fewds or distances and antipathies against any Churches or Christians after the rate of those passions which are the common source both of Schisms and Heresies whose ignorance and pride like water and ice mutually arise from and are resolved into each other Therefore proud because ignorant and the more ignorant because so proud Nor yet may they follow those defiances and distances in Religion Tantum distat à vera charitate quorundam zetotarum praeceps intemperatus â—â—dâ— quantum maligna sebricitantium flamâ—ae à native vitali corporis calore Cas which Reason of State or the Interests of Princes or Power of Civil Factions or the Popular fierceness of some Ministers and eager Sticklers for sides and parties do nourish and vulgarly commend as high expressions of zeal and the onely ways of true Religion Where there is scarce one drop of charity in a sea of controversie or one star of necessary truth in the whole clouded Heaven of their differing opinions and ways which set men as far from true Christian temper as burning Feavers do from native heat and health 10. Extremes touching the Church I know no point hath used more liberal and excellent Pens than this concerning the true Church as it is visible or professional before men which is the proper subject of this dispute Some mens Pens flow with too much gall and bitterness as the rigid Papists on the one side and the keener Separatist on the other Denying any to be in a right Church-way save onely such as are just in their particular mold and form Either joyned in communion with the Roman profession and being subject to its head the Pope pleading antiquity unity universality visibility c. or else embodied with those new and smaller Incorporations which count themselves the onely true and properly so called Churches pretending more absolute Church-power more exact constitution and more compleat Scripture-Reformation than any antient National dilated and confederated Churches could or ever did attain too Herein there is a strong excess on both sides 1. By the Romanists Baron Anno Christi 45. p. 376. Haereticum esse qui à Romanae Cathedrae communione divisuâ— sit So Bellarm. dâ— Rom. Pont. l. 2.12 Vetusta coâ—suetudo servetur ut hic Episcopus Rom.
suburbicaniarum ecclesiarum solicitudinem gerâ—â— Ruffin hist l. 1. c. 6. Concil Nicen. both Papal and Popular First The Romanists extend the cords of their Churches power and its head or chief Bishop so far as if it were properly Catholike and Oecumenical that is by divine appointment invested with sovereign Authority to extend and exercise Ecclesiastical polity and dominion over all other particular Churches in all ages and in all parts of the World So that it is say they necessary to salvation to be under this Roman jurisdiction c. Whereas it is certain That the Roman Church antiently was and still is properly speaking distinct from others in place as well as name and had antiently its limited power and jurisdiction extending to the suburbicanian Provinces which were Ten seven in Italy and three in Sicily Corsica and Sardinia Accoâ—ding to those like bounds which occasionally from civil titles both named and distinguished all other Churches from one another in both the Asiaes in Africa and in Europe as the Gallican German British c. Nor hath ever any thing either of Reason or Scripture been produced by any more than of true Antiquity whereby to prove That we are bound to any communion that is in the true meaning of proud and politick Romanists to that subjection to the Pope and his party which may be most for his and their honor and profit with the Church of Rome further than the rule of Christian charity obligeth every Christian and every part of the Catholike Church to communicate in truth and love with all those that in any judgement of charity are to be counted true Christians so far as they appear to us to be such Nor is it less evident That many Churches and Christians have scarce ever known much less owned any claim of subjection upon them by the Roman Church Which however they had antiently a priority of order and precedency yielded to it and its chief Bishop for the eminency of the City the honor of the Empire and the excellency of the reputed Founders and Planters Saint Peter and Saint Paul also for the renown of the faith patience and charity of that Church which was famous in all the World Yet Rom. 1. â— all this Primacy or Priority of Order which was civilly by others granted and might modestly be accepted by the chief Bishop in the Roman Province as to matter of place and precedency or Votes in publick Counscis and Synods This I say is very far from that * Greg. Mag. ep 30. ad Mauri Aug. Fidenter dico quia quisquis se universalem sacerdotem vel Episcopum vocat vel vocari desiderat in elatione suâ Antichristum praecurrit quia superbiendo se caeteris praeponit De Cyriaco Constantinop Episcope hunc frivoli nominis superbia typhum affectante Greg. M. l 4. ep 32 36. Antichristian Supremacy of usurped power tyrannick dominion and arbitrary jurisdiction the very suspition and temptation to which the holy and humble Bishops of Rome were ever jealous of and avoided especially Gregory the Great who was in nothing more worthy of that title than in this That he so greatly detested protested against and refused the title of Vniversal Bishop when it was offered to him by the Councel of Chalcedon Which both name and thing was in after times gained and chalenged by the pride policy covetousness and ambition of those Bishops of Rome who by some of their own sides confession as * Baronius an 912. tom 10. Foedissima nunc Romanae ecclesia facies cùm Romae dominarentur potentissima ac sordidissima merâ—â—rices Baronius * See Genebrard ad Sec. 10. Pontifices per an 150. à virtute majorum prorsus desecerunt Genebrard and others were sufficiently degenerated from that Primitive humility and sanctity which were eminent in the first Bishops of Rome in those purer and primitive times who never thought of any one of those Three Crowns which flatterers in after ages have fully hammered and set on the heads of the Bishops of Rome in a Supremacy not of Order but of Power and plenary Jurisdiction above all Christians or Churches or Councils in the Christian World which hath justly occasioned so many parts of the Catholike Church in that regard to make a necessary separation not from any thing that is Christian among them but from the usurpation tyranny and superstition of those bishops of the Roman Church and their Faction who unjustly claim and rigorously exercise dominion over the Consciences and Liberties of all other Churches and Christians With whom the Roman pride now refuseth to hold such peaceable communion as ought universally to be among Christians in respect of order and charity unless they will all submit to that tyranny and usurpation which hath nothing in it but secular pride vain pomp and worldly dominion Yet still those of the Roman Church know That all the Reformed Churches as well as we of England ever did and do hold a Christian communion in charity with them so far as by the Word of God we conceive they hold with the head or root of the Church Christ Jesus with the ground and rule of Faith the Scriptures and with all those holy Professors in the purest and primitive Churches Of whose faith lives and deaths having some Monuments left us by the writings of eminent Bishops and others we judge what was the tenor both of the Faith Maners and Charity of those purer times which we highly venerate and strive to imitate Possibly we might now subscribe to that Letter which the Abbot and Monks of Bangor sent to Austin whom some report to be a proud and bloody Monk when he came to this Nation and required obedience of them and all Christians here to the Pope which Letter is thus translated out of Saxonick by that grave and learned Gentleman Sir Henry Spelman Sir Henry Spelman Concil Brit. Anno Christi 590. out of the Saxon Manuscript a lover and adorner of this Church of England by his life and learned Labors Be it known to you without doubt that every one of us are obedient and subject to the Church of God and to the Pope of Rome and to every true godly Christian to love every one in his degree in perfect charity and to help every one of them by word and deed to be the children of God and other obedience than this we know not due to him whom you call Pope nor do we own him to be Father of Fathers Isca one of the three Metropolis in Britain Caerusk in Monmouthshire Antiq. Brit. This obedience we are ever ready to give and pay to him and every Christian continually Beside we are under our own Bishop of Caerleon upon Usk who is to oversee us under God and to cause us to keep the way spiritual Nor will this benefit of the Popes pretended Infallibility 11. The pretended Infallibility in the Pope or Church of Rome
all Heretical or Schismatical insinuations when yet they never had any Bibles or Scriptures among them but onely retained that Faith which they at first had learned and were still taught by their Orthodox Bishops and Ministers which they never wanted in a due succession Of whose piety honesty and charity they were so assured as diligently to attend their doctrine and holy ministrations with which the blessing of God opening their harts as Lydia's still went along so as to keep them in true faith love and holy obedience Since then no man or men can give to others any such sure proofs and good grounds of their personal infallibility as the Scriptures have in themselves both by that more than humane lustre of divine truths in it which set forth most excellent precepts paterns and promises excellent morals and mysteries excellent rules examples and rewards beyond any Book whatsoever Also from that general credit regard and reception which they have and ever had with all and most with the best Christians in all ages as the Oracles of God delivered by holy and honest men for a rule of faith and holy life also for a ground of eternal hope Since that from hence onely even the Pope or any others that pretend to any infallibility or inspirations do first seek to ground those their pretensions of which every one that will be perswaded must first be judge of the reasons or grounds alleged to perswade him It is necessary that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infallibility of the Scriptures must be first received and believed by every Christian in order to his being assured of any truth which thence is urged upon him to believe or do Which great principle setling a believer on the certainty or infallibility of the Scriptures as a divine rule of Faith and Life is never to be gained upon any mens judgements and perswasion be they either idiotick or learned unless there be such an authoritative Ministry and such Ministers to preach interpret open and apply the Scriptures by strong and convincing demonstrations which may carry credit and power with them The succession then of rightly ordained Ministers is more necessary to the Church than any such Papal infallibility in as much as it is more necessary to believe the Scriptures authority than any mans testimony which hath no credit but from the Scripture Which while the Pope or others do seek to wrest to their own secular advantages and ends they bring men at length to regard nothing they say nor at all to consider what they endlesly wrangle and groundlesly dispute about true Religion or the true Church 12. An able and right Ministry is beyond any pretended Infallibility So absolutely necessary and sufficient in the way of ordinary means is a right and duly ordained Ministry which Christ hath appointed to continue and propagate true Christian Religion which ever builds true Faith and the true Church upon the Scriptures That as there is no infallibility of the Pope or other man evident by any Reason Scripture or Experience so there needs none to carry on that great work of mens salvation which will then fail in any Church and Nation when the right Ministry fails by force or fraud If we can keep our true Christian Ministry and holy Ministrations we need not ask the Romanists or any other arrogant Monopolizers of the Church leave to own our selves true Christians and a part of the true Catholike Church of Christ which cannot be but there where there is a profession of the Christian Religion as to the main of it in its Truths Sacraments holy Ministrations and Ministry rightly ordained both for the ability of the ordained and the authority of the ordainers although all should be accompanied with some humane failings Where the now Roman Church then doth as we conceive either in their doctrine or practise vary from that Catholikely received rule the Scriptures which are the onely infallible certain and clear guide in things fundamental as to faith or maners we are forced so far justly and necessarily to leave them and their infallible fallibility in both yet charitably still so as to pity their errors to pray for their enlightning their repentance and pardon which we hope for Where no malice or corrupt lusts makes the additional errors pernicious and where the love of truth makes them pardonable by their consciencious obeying what they know and desire to know what they are yet ignorant of Yea and wherein they are conform to any Scriptures doctrine and practise or right reason good order and prudent polity there we willingly run parallel with and agreeable to them both in opinion and practise For we think we ought not in a heady and passionate way wholly to separate from any Church or cast away any branch of it that yet visibly professeth Christian Religion further than it rends and breaks it self off from the Word Institution and patern of Christ in the Scriptures and so either separates it self from us or casts us out from it uncharitably violating that Catholike communion of Christs Church which ought to be preserved with all possible charity The constancy and fidelity of the Church of Christ is more remarkable in its true Ministry holding forth in an holy succession the most Catholike and credible truth of the Scriptures which at once shews both the innate divine light in them and the true Church also which is built by them and upon them The truth of which Scriptures while we with charity believe and profess both in word and deed we take it to be the surest and sufficientest evidence to prove That we are a part of the true Church against the cavils and calumnies of those learneder Romanists upon whose Anvils others of far weaker arms have learned to forge the like fiery darts against this Church of England For on the other side the new Models of Independent 13. The contrary extreme reducing all Churches to small and single Congregations or Congregational Churches which seem like small Chapels of Ease set up to confront and rob the Mother Churches of Auditors Communicants Maintenance and Ministry winde up the cords and fold up the curtains of the true Church too short and too narrow Shrinking that Christian communion and visible polity or society of the Church to such small figures such short and broken ends of obscure conventicles and paucities that by their rigid separatings some men scarce allow the whole company of true Christians in all the world to be so great as would fill one Jewish Synagogue Fancying that no Church or Christian is sufficiently reformed till they are most diametrically contrary in every use and custom to the Roman fashion abhorring many things as Popish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. In vitium ducit culpae fugasi caret arte Hor. and Superstitious because used by the Papists When indeed they are either pious or very prudential yea many count it a special mark of their true
so poor and feeble an engine as this of private compacts and covenantings by which they threaten with severe pens and tongues and brows to batter and demolish the great and goodly Fabrick and Communion of this and all other National Churches which are cemented together by excellent Laws and publick Constitutions so as to hold an honorable union with themselves and the whole Catholike Church That we rather wonder at the weakness and simplicity of those inventers and abetters who in common reason cannot be ignorant that as in civil respects and polity so in Ecclesiastical no private fraternities in families nor Corporations as in Towns and Cities can vacate those more publick and general relations or those tyes of duty and service which each Member ows to the Publick whereof it is but a part and it may be so inconsiderable an one that for its sake the greater good of the publick ought not in Reason or Religion to be prejudiced or any way neglected No more ought it to be in the Churches larger concernments for Peace Order and Government Nay we dare appeal to the Consciences of any of those Bodying Christians whom charity may presume to be godly and judicious Whether they finde in Scripture or have cause to think That the blessed Apostles ever constituted such small Bodies of Covenanting Churches when there were great numbers and many Congregations of Christians in any City Province or Country so as each one should be thought absolute Independent and no way subordinate to another Whether ever the Apostles required of those lesser handfuls of Christians which might and did convene in one place any such explicite Forms or Covenants besides those holy bonds which by believing and professing of the Faith by Baptism and Eucharistical communion were upon them Or Whether the blessed Apostles would have questioned or denied those to be true Christians and in a true Church or have separated from them or cast them off as not ingrafted in Christ or growing up in him who without any such bodying in small parcels had professed the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ in the due use of Word Sacraments and Ministry who endeavored to lead a holy and orderly life themselves and sought by all means which charity order or authority allowed them to repress the contrary in others No doubt the Apostles wisdom and charity was far enough from the wantonness and uncharitableness of some of these mens spirits who do not onely mock our Church and its Ministers 2 Kings 2.23 as the children did Elisha the Prophet but they seek to destroy them as the she-bears did the children Sure enough the Apostles instead of such severe censures peevish disputes and rigorous separations would have joyned with and rejoyced in the Faith Order and Vnity of such Churches such Christians and such Ministers where-ever they had met with them in all the World without any such scruple or scandal for their not being first broken into Independent Bodies and then bound up by private covenantings which are indeed no other than the racking distorting and dislocations of parts to the weakning and deforming of the whole VVe covet not a better or truer constituted Church than such as we are most confident Col. 2.5 Joying and beholding the order and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ the wisdom and charity of the Apostles would have approved in the main however in some lesser things they might gently reprove and reform them as they did divers famous and flourishing Churches And such a Church we have enjoyed in England by Gods mercy before ever we knew those mens unhappy novelties or cruelties who seek now to divide and utterly destroy us unless we conform to their deforming principles and practises And however we have not been wholly without the spots of humane infirmities yet we have professed Jesus Christ in that truth order purity and sincerity which gives us comfort and courage to claim the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 privilege of being true Christians and a true Church that is a very considerable famous and flourishing part branch or Member of that Catholike Church which professeth visibly or believes savingly in the Name of Jesus Christ the Head of the whole Body and of every part to whom we are united by the same common Faith and by Charity to one another Certainly the best Churches and Christians were antiently like the goodly bunches of Grapes Numb 13.24 which the Spies brought between them as an emblem of Christ crucified hanging on a staff so fair so full so great and united clusters From which no small slips did ever willingly divide or rend to Schism but presently they became not as the fruit of Canaan but as sowr Grapes fit onely to set mens teeth on edge wheting them to bite and devour one another For the maner of each particular holy Administration in our Church to answer all the small cavils which men list to make 23. The great shield of the Church of England is to encourage too much their petulancy and to make them too much masters of sober mens time and leisure Onely this great and faithful shield * See those Reverend and Learned Writers Bishop Bilson Bishop Cowper Doctor Field Master Richard Hooker Master Mason and others Learned men heretofore have and we do still hold forth to repel all their darts and arrows That both in the Ordination of our Ministers and in their celebration of holy things and in its Government Order and Harmony the Church of England hath followed the clearest rules in Scripture and the best paterns of the antient Churches onely enjoying those Christian liberties of prudence order and decency which we see the gracious wisdom of Christ hath allowed his Church and which particular Churches have always used and enjoyed in their extern rites and customs with variety yet without blemish as to the Institutions of Christ or to the soundness in the Faith or to any breach of Charity or any prejudice and scandal to each others liberties in those things So that those busie flies upon the Wheels of this Chariot the Reformed Church of England in which the Gospel of Jesus Christ hath hitherto been carried among us for many years with great triumph and success have stirred up very little dust so as might blinde any eyes that are not full of motes and beams or blood-shotten from seeing clearly and evidently a true Christian Church a true Ministry and truly religious Administrations among us Blessed be God though these sowr Momusses finde or make some faults and flaws in lesser matters the mending of which they most oppose and hinder yet their strength cannot shake the foundations of our Jerusalem which are of pretious pearls and solid stones nor can their malice overthrow our grand and goodly pillars the true and able Ministers and their holy Ministrations of Word and Sacraments among Professors of the Faith who do as unquestionably constitute a true Church as a reasonable
pro corum inter quos vivitur societate observandum est Aust Ep. 118. ad Jan. Salvà fidei regula de D sciplina contendentibus suprema lex est Ecclesiae paâ— Blondel sent Jeron praef Furthermore The great Motor of some mens passion zeal and activity against this Reformed Church was that one Error against the judgement liberty and practice of all antiquity which is fundamentall as to the Churches polity and extern Peace namely That nothing may be used in the Church as to externals which is not expresly and precisely commanded in the word Which yet themselves observe not when they come to have power either to form and act some things they take in upon prudentiall account as their Church-Covenant of the form and words of which they are not yet agreed which they urge so their requiring each Member to give an account not of the historicall belief of the truth but of the work of grace and conversion which no Scripture requires or Church ever practis'd That of St. Austin hath been often inculcated by many learned quiet and godly men in this Church of England and elsewhere as a most certain truth That however the Faith Doctrine Sacraments and Ministry of the Church are precisely of divine Institution rising from a divine Spring and conveyed in a like sacred Current which ows nothing to the wisdom policy power or authority of man yet the extern dispensation of this Faith Sacraments and divine Ministrations together with the fence and hedge of them the necessary Government Order and Discipline of the Church in its parts and in the whole these doe fall much under the managing of right reason rules of good order and common prudence all which attends true Religion So that they neither have nor needed nor indeed were easily capable of such positive precise and particular precepts or commands as these men fancy and by this pertinacious fancy they have cast great snares on the consciences of many great scandals on the Churches both antient and modern and great restraints on that l berty which Jesus Christ left to his Churches in these things according as various occasions and times might require Sumus homines ciâ—es cum fimus Châ—istiani Salv. None but foolish and fanatick men can think that when men turned Christians they ceased to be men or being Christian men they needed not still to be governed both as Christians and as men by reason joyned to Religion which will very well agree carrying on Re igious ends by such prudent and proportionate means and in such good order as is agreeable to right reason and the generall directions of Religion which never abandoned or taught any Christian to start at and abhor Naturae lâ—â—en rationis radios non extinguit sed excitat Religio quae non vera tantum sed decora postulat Aust Phil. 4.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Whatsoever things are true honest or comly just pure lovely of good report if any vertue any praise think on these things or meditate with reason and judgement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what is taught by the very light of nature and those common principles of reason and order or polity which teach the way of all Government and subjection either of yonger to the elder whence is the very ground of all Presbytery or of weaker to the stronger or of the foolisher to the wiser or of the ignorant to the learned or of many to some few for the good of all None of which methods can cross Religion nor being observed in some due measure can be blamed nor ought factiously to be altered by the members of any setled Church in which there is neither Apostacy from the Faith nor recession from the Scriptures nor alteration of the substance of Christs holy Institution which this Church of England not-being guilty of but apparently professing and fully adhering to the Scriptures as the ground rule and limit of Faith and holy Mysteries We doubt not but however it used the wisdom of learned wise and holy men and followed the warrant of the Primitive Churches in the extern maner and methods of holy Administrations Government and Discipline yet it may and ought still as it doth lay claim to the right and honor of an eminent part of the true Catholike Church of Christ having a true Ministry and true Ministrations In which I believe all the Apostles and Primitive Martyrs and Confessors in all Ages would most willingly have owned and approved yea the Great God from Heaven hath attested it and still doth to the consciences of thousands of excellent Christians which have had their birth and growths to Religion in this Church of England So that the out-cryes abhorrencies and extirpations carried on so eagerly against the main constitution frame and Ministry of this Church by many who now appear to be men of little charity and strong passions and very weak reason as if we were all-over Popish Superstitious Antichristian altogether polluted intollerable c. Those calumnies and clamors wanted both that truth that caution and that charity which should be used in any thing tending to disturb or discourage any true Christian or Church of Christ whose differences in some small external things from us in judgment or practice we ought to bear upon the account of those many great things in which we agree with them as Christians Nor ought poor men of private parts and place in Church and State so to swell at any time with the thought of any Liberty and Power in common given them from Christ to reign with him or to reform c. as to drive like tipsy Mariners those rightful Pilots from the Helm or to break their card and compass of antient design draught and form by which they steered as they ought or as they could in the distress of times And this onely That these new undertakers may try how they can delineate new carts or maps and how soon they can over-whelm or over-set so fair rich and goodly a Vessel as this Church of England once was in the eye of all the World but our own This Iland was not more nobly eminent than the Church was great in Britany The leaks chinks and decayes which befal all things in time might easily have been stopped calked and trimmed by skilful and well-advised hands when once it was fairly and orderly brought upon the Publick stocks and into a Parliament Dock which good men hoped of all places would not prove either a quick-sand or a rock to the Reformed Church or the Learned Ministry of England But the Lord is just though we should be confounded in our confidences of men though neither mountains nor hills nor valleys can help yet will we trust in God who is our God in Christ who we doubt not but in mercy will own us with all our frailties and defects as his true Church and true Ministers And if in
ascend from this valley of our confusions to the mountain of thy felicities Which is the glorious vision of thy self in the great mirror or glass of Gods perfections who is in himself and to us perfect light that we may see him to be perfect love and is perfect love that we may enjoy his perfect light 1 John 1.5 God is light Chap. 4 8. God is love O Father of Lights and Fountain of Love whose immensity and eternity are filled with truth and peace verity and charity whose love hath sprinkled our souls with the blood of thy beloved Son the promised Messias our blessed Jesus O let our moment here be sincere loâ—e to thy self perfect charity to thy Church and holy humanity to all men that our eternity may be blessed with thine and our Saviours and our Fellow Saints love for ever You O excellent Christians whose excellency is chiefly in this Col. 3.14 Supplementum munimentum ornamentum omnium gratiarum una charitis Amb. Jer. 5.1 that above all things you have put on charity which is the bond of perfection yoâ— will not onely excuse but it may be kindly accept this little digression wherein my Pen like Jeremies hath shed some few drops of lamentation mingling tears with the blood of Christians which hath been so profusely shed in these self-desolating Churches mourning for the loss of charity the extirpations of unity and the ruines of harmonious order which are forced to yield to contention cruelty and confusions Nature reacheth you to lament the loss or forced absence of what you love and Christian Religion teacheth you to love all graces in charity and this one above all You have learned to suffer with patience and in some cases with joy the spoiling of your goods the sequestring of your revenues the imprisonment of your persons the scattering of your neerest relations the withdrawings of your wary friends and the great alterations of civil powers and secular affairs These are but scenes and parts of the same Tragedy which hath always been acting on the Worlds Theatre in which it is safer to be Spectators and Sufferers than Actors nor may your sufferings in secular matters disorder your charity onely the plundrings of your true Christian Religion which some men aim at the sequestring of this Church of England from its glory and reformation the dividing and so destroying of it the restraining you from enjoying the great seal of charity the Sacrament of Christian Communion the scattering of your able faithful Ministers into corners the changing and contemning of your antient and excellent Ministry the underminings of your comforts and the hazards of your consciences the many confusions and miseries threatning your posterity in matters of salvation if the malice of some men may be suffered to abuse your charity and impose upon this credulity These your zeal mixed with charity teacheth you to endure with an impatient patience Therefore patient in some degree because you yet hope better things from God and all good men therefore piously impatient because you earnestly wish better for Gods glory and the good of your Countrey Your humble zeal hath taught you to be discreetly charitable as to your own souls so to all others but specially to this Church of England and the true Ministers of it to whom you cannot but willingly bear that tender respect and love which pious children are wont to do to their distressed yet well-deserving parents from the care and support of whom no Corbans no imaginary Dedications and Devotions of your selves to any new Church ways and forms of Religion may justly alienate your affections nor dispence with that respect justice gratitude and charity which you in conscience ow to those to whom in some sense you ow your own selves and the best of your selves your souls Whose divine Authority and holy Calling I shall now further endeavor to prove having thus first establisâ—ed the truth of our Religion and of our Church whose greatest waste and want is that of charity whose dying embers and almost extinguished sparks I have by the way endeavored to revive in the hearts of true Christians that so they may without passion or prejudice embrace that truth which I chiefly design to vindicate in this Apology Namely The holy Calling divine Institution and Function of the Ministry of this Church of England which will best be done by answering the chief Objections Calumnies and Cavils brought against both the Ministers and their Ministry by their many-minded Adversaries OBJECTION II. Against the peculiar Office and Calling of Evangelical Ministers SUppose we grant say they true Religion and a true Church in England with some defects yet these may be without any distinct office or peculiar calling of Ministers which you challenge as of divine appointment Where as we conceive every Christian may and ought to dispence in an orderly way 1 Pet. 4.10 all such gifts of knowledge as he hath received in the Mysteries of Religion to the Churches good So that the restraining of holy Administrations to some persons as a peculiar Office and Function seems but the fruit of arrogance and usurpation in some of credulity and easiness in others and is not rightly grounded upon the Scriptures Answ Not that I believe 1. Of Catholike testimony and practise or custom in the Church 1 Cor. 9.2 Your are the Seals of mine Apostleship your well-grounded and well-guided piety O excellent Christians who know in whom and by whom you have beâ—ieved needs other satisfaction in this or the other following Objections touching the peculiar divinely-instituted Function of the Ministry than what your own solid judgments and exacter consciences and clearer experiences sealing your comforts and our Ministry afford you who are no novices in matters of Religion either as to the outward form and order or the inward power But onely to let you see that neither I nor my Brethren the Ministers do plead for that in a precarious way of meer favor and indulgence for which we have not good grounds clear proofs and mighty demonstrations both divine and humane from Scripture pious Antiquity and right Reason I shall more largely and fully answer thiâ— first grand Obâ—ection which strikes at the very Root and Foundation both of the Ministry and all holy Ministrations 1. I may first blunt the edge of this weapon which strikes against the peculiarity of the Ministerial Function by the clear and constant acknowledgment both as to judgment and practise of all excellent Christians and all famous Churches in all Ages Illud est Dominicum verum quod prius traditum id extraneum falsum quod posterius immâ—ssum Tertul. from the very first birth and infancy of Christianity and any Churches to our times Of which no sober or learned Christian can with any plausible shew make any doubt so far as God in his providence hath continued to us any Monuments or Witnesses of the Churches estate succession and transactions in
