due respects this one Christian request to your Honours in the behalf of many poor Ministers yea and of the souls of many poor people nay in the Name of your and our Saviour whose work the poorest Minister of the Gospel if able and honest doth perform and so for Christs sake is worthy of his wages and leaving it as a matter of great and publick importance to your pious and wise consideration in due time I cannot conclude better than as I began that so I may compleat the circle of our grateful and just acknowledgments with that eternal veneration praise honour and thanke which from my self and all my Reverend Brethren the Bishops and all the sober Clergy are duly and humbly returned first to the most blessed God whose judgments are unsearchable and whose mercies are everlasting Next To His most Gracoius Majesty for His munisicent and matchless goodness to the Bishops Clergy and Church of ENGLAND Lastly To Your most Noble Selves the Lords and Commons of this present Parliament who have thus taken away the sin reproach and scandal of Sacriledge Schism and Confusion which were by some unhappy men brought upon this sometime so famous Kingdom and flourishing Church of ENGLAND For whose vindication and comfort as the Author was not wanting in her greatest agonies and blackest afflictions publickly to compassionate her sighs and tears so he thought it his duty upon a publick more than private sense seriously to rejoyce and heartily to congratulate with her in this happy restauration which he hath oft prayed for and now lived to see because he is perswaded in his conscience if rightly managed with piety and charity that it highly tends to Gods glory to the honour of our blessed Saviour to the asserting of our true Religion as Christian and Reformed to the establishment of the publick peace in Church and State and lastly to that just and ingenious compensation of good for long endured evil which is highly deserved and justly expected by this Church of England from all its genuine Children not only because it was once well reformed and most flourishing but also because it hath been so grievously and as to man most unjustly afflicted and deformed For without doubt the pious Intentions and prudent Constitutions of the Church of England were such That nothing was or now is wanting in it to make a good Christian perfect to salvation if he be not wanting in himself and to the grace of God offered to him in the Ministery of this Church Every saving truth being maintained by Her Nothing added to or diminished from the word of God as saving or necessary Every holy Duty every divine Institution every sacred Mystery every necessary part of Gods Worship every moral Vertue every Christian Grace every usefully-good Work is either celebrated or enjoined or taught or recommended to every Christian both in private and publique according to their station Nor may any Christian justly blame the Church for any defect but rather their own hearts for want of humility devotion and gratitude to God and men There is holy sap and sweetness in all its Liturgical appointments if men were not surfeited with their own fancies prejudices and pride All things being set forth by the Church without the least tincture of any known Error in Doctrine or Superstition in the substance of Religious Duties and Devotion The outward Form also or publique Reverence and Solemnity of Duties is no other than what without question is left by God to the Liberty Prudence and Authority of every Church and Christian Politie as most consonant First To the Civility and Custome of the Nation Secondly To that outward Veneration which is accordingly due to the Divine Majesty Thirdly To the publick Solemnity and Decency of holy Duties in the Church Fourthly To the ancient Use and Custome of the primitive and best Churches Fiftly No where forbidden by Gods word or by any rule of right Reason Sixthly But chosen used and imposed by this Church within its own Precincts and Politie only under no other Notion than that which is lawful and true 1. In the nature of things circumstantial as still necessary in their general adherency to all outward Actions of need 2dly Yet as free and indifferent still in their nature although cast by authority in to meet Regulations as instances of our outward obedience in them to man for the Lords sake while they continue so appointed 3dly Lawful in the divine Permission Commission and clear Approbation of the Churches Liberty and Authority in such things for publique order and decency 4thly In the necessity of such visible Order Decency and Uniformity fixed by Supreme Wisdom and Authority as most conducing to the Churches outward peace to avoid Faction Schisms Sedition Fury Confusion fires that easily kindle from small sparks if left to vulgar spirits 5thly And lastly all this pious and prudent Politie of the Church of England managed by such apt Overseers and proper Governours as this and all ancient Churches ever used from the Apostles daies under the Titles of Bishops Presidents and Fathers who are according to our Law chosen by the Clergy approved