all Prophets are all Teachers c. 18. All are not nor are any such as they are Christians or gracious c. 1 Cor. 12. ought to minister holy things to others to challenge the Keys of Heaven to themselves to be as in Christs stead to rule and oversee his house which cannot avoide as the Apostle proves abominable absurdities and detestable confusions no way beseeming the wisdom of Christ the majesty of Christian Religion or that order and decency which ought to be in Church-Assemblies being as contrary to reason as if every servant in an house should chalâ—enge the power of the Keys and the Stewards place or every member the office of the eyes tongue and hands by vertue of that common relation it hath as well as these parts to the same body the same soul and head As then right reason tells us beyond all reply That neither natural nor civil nor religious common gifts endowments or abilities instate any person in the office of Magistrate Judge Ambassador Herald Notary or publick Sealer Fraus est injuria quic quid agitur sub alterius persona sine debita ab illo autoritate Reg. Jur. Matth. 28.18 All power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or authority is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth that is in order to perfect Christs design his Churches good Acts 1.8 Autoritas delegata ab altâ—rius voluntate pendet tam quoad ipsam potestatâ—m quam ad derivandi modum Reg. Jur. 1 Cor. 4.19 I will know not the speech of them that are puffed up but the power V. 20. For the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power i. e. That holy polity and orderly Kingdom which Jesus Christ hath set up and governs in his Church is not managed by confident praters but by authoritative Preachers Matth. 7.28 As Christ Jesus so his true Ministers teach and administer holy things as men having authority and not as the Scribes which places require not onely personal sufficiencies for the office but an orderly designation and induction to it from the fountain of civil power either mediately or immediately The same right reason which is most agreeable and servient to true Christian Religion requires a right derivation or conveyance of all supernatural Ministerial Church power which is in and from Jesus Christ as the sole supreme head and divine origin of it either immediately as they and none others had to whom Christ first consigned it and both by miraculous gifts and works confirmed it to be in them or mediately as those Bishops and Presbyters had it who without force fraud or any sinister way of usurpation or bold intrusion received this power from the Apostles by prayer and benediction with imposition of their hands in the name of Christ and from them their successors have lawfully derived it without interruption to the true Ministers of the Gospel even to this day as I have proved which not onely the Scriptures of undisputable verity but even those other very credible Histories of the Church and other Records of learned and holy Men in all ages to these times which the providence of God hath afforded us do abundantly declare all which to deny with a morose perverseness or rustical indiffereâ—cy is as if a Hog should answer all arguments with grunting And to act contrary to so strong a stream of concurrent Authorities both as to the judgment and practise of the Church in all ages is a work onely fit for Ranters and Seekers and Fanaticks or for Jews Turks and Heathen Infidels but not for any sober Christian that owns in the least kinde the Name of Jesus Christ or desires to be a member of any true Christian Church In which as all true and humble Christians have always enjoyed and with thankfulness owned the rightful succession and authority of their oâ—dained Ministers Pastors and Teachers so the Lord from Heaven in all ages hath witnessed to them by his blessings of truth and peace on the hearts of his people and by their means chiefly continuing the light of the Gospel to these days amidst those Heathenish persecutions Heretical confusions and Schismatical fractions which have sought to overthrow the Being or the Purity or the Order and Unity of the true Church To this judgment and testimony of Scriptures and antient Writers both in right and fact I might adde a cloud of witnesses from later reformed Divines which were very learned and very holy men far above the vulgar spirits both in other Churches and in this of England all agreeing with our excellent Bishop Jewel Bishop Jewels Apology Ministrum Ecclesiae legitime vocari oportere rectè atque ordine praefici ecclesiae Dei Neminem autem ad sacrum Ministerium pro suo arbitrio ac ibidine posse se intrudere That no may may intrude himself into the Ministry by his own will and pleasure or by any others who are not of that Order and Calling but he ought to be lawfully called and duly ordained by those in whom the lawful succession of ordinative power ever hath been and still is rightly placed and continued Agreeable to which there is a whole Jury of eminent Modern Divines alleged by a late industrious and ingenuous * See Master Halls Pulpit guarded Author who hath spared me that pains 9. The Priestly order among the Jews Joel 2.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Niss de vita Mos Aronis Virga 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. l. 3. ep 20. Philo. Judaeus de sacerdotâ—o Aaronis calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Numb 16. Exod. 19.6 2 Chro. 26 20. Vzziah ceased to be fit to rule as a King being smitten with Leprosie who usurped the office of the Priest 1 King 13.33 4. I may adde by way of confirmation of that common equity and rules of order which must be among men in all things and most necessarily in things truly religious The inviolable Function and peculiar Office or Order of the Priests and Levites which were the Ministers of the Lord in his antient Church of the Jews which is a most convincing instance to prove not the sameness and succession of that Order but the equity comliness and exemplariness of a peculiar Ministry for holy things among Christians under the Gospel since that Levitical Ministry was not more holy or honorable nor more distinguished in power and authority and office from the people than this in the Christian Church which is more immediately derived from Christ as clearly instituted and ordained by him and more fully exhibitive of him both in the Historical Truths and in the Mystical gifts and graces of his Spirit Yet we see who so despised or violated that Order and Ministry among the Jews under pretence of a common holiness in Gods people who were in a spiritual sense indeed called an holy Nation and a royal Priesthood so as to confound the Functions and Offices divinely distinguished either the earth from beneath devoured them
Cyclopes Non tam spectandum quid agat quisque quam quo ordine nec tam quo animo quam quâ disciplina Ep. Wint. Andrews Ordo postulat ut virtute eminentiores sint loco superiores qui habeant rationum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 1. V d. Clem. Ro. Epist ad Corinth Numb 11.17 they cannot but daily see a necessity of exact order and distinct power which must be observed among themselves as soldiers without which Armies will be but heaps upon heaps confused crouds and noises of men if any one who fancies his own or an others sufficiencies shall presently usurp the power and intrude into the office of Captain and Commander whose work is not onely to use a few good words now and than but to fight valiantly and yet to keep both himself and others in good order No less is order necessary to the Church in its Societies over which able and fit Ministers duly placed have not onely the work of Preaching lying on their Consciences which requires more than ordinary and vulgar abilities but they have many other great and weighty affairs which they are to discharge both publickly and privately as workmen that need not to be ashamed as those that are meet instruments and workers together with God and Christ in the great work of saving souls to which if onely memory and a voluble tongue and an oratorious confidence would have served there needed not so great preparations and power of the Spirit from on high to come on the Apostles which not onely furnished them with Matter what to say and Languages wherein but with just and full authority to preach Christs Gospel in Christs Name and to settle a like constant Authority Order and Power Ministerial in all Churches for holy Administrations putting upon their Successors whom they ordained in every place as the spirit of Moses was put on the seventy Elders of that Spirit that is of that same power Ministerial which they had immediately from Christ Nor was any one not rightly ordained antiently esteemed as any Minister of the Church nor any thing he did valid nor were any that adhered to such disorderly walkers and impostors ever reckoned among good Christians or as sound Members in the Church Cypr. Epist 76. De Baptisandis Novatianis ad Magnum Novatianus in Ecclesia non est nec Episcopus â—â—mputari potest qui Evangelica Apostolica autoritate contempta nemini succedens à se ipso ortus est Habere enim aut tenere Ecclesiam nullo modo potest qui ordinatus in Ecclesia non est Quomodo gregi Christi annumerari potest qui legitimum non sequitur pastorem quomodo pastor haberi debet qui manente vero pastore in Ecclesia Dei ordinatione succedanea praesidente nemini succedens à seipso incipiens alienus sit dominicae pacis divina veritatis inimicus As Saint Cyprian most eloquently and zealously writes concerning Novatianus who usurped the office of a Bishop and Pastor among some credulous and weak people despising the Ordination of the Church How can he be counted a Bishop or Minister in the Church who thus like a Mushroom grows up from himself How can he have any office in the Church who is not placed there by the officers in the Church which hath ever had in it true Pastors who by a successive Ordination have received power to preside in the Church He that sets up of his own new score and succeeds none formerly ordained is both an alien to and an enemy of the peace and truth divine Nor can that sheep be reckoned as one of Christs flock who doth not follow a lawfully ordained Pastor Thus Saint Cyprian a Learned holy Bishop and after a Martyr for Christ testifies the sense of the Church and all true Christians in his time who flourished in the third Century after Christ I will onely adde one place more out of Tertullian Tertul. lib. de Praescrip adv Haereses Edant Haeretici origines Ecclesiarum suarum evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum ita per successiones ab initio decurrentium ut primus ille Episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis vel Apostolicis virâ— qui tamen cum Apostolis perseveraverint habuerit autorem antecessorem Hoc enim modo Ecclesiae Apostolicae tensus suos deferunt Sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia habeus Polycarpum à Johanne Collocatum resert Sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro Ordinatum c. Traditionem itaque Apostolorum in toto mundo manifestatam in Ecclesia adest perspicere omnibus qui verè velius audere Et habemus enumerare eos qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis successores eorum usque ad nos Quibus etiam ipsas Ecclesias remittebant suum ipsorum locum Magisterii tradentes Qui nihil tale cognoverunt neque docuerunt quale ab his deliratur Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 3. De iis quâ— decedunt ab Apostolica Successione who lived before Saint Cyprian in the end of the second Century whom Cyprian usually called his Master for the learning warmth force and eloquence which were in his works till his defection Let these new Masters saith he and their Disciplies set forth to us the Original of their Churches the Catalogue and Succession of their Bishops and Ministers so running upward without interruption that it may appear their first Bishop or Presbyter had some Apostle or some that persevered with the Apostle for their predecessor and ordainer For thus the true and Apostolically planted Churches do ever make their reckonings as the Church of Smyrna had their first Bishop Polycarpus placed among them by St. John the Apostle So the Church of Rome and Antioch had their Pastors or Bishops setled by the Apostle Peter Thus Tertullian and with him Irenaeus and all the antients who sought to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace Eph. 4.3 The purity of doctrine and power of holy Discipline in the Church of Christ These holy men never dreamed of Self-ordainers or of gifted yet unordained Ministers nor did they own any Christians in Church Society or Ecclesiastick Order and holy Communion where there was not an evident distinct and personally demonstrable Succession of Bishops Pastors and Teachers in Ministerial Authority so constituted by holy Ordination lineally descended and rightly derived from the Apostolical Stem and the Root Jesus Christ. Nor is this so divine an Institution so solemn an Ordination 17. Peculiar Officers as Ministers most necessary for the common peoples good as to Religion so sacred a Mission and so clear and constant a Succession of Ministers whose office it is to bear witness of the Name of Christ in his love and sufferings and merits to the end of the World till the number of Saints be perfected till the work of the Ministry is finished and the Body of Christ his Church fully edified Eph. 4.12 This I say is not of more concernment
superfluous and so far hurtfull as it is inconsistent with the ministers and peoples duty on the Lords day Tot erunt venena quot intenia tot pernicies quot sâ—ecies to dolores quot colores as Tertul begins his Scorpiacum against the vanities and varietiys of the Gnosticks who pretended to know more and be more perfect than the Apostles Arelius flagitio corrupit artem Deas dilectâ—uÌ„ imagine pingens Plin. l. 35. 10. That Gentleman cannot but consider how many childish triflings in discourses how many triviall skirmishes in disputes how many captious bickerings in words how many uncomly thwartings are prone to arise as in Country cudgell-playing among the vulgar be they never so godly if you put them one pin above their pitch they either crack or sound like strings over-strained harshly and out of tune although they may have good gifts yet as Arelius a Painter in Julius Caesars time who had good skill in this corrupted his art that when he was to paint any Goddess he alwayes made them like some of his Mistrisses so these are prone to adorn by their gifts some error or odd opinion and set it forth as a divine truth and rare doctrine Nor can you avoid besides erroneous and fond opinions envyings evill surmisings jealousies unsatisfiedness and factious bandings among the people whose minds will soon be divided some liking others disliking some admiring others despising some attending others absenting from this unwonted uncouth exercise of Prophesying which thus confused and abased will soon appear to judicious and sober Christians a tedious and useless business like Fidlers alwayes tuning and never playing any good lesson and no way fit for a Sabbath-dayes sanctification when once the Country gaping or the gloss and novelty of it is faded So then if the Guardian of the peoples Liberty and privilege in Prophesying can find any other time on the week-dayes Of peoples prophecying on the week dayes wherein to set up this exercise of Lay-mens prophesying that so people may not at all times come short of that which he calls their duty He must be sure to provide Prophets of some competent gifts besides their discretion else he will have much adoe to perswade people that it is their duty to neglect their weekly occasions and to lose both their time and labour in attending rusticall impertinencies and ignorant triflings in religion which of all things should by wise men be avoyded among the vulgar whose affections like the poor womans wort is oft very hot in the point of Zeal when it is very small in point of judgement And is prone to run out from familiarity to contempt from contempt to down-right prophaness and Atheism in matters of Religion when made cheap and vulgar If he can indeed furnish out men or women 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synes ep 142. ex Lyside Pythagoreo Contempt of Religion riseth from making holy things too triviall and common for they prophecied too 1 Cor. 11.15 of such prophetick gifts as are worthy to be esteemed and encouraged by sober and judicious Christians I shall promise him that I more willingly and more constantly will be their auditor at convenient times and places when I hear they do what becomes wise humble serious and modest Christians than most of these pretenders to be such gifted men and to have such prophetick spirits are hearers of the true Ministers of this Church be they never so able either on the Lords day or on any week-day Lecture For the first way that many make to bring in their Lay-prophets and gifts is with their feet trampling as it were upon the best Ministers and their faithfullest pains while they scorn to step out of dores to hear them either Praying or Preaching which pride and negligence are not the least of those vertues which recommend those Prophets To be plain the truth is so much bran filth and dross of pride popularity schism malipertness and contempt of all men that differ in any way form or opinion from them and of all Ministers above all do hitherto generally appear in the face and manners of many of those who more affect the name of gifted men and Prophets than ever the Pharisees did the title name of Rabbi Mat. 23.7 that most sober and wise Christians suspect they will hardly ever make such Loaves as may be fit for Shew-bread to be set up in any publike place of Gods house and Sanctuary If that Gentlemans piety which seems tempered with much ingenuity can sift or boult out any good meal or finer flowr that so they may be decent for Gods service and the Churches use in any publique way I know no man will hinder him from baking making and distributing his bread But let them take heed lest the Corn being ground in such a new beaten mill it prove not full of grit and gravell which hath more offence than either profit or pleasure in eating of it 13. Of the private exercise of Christians gifts that are truly good For the private Exercise of his Prophets gifts which will now serve the turn no man ever spake against it further than it frequently carried it self unseemly by neglect separation boasting against contempt and opposition of far abler gifts in the publique Ministry oft undermining and shaking those truths that ordâ—r and holy way of life wherein the peace of the Church and the honour of true Religion consisted And even in this I conceive I have shewed to humble Christians a more excellent way Namely in using the learned helps of other mens labours which are in every kind well composed rather than to please themselves meerly in the barrenness and rawness of their own inventions which yet they may add too if need be that so they may not seem to say nothing of themselves or be forced to break for want of vent If these so cryed up gifted men be found meet to be made publique teachers in the Church under the name of Prophets why may they not be ordained Ministers in a just and due way There is like to be want enough of men of any competent parts in the great decay and discouragement of such as are very learned and most able If they are not fit for all offices of the Ministry I wonder how they can have confidence enough to be publike Teachers in any kind which work requires greater abilities and equall authoritie to any other holy Office if they have any thing in them of modest and humble Christians sure they would be more swift to hear James 1.19 Tutior est in audiendâ— quà m loquendo celeritas Non tam facile aures ac labra impingunt Male audiendo solus ipse laberis male loquendo alios tecum in ruinam pertrahis Pelarg. Tenuitatis sua maximè conscii maxima mendacissima solent polliceri Immodica enim ostentatione levâ—men aliquod remedium quasi patrocinium aliorum credulitatem propâ—iae mendicitati quaerunt Erasmus
strength of any part in its place and proportion doth not make it usurp the place or execute the Office of any other nobler part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist The measure of every part is the beauty and safety of the whole which cannot in naturall and ought not in Religious Bodies which are Churches be fitly disposed but only in such a way as God hath appointed for the daily forming building and well-ordering of his Church by such wisdom and Authority as Christ established in it Of which the Apostles and the Churches after them give us most evident testimony But to avoid destructive delusions But we must not be deluded either with the devils fulgurations and flashes or his transfigurations and disguises We must not forsake or stop up Gods fountains of living waters by digging the devils ditches Luke 10.18 I saw Satan fall like lâ—ghtning from Heaven 2 Cor. 11.14 Satan himself is transformed into an Angel oâ— l ght I a. 1.13 Eccl. 5.1 and wells which hold no water nay we may not wash our hands at the Devils Cistern to fit them for Gods service Nor may we take water from his troubled muddy and poysonous streams to water the plants of Christs Church We may not take strange fire from Satans Altar to kindle the sacrifices of God What need we cut off Dogs necks and offer swins bloud when we have so many clean beasts which are appointed for acceptable services that we shall not need any such vain oblations which are but the sacrifices of fools who consider not that they do evill nor look to their feet when they go to the house of God being as ready to stumble and fall and discover their nakedness and shame as they are forward to ascend to the altar of the Lord upon the steps of pride and presumption Exod. 20.26 which were forbidden to be made The humble heart being alwaies most welcom to God while others in vain arrogate to themselves power to perform those things which are not required at their hands Lev. 10.3 God hath said he will be sanctified of all these who come nigh to him in his publike service which is done not only by that inward sanctification of the heart by faith fear and reverence toward God but also by that exact observation of such rules of order power and Authority which he hath set who alone could do it in the publike way of his worship and service before the Sons of men We must not be such Children in understanding as to allow all to be gold which glisters when it will not endure the Touch-stone of Gods word Caiâ—itae Judae â—râ—diâ—orâ— Evangelium oâ—â—entabant Ophitae angelum in omni imunditie assistentem dicebant invocabant Hanc esse perfectioneÌ„ aiebant sine tremore in tales abire operationes quas ne nominare fas est Iren. l. 1. c. 35. Nulla enoris secta jam contra Christi veritateÌ„ nisi nomine cooperta Christiaâ—â— ad pugnandum pâ—â—silire audet Aust Ep. 56. or the probation of the Churches judgment We may not easily think that Gods Spirit in any private men runs counter to that holy order and clear Institution which the undoubted Spirit of God hath clearly set forth in the Scriptures and which the Church in all ages hath observed in the way of an ordeined authoritative Ministry All other or later inventions may well be suspected to be but Satans stratagems and devices There may be so many vermine crawling in a dead body as may make it seem to live and move when yet there is no true Spirit of life or Soul in it So it is no wonder if the various impulses wherewith mens secret and corrupt lusts stir them make some shew as if diviner gifts and endowments agitated them When indeed they have no other ayms or interests than such as Judas Iscariot or Symon Magus might have or those after Hereticks the Gnosticks Maniches and Montanists c. Who almost that had any shew of gifts or parts ever did mischief in the Church without great prefacings of holy and good intentions and pretensious of gifts and the Spirit of God There may be gifted Hypocrites devout devils angelized Satans Be mens gifts never so commendable if they want humility in themselves Miserrimis instabilibus fabulis tantam elationem assumpseruat ut meliores scipsos reliquis prasumpserunt Irenae l. 1. c. 35. de Caynitis Ophitis Judaeitis and charity to others which are the beauties of all endowments if they are puffed up seek themselves walk disorderly run unexamined unappointed unordained in scandalous and undue wayes they are nothing either as to private comfort in themselves or publick benefit to the Church The presumption and disorder of their example doth more hurt as the influence of some malignant stars in a Constellation than the light of their gifts can do they corrupt more than they either direct or correct If any of these Prophets or gifted men be indeed so able for the work of the Ministry that religion may suffer no detriment by them and people may have just cause to esteem them highly for their work sake God forbid they should not have the right hand of fellowship all incouragement from my self and all that desire to walk as becomes the Gospell when they are found upon just tryall fit to be solemnly ordeined set apart and sent forth with due authority to that holy service in Gods name let them be sent forth with good speed If they disdain this method of Ministeriall office and power which hath been setled by Christ and continued to this day in his Church which no wise humble and truly able Christian can with reason modesty or with conscience justly do but they will needs obtrude themselves upon the Church and crowd in against the true Ministers they may indeed be as sounding Brass and tinckling Cimballs fit rattles for Children or for the labouring Moon or for a Country Morice-dance and May-pole Nec veritate seneri nec charitate frugiâ—eri Greg. but they will never be as Aarons Pomegranates and golden Bells usefull Ornaments to Gods Sanctuary in words or works or any way becomming the Church of Jesus Christ which is as the woman clothed with the Sun the light of Truth and the lustre of holy Order And hath the Moon under her feet Rev. 12. not only all wordly vanities and unjust interests but also all humane inventions and novelties which have their continuall variations wainings disorders darknesses and deformities whereas Divine Institutions are alwayes glorious by the clear beams of Scripture-precept and the constant course of the Churches example Both which have held their Truth and Authority in the blackest nights of persecution wherein no untried and unordeined intruder was ever owned for a true Minister of holy things in any setled and incorrupted Church of Christ No more than any man shall be accounted an Officer or Souldier in an Army who hath not
Institutions upon Scripture grounds although we find them to have been led Captive and a long time deteined Prisoners by any unrighteousness policy superstition tyranny covetousness or ambition in the Walls and Suburbs of Babylon Though tares were sown among the good Seed in the Field of the Church while men slept yet we must not be such wasters as to destroy the Corn with the weeds or to refuse both because we like not one Though our Fathers ate sour grapes and our teeth were an edge we must not therefore pull all our teeth out of our heads Divine institutions are incorruptible nor can any corruption of mens minds or matters cease on them any more than * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vt Aurum â—t geâ—â—a itâ— res Diviâ—â— non corrumpâ—ntâ—â— quamvis opprimuntur non vitiantur natura quum polluntur consuetudine Non rei ipsae ut nec veritas erroribus sed nos malè utendo pucrescimus Eras putrefaction on the Sun beams when it shines on a Carkass or Dunghil We may be corrupted but holy Ordinances are like God alwaies the same when restored to their Primitive Institution which is their State of Integrity Riches and honour are not unwelcom though they descend to men from unworthy Ancestors Nor should Religion so far as its title is good by the word of God either in strickt precept and institution or in prudence joyned with piety and decency Good pictures will recover the beauty when the soyl is washed off In a word we retain the truth faith holy mysteries Catholick orders constant Ministry and commendable manners which the later Romanists have derived and continued from the first famous Church in that place nor do we think it either conscience or prudence to deprive our selves of any thing Divine though delivered to us by the less pure hands of men or to cast away the provision which God sends us though it be by Ravens or to Anathematise all the Romish Church hoâ—ds of saving Truths because it hath in the Councill of Trent Anathematised some Truths The Bishops of Rome were alwaies more cunning than to abrogate or cast away those essentials the main foundations and pillars of true Christian Religion as the word the Sacraments the Ministry and Government of the Church on which they knew the vast moles and over grown superstructure of the Pontifician pomp profit pride reputation policy and power through the credulity Vt in reficiendis domibus sic iâ— moribus non destruenda omnia sed repuâ—ganda non diruenda sed resâ—cienda Ber. Ep. ad Abb. of peopâ—e and blind devotion of most men in these Western Churches was built and sustained Nor can any thing more contribute to the Popes depraved content or repair his particular interest in this Western world than to see any so heady rash and mad Reformers as shall resolve to quarrell with and to cast quite away all those things of Christian Religion which ever passed through the hands of the Romish Church or any other never so erronious and superstitious He well knows how meager a Sceleton how miserable a shadow Christian Religion must needs remain to those furious and fanatick Reformers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Ep. Eudoxâ— Being as much reduced to poverty and meer nothing in the very essentials of Christianity both for Doctrine Duties Sacraments Scriptures order and manners as it would be in the matter of maintenance and Church Revenews where some mens covetous and cruell Reformation is resolved if they may have their will to leave nothing to maintain Religion or its Ministry but the meer scraps of arbitrary and grudging contributions Such will our Religion be if we reject all that was used by those who abused many things and we must afâ—er only adhere to the beggery of Seekers attending new Instructions from Heaven instead of following antient Christian and Catholick Institutions Certainly Church Reformations 3. Of Church Reformations with moderation and charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato de leg 3. Nothing is just but what was wisely moderated in things Religious should be carried on with all acurate strictness and rigor in clear points of saving truths and in things of divine Institution so confessed by all yet also with much charity candor moderation and discretion toward any Christians in other things wherein we must differ from them Yet no further than they seem to us to derogate from the truth and word of God and so become detrimentall to mens souls It is a commendable Schism which separates the Corn from the chaff and the Gold from the Dross neither retaining both in a confusion nor casting away both in a passion In thus doing all things with meekness of wisdom Christians may not only be able upon sober and judicious grounds from Scripture and the Catholick consent of the Fathers to maintain what they do as wise Reformers of abuses but also the better invite others to embrace and to approve our â—ust and well-tempered Reformation in the unpassionate purity whereof others will the easier see as in a smooth and true Glass their yet remaining spots and deformities Reformation of Churches is best done not by cutting off the head of Religion but by taking off those masks and visards which hide its face and beauty Men will best see their errors not by force pulling their eyes out of their heads but by fairly taking away the motes or beams of prejudice error and pertinacy which are in their eyes which hinder them not from seeing at all but from seeing so we l as we in truth think they may and in charity wish they would 1 Thes 5.21 Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 moderation is the medium between the excess and defect Neither taking nor refusing all but trying all and holdâ—ng the good True Reformation free from Schism By this shield of moderation and charity proving all things and retaining what is good in all with our pitty and prayers for any Christians wherein we think they erre as differing therefore from us because from the rule which God hath set for his Church in things pertaining to Divine worship we justly defend our selves in this and other reformed Churches that are of the same temper and charity in their Reformations from the sin and scandall of Schism when we fairly and freely declare that we separate no further from the Church of Rome or any other particular Church or Christian man than we are by the word of God perswaded that they separate from Christs holy rule and from the custom and Doctrine of the Catholick Church whose bounds and marks are the samenes of divine truths and the unity of the Spirit in Charity which we retain to all Christians as far as such with whom while we desire such communion of true faith holy order and obedience together with love as they do with Christ and all true Christians we cannot in our own consciences nor other mens censures be esteemed Schismaticks as the Novatians and
Governours in every Church as hath been proved than if some one or more cunning fellows should perswade credulous and silly people whom they find or lead into the dark or else blind them that they were indeed stark blind and had no power of themselves to see or open their eyes but must wholly be led by their guidance without having any sight or benefit of the Sun These poor seduced men have no more to do in point of relieving themselves and confuting so gross Impostors but only to open their eyes freely and to use the light of that Sun which they easily and clearly see shining over all the world which is not more evident to sense than this Truth is to judicious Christians That the power of Ordeining Ministers hath alwayes and only been in the Pastors Bishops and Guides of the Church who both ruled well and also laboured diligently in the Word and doctrine And since true Christians in this Reformed Church of England both Ministers and people have been so happy in this Church as to be delivered from the Romish superstitions and Papall usurpations they have now no cause to be less cautious or more patient to be gulled and deluded by popular seductions lest the second error be worse than the first Inasmuch as the furies and confusions of the vulgar are more dangerous than any errors of Popes or Bishops or Presbyters are like to be as Earthquakes are more dreadfull and pernicious than Eclipses or the Cloudings of the lights of Heaven The lights of the Church may recover their lustre and vigour in due time nor do they ever shine so dark but they afford a competent light to shew the way to Heaven But popular precipitancies and licentious extravagancies of the vulgar are likest to overthrow all religion and bury all Christianity by Gothick and Mahumetan methods in Atheism Illiterateness Confusion and Barbarity For as they have least skill in them and no authority given them to order and rule Church affairs so they have most passion and unbridled violence in them least able to distinguish between the abuse and use of things between gold and dross between what is of God or of Man when once they have got power and say that they know not what is become of their Mosesses Exod. â—6â— their divinely appointed guides their duly ordeined Bishops and Ministers the first thing they do is to make themselves molten Images and contribute both their Earings and their Ears their hearts and hands to those Calves which they set us for Tamuzzes Ezek. 8.3 or Images of jealousie and abominations whereby to provoke the God of heaven to wrath to reproach the honour of Christ to affront the true Ministers and to make the Reformed religion and this Church to become an hissing and astonishment to all round about A wise man of Spain saâ—d It is better in Church as well as in places of Civill power and Judicature to prefer corrupt men than weak and foolish The one is as a thief in a Vineyard who will only take ripe grapes till he is satisfied the other as an Asse which eats ripe and green crops the Vines treads down much with his heels and when his belly is full tumbles among them But our Antiministeriall Adversaries are still ready with scorn and laughter to demand What can Ministers 13. The vertue of holy Ordination Object either as Bishops or Presbyters confer more than other Christians in the point of Ordination What vertue or charm is there in the imposing of their hands or in their prayers by which to add to any mans ministeriall gifts and graces or to invest any man in a way of Church power more than is in any other Christians whose gifts and graces may be equall or exceeding their Infirmities far less than many Ministers are What power can they have to give the holy Ghost as they express in the form of Ordination yea whence do they challenge as of right the Name of Clergy-men as peculiar to their tribe and Calling where as all the Lords people are his lot and his inheritance and God is theirs Nor ought they contemptuously as by way of diminution to be called Lay-men or the Laity Since they are all spiritually anointed and chosen of God to be Kings Priests and Prophets I Answer Answ Of the Laity and Clergy Clem. Rom. ep ad Cor. p. 53. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lay-man is bound up by Lay commands 〈◊〉 keâ— hâ— rank Igâ—â— epist frâ—quently Tertul. Hoâ—â—â— Presbyter qui cras Laicus Laicâ— Sacerdotaliâ— munera injungunt De prae ad haer c. 42. saepe alibi St. Cyprian often So Clemens of Alexand. Differentiam inter ordinem plebem constituit Ecclesiae autoritas honor per ordinis câ—nsessum sanctificatus à Deo Tertul. de exh ad Cast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Const Apost l. 3. c. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Vid. Dr. Prideaux Praelect Consuetudo certissiâ—a loquendi magistra utendumque planè sermone ut nummo cui publica est forma Quintil. Jnst l. 1. c. 6. Sermo constâ—t ratione vetustate authoritate consuctudine Id. Vetera verba majestas religio quaedam commendat Id. to this last scruple first as least being not so much a beam as a mote in some mens tender eyes which like Leahs are easily offended As for the names then of Clergy and Laity in which the Nasuter Criticks of this age sent something of pride in the Ecclesiasticks or Ministers and of despiciency toward the faithfull people who are to be animated and flattered any way against the Ministry of the Church They may know that this distinction between the Clergy and Laity hath been used in the Church from the very first Primitive times as the antient Fathers Councils and the Histories of the Churches both Greek and Latin do testifie nor was the one ever intended or upbraided for a badge of vanity to the Ministry nor the other imputed for a brand of scorn to the people The piety and charity of those times were not at leisure thus to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stumble at straws I am sure as they antiently were so they still are usuall notes of difference in point of office and duty between Ministers and people not only in our ordinary Language yea in the exacter stile of our Laws which give both reall and nominall distinctions with the greatest authority Nor are they at all against the Scripture sense and meaning if they be not just to its words since the word of Christ hath evidently placed as limits of office so Marks and names of distinction between the one and the other as Pastor and Flock Doctor and Disciple Ruler and ruled c. Yea and we may easiâ—y gather from the Scripture dialect that as the faithfull people are in generall Clerus Ecclesia the lot or portion and heritage of the Lord So the Ministers are Clerus Ecclesiae A lot heritage and portion given by
unworthily or unduly Ordeined are like sleight and ill built ships which endanger the loss of themselves and all those that are embarqued in them and put to Sea with them Miscarriages in the matter of ordination of Ministers are to the unspeakable detriment and dishonour of Religion as unskilfull cowardly or perfidious Officers are to Armies I shall never hope to see the Church flourish or truly reformed untill this Point of right Ordination of Ministers be seriously considered of and duly restored to its Pristine honour and excellency when to Ordein Ministers for the service of the Church Oâ—ortet Ecclesiae Epis ministrum Christi esse formam justitiae sanctimoniae speculum pietalis exemplar veritatis doctorem fidei defensorem Christianorum ducem sponsi amicum cui ille irascitur Deum sibi iratum non hominem sentiat Bern. ad Eng. l. 4. was not to prefer men to a Benefice so much as to recruit Christs regiments to strengthen his forces to fortifie the Church and true Religion with most vigilant Watchmen and valiant Champions whose care was on every side to defend the Flocks of Christ against all enemies which were to be as the Cloud or Pillar of fire both lights and guards to Christians upon all occasions who made conscience to live with to suffer with yea and to dy for the sheep as good Shepheards Such men only are fit to be Ordeined Ministers such Ministers ought to be prayed for highly prised and perserved in the Church by all that desire to transmit any thing of true Religion to Posterity nor was the Church of England or yet is destitute of such Ministers both duly and worthily ordeined to the service of Christ and this Church To abolish this order or to usurp to undue hands or to contemn this Sacred and right Ordination which sends forth able Ministers in Christs way can be no other but a most cruell and detestable sacrilege far worse than that of robbing the Church of its maintenance for such Ministers Cyprian reproves Novatus a factious Presbyter Quod Felicissimum satellitem suum diaconum suum constituit neâ— sciente nec permittente me sola sua factione ambitione Acts 8.18 All undue Ordination is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. profanum detestandumque ludibrium Bâ—s both as preaching and ruling well wich yet is a sin of so deep a dy that no Niter can cleanse it being seldome ever pardoned because seldome repented of so as to make a â—ust restitution without which repentance is never true Yea for any Laymen in a brutish violence and meerly by Ppular insolency to arrogate this power where it is not or to abrogate it where truly it is is a sin of a more heynous nature than that of Simon Magus was who had so much of civility justice and good manners as to offer money for a part of the miraculous and Ministeriall power It is indeed no other than a Cyclopick fury and unwonted barbarity ill becomming any sober or civilized Christians thus to wrest the keys of Gods house out of the hands of those Stewards with whom the great Master Christ hath specially intrusted them for the right Oeconomy and dispensing of all holy Mysteries and Institutions And when such rude and unruly fellows have thus insolenced these Officers of the Church and bound their hands how comly will it be to see the keyes of the kingdome of heaven Ischyras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-ordeined or only by Rolâ—thus a Persbyter Hence Athanasius Apol 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Pro. 20.23 managed or committed as it were to Boyes to Pages and Laquies to weak mean mechanick ignorant dissolute and riotous wretches who not conscious to any true Ministeriall power or just authority in the Church can never make conscience of doing any holy Ministerial duty to which they are most unfit never caring how prodigall they are of the truth and honour of Religion of their own or other mens souls It being a sport to such proud and spitefull fools to do wickedly to speak prophanely and to live disorderly in the Church And not content to commit a rape upon true Religion and the holy orders of Christs Church as Absalom did on the house-top before the Sun and all Israel they will further in time justifie the flagitiousness of their villanies as if the zeal they had for true Religion provoked to such outrages these pestilent pandars for errors and all licentiousness with their followers who must presently all turn preachers though never duly Ordeined nor fit ever so to be yea their arrogancy makes them ordeiners too of whom they please to set up to minister to their extravagant lusts and follies which makes them many times much fitter for the flocks or cages than for the pulpits These will surely come at last as much short of the happy effects of true Ministers as they are far from that holy power of right Ordination which I have proved to be from Christ and the Blessed Apostles rightly derived to us by the constant Custome of this and all Churches and this not as a cypher or meer formality but as of sacred Institution so of reall and excellent efficacy and divine vertue in the Church where duly used and applyed Which was that I had to prove against the scurrillous objections of those that seek to despise and destroy the whole Function Ordination and divine authority of the Ministry of this Church Reader the Reason why the Folios of this Book do not follow is because the Copy for Expedition was divided to two Printers Of speciall Gifts of the Spirit pretended beyond Ordinary Ministers ANother great Calumny 3. Calumny or cavill That the Ministers of England have not the Spirit to which their Adversaries pretend highly urged by their Adversaries against the true Ministers of the Church of England whose due and right Ordination I have vindicated to be as Divine so both Necessary and Efficacious is as a forked arrow sharpned with Presumption and Prejudice On the one side an high esteem and confidence which they have of themselves and a very low despicienty of all Ordained Ministers on the other side even in that which is the highest honour of Man or Minister while these Anti-ministeriall Adversaries pretend That the Ordained Ministers have not the Spirit of Christ nor can or ever doe Pray Preach and administer holy things by the Spirit which these new Modellers challenge in such a plenary measure and power to themselves that they justifie their want of ordinary abilities and endowments by their needing none Excusing their not studying or preparing for what they utter by their being specially Inspired Colouring over their well known idlenesse ignorance illiteratenesse and emptinesse by the shews of speciall Illumination sudden Inspirations and spirituall Enablements Which they say they have far beyond any Ordained Ministers And this by the Spirit of Christ which is extraordinarily given to them which suddenly leads them into
peace and extern order in which the publique wisdom and consent of the Nation confined it self them and all men in it by laws are to be called superstition tyranny and oppression in Ministers more then all other men who being under government thought it their duty to submit to every ordinance of man 1 Pet. 2.13 which did not crosse any divine ordinance but kept within the bounds of that liberty order and decency which are left to the wisdome of any Christian Church and State whereby to preserve the honor of Religion and the order and peace of the publique Those jejune and threadbare objections oft used against Ministers in these things wherein there were but obedientiall and passive the activity lying in those who had the power to enjoyne and command them which was done by all Estates in Parliament have been so oft and fully answered that all sober and wise Christians see the weaknesse of reason and the strength of passion in them as they are charged for faults on Ministers in their respective obedience and conformity For which they were like to know better grounds than any their enemies had against them And being in all other main matters very knowing and consciencious men they are not in charity to be suspected in those lesser and extern matters to have sprung any leak of sinfull weaknesse or to have made any shipwrack of a good conscience Later events have much recommended former duties and laws * Vires inordinatae mole ruunt sua Quo vehementiores eo infirmiores inque propriam ruinam valentissimae Salust shewing how weak even Truth and Religion are as to extern profession where like loose and scattered souldiers Beleevers or Professors are destitute of all order and just discipline But if the Ministers of the Church of England had discovered many failings as men compassed about with infirmities 6. Ministers in their weaknesses yet superiour to their adversaries who cannot supply their roome which easily beset them for which they oft mourned against which they were alwayes praying and striving yet what is it wherein the pretended perfections of their presumptuous and implacable adversaries doe excell the very weaknesses and defects of Ministers yea wherein will the vapouring of any new projectors be able to repair the dammage or recompense the want which thousands must have yea this whole Nation suffer if by these mens cruell designes they be deprived of the blessing of these whom they please to count so weak unworthy and contemptible Ministers Will those old pieces or those new Proteusses who pretend and fancy to be new stamped with the mark of popular ordination which is none of Christs whose wisdome never committed any power of Ministry and holy offices or divine Ordination to the common people as I have proved who are betrayers haters and desertors of that true power and authority which they formerly received in that just and lawfull ordination which was from all antiquity derived to this Church from which no mean and vulgar complyance should have drawn any man of piety learning and honesty to so great a schism defection and Apostasie from the Catholick rule and ancient practise will I say these new masters or those heaps of Teachers which country people are prone to raise up to themselves in their fervent folly and zealous simplicity will they furnish Church or State with better and abler Ministers in any kinde with better learning better doctrine better preaching better praying better living then those former Ministers did in the midst of their many infirmities Yea will not these new obtruders with most impudent foreheads while they looke you in the face cheat and deceive you Will they not while they smile upon you with shews of Gifts and Spirit O miserandam sponsam talibus creditam Paranymphis Ber. de Cons Praedatores non praedicatores peculatores non speculatores Raptores non Pastores Id. and Prophets and speciall calls and extraordinary ordinations exchange counterfeit for true Jewels brasse for gold stones for bread pebbles for pearls dirt for diamonds gloeworms for stars candles full of theives and soil for the Sun In stead of the excellent and usefull worth the divine and due authority of your learned and godly Ministers you shall have either confident ignorance or fraudulent learning or Jesuitick sophistry or fanatick nonsense or flattering errors or factious semblances of truth to usher in most damnable doctrines and most unchristian practises Doe men gather grapes of thornes or figs of thistles Can these bitter fountaines send forth sweet waters or these burning Etnas breath forth other than such sparkes and flames as their sulphureous spirits and their hearts full of envy Jam. 3.12 and malice and pride afford which seek to darken the Sun of Truth at noon day or to scorch up the fruits of holinesse to infect the common air of Christian charity order and peace in which true Christians delight to breath When these plagiaries have destroyed or driven away the fathers of Christs family and Church will they not either seduce and steal away the children to their own erratick factions or even sell these Orphanes for a pair of shoes to Cantors and Tom-a-bedlams committing or rather casting away the soules of men to the carelesse care of those sturdy vagrants whose minds are more unsetled than their eyes or feet or tongues which are so far bent against true Ministers as they are intent to their booty and prey from every quarter Will these who seek to be the maules and hammers of the Ministers of this Church either by their skill or power wit or learning prudence or policy ever forge on the hard anvils of their heads or bring forth out of the rude moulds of their inventions any thing that shall be like a true Minister of the Gospell Are there ordinarily any such blocks to be found among them of which there is any hope that they may be shapen to such Mercuries as are the true Gods Messengers Are there any such tempting materials as any art and industry may promise to fit them up to such a degree and pitch of competent Ministers as may direct the countrey plainnesse and guide that peevish and disputative madnesse which is among even the meanest people in every village Will these skippers or skullers ever furnish out such Pilots as may safely steere the ship of this Church in which the Truth of God the honour of Christ the reformed Religion the happinesse of thousands of soules are embarqued amidst the rocks of errours Syrens of secular temptations and piracies of strong enemies on every side They say that better ships are now built in England than ever were and shall we be content with worse Pilots lesse able Ministers in the Church who are as the Argonautae bringers of the golden fleece the riches and righteousnesse of Christ the Lamb of God the treasures of heaven the true gold of Ophir which hath been seven times tryed in stead of which
disorders and scandals being far heavier than the loyns of the Law were in former-times where if there was less liberty by the restraints which men had by Laws laid on themselves yet there was also far less ignorance in names fewer errors in judgements 5. Other weak conjectures of the causes of Ministers abating in their honor blasphemies in opinions brokenness in affections dissolutions in discipline undecencies in sacred administrations and licentiousness in the ordinary maners of men So that if those times were not the golden age of the Church sure these cannot brag to be beyond the iron or brazen No less superficial and unsearching are those Conjectures or Censures which a late Writer makes of Ministers ostentations of reading and humane learning in their Sermons of which many men cannot be guilty unless it be of making shews of more then indeed they have Also he allegeth as an occasion of Ministers lapse in their love and respect among the people their small regard and strangeness to godly people When it is evident many mens and womens godliness brings forth now no better fruit than first quarreling with then neglecting afterward despising next separating from after that bitter railing against and lastly stirring up faction not onely against that one Minister but his whole calling Certainly some are become such godly brambles and holy thistles as are not to be conversed with more than needs must and are never to be treated with bare hands But in case some Ministers by many indignities provoked grow more teachy and morose to these mens thrifty inconstant and importune godliness If they fortifie what they assâ—â—â— by the testimonies of learned men which is no more than is sometimes needful among captious curious and contemptuous auditors yea if they seem to some severer censor something to exceed in their particulars those bounds of gravity and discretion which were to be desired yet what wise man can think that such fleebites or scratches in comparison can send forth so great corruption or occasion so ill a savor in the nostrils of God and man that for these things chiefly Ministers should be so much under clouds of obloquy and disrespect that although they have every seventh day at least wherein to do men good and to gain upon their good wills yet many of them are so lost that there are but few can give them so much as a good word But 1 Sam. 19.12 some men are willing to mistake the Image and Goats-hair for David and pretend with Rachel infirmities Gen. 31.34 when they sit upon their Idols Alas these cannot be the symptomes of so great conflicts and paroxisms as many Ministers now labor under who were sometimes esteemed very pretious men and highly lifted up on the wings of popular love and fame In which respects no men suffer now a greater ebb than those that were sometime most active forward and applauded The sticks and strains of lesser scandals and common failings among Ministers might kindle some flashes to singe and scorch some of them but these could not make so lasting flames so fierce and consuming a fire as this is In which many or most Ministers that thought themselves much refined and undertook to be refiners of others are now either tried or tormented Who sees not that the fire and wood of this Toâ—het which God hath prepared Isai 30.33 is not as some conceive onely for Princes and Prelates for Archbishops and Bishops c. In some of whom what ever there was of want of zeal for Gods glory of sincere love to the truth of charity to mens souls I cannot excuse or justifie since they could not but be as highly displeasing to God and man as from both they enjoyed very great and noble advantages above other men of glorifying God advancing Christian Religion and incouraging all true holiness Nor was the having of Dignities and Revenues their sin but the not faithful using of them no wonder if of them to whom much was given Luke 12.48 much be required either in duty or in penalty But this Tophet is also we see enlarged for the generality of Presbyters and such as disdained to be counted the inferior Ministers nor is this fire thus kindled in the valley of Hinnom nourished onely by the bones and carkases of ignorant profane and immoral Ministers who are as dry sticks Jude 12. and trash twice dead to conscience and to modesty fit indeed to be pulled up by the roots but even those greater Cedars of Lebanon have added much to this pile and fewel who sometimes seemed to be Trees of the Lord tall and full of sap very able and useful in the Church and while within their due ranks and station they were faithful flourishing and fruitful whose very Children and Converts their former disciples followers favorers and beloved ones Gen. 19.22 now in many places turn Chams pointing and laughing at their Fathers real or seeming nakedness Who drinking perhaps too much of the new wine of state policies opinions and strange fashions of reformations possibly may have been so far overtaken with the strength of that thick and heady liquor as to expose something of shame and uncomliness to the view of the wanton world where not strangers open enemies proud and profaner aliens but even Protestants Professors Domesticks and near Allies sit in the highest seat of scorners inviting all the enemies of our Church our Ministry and our Reformed Religion to the theatre of these times Where among other bloody and tragical spectacles this is by some prepared for the farce and interlude to expose by Jesuitical engines and machinations the learned and godly Ministers together with the whole Ministry of this Church of England to be baited mocked and destroyed with all maner of irony injuries and insolency And alas there are not many that dare appear to hinder the project or redeem either the persons or the function yea many are afraid to pity them or to plead for them The merciful hearted and tender handed God who smites us whose hand we should all see Micah 6.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and return to him who hath appointed this rod and punishment doth not use to make so deep wounds and incisions for little corruptions which are but superficial and skin-deep nor to shoot so sharp and deadly arrows in the faces of those that stand before him as his Ministers unless they first provoke him to his face 1 Sam. 2.22 by their grosser follies in Israel as Eli's sons did Wherefore I conceive a further penitent search and discovery ought to be made of Ministers sins and failings for which the Lord hath brought this great evil upon them which although it be a just punishment yet it may prove a fatherly chastisement to us all and at once both purge us as fire from our dross and by exciting those gifts and graces truly Christian and Ministerial in us it may prepare us both for greater service
degree true That many of these Mushroom Ministers the most forward Teachers of this new race and mechanick extraction are such persons in disguises of vulgar plainness Nunquam periculosi es fallit tâ—nebâ—arum mendaciorum pater quà m cùm sub lucis veritatis specit delitescit Jeron and simplicity who have had both their learning and their errand from the vigilant Seminaries beyond Sea Out of which Galliles can come little good to our Reformed Church and Nation Satan is not less a Devil when he will seem a Doctor nor more a dangerous tempter than when he would appear a zealous teacher Whence soever they are sure we are That many of these who are so suddenly started up into Pulpits are not ashamed to vent by word and writings such transcendent blasphemies That they teach whatever they think or say of the Majesty of God of Christ of the holy Spirit of the Divine Nature though never so irreverent profane and ridiculous yet it is no blasphemy but sublimity So Irenaeus l. 1. Tertul. de prae ad Hae. Austin de haer de unitate Eccles c. 16. Tells us of the Partantilâ—quia Haeraticorum Vid. p. 204. no profaneness but getting above and out of all fornis Whatever they contradict of the clear literal sense and rational scope of the Scriptures though it seem and be never so gross a lie and error in the common significancy of the words yet it is a truth in the spirit Whatever they act never so disorderly brutish horrid obscene and abominable yet it is no sin but a liberty which God and Christ and the Spirit exercise in them who cannot sin Nor is this the least cause we have to suspect beware of and abhor these new Modellers and Levellers of the Ministry That how different soever their faces and factions are one from another though they go one East and the other West whether they separate or rank or seek or shake yet still they meet in this one point No Ordination no Function or peculiar Calling of the Ministry The Serpents tail meets with his head that he may surround truth with a circle of malice In hoc uniformes esse solent errantium deformitates quod rectè sentientes odiâ— habent August As Herod and Pilate they agree to crucifie Christ as Samsons Foxes though their wily-heads look several ways yet their filthy tails carry common fire-brands not onely to set on fire the sometime well-fill'd and fruitful Field of this Church but also to consume the very laborers and husbandmen Their eyes and hands are generally bent against the best and ablest Ministers and their spirits most bitterly inconsistent with that holy Ministry which Christ once delivered by the Apostles to the Church and which by the fidelity of his Church hath been derived to us of which we and all the true Churches of Christ have in all ages had so great and good experience which no malice of devils or personal infirmities of men have been hitherto able so to hinder as wholly to interrupt much less so to corrupt it that it should be either just or any way necessary to abolish it according to those tragical clamors and tyrannick purposes of some unworthy men whose malice and cruelty Esther 5.9 as our modern Hamans doth hope and daily with eagerness expect when the whole Function and Calling which is from God though by man of the ordained and authoritative Ministry which hath succeeded the Apostles to our days shall be trussed up that fifty footed Gallows which malicious and ungrateful envy or sacrilegious covetousness or vulgar ambition or Jesuitick policies hath erected for the whole Nation of the antient and true Ministers And all this because like Mordecai they will not nor in any Reason Law and Religion can bow down or pay any respect such as the pride and vanity of some men expect to those high and self-exalting gifts whereto their Antiministerial adversaries pretend and which they seek to cry up in their meetings and scriblings with which they say and onely say They are divinely called and more immediately inspired not onely above their fellows and brethren who are still modestly exercised in their first mechanick occupations but even above those that are much their betters every way and who merit to have been and possibly have been to many of them as Fathers in Religion by whose pains and care with Gods blessing the true Christian Religion in all ages hath been planted propagated and preserved or where need was reformed and restored to its essential lustre and primitive dignity So that the cruel contrivances and desperate agitations 25. Sober mans greatest sense Revel 12.4 carried on by some men against the true Ministers and Ministry in this Church like the looks of the great red Dragon upon the Woman of the Revelation have a most dire and dreadful aspect not onely upon all good learning and civility but also upon all true Religion both as Christian and as Reformed Threatning at once to devour the very life soul beauty honor â—oy and blessing of this Nation on which we may well write Ickabob 1 Sam. 4.21 the glory is departed from our Israel so soon as the fury of these men hath broke the hearts and necks of our Elies the Evangelical Priests of the Lord the true Ministers of Christ who are as the chariots and horsmen of our Israel Civil changes and secular oppressions have their limits confined within the bounds of things mortal and momentary with which awise and well setled Christian is neither much pleased nor displeased Quadratus cùm sit vir bonus ad omnem fortuna jactum aquabilis est sibi constans Sen. Tanto satius est esse Christianum quà m hominem quanto praestat non omnino esse hominem quà m non esse Christianum Bern. because not much concerned nor long For no wind from the four corners of the Earth can blow so cross to a good mans sails but he knows how to steer a steddy course to Heaven according to the compass of a good Conscience But what relates to our souls eternal welfare to the inestimable blessing of present times and posterity What more concerns us in point of being true Christians that is rightly instructed duly baptized and confirmed in an holy way than any thing of riches peace honor liberty or the very being men can do for without being true Christians it had been good for us we had never been men what evidently portends and loudly proclaims Darkness Error Atheism Barbarity Profaneness or all kinde of Antichristian tyrannies and superstitions to come upon us and our children instead of that saving truth sweet order and blessed peace instead of those unspeakable comforts and holy privileges which we formerly enjoyed from the excellency of the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ declared to us by the labors of our true and faithful Ministers We hope it can offend no good Christians to