by the Church confirmed by the King as Supreme Governour inabled by Learning Matured by Experience Sanctified by Grace Consecrated by Prayer Devoted by Diligence Assisted by their Brethren of the Clergy Regulated by setled Laws and Canons to do their duty so as God their Consciences and all good men require of them in order to those great and eternal ends of saving their own and others souls besides the temporary blessings of the Churches unity and harmony as in Faith and Love so in Orderliness and Decency without which all Religion runs to Irreverence Faction and Confusion The angry eager and obstinate Quarrels then which some waspish men have long maintained and still do against some mutable words and Phrases in the Liturgy or against some little Rites and innocent yet few Ceremonies used by the Church of England are I fear much more deserved by and due to their own distempered hearts and should in all justice now be turned against the factions proud and pertinacious humours and opinions of those men who had rather quite ruine such an Ancient Famous Reformed and sometime Flourishing Church than rightly understand Her words and meaning or give Her leave to interpret them or than deny themselves in those petty Points of Reputation Opinion and Prejudice to which they may be popularly advanced as beyond a convenient retreat so beyond that humility diseretion meekness peaceableness modesty and charity which best becomes those Presbyters and people who are afraid to contest with their Princes their Bishops and their Countries united Wisdom and Authority lest they be found fighters against the God of order and peace who ought not to take courage from the Kings patience or turn his Indulgence into wantonness Nor have they any cause to be angry that they are not thought wiser than this whole Church and State or because they are not made Dictators to all Convocations Parliaments and Kings Nor should they be so ashamed to come at last from fighting and domineering to petitioning and deprecating or from sinning against God and man to return to their duty to repent and recant the evils the errors and excesses of their ways which God hath wonderfully convinced and confuted by his former blessings on this Church and his present blasting of their new Projects which have froth in their head and blood in their bottom as the water of those men who labour with the stone and Strangury and have their wounds from within What now remains but the Authors particular craving and Your Lordships with the other Gentlemens vouchsafing pardon for the great presumption of such an Orator who conscious to his many defects hath adventured by this grateful Excess to put Your Lordships and them upon the Exercise of Your and Their Noble Patience thereby to give the world a further great experiment of that Gentleness and Candor which adds Lustre to all Your other Honourable and Heroick Virtues of which no men are more witnesses than the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England not only as wondring Spectators but as thankfull Enjoyers FINIS
and for ever to damne as much as in them lay you and your posterity Other Kings and Princes of this Renowned Kingdome as also many pious Lords and Gentlemen have consecrated many things to God and his Church but his present Majesty hath at once restored all thereby shewing himself to be both Charles le bon le grand A great and good Christian King If I or We for I still presume to set forth the grateful and similary sense of my Reverend Fathers and Brethren the Archbishops Bishops and other Worthy Clergy-men if I say We may with your patience speak any more or indeed were able to say any thing suitable to this so rare so religious and so transcendent a subject his Majesties free and speedy restoring to the Bishops and other Church-men their ancient Honours Dignities and Revenues by your Lordships advice and assent with the Honourable House of Commons It must be in the words of the Psalmist Quid retribuemus Domino Yea Dominis What shall We the Bishops and Clergy of ENGLAND return to the LORD our God and to our Lord the King and to your Lordships and to the Gentry of England or the House of the Commons now assembled in Parliament Give me leave to tell your Lordships and those other Gentlemen not what we would say but what we would do I am sure we should do yea and we resolve to do if we may be assisted with Gods graces and favoured with your Christian Prayers 1. First As to God We do wholly devote our selves and all the advantages we have by his renewed mercies to advance his Glory and the Honour of our Blessed Saviour in the faithful discharge of our duties to the Service of this Church by preaching praying writing living and governing our selves we mean no less than others so as becomes Primitive and Apostolick Bishops so as is on all hands highly deserved of us and justly expected from us according to our places and abilities As it will be easier for us at the great day of account to have wanted these honourable Priviledges than to have abused them so we had much rather not enjoy them at all