edification and well-governing of the Church 1 Cor. 14.40 Wherein it had as all particular National Churches have an allowance from God both in Scripture and in Reason 27. Things of Religion ought first and most to be considered by Christian Rulers But as if nothing had been reformed and setled with any wisdom judgement piety or conscience in this Church nor hitherto so carried on by any of the true and ordained Ministers of it infinite calumnies injuries and indignities are daily cast upon the whole Church and the best Ministers of it The cry whereof no doubt as it hath filled the Land so it hath reached up to Heaven and is come up to the ears of the most high God And therefore I hope it will not seem rude unseasonable or importune to any excellent persons of what piety or power soever if it now presseth into their presence who ought to remember that they are but as Bees in the same Hive as Ants on the same Mole-hill and as Worms in the same clods of Earth with other poor inferior Christians whom they have far surmounted in civil and secular respects The swarms and crowds of worldly counsels and designs we hope have not as they ought not overlaid or smothered all thoughts care and conscience of preserving restoring and establishing truth good order and peace in matters of Religion Which are never by those publick persons who pretend to any thing of true Christianity to be so far despised and neglected that those above all other matters of publick concernment should be left like scattered sheaves to the wastings and tramplings upon by the feet of the Beasts of the people Meritò à Deo negliguntur quires Dei secularibus post ponunt negotiis Cypr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Primum quod sanctum Plat. Matth. 6.31 Hag. 1.4 Is it time for you to dwell in your ceiled houses and this house lie waste V. 5. Now therefore saith the Lord of hosts consider your ways 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arat. Phainom ungathered and unbound by any civil sanction and power agreeable to holy order divine method Christian charity and prudence Possibly it had fared better with all estates in this Church and State if they had learned and followed that divine direction and grand principle in Christian politicks First seek the Kingdom of Heaven and the righteousness thereof and all these things shall be added to you The neglect of Gods house the Church and its beauty holy order and ministry hath been a great cause of overthrowing so many seiled houses which were covered with Cedar and decked with Vermilion and Gold Certainly no men employed in publick power or counsel have any business of so great concernment or of so urging and crying necessity as this The preservation of the true Evangelical Ministry in its due power and authority Upon which without any dispute among sober and truly-wise men the very life being weight honor and succession of our Religion doth depend both as Christian and as reformed For it is not to be expected that the ignorant prating and confident boasting of any other voluntiers will ever soberly adorn or solidly maintain our Religion which hath so many very eloquent learned and subtile enemies besides the rude and profaner rabble besieging it both learned and unlearned oppose true Religion as the right and left-hand of the Devil the one out of ignorance the other out of crookedness the one as dark the other as depraved the one cannot endure its light nor the other its straitness Against neither of them can these afford help Anserum clangere crepituque alarum excitus Manlius capitolium propugnat Gallos deturbat c. Livi. Dec. 1. l. 5. any more than the confused cackling of a company of Geese could have defended the Roman Capitol Which noise is indeed but an alarm to sober and good Protestants intimating the approach or assault of enemies and should excite the vigilancy and valor of all worthy Magistrates conscientious Soldiers and wise Christians of this Reformed Church to resist the invading danger as by other fit means so chiefly by establishing and incouraging a succession of learned godly and faithful Ministers Nor in any reason of State or of Conscience should those who exercise Magistratick power in this Church and State so far neglect him who is Higher then the highest * Eccles 5.8 He that is higher than the highest regardeth and there be higher than they John 19.11 Thou couldst have no power except it were given thee from above Christ to Pilat 1 Cor. 12.1 1 Pet. 4.10 Stewards of the manifold grace of God Luke 1.16 by whom all power is dispenced or so far gratifie the irreligious rudeness the boisterous ignorance and violent profaneness of any who are but Gods executioners the instruments of his wrath and ministers of his vengeance as for their sakes and at their importunity to despise and oppress those who are by Christ and his Church appointed to be Ministers of Gods grace and conveyers of his mercy to men The meanest of whom that do indeed come in his name the proudest mortal may not safely injure or despise because not without sin and reproach to Christ and God himself For he that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and him that sent me is signally and distinctly spoken in favor to true Ministers and for terror to those that are prone to offer insolency to their worldly weakness and meanness Such as despise and oppose the Ministers of Christ are more rebellious than the devils were for of these the seventy returning testifie Luke 10.17 Lord even the devils are subject to us in thy Name If then we have immortal souls which some mockers now question sure they are infinitely to be preferred before our carkases and the instruments which God hath appointed 1 Cor. 1.21 It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe as means to save them are proportionably to be esteemed beyond any that are oft the destroyers at best but the preservers of mens bodies and outward estates Who can dissemble or deny That the banks of equity piety modesty and charity yea of common humanity are already by some men much demolished through the pride presumption insolence scurrility and profaneness of some spirits who are set against the Reformed Religion the Ministers and Ministry of this Church Who sees with honest and impartial eyes and deplores not to behold how the deluge of Ignorance Atheism Profaneness and Sottishness also of damnable Errors devilish Doctrines and Popish Superstitions together with Schismatical fury and turbulent Factions are much prevailed of later years both in Cities and Countreys here in England And this Gaudet in malis nostris diabolus latatur in miseriis dilatatur augustiis delectatur angoribus triumphat ruinis Bern. since men of Antiministerial tempers have studied to act the Devils Comedy and this Churches Tragedy endeavoring to render not onely
calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Non est vera aut firma certitudâ— gloriae sine diligenti industria gratiae Chrys Phil. 2.12 1 Cor. 15.32 I die daily Verè Christum sequi est omnia perpeti indies crucifigi jugiter â—iâ—ri Prosp 2 Pet. 1.6 1 Pet. 4.18 Non vult Deus ut delicato itinere ad caelum perveniamus Jeron Aut hoc non est Evangelium aut bi non sunt Evangelici Luth. Vana est religio quae sceliri locum facit Aen. Syl. Vanâ— est religio quae vera non est nec vera esse potest nisi certa sit firtâ—a aequabilis sibi semper constans in omnibus una Tertul. Hoc primum invenimus quod perditissimi sumus nec nisi quaerendo Deum salvari possumus August to work out their salvation with fear and trembling by hearing reading searching and meditating on the Scriptures by repenting fasting praying watching and weeping by examining trying judging and condemning their sinful self even in the most specious and successful actions Thus by mortification and self-denial coming to the Cross of Christ taking it up bearing it and fastning themselves to it as to all just strictnesses holy severities and patient sufferings still endeavoring to abound in all exactness of justice charity meekness temperance and innocency before God and man Thus going with some holy agony through many difficulties the narrow way true Christians having done all enter in at the strait-gate which leads to life and are scarcely saved These were harder disciplines and rougher severities of piety than our delicate novelists our gentle Enthusiasts our smiling Seraphicks our triumphant Libertines our softer Saints can endure which makes them so impatient as Ahab to Eliah and Micaiah to hear and bear the words of faithful and true Ministers which seem as hard sayings when they recommend and urge these Scripturals and Morals of truth and holiness â—ustice mercy and humility Micah 6.8 to be the onely reals of Religion In which the duty rule end comfort and crown of true Religion do consist whose greatest and surest enjoyment is self-denial bringing the lost soul to finde it self lost and to seek after God and having found him to follow him with all obediential love with a pious impatient panting and thirsting after happiness in him by the ways of holiness as having none in Heaven or Earth comparable to him still earnestly pressing toward him as always and onely wanting him in the fullest enjoyments of all things here unsatiably satisfied with his unsurfetting-sweetness ever filled with him yet ever longing more to partake of him The soul in this its excessive thirst and spiritual feaver being confident it can drink up that Jordan that ocean of divine fulness which alone it sees can give it an happy satisfaction to eternity 4. The Souls search after and discoveries of God The devout and pious Soul thus intent to God and content with him is not always sceptically wandring in endless mazes and labyrinths of Religion either groping in obscurities or guessing at uncertainties or grapling with intricate disputes or perplexed with various opinions or shifting its parties or doubting its profession or confounding its morals or dazeling its intellectual eye by looking to prospects of immensity and objects of eternity which are so remote from it and far above it that it onely sees this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dionys Quod est omni creaturà melius id Deum dicimus Aug. Retract That it can see nothing of that transcendent Good which we call God Who is indeed that superexcellent excellency which we can least know as he is and can no way comprehend in his ineffable essence and most incomprehensible perfections But the Soul in its religious search after and devout applications to this supreme Good which it esteems as its God stayes and solaces it self as Miners do who still follow and chiefly intend the richest Vain with those lesser grains and sparks of divine goodness and beauty which it findes every where scattered in its passage among the Creatures which are as little essays pledges and tokens of that divine glory and excellency which must needs be infinitely more admirable and delectable in God himself The pious which is the onely wise and well advised Soul Habet Deus testimonia totum hoc quod sumus in quo sumus Tert. l. 1. adv Mar. Psal 111.2 Psal 8. Dei opera sunt quotidiana miracula consueta vilescunt Aug. Rom. 1.20 so soon as ever it seriously searcheth after God findes him in some kinde or other every where present and in every thing lovely yea admirable both within and without it self yet still it conceives him to be infinitely above it self and all things Something of God it discovers and accordingly admireth adoreth praiseth loveth and exalteth him in the order goodness greatness beauty variety and constancy of his works which are every day visible something it perceives of his sweetness and delectableness in the sober moderate and holy delectations which our senses afford us when they enjoy those objects which are convenient and fitted for them something it observes of divine wisdom power benignity and justice in the experiences of Gods providence bounty and patience which the histories of all times afford something it discerns of God in those common beams and principles of reason which shine in all mens mindes and are evidenced in the consent of all Nations Amplissin a merâ— est bona conscientia Hic murus aheneus c. Prima est bac ultio quod se Judice nemo nocens absolvitur c. Juv. Matth. 1.6 8. If I be a father c. Offer it now to thy Prince c. Tam pater tam pius tam beneficus nemo Tert. de Deo Sometime also in the reflexions terrors or tranquilities of its own and other mens consciences which are as the first Heaven or Hell rewarding the good or punishing the bad intentions and actions of every man More fully it sees God in the manifestations of the divine Word in the exactness of the Moral Law in the rules of Justice given to all men of which their own reason and will is the measure and standard Being commanded to do to other men as we would have them do to us Matth. 7.12 yea and to do to God also in the relations whereby we stand obliged to him for duty love and gratitude as we would have others do to us when we are as fathers or masters or friends or benefactors or well-willers against which to offend is by all men thought most barbarous unjust and wicked how much more against God who hath the highest merit upon us Yet further the Soul searching after God findes his wisdom and prescience in all those prophetical predictions and many prefigurations of things to come Idoneum est divinitatis testimonium veritas divinationis Tert. Apol. c. 20. which from several hands and at several times derived have
Primatum suum non objecit Petrus nec inerrabilitatem sed Paulo veritatis assertori cesset Documentum patientiae concordiae Cyp. ep 71. for deciding controversies of Religion and ending all Disputes of Faith in the Church Catholike countervail the injury of this his usurpation and oppression Considering that nothing is more by Scripture Reason and Experience not so much disputable as fully to be denied by any sober Christians than that of the Popes Infallibility which as the Church never ye enjoyed so nor doth any Church or any Christian indeed want any such thing as this infallible judge is imagined to be in order to either Christian course or comfort If indeed the Bishop of Rome and those learned men about him would without faction flattery partiality and self-interest joyn their learning counsels and endeavors in common to reform the abuses to compose the rents and differences in the Christian World by the rule of Scripture and right Reason with Christian humility prudence and charity which look sincerely to a publick and common good they would do more good for the Churches of Christ than any imaginary Infallibility will ever do yea and they would do themselves no great hurt in civil respects if they could meet and joyn not with envious and covetous but liberal and ingenuous Reformers who will not think as many the greatest deformities of any Church to be the riches and revenues of Church-men Certainly in points of true Religion to be believed or duties to be practised as from divine command every Christian is to be judge of that which is propounded to him and embraced by him according to what he is rationally and morally able to know and attain by those means which God hath given him of Reason Scripture Ministry and good examples Of all which the gifts or graces of God in him have inabled him seriously and discreetly to consider Nor is he to rest in either implicite or explicite dictates presumptions and Magisterial determinations of any frail and sinful men who may be as fallible Magnum ingenium magna tentatio De Orig. Tert. Vin. Lirin 1 Cor. 8.7 Knowledge puffeth up 2 Pet. 2.19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 6.17 Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you Eph. 4.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Thes 2.10 Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved as himself For whereas they may exceed him in gifts of knowledge they may also exceed him in passions self-interests pride and policy so that he may not safely trust them on their bare word and assertion but he must seek to build his faith on the more sure Word of God which is acknowledged by all sides to be the surest director what to believe to do and to hope in the way of Religion Nor may any private Christians unletteredness that cannot read or his weaker intellect that cannot reason and dispute or his many incumberances of life that deny him leisure to read study compare meditate c. These may not discourage him as if he were a dry tree and could neither bear nor reap any fruit of Christian Religion because he hath no infallible guide or judge Since the mercy of God accepts earnest endeavors and an holy life according to the power capacy and means a man hath also he pardons unwilling errors when there is an obedience from the heart to the truths we know and a love to all truth joyned with humility and charity In order therefore to relieve the common defects of men as to the generality of them both in Cities and in Countrey Villages where there is little learning by the Book or Letter and great dulness with heavy labor the Lord of his wisdom and mercy hath appoint d that constant holy order of the Ministry to be always continued in the Church that so learned studious and able men being duly tryed approved and ordained to be Teachers and Pastors may by their light knowledge and plenty supply the darkness simplicity and penury of common people who must every man be fully perswaded in his own minde Rom. 14.5 in matters of conscience and be able to give a reason of that faith and hope which is in him beyond the credit of any meer man or the opinion of his infallibility 1 Pet. 3.15 However they may with comfort and confidence attend upon their lips whom in an holy succession of Ministry God hath given to them as the ordinary and sufficient means of Faith And however a plain-hearted and simple Christian may religiously wait upon and rest satisfied with those holy means and mysteries which are so dispenced to him by true Ministers who ought above all to be both able and faithful to know and to make known the truth as it is in Jesus Yet may he not savingly or conscientiously relie in matters of Faith nor make his last result upon the bare credit or personal veracity of the Minister but he must consider and believe every truth not because the Minister saith it but because it is grounded on the Word of God and from thence brought him by his Minister which doctrine he judgeth to be true not upon the infallibility of any Teachers but upon that certainty which he believes to be in the Scripture to which all sorts of Christians do consent And to which the Grace and Spirit of God so draweth and enclineth the heart as to close with those divine truths to believe and obey them not for the authority of the Minister but of God the Revealer whose excellent wisdom truth and love it discerns in those things which are taught it by the Ministry of man So that still the simplest Christian doth savingly believe and conscientiously live according to what himself judgeth and is perswaded in his heart to be the Will of God in his Word and not after the dictates of any man Which either written or spoken have no more authority to command or perswade belief as to Religion than they appear to the believer and not to the speaker onely grounded on the sure Word of God and to be his minde and will to mankinde And as it is not absolutely necessary to every Christian in order to Faith and Salvation to be able with his own eyes to read and so to judge of the Letter of the Scripture so it is the more necessary that the reading and preaching of the Word should be committed to able and faithful men not who are infallible 2 Tim. 2.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but who may be apt to teach and worthy to be believed Of whom the people may have great perswasion both as to their abilities and due authority to teach and guide them in the ways of God We read in Irenaeus Irenaeus l. 3. c. 4. that in One hundred and fifty years after Christ many Churches of Christians toward the Caspian Sea and Eastward were very sound in the Faith and setled against
their pretended gifts Vasa quo inaâ—iora eo sonuntiora Vulgus hominum quae non inâ—elligunt impensius nio antur Jeron Males amorum Christianorum ut phreneticorum hominum delirantium illud proprium est Sibi semper adblandiri de se suisque magna polliceri jactabundi de Thesauris suis divitiis cum sint pauperimi se reges somniant ostentant cum vincti caess laceri sint vel uno hoc miserrimi quod sui ipsorum non miscreantur Erasmus Quartâ Lunâ nati plerunque moriones Lunatici Cardan shewing they are very full of themselves puffed up with their own leven applauded also by some others and blown up by people of their own size who are as prone to flatter confident talkers and undertakers as Children are to fill empty bladders with wind Pint-pots wi l cry up one anothers capacity and fulness till they are set neer or compared and emptyed into quart or gallon vessels 'T will then appear though they were soon full and ran over yet they held but little and are soon exhausted These Behemetick Preachers Spagyrick-Illuminates Familistick Prophets and Seraphick Teachers who pretend to such strange Prerogatives of gifts and new Lights above all other Christians yea and beyond the ablest Ministers like frantick men alwaies bosting of their riches strength treasure beauty c. amidst their sordid necessities If a wise man come neer them he shall find that as to any true light of good learning or sound Religion they are as dark and dusky as if they had been begotten in the Eclips of the Sun and born in the last quarter of the Moon In good earnest I wish I could find any just cause by their speech or Pamphlets to set my hand to those ample testimonials which these gifted men every where give of themselves and their party I have no envy at their parts nor ill will against any of their persons nor have I suffered or at least am not sensible of any particular injury from any of them So that I can without any passion or partiality profess that I never yet perceived any such sparks of eminent gifts either in reason or Religion as renders them either envyable or any way considerable in comparison of those Ministers whom they list to cry down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isoc Magno conatu nugas nihil agunt Portentiloquia fanaticorum Iraen Et sana sanantia verba 2 Tim. 4.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and disparage Poor men they are indeed admirable but not Imitable for a kind of chimicall Divinity which after much pains and puffing vapours into smoke They are rare for odd expressions and phantastick phrases instead of the antient Scripture forms of wholesome words Nothing is more wonderfull as monsters are than their affected raptures wild speculations and strange expressions imagining that none sees their folly because they shut their own eyes and soar above the common mans capacity in specious nonsense and calling those glorious Truths which are sottish vanities or shamefull lyes What honest hearted Christian can bear the filthy and unsavory expressions of some of these Anti-ministeriall Ranters Shakers and Seekers their metaphysicall mincings of Blasphemy their ridlings of Religion their scurrilous confounding of the Incomprehensible excellencies of God of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Spirit with the nature of any creature never so mean and sordid that to them it s no wonder if the Egyptian found so many Gods in his Garden as he had Leeks and Onyons or Frogs and Toads Thus amusing their poor and silly auditors with high blasphemies Felices gentes quibus haec nascantur in hortis Numina Juv. Non credentium sed credulorum non sanctorum sed insanorum non illuminatorum sed delirantium Theologia Iraen and most obscure extravagancies Such of old were the rare speculations inventions and expressions of the Valentinians Their Buthi Aeones Syzugiai Pseudevangelia Pleromata conceptio spiritualis umbra 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And a thousand such blasphemous whimsyes which Irenaeus tels of in his times So that their Dungeon-like Divinity and Mid-night Doctrines instead of fair explications of Truth by Scripture reasonings and the demonstration of the Spirit therein are rather like Hedge-hogs when they are handled they wrap themselves up into such prickly intricacies as makes them not only useless ugly and untractable but hurtfull and scandalous to sober Christians and all true Religion which these fellows dress up with their foul fingers as Black-Smiths would do fine Ladys fullying all they touch while they would seem to adorn Certainly If spirituall gifts and prophecying of old had been such ordinary stuff such raw and rude conceptions such short thrums and broken ends of Divinity such ridiculous and incoherent dreams such senseless and sorry confusions as some of these Familisticall fancies usually bring forth either extempore or premeditated I do not believe the wisdom of the Apostle would have bid Christians either covet it 1 Cor. 14.1 39. 1 Thes 5.20 or not despise it Both which precepts import that such prophecyings as were of old and are only fit to be used in the Church Merito contemnendi sunt isti nugivenduli Prophetae qui-Ministerii Evangelici contemptores fastuosissimi nihil tamen ipsi profâ—runt praeter nugas nugacissimas mera delmia Zanch. had and ought to have such tokens of excellency and worth in it for the edifying of Christians as may induce wise and good Christians both to esteem it and desire it of which sort I think these presumptuous Propheciers find but a few either to follow them or desire them which is not the least cause of their great envy and indignation against those excellent Ministers who so much stand in their light as far out-shining them in all reall abilities gifts and graces they still retain the best and wisest of the people in some fair degree of order and discretion which forbids them to choose the figs of these new Enthuâ—asts which are very bad before those of their antient Ministers which are very good between whom indeed nothing but extreme ignorance or ranting prophaness can make any comparison Nor will their lowd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bostings of rare discoveries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Profanas vocum novitates affectant qui antiquas doctrinarum veritates deserunt Aust In aliquibus splendor est de putredine Verulam 2 Tim. 3.7 admirable inventions and singular manifestations salve their credit or long serve their turn For what are their rarities and novelties but either old Truths in new tearms purposely translated by such brokers of religion out of the old forms of sound words or else some putrid errors long ago buried which these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 searchers of the graves of old heretiques newly light upon and take for some rare hidden treasures Their splendid fancies like chips of rotten wood may shine for a while and
serve to amuse or scare those silly souls who are still in the dark ever learning and never comming by the means of these Teachers to the knowledge of the Truth but they will never be esteemed as beams or sparks of divine light untill all wise Christians have lost their eyes I have many times been even astonished to hear 5. The arrogancy and impudence of some pretenders to gifts against the true Ministers Sunt qui victum quaritant non sudore vultus sed impudentia frontis Eras de Monachis Ventosa â—ammis ista loquacitas Religionis modestiam velut pestilenti quodam sydere afflâ—t nec veritatem ipsam minus quà m castiorem illam Eloquentiam rebus sacris officiis divinis debitam decoram corrumpit Verul and read of the rudeness and incivilities of these Anti-ministeriall boasters their blustring and crowding into Ministers Pulpits their voluble and ratling tongues their no foreheads their lowd clamors their active hands their indefatigable agitations I never wanted or wished any thing more in them to make them compleat Prophets and Preachers but only solidity gravity modesty charity some savour of learning joyned with humility and zeal with humanity some methods of intelligible reason and profitable Scripture-Divinity Of all which they having so little as amounts to nothing yet I find they are alwaies more than Conquerours in all their adventures If they do but affront a grave sober learned and godly Minister who is fit to be their father in Instruction and possibly hath been so before they thus degenerated if they dare as what dare they not when they go somtimes like Wolves in heards from place to place sâ—eking what flocks yea what Shepheards they may devour seduce or scatter If I say they dare oppose him in his own place with their impudent cavills frivolous quaeries or scurrillous objections If they can but interrupt him in his holy ministrations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 26. or give him some astonishment to see such unwonted evill spirits appear in the Church If at length they can by barbarous and intollerable insolencies both of words and actions disorder and hinder him in his holy offices or at least sufficiently shew the rest of the amazed people Apud omnes genâ—es illud invaluit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacra publica non sunt temeranda In â—â—c enim uniuscujusque gentis bominisque constat honos quòd aliquem numini suo honorem defeâ—unt Camer Pro. 26 4. Isai 36.21 Vé flammae frigida suffusa sic silentio nonâ—â—quam gravissimè reprimuntur coercentur petulantioâ—uÌ„ linguae Aust Perdes vocem in contentione nihil consequeris nisi bilem de blasphematione Tertul 1 Kings 18.26 how safely they can contemn and interrupt the publick service of God which kind of religious riot never was tolerated in any civill Nation under Heaven or among any the most barbarous that owned any publick worship of their God If the Minister good man blush and be ashamed or somthing disordered by them and for them If he in wisdom think fit to confute them wiâ—h silence not answering such fools according to their folly as Hezekiah advis'd his servants to entertain the petulancy of rayling Rabsâ—kâ—h Or if he so far gratifies their importunities and bears with their rusticall manners and confused â—anglings as to dispute with them and by sober managing good arguments without any passion to drive them to apparent non-plusses to all manner of confusions and contradictions to a thousand absurdities against all common principles of reason against all fundamentals of Religion against all Scripture evidences against all Maximes Logicall Morall Historicall and Theologicall If his froward opponents impatient to be so soberly baffled are forced to quit all clear reason and Scripture proofs retreating in vain to their new lights fond interpretations and false glosses to their Seraphick whimseys and Enthusiasticall dreams which can save them no more now from shame than Baal could his self-wounding and vainly Clamorous priests so that at length they fly to down-right rayling and threatning to scare the good man with the next troopers which they can get to appear with them if at last like Wasps they are forced by the godly Ministers learned gravity and constancy to quit the place and only leave their stings of reproaches behind them being full of infinite malice regret and despite for their confusion Their insolent boasting after their vain opposings of able Ministers Yet presently after this great Atchievement the Trumpets or rams horns rather must every where found among the Anti-ministeriall party The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Triumphant songs must be sung Every where it must ring that the Walls of Jericho are faln Babylon is stormed Antichrist is plundred The Pulpit guards are routed The victory is cried up The Triumph must be adorned with colourable Narratives bitter Invectives lying Orations and Philippick declamations signifying Et hoc proprium est eorum qui de fide Catholica Ecclesia minus recte sentiunt se suosque sectatores asseclas magni semper faceâ—e omni grandiloquentia ornare contra sentientes vilipendere summo dâ—spectui habere Hoc Gnostici Symoniaâ— Manichei Novatianâ— Donatis◠〈◊〉 omne◠〈◊〉 heterod◠〈◊〉 vaâ—e 〈…〉 clamore supâ—l t â—actantia 1 K ngs 18. 6. The compare between the abilities of true Ministers and these pretenders to be gifted men Infensissima est ira minime placanda simultas quae ab invidia ad desperationem procedit ideo idio habet quod alterius â—â—â—tiam assequi aut aemulari nequit Lact. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 8.9 what glorious successes these doubty Champions had Lastly the poor Minister without any regard to his age learning worth or credit together with his whole tribe and function must in a fanatick pageantry be led captive In their black coats and mourning habits they must sadly follow the Chariot of these invincible Heroes who like Caesar do but come and see and conquer any true Minister whatsoever be he never so fortified with learning prudence experience good credit and conscience all these are but stubble to that fiery spirit which is in these holy Inâ—â—ndâ—aries who like Don Quixots or Knights Errants have so many Romances of religion in their heads strange fancies and inchanting opinions that they never want Windmills and Giants to encounter yea and they never make adventures without glorious successes and unimaginable M â—cles doing more wonderfull feats with a Dâ—arf or a Squire and an Enchantment than ever the most fortuâ—â—e Generall did with the best disciplin'd Army of horse and foot And in the heat of these Rodomontadoes of that credulous and cruell Faâ—â—or their disdain of Ministers ariseth so high that they meditate nâ—â—ing less than to sacrifice them all to their just wrath and indignation as â—itas did Baals priests for so they call the best of our Ministers as if all the English world
had lately been convinced by these gifted men of their former errors and converted by Miraclâ— and fire from heaven at the word of these rare Teachers from listniâ—g to or regarding any more their true Ministers Thus is their ordinary overvaluing of themselves thus their scorn of all others thus their implacable anger against all able and good Ministers which is therefore the more black and desperate because it ariseth from Envy and amounteth to despair while they cruelly suspect and somtimes smartly find and sensibly feel the reall abilities of Ministers both publickly appearing and generally esteemed by all wise and good Christians far beyond their Phantasms their frothy noyses and meer shews of being as Symon Magus coveted to be esteemed some great one when he bewitched the people of Samaria both great and small so far as to think him the power of the great God This makes them so touchy and impatient of fair disputes of calm and sober Conferences contenting themselves to be blustering scorners and tumultuary opposers of those excellent Ministers whom to compare to such Zanys Dwarfs and Pigmiâ—s as to any true worth of men or excellencie of Christians or abilities and gifts for the Ministry were to honour these and to disparage those too much For what I beseech you O wise and excellent Christians for to you still I must appeal are in good earnest those great gifts and rare abilities which these later Donatists so much boast of against the true and Ordeined Ministers of this Church Are they those grave learned and well digested-collections or those judicious sweet and wholsome Confections or those cordiall and spiritfull distillations of divine and saving truths diligently gathered as Industrious Bees do their Honey from various readings by assiduous studies frequent prayers serious meditations and well-made observations Are they from search and understanding of the Sacred Originals of the Divine Oracles Whence the reall abilitities of true Ministers and what or from much converse in elaborate Commentaries upon the Scriptures from diligent reading of secular and Ecclesiasticall Histories from good in-sight into all commendable Authors and Sciences All which the studies and labours of holy and learned Ministers have competently or plentifully afforded them and they have brought forth to the Churches of Christ in all ages and in no age or Church more liberally than in this last age and in this Church of England By which Methods of wisdom attending daily at her Posts and Gates true and able Ministers have filled and are daily filling the treasuries of their minds Mat. 12.35 Vetera legendo meditando nova invenire aiscimus Quint. with excellent and wel-digested matters both old and new fitting themselves for every good word and work All which digestions of holy studies they seasonably orderly and discreetly bring forth with all the advantages for the peoples profiting of grave clear Methodicall and lively Eloquence both in Praying and Preaching These indeed have been and still are by Gods blessing the reall Ministeriall sufficiencies which the true Ministers of England have been and still are blest withall which these pretenders envy despair of despise and would destroy The insufficiencies of of the Anti-ministerials and whence Because they know indeed and so do the most and best of men that their short teddar will by no artifice of clamour rayling and Popular flatteries ever stretch neer to that proportion which true Ministers have no more than the Tead in the fable could swell it self to the emulated Ox. Alas all the frippery of these Brokers and bosters who have nothing but a Long-lâ—ne or second-hand divinity which they so much hang out at their shop windows extends to no more than a plagiary way of filching and stealing whole discourses or taking some Sermon notes from some able Ministers preaching or writing This good matter they miserably prophane and deface with their evill prefacings odd patchings ragged mangâ—ings of it and wild digressions from it the better to conceal their theft yet is this laziness and theevery the very best of their shifts and among the most veniall arts which are used by these Wasps and Drones which now begin to grow Hornets and hope to drive the true Ministers as the old Cananites out of this good Land that they may inherit it Jos 24.12 They have no other staves and crutches to lean their lameness upon but only such as they have gathered out of the Ministers own woods and now like ungracious children they beat with them both their own Parents and the Planters For if at any time these brazen orators adventure to entertain their leaden Auditors who like Callow birds gape wide Ferreae frontu Oratores plumbei cerebâ—i auditoribus delectantur and are greedy to swallow any thing which is brought them with stuff of their own proper mal-invention un-preparation and dis-composure Nothing is commonly more weak and flashy like whites of Eggs without salt Nothing more loose spungy insinnewie and unsubstantiall than what ariseth from no higher source than their own brains their sudden and shallow fancies which like Rhewm easily swims out of their lips yea worse many times nothing is more pestilently erroneous and more fanatically confused Even most unwholsome and to well-tasting Christians most unsavoury medlies of filthy falshoods desperate and damnable doctrines tempered as the Rats-bane of old Hereticks which Tertullian tells of was wont with some mixtures of Scripture Texts some light inspersions of Truth Nihil proficit Congestio Scripturarum nisi planè aut stomachi quis ineat eversionem aut cerebri Tert. de Hâ—â—ret Adjectionibus detractionibus ad dispositionem instituti sui scripturas intervertit illorum praevitas Cap. 17. Ibid. Appian in Bell. Mith. Modestiora sunt errorum ut vitiorum initia ex quibus tanquam ex minutis ovis ingentes non rarò enascuntur serpentes Eras Consuetudo peccandi tollit peccandi sensum conscientiam Ber. Ephes 4.19 De novitate nomen ab improbitate famam quaerunt Tert. to make them more appetitious and passable with their at first it may be somwhat squeamish disciples who by little and little as Mithridates wonting themselves to nibble and sip off poysons come to that confidence that they venture to quaff up any draughts into which their bolder Mountebanks evidently squeeze and infuse the venome of most loathsome Creatures such as have spit out their poyson like the Racovian Catechism and such like primers of the Devill against Christ and the holy Spirit against rhe grace of God the Law the Scriptures against the glorious Essence goodness and wisdom of God against the Sabbath and Sacraments against all duties all distinctions of order or office in the Church against all restraints of humane lawes against all holiness Morality and modesty in mens lives The only Antidote which their wretched hearers have against all these or the like poysons of souls is no other but their custome of drinking such
horrid and abominable liquors whose venom hath so stupified their consciences that they are past all feeling and sense of either sin shame or sorrow Nor is there ever any of these new Rabbies who can content himself with either the orders of this Church or the Articles of Sound doctrines or Catechisticall foundations and principles which it hath embraced and propounded upon very grave and good advise as most safe and necessary for Christians They must ever have some new fangle either of opinion or practise to make them remarkable 7. Gifts alone make not a Minister nor furnish him with true Ministerial power and authority But if I should yield which I cannot do with truth or only suppose some of these men to have even ordinary Apostolicall gifts as they vainly and falsly pretend yet even these would not make them beyond or better than fals Apostles unless they had the call mission and authority which true Apostles had immediatly from Christ and which false Apostles untruly pretended to who though they taught the truth yet with falsity pretended they had seen the Lord Jesus and were sent as other Apostles by him Nor will those common gifts make them ordinary Prophets or Ministers in the Church unless they have the ordinary call and mission which Christ hath setled in the Church A Serpent of gold would not have brought those healing effects which the brasen did at Gods appointement Gifts of knowledge and utterance alone are not qualifications sufficient for men to challenge the right of Ordination to publick Ministry for the moralls and practiques of men as well as their intellectuals are much to be considered the Priest might be able and the Levite lusty for service when they were unclean and so unfit for the Temple The levity haughtiness rudeness boastings and inconstancies observable in some mens looks gesture habit and carriage as St. Ambrose guessed at the mine and garb of two Presbyters who afterward proved stark naught makes them less fit to be ordained Ministers in the Church than many who have weaker gifts but discover more prudence gravity meekness humility and diligence Autoritas Charismata praesupopanit at Charismata autoritatem non ponunt Gerard. de Minist Qualis ordinatio talis successus Luth. 1 Cor. 3.3 A stock and gifts and parts either naturall or acquired though never so thrifty and spreading is of it self but as a crabstock and can of it self bear no other than sour fruits of Factions Schisms Emulations and carnall confusions in the Church till it is grafted with holy ordination by that due ministeriall power which is in the Church As there are formally or truly no true Sacraments where the same Elements and words materiâ—lly are used unless there be also a right Minister of holy things who acts and consecrates not in any naturall or civill capacity as from his own mind or other mens will but by delegation and appointment from Christ nor can there be a right Minister In actionibus tam sacris quaÌ„ civilibus id validum quod legitimum Reg. Ju. or Officer from Christ as I formerly proved where there is not a right patent divine power and commission given in his Name by due ordâ—nation as it is but treason and rebellion for the abâ—est States-man or Lawyer to undertake and act the part of an Embassadour or Judge untill he be made such by those in reference to whose will and work such power and employment only can be conferred That cannot be done in anothers name which is not done by his consent Quo meliores eo deteâ—iores Verulam de Jesuitis and according to his declared will Men of the greatest gifts if they are disorderly in the Church are but as Wens in the hodâ— the greater the worser the more they swell beyond the modell and true proportion of the bodies features the more deformity and inconvenience they bring to the whole body nor hath any man any cause to boast of them for it is not the greatness but fitness of parts which makes them handsome or useful to the whole who knows not that great wits and parts are oft-times great temptations as was said of Origen Magnum ingenium magna tentatio Vinc. Lyrin de Origine Tertul Gen. 3. whose frequent Preaching in the Church of Alexandria before he was Ordeined Presbyter gave great offence to grave and godly men imputing his after errors and fall to his too great forwardness and presumption The Serpent which was subtiller than other beastâ— is chosen by the Devill as a fit organe for to convey his temptations Proud and presumptuous gifts in men are no better than those inordinate excrescencies which exceed mens noses or blind their eyes or somtimes swell bigger than their heads nor will their fate be better at last than that of the Giants was who presuming of his vast limbs 1 Chron. 20.6 and the extraordinary number of his fingers and toes which were twenty four in all yet there wanted not of Davids worthies who slew him when he defied the Church of God 2 Cor. 10.12 If men be left to measure themselves only by thems lves as most of these overwise-men do which of them but is prone to think very highly of himself and like the Apes in the fable fancy they can build as brave Houses and Cities and Churches as the ablest man but when they come to the Wood thâ—y have not so much as Sawes or Axes or any tools to begin the work withall But these over-forward men usually reply with great sadness and severity against Ministers Monopolising of the duty and office of Preaching the Gospell That Paul rejoyced if any preached Christ Phil. 1.18 8. Of St. Pauls rejoycing that any way Christ was preached Phil. 2.21 Acts 17.11 though of envy and evill will though not Ordeined c. I answer first It doth not appear but those men might have due Ministeriall power to preach the Gospell and yet through passion or faction they abused this power seeking their own things and not the things of Christ Or secondly It may be their preaching was but privat domestique and charitative Instruction or confirming of others repeating as the Bereans what they had learned of St. Paul or other Apostles which is not denyed to any sober Christians but only required to be kept within those bounds of Order and humility so as it neither becomes rivall to or opposer of nor yet a despiser and at last an abolisher of the office of the publique Ministry which is the design of the presumptuous and pretenders against the Ministers Thirdly If those whom the Apostle speaks of were not Preâ—â—â—ers by office but only by their own little motives of applause or profit or Envy and the like they were moved to preach the Gospell of Christ yet they did not like ouâ— modern Intrudâ—rs and Usurpers boâ—st of Extraordinary gâ—fts and call nor did they deny or seek to overthrow in others the ordinary
tantum fulminantis venerantur numina Bern. 1 Cor. 12.13 in their most clear light and concurrent strength that they will not prostrat all or any of these to a company of wretched Pamphlets fitter for Cooks and Chandlers shops than for the reading of judicious and serious Christians who have cause to look upon those putrefactions of Pens and wits only as Moths and Vermine every where creeping up and down and hoping like Ants only by their numbers to devour all antient Authors and all good literature that so they alone may survive and satisfie the grosser palats of those who never relished any book so much as a Ballad or a Play or a Romance or some Seraphick raptures and pious nonsense Is he scandalized that we count not the diseases of Christians health their putrefactions perfections their dâ—stractious raptures their ravings reason their dreams oracles baseness liberty their Chaos comliness Is he jealous of us because we rather study and profess solid truths sober piety good manners and orderly government which only become all true Christians and Ministers above all Is it our fault that we endevour to Pray Preach Write what we and others may understand that we covet not to be admired by not being understood that we aim to do all things as becomes Men Christians and Ministers of the true Church of Christ not after the manner of plausible and easie fondness which is afraid to offend where there is power to hurt that counts greatness as a badge of goodness and success a sign of Sanctity but rather with all just zeal courage and constancy beseeming the demonstrations of the truth and Spirit of God which never needed more to be asserted as to its divine power and eternall honour than in this pusillanimous and frothy generation of vapourers who are the greatest enemies to and betrayers of our Religion as Christian and as Reformed whether they be Gogs or Magogs open or secret the one or the many Antichrists Papall or popular delusions We hope this Gentleman is so good natured that with all other excellent Christians he will forgive us those wrongs by which we have been and ever shall be piously injurious and faithfully offensive as aiming not to please men but God Wherein then are we the Preachers of the good old way One and all meriters of such fatall terrors as those words import which like Apocalyptick Revelations are dark but dreadfull portending God knows what sufferings upon them all If there be no men more single-hearted none more open candid and ingenuous than all good Ministers pray to be who are no Statists or Politicians but able and honest Preachers of the name of the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent to shew Sinners the way of eternall life If there be nothing more necessary more usefull less offensive or burdensome to any wise sober and godly minds than their lives and labours are If no men are more modest and moderate in all their desires and designs than learned humble and diligent which are the unpragmatick Ministers what is the grief why this complaint lamentation and burthen which this Gentleman takes up so prophetically against them both as to their sin and their suffering unless men be vexed that any worthy men are duly made Ministers or that Ministers are but men unless it offend that they have food and raiment which most of them dearly earn and hardly get unless they are impatient as the Wolf was with the Lamb that we breath in the same common ayr or see the same Sun or tread on the same Earth or drink of the same stream 1 King 18.17 the troubling of which is by the troublers of it unjustly imputed to their innocency who must therefore be accused because violence hath a mind to destroy them What is the error what the heresie what the superstition what the Popish opinion or practise which any of us Ministers so resolutely maintain Sure this Gentleman is not to be thought of so low a form of foundlings and novices who suspect and dread every thing as Popish which we hold Profracta est illa superstitiosa timiditas quae à bonis abhorret quibus abutuntur mali Aust or act in common with the Pope or Papists wholly to recede from any thing common with them must divest us not only of the main truths duties vertues and grounds of our Religion as Christian but we must cast off all or most part of that which denominates us either rationall or humane both as to the nature and society of men But if we obstinatly retain any thing either for opinion or practice which may truly be branded with the mark of the Beast as either erroneous or superstitious beyond the bounds of Christian truth or liberty or decency If either any generall Councill or any Synod of this Church since it were reformed or any Parliament Qualis affectatio in civilibus talis superstitio in divinis Verulam and civill Convention of the Estates of this Nation have condemned what we teach or practise or opine If any wise and learned man not apparently ingaged in faction or schism against the publique Constitution both in Church and State did ever so much as accuse or convict us of any such crimes Misericorditer plectitur qui ad emendationem ducitur Aust In Gods name let us suffer what He thinks fit If we have deserved it from men it will be a mercy to be punished and amended by them If we have not it will be an honour and crown to us above all men to suffer for the testimony of Jesus Christ the honour of our function and this Church from unreasonable and ungratefull men who use Ministers as their Oxen 1 Cor. 9.9 but not in the Apostles or Gods sense first exhausting and tyring them at hard labour and then they destroy and devour them The appeal of all true and faithfull Ministers as to their integrity far from this superstition charged on them But to all excellent and impartiall Christians we may and do as in the presence of God appeal Is not this in some mens sense and censure the sin of the ablest and best Preachers both for learning piety and constancy that they do not so easily yield to or applaud a Military or Mechanick religion that they are sorry to see so goodly a part of the Catholike Church so stately a pillar of Gods house as the Church of England lately was so every day hewing in pieces and mouldring to nothing for want of due order and government or seasonable and fit repairings Is not this the Crime that no learned and worthy Minister can own either the swords Soveraignty or the peoples Liberty to be the grand Arbitrators of piety the disposers of mens consciences the Dictators of all Christianity the interpreters of all Scriptures the Determiners of all Controversies and this so absolute as admits no Conference with nor endevouring to convince either
and most for religious administrations where not only the credit but the conscience of the Church is engaged and ought to be very much considered in order to the honour of Christ and of his Church It were a very blasphemous reproach I think to the wisdom of Christ for any to imagine that he had delegated the highest power of his Church to men incompetent and generally incapable without daily miracles Besides this if they were supposable to have those gifts which were fit to try and judge rightly of a Ministers sufficiency yet they cannot have power to authorise or ordein a Minister of Jesus Christ no more than every judicious man hath power to send an Embassador in his Princes name or to make such arbitrators and Judges as he thinks fit in other mens business This is a power only to be used and enjoyed by those to whom it is given from him who is supreme as in the Church Jesus Christ is in whom the grand power of Ordination which confers on man authority to dispense holy mysteries in Christs name is originally seated and from him derived and granted as a grand Charter or Commission to his Apostles first and by them afterward exemplified and delivered to others who being found fit for it were assumed into and invested with the same delegated authority as from Christ and never given to the community of the people at any time or derivable from him in any degree of power Ministeriall be their gifts and graces never so good Since this is a fruit of Christs wisdom munificence and power toward his Church an appointment full of holy order and divine polity depending on no private mens gifts or graces but upon the good will pleasure and power of Jesus Christ himself as he stands in the relations of King Priest and Prophet to his Church Now to whom Christ committed this great and sacred power of ordeining a constant succession of Ministers in his name and in what manner it was by them derived to others Pag. 143. c. in the answer to the first Objection See Dr. Hammond and Dr. Tailor of Ordination Correxerunt manus psephisma natum est Tull. I have already cleared I hope and other late writers have done it too by Scripture reason and Ecclesiasticall Catholick Custom In all which it is evident That the so much urged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly indeed signifies peoples suffragating by stretching forth of hands in publike and popular elections is not to be urged by a Criticall severity from the Ethnick sense of the word to the Churches injury and confusion Since the same word in sacred and Ecclesiasticall writings as well as in others is oft used in a sense which signifies nothing else but an appointment or designation made by any one or more to some speciall work and service to which God or Christ Jesus Acts 14.22 or the Apostles joyntly or severally or their successors the Bishops and Pastors of the Church in their severall precincts are said to ordein or appoint a part from any such suffrage or autoritative influence of the people Further than their sometimes nominating and recommending fit men to be ordeined as Acts 6.5 or else their comprobation and acceptance of those who were by the Apostles Elders and Rulers of the Church ordeined as Ministers over them and this in Christs name by a divine authority which is for the peoples good but not from them as a fountain nor by them as any fit Pipes or Conduict through which this holy stream of the Ministry Ordinationes eorum quam temerarie tam inconstantes Hodie Episcopus cras alius bodiâ— Presbyter qui cras laicus Nam laicis Sacerdotolia munera injungunt Tertul. ad Haerâ—â— c. 42. Ad hac opera blandi sub missi sunt Caetâ—rum nec suit praesidibus reverentiam exhibere naverunt Id. ubi integra non est veritas me â—â—o tolis est disciplina Tertâ—l or the pure waters of the Sanctuary are to flow So that I cannot look upon this late arrogant claim of the power of ordeining Ministers as primarily belonging to the common people or to other Laymen as other than a fashion or opinion only befitting and extremely resembling those giddy proud and preposteous fancies to which vulgar minds are subject as Tertullian tels us when once the reigns of Church Discipline are let loose or some head-strong Schismaticks get the bridle between their teeth yea and it daily confutes it self while the Authors and followers of it are continually dividing and self confounding So inconsistent is error not only with Truth but with it self easily mouldring with its own weight and weakness And no wonder if the Lord prosper not projects arising from popular pride and presumption and tending to the shame and confusion of true Religion which no right reason or order no Scripture precept or patern no Ecclesiasticall custom or learned and godly mans judgement did ever allow or can with any reason as carrying with it all manner of rusticall unreasonable and irreligious absurdities which are never wanting where vulgar passions dwell as infallibly they do in the meaner sorts of men pretend they to what sanctity they will It will soon appear in how many and great defects they come short of that wisdom gravity unpassionateness and impartiality which is necessary to manage and order publike holy actions 2 Cor. 5.20 and to confer a solemn Religious power to any in Christs name to do Christs work and in some sense to be in Christs stead Wise humble and truly gracious Christians Best Christians are most modest are of all men most remote from such bold and unsuitable undertakings whereto having no call from God or the Church they can never expect blessing on their adventures and rash endeavours It satisfies them that they have as much influence in the ordeining and choosing of Ministers as they are capable of and is best for them and the Church Yet if it will please these Christians to fancy that they have some degree of power even in making their Ministers here in this Church they may consider Ministers in England ordeined with the peoples consent that neither Bishops nor Presbyters in England made any Ministers without the peoples generall consent expressed by those Laws and civill sanctions which confirmed here that divine order and constitution which they saw Christ had setled and the Church alwaies followed in ordeining lawfull Ministers by that wisdom and authority which from the Apostles was derived in a constant succession of Bishops and Presbyters who were for gifts of knowledge and judgement best able and for lawfull power only able by examination benediction and imposition of hands to consecrate any man a Minister and confer the power of Holy Orders on him who yet did and doe this as Delegates for the Church but from Christ If the power of choosing and ordeining Ministers were wholy left in
and enabled to effect those things which none other can presume to perform without vanity sin and presumption who hath not that gift power or authority consigned to him The right Ordination then of Ministers in the way of an holy succession in the Church of Christ hath in Religion and among true Christians these holy uses and clear advantages peculiar to it 1. 1. It confirms the truth of the Gospel 2 Cor. 8.23 First as to the main end the Glory of God and the saving of mens souls by their believing and obeying this testimony of all true Ministers that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of the world Nothing gives a more clear and credible testimony to the glory and honour of Jesus Christ and to truth of the Gospel than this uniform and constant succession of Ministers Multi barbarâ—rum in ChristuÌ„ credunt sine charactere vel attramento scriptam babenter in cordibus sum per spiritum salutem et veterum traditionem diligentes custodientes quam Apostoli tradiderunt iis quibus committebant Ecclesias cui ordinationi assentiunt multa gentes c. Iren. l. 3. c. 4. by a peculiar Ordination and authority even from Christ himself in person who at first began this Ministry and sent some speciall men as his messengers to bear witness of him in all the world that so men might believe not only what is written in the word before it was or as it is now written but also as that glorious truth hath been thus testified every where and in every age by chosen and peculiar men as a cloud of most credible witnesses whom thousands at first did and to this day do hear preaching and see them Celebrating the holy mysteries of Christs Gospell who never had or used any written word nor ever read it and for the most part believed before ever they saw any part of the Bible which the constant Ministry of the Church hath under God hitherto preserved chiefly upon the testimony and tradition or record of those that were ever thought and alwayes ought to be most able and faithfull men specially appointed by Christ in his Church as a perpetuall order and succession of Witnesses to testifie of him and to minister in his Name to the end of the world This walking Gospel and visible Ministry consisting as it ought of wise and worthy men Minister est verbum visibile ambulans Evangelium who have good reputation for their piety learning and fidelity running on to all generations is as a continued stream from the blessed Apostles who were the first witnesses immediatly appointed by Christ to hold forth his name and Gospell to the world Acts 1.8 which though never so far off in the decurrence of time from the fountain yet still testifies and assures all wise men that there is certainly a divine fountain of this ministeriall power and so of Evangelicall mysteries and truth which rose first from Christ and which hath constantly run as may appear by the enumeration or induction of particular descents in all ages in this Channel of the Apostles and their successors the Bishops and Presbyters of the Church for the better planting confirming and propagating of the Gospell to all Nations and times As a duty charge or office injoyned by divine command to some men and lying ever as a calling on their consciences Hereby evidently declaring the divine wisdom and Fatherly care of Christ for the good instruction and order of his Church in his personall absence In that he hath not left the Ministry of the Gospell and his holy Institutions which he would have alwaies continued for the gathering edifying of his Church to a loose and arbitrary way among the rabblâ— and promiscuous heards of men which would soon have made Evangelicall truths seem but as vagrant fables and generall uncertain rumors which run without any known and sure authority in the common chat and arbitrary report of the vulgar by which in a short time both the order beauty honour purity and credit of Truth is easily lost among men This holy and successionall ordination of the Evangelicall Ministry gives great proof and demonstration as of Christs personall presence as chief Bishop and Minister of his Church so of the fulfilling of Christs word and the veracity of his promise Mat. 28. after his departure to be with them that were sent and went in his name to the end of the world That the gates of hell neither yet have nor ever shall prevail against the Church While it carefully preserves a right succession holy order and authority of true Ministers the devill despairs of ever overthrowing Christian Religion in its reformed profession in any Country Down with the order Mat. 16.28 and sacred power and succession of the Ministry and all will in a short time be his own 2. 2. Evidenceth the Churches care Agnitio vera est Apostolorum doctrina antiquus Ecclesia status in universo mundo charactere corporis Christi secundum successiones Apostolorum quibus illi eam quae est in unoquoque loco Ecclesiam tradiderunt Scripturarum sine fictione custodita tractatio plenissima lâ—ctio sine salsatione secundum scripturas expositio legitima diligens sine periculo sine blasphemia Irenaeus l. 4. c. 43. In Ecclesia Catholica bacte nus inviolabili observatione tenetar qua potissimum Catholici ab Haereticis discriminantur nimirum ut cujusvis meriti atque praestantiae â—ir fuerit non sua sponte praedicationis munus suscipiat sed expectet donec ab Ecclesia mittatur ab eaque sacris functionibus initietur siâ—que initiatus praedicationi Evangelii mancipetur Baronius An. Anno Christi 44. It is also a notable evidence of the Churches care and fidelity in all ages not only in the preservation of the oracles of the word which it hath done but also of a constant holy Ministry to teach and explain them Also to celebrate those holy mysteries which are divinely annexed to the word as seals to confirm the faith of Christians And lastly to exercise that wholsome discipline for terror or comfort the power of which is chiefly in the Pastors and Rulers of the Church As it is then for the honour of the wisdom of Christ in the originall to have instituted such holy mysteries and such a Ministry so it is for the honour of the Church in the succession of all ages to have thus preserved them and it self in that order which becomes the family of Christ which had come far short of any well ordered family if the Father and Master of it Jesus Christ had left every servant to guess at his duty and all of them to scramble what part they list of employment aliment and enjoyment but the Lord Christ as every wise Master doth hath appointed and his Church hath preserved to this day constant Stewards and dispensers of holy things in his house-hold whose duty t is to