than not have hearts to use them aright as prime Professors and Patterns of Christianity that is Followers of Jesus Christ and his blessed Apostles in all Piety Prudence Sanctity Charity Sincerity It argued some greatness of mind in some of our Bishops for these many years to have lived contentedly without these temporal and secular advantages not to have sunk and desponded under so long and importune adversities but it will be more of Christian Magnanimity to enjoy them wisely and worthily to overcome the temptation of prosperity to use them not to pride and luxury but to humble and holy industry to discreet hospitality to cheerful charity to the good of the Church and to Gods glory who hath promised to honour those that honour him and to adde all these things to those that first seek his Kingdome and the righteousness thereof Doubtless nothing will be wanting to us if we be not wanting to God his Church our selves and our Brethren of the Clergy who are sober men void of depraved opinions and debauched practices Secondly In reference to his gracious Majesty our resolutions are That none of his Subjects shall more imitate and if your Lordships give us leave cheerfully emulate your and their Loyalty Love and Fidelity to his Majesties safety peace and happiness temporal and eternal than we his Bishops who of all men may least be traytors to his Honour Conscience or Soul who having dealt so bountifully with us cannot but expect from us those honest and faithful things which are most worthy of his Munificence and our Integrity So as may most conduce to his Majesties welfare and the publick peace The first we should basely betray together with our own Souls if we should cease daily to pray for his Majesties happiness if we should fail to set forth the whole truth of God to him and his Subjects Lastly if we should serve sooth or silently flatter any known sin in our selves or any others whatsoever and least of all in those whose sins must needs be as most conspicuous and exemplary so most contagious and dangerous The second of publick peace we shall best serve and secure by well and wisely ordering as Spiritual Captains and Colonels of the Ecclesiastical Militia that Army of Ministers or great company of Preachers in England and Wales which cannot be less then ten thousand men effectivè whose number is great and their influence with their activity much greater being mustred and in spiritual armes at least once every week where getting upon the higher ground and being as in Christs stead they cannot but have a very great stroke on mens and more on womens ears hearts and purses These had need be well disciplined and governed under Christ and his Majesty according to Gods Word the Laws of this Kingdom and the Constitutions of this Church which must be their and all our rules by which they and we must serve God and the King as with truth and holiness so with decency order and uniformity Neither excentrick nor erratick from our proper Spheres nor yet defective or deformed in them The managing of which great Concern being by his Majesty and the Laws chiefly committed to us Bishops it will be most our sin and shame to be wanting in our duty If any man blame us for doing what is lawful and just yea necessary for the publick peace they must withal blame the Laws and by a most egregious folly think themselves wiser than the publick wisdom the Laws and Laws-makers in which their own consent is included and from which no man may lightly be a Renegado Thirdly As to your Nobleness no men shall more study your Lordships true honour and eternal happiness the only sufficient requital of your meritorious love and favour to us who have accepted yea restored us Bishops to be Partakers of your honour Auditors of your wisdom and Spectators of your noblest Conversation in that place where every one studies to put on the best appearance We and our Successors must for ever be faithful Counsellors Friends and Servants to your Lordships and your Noble Posterity who possibly will bear from our age place and quality with greater patience civility and acceptance than from other Ministers those discreet monitions seasonable intimations and wholsome counsels which may be sometimes most necessary for you and them It will always best become us rather to offend you by telling you the truth in a decent manner than to betray you to those sinful infirmities or passions which are your greatest enemies next to your flatterers No men shall be more ashamed than we to see our selves sit in Parliament that is in the Congregation of Princes or mortal Gods if we should not behave our selves in all respects answerable to your Illustrious Society and to your great merits towards us As we are
naturalize or enfranchise them while they were both eagerly conspiring and fiercely strugling against Legal and Catholick Episcopacy they made a shift to strangle each other both pretending to be the eldest son the very Esau the only and primitive Church-Government of Christs Institution his entire Scepter and Discipline neither of them was by wise men believed to be so since both could not be so And to be sure neither the one nor the other was ever known or used in this or any true Church of Christ for fifteen hundred years after Christ unless all the Histories and Examples of the Church have conspired to deceive us and themselves which none but Jews and Turks can imagine The first of these Presbytery had a redder face rougher hands longer nails and a fiercer voice like Esau The second of Independency that is Church-Democracy or common peoples Ecclesiastical Politie first pretending to crown Christ as a King and then really to mock and crucifie him parting his garments among them breaking his bones and nayling him to the cross of popular Dependence as the root of all Ministerial Authority and Maintenance which is indeed but a dry tree and dead trunk This I say was at first smoother skinn'd and softer voiced like Jacob but it soon supplanted by notable disguises and vulgar insinuations its elder brother and its angry rival Presbytery At last Post varios casus post tot discrimina rerum after several risques and hazards run by Church and State the Divine Justice and Mercy to this Church and Kingdom decided the controversie between these dividers and destroyers opening a door for the happy return of ancient Monarchy to its just Supremacy in Church and State also of venerable Episcopacy to its pristine Office and Ecclesiastical Authority loyally subordinate to the Crown of the King according to Law and religiously servient to the Church of Christ according to his holy Gospel In which ancient and excellent Government if any thing be found in the decurrence of time or degeneracy of men and manners inconvenient to the publick welfare either as to its constitution or execution we humbly crave of his Majesties goodness and this Parliaments wisdom that both we and it may be so reformed and regulated in all points not by Tumults and Armies but Parliamentary Counsels as may be most conforme to Scriptural rules primitive ends and uses so far as the present times and manners of men will best bear which concession is sufficient to appease the gripes and wamblings of any who either could take or would keep their Covanant with any shew of good conscience that is guided by Reason Law and Scriptures the speediest and easiest way of reforming Government lying in good Governours For we are not so straight-laced in point of Episcopacy as to think it may not admit prudent regulations and variations yet so as the main spiritual power and Ecclesiastical Order be preserved and improved according to the primitive pattern and Catholick custom of the Church which is sacred and ought to be inviolable unless insuperable impediments give a temporary dispensation rather submitting to providence than changing the principle or subverting the order so divinely constituted so universally established and so highly blessed But if a right Evangelical Episcopacy such as for the main ever hath been in the Church of Christ and now is according to Law re-established in ENGLAND such as we are most ambitious to adorn and exercise if this be found as no doubt it will most consonant to right reason to all rules and grounds of true politie to the just proportions of good Order and measures of Government yea to the ancient models and methods of Church-Government which are set forth by God himself in the Old Testament among the Jewish Priesthood and by our Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament among his 12 Apostles with the 70 Disciples and these followed as divine patterns or originals by the Catholick Church ever since the Apostles dayes as all Fathers Councils and Histories of the Church do evidently assure us O let not we beseech you this ancient fruitful goodly and venerable Cedar of Episcopacy be blasted or baffled or blown down by the profane breath of some popular Preachers or by the fury of giddy heady and ignorant people Let not its ample boughs be broken its useful bark be pilled or it s far extended roots be extirpated by the petulancy and rudeness of any unruly and insolent spirits since in its leaves shadow and fruits there hath been and still is so great a blessing for this Church and Kingdom as is evident in these necessary Offices First for holy Ordination or conferring of due and undoubtedly compleat Ministerial power such as is derived from Christ sent by his Father and from the Apostles sent by Christ Secondly for Confirmation or solemn benediction of the Cathecumens who in their Infancy were baptized that when come to years of discretion and well instructed in Christian Principles they may seriously reflect upon personally owne and solemnly assume upon their consciences the keeping of their Baptismal Vow that only sacred Covenant which is sufficient for any honest Christian Thirdly for the due examination detection reprehension and suppression of Errors Hereses and Schisms in the Church of Christ Fourthly for the autoritative reproof and reformation of Immorality Idleness Faction and Disorder among the Clergy and other Christians Fifthly for the encouraging and preserving of truth peace