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
Spirit of Christ abstracts any mans faith from the Word or carries his practise against the Truth Order and holy Institution which Christ hath setled in his Church For it is most sure by all experience that the holy Spirit teacheth those Scripture saving-Truths by the ordinary methods and orderly means which the Wisdom of the same Spirit in Christ hath appointed to be used in the Ministry of the Church Ephes 3.10 Ephes 4.12 which who so proudly neglects and so despiseth Christ in them he may tempt grieve and resist the Spirit of God but he will never find the comfort of the Spirit in his unwarranted extravagancies which are but silly delusions and baby-like novelties having nothing in them of Truth Holinesse or religious Excellency beyond what was better known believed and expressed before in words and deeds by a far better way Christians ought never to turn such children and fools as to think Religion is never well unless it be in some new dresse and fashion of unwanted expressions and strange administrations we think that the Spirit of God teacheth all humble constant and exact obedience to the Word of God without any dispensation to any men at any time in things of Morall duty and Divine Constitution or Order according to the severall relations and religious capacities of Christians no reall sufficiency of gifts or graces doth justifie any Christian in any disorderly and unruly course of acting or exercising his supposed Inspirations in the Church no more then they doe in the Civill Offices of State Nor are these motions any thing of Gods speciall call in regard of the outward Order and Policy of the Church where the ordinary way of Calling Admitting Ordaining and sending forth right Ministers may be had in the Church 3. The vanity of of their wayes compared to the Word Be these impulses of the Spirit never so great yet they put no good Christian upon idlenesse or presumption so as not to use the ordinary means of study hearing reading meditating conferring praying and preparing c. Nor shall he either preserve or increase or profitably exercise any such gifts without study industry and preparatory pains which are the means by which God blesseth men with that Wisdome Truth Order and Utterance which are necessary for the Churches good The liberall effusions of some mens tongues their warm and tragicall expressions where there is something of Wit Invention Reading Method Memory Elocution c. in the way of Naturall and acquired Endowments alas these are no such rare gifts and speciall manifestations of Gods Spirit which these Anti-ministeriall men have so much cause to boast of There may be high mountains of such gifts ordinary and extraordinary as in Judas the Traitor which have no dews of grace falling on their barrennesse Nor are these boasters of Inspirations manifested yet either as equall or any way comparable to most true Ministers in any sort by any shewes of such gifts for the most of which they are beholding to Ministers labours and studies with whose heifer these men make some shift to plough the crooked and unequall furrows of their Sermons and Pamphlets A little goes a great way with these men in their supposed Inspirations and where they cannot goe far on they goe round in circling Tautologies snarled repetitions intricate confusions which are still but the same skains of thread which other men have handsomely spun and wound up in better method and order which these men have neither skill nor patience fairly to unfold but pull out here a thread and there an end which they break off abruptly to the confounding of all true Methods of Divinity and Order of found Knowledge The composednesse and gravity of true Religion in Publique especially admits least of extravagancies and uncomelinesse Haeretico conversatio quam futilis terrena humana sine grauitate sine autoritate sine disciplina Tertul. adv Haer. which dissolve the bonds or exceed those bounds by which Christ hath fitly compacted the Church together in a sociall way giving every part by a certain order and allowance established as the Standard in his Church that * Eph. 4 16. measure and proportion which is best for the whole This place and calling every Christian ought to own and to attend keeping within due bounds till God enabling and the Church so judging and approving of his abilities he be placed and imployed in some way of Publique service into which to crowd and obtrude a mans selfe uncalled and unordained regularly by the Church doth not argue such great motions of the Spirit which like strong liquor cannot be kept in any vessell but only evidenceth the corrupt spirits the violent lusts and the proud conceits which are in mens Hearts Certainly all Gifts Graces and Influences of Gods Spirit in truly gracious and humble hearts are in all Motions Habits and Operations as conform to the Scripture which are the Canon of Truth Peace and Order in the Church as any right line is to that rule by which it is drawn or as figures cast in the same stamp and mould are exactly fitted to one another The Truth of the Word and Graces of Gods Spirit cannot be separated or opposed any more than heat can be parted in the Sun from its light or its beams crosse one another in crooked and oblique angles It is no better Austin de Unit. Ecclesiae c. 16. Non dicant ideo verum esse quia illa vel illa miribilia fecit Donatus vel Pontine vel quilibet alius aut quia ille frater nâ—ster vel illa soror nostra tale visum vâ—gilans vidit vel dormiens somniavit Removeantur ista vel figmenta mendocium hominum vel poâ—tenta fallacium spiritum Remotis istis Eccclesiam suam demonstrent in canonicis sanctorum librorum autoritatibus than a proud and Satanicall delusion to fancy or boast that the Holy Spirit of Christ dwels there in speciall Influences and Revelations where the Word of Christ doth not dwell richly in all wisdome Col. 3.16 The lodgings of the Spirit are alwayes and onely furnished with the Tapistry of the Scriptures Else all imaginary furniture of any private spirits leaves the heart but swept and garnished with the new brooms of odd fancies and fond opinions to entertain with somewhat more trim and composed dresse the unclean spirit who loves to dwell thus in the high places of mens souls and hereby seems to make the later end of those filthy or silly dreamers in pride Iud. 8. vain-glory hypocrisie and lying against the Truth blaspheming the true Spirit of Christ contemning his holy and onely true Ministery and Ordinances and in all other licentious Apostasies worse than their beginning was in ignorance errors and terrors or in plain dealing sensualities and downright profanenesse For it is more tolerable to be without the Spirit of God Pope Hildebrand Cum haereticus malesicus sacrilegus esset pro sacratissimo se
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
destroy them and their function Nor can I indeed in charity think any doe so that are truly such The excellencies of the Antiministerials As for their bitter enemies and rivalls these Inspirators on the other side I am ashamed to shame them so much as I must needs doe if I should shew the world their emptinesse shallownesse penury meannesse nothingnesse as to Reason Religion Learning common Sense pack-staffe Oratory How grosse confused raw flat insipid affected they are in speaking or writing how dark in doctrine how disorderly in disputes how impotent in perswasion how impertinent in reproof how unauthorative in all they say and doe as Teachers What perfect Battologists they are what circles they make and rounds they dance in their Prayings and Sermonings strong only in cavilling and rayling and calumniating against true and able Ministers And for their writings with which they have lately so crammed and abused the world how little have they set out to any other purpose save onely to wast a great deal of good paper and to make the world beleive they were richly laden because they spread so large sayles How doe their pamphlets cheat the well meaning buyers and readers with the decoy of some very specious and spirituall title as if all were Manna and Aarons rod which were in their Arks when there is nothing but such emblemes for the most part 1 Sam. 6.4 of Mice and Emrods as the Philistines put into the Ark of God as memorials of their sin their shame and punishment What Reader may not tear their books with turning the leaves to and fro before ever he findes acutenesse or solidity learning or piety Truth or Charity Divinity or Humanity Spirituals or Rationals but onely antick fancies and affected words strangely deforming antient and true Theology in its morals mysteries and holy speculations How much better had they wrote nothing than so much to so little good purpose to so evill an intent onely to amuse the simple reader with shews of rare notions and by spiritlesse Prefacings to lead on their ruder steleticks and declaimings against the Order Government Religion Ministers and Ministry of the Church of England in which their scriblings they mixe so much copperass and gall with their ink that they eat out all characters of Truth Candor or Charity in their Papers never affording them any word that may either savour of civility as to ingenuous men or of Justice as to men of good learning and some merit but all is written to deform them their calling and Ministry to expose them to vulgar scorns to fit them for publique victims to the cruell malice of the enemies of the reformed Religion Indeed against the Ministry and Ministers of England they chuse to write with Aqua fortis rather than any ink and covet red ink rather than black trusting more to their swords than their pens nor doe they confide so much in their Brains as their hands their insolency being far beyond their inventions which tempts them rather to pistoll Ministers by desperate Assasination than to dispute with them in the Schooles or by the Presse Nor is this any envious or injurious diminution of these men 11. It is no detraction or injury to prefer the Ministers of England before these pretenders to Inspiration 2 Cor. 12 11. who owe most of the good feathers they have to the preaching and writings of the Ministers of England and not to any Inspirations but it 's a just representation of their ungratefull vanity and the Ministers reall worth who have excelled wherein soever these pretenders are most defective And defective they are in all things wherein able and true Ministers have most excelled If this stroak of my pen seems any thing of uncomely boasting they have compelled us to it and so may the better excuse and bear with this our folly which is not yet such by their provoking examples of vapouring and vanity but that we know by Gods grace how to own what ever is of God in any of them and to ascribe what ever is good in Ministers Pro defensione famae licita honesta est laâ—â— propria Reg. Jur. Deseâ—sio est non arrogantia Amb. s 118. to the grace and bounty of God who hath magnified his power in their weaknesse And however wee now living be Nothing yet our excellent Predecessors by whom the honour of this holy function hath been rightly derived to us have merited from us and all good men this acknowledgement to the praise of Gods grace The blessings which have come to this Church and Nation by the true Ministers That the godly able and faithfull Ministers in this Church of England have by Gods blessing been the great restorers and conservators of good learning in this Nation the liberall diffusers of ingenuous education the valiant vindicators of the reformed Religion the commendable examples of piety and vertue in all kinds restraining and reforming all sin error excesse profanenesse and superstition by their good lives and doctrine Teaching and encouraging all manner of holynesse civility candour meeknesse gravity and charity throughout the whole Nation What noble worshipfull or ingenuous family hath not or might not have been bettered by them if they did not entertain them at illiberall rates and ignoble distances as too many used to doe below the honour of their calling and merit of their worth What City or Country Village hath not been beautified and blessed by them Where ever such Ministers lived as became the dignity of their place and profession there hath alwayes followed a good sense of piety and a comely face both of Civility and Religion And more might have been improved in every corner of the land long ere this if what hath been oft vapoured and flourished had been really performed that is the setling of a competent maintenance every where for a competent Minister Cogit ad turpia necessitas Non habet virtus inimicam praeter paupertatem invidiam Eras Et ornamentum munimentum urbis Ecclesiae Ambrosius Scandalous livings have been no small cause of too many scandalous Ministers whom necessity oft compelled to things uncomely both for their society and support Upon whose sores these flesh-flyesâ— the enemies of the Ministry are alwayes lighting and biting loth to see or hear of those many incomparable Ministers who have been in many places of this Church as Saint Ambrose was said to be in Millain both the ornament of the City and defence of Religion In stead of whom some new Jesuitick Modellers would fain bring a company of Locusts and Caterpillers upon the face of the land a sort of illiterate and unordained Teachers who like ambulatory Arabs or wandring Scythians must every week or month change their quarters as fast as they have devoured silly widows houses These in a short time will not be much beyond Cantors and Vagrants As the old Circuâ—celliones like rowling stones neither getting mosse themselves
nor raising any building of piety or sound knowledge in others for the same small stock always serves their turn in their severall gests and quarters By this meanes they hope the Church and State in a short time will be spoiled of all those fair flowers of good Scholars and able constant Ministers which were well rooted in learning and plentifully watered with the dew of heaven the gifts and graces of Gods Spirit that so there may be room enough for those rank and ill weeds to spread all over this English garden and field under whose specious covert of spiritualty all sort of venemous Serpents and hurtfull beasts may be hidden till they are so multiplied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. that through mutuall jealousies and dissensions they fall to tearing and devouring one another for however like Serpents wicked men may for a while twine together yet their different heads will soon find wherewith to exercise their stings and teeth against each other Impious mens confederacies are not friendship but faction and conspiracy Nothing being more in consistent than ignorance error and impiety which having no principles of union or order in them can have nothing of firmnesse or stability among them I doubt not but there are 12. The blessings which good Christians owe to good Ministers under God notwithstanding so many bitter spirits and rebellious children have become ungratefull Apostates against this Church and â—its worthy Ministery thousands of excellent Christians who have not bowed the knee to these Baaliâ—s who have both cause and hearts to confesse that the feet of these messengers the true Ministers of England have brought light and peace to their soules That their pious and constant labors have not been either so weak or unfruitfull as might in any sorâ— deserve or justifie such hard recompenses as these now are with which a foolish and unthankefull generation seeks to requite the Lord Deut. 32.6 and his faithfull servants the true Ministers whose names shall yet live among good Christians with durable honour Eccles 7.1 and their memories shall be pretious as sweet Ointments when these dead yet busie flies who seek to corrupt them Eccles 10.1 shall rot as dung on the face of the earth Their unsavory stench is already come up and hath greatly defiled many parts of this Church being justly offensive to all wise and good men in the present age and for the future they will be memorable for nothing but illiterate impudence ungratefull malice and confused madnesse who like beasts were able to waste a fair field and desolate a well reformed Church but never to cultivate or plant any thing like it The field of this Church in many places by the blessed labours of true and able husbandmen was heretofore full of good corn the valleys and hils did laugh and sing poore and rich were happy in the great increases with which the Lord of the harvest crowned the labours of his faithfull Ministers before the enemy had such liberty to sow his tares even at noon day yea in many places to rout the true labourers to leave many places desolate and only to scatter that self-sowing corn which is like to that which springs on the house top whereof the Mower shall never fill his hand Psal 129.7 nor he that bindeth up the sheaves his bosome Who sees not that one handfull of that crop which was formerly wont to be tilled by the skilfull and diligent hand of true and able Ministers was for its weighty soundnesse in knowledge and modest fulnesse in humility far more worth than many sheaves and cartloads of these burnt and blasted ears whose pride pretends in one night to grow to such eminent gifts of the Spirit for preaching as shall exceed all the parts and studies of Ministers when it 's evident to all that will but rub them in their hands that these wild oats and smutty ears by lifting up their heads so high doe but proclaim their emptinesse and lightnesse And 't were well if they were onely such cockle such trash and light gear they now grow to sharp thistles thornes mixed with true weed which seeks to starve choak and pull down to the earth all the hopes and joy of the true labourers that rich crop of truth order piety charity and sincerity which was formerly in great plenty and still is in good measure on the ground Yea thousands of Christians in many places of this Nation doe already grievously complain of the sad and desolate estate to which they are reduced for want of able and true Ministers Amos 8.11 Psal 106.15 residing among them crying out that a famine of the Word is come upon them and leannesse is entred into their soules having none to sow the immortall seed of the Word or to dispense the bread of life to them but a few straglers now and then of whose calling and authority to minister holy things no wise man hath any confidence and of whose insufficiency every way all men have too much experience where ever they obtrude themselves That most Christians had rather yea and better want the Word and Sacraments than receive them so defiled so nullified by such unwashen and unwarranted hands For it is hardly to be beleeved that those who are so much enemies to the spirit of Christ in true Ministers of which there hath been so great and good demonstrations in gifts lives and successes should either have or come in the power of the same Spirit which they so much despise and blaspheme Sure the Kingdome of Christ is not divided against it self but is uniform and constant not depending on the various impulses of mens humours fancies and worldly interests but established and governed by the most sure Word and those holy rules both for truth and order therein contained It is little sign of Christs Spirit in men to sow those seeds of errors and divisions which holy men have been alwayes plucking up or to build again that Babell which so many godly Ministers have pulled down But it becomes us Ministers not so much to dispute with these men about the Spirit to which they so highly pretend as to continue to outdoe them in the fruits of the Spirit as our famous and blessed forefathers have done and to leave the decision to the Consciences of true and wise Christians and to the great Searcher of mens hearts and tryer of mens spirits and workes who hath the Spirit of burning and refining Isa 4.4 and who if he hath not determined for the superfluity of wickednesse and ungratefull wontannesse of this Nation to lay us quite wast and desolate will in his due time after these days of triall throughly purge his floore and weed his field even this Mal. 3.12 so sadly havocked and neglected Church In which there are still some fruit that have a blessing in them Isa 65.8 and which we hope he will not destroy who knows how to separate between the
pretious and the vile Mean time Gods husbandmen the true and Ordained Ministers 13. The patience and constancy of Ministers will best confute these pretenders must have patience but not slacken their diligence after the holy example of those godly Bishops and Presbyters of the Church in the times of the Arrian Novatian Donatistick and others prevalencies and persecutions The fierce and fiery spirit in the old hereticks and schismaticks could least of all endure with temper and moderation those Bishops and Ministers which were soundest in their judgements faithfullest in their places and holyest in their lives * Socrat. l. 1. c. 7. l. cap. 17. Can. African Theod. l. 4 c. 12. So that not only they destroyed and drove away most of the orthodox Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters out of many Provinces in Africa and so in Asia as in Europe but they sought with all fraud and force to destroy that great Colosse of Christian Religion the most renowned Bishop of Alexandria * Omnes quos factionis macula sâ—ciavit in Athanasium conspirabant Ruff. hist l. 1. Toto orbe prosugus M. Athanasius sex annos in cisterna sine sole vixit Id. Athanasius who was the wonder and astonishment of all the world for his learning piety and constancy standing like an unshaken rock of Truth amidst the troubled Sea of Arrian Errors If the hand of Secular power will not maintain the antient order of the true Ministers of England in their Ministry liberties and lives which we humbly crave and expect * Vbicunque a perditis mala ista commissa sunt ibi ferventius atquae perfectius Christiana unitas profecit Aust Ep. 50. de persâ— yet we hope the Spirit of Christ and the power of heaven will preserve us with good Consciences amidst the trialls losses contempts and deaths which we may encounter And however the * Rev. 12.4 Rev. 2. Tail of the Dragon with many windings and insinuations hath drawn after him many stars from the heaven of their formerly seemingly sober orderly and godly profession to the Earth of temporary successes worldly applauses secular complyances and irregular motions for vain glory or for filthy lucres sake yet Christ will still preserve * Brightman in Apoc. Rev. â—3 10 in his right hand those stars which shine by his light and are placed by his Name Power and Authority in the Firmament of his Church * Heb. 11.37 Persecutio Christiani nominis in crementum Lact. Quanto magis premitur magis augetur Id. Although this may be the houre of temptation which must come upon this Reformed Church and the power of darknesse which may for a time have leave to deny betray set at naught and crucifie afresh the Lord of Glory in his true Ministers and faithfull servants yet good men may be confident * that their bonds and scourges their revilings and cruell mockings their being sawn asunder between ignorance and error schism and heresie profanenesse and hypocrisie superstition and licentiousnesse The very indignities restraints injuries and ruines of the godly Ministers shall tend to the honour Velut auâ—um non vâ—rbis sed exiliis caâ—ceâ—â—bus probatur fides ad potioâ—is metalli fulgâ—â—em teâ—â—â—det Ruff. Hist l. 2. c. 6. Crudelâ—as fectae est â—llecebâ—a s men est sanguis Christianorum Tertul. Apol. propagation and more glorious restauration of the Reformed Religion which of later times hath wanted nothing so much whereby to set forth its primitive lustre and power as the constancy and patience of the Ministers and Professours of it in the point of comely suffering for the Truth In which way the brightest beams of the Spirit of Glory are wont to appear The base cowardly avoiding of sufferings hath brought great reproaches upon many Ministers and other Christians who Proteus-like by mean compliances and palliations suiting themselves to a disorderly and variating world have much eclipsed and deformed the beauty and dignity of their holy Function and Profession both as Ministers and as Christians As it is far harder to suffer persecution and to bear the burning coales of mens displeasure in our bosomes than to make long prayers or to preach soft and smooth Sermons and to bandy safe disputes in the Sun shine of Peace plenty favour and prosperity so more glory will then redound to God and more honour to the Reformed Religion from those sparkling rayes and effusions of grace P oâ—um virtutes ut Aromaâ—â— quâ— magis câ—nteruntur eo frangratius redâ—lent Ieror which shall flow from excellent Ministers when they are red hot in the forge of affliction and hammered on the Anvile of the worlds malice than ever did from those faint and weaker beams by which they shined in the easie and ordinary formalities of Religion Nor will any thing more assure them and the uncharitable world that they have the Spirit of Christ in them of a Truth than when they shall find they have holy and humble resolutions to suffer with Christ and his Church rather than to reign with a wicked and irregular world whose Jesuitick joys will then be fulfilled and crowned with garlands when they shall see the learning piety order government and honour of that Ministry which sometime flourished to the great regret of all its enemies in this reformed Church utterly prostrated vilified impoverished and expulsed On the other side the spirituall joyes of true and faithfull Ministers will be encreased by their being beaten and evill intreated and cast out of their Synagogues by their being reproached scorned and wounded unjustly not onely from their professed enemies of the Romish party but even from those who were of their own household who seemed to be their familiar friends It is happier to have the least measure of Christs Spirit in patience truth and power than to make the greatest boasts and to enjoy the loudest vulgar applauses which those Chenaniahs seem to affect and aim at 1 King 22. who dare now to smite every where the true Prophets the plain dealing Micaiahs on the mouth designing to feed al the true able and faithfull Ministers with the bread and water of affliction because they will not comply with or yeeld to that novel lying proud and disorderly spirit with which their hearts and mouths are so filled with malice not onely against the Ministry but against the prosperity of this and all other reformed Churches which folly or fury they would have styled and esteemed to be in them the speciall gifts and inspirations of the Spirit of God Proud and presumptuous men doe not consider what is most true 14. False pretentions to the Spirit * Nulla erroris secta jam contra Châ—â—sti veritatem nisi nomine câ—opeâ—ta Christâ—ano ad pugnandâ—m pâ—osilire auâ—et Aust Ep 56. That the greatest blasphemies against Gods Spirit and his Truth are oft coloured over with greatest ostentation of the Spirit as is evidently shewed both in former and later times Many
are to take Christ with swords and staves O how fain would some men that the Sun were set that their glowormes might shine that the light of the house were extinguished In subversione fidei nullum ab ignorantia remedium est Saresb. that so their sparkes might appear which they have kindled to themselves in their shining corners and upon their private hearths Truly this calumny against good learning hath as much surprized me and my brethren the Ministers of this Church as the accusation of Fimbria did question Scaevola Quaerentibus quidâ—in Scaevola sam vulnerato essâ—t accusaturus respondit quâ—d totum corpore ferrum non receperat Tul. orat pro Sex Ros Vero deficiente crimine laudem ipsam in vituperium vertit invidia Tul. Act. 18 24. 28. Act. 26.24 who was impleaded by the other for not receiving that poynard deeper into his brest wherewith hee stabbed him and intended to have dispatched him The learned and godly Ministers in England never thought this would be laid to their charge as a fault the want of which had been a foul shame and a just reproach to them As the enjoyment of it was a great honour and advantage both to them and to the Reformed Religion They little suspected that among Christians Apollos should be forced to excuse his eloquent and potent demonstrations or S. Paul his sober and sanctified learning in which hee excelled worthy of that famous City and University Tarsus of which he had the honour to be free and pleaded it as a priviledge Act. 21.39 Which learning made him not so mad as those were who suspected and accused him that much learning had made him mad And if humane learning be such old clouts and rotten rags as these men of most beggerly elements pretend and wee confesse it is so compared to and destitute of those soul-saving Truths which are divinely revealed yet there may be good use of them Ier. 38.11 if it be but to help the Jeremies the Prophets and Ministers of the Lord out of those dungeons and mire where otherwayes their enemies would have them ever to be lodged both sordidly and shamefully and obscurely Nothing O you excellent Christians is lesse necessary than to paint this Sun or polish this pearl to set forth to you the use and necessity of good learning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just in dâ—cuâ— Tryph. of the benefit and blessing whereof in this Church your selves are so much partakers and whereof you are so great esteemers and encouragers And nothing shews good learning more necessary to the Church and true Religion both as Christian and reformed than this That the Divel by vain and fallacious instruments often hath and still seeks to deprive them of that weapon and defense which he hath used with great strength and cunning for his chiefest arms both offensive against the truths of religion and defensive for his own most damnable doctrines and delusions What havock would he soon make of sound doctrine Cresâ—onius the heretick oft complained that Saint Austin was too full of his Logick and Syllogisms when he could not answer his reasons In the Emperour Charls 5. time 1524. as in former ages he endevoured by those learned and subtill Sophisters his instruments and emissaries on every side if there were none on the Truths side able to encounter him and his agitators in that post of learning No wonder if the Woolf would have the Flock without Mastives or these without teeth it were much for his little for the flocks ease and advantage Although the Divel an old accuser must needs be a cunning Orator too and be furnished with all the swasive arts of insinuation which he fits to the severall geniusses of men and times yet he never till of late in Germany and now in England had confidence to make use of this place of Oratory to perswade Christians to burn all other Bookes that they might better study and understand the Bible yea and the Bible too that they might better understand the minde of God Which is all one as if the Israelites should have beene perswaded to have rid themselves of the cumber of their swords spears and shields that so they might better defend themselves or that they should have neither file nor grindstone to sharpen the naturall bluntnesse 1 Sam. 13. or clear the rustinesse of their weapons while yet the Philistims were all well armed and dayly preparing to battell Against whom there was no such warrant of a speciall divine protection as to make the people of God presume to neglect the use of those armes which art had prepared and use had taught how to imply We see that Jonathans heroick motion carries him not upon that successefull and great adventure without his sword and armour-bearer 1 Sam. 14.13 Nor did Davids confidence in Gods protection of which he had former experiences when he was without any arms against the Lion and Bears nor yet the assurance he had 1 Sam. 17. of the goodnesse of his cause or of the pride and profanenesse of his enemy none of these made him neglect to take and use such armes 2 Sam. 5.6 2 Pet. 3. as he thought most convenient The blinde and the lame men of feeble and confused spirits unlearned and unstable minds which are hated of Davids soule are ill assistants in Davids wars against the Jebusites who study to defend against him or to surprise from him the City of David or rather the City of God which is the Metropolis where grace and truth doe dwell It is certain that next to the primitive gifts of miracles 2. Humane learning succeeded miraculous and extraordinary gifts the gifts of humane learning have stood the Church of Christ in most stead For ever since the Apostles and Ministers of Christ assisted with extraordinary endowments of the Spirit had by the foolishnesse of preaching as by Davids improbable weapons against Goliahs compleat armature vanquished that old Idolatrous power * Nec miraculaâ— illa in nostra tempora durare permissa sunt ne animus semper visibilia quareret eorum consuetudine frigesceret quorum novitate flagravit Aust de ver Rel. c. 15. of heathenisme which prevailed in the world and was long upheld by shews of learning eloquence and in that way vaine philosophy The Church of Christ hath ever since the cessation of those Miraculous gifts which attended onely the first conquests made use of that very sword of that prostrated Gyant good learning both to dispatch him and to defend it self finding that both in humane and divine encounters there is none like to that if managed by a proportionate arm and strength Quantum ratio dat homini tantum lit eratura rationi religio literaturae religioni gratia Casaub Quantum a bestas dâ—stamus eo magis ad Deum appropinquaâ—â— Sen. For hereby the mind and all intellectuall faculties of mens souls which are the noblest and divinest
are more easily and fully instructed more speedily improved in all the riches of wisdome and knowledge which are part of the glory and Image of God on mans nature By this which we call good learning all Truths both humane and divine naturall politick morall and Theologicall usefull either for speculation or practise are more clearly extricated and unfolded out of the depths darknesse and ambiguity of words which are but the shadows of things by the * Languages unlock and open Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phal Ep. skill in Languages which are the scabbards and shels wherein wisdome is shut up The inscription on Christs crosse is in three languages Hebrew Greek Latin Luk. 23.38 Intimating as the divulging of the Gospel to many tongues and Nations so that the mysterie of Christ crucified is not to be fully and exquisitely understood without the keys of these three learned and principall languages with which the Church hath flourished Certainly it is not easie for unlearned men to consider how great use there is even of Grammar which is the first and roughest file that good learning applyes to polish the minde with all for much of the true sense even of the holy Scriptures as well as of other Records depends upon the true writing or Orthography the exact derivation or etymology and the regular Syntaxis or conjoining of words yea that Criticall part of literature which is the finest file or searse of Truth wherein some mens wit and curiosity onely vapour and soar high like birds of large feathers and small bodies yet it is of excellent use when by men of sober learning it is applyed to the service of religion Many times much Divinity depends on small particles rightly understood upon one letter upon such a mood or tense or case and the like many errors are engendred and nourished by false translations and mistakes of words or letters many truths are restored and established by the true meaning of them asserted upon good grounds and just observations which hath been done with great accuratenesse by * Erasmus Drusius Hensius Grotius Salmasius Fullerus Lud. de Dieu and others men of incomparable excellency in this kinde these last hundred years equall to if not for the most part beyond the exactnesse of the ancient Fathers or writers Herein infinite observations of humane writers are happily made and usefully applyed as to the propriety of words and phrases used in the sacred originalls of the Word of God so as thereby to attain their genuine and emphatick sense also for the clearing of many passages and allusions which are in the Scriptures referring to things naturall and historicall in the manners and customes of the nations This once done Logick disposeth Qui logica carent materias lacerant ut catuli panes Melan. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. all Truths are by the methods and reasoning of Logick easily disintangled and fairly vindicated from the snarlings sophisms and fallacies with which error ignorance or calumniating malice seek to obscure or disguise them or therein to wrap up and cover themselves darkening wisdome by words without understanding After this they are by the same art handsomely distributed and methodically wound up in severall clews and bottomes according to those various Truths which that excellent art hath spun out That thus digested they may again be brought forth unfolded and presented to others in that order and beauty of eloquence which * Rhetorick communicates to others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 23. Rhetorick teacheth By which truths have both an edge and lustre set on them doe most adorn them and enforce to the quickest prevalencies on mens mindes and the firmest impressions on their passions and affections that so their rationall vigour may hold out to mens actions and extend to the ethicks or morality of civill conversation which is the politure of mens hearts and hands The softner and sweetner of violent passions and rougher manners to the candor and equity of polity and society This civility was and is the preface and forerunner of Religion the great preparative to piety the confines of Christianity which never thrives untill barbarity be rooted up and some learning with morality be sown and planted among men Nor did Christian Religion ever extend its pavilion much further than the tents of Learning and Civility had been pitched by the conquests and colonies of the Greeks and Romans Thus by this golden circle and crystall medium of true learning the short dim and weaker sight of our reason Matth. 6.23 whose very light is become dark by sin bleared with its own fancies and almost put out by its grosser lusts and passions may as by the help of perspective or optick glasses be mightily strengthened and extended while it sees History 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. as with the united vigor of the many thousand visuall rayes and eyes of those who saw before us That so those few conjectures those dark and ambiguous experiences which any mans short sight and single life can afford him may be ampliated cleared and confirmed by those many testimonies and historicall monuments which others have left in their learned writings which draw as it were the lesser rivulets of various observations from severall times pens and places to meet in one great and noble current of true Religion which is the wisest observer and devoutest admirer of what true learning most sets forth the providence justice power goodnesse patience and mercy of the wise great and holy God the Creator ruler and preserver of all things Psal 8. but chiefly the regarder of the sons of men God hath therefore blest his Church with good learning that those small stocks and portions of wisdome which any mans private patrimony affords him either by innate parts or acquired experiments which for the most part would amount to no more than the furnishing of a portable pedlers pack with small wares toyes and trinckets fit to please children ideots and countrey people may be improved by a joint stock Humanus s nsus cum sarcitur alieno invento câ—to attenuatur de propâ—io Cassiod and united commerce of prudent observations that so men might drive a great and publique trade of wisdome to the infinite inriching and adorning both of Church and State both of Polity and Religion These two being the great luminaries and excellencies of humane Nature the one to rule the day wherein wee stand related to God in piety the other to rule the night wherein we are related to each other by humanity equity charity and bonds of civill society Which innate vertues and properties of mans nature Reason and Religion once neglected and until'd for want of that culture which good learning and that sof ening Barbarity succeeds the want of learning as darknesse the Suns absence which ingenuous education brings to
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
and shews by the examples in holy Scripture and other holy writers what holy use is to be made of the learning of heathens by Christians See Tom. 2. pag. 331. St. Paul cites three testimonies out of heathen Poets Epimenides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Menander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Aratâ—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So Jannes and Jambres out of Jewish Records and Talmuds Plures sine dubio legerat B. Paulus poetas quam quos recitavit recitando aliques laudavit omnes in quantum divinoris veritatis scintillias saepius produnt Erasm Tarsis a famous University and after at the feet of Gamaliel or Attick Luke or eloquent Apollos ever despised or decryed or disused those acquired gifts of humane learning wherewith they were endued in the ordinary wayes of education no not when they were exâ—raordinarily inspired Their common gifts served them still in their ordinary Ministry as to understanding memory utterance or writing by which they endevoured to set forth that Jesus was the Christ the promised Messias So that in their arguments disputes reasonings and allegations out of humane Authours also in the style phrase and manner of their speaking and writing it might and may easily bee that the difference of Prophets Evangelists and Apostles naturall acquired or studied gifts did still remain when their extraordinary and infused might be equall yet these did not equall them in their either more strict and Logicall reasonings or their more Oratorious expressions or more elegant phrase and proper language which appear very different in those holy Writers and Penmen of the Scriptures which had the same Spirit directing or dictating as to the matter revealed to them but they used their own ordinary abilities to expresse them by word or pen to others And certainly when the Apostle Paul bids Timothy as a grand and lasting pattern for all Bishops and Ministers of the Church to study to meditate to give himselfe wholly to those things 1 Tim. 4.13 14.15 that his profiting may appear to stir up the gift that is in him still more fitting himselfe to the work of the Ministry notwithstanding he had some speciall and extraordinary gifts Sure the same Apostle gave Timothy no example of idlenesse in himself but both studied and prayed Ephes 6.18 yea desires the prayers of others for him that he might as an able Minister and as a Master builder finish the course of his Ministry with joy This blessed Apostle needed not have been so solicitous for the parchments 2 Tim. 4.13 which he left at Troas if his memory had been alwayes supplyed with miraculous assistance he needed not to have committed any thing to writing for his owne use It is very probable that those parchments were no deeds for conveying any land or temporall estate but rather some Scheme or draught of divine Truths and mysteries methodically digested which he had fitted for his own 1 Cor. 4.6 and transferred to the use of others as Apollos or Timothy or Titus So little doth the speciall gifts of the Spirit in the Apostles or other holy men justifie or plead for those odde and mishapen figures of those mens Divinity whether discovered by their tongues or hands of whose deformity and unpolitenesse compared to the fashion of all learned mens judicious methodicall and comely writings and discourses these crafty men being conscious would have no Sun or light of arts and learning shining among Christians by which their ridiculous monstrosity might appear 2 Col. 1.8 1 Tim 6.20 In tantum vana est quantum perversae felicitatis est doctrina gentium Philosophia Tertul. l. de Anima The same Apostle who bids us beware of vain Philosophy and wisdom falsly so called while it opposed the divine or was preferred before the word and truth of God in Christ which onely can attaine the end of all true wisdome to make a man happy to eternity yet he could be no enemy to any part of true and usefull Philosophy which is but the knowledge of God in the creature of which he gives severall touches in his most divine writings He commands us no lesse to beware of * Rom. 1.21 2 Tim. 4.3 Imperitissima est setentia scire quid senserint Philosophi nescire quid Châ—istus docuit Aust Ep. 56. Cum Philosophiae nidore purum veritatis aerem infuscant Tertul. false Teachers of heaps of Teachers of deceitfull workers of unruly walkers of unstable and unlearned spirits who by vaine bablings endlesse janglings high presumptions and private interpretations wrest the Scriptures corrupt both religious Doctrine sound speech and Christian communication Such who are * Col. 2.18 vainly puffed up in their fleshly minde whose glory is to lead Disciples after them desirous to be * 1 Tim. 1.7 Teachers when they know not what they say nor whereof they affirme Comparing themselves with themselves and abhorring all higher patterns they can * 1 Cor. 10.12 never be wise but in their own conceits and there is * Prov. 16.9 little hope of them But O you that excell in learning or humility or both 16. Monument of learning how excellent and usefull I should fear to write too much for good learning if I did not consider that I write to those chiefly who can never think too much said or wrote for it because they know the many beauties and excellencies of it both in reference to the glory of God and the good of mankind both for souls and bodies their religious and secular concernments their temporall and eternall interest Indeed no minde is able to conceive but such as enjoy them Aegrescit ingenium nisi fugiactione reparetur Cito expenduntur horrea quae assidua non fuerint adjectione fulcita Thesaurus ipse facile profunditur si nullis iterum pecuniis compleatur Cassiod nor can any tongue expresse them since they exceed the greatest eloquence of those that most enjoy them those bright heavenly and divine beams of Reason and Religion which with severall preparatory glories shine from the daily reading of those excellent writings and durable monuments of learned men in former ages as rayes of light falling from the Sun on this inferiour world breaking in upon all the regions of the soul dissipating its darknesse discovering its disorders supplying its defects filling it with the sweet and silent * Jucundissima est vita indies sentire se fieri doctiorem pleasure of daily knowing something more excellent in the creature or the Creator which before it knew not This secret and unspeakable contentment is more welcome to the now improving soul than the beauty of a fair morning which shows a safe haven to one that hath suffered the horrour of blind and midnight tempests more rejoicing the heart of a true man than liberty and light doe him that is redeemed from a dungeon I should but profane if I should too much unfold the sacred and sweet
Magus Your money perish with you No I rather wish your Salvation if possible though it be without the restitution of what you have already and intend further to rob Christ of and his Church and his Ministers and his poor too for they had a good share in the Churches revenues Only I wish withall that all the learned and godly Ministers of the Gospell in England were in such a condition as to worldly competency that they could preach the Gospell freely that so these repiners might hear them gratis as most of them doe when they vouchsafe to hear them and so without prejudice or grudging at the maintenance of Ministers in point of Tithes That so if it be possible they may repent and be converted from that gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity in which they are It were happy if as St. Austin offered to doe all Ministers could release Ne invidia Clericis obveniat de p ssâ—ssionibus Ecclesiae obtulit plâ—bi Augustinus malle se ex cellationibus vivere ut antiqui Sed Laici illâ—d accipere noluerunt Possid vita Aug. c. 23. that equitable and Evangelicall power which they have by Scripture and that legall right which the law of the land hath given them to demand and receive Tithes and other emoluments That their necessities might not force them having neglected all other wayes of getting or improving estates that they might fit themselves by their studies for this great work of the Ministry either to take Tithes or which of all things is most detestable to men of any ingenuous spirits and learning to depend upon vulgar contributions which are so stuffed with pride in the givers and contempt toward the receivers so full of uncertainty and so certain high wayes to basenesse and beggery as the genius of most men now is that there are few Mechaniques who would not disdain to be such Ministers as must when they have done their work beg for their wages and shall be sure to want them unlesse they always abound in sordid complyances and flatteries with the vilest men and their vilest humours For however people have now and then a warm fit of giving to their Teachers yet it seldome lasts longer than the heat of some factious design or new fancy melts and thaws them After that they soon returne to that frozennesse which is hardly dissolved by any mans warmest breathings to some few drops of incompetent yet insolent and supercilious contributions But I am afraid our distemper is deeper and more subtilly dangerous to our reformed Religion than we are aware of in this point of Ministers maintenance The burthen is not That Tithes are paid for that these projectors doe not intend to quit so either to Landlords or poor Tenants but that they are paid to the true and ordained Ministers that thereby they are still continued and incouraged in their Ministry The grief is that as they receive them so every where they deserve them The vexation of that is that Ministers are not yet driven out of their hives as Bees after all their labours by the smoak of some such sulphurous projects that so these hungry Reformers and new stamped Preachers with their Jesuitick arts and insinuations may possesse their honey The displeasure of some men is that any Ministers worthy of that name and calling or that any thing of good learning of studious abilities of reall gifts and due authority of the true reformed Religion and piety should still remain in this Church of England which might hinder its return to the Romish subjection of which those wiser agents despair not when there shall be no better Ministers than such as either the vulgar charity maintaines or the vulgar choice ordaines As for Ministers superfluities and excesses 9. Answer to the cavill of Ministers excesses which some men rather talk of with envy than prove with truth God knowes few fishermen take fish now with money in their mouths there are not many golden cups found in any of their sacks mouths such as may tempt them to any splendor or prodigality Alas the most of them have scarce for bonest necessities Look to their poor widows and fatherlesse children commonly their greatest portion is Gods mercy and mans charity And to the shame of this Nation so blest of God and Nature with abundance many of them are by the tenuity of their Benefices kept far enough from exercising that hospitable largenesse which many of them have in the Theory and speculation but cannot practise it which is so commended by the Apostle Paul 1 Tim. 3.2 Tit. 1.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iam. 1.5.17 and required in a Bishops and Ministers way of living among men as having not more a face of humanity with it than of Divinity it being the glory of God to be of a bountifull munificence and liberall goodnesse as carrying a sweet savour with it making the Ministry of the Gospell as a fragrant ointment poured out much recommending the Gospell to men when they can hear Christs Word and tast of his loaves too Besides it gives a great advantage and usefull authority to Ministers in the places where they live renders their counsels more considerable their examples more venerable their doctrine more acceptable and more credible for nothing more justifies what we preach of Gods bounty and great gifts in Christ to poor men than when they see religious men and chiefly Ministers most liberall of this worlds goods as believing they have treasures laid up in heaven which * Manus pauperis gazâ—phylacium Christi Chrysol Tranfinittas incoelum thâ—sauros bajulatoâ—e pauâ— pere Id. the poor hand mans which is Gods box carries thither And indeed considering the great numbers of poore in many or most places of England now abounding and the retrenching of most mens estates both in trade and house keeping it were no more than needed if Ministers who are constantly resident among the poore were able also to be some way relievers of them beyond bare and barren words of godlinesse which signifie little to those whose bellies have no eares when they are pinched with urgent and extream necessities Plus nostrareligio vicatim insumit quam vâ—stra templatim Ter. de Christianis Apol Nothing should be lesse illiberall than true Christian Religion which sets forth the highest bounty of God to mankinde in giving Jesus Christ Nor ever was any thing lesse sordid than Christians in former times the many monuments here in England of their religious prodigalities and devout excesses to the Church and to pious uses doe sufficiently testifie how far those Christians were from the niggardize and Nabalism of some men in these times Quantiscunque sumptibus câ—nstâ—t lacrum est pietatis nomine sumptus facere Tertul. Apol. 38. Then they thought nothing too much for Church men now nothing is too little And truly it is a very foul shame that superstition which is but the * Quale affectatio in civilibus tale
mens fight may easily discover folly in the purest Angels of his Church many spots in the brightest Moones and much nebulousnesse in the fairest Stars Yet God forbid that any men of justice honour or conscience should charge upon all Ministers and the whole function the disorders of some when as there are many hundreds of grave learned wise humble meek and quiet spirited men whose excellent vertues graces endowments and publique merits may more than enough countervaile and expiate the weaknesse or extravagancies of their brethren Ministers as well as other men except those whose opinions and fancies are so died in graine that their follies will never depart from them have learned many experiences both in England and Scotland that an over-charged or an ill-discharged zeal usually breaks it self in sunder with infinite danger not only to its authours but to its abettors assistants and spectators And however at first it might seem levelled against enemies yet it makes the neerest friends and standers by ever after wary and afraid both of such Guns and their Gunners of such dangerous designes and their designers Nothing is more touchy and intractable than matters of civill power and dominion in which we have neither precept nor practise from Christ or his Apostles for Ministers to engage themselves in any way of offense which their wisedome avoided They were thought of old things fitter for the hands of Cyclops who forged Jupiters thunderbolts than for the Priests of the Gods Great and sad experiences shewing how rough and violent with bloud and ruine all secular changes are how unsutable and unsafe to the softer hands of Ministers these have added wisdome to the wise and taught them very sober and wholesome lessons of all peaceable and due subjection both to God who may govern us by whom he pleaseth and to man Psal 75.7 who cannot have power but by Gods permission Dan. 4.17 which at the best and justest posture is not to be envied so much as pitied by prudent and holy men who see it attended with so many cares Habet aliquid ex iniquo omne magnum exemplum quod contra singulos utilitate publica rependitur Tacit l. 14. An. Liceat inter abruptam contumaciam deforme obsequium pergere iter ambitione periculis vacuum Tac. An. l. 4. feares and horrours infinite dangers and temptations befides a kinde of necessity sometime in reason of State to doe things unjust and uncomfortable at least to tolerate wayes that are neither pious nor charitable So that the humble peaceable and discreet carriage of all wife and worthy Ministers which only becomes them may justly plead for favour and protection against this calumny of pronenesse to sedition faction or any illegall disturbance in civill affaires even in all the unhappy troubles of the late yeares the wisest and best Ministers have generally so behaved themselves as shewed they had no other design than to live a quiet life in all godlinesse and honesty to serve the Lord Christ and his Church peaceably if they might in that station where they were lawfully set if they could not help in fair wayes to steer the ship as they desired yet they did not seek to set it on fire or split and overwhelm it If in any thing relating to publique variations and violent tossings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pind. they were not able to act with a satisfied and good conscience yet they ever knew their duty was humbly to bear with silence and suffer with patience from the hands of men the will of God Rom. 11.33 whose judgements they humbly adore though dark deep and past finding out If some mens dubiousnesse and unsatisfiednesse in any things as they are the works of men who may sin and erre be to be blamed as it is not in any righteous judgement yet it is withall so far to be pitied and pardoned by all that are true Christians or civill men as they see it accompanied with commendable integrity meeknesse and harmlesse simplicity which onely becomes these doves and serpents Mat. 10.16 which Christ hath sent to teach his Church both wisdome and innocency to walk exactly and circumspectly in the slippery pathes of this world not onely by sound doctrine but also by setled examples Which excellent temper would prevent many troubles among Christians and much evill suspicion against Ministers who could not be justly offensive or suspected to any in power if they saw them chiefly intentive to serve and fearfull to offend God always tender of good consciences and of the honor of true Christian Religion which was not wont to see Ministers with swords and pistols in their hands but with their Bibles and Liturgies not rough and targetted as the Rhinoceroes but soft and gently clothed as the sheep and Shepherds of Christ There is not indeed a more portentous sight than to see Galeatos Clericos Ministers armed with any other helmet than that of Salvation or sword than that of the Spirit or shield than that of Faith by which they will easily overcome the world if once they have overcome themselves whose courage will be as great in praying preaching and suffering with patience meeknesse and constancy as in busting and fighting which becomes Butchers better than Ministers to whom Christ long ago commanded in the person of S. Peter to put up their swords Mat. 26.52 nor was he ever heard to repeal that word or to bid them draw their swords no not in Christs cause that is meerly for matters of Religion who hath Legions of Angels Armies of truths gifts and graces of the Spirit to defend himself and his true interests in Religion withall which are far better and fitter weapons in Ministers warfare 2 Cor. 10.4 The weapons of our warfare are not carnall than such swords and staves as they brought who intended to betray to take and to destroy Christ Let secular powers forcibly act as becomes them in the matters of Religion so farre as they are asserted and established by Law whose proper attendant is armed power It is enough for Ministers zeal to be with Moses Exod. 17. Aaron and Hur in the Mount praying when Joshua in the justest quarrell i◠fighting with Amalek that is the unprovoked and causelesse enemies of the Church If at any time they counsel or act matters of life and death they must be so clearly and indisputably just and within the compasse of their duty and relation as may every way become valiant men humble Christians and prudent Ministers Object 4. Of the Engagement But to confute all that can be said for the Ministers of England their adversaries are ready to object that many of them scruple the taking of the Engagement This they think is a pill which will either choak their consciences if they swallow it or purge them out of their livings if they doe not For contrary to all other Physick this operates most strongly on those that never take it
not beaten away the graces of Gods Spirit and fighting against Christians have not taught them to fight against God and the checks of conscience If the shedding of mans bloud have not taken away the sense and virtue of Christs bloud If the noise of warre and the cry of the slain have not deafned mens ears against the voice of God and the cals of his Spirit If the dreadfull and lamentable aspect of poore Christians supplicating in vain for life and dying with horrour and anguish at the feet and before the eyes of their brethren have not taken away the fight of charity and deprived men of the light of Gods countenance in love and mercy If there be any tendernesse of conscience any sense of sin any fear of God any terrours from above from beneath or from within if any belief of the judgment to come and accounts to be given if any thoughts of and ambitions for a better Kingdome than the earth can afford Nemo potest veracitere esse amicus hominis nisi qui fuerit primitus veritatis Aust Ep. 52. Charitas pie saevire humiliter indignari patienter irasci novit Ber. Ep. 2. No men will be more acceptable even to the greatest than those Ministers who know at once how to speak the truth and yet to keep within the bounds both of Charity and civility Nor doth it follow as the sophistry of some Sycophants would urge against true Ministers that those will be most active to destroy or disturb the powers of this world who are most faithfull to keep potentates soules from damning in the world to come In these Christian bounds then of peaceable subjection humility and holinesse if the Ministers of England which are able discreet and faithfull might but obtain so much declared favour and publique countenance which all other fraternities and professions have as to be sure to enjoy their callings liberties and properties which seem to be many times in great uncertainties under the obedience and protection of the laws as it would much incourage them in their holy labours which alwayes finde carnall opposition enough in mens hearts and discouragement from their manners so it would redeem them from those menaces insolencies and oppressions of unreasonable men who look upon them as publique enemies and perdue because they thinke they have little of publique favour and incouragement Ministers are so much men that kind and Christian usage will no doubt much win upon them The Sun-shine of favour is likelyer to make the morosest of them lay off that coat of rigour and austerity which some perhaps affects to wear than that rough storm and winde wherewith they are dayly threatned and by which many of them have been and are still distressed which makes them wrap themselves up as Elias in his hairy mantle when they think their lives and liberties and livelihoods are sought after and no such protection like to continue over them as they thought in a Christian State and Church they might have both obtained and deserved by their quiet and usefull conversation As just protection invites inferiors to due subjection so no men pay it more willingly than they who besides the iron chains of fear have the softer cords of lovâ— and favour upon them By how much after many violent stormes and hard impressions they are more tenderly used the more is respect gained and peaceable inclinations raised in men toward such as will needs govern them The very best of whom are seldome so mortified or heightned by Religion as to forget they are men or to be without their passions discontents and murmurings joined with desires and endeavours to ease and relieve themselves At least to change their condition if they finde it Tyrannique and Egyptian that is unreasonable arbitrary injurious and oppressive quite contrary to what is pretended of honest and just liberties both Christian and humane civill and conscientious which are for every one to enjoy as his private judgement of things so what ever is his priviledge and property by Law while he keeps within the practique obedience and compasse of the Law whereto Governours as well as governed are bound not onely in piety but also in policy Both tyranny and rebellion are their owne greatest Traitors Magistrates seldome losing or hazarding their power nor subjects their peace but when they wander out of the plain highway of Laws Non diu stare potest potentia quae multorum malo exercetuâ— Sen. de Ira. which are the conservatories both of Governours and governed It is the least degree of justice and short enough of any high favour to permit and protect worthy Ministers with all other honest and peaceable men as in doing their duties so in receiving their dues Yet this is as great a measure as in these times they dare either ask or hope for Immunities from any burthens that lye heavy on them Additions of honour or augmentations of estate I think all wise Ministers despair of Peace with a little as to this world would be a great meanes both to compose their studies and to strengthen their hands in the work of God Also to quench that fire with which many mens tongues are inflamed against Ministers their calling persons and their maintenance thinking they may both safely and acceptably despise those whom power delights not to honour For whose ruine the malice of some Antiministerian spirits wisheth as many gallowses and gibbets set up as there are Pulpits Dan. 3.18 But the Lord is able to deliver us if not yet be it known to these violent and unreasonable men Hoc posteris dicite Hominem Christo deditum posse mori non posse superaâ—i Ieron Psal 68.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dictum juvenis inter tormenta cum totum vulnus erat fornam hominis at non fidei amiserat Euseb hist l. 5. c. 1. that no learned judicious and consciencious Ministers will bow down to worship that papall or popular Image of Anarchy and confusion which they seek to set up as to the shame and ruine of this and all Reformed Churches so infinitely to the detriment and dishonour of this Nation as to its common welfare in peace plenty or power in good learning or true Religion And however we are forced for some time to lye among the pots yet shall we be as the wings of a dove nor shall we want an Ark whither to fly at last where a gracious hand will receive us to eternall rest when we shall retire to heaven wearied with the troubles on earth and finding no rest for our souls amidst those overflowing scourges which the just and offended God will certainly bring upon all such evill and unthankfull men who love their power or profit more than their soules and glory in despising those who professe to be Noahs the Preachers onely of righteousnesse and of repentance but no way the pragmatick plotters of troubles or seditious movers of civill perturbations I Have now O you