holiness and order among all under their care and inspection All which good works are to be done by such Ecclesiastical Monitions and Censures as are by Christ by the Church and by the Kings Authority committed to them as Bishops or Church-Magistrates furnished with spiritual Ecclesiastical and Legal Power Lastly for the giving more eminent remarkable and autoritative examples in all Christian graces and vertues proportionable to their places estates and dignities for the encouragement of piety and discountenancing of profaneness The weight and emphasis of examples consisting most in the eminency of the person and dignity of his place which make them as Dominical Letters or Capital Figures of greater note name and influence These so peculiar duties proper offices and uses of Bishops as Church-men may very well seem I dare not say below your Lordships eminent dignity since Gods glory and Christs honour are stamped upon the Ministers of the Church but less suitable to your many secular Employments And I am sure they are for the most part much above most Lay-mens abilities as they were ever judged by the Church of Christ above the ordinary capacities of meer Presbyters or inferiour Ministers who have indeed the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministerial or Liturgical power and authority as to doctrine consecration devotion parochial inspection and direction derived to them by and from the respective Bishops But not the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 political ordinative and presidential power in point of the Churches National Politie or more publick
the Clergy of ENGLAND should not come out of this fiery furnace more purged and prepared for our Masters Service yea God forbid that after such a deluge and deliverance as this we should so forget God or our selves as to be drunk with that wine of Consolation and cup of Salvation which our Merciful God our Gracious King your Noble Lordships and our Loving Country-men the Commons of ENGLAND have now put into our hands We are very sensible how great stimulations are put upon us as Christians Ministers and Bishops to all Piety Industry Prudence Virtue and true honour which we know do not consist in being either so eager for small circumstances and outward Ceremonies of Religion as to be remiss in its necessary Morals and Substantials as if one should put on fine clothes while he starves his body Nor yet in being so zealous for the Essentials only of faith and duties as rudely to neglect those reverential solemnities and decent circumstantials which preserve as the bark or rinde doth the Tree the Churches good order peace and unity We profess to all the world that we owne God alone in his holy Word which we call the Scriptures to be the sole Institutor of his own necessary Worship and indispensable Service who alone knows what will best please him and profit us We think as we are taught by the Church of England that nothing is necessary and essential moral or mysterious as any means to obtain conferre or increase grace or to please God which himself hath not in his Word prescribed either by special mandate or general direction and necessary consequence Yet we believe also as all Learned men at home and abroad do agree That the indulgence of God hath left free to the prudence and authority of every National Church Christian Politie and Community the particular appointing ordering and regulating of all those general and common circumstances which are in nature or civility necessary as time place method manner measure vesture and gesture all which are as unseparable from all publick actions under the Sun as our skins are from our bodies according as shall seem to the supreme wisdom and authority of that Church most for its publick decency and solemnity for good order and edification Of all which in their particular instances and usages every private Christian is Judge and Arbitrator in his closet-worship Also every chief Governour in his family where when how for matter method and manner also for measure of reading praying praising c. when sitting standing or kneeling whether in sordid or decent habits becoming his presence and the sanctity of the duty And no less without all peradventure are they left to every chief Magistrate or Ruler in Church and State within his respective Dominions for the publick peace order decency uniformity and solemnity of Religion of which those are the proper Chusers Determiners and Judges to whom the power is given by God either private or publick That Religion may not enterfeere with the Civil Government but conform to it in these things as it is protected by it in the main Provided always that no such particular rite limited circumstance or Ecclesiastical ceremony thus chosen be otherwise imposed upon mens judgments and consciences either in opinion or use then as indeed it is in its nature and Gods indulgence that is mutable when good occasion or the chief end of things requires a change of them by lawful authority so as to be still free as to the judgment of such as use them and as to the practice of