excellent and truely reformed Christians 8. Cavill Object 1. It 's not safe to plead for or protect Ministers onely left a wary super-politick and over-cautious spirit to encounter and dispell which pleads policy against piety and prefers outward safety before inward peace Being as it pretends lothe yea and afraid to displease deny or gainsay so great and powerfull at least so active bold and pragmaticall a party as is by these Antiministeriall adversaries pretended to be both among military men and others implacably ingaged against not onely the persons present standing and maintenance of Ministers but even the very calling ordination and function of the Ministry which they are resolved to undermine by calumnies or overthrow by force either by fair or foul means These Antiministeriall spirits must by all meanes be gratified and by no means displeased lest impatient of the repulses and elusions oft given to their many petitions and essayes against the Ministry they fly out to greater disorders than either the Ministers or the Gospell the reformed Religion or Christ himself are worth Better this one function of the Ministry though ancient usefull and necessary to the Church yea though holy and of divine institution the greatest gift of God next Jesus Christ to the world better this be destroyed than a generation of violent spirits should get a head and destroy both us and our Nation Thus some men whose feares are strong objecters against their judgements and consciences which cannot but acknowledg both of the Ministry and Ministers of England that God is in them and hath been with them of a Truth Answ I see how many Lyons the base fears and cowardise of men are prone to fancy to be in * Prov. 20 13. their way when they should undertake to maintain the cause of God of Christ and of true Religion 1. Mens cowardise in religious matters which the cause of the Ministers indeed is * Iudg. 9.36 Here the shadows of mountaines and * Phil. de Com fields of thistles appeare like armed men to timorous and degenerous Christians when yet all the outward difficulties all the inward terrours all the divels in hell cannot deter some men from those adventures wherein their worldly interest of profit safety or honour are concerned There oft-times necessities are first made then they are prosecuted after they are pleaded as grounds for excuse at least if not of justification of actions lesse warrantable If I thought as truly I doe not that this ungratefull mutiny of some men against the Ministry and the mean despondency of others their cold and faint friends were generall and Epidemicall among men of any considerableness for quality number and estate that these did either oppose or desert their Ministers Sueton. in Jul. Cas I conceive it would admit of no better confutation and remedy than for Ministers with Caesar to open our naked brests and to offer them to the ponyards and swords or pistols of those that think it fit to desert us and by a second hand to destroy us Ministers yeeld to the sentence of the Nation If those that excell in any vertue or in power doe indeed think the Ministers and Ministry of England have deserved to be thus vilified and exploded as the filth and off-scouring of all things if in reason of state and politick interest it be found therefore best because safest that Learning must yeeld to illiteratenesse study to temerity knowledge to ignorance modesty to impudence ingenuity to rusticity order to confusion gravity to giddinesse holy eloquence to vain blessings serious disputings to rude and profane janglings That the grave learned and venerable Preachers of the true Christian reformed Religion must give place to cunning and insolent Factors for all manner of errours superstitions and confusions if this be necessary or highly convenient for the publique good they shall doe wisely if not well with all speed to stigmatize by publique vote and act both the Ministers and their Ministry on the foreheads as so many vile persons whose craft hath hitherto cheated and abused the English world in stead of seeking and shewing men the true way to heaven Nothing is more just than to stop such mouths whose Oracles are no better than those which were silenced when Christ came into the world Yea quite to abrogate the function will be the shortest way whereby to satisfie the Antiministeriall malice And to expiate the sin or folly at least of this Church and Nation which self-displeased for entertaining them so long and so liberally shall now take but a just revenge in either sterving them and their families to death or condemning them to a wandering beggery That so by such a penall retaliation Fuâ—um vendidisti sumo pereas Sueton. in Vespas as that Emperour commanded a Cheater to be stifled to death with smoak because he vented only smoak Ministers may want common bread to live who have pretended to feed mens souls with the bread of life and have in this onely deluded men For coming now to be searched by the more accurate eyes of some new Illuminates they are found like the Priests and Temples of the heathenish devotion to have in them in stead of a venerable deity nothing but the Images of cats or crocodiles and the like despicable figures If neither God nor good men have any further pleasure in the lifes labours and prosperity of his servants the Ministers of England against whom the Shimei's of these times are bold so loudly to cast forth their cursing and evill speeches 2 Sam. 16. Let the Lord do with us as it seemeth good in his eyes Loe we are many of us in our severall places and charges yet residing some are already scattered and ejected most of us almost beggered exhausted weather-beaten and shipwracked in stormes and tossings of these times Some are even weary of themselves filled with the dayly and bitter reproaches of their insolent adversaries 1 King 19.4 and even praying with Elias It is enough we are not better then our Forefathers thus persecuted they the godly Ministers the Bishops the Presbyters the Apostles the Prophets of old fit our soules for thee and take them to thee that we may be delivered from so injurious and unthankefull a generation whose aim is to destroy the true Prophets and pull down all the house of God in the land Alas we of the Ministry have no weapons or arms Ministers unarmed innocency 1 Sam. 22.17 Non nobis tanti est vita ut armis tuenda fit Tiber. ad Senatum Tac. an 6. no strong holds or defenced Cities besides our prayers patience and as we hope good consciences it will be no hard work for a few Doegs to destroy all the true Prophets and Ministers of the Lord in the land That so this great Hecatomb so long desired and expected may be an acceptable sacrifice to the Jesuited Papists and pragmatick Separatists and all other malicious enemies of this
Vipers Act. 28.5 which out of the fire of some mens spirits now seise upon them with poysonous calumnies of factious covetous seditious c. If there be still upon the true and able Ministers of England those Characters of divine Authority those gifts of the holy Ghost in all good understanding knowledge utterance zeal courage industry and constancy which fits them with power for that holy function and carries them through it with all fidelity and patience not only to serve but to suffer for the Lord Jesus and his Church If they have been just Stewards and faithfull dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ to his houshold this Church how can they without infinite rudenesse and unchristian insolence be shamefully used and driven out of their places and Offices If they have been spirituall fathers to many soules and as tender mothers to them not disdaining to bear with the manners of childish Christians in many places who turned their respect into peevishnesse and their love into scorn how unnaturall will it be for Christians to become patricides murtherers of their spirituall fathers to whom in some sense they owe more Legatis vim aut â—ontumâ—liam inferre nefas Reg. Iur. Jus Legatorum cum hominum praesidio munitum tum etiam divino juâ—e est vallatum Cic. de Arus resp than to their naturall If Ministers be Embassadors they ought not to be violated by the Law of Nations behaving themselves as becomes the honour of their Embassy and sender how much more if from God sent by Christ in his and his Fathers Name and that with a message of Peace and reconciliation from heaven to poore sinners The greatest and proudest of them being but wormes meat may not safely despise injure or turn away the least of the servants and Messengers of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ which speak in his Name that is both his Truth and by his Authority which can be no where else in any ordinary Ministry but in those who are dayly ordained in this holy descent and succession If they have been watchfull Shepheards over their severall flocks for good and not for evill how barbarous must it be for Sheep to turn Wolves and devoure those Pastors who have fed them as Jacob did Labans flocks Gen. 31.40 with all care and diligence day and night leading them by the purest waters and in the safest pastures Nor is there now any more cause to change the wages of these Shepheards of soules which is alwayes like to be to their losse than covetous Laban had against honest Jacob. If none other can authoritatively and as of Office and duty in the name and by the mission of Christ bring the message of peace and reconciliation to sinners which hath besides the Word sacred and mysterious seales and other holy actions of power and authority to be performed by peculiar fit and appointed Ministers how beautifull ought their feet to be and their steps welcome Rom. 10.15 which flow with truth and peace grace and mercy How farre should they be from being trodden under the feet of proud covetous and envious men who first casting dirt in their faces after with much dust and clamour seek to stir up not onely the people Act. 21.36 but the powers against them as if they were burthens of the earth not fit to live But wisdome is justified of her children Matth. 11.19 I cannot be so injurious to my countrey and countreymen 5. Ministers expect better things from good Christians as to think that to persons of such worth standing in such relations between God and man invested with so holy authority managing it with such divine power and efficacy crowned with so great successes recommended to all worthy Christians with so many publique merits both to Church and State as the true and duely ordained Ministers of the Church of England are either men of purity or of power can be so wanting to or so shrink from their duty to God their love to Christ their zeal for the reformed Religion their care of their countrey of their posterity and of their owne soules as not to dare to speak or appear for them or not to endeavour in all fair wayes to improve the interest they have in the publique by which to preserve so many good and righteous persons as to mans tribunall from poverty contempt and ruine yea to preserve themselves and their dearest relations from most irreligious infamy of ingratefull deserting and oppressing so deserving men Men cannot but be unholy that can be so unthankefull 2 Tim. 3.2 And if Ingratitude be in all other relations and merits among men justly esteemed as the most detestable disease and inhumane deformity in the soul shall it onely seem beauty health and a commendable quality when it is offered by Christians to their Ministers Such as may with equall modesty and truth plead their own innocency and protest against the immanity of their enemies malice For setting aside the idlenesse and pragmatick vanity of some Ministers in later and more licentious times whose either insufficiency or lazynesse or inordinate activity or abject popularity hath made them the staine and shame of their holy function and whose burthen is too heavy for my pen to discharge them of if we looke upon those learned laborious sober and venerable Ministers who have been and still are the glory and crown of their function of this Church and Nation in their severall degrees and stations * Godly Ministers not injurious but meritorious to the publique I may lowdly proclaim with Samuel this protestation in their behalf Behold the * 1 Sam. 12.3 Ministers of the Lord and of this Church O you unthankefull Christians and causlesse enemies witnesse against them before the Lord and before his people whose Oxe or Asse have they taken whom have they defrauded or oppressed whose hurt or damage have they procured whose good have not they studyed and endeavoured whose evill of sin or misery have they not pitied and sought to relieve what is the injury for which so desolating a vengeance must passe upon them and their whole function What is the blasphemy against God or man for which these Naboths must lose their lives 1 King 21. and livelyhoods wherein have they deserved so ill of former or later ages that they should be so used as Ahab commanded of Micaiah and the Jews did to Jeremiah to be cast into prisons into sordid and obscure restraints or to be exposed to Mendicant liberty for to be fed onely with the bread and water of affliction if they can obtain so much What necessary truth of God have they detained in unrighteousnesse what error have they broached revived or maintained what superstition have they nourished what licentiousnesse in sin have they incouraged what true Christian liberty which alwayes containes it selfe in bounds of Gods and mans laws have they denyed to or defrauded the people of unlesse all things of publique
these new trafiquers intend to trade for nothing but the Apes and Peacocks toyes of new opinions Shall Noahs Ark the Churches purity which is the Conservatory of Christs little flock of the holy seed of a Christian succession both for fathers and children be broken up or dashed in pieces against the rocks of sacrilegious envy and policy for these Antiministerial projects will never be the mountaines of Ararat on which the Church or true Religion may rest * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. l. 4. Ep. 210. Shall this Island whose safety consists so much in the guard of the Seas be lesse carefull to guard the coasts of the Church and the reformed Christian Religion whose narrow frete or strait runs between the rocks of Atheisme and Superstition of Parity and Profanenesse of Heresie and Schism of Tyranny and Toleration Will ever these new dwindling Divines the Propheticall pygmies of this age which oppose the able Ministers and true Ministry of the Church of England will they ever bring forth for the service of God 7. Eminent Bishâ—ps and Presbyters of former days in the Church of England or for the maintenance of the true Christian reformed Religion such a race and succession of mighty men of excellent Ministers of incomparable Heroes worthily renowned in their own and after generations whose workes yet praise them in the gates of whom none but evill tongues can speak evill such as this later age or century hath brought forth to looke no further back to those excellent men of former and obscurer times Can you expect Crammers Latimers Bradfords Ridleys Hoopers Grindals Whitgifts Fletchers Sands Elmers Jewels Kings Abbots Lakes Bilsons Babbingtons Andrews Feltons Fields Cowpers Whites Davenants Potters Prideauxes and Westfields with many others now at rest in the Lord all venerable in their Episcopall order and eminency as fathers of the Church and as elder brothers among their brethen the other Ministers whose humility disdained not to be subject to those reverend Bishops although some of them might be equall to them in eminent gifts Animi nil magnae laudis egentes Virg. Aen. Such as were Gilpin Fox Knewtubbs Perkins Whitaker Reinolds Willet White Richard Hooker Vmphry Overall Greenham Rogers Dent Dod Heron Bifield Smith Bolton Taylor Hildersham Crakanthorp Donne Stoughton Ward Holsworth Shutes Featly and Doctor Sibs which last fragrant name I may not mention without speciall gratitude and honour due to the memory of that venerable Divine not onely for the piety learning devotion and politenesse of his two genuine writings The bruised Reed and Soules conflict but also for that paternall love care and counsell by which hee much oblieged mee to him in my younger yeares Indeed that holy man I found altogether made up of sweetnesse and smoothnesse oil and honey As his actions so his gifts and graces were set in a kinde of Mosaick work admirable for that meeknesse and humility which while they sought to conceal and shadow over his vertues they gave the greatest lustre to them Besides these there were an innumerable company of other immortall Angels but yet Ministring spirits to this Church of England who are now made perfect and whom nothing would so probably afflict in heaven as to see the degenerate succession both of Ministers and Christians now likely to follow in this age Many of these and other Worthies of this function in former times as now living and dying in countrey obscurities were buried in those sepulchers which they had made in the Gardens that is those Dioceses or Parishes which they had planted or diligently watered and disposed by pious industry to a pleasant peaceable and happy fertility Men however different in some externall lineaments as may be among Brethren yet all of excellent features and some of the first three both in beauty and strength for piety learning judgement acutenesse eloquence depth devotion charity gravity industry and a kinde of Angelick majesty at once both amiable and venerable both in their preaching writing and practice These great men and greater Ministers have indeed left us behinde them Ministers of the present age Nos ingentium exemplâ—rum parvi imitatetes Sal. ad Agr. a generation far inferiour to them for the most part more feeble and unable to work or warr having more enemies enjoying lesse incouragements scarce any now considerable as to this world bearing greater crosses and heavier burthens every way for charge duty and reproach who are oft forced to lay out in publique taxes a great part of that little they have to buy themselves bookes or bread Who have onely this advantage of our troublesome envious and evill times that we may learn to be more humble in our selves more diligent in our duties more charitable to others and more valiant for the Truth hoping that while we have after the primitive pattern nothing left to glory in but the Crosse of Jesus Christ both our afflictions and infirmities may prove opportunities to exercise discover and increase the graces of God and true Ministeriall gifts in us whose power can perfect it selfe and us too in the midst of our infirmities and support us under the many unjust oppressions which threaten us There are indeed yet left through Gods mercy in the field or forest of this Church and Nation some goodly old Trees both venerable Bishops and worthy Presbyters here and there Some shrewdly battered and strangely neglected which yet retain something that is very goodly and gracefull amidst their battered tops and shattered arms being yet stately monuments or reliques of that former benignity which was in this English soil toward Churchmen and Ministers many of whom grew to so tall a procerity as of learning and worth so of wealth and honour in some degree answerable to their worth and becoming that reall dignity which was in them far more usefull and considerable by wise men than any bare descent of titular honor These I must be so civill to as not to name any of them that I may avoid suspicion either of envy or flattery two most detestable distempers in mens spirits and full of malignity Indeed I need not name some of them for although they are left as cottages in a wildernesse and as beacons on a hill yet they are still such burning and shining lights as cannot be quite hid Some of whose fame is in all the reformed Churches and their eminency renowned in all the learned world being indeed the beauty and glory of these British Nations the pillar and honor of the Protestant party the grand examples of pious Prelacy learned humility holy industry the great lights of this Northern climate Which alone might serve to fulfill Which wonder in heaven occasioned the learned studies of Ticho Brahe and did as he sayes foretell extraordinary light of learning and Religion Tich Brahe Astro Restius what the Cassiopeian flames did portend by that new star in the year 1572. Shall this age be not onely guilty spectators
profane licentious and Atheisticall spirits who jointly combate against the truth of Christian and reformed Religion that they should fight neither against small nor great but chiefly against the reformed Ministers and the very Ministry it selfe of this Church Take heed that these smite you not 1 King 22 34 as those did the King of Israel between the joints of your harnesse between your conscience of duty to God and your civill complyance for safety with men between your love of Christ and the love of your relations between your fear to offend God and your lothnesse to displease men between your holding your livings and keeping good consciences between your looking to eternall necessities and your squinting on temporall conveniencies Navigare necesse est non item vivere Appian As Pompey said when he set to Sea in a storm against the advise of the timerous Pilot and Mariners so I to you It is not necessary to live but it is necessary to preach that Gospell which hath been committed to your care 1 Cor. 9.16 It is not necessary to be rich and at ease and in liberty and in favour with men but it is necessary to witnesse to the Truth of God and to that office authority and divine power of the Ministry of Christ in this Church against a crooked and perverse generation against the errours pride falsity ignorance and hypocrisies which are in the world What if Christ cals us in this age to forsake all Matth. 19.22 Age vero qui relinquere omnia pro Christo disponis te quoque inter relinquenda arnumerare memento Ber. de dil and follow him Shall we goe away sorrowfull Truly the world will not treat you much better when you have forsaken Christ to follow it For having once drawne you from your consciencious constancy and judicious integrity and pious reserves it will the more despise you and with the greater glory destroy you as Ministers Our * Ioh. 4.34 meat and drink must be to do the will of our heavenly Father as it was the Lord Christs our great sender and first ordainer Better we live upon almes and beggery than thousands of soules be starved or poysoned by those hard fathers and terrible step-mothers who intend to nurse Religion with bloud in stead of milk and feed the Church of Christ after a new Italian fashion commanding stones to be for bread and giving it Scorpions in stead of fishes mixtures of hemlock and Soulesbane with some shews of hearbs of grace of wholesome truths and of spirituall gifts Let the envyous penurious sacrilegious and ungratefull world see that you followed not Christ for the loaves Nor as Judas therefore liked to be his Disciples because you might bear the bag Let no Scribes or Pharisees Priests or Rulers outbid your value of Christ or tempt you to betray him and his holy Ministry on you by any offers unworthy of him and you Piorum afflictio non est tam poena criminis quam examen virtutis Aust de S. Iobo Act. 27.14 Shew your skill and courage in the storm wherein you are like for a time to be engaged Serener times made you carry slacker sayles and a looser hand now your eye must be more fixed and your hand more strong and steddy in steering according to cart and compasse the Euroclydons or violent windes of these tempestuous times will bring you sooner to your Haven Hitherto you have for the most part appeared but as other men busie as other ants on your molehils conversing with the beasts of the people in the valley of secular aimes and affaires now God cals you with Moses up to the Mount 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysâ—st in Act. ap hom 3. Matth. 17.3 and with Christ to a transfiguration where you shall see the meeknesse and charity of Moses with the zeal and constancy of Elias appearing with Christ in which great Emblemes your duty your honour and your comfort will be evident when you come to be stoned with St. Stephen the form of your countenance will be changed and you will then most fully see Christ and most clearly be seen of men as the Angels of God Act. 6 17. C. 7. 56. Nothing hath lost and undone many of us Ministers so much as our too great fear of losses and of being undone our too great desires to save our selves by complying with all variations even in Religion nothing will save us so certainly as our willingnesse to lose our lives and livelihoods for Christs sake and this not now for one great truth which is worth 1000 lives but for the pillar and ground of all truths the office and very Institution of the true Ministry whose work is to hold forth and publish the Truth of the Gospell to the world in all ages by a right and perpetuall succession Despair not of Gods love to you For Comfort Viro fideli magis inter ipsa flagella sidendum Ber. Ep. 356. Euseb hist l. 2. cap. 5. as Philo said to his countrymen the Jews at Alexandria when he returned from the Emperour highly incensed against them Be of good courage it is a good Omen that God will doe us good since the Emperour is so much against us Possibly you may as St. Paul be stoned cast out and left for dead yet revive again as is foretold of the witnesses It may be your latter end shall be better as Jobs than your beginning The experience of the sad effects * Act. 14. 19. which attend sacrilegious cruelties against the true Ministers and the want of such in every place * Rev. 11.11 may in time provoke this Nation by a sense of its own and of Gods honour to more noble and constant munificence which is not so much a liberality as an equity to able and faithfull Ministers It may be this Church Gal. 4.15 which hath so much forgot the blessednesse shee spake of in having learned able and rightly ordained and well governed Ministers Revel 2.4 which seems to have forsaken her first love and honour to the Clergy when Religion was as in all times preserved so in these last reformed and vindicated by the labours writings lives and sufferings of those excellent Bishops and Presbyters who were heretofore justly dear and honoured to this Nation so as no worthy minde envyed or repined at the honors and estates they enjoyed Possibly it may remember from whence it is faln and repent and doe its first works which were with piety order charity true zeal and liberality without grudging or murmuring against the honour or maintenance much lesse the office and function of the Evangelicall Ministers whose pious wisdome casting off onely the additaments and superstitious rags of mans invention yet retained with all reverence and authority the essentiall institutions of Jesus Christ The disguised dress and attire had no way destroyed the being and right succession of holy things but only deformed it to a fashion
it wont in primitive times to be asked of Princes or people how they would have the Church governed or by whom who should ordaine Preachers or who should preach the Gospell administer the Sacraments confirm the baptized censure the scandalous and receive the penitent These were mysteries proper to Christian Religion and intrusted to the Pastors of the Church at first also conserved by them in the midst of hot persecutions from secular Magistrates without any variations save onely such as necessity of affaires and Christian prudence yet in an orderly way required and practised as to some circumstantials which was no more than for a childe from his coats to come to breeches or for the bark of a tree to increase as the bulk and branches grow What humane passion then and inconsideration hath any way wounded wisdome and Christian compassion in Ministers of all sorts should seek to cure The wounds of the Church will commonly fester and gangrene if Ministers stay till Lay men take them to heart nor is the hand of any of them so proper as them who have occasioned most hurt we Ministers ought to be the good Samaritans and by first healing the deformed scars of our own scandals the boyling Ulcers of our own passions the gaping orifices of our owne religious dissenfions our influence will be much more soverain and benign to draw together and heal up the publique sores of the Church and reformed Religion when we appear fit for so holy and good a work it may be God will put it into the heart of those in power to call us forth and incourage us to this happy understanding O consider with your selves how much the men of this world are wiser than you in their generations you are commonly but the beaters of the bush for the mighty Nimrods of the world what have Ministers got yea what almost have you not lost which wise men would have preserved of credit honour comfort or incouragement while they helped to pull down the Sion of this Church whose dust hath fallen into their own eyes and besmeared their garments to a most uncomely deformity Will you all leave this Sion thus in her dust without any pity of her is it better she should be ever desolated than your animosities laid aside Mortales câ—m sumus immortalis non esse debent odia Tantaene animis Coelestibus irae and your poore feuds reconciled Such everlasting burnings become not mortall breasts least of all heavenly hearts such as Ministers should have Plead no longer such a zeal for Christ as over-layes charity and humility or such a desire for Reformation which produceth so great deformities It is not so much a charity as a justice for us Ministers to advise to weep to pray for the peace of our Jerusalem Jer. 23.15 for from the Prophets in great part evill is gone out into all the land our cold or our hot fits our luke-warmnesse or our negligence or our timerousnesse have cast this Church and many poore souls into this lingring distemper this almost incurable Quartane which will never be cured till we smell the Rose of Sharon the sweet and celestiall temperament of Christs fragrancies in all love and charity in humility meeknesse kindnesse forbearance pity and tendernesse to each other Not onely all policy and honest prudence then as to the recovery of Ministers credit and reputation but all conscience and piety as to the requisi es of Gods glory and charity as to the dangers and necessities of peoples soules require now such double diligence of us all as may compensate any former failings and shew the world how necessary a good worthy Ministers are who every way fit those places and fill those orbs in which God and the Church have set them It is high time for us to get beyond all cold formalities superficiall solemnities popular complyings covetous projects secular ambitions Penurious pains slacker care and indiligent tendance will not be sufficient to cure those diseases we have now to contend withall which are ingenious to avoid all cure subtill to elude all skill cunning to increase their maladies cruell to spend their infection and fierce to destroy their Physitians Moderate and indifferent industry will hardly at any time convert sinners and save soules They are now like harder metals which melt not but in such a degree of heat Least of all now when errour is adored for truth sin and damnation it self are dressed up and esteemed as a way to salvation when hel it self is by some courted for heaven and chains of darknesse counted liberty like those Succubas and Empusas Philostratus in vita Apollon Tâ—yanaei which some men are reported to have espoused and embraced for beautifull wives There needs now besides preaching gifts and oratorious breath that vigor of grace that spirit of zeal that fervency of charity that humble constancy that magnanimous meeknesse which may make us Ministers unwearied in our studies frequent and fervent in praying oft in fasting attentively watching tenderly weeping charitably visiting solidly instructing and diligently examining c. In all wife and meeke condescendings even to bear with mens infirmities to frustrate their passions to receive their bullets and shot as upon Wool-sacks to overcome their oppositions by something of a softer yeelding still beseeching them and intreating them to be reconciled to God in Jesus Christ when they are to us irreconcilable All obstructions of private peevishnesse passion hard speeches haughty carriage rough demeanor all fashion of disdains revenge and secular contestations must be removed as uncomely uncomfortable noxious That people may see the bloud of Christ softning us and the bowels of Christ enlarging us as brethren as fathers or mothers as tender and carefull Nurses in Christs family It is ever and now most of all unseasonable in so short and uncertain a moment which is allowed us to preach or people to hear to learn and to live in order to eternity to exercise Christians in continuall disputes to lead them in perplexed pathes full of bryars and thornes to wast their and our time in modern impertinencies which will not profit a poore sinner either living or dying All times and paines is lost which is not laid out in Cathechising Preaching and applying sound wholesome healing saving necessary truths which really mend both minde and manners either laying the foundations in principles or maintaining them in doctrines or building proportionably upon them in practicks and comforts where the truths of faith bear up the practise of an holy life and an holy life adornes the Articles of true faith where the Creed and the Decalogue goe together That besides the shewes of leaves in doctrines and opinions there may appear goodly fruits of purity justice mercy charity patience peaceablenesse civill obedience self-denyall which are grown so much out of fashion Alas while poore people are a mused with novelties as Larks with dasing glasses or picking up curiosities or gazing at sublimities