all other Churches who have not assumed the use of them Not that any such external rite or ceremony of humane appointment can in it self be any necessary solid substantial and integral part of divine Worship or as any means instituted for grace to which a precept and promise divine is necessary This efficacy no humane or Ecclesiastical Authority can create or give Nor doth the Church of England pretend to any such power or use in them although it may lawfully regulate all circumstances and discreetly use decent ceremonies as such yea and enjoyn them both as exercises of Sovereign Authority and as experiments of Subjects due obedience not upon any false and superstitious grounds but such as are true and religious consonant to the nature of things and the indulgence of God in them Nor hath the Church of England ever otherwise esteemed or imposed those things of particular circumstances rites and ceremonies which have been so long as chips and shavings the casie fewel of so much flame and contention but hath oft declared its judgment of them to be according to Gods truth its choice and injunction of them to be according to that liberty and authority which God hath given to it as to every National Church within its politie and precinct so to use and impose them on its own members without prejudging other Churches their like liberty Not at all as things pleasing of themselves or displeasing to God He must needs be an infant in understanding who fancies God is scared with white or pleased with black garments in his publick worship that the historick sign of the Cross addes to or diminisheth ought from Baptism or that the Divine Majesty is offended at our kneeling or better pleased with our sitting or standing before him in an act of so holy a celebration and humble veneration as that is of the Lords Supper But all these and the like are allowed as lawful experiments either of Christian prudence and discretion in the choice or of obedience and subjection in the use of them agreeably to the lawful commands of our superiors in Church and State wisely directing and limiting us in them to avoid those factions which easily arise from the least open variety or difference in Religion when once it comes to be affected and is made a badge of parties or sides among the people The duty of Magistrates or Christian Princes as well as Bishops and Ecclesiastical Governours on all hands is in publick solemnities of Religion to take care that all things be so done in uniformity order and decency as is necessary for publick peace and as they think best becomes the sanctity of true Religion the Majesty also of that God whom we ought to worship and serve with all reverence and with the beauty of holiness both outward and inward without any imposing upon the judgment beyond the nature and indifferency of such things or upon the practice farther than the God of order decency and peace hath permitted As we and all this Church have seen and felt upon the account of these things the outragious zeal and precipitancy of some men who first pretending much to boggle at and to be grievously scandalized with a few such things of outward rite individuared circumstance and prescribed ceremony to which conformity was by Law that is by the publick wisdom and authority required in the Church of England have in the pursuit
which would make even Christianity it self not only unwelcome but most unlawful namely to bring it in by fraud and force or to present it to Soveraign Kings and Kingdomes on the Swords point as the Spaniards do Baptisme to the poor West-Indians with their poyniards in one hand and water on the other For although Non-conformity which is still made the Ball of difference and badge of dissention even among those who agree in Doctrine and Morals yea in Devotionals and Politicals in Liturgy and Episcopacy for the main sometime affected the voice of a Lamb when it durst not roare as a Lyon yet we see it hath the teeth tail and sting of a Dragon it seemed indeed at first to appear in sheeps clothing but it hath too much of the ravening wolf in it So ill it becomes warlike or Martial Non-conformity which hath shewed such horns and hoofs wherewith it hath sorely pushed goared and wounded this Church and Kingdom now to boast of its dove like innocency or to pretend to great tenderness or nicity of conscience and to demand any unsafe and illegal Liberty when the English and Christian world sees that all the beasts in Daniels visions were not more fell haughty cruel insolent and outragious then that rustical Non-conformity hath been to all sorts of sober Christians dissenting from it from the King that sate on the Throne to the meanest Subject that ground at the Mill who is there that did not flatter its folly but hath felt its imperious rigor Nor did it ever excercise that tenderness to others consciences which it so clamourously importuned for it self How much better then were it for the popular patrons of and pleaders for such factious seditious and unsafe Non-conformity who still resolve to be great but weak sticklers against any sober and legal conformity in the Church of ENGLAND How much more I say becoming of them were it now at last to humble themselves before God the King and the Laws to deprecate the just jealousie and heavy displeasure of God and man which some of that Sect have deserved and suffered to expiate their former menaces and later extravagances by some publick recantation and ingenuous repentance which may undeceive the poor people who have been so long scared and deluded with I know not what bugg-bears of their own and other mens fancies How much better were it for men of Learning and Conscience to make a narrower search into their own stale scruples and vulgar misapprehensions to compare the Churches honest declarations and injunctions with their sinister suspicions and probable delusions to dread as much as they pretend to do any other mens positive their own negative superstition which tends to Disobedience and ends in Rebellion against lawfull authority making by a great fatuity or arrogancy those things sin which God hath not made so who is a God of Order a friend to decency and no enemy either to ceremony uniformity or conformity consistent with truth and holiness but hath left all free to the wisdom choice and authority of every Church agreeable to the general tenor of his word Lastly how much more becoming them were it to give God the Glory of his justice which hath thus at last discovered defeated and confuted even by their own practices their wild and wicked principles yea and punished the violent and inordinate practices of some railing and ranting Non-conformists from whose inordinate fury if God had not at last by a wonderful providence redeemed this Church and Kingdom we had been as Sodom and Gomorah a continued Akeldama or field of Blood Tyranny Anarchy and Oppression under either Presbyterian Dictators who would set up a petty Bishop in every Parish and binde them up in the bundles or fagots of their Classes that so united they might be better redeemed from their own infirmities and other mens contempt or under Independant-Tryers who set the people above the Priest or under self and all confounding Phanaticks who do all things both irrationally and ex tempore or rashly But God hath pleaded the Cause of the Church of ENGLAND as to the soundness of its Faith and Doctrine as to the Sanctity of its Morals as to the Solemnity of its Devotionals and as to the unblamable decency of its rituals and innocency of its Ceremonials so stated enjoyned and used as they were in the Church of England not according to every mans fancy and humor but according to the judgment of the Law which best sets forth the publick mind and meaning of this Reformed Church which hath ever so declared publickly against and so effectually cleared it self of and absolved all its Members from all Error Profaneness and Superstition justly challenging and modestly using the Liberty Prudence and Authority which God hath given it for order peace and edification not for oppression destruction and confusion and this only over its own polity or communion that in earnest it is now a great shame for men of Piety and Learning still to vex as Peninnah did Hannah and agitate the Church of ENGLAND with the repetition of their needless Cavils and endless Objections which have been an hundred times fully answered and wherein themselves being satisfied they might with more ease and peace satisfie those whom they keep still raw and scrupulous by their own irresolutions After all is said designed and done by us that can become good men sober Christians and worthy Bishops in point of Reason and Religion Conscience and Subjection Charity and Discretion as to things of this nature which have of themselves so little to say for or against them being but relatively good or evil as the end is to which and the authority by which they are enjoyned yet we know our selves to be still severely warned and sharply alarmed by our own and the Churches enemies on all sides to be as most sincerely pious and constantly prudent in the main matters of Religion so to do all things as with good Conscience Courage and Authority so with all Christian candor and paternal charity to all men especially toward such for Christs sake as are truly conscientious in all Moralities and in some lesser matters peaceably scrupulous and honestly unsatisfied yet are willing to be informed and for the main are conformed to the example of Christ whose Kingdom consists not in meat and drink not in petty opinions and mutable shadows but in righteousness peace and holiness Other things of Form and Ceremony we do not weigh by any private fancies for or against them but by publick authority commanding Gods Word permitting and the Churches peace requiring them As to the point of tender Consciences so much pleaded we shall esteem none truly tender conscienced who live in any open sin or immorality or who approve and defend any prosaneness or impiety in ordinary speech much more in preaching and praying or who deny the authority of the Word of God or who despise the practice and custom of the Universal